with wafers: Epigrams, Anagrams, was directed always to be left with the memorandums, the writing to be paid for on delivery, according to the subject. I soon became disgusted with this employment, and the moment I had realized a small sum of money, closed the scene." Paragrams, Chronograms, Monograms, Epitaphs, Epithalamiums, Prologues, Epilogues, Madrigals, Interludes, Advertisements, Letters, Petitions, Memorials on every occasion, Essays on all Subjects, Pamphlets for and against Ministers, with Sermons upon any Text or for any Sect, to be written here on reasonable terms, by A. B. PHILOLOGER.' The uncommonness of the titles occasioned numerous applications, and at night I used privately to glide into the office to digest the notes, or heads of the day, and receive the earnest, which The following epitaph was written for Sterne, by his intimate friend Garrick : Shall pride a heap of sculptured marble raise, JAMES HERVEY. THIS celebrated writer, the son of a clergyman, was born at Hardingstone, near Northampton, on the 26th of February, 1713-14. At seven years of age, he was sent to the free grammar school of that city, where, it is said, his genius and memory would have made him a much greater proficient, but for the extraordinary whim of his teacher, who would allow no boy to learn faster than his own son. friend, Paul Orchard, Esq.; during his residence with whom, he, in 1740, became curate of Bideford. Here, his stipend being small, he was so much beloved, that the parishioners increased it to £60 a year, by an annual subscription; and offered to maintain him at their own expense, to prevent his dismissal by a new rector, who, however, deprived him of his curacy in 1742. In the following year, he became curate to his father, then holding the living of Weston Favell, as well as that of Collingtree, to both of which he succeeded on the death of the former, in 1752. He accepted the two livings to In 1731, he entered a student of Lincoln College, Oxford, where he continued to reside for about seven years, but only proceeded to the degree of B. A. Among the books he read during this time were Keil's Anatomy; Der-gether, with much reluctance, and, on "ham's Physico-Theologico, and AstroTheology; and Spence's Essay on Pope's Odyssey, to which he used to say, he owed more of his improve ment of style and composition than to any other work he ever read. At the age of twenty-three, he entered into deacon's orders, and being urged by his father to get a curacy in or near Oxford, that he might retain a small college exhibition of the value of about £20 per annum, he declined, saying, "that he thought it unjust to retain it after he was in orders, as some other person might want its aid, to further his education." He accordingly, in 1736, accepted the curacy of Dummer, in Hampshire, where he continued about a year, when he was invited to Stoke Abbey, in Devonshire, the seat of his waiting upon the Bishop of Peterborough, for institution, he said, "I suppose your lordship will be surprised to see James Hervey come to desire your lordship to permit him to be a pluralist; but I assure you I do it to satisfy the repeated solicitations of my mother and my sister, and not to please myself." Our author had already established his literary reputation, by the publication of his celebrated Meditations, the first volume of which appeared in 1746, and the second in 1747. He appears to have formed the plan of this work during his residence in Devonshire, his Meditations among the Tombs being suggested to him by a visit to the church-yard of Kilkhampton, in Cornwall. After his accession to his father's livings, he graduated M. A. at Clare Hall, Cambridge; and about the same time published Remarks on Lord Bolingbroke's Letters on the Study and Use of History, which, observes Simpson, in his Plea, " contains many pious and satisfactory observations on the history of the Old Testament, especially on the writings of Moses." In 1753, he published his Theron and Aspasio, in three volumes, octavo, the success of which nearly equalled that of his Meditations, whilst it brought him into a controversy with the famous Wesley, who opposed him on account of his Calvinistic sentiments. The life of this excellent man was now drawing to an end, which his great exertions in the pulpit and the study materially contibuted to hasten. He died of a decline, after extreme suffering, which he bore with singular fortitude, on the 25th of December, 1758. light of modern wits, amusements, and eloquence, and devote my attention to the Scriptures of Truth. I would sit with much greater assiduity at my divine Master's feet, and desire to know nothing in comparison of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." His mode of preaching was peculiarly simple and impressive, and no minister ever took a more anxious interest in the spiritual welfare of his parishioners, at whose houses he was a frequent and familiar visitor. His generosity and bounty scarcely left him a sufficient sum for his own subsistence; the profits arising from the sale of his Meditations, which amounted to £700, he devoted entirely to charitable purposes; and the little left by him at his death, he directed might be laid out in the purchase of clothing for the poor. In addition to the publications already mentioned, he was the author of several letters and sermons, all of which are to be found in the genuine edition of his works, in six volumes, octavo. He has been charged with carrying his Calvinistic notions to the verge of An-" tinomianism, with respect to the im The subject of our memoir was at once an elegant scholar, a learned divine, and a Christian, in the strict sense of the word. The bias of his mind may be collected from the following passage in a letter to a friend, a short time previous to his death:-"Iputed righteousness of Christ; but his have been," he says "too fond of reading every thing valuable and elegant that has been penned in our language; and been peculiarly charmed with the historians, orators, and poets of antiquity: but were I to renew my studies, I would take my leave of those accomplished trifles: I would resign the de writings on this subject have never been considered as seriously objectionable. His Meditations have furnished many of our poets with beautiful ideas; and, notwithstanding their somewhat too flowery style, will probably always retain their original popularity. WILLIAM SHENSTONE. WILLIAM SHENSTONE, the son of an uneducated gentleman farmer, was born at Hales-owen, in Shropshire, in November, 1714, and received the elements of instruction from a village dame, whom he has celebrated in his poem of The School-mistress. His fondness for books, in his childhood, was such that he frequently carried one to bed with him; and, it is said, that when his request had been neglected to procure a new one when any of his family went to market, his mother wrapped up a piece of wood of the same form, and pacified him for the night. His first scholastic education was at the grammar-school of Halesowen, and afterwards at the academy of a clergyman at Solihull, under whom he acquired a cultivated taste, and a considerable degree of classical knowledge. In 1732, at which time he had lost his father, he was entered a member of Pembroke College, Oxford, and had some thoughts of taking his degrees, and proceeding to study for a profession; but deriving sufficient from his paternal fortune to gratify present wishes, he renounced all further views of an active life. He accordingly retired to his residence at the Leasowes, the embellishments of which formed one of his most favourite pursuits, and, in 1737, he evinced how successfully he had cultivated poetry, by the publication of a small Miscellany, which appeared without his name. He then left Staffordshire, and passed much of his time in Bath and London, where he published, in 1740, his Judgment of Hercules, addressed to Mr. Lyttleton, and, in 1742, The Schoolmistress. In 1745, he finally retired to the Leasowes, and devoted his time and fortune to those rural embellishments, which have made that place so celebrated. "Here," says Johnson, "he began to point his prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle his walks, and to wind his waters; which he did with such judgment and such fancy, as made his little domain the envy of the great and the admiration of the skilful; a place to be visited by travellers, and copied by designers." The celebrity which his residence thus acquired, and his desire of appearing in better circumstances than his means admitted, soon brought on pecuniary embarrassments, and rendered him the wretched inhabitant of the Eden he had created for the delight of others. For the care of his grounds, he appears totally to have neglected that of his house; and "when," says our previous authority, "he came home from his walks, he might find his floors flooded by a shower through the broken roofs; but could spare no money for its reparation." To relieve his distresses, an application, it is said, was made to Lord Bute to grant him a pension, but before the result of it could be known, he was carried off by a putrid fever, on the 11th of February, 1763, and was buried in the church-yard of Hales-owen. According to Dodsley, tenderness was the peculiar characteristic of Shenstone; he was generous and benevolent to all within his influence, but if once of fended, he was not easily reconciled. "I never," he used to say, "will be a very revengeful enemy; but I cannot, -it is not in my nature, to be half a friend." His want of economy considerably incumbered his fortune, but he left more than sufficient to pay all his debts, and by his will appropriated his whole estate for that purpose. His person was above the middle height, and largely and awkwardly formed, and his countenance, until he engaged in conversation, did not strike the beholder as pleasing. In his youth he was accounted a beau, but latterly he became negligent in his dress, and was remarkable for wearing his hair, which was quite grey very early, in a particular manner. Gray's description of him borders upon caricature: "Poor man!" he said, after reading his poems, "he was always wishing for money, for fame, and other distinctions; and his whole philosophy consisted in living against his will in retirement, and in a place which his taste had adorned; but which he only enjoyed when people of note came to see and commend it; his correspondence is about nothing else but this place and his own writings, with two or three neighbouring clergymen, who wrote verses too." He was never married; "though," says Johnson, "he might have obtained the lady, whoever she was, to whom his Pastoral Ballad was addressed." The reverse of this appears in the ballad itself; and although the narrowness of his fortune might, in general, have deterred him from marriage, and rendered some of his attachments transitory, yet the one alluded to, says Dodsley, "was with difficulty surmounted," and but for the obduracy of the lady, would doubtless have terminated in matrimony. It has been supposed that his Elegy on Jessy related to an amour of his own, but his friends affirm that it was suggested by the story of Miss Godfrey in Richardson's Pamela. His poems, consisting chiefly of elegies, odes, and ballads, are elegant, harmonious, tender, and correct in sentiment; and contain descriptions pleasing and natural, but verging on feebleness, and wanting in that power of imagination, and splendour and energy of diction, which characterize compositions of a higher order. His Pastoral Ballad is a master-piece of its sort; but The School-mistress, a poem in the Spenserian stanza, is generally considered the most pleasing of his performances. His prose writings are by no means contemptible; displaying, as they do, good sense and cuin vated taste, with just, and sometimes new and acute observations, on mankind. he followed him to Hales-owen, where he lived; that he went to the door of his house, and peeping through the The following anecdote is told of key-hole, saw the man throw the purse Shenstone: he was one day walking on the ground, and say to his wife, through his romantic retreat in com- "Take the dear-bought price of my pany with his Delia, (whose real name honesty;" then placing two of his chilwas Wilmot,) when a man rushed out dren, one on each knee, he said to of a thicket, and presenting a pistol to them, "I have ruined my soul to keep his breast, demanded his money. Shen- you from starving;" and immediately stone was surprised, and Delia fainted. burst into a flood of tears. Shenstone "Money," said the robber, "is not on hearing this, lost no time in inworth struggling for; you cannot be quiring the man's character, and found poorer than I am."-" Unhappy man!" that he was a labourer oppressed by exclaimed Shenstone, throwing his purse want and a numerous family; but had to him, "take it, and fly as quick as the reputation of being honest and inpossible." The man did so, threw his dustrious. Shenstone went to his house; pistol in the water, and instantly dis- the poor man fell at his feet, and imappeared. Shenstone ordered his foot-plored mercy. The poet took him home boy to follow the robber, and observe with him, and provided him with emwhere he went. In two hours the boy ployment. returned, and informed his master that JOHN BROWN. JOHN BROWN was born at Rothbury, in Northumberland, on the 5th of November, 1715. He received the first part of his education at the grammar school of Wigton, in Cumberland, and in 1732 he entered St. John's College, Cambridge, where he remained, with great reputation, until 1735, in which year he graduated B. A. Having taken orders, he settled as a minor canon and lecturer in Carlisle, where he acted a very distinguished part, in favour of government, on the siege of that place by the rebels in 1745. Six years previously he had graduated M. A.; and, in 1746, he published two sermons on the subject of the rebellion, which procured him the favour of the Whig prelates; and Dr. Osbaldiston, Bishop of Carlisle, solicited and obtained for him the living of Morland in Westmorland. About the same time he resigned his minor canonship, in consequence of his, one day, omitting the Athanasian creed, which, though accidental, was the occasion of a reproof from the chapter, which Brown resented by taking the above step. Shortly afterwards he became known to the public as a tolerable poet, by the production of a poem entitled, Honour, and another called an Essay on Satire, inscribed to Warburton, to whose edition of Pope's works it has been prefixed. In 1750, becoming acquainted with Mr. Allen, of Prior Park, near Bath, he preached in that city two sermons against gaming, which are said to have induced the magistrates to order the suppression of all public gaming-tables. In 1751, he at once established his reputation as a writer, by the publication of his celebrated Essays on the Characteristics of the Earl of Shaftesbury; a work which, whilst it refuted many of that nobleman's positions, was remarkable for the elegance and spirit of its style, and its total freedom from controversial bitterness. It was answered by Mr. Bulkeley, and an anonymous writer; but in a manner that retarded neither the reputation nor sale of the Essays, which, in a few years, reached a fifth edition. In 1754, he published a sermon On the Use and Abuse of Externals in Religion; and in the following year he became D. D., and produced, at Drury Lane Theatre, his tragedy of Barbarossa, which was received with ap plause, and still retains possession of the stage. In 1756, he was less successful in his tragedy of Athelstan; and it is to be observed, that he did not give his name publicly to either of these performances. A distinguished era of his life may be said to have commenced in 1757, when he published his celebrated Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times. Seven editions were printed in the course of a year: upon the higher ranks of life, whom he represented as sunk in luxury, effeminacy, and frivolity, it is said to have made a considerable impression; and few publications were, at the time, more universally read or talked of. It met, however, with many answerers and antagonists, but had the support of no less a writer than Voltaire. "This work," he says, "roused the sensibility of the English nation, and produced the following consequences:-they attacked, almost at one and the same time, all the seacoasts of France, and her possessions in Asia, Africa, and America." In 1758, Brown published a second volume of The Estimate, which did not add to his reputation, and created him many enemies, from the tone of vanity and arrogance pervading it, and which now began to form too conspicuous a feature in his character. The storm raised against him, both by critics and friends, induced him to retire into the country, where he wrote an Explanatory Defence of the Estimate; but the subject had ceased to excite its former interest, and its revival was received with comparative apathy. A display of his high and sensitive spirit had also alienated from him many of his patrons, and his church preferment closed with a presentation to the vicarage of St. Nicholas, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, when he resigned a living in Essex, that he had previously obtained from Lord-chancellor Hardwicke, which his pride now hindered him from retaining. He seems, however, to have been appointed one of the chaplains in ordinary to his majesty, and would probably have met with further advancement, but for the death of Dr. Osbaldiston, soon after his translation to the see of London. From 1760 to 1765 he published, successively, an Additional Dialogue of the Dead between Pericles and Cosmo (a vindication of Pitt); The Cure of Saul, a sacred ode; Dissertation on the Rise, Union, &c. of Poetry and Music; History of the Rise and Progress of Poetry; and Thoughts on Civil Liberty, Licentiousness, and Faction. In this last piece he threw out some ideas upon national education, which called forth the animadversions of Dr. Priestley; but, being communicated to Dr. Damaresq, who was then in Russia, for the purpose of advising the empress as to the establishment of certain schools in her dominions, our author was addressed on the subject, and invited to a correspondence. He accordingly drew up a paper, containing a scheme not only of education, but of legislation, which so pleased the empress, that she gave him an invitation to her court. Ill health, however, and the advice of his friends, dissuaded him from the journey, for the expenses of which he had been assigned £1,000; his enemies accused him of appropriating the whole, but it seems that he had only drawn £200, of which he returned above half. The mortification he felt at the stop put to his designs in Russia considerably agitated his spirits, and as he was subject to frenzy, probably deranged his mind. He fell into an irrecoverable state of dejection and melancholy, and on the 23d of September, 1766, put a period to his existence with a razor, as he lay in his bed. In addition to the works beforementioned, Dr. Brown wrote several sermons, and A Letter to Dr. Louth, in answer to one in which that divine charged him with an obsequious admiration of Warburton. He also left, in manuscript, an unfinished work on The Principles of Christian Legislation, the publication of which he directed by his will. If Dr. Brown is to be estimated by the temporary popularity of his works, and the able antagonists they raised up against him, he must undoubtedly rank high among the authors of the preceding century. He certainly possessed, in an eminent degree, what may be called speculative talent: his sermons are powerful and instructive; his poems not destitute of sublimity and imagination; and his essays on poetry and music evince a scientific |