kind of stuff and this kind of gentry is a man of fashion dispatched.

If the forry drivellers of principle would be content with whining and canting, they might prate as long as Tristam Shandy's father; if in return they would indulge us with the fpirit of the corporal. They might fay we were worse than highwaymen, who murder for a livelihood, and to prevent difcovery, while we are murtherers by principle, and kill out of vanity; that shooting a friend through the heart, or not, is to us quite as indifferent, as wearing round or sharp toed suwARROWS; that the petty laws of fashion had death annexed, as a penalty, and the serious concern of life was regulated by a mode. They might repeat every thing prejudice has invented, or barbarity has urged, if they would confine themselves to the war of words. But I at length, after every attempt of freethinking, defpair of fuch a progrefs towards improvement in others, and fo much indulgence for us. The pigeon hearted menials of principle will not only rail at us for pretending to greater wisdom than the law, in preferring our own decifions to thofe of the gentlemen of the jury; they will not merely laugh at any pretences to honour, and affert that beaux and bullies, and their wife admirers have feized the herald's office, and engroffed all the quality to themfelves. Nor will they be fatisfied with indecently declaring that no man would have answered the lie with a piftol-ball, but for a rhodomontade of Charles the fifth. They will ftock us in the pillory for the sportive fpeculations, and congees of honour, and for indulging in its prerogatives, will swing us between heaven and earth, as unworthy of both.

With juft indignation at the prejudices of fuch ploughjogging spirits, I had once determined to challenge the Governor, Council, and both Houses of the Legislature at the winter feffions. I had refolved to rout the whole corporation of cowards from office, and fubftitute the language of gentlemen for the technical jargon of courts and lawyers. An affair of honour was no longer to be a capital offence, and the trial by battle fhould have been part of the law of the land. On reflection however, I have relinquifhed this scheme of reforming a general error-" Defendit numerus.”

Another plan however has become quite my hobby. I took the hint from uncle Toby's campaigns, and the Trojan band. If we cannot vindicate our honour actually by arms, we may still keep up the appearance of the thing. If we dare not fight, we I theremay ftill preserve the "pugnæ fimulacra fub armis." fore propose, that the practice of duelling be continued fubject to the following regulations; viz.

Ift. ALL CHALLENGES SHALL BE SHEWN BY THE SECONDS TO THE SHERIFF OF THE COUNTY, THAT HE MAY BE ON THE GROUND, TO PREVENT BLOODSHED.

2dly. IN CASE THE SHERIFF SHOULD NOT SEASONABLY ARRIVE, THE SECONDS SHALL GIVE THE WORDS OF COMMAND, IN MANNER FOLLOWING, VIZ. "MAKE READY, TAKE AIM, RECOVER."

3dly. THAT A CERTIFICATE OF THE TIME AND PLACE OF MEETING OF THE PARTIES, AND OF THEIR BRAVE DEPORTMENT, BE MADE AND SIGNED UPON THE SPOT BY THE SECONDS AND SURGEONS.

If this plan fhould meet with general approbation, as I think it readily will, I fhall propofe an early meeting of our fraternity at Vila's or Julien's, where its merits may be fully difcuffed, and all collateral points fettled.

HECTOR MOWBRAY.

BIOGRAPHICAL ANECDOTES

OF

NAT. LEE, THE POET.

[From a late English Publication.]

NEITHER the time of his birth, nor the precise period of

the death of this celebrated, but unfortunate Poet, have been afcertained by his biographers. His father, Dr. Lee, was the minifter of Hatfield. He fent his fon at an early age to Westminfter School, then under the direction of Dr. Busby. From thence he was removed to Trinity College, Cambridge, and was admitted a fcholar on the Foundation in 1668. In the Vol. I. No. I.

D

fame year he took his degree of B. A. but not having the good fortune to obtain a fellowship, he left the univerfity and came to London, with a view of pufhing his fortune at court. Not fucceeding in this design, in 1672, he made an attempt on the ftage, in the character of Duncan in Sir William Davenant's alteration of Macbeth. "Lee," fays Colley Cibber, in his Apology,* *"was fo pathetic a reader of his own scenes, that I have been informed by an actor, who was prefent, that while Lee was reading to Major Mohun at a rehearsal, Mohun, in the warmth of his admiration, threw down his part, and said, unlefs I were able to play it as well as you read it, to what purpofe fhould I undertake it? And yet this very author, whofe elocution raised fuch admiration in fo capital an actor, when he attempted to be an actor himself, foon quitted the stage in an honeft despair of ever making a profitable figure there." It would almost appear from this, that Lee's attempt on the stage had been fubfequent to his appearance there in the capacity of a dramatist. But this was not the fact, for his first play was not reprefented till the year 1675; fo that, instead of being tempted to make his debut as an actor, in confequence of the reputation he had acquired behind the curtain, as a pathetic reader of his own fcenes, it is reasonable to prefume, that his demerits and bad success, as a player, induced him to turn his attention to the trade of authorfhip. By this anecdote from Cibber, the authors of the Biographical Dictionary+ have been led into the error we have just obviated. His first play was called "Nero, Emperor of Rome ;" and between 1672, the date of its appearance, and 1684, he produced no lefs than nine tragedies, befides the share he had with Dryden, in Oedipus and the Duke of Guife. On the 11th of November, in the year laft mentioned, it was found neceffary to confine him in Bedlam, where he remained four years. It has been faid of him as a writer, that "his imagination ran away with his reafon ;" a remark that is, perhaps, applicable to this melancholy incident of his life. But his infanity is more generally fuppofed to have been owing to the embarraffment of his circumftances, the refult of extreme

P. 68, quarto edition, 1740.

Laft edition in 15 vols. 1798.

carelessness and extravagance; a belief that receives fufficient confirmation from the following epigram, addreffed to Lee, by Wycherly, and first quoted by the ingenious Mr. Neve, in his admirable remarks on our author's poetical character.*

You, but because you starv'd, went mad before;
Now starving does to you your wits restore:

So your life is, like others, much at one,

Whether you now have any sense, or none.

A repartee has been afcribed to him while in confinement, which we should, perhaps, be blamed for omitting in this account. A very indifferent author obferved to him, that it was an easy thing to write like a madman; "No," replied Lee, "it is not an eafy thing to write like a madman; but it is very easy to write like a fool."

In April 1688, he returned to fociety, but did not long furvive the recovery of his reason. Whincop tells us, that "he died in one of his night rambles in the street ;" and Oldys, in his MS. notes, records the fact rather particularly-" Returning one night from the Bear and Harrow, in Butcher Row, through Clare Market, to his lodgings in Duke Street, overladen with wine, he fell down on the ground, as fome fay, according to others, on a bulk, and was killed or ftifled in the fnow." From the fame authority, we learn that "he was buried in the parish church of St. Clement's Danes, aged about thirty-five years." Between the time of his discharge from Bedlam and that of his death, he wrote two plays, the Princefs of Cleves, and the Maffacre of Paris; but, notwithstanding the profits arising from these two performances, he was reduced, it is faid, to fo low an ebb, that a weekly stipend of ten fhillings from the theatre royal was his chief dependence. It has been obferved, that his untimely end might have been occafioned by his disorder, of which he was fubject to temporary relapfes; and in tenderness to his memory, we are inclined to indulge the fuppofition. This accident occurred about the years 1691-2.

There is a striking coincidence between the fate of Lee and Otway, which, we believe, has not before been noticed. They

* Published in the Monthly Mirror.

both became writers for the stage, in confequence of their unsuc cessful performances on it; both began to write in rhyme, and deferted it, much to the advantage of their reputation, for blank verse; both were reduced, principally by their own diffipations, to a miserable condition of indigence; and both died, at almost precifely the fame age, and within about five years of each other, in a state of the utmost obscurity and wretchedness.

The talents of Nathaniel Lee have met with the most elegant, candid, and critical illuftration, in the article already alluded to, by Mr. Neve, to which the reader is referred. It has been too much the fashion, with writers of more taste, perhaps, but of infinitely less genius, to decry the reputation of this author, who has been ftyled, with reference to his Alexander the Great, 66 a mad poet, who defcribed, in frantic verfe, the actions of a mad warrior;" but Addifon maintains, that "among our modern English poets, there was none better turned for tragedy than Lee, if, instead of favouring his impetuofity of genius, he had restrained it within proper bounds." Dryden compliments him highly upon his Rival Queens, in his copy of verses prefixed to that play.

Such praise is yours, while you the paffions move,
That 'tis no longer feign'd, 'tis real love,
Where nature triumphs over wretched art;
We only warm the head, but you the heart.
Always you warm; and if the rifing year,
As in hot regions, bring the fun too near,
"Tis but to make your fragrant spices blow,
Which in our colder climates will not grow.
That humble ftyle which drones their virtue make,
Is in your power, you need but ftoop and take.
Your beauteous images must be allow'd
By all but fome vile poets of the crowd:
But how fhould any fign-poft dauber know
The worth of Titian or of Angelo ?

Cibber has cenfured, very freely, the well-known speech, in the Rival Queens, beginning "Can you remember," &c. which he calls "a blazing rant," and " furious fuftian," "a rhapsody of vain-glory," and "a flight of the falfe fublime;" but Dr.