from all parts, with a merry oration in the Fescennine manner, interspersed with secret history, raillery, and sarcasm, as the occasions of the times supplied him with matter. Something like this jovial solemnity were the famous Saturnalian feasts among the Romans." And in his second essay he declares, that he shall not confine himself to any particular method, " but shall be grave or whimsical, serious or ludicrous, prosaical or poetical, philosophical or satirical, argue or tell stories, weep over his subject, or laugh over it, be in humour or out of humour, according to whatever passion is uppermost in his breast." It must be conceded, that the character which he has chosen is not ill supported; there is much wit and humour in the work, with several curious anecdotes, and there is also a plentiful portion of the coarseness and vulgarity of the Saturnalia.* One great object of the work is, to reprobate the attachment of the University to the. Stuarts, and to prove that his own persecution and expulsion originated from his zeal in support of the House of Hanover.

The Terræ Filius was published twice a week, commencing on Wednesday, January 11th, 1721, and concluding with the fiftieth number on Saturday, July 6th, of the same year. A second edition, now before me, appeared in 1726, in two vols. 12mo, with a preface; a dedication to Dr. Mather, President of Corpus Christi College, and Vice-Chancellor; and an Appendix, addressed to Dr. Newton, Principal of Hart-Hall, and occasioned by his book entitled University Education. 124. MIST'S JOURNAL, A SELECTION FROM. A re-publication of Essays which had originally been printed in a Newspaper with this title, and which was undertaken to oppose the government of George I, and the claims of the protestant succession. Some of these essays, which include manners as well as politics, possess merit; they form 2 vols. 12mo, and appeared in 1722.

25. PASQUIN. This paper, whose title is taken from the celebrated statue in Rome (Pasquino,) to which the people are accustomed to affix lampoons and satires, was written in defence of government. It started in January, 1723, was published twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, and, about six months after its commencement,

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entered into a controversy with the True Briton. Its literary merit is not great; and, being confined to temporary and political topics, it is now no longer remembered.

26. THE TRUE BRITON. Of this publication, which was written in opposition to the measures of Administration, and in defence of Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, the profligate Duke of Wharton was the author. It displays abilities which might have been rendered serviceable to his country, but which debauchery, and want of all principle, either stifled or directed into a wrong channel. The True Briton was published twice a week, and several thousands of each number were regularly dispersed; it began on June 3d, 1723, and, having reached the seventy-fourth number, closed on February 17th, 1724. A portion of it has been re-printed in two volumes octavo.

27. THE HUMOURIST. The period to which these papers in their single state * ought to be ascribed, I am not able to ascertain. The first volume of my copy, which is in 12mo, and the third edition, is dated 1724; and the second, owing to the encouragement which the former collection had received, appeared in 1725. The

* The author says in his preface, that they had already appeared abroad singly, and, being well received, the bookseller was encouraged to gather them into a volume.

Arst volume is dedicated, in a humorous and satirical style, to the Man in the Moon, and the second to the Right Honourable James Lord Tyrawley and Killmain. They consist of seventyseven essays, thirty-three in the first volume, and forty-four in the second, on a great variety of subjects. They are written with much vivacity, and a few might be selected which display considerable wit and humour; of this kind are "Travels made and performed from Exeter to London," vol. 2, page 47; and the Essay on " Modern Inventions," a satire on Quack Advertisements, vol. 2, p. 82. The style, however, of the Humourist is not only inelegant, but coarse, and loaded with vulgar and idiomatic expressions, and there is much ribaldry interspersed through its pages. In an essay on Coffee-Houses the author remarks, that "after the Restoration, the king, who brought back with him many of the manners of the French nation, insinuated the same conversible humour into his favourites and followers. There were several Coffee-Houses' then erected, where assemblies of the Literati professed to meet; and the Town had due notice given them, at which hour the respective boards sat, to speak sentences, and say things worth the hearing. John Dryden took his place very solemnly every evening at Will's, which is

remembered and duly honoured for his sake, to this day." To whom we are indebted for this motley work I am, at present, totally ignorant.

28. THE PLAIN DEALER. The writers of this periodical paper were Aaron Hill and W. Bond. Aaron Hill was born in London on February 10th, 1685; and after his school education at Westminster, not being able, from the destitute state in which he was left by his father, to complete his studies at an university, he embraced the resolution of applying to his relation Lord Paget, then Ambassador at the Court of Constantinople. For this city, therefore, he embarked in 1700, and was fortunately well received by his Lordship, who procured him an able tutor, under whose directions he travelled through a great part of the East, visiting Egypt, Palestine, &c. He returned to England in 1703, in the Ambassador's suite; and, upon the death of Lord Paget, accompanied Sir William Wentworth, of Yorkshire, on a tour through Europe, which occupied nearly three years. Mr. Hill appeared before the public as an author in 1709, by publishing A History of the Ottoman Empire," and "Camillus," a poem, a panegyric on the Earl of Peterborough, which obtained him the patronage of that nobleman. The succeeding year was

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