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P. 475. How very soon Pinkerton got into bad odour with the public may be seen by the following extract:

"I have received none but some Scotch poems, left here by the editor, Mr. Pinkerton. He called here himself with them, but I was not at home; and I am not sorry that I was not, for he is one of those modern writers I desire no acquaintance with. In some Letters (Heron's) published by him

under a fictitious signature there is so much arrogance and self-sufficiency, such a contempt of other writers of established reputation, and such strange positions in religion, morals, and politics, that I think must mark him out as Hic niger est, hunc tu, &c.*

P. 475. "I was glad (query, sorry?) to hear that Johnson confessed to Dr. Fordyce, a little before his death, that he had offended both God and man by his pride of understanding."-A person who could write such a sentence as this is not likely to fall into the same error, or have the same reason for a similar confession!

"I take for granted that you have read Dr. Johnson's Correspondence, published by Mrs. Piozzi; and, though you might not have been sorry to have read the whole, yet I wish, for the Doctor's sake, that only half of it had been printed. In one letter it is said, I have seen Mrs. Knowles, the quaker, and her futile pictures;' it should be sutile, a word, though not to be found in his Dictionary, yet very aptly made to express the mode of painting, viz. in needle work, of which sort there are two portraits of the King and Queen made by Mrs. Knowles at Buckingham House. I desired a sight of the original letter in order to determine a wager. There it plainly appeared that a dash had been put across the long s, Johnson's usual mode of writing that letter, perhaps by the printer or corrector of the press. The only MS. letter I saw, before it was committed to the press, was that at the end, to Mr. R. about great and small debts, which I entreated Mrs. Piozzi to withhold, but without effect. This lady gives splendid concerts in Hanover Square, where her

youngest daughter lives with her. The three eldest live together in Conduit Street, very near their mother, but will not visit nor receive her visits."

"George Steevens has been playing tricks with his brother antiquaries, or, as he says, with two only, Gough and Pegge, the particulars of which you will see in the last European Magazine (Vide March, 1790, p. 177; and Gent. Mag. 1790, p. 217, 290)."

66

Bishop Horsley was certainly not the author of the Apology for the Clergy and Liturgy;' and I have very little doubt, so far as internal evidence goes, that Bishop Halifax was. I have as little, on the same evidence, that Bishop Watson wrote the Considerations, &c. though the Bishop has lowered his usual tone, and written in as guarded a manner as if he expected it would be known that he was the author."

"There is near 10007. subscribed for Johnson's monument, and Sir Joshua wishes much to have it erected in St. Paul's,§ hoping that Johnson, at least,

*The above letter was dated 1786; in 1816, being thirty years after this, the last conversation the writer of this note had with the late Mr. Mawman, the respectable publisher, was relating to Mr. Pinkerton, of whom Mr. Mawman, mentioning several anecdotes, spoke exactly in the same manner as Dr. Lort did. Yet he was in his department of literature a learned and clever man. Professor Porson spoke well of his Dissertation on the Goths, and Horace Walpole bore with him.-REV.

†“Sutile" is admitted into Todd on this authority of Boswell, and in Richardson on Johnson's Idler, No. 14. "Half the rooms are adorned with a kind of sutile pictures, which imitate tapestry."-REV.

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To Mr. R."-This is a mistake of Lort's. The letter he alludes to is to J. S. Esquire, vol. ii. p. 402, in which Johnson says, "Neither great nor little debts disgrace you."-REV.

§ This was (says a note) accomplished: and Bacon was the sculptor, and Dr. S. Parr wrote the epitaph. In our opinion, the statue and epitaph are both unworthy of the subject. To be sure we speak against high authority, when we express our utter dislike both to the feeling and execution of this statue, nor did we ever see any work of Bacon which we thought worthy of a second observation; but we are bound in fairness to quote Mr. Cunningham's opinion, however widely we differ from it. He says, "His statues of Johnson and Howard were made indeed at different periods, but they are conceived in a kindred spirit, and rival all similar works since the sublime Newton of Roubiliac." Now we do not think sublime is the character we should give to this

may be allowed a place there, and thus a precedent established for the admission of

other monuments which the sculptors hope to obtain."

P. 516. We next quote a passage on a subject to which we lately alluded in our review of Mr. Jesse's London.

Steevens's proofs of its being the body of a Mrs. Smith have appeared in the Gazetteer; and I believe in all the papers are some squibs by the same hand, in which the antiquaries, and, among the rest, poor Gough, are sadly mauled," &c.

"Notwithstanding Mr. Neve's positive assertion in the inclosed pamphlet,* that he has relics of Milton's corpse, our friend Steevens insists that it is all a flam, for that it is the body of a Miss Smith, not of Milton, and he will prove it. P. 519. It is evident that Dr. Lort meditated a Life of Bentley, as would appear by the language which Dr. Birch uses on that subject, when he sends his son letters from Lord Carteret (Earl of Granville) to Bentley, among the Harl. MSS. in the British Museum. Lort says," Homer is not the only book which Lord Granville set Bentley to work upon; I have been informed here that Ammianus Marcellinus was another;" but we hear no more of it.

Much correspondence follows relating to Walpole and Chatterton, which is of little interest now. Walpole's conduct was most unjustly censured at the time; and Chatterton's forgeries were so gross that they would not have stood a week before the more accurate knowledge of these subjects in the present age. It is only a matter of wonder now, how persons of knowledge and of acquaintance with the ancient literature of the country could have been deceived while the internal and external evidence were so palpably against the character assumed. All that now remains to Chatterton is his claim to poetical genius and taste, remarkably displayed in the opening bloom of youth, and perhaps beyond any other person in our country, and of that he never can be deprived. We possess some MS. poems by him, but there is far too much ribaldry in them to make public.

After this we have the correspondence of Dr. Birch, "the indefatigable," as Gray called him; and of Archdeacon Nares; of the latter of whom a very copious and interesting biography is introduced. He writes in 1801 to Percy,

P. 593. "I beg to turn your attention particularly to Art. xiv. in our review for August, where I think you will see Mr. Godwin as handsomely lashed as any such personage ever was.† Democracy has just lost a zealous friend in Gilbert Wakefield,‡

who died a few days ago. No loss, I fancy, even to his family, whom his turbulence kept always in hot water. Mrs. Wakefield is said to be a very amiable woman; badly matched, certainly."

In 1811 the worthy Archdeacon, in his character of editor of the British Critic, coming into collision with the Edinburgh Review, strikes out a flash or two of poetry; as

Parody on a Song in "The Camp."

ENLISTING A CRITIC FOR THE EDINBURGH REVIEW.

JEF. You little Reviewer, come list with me;

But first, prithee, answer me questions three.

statue of Newton, which we think in many respects very faulty. But see Cunningham's Lives of Painters, &c. vol. iii. p. 238.-REV.

* A Narrative of the disinterment of Milton's Coffin, Aug. 4, 1790, &c. This pamphlet was by Mr. Philip Neve of Furnival's Inn. Vide Gent. Mag. LX. 837. See St. James's Chronicle, Sept. 7, 1790, and European Magazine, Sept. 1790, p. 260.-REV. + In a review of Thoughts occasioned by the Perusal of Dr. Parr's Spital Sermon, by W. Godwin. Vide British Critic, Aug. 1801, p. 184.-REV.

G. Wakefield died Sept. 10, 1801, aged 45. Vide Gent. Mag. 1801, p. 867; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. vii. 440, 703.-REV.

REV. I long, master Jeffrey, to list with you,

For I'm hungry, and wish to have something to do.
First, can you rail well?

J.

R. Neatly, neatly.

J. Flourish in sentiments?
R. Sweetly, sweetly.
Cut up an author well?

J.

R. O, completely.

J. The answers are honest, bold, and free,

Go on, and in time you a Sydney will be.

When Authors are angry, and dare you to fight,
Will you go to the field, tho' you feel in a fright?

R. I can go, Sir, like you, tho' I'd much rather not;

And would dine with three lords ere I'd fight with one Scott.
J. Next, can you lie well?

R. Roundly, roundly.

J. Scout Universities?

R. Soundly, soundly.

J. Prate when you 're ignorant?
R. O, profoundly.

R. The answers are honest, bold, and fair,

Come, dip in this gall, and a Critick you are.

In 1815 he has put off his light poetical robes, and assumed the "budge fur" more suitable to the stoical critic; and he thus writes to Mr. Polwhele on some of his contemporaries :—

"About Malone, as a critic, I totally differ from you. He was very industrious and laborious, and ferreted out a good deal by these qualities; but had not, in my opinion, a spark of genius, nor even taste, where poetry was concerned. It is capable of proof that he did not rightly understand even the measure of English verse.* Steevens was full of genius, but not always to be depended upon. Sometimes he even made a sport of misleading his readers; but his powers were infinitely

above any that Malone possessed. North-
cote is a man of true genius, though occa-
sionally defective as a writer.
Mason, he was certainly a poet, but a
As to
malignant man, and particularly malig-
nant against the good King George III.
all which malignity was occasioned by
some real or imagined slight shown by the
King towards his imaginary merit. With
all his powers Mason was a despicable
man morally; and that is the worst that
need be said of a man."

To this Nares's correspondent, Mr. Polwhele, adds—" Jackson (who died Bishop of Oxford) had not less an antipathy against Mason. At one of his supper parties, Mason happened to be mentioned, when Jackson spoke of him scornfully. I could scarcely suppress my indignation. Greville's report of Mason (in accordance with Kempethorne's) I am sure comes nearer to the truth," &c.

Mr. J. Cooper Walker next succeeds, from one of whose communications we take the following anecdote :

"For the next edition of the 'Guardian' take this anecdote: When the 'Comparison between the Pastorals of Pope and Phillips' appeared, Phillips was secretary to Primate Boulter, and then in Ireland. Dining one day with the officers of the

Prerogative Court, the Comparison' became the subject of conversation, and Phillips said he knew it was written by Pope, adding, I wonder why the little crooked bastard should attack me, who never offended him either in word or deed.'

* Malone's metrical and verbal criticisms of the text of Shakspeare are in general very bad, in some cases preposterously so; but his merit lies in the history of Shakspeare and his works. It must, however, be observed, that every editor, from Rowe to Malone, has done something to the improvement of the text, in detecting corruptions and removing error. Some have failed from want of antiquarian knowledge, some from want of poetical feeling, and some from want of critical sagacity.-REV.

This I had from a gentleman who was present. Phillips resided in Bolton-street,

Addison on Arbor-hill.
both are still standing."

The houses of

A considerable portion of this accomplished person's correspondence with the Bishop is on the subject of the origin of blank verse in our language, and the earliest specimen to be found is Lord Surrey's Virgil, Mr. Walker tracing it to the "verso sciolto" of the Italians, and particularly from Trissino Rucellai, Alamanni, and Lod. Dolce; but he discovers that "Chaucer, the father of English poetry, was also the writer of English blank verse. Lord Surrey, like Trissino, was only the first to employ it in larger works. Chaucer probably took the hint from his contemporaries Dante and Boccaccio," &c. On the sonnet, he says:

"In your Memoirs of Lord Surrey your Lordship will, I presume, give some account of the origin of the English Sonnet, of which the writings of that ingenious nobleman is said to afford the earliest specimen. In considering Lord Surrey's sonnets it must have struck your Lordship, that in some of them he admits more than two rhymes into the two quatrains, and that there is one in which the same rhyme runs on through the fourteen lines.

The origin of the Italian sonnet has been in a great degree determined long since by Francesco Redi, and has been lately traced with great ingenuity and elegance by Mr. Roscoe. But the origin of the English sonnet still, I believe, remains a subject for investigation. If Lord Surrey was not the first, I believe he was one of the earliest fabricators of the English Sonnet."

This seems to us to be very pains-taking and praiseworthy, but not so in the Bishop's eyes, who responded so peevishly that Mr. Walker would not presume again to meddle with his Lordship's literary concerns, and left him to pursue the chace of the Sonnet by himself; while he turned round and addressed Mr. Pinkerton, telling him "that his prose has also the strength and beauty of Gibbon, his characters the masterly pencil of Tacitus, his retrospects the minuteness of Teniers, the grace of Raphael, and the sublimity of Michael Angelo; and that he was superior to any ancient and modern historian." And, while Pinkerton stood with open mouth swallowing and with upturned nostril snuffing in this incense, he adds, "that his poetry has the fire of Pindar, and the expression of Gray;" all which we are willing to take on Mr. Walker's authority.

Sed neque tam facilis res ulla est quin ea primùm
Difficilis magis ad credendum constet.

Some correspondence follows between Percy and Dr. Campbell (his name is familiar in the pages of Boswell), in which there is much relating to Goldsmith, whose life it appears he intended to write. He says, Goldsmith has fairly drawn his own character: "Fond of enjoying the present, careless of the future; his sentiments those of a man of sense, his actions those of a fool; of fortitude able to stand unmoved at the bursting of an earthquake, yet of sensibility to be affected by the breaking of a tea-cup." He says, "The story of the valet de chambre will, as Lord Bristol says, pin the basket of his absurdities; and really we may have a hamper full of them."

We must now close our extracts from this interesting volume, which forms a valuable addition to the literary history of those times when our literature was more attractive and elegant, more diligently collected, and more carefully produced than it is in the present day. Should the Editor

*He gives them up afterwards, as Lord Surrey died in 1545, and Trissino's Italia Liberata was printed in 1547-8; but he mentions a tract of Virgil by L. Martelli in 1527.-REV.

possess any more materials of the same kind, at all equal in value to those he has given, we trust that he will not withhold them from the public; for it is by contributions like these, coming in from various quarters, that the circle of literature may be in time made perfect, its deficiencies supplied, its obscurities removed, and its discoveries and truths supported by additional authority and unexpected accessions of evidence.

MR. URBAN,

March 16. YOUR defence of Bishop Ferrar, in your last Number, from the imputation of Wharton, that he destroyed the records of St. David's, derives confirmation from the following passage in his life.

Previous to the surrender of his priory of St. Oswald at Nostel to the King's commissioners in 1540, he took the valuable books and manuscripts under his own charge to York, and deposited them with his primate, Archbishop Lee.

The man who shewed this solicitude for literary treasures, at the time when worldly wealth and revenues were passing from his grasp, was not likely to act the opposite part imputed to him in the case of the records of the see to which he was inducted.

I rejoice that you have also done justice to the firmness and courage of this eminent martyr. How highly these points in his character were appreciated by Henry the Eighth and his vicar-general, Cromwell, is proved by the circumstance, that when Bishop Barlow was sent as ambassador to James the Fifth of Scotland, to endeavour to detach him from the papal interest, Robert Ferrar was appointed to accompany him.

The object of this was, no doubt, to give the strength and energy of Ferrar's mind as a stay and support to Barlow, who, though an excellent man, was of a somewhat timid and feeble temperament. When the Marian persecution began, he fled the country with many other good Churchmen, and, returning on Elizabeth's accession, was by her preferred in 1559 to the see of Chichester.

He was the predecessor of Bishop Ferrar in the see of St. David's; and there was this singular coincidence between them. Articles were hibited by the chapter against Barlow, who was glad to get translated to Bath

ex

and Wells in 1548, and resign this turbulent bishopric to his associate in the Scottish embassy.

I would take this opportunity of correcting a remarkable error in reference to Bishop Ferrar, which originated in Dodsworth MSS. vol. 135, fo. 796, and has been copied into the Rev. Joseph Hunter's erudite work on "The Deanery of Doncaster," vol. i. fo. xxii. where the following statement occurs. "John Lascelles, who was burnt at the same time with Mrs. Anne Askew, was of the family of that name residing at Gateford. Farrer, the Bishop of St. David's, had lands and tithe at Carlton in Lindrick, which he gave to a half-sister, mother of William Fisher, owner of that parsonage, who married a daughter of Sir George Lascelles of Gateford. A tomb was raised to the Bishop's memory in the church at Curlton."

An application was recently made to the worthy minister of Carlton in Lindrick for a description of this tomb, and a copy of the inscription; but he assured the inquirer that no such tomb existed in his church, nor any monument whatever to Bishop Ferrar. I remain, Mr. Urban, your sylvan friend,

HALIFAXIENSIS.

Note.-A Correspondent, who signs LECTOR, has remarked to us that we need not have referred last month to an Harleian MS. for the articles exhibited to the council against Bishop Ferrar, inasmuch as they were given by Foxe in his Actes and Monuments. In reply, we have to state that the document given by the Martyrologist by no means supersedes a reference to the Harleian MS. 420, which contains fuller details of the accusations, and not merely these, but the depositions of the numerous witnesses who supported them.

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