for it by making him Inspector-General of the imports and exports of the customs. He died at Blackheath, March 25, 1721.

In the same list, in No. 555, are given the names of Mr. CAREY, of New College, Oxford, Mr. TICKELL, and Mr. EUSDEN*, but no inquiry into their respective shares has been yet satisfactory. The signature T. has been frequently suspected to mean TICKELL; yet nothing of his can be ascertained, except what will not rank him among ESSAYISTS, a poem entitled "The Royal Progress," in No. 620†.

An ingenious letter on the eye, in No. 250, is ascribed to Mr. GOLDING, of whom I have not been able to procure any information.

A very short letter, written with a tradesmanlike simplicity, in No. 268, and signed JAMES EASY, was the production of Mr. JAMES HAYWOOD, many years a wholesale linen-draper on FishStreet-Hill, who died at his house in Austin-friars, in the 90th year of his age, July 23, 1776.

The excellent character of Emilia, in No. 302, was claimed by Mr. DUNCOMBE for Mr. HUGHES, but it has since been ascertained that it was written by Dr. BROOME; but whether Dr. BROOME, the poet, and partner with POPE in translating the Odyssey, is not so clearly determined. BROMIus, mentioned in this paper, will not agree with his character, who, when Rector of Sturston, in Suffolk," married a wealthy widow." The lady named here Emilia, was the "mother of Mrs.

"A short letter in No. 84, on idols, is ascribed by the anRotators to Mr. EUSDEN, afterwards the poet-laureat, but this cannot deserve the acknowledgment in No. 555.

The annotators give him the first part of No. 410, as has been already mentioned.

JOHNSON'S Lives of the Poets, art. BROME, OF BROOME.

Ascham, of Connington, in Cambridgeshire, and grandmother of the present Lady Hatton."

The letter on foreign travel, in No. 364, signed Philip Homebred, was written by Mr. PHILIP YORKE, afterwards the celebrated lord CHANCELLOR HARDWICKE. Mr. BosWELL informs us, probably in too decisive language, that Dr. JOHNSON would not allow merit to this letter, and said that "it was quite vulgar and had nothing luminous.” It is certainly not the paper we might expect from a LORD CHANCELLOR, but it was written by a young man, just admitted to the bar, and who had sense enough to censure a prevailing folly with some degree of humour, and great justice. The same subject has been since illustrated in the WORLD by another nobleman, PHILIP EARL of CHESTERFIELD.*

The EARL of HARDWICKE, who is supposed to have been the author of another paper, which cannot now be ascertained, was one of those illustrious characters who have ennobled their families by merit in a profession, in which, with very few exceptions, merit only has been found to succeed. In very early life he appears to have been noted for learning and industry, and for qualities which were fitted to shine in public life. When only twenty-eight years of age, he had a seat in parliament, and the following year was promoted to the office of solicitor-general on the recommendation of the LORD CHANCELLOR PARKER. In Feb. 1723-4, he was appointed attorneygeneral, and in October, 1733, lord chief justice of the king's bench. On the decease of LORD TALBOT, in 1736-7, he was called to the high

* See an article on the same subject by ADDISON, in TATLER, No. 93.

office of lord chancellor, when only in his fortyseventh year. Yet this rapid succession of honours was followed by a correspondent share of popularity. In each office he discharged his duty in a manner both honourable and dignified: his station derived lustre from his piety, his learning, and his justice, and he at once enjoyed and deserved the esteem of the public. Of his abilities the following character is said to be strictly just. "The style of his eloquence was more adapted to the house of lords than to the house of commons. The tone of his voice was pleasing and melodious; his manner was placid and dignified. Precision of arrangement, closeness of argument, fluency of expression, elegance of diction, great knowledge of the subject on which he spoke, were his particular characteristics. He seldom rose into great animation: his chief aim was more to convince than amuse; to appeal to the judgment rather than to the feelings of his auditors. He possessed a perfect command over himself, and his even temper was never ruffled by petulant opposition, or malignant invective."* He died March 6, 1764, and it is by general consent that the epithets GREAT and GOOD have been ever since connected with his name.

Two visions, in Nos. 460 and 501, were written by Dr. THOMAS PARNELL. This allegorical mode of conveying instruction was much encouraged and practised by ADDISON and his contemporaries; and, we are informed by STEELE, there was always a particular demand for such papers. Dr. PARNELL's Visions have considerable merit, but from a member of the Scriblerus Club, and a man of acknowledged wit, we might have surely

Coxe's Memoirs of Sir R. WALPOLE, vol. i. p. 43, 4to..

expected contributions of a more humorous cast. Dr. GOLDSMITH's Life of PARNELL, prefixed to his works, was the first attempt to collect memorials of him; although enrolled among the English poets in Dr. JOHNSON's edition, his name had not appeared in the General Dictionary or in the Biographia Britannica. GOLDSMITH's materials are very scanty, and JOHNSON, while he compliments GOLDSMITH on what he had done, seems averse to the subject.

THOMAS PARNELL, D. D. descended from an ancient family, of Congleton, in Cheshire, was born in Dublin, in the year 1679, and was admitted a member of Dublin College at the early age of thirteen. He took his degree of M. A. July 9, 1700, and in the same year was ordained a deacon, by Dr. WILLIAM KING, then bishop of Derry, having a dispensation from the primate as being under twenty-three years of age. He was admitted into priest's orders about three years after, by Dr. KING, then archbishop of Dublin, and was collated by Dr. ASHE, bishop of Clogher, to the archdeaconry of Clogher, Feb. 9, 1705. About that time he married Miss ANNE MINCHIN, a young lady of great beauty and merit, by whom he had two sons, who died young, and a daughter, living in 1770. The death of his wife is supposed to have made an indelible impresssion on his spirits, and drove him to that remedy which of all others is the least efficacious, and is itself a calamity of the most deplorable kind. He was warmly recommended by Swift to Archbishop KING, who gave him a prebend in 1713, and in 1716 the vicarage of Finglas, worth

* GOLDSMITH, p. 21, edit. 1773.

4001. per annum. He died at Chester, July, 1718, on his way to Ireland.

His prose works are two papers in the SPECTATOR, two in the GUARDIAN, the life of Zoilus, (a satire on DENNIS,) an essay on the origin of sciences in the character of Martinus Scriblerus, and the life of HOMER prefixed to POPE's translation. His poetical fame rests chiefly on his HERMIT, but even his inferior poems are more correct and pleasing than his prose.

The letter signed Peter de Quir, in No. 396, and that signed Tom Tweer, in No. 518, were the productions of that very eccentric character, ORATOR HENLEY, a name and a title which have seldom been pronounced without contempt, yet it was late in life before he earned this contempt. His early days were laudably and industriously employed, as appears by the very curious and authentic memoirs Mr. NICHOLLS has given of him in his "History of Leicestershire," under the article of Melton Mowbray, HENLEY'S native place.

From his letter, in No. 518, as well as from some of his avowed publications, he seems to have possessed a kind of humour, which a man of sense or delicacy might have employed with success. But HENLEY preferred the character of a buffoon, and the life of an outcast, and was for many years the ornament and delight of Clare Market, where he established an oratory to which the very lowest ranks resorted. Here, when vulgarity itself was satiated with his nonsense, he hit upon various expedients to bring a crowded audience. At one

NICHOLS's Select Collection of Poems, vol. iii. p. 209. †The late Rev. Mr. COLE of Milton says, he remembers HENLEY coming to Cambridge, and soliciting for a booth in Sturbridge fair, for his Lectures, which was refused. COLE'S MSS. in Brit. Mus.