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And what in a mean man I should call folly, Is in your majesty remarkable wisdom.”

Dedication to Emperor of the East. 1631. "it being so rare in this age to meet with one noble name, that, in fear to be censured of levity and weakness, dare express itself a friend or patron to contemned poetry."

Prologue-at Court.

"She durst not, Sir, at such a solemn feast, Lard his grave matter with one scurrilous jest:

But laboured that no passage might appear But what the Queen without a blush might

hear."

264. Tax-projectors.

Vol. 4.

CITY MADAM. Dedication. Reputation of Massinger during his life, and when this play was published in 1659.

P. 35. Gifford did not know how heirs could be pronounced as a dissyllable.

86. Most of our old writers abridged the word Master, and pronounced only the initial letter, e.g.

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66

Poetry which is built upon fancy, women may claim as a work belonging most properly to themselves: for I have observed that their brains work usually in a fantastical motion; as in their several and various dresses; in their many and singular choices of cloths and ribbons, and the like; in their curious shadowing and mixing of colours in their wrought works, and divers sorts of stitches they employ their needle; and many curious things they make, as flowers, boxes, baskets with beads, shells, silk, straw, or any thing else; besides all manner of meats to eat; and thus their thoughts are employed perpetually with fancies; for fancy goeth not so much by rule and method as by choice."

She understood no language but her own, "not French, although I was in France five

"At M. Luke's suit. The action twenty years. Neither do I understand my own thousand."

DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE.

DR. AIKIN says she was one of the most fertile and voluminous writers-at least of her sex, upon record. Her works at length amounting to thirteen folios, ten of them in print. This enormous mass of her writings is now so completely consigned to oblivion, that probably scarcely any English scholar living has read more of them than a few lines descriptive of melancholy quoted in the "Connoisseur," (No. 69,) and praised beyond their desert.

Dr. Aikin himself has written much more in quantity; and his daughter, Miss Lucy, quite as much, and nothing so good.

native language very well, for there are many words I know not what they signify."

"The passions are like musical instruments when they play concords, the mind dances in measure the saraband of tranquillity." P. 51.

123. "I must intreat my Noble Readers to read this part of my Book very slow, and to observe very strictly every word they read, because in most of these Poems, every word is a Fancy. Wherefore if they lose by not marking, or skip by too hasty reading, they will intangle the sense of the whole Copy."

128. Nature's Oven.

"The Brain is like an Oven, hot and dry, Which bakes all sorts of Fancies, low and high,

The Thoughts are wood, which Motion sets on fire,

The Tongue a Peele which draws forth the Which fly about, and carry 'em every

Desire.

But thinking much, the Brain too hot will grow,

where.

Sometimes she overloaded is with all,

And then some down into Oblivion fall."
190." When he was mounted, fast away
they went

And burns it up; if cold, the Thoughts are
Dough.
128."Life scumms the Cream of Beauty In the full gallop of a good intent."
with Time's spoon,

And draws the Claret wine of Blushes soon."

135. In Nature's Grange,

"Cows of Content, which gave the Milk of Ease,

Curds prest with Love which made a Friend-
ship-Cheese,

Cream of Delight was put in Pleasure's
Churn,

Where in short time the Butter of Joys
come."

139-40. Nature's City.

"The Citizens are worms, which seldom stir, But sit within their shops and sell their

ware.

The Moles are Magistrates who undermine
Each one's estate, that they their wealth

may find."

"The lazy Dormouse Gentry doth keep Much in their houses, eat, and drink, and sleep."

"The Peasant Ants industrious are to get
Provisions store, hard labours make them
sweat."

"But after all their husbandry and pains,
Extortion comes and eats up all their gains,
And Merchant Bugs of all sorts, they
Traffick on all things, travel every way."

154. Fairies

Making the father rich whose child they keep."

155. Hodmandod shells.

138. She seems to believe in fairies. 148. The centre of the earth their king dom.

146. "Then on her wings doth Fame those actions bear,

Her atomical poems are comical enough. What is most remarkable is the strange looseness of language, as to any thing like syntax or rhyme.

19. Motion is the life of all things." 31. The fancy of her atoms explained. 38. Shadow and Echo. Never was fancy more poetically conceived, or unpoetically expressed. It may have suggested Sir Egerton's fine sonnet.

PEPYS says in his Diary, May 30th,

"To see the silly play of my Lady Newcastle's, called the 'Humorous Lovers,' the most silly thing that ever came upon a stage. I was sick to see it; but yet would not but have seen it, that I might better understand her."

Sir T. Brown.

HANNAH MORE once read through a shelf of books at Hampton. In her list of them she enumerates Sir Thomas Brown's "very learned miscellanies, (and eke very obscure)," and this is all her comment!1— Mem. vol. 2, p. 198.

Beattie.

“OUR party (at the Bishop's, Fulham,) consists of Dr. Beattie, and Mrs. Kennicott; the former gentle and amiable, but in a low, broken-spirited state. We have formed quite a friendship. He has taken much to me, I believe, chiefly because I cordially sympathize with him on the death of his son, the Edwin of his "Minstrel."-Mem. vol. 2, p. 341.-HANNAH MORE.

Sir Thomas Browne, as is well known, was one of Southey's favourite authors.-J. W. W.

Monthly Review, v. 44, p. 286. When the first book was published, the Reviewer said "We would not by any means have him stop here. The Minstrel's progress to his profession cannot possibly be so entertaining as his practice in it. To represent him in his itinerant life; to invent amusing incidents expressive of the might of his minstrelsy over the natural and moral evils that may disturb the peace of families where he is entertained, and over all

'The strewed ills that watch his way' would certainly be a glorious field for fancy and variety. What, for instance, could be more striking than the Minstrel's soliciting entertainment at the door of Spleen or Avarice, elevating the heart of one, and opening that of the other? The description of so many different objects would greatly animate and diversify the poem."

BEATTIE says, "For energy of words, vivacity of description, and apposite variety of numbers, Dryden's Feast of Alexander' is superior to any Ode of Horace or Pindar now extant."-Monthly Review, vol. 57, p. 31.

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ANDREW ERSKINE says to Boswell (1761) of the country about Aberdeen. "The country around is dismal; long gloomy moors, and the extended ocean, are the only prospects that present themselves. The whole region seems as if made in direct opposition to descriptive poetry. You meet here with none of the lengthened meads, sunny vales, and dashing streams that brighten in the raptured poet's eye." -Letters, p. 145.

BEATTIE says truly enough, that “among contemporary poets we may sometimes observe a similarity of genius, which is probably occasioned by their imitating one another."

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"BLOTTING and correction was so much his abhorrence, that I have heard from his publisher," says D'ISRAELI, "he once energetically expressed himself, it was like cutting away one's own flesh.'"

"I have heard, that, after a successful work, he usually precipitated the publication of another, relying on its crudeness being passed over by the public curiosity this getting double pay. But Churchill was excited by its better brother. He called spendthrift of fame, and enjoyed all his revenue while he lived. Posterity owes him little, and pays him nothing."-Curiosities of Literature, vol. 3, p. 129.

PINKERTON says, (Lett. of Lit., p. 369), "Churchill's works have passed through more editions, and are more read in Scotland than in England, which shews that the love of that country for liberty is superior even to the most inveterate national prejudices."

SHENSTONE.

D'ISRAELI says that he educated the nation into that taste for landscape gardening which has become the model of all Europe." -Curiosities of Literature, p. 5.

See the whole article.

HULL'S Select Letters.

P. 2. SHENSTONE, 1736, to Mr. D.

"I am at present in a very refined state of indolence and inactivity. Indeed I make

little more use of a country life than to live over again the pleasures of Oxford and your company."

"I aim at rendering my letters as odd and fantastical as possible, but when I write to a person of your elegant character, my compliments degenerate into downright truths."

Miss F-R to Shenstone. 1745.

P. 13. "Mrs. A. says, though you cut off your hair, she believes your ears will remain, and wishes nothing so much as an opportunity to pinch 'em."

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17. Tell Mrs. A. my ears make great shoots, and such as may tempt her hand egregiously but if I am metamorphosed into an Ass entirely, I will come and serenade her in a morning, when she has been up late the night before."

51. during the winter season he describes himself, as being,-without any affectation- the dullest of the sons of men,' altogether in what I think they call Swiss Meditation, that is, thinking upon nothing.""

110. DUCHESS OF SOMERSET. "Mr. Lindsey, my Lord's chaplain, (who, by the way is a very good judge, and a pretty sort of man,) prefers his (Shenstone's) Ode on Autumn to almost every modern performance."

115. SHENSTONE to Lady Luxborough. "Notwithstanding the supposed qualifications of the Glums and the Gawries excite one's curiosity, the book does not, I think, deserve a place in your Ladyship's library, and I would not have you purchase it. It makes two vols. in 12mo, price 68. It came into my way, so I read it, giving it just attention enough to let it amuse me with the imaginary scenes it describes."

117. His Ode on Rural Elegance.

"I calculated the subject as well as I could; but I am fearful you will discover nothing but common-place thoughts. I think most of my verses smell of nothing

but field-flowers, and considering how I spend my time, they can scarce do otherwise."

156. The Gamester.

SHENSTONE SAYS-"I never yet had any opinion of the genius of Mr. Moore, and I hardly think I shall alter my sentiments on account of this performance."

175. Oct. 25, 1753.

"I am now in some sort of doubt concerning my snuff-box, whether to have it repaired in the cheapest way, with a figured tortoise-shell on the top, and a plain tortoise-shell on the bottom; or to exchange

the gold of it, and have a figured tortoiseshell box with a gold rim, like yours with a gilt one, only in the shape of an oblong

square, a little rounded at the corners. I should have no thoughts of this, but that my own seems too little and unmanly."

191. "I am, as the phrase is, deeply penetrated by the civility of your neighbour."

227. March 21, 1755, to Graves.

"There is nothing that I can less forgive the world than your want of leisure. Do not misinterpret me, or take amiss what I say. I know you to be infinitely more happy than myself, who am cloyed with it; but it would add something to my happiness, if not to your own, that you had more vacant spaces, or intervals of time, to employ in those refined amusements for which you are so exquisitely qualified."

228. "As to sun-dials, I never much affected the things themselves, nor indeed any mottos with which I have seen them inscribed.1 Perhaps this indifference may arise from no very commendable sources; a reflection upon my own want of proficiency in mathematics, and an habitual consciousness of my own waste of time. However, I have often had thoughts of placing a slight one somewhere upon my premises, for the

1 Had Shenstone been a member of All-Souls, instead of Pembroke, he would have remembered the beautiful motto on the Dial there:PEREUNT ET IMPUTANTUR! I could never pass it without turning back!-J. W. W.

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swer a smaller voice than that of a musket. With a culverin I suppose it would hold a noble dialogue."

93. 1749.

"I lead the unhappy life of seeing nothing in the creation so idle as myself. I am continually piddling in little matters about my farm."

Vol. 2.

Nov. 20, 1762. SHENSTONE to Anon. "My dearest friend,-It is a very surprizing and a cruel thing, that you will not suppose me to have been out of order, after such a neglect of writing as can hardly be excused on any other score. I cannot, indeed, lay claim to what the doctors call an acute disease, but dizziness of head, and depression of spirits are at best no trivial maladies, and great discouragements to writing. There is a lethargic state of mind that deserves your pity, not your anger: though it may require the hellebore of sharp reproof. Why, then, did you not employ this pungent remedy before the disease was gone so far? But, seriously, I pass too much of that sort of time, wherein I am neither well nor ill, and being unable to express myself at large, am averse to do so by halves."

P. 4. "Mr. Percy and his wife spent a good part of the week here, and he also would needs write a description of the Leasowes. I am more and more convinced that no description of this place can make any figure in print, unless some strictures upon gardening, and other embellishments, be superadded."

15. To Whistler.

"I used to think this a kind of distinction between Mr. Graves and you, that the one had the knack of making his virtues unenvied, and the other of rendering (what I perhaps unjustly termed) his weaknesses amiable. I am almost afraid of inserting this, lest it should seem to injure the superlative esteem I have of you: but I must add, that I consider a mixture of weaknesses, and an ingenuous confession of them, as

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