pursued," which Sir James Mackintosh strongly recommended to my notice. I like the spirit of the editor, which he has probably caught from his author, though I do not think he has got quite the right scent of true philosophy; but his modes of thinking seem original and masterly.

March 29. There is a small blemish in the 25th stanza of the 2d canto of Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel-more disgraceful perhaps to discover than to incur; when describing a sweet morning breeze,

And peeped forth the violet pale,

And spread her breast the mountain rose.

yet Poets ought to be very guarded against this species of anachronism. April 23. Finished Hume's Essays in Ritchie's Appendix to his Life, his character of Sir Robert Walpole, and his critique on Wilkie's Epigonead. The essays aim rather at elegant instruction, than profound research, and novel moral discoveries. On the seventh, however, on the middle ́station of life, he remarks that it is evident more genius is requisite to make a good lawyer, or physician, than a great monarch, since out of twentyeight of our sovereigns, eight have been regarded as of great capacity. Of philosophers, he esteems Galileo and Newton so far above the rest, that he can admit no other into the same class with them-not Bacon? His character of Sir R. Walpole appears a very just one, wonderfully so for the time when it was written. His review of the Epigoniad evinces, as might be expected, more acuteness of observation than of sensibility of taste. Of an epic poem he remarks, that the story is the least essential part; force of versification, vivacity of images, justness of description, and the natural play of the passions, are the chief circumstances which distinguish the Poet from the Novelist.

May 8. Finished four volumes of Washington's Life. Marshall observes of him, that prosperity never relaxed his exertions, nor could the most disastrous state of things drive him to despair. His compositions are solid, able, and masterly productions, well reasoned, and heightened by touches of true unaffected eloquence, flowing from the heart. It appears from Marshall's account, that America was nearly exhausted, when we abandoned the struggle.

Read Lord Grenville's Letter to the Secretary of the Society for Christian Information-a most able, powerful, masterly, and conclusive composition.

June 29. Called at Christ Church in the morning. Talking of the superstition of dreams, Mrs. Mitchell stated what she had seen in her father's hand-writing. He dreamed that his lady, who was then with child, would be brought to bed of a son on a particular day, and that on that day month the child should die. There was an addition to his dream, he said, which he wished to keep solely to himself. On the day foretold his lady was brought to bed of a son, and he appointed that day month for the christening. The christening passed off quite well, the child was in perfect health, and about eleven in the evening they were remarking how little faith was to be given to dreams though partially fulfilled, when the nurse came down and said 'the child was taken with convulsions;' before twelve he was dead. After this, said Mrs. Mitchell, my mother used to say my father never held his head up; but, being appointed King's Chaplain went to Oxford to take his degree, when he sickened, and soon after died. My mother said she always thought that the other event which he dreamed, but concealed, was his own death.

July 3. Dined at the White Horse. Mr. related a most extraordinary adventure, which came, he said, from two friends of undoubted veracity, and happened within half a century. They were proceeding from Berwick to Edinburgh, when a stormy evening compelled them to take shelter, and put up at a solitary inn on the road, some miles short of the town they intended to have reached. The looks of the people of the house were dark and ferocious, their manners suspicious and uncouth, and they were unaccountably impressed, from its strange aspect and peculiar taste, that the meat pie, which was the only thing they could procure for supper, was composed of human flesh. As the evening, however, continued tempestuous, and they had ordered beds, they were apprehensive of precipitating their danger by an immediate departure, and retired to their chamber. Several circumstances on their passage thither heightened their suspicions, and the hideous sight through the crevice of their apartment of a woman servant sharpening a large case knife in an adjoining room, completed their alarm. They contrived to make their escape, leaving their horses and baggage behind them; and quitting the high road, endeavoured to make their way across the country to the next town. They had not advanced far before they found they were pursued and scented by a blood hound; by fording a river, however, they evaded the pursuit, and at length reached their destination. The story which they related increased the suspicions of the people of the town-many travellers, they said, had strangely disappeared upon that road, and no tidings afterwards were heard of them. A search warrant was granted-the people of the house were secured the house itself was examined, and on different parts of the premises, the plunder of many passengers were found, and the bodies of several discovered. Can this be true? It transports me to Calabria.

June 23. Read Drummond's Academical Questions." He plunges at once into the midst of his subject in a very perplexing manner, and entangles himself and his readers with abstractions and the ideal system, in favour of which I do not perceive that he advances any new arguments, or concentrates the spirit of the old ones. He denies the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, contending that they both exist only in the mind; yet in showing this of the latter from the various modes in which different minds are affected, he contrasts those with the uniform assurance respecting geometrical truths, though according to him, figure exists as much in the mind as tastes, or smells. His assertion of the importance of physical inquiry over the claims of pedantry, p. 50 and 61, is masterly and just. His modern metaphysics seem vitiated by his attention to ancient ;-whose notions are so remote and restrictive, that they glance off from my mind: from his pursuing no order nor system in his disquisitions, he appears to me wonderfully obscure. I hardly know whether to rank him as a Materialist or Idealist: he seems to incline to Atheism. He is professedly a Necessitarian: he denies the existence, at least the perception, of power; we are merely perceptive of change; and what we regard as different powers and faculties of the mind, he thinks are reducible to perception merely; and belief he defines as nothing but a clear perception or distinct sensation. Reason, he thinks, produces belief, only causing indistinct notions to be more accurately perceived,

Of the truth of this story no doubt can be reasonably entertained. The editor's friend, the amiable and accomplished Bernard Barton, has sent him the names of the parties. A similar story is told in many books of Italian travels, of the proprietors of a small solitary inn on the mountains between Florence and Bologna.-EDIT.

GENT. MAG. VOL. II.

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operating to the soul as a telescope does to the eye. We think belief is always strong in proportion to sensation, and to believe is only to feel. His strictures on Tucker's style seem strangely misplaced.

Sept. 13. Mr. Pearson* called, and sat with me in the evening. Had much literary chat. Hurd was so sore at Parr's pamphlet, that they were obliged to keep newspapers from him, in which the topic was mentioned. Parr, in one of his journeys, sent a note to the Bishop announcing his arrival, and intention of waiting on him; but the Bishop returned a message which stopt the conference.

Sept. 17. Began Lord Holland's Life of Lope de Vega; elegant, and written with much acuteness, facility, and grace. The chief objects of poetry are, he observes, to delineate strongly the characters and passions of mankind-to paint the appearance of nature-and to describe their effects on our sensations: the probability of the story-the connexion of the tale the regularity of the design, which in novels and comedies are of considerable importance, in the higher branches of invention, are merely subordinate beauties, which have often been attained without genius, and neglected by it. The poet, he prettily remarks, may often solace real grief by inventing fictitious distress, and find an emblem of his susceptibility in that poetical spear, which is represented as curing with one end the wounds it had inflicted with the other.

Sept. 19. Finished Lord Holland's Life-written with much elegance and spirit, and evincing a very respectable share of taste and judgment as a critic. The feelings of Shakspeare's characters, he remarks, are the results of passions common to all men; those of Lopes and Dryden's heroes are derived from an artificial state of society, from notions suggested by chivalry and exaggerated by romance-a just distinction, but to which Johnson had pointed before. He speaks highly of Voltaire, and rescues him from the reproach of want of information, which has been encouraged by the exuberance of his wit. He observes of Lopes, what may frequently be applied to Shakspeare, that whatever was noble, he thought should be gorgeously arrayed; and it was only from carelessness or from ignorance of its merit, that he left any pathetic thought to shine by its genuine beauties. On the progressive improvement of the Drama, and the obligations we bear to those who have contributed to advance it, though they have led others to surpass themselves, he prettily remarks,— though the last polish often effaces the marks of the preceding workman, his skill was not less necessary to the accomplishment of the work, than the hand of his more celebrated successor. The quotations from Don Gaspar Melchor's book on Popular Diversions, gives one a high idea of the good sense, good temper, and liberal spirit of the author.

Sept. 24. Read Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess. On the expression, "Not a hare shall be frighted from her fare," where fare, by the com

Mr. afterwards Dr. Pearson, the author of the Treatise on Morals, &c. Mr. Green printed a Life of him in a small pamphlet. I do not know how far these anecdotes of Hurd and Parr are true, but I doubt them much. Parr's attack on Hurd I consider to be quite unwarrantable, and little less than brutal. Hurd was a person of very finished taste, cautious decision, and fine judgment; and I believe that he little regarded, and probably never read, the vituperative declamations of the learned pedagogue. The Author of the Pursuits of Literature says, that some opinion which Hurd gave on Parr's "Education Sermon," was the cause of the quarrel. Parr had all the wayward irritability of a child, but like a child he soon presented the repentant or forgiving heart, whose returning feelings were perhaps even enriched and softened by the passions that had passed over it and subsided.-EDIT.

mentators, is supposed to be used in the unprecedented sense of form. Lord Chedworth, in a MS. note, most justly explains it by food, and quotes Dryden, 3d Georg. 500. Seward very happily ascribes the superior felicity with which English poets have described the evenings and mornings, above the poets of Greece and Rome, to the great length of our twilights. In Fletcher's Pastoral Imagery, however sweet and profuse, there is an artificial air, from which Shakspeare is perfectly free, and which Milton had the genius to hide.

Sept. 28. In the evening made up my rent rolls from the approaching Michaelmas. It appears that, on a fair estimate, I shall enjoy, if I live, 1,200 guineas per annum-an income amply sufficient to satisfy all my reasonable wishes,* and leave an adequate surplus to meet any accidental emergency, or gratify any innocent caprice.

Oct. 7. Mr. E. Pearson called-mentioned a letter from the King to Bishop Hurd, when we were supposed in imminent danger of invasion, beginning "Dear Bishop Hurd," and stating that he had been recommended, in case the unhappy man should land here, (which however, he did not believe would be the case,) to take up his abode at Hartlebury Castle, but requesting him not to put himself to any trouble or inconvenience." Read Hurd's Essays on the Delicacy of Friendship. Nothing can exceed the exquisite skill and address with which this piece of irony is throughout supported, but the cool malignity of spirit which informs and animates the whole.

Nov. 30. At half past two, as the horses were changing at the White Horse Inn, had a very near and distinct view for five minutes of Louis the XVIII. bearing a most striking resemblance to the picture of his brother, Louis XVI.; watched him not without violent emotion very attentively, I trust not disrespectfully. Could discover, either in his countenance or deportment, no particular traits either of dignity or sorrow; his complexion rather sallow; his eyes of a dark hazle; buttoned up in a plain brown coat; his hair dark without powder, his linen not over clean, altogether quite a Frenchman; unusually full about the mouth, lips, and chin. To be standing in Brook-street, and viewing in this way and in this condition the representative of the Bourbons,-seemed like enchantment.

Nov. 19. Had much interesting chat with Clubbe in his morning walk. Death he said was uniformly met best in the cottage. In the antechambers of the great, its approaches must not be whispered; while its progress is often audibly remarked, without any unpleasant effect, by the bedside of the patient in the cottage. Douthwaite's (I collect that he was the person) last words were, "Raise me up a little, that I may see again that sweet pine;" a favourite tree which he had planted.†

A prudence totally devoid of all selfishness or parsimony, united to the increased value of property, raised this income of 1200 to near 2000 guineas; and those who love and respect the memory of Mr. Green, will read with pleasure what I am enabled to inform them from another passage in the Diary, that he not unfrequently gave away a third of his income in charity: his generosity also received no little lustre from the delicacy and almost timid feeling with which it was bestowed. There is a passage in his Diary where he mentions-" Putting a rouleau of 20 guineas into the hand of a friend-delightful gratification to my heart." How fast are such men disappearing from the earth! and who, alas! are filling up their vacant places?-EDIT.

Last summer the editor called on a gentleman in the neighbourhood of London, in whose garden were some large and beautiful specimens of exotic trees; the owner was then in a deep decline, and seldom rose from bed; his gardener mentioned, that in the afternoon of the preceding Sunday, he desired to be dressed, and placed in a

Dec. 11. Clubbe mentioned a strange attested instance of a girl near Dedham, who conceived before she was twelve years old, and was regularly delivered of a fine child.*

Dec. 14. Dined at--Mr. C. Williams; amused us after dinner with imitations of Baron Thomson; a little, I think, at his own expense. It is dangerous to delight company with any thing but original powers of wit, description, &c. and even then overpowering pre-eminence is invidious.

Dec. 26. Saw a very handsome, unaffected, well-written letter from Bishop Hurd, to Mr. E. Pearson, respecting the publication of Mr. Ludlam's Essays, in which he pleads the infirmities of age, for not using his own hands; and congratulates on the appointment of a person of such piety and ability as Mr. Pearson, to preach the lectures of his late excellent friend, Bishop Warburton.

Jan. 3, 1808. Began Gil Blas for the tenth time, and was again delighted. With what true naiveté is this exquisite satire on the follies and minor vices of civilized life conducted; and with what admirable strokes of genuine wit, refined and spontaneously springing from the occasion, is it brightened. There is just enough of foreign costume in the manners to give a picturesque effect to the tale without impairing its applicability; for I doubt whether so interesting a novel could be formed precisely from existing manners.

Jan. 12. Went to Covent Garden in the evening.-False AlarmsBraham delightful in Said a Smile to a Tear," varying the air with most tasteful embellishments. His loud tones, rounder, mellower, and fuller than I had imagined; and his execution unrivalled for facility and correctness, as a tenor voice. Wewitzer exquisitely true to nature, as a German servant. Bannister very easy, spirited, and harmonious as Tom Surfeit. Miss Duncan capital as Captain Berry, but coarse I think as a lady. During the Pantomime, a gentleman leaped from the second tier of stageboxes; tumbled on the lamps, and thence into the orchestra; very drunk -a frightful scene.

Jan. 15. Called on Pearson, and went with him to dinner to the Moore's; brought *HIM out after dinner. Spoke slightingly of Fox, pronounced him to possess no judgment, easily led away by man, woman, and child. Called his avowal of his marriage with Mrs. A. an epoch in the morals of the country. Exhibited and led away by her; cold to his friends; a gentleman who had strenuously supported him for 20 years in the country, wished to be introduced to the object of his idolatry, on coming up to town. Sheridan effected it, and was quite shocked at the cold and ungracious reception he met with. Reprobated his visit to Buonaparte. Began to disparage Burke. Spoke of his manner, as so coarse, ungracious, and vulgar, that he could

chair near the window, that he might sit and behold his beautiful "Salisburia" that grew near the house, and which his father had planted.

Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurrit. Long had the writer of this note observed and admired that magnificent tree, and in England unparalleled, without suspecting what dear and affectionate emotions reposed under its shade.-EDIT.

In a book lately published on the morals and lives of the manufacturing poor, are some singular and authentic instances mentioned, similar to those recorded by Mr. Green; intending to shew the premature excitement of the passions and developement of the form, by the heated atmosphere of the manufactories, as well as by habits of licentiousness.-EDIT.

"Him" so in the MS. Mr. Sheridan is the person spoken of, who was then on a visit at Mr. Moore's.