reader the following beautiful passage from the Paradise Regained of our great poet.

Who reads

Incessantly, and to his reading brings not

A spirit and judgment equal or superior,

(And what he brings, what need he elsewhere seek)
Uncertain and unsettled still remains;

Deep vers'd in books, and shallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys,

And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge,
As children gathering pebbles on the shore.

END OF SECTION I.

EDITOR.

SPENCE'S ANECDOTES.

SECTION II. 1730-32.

IANCHINI endeavoured to find out the parallax of the fixed stars from the place of the earth in its annual orbit, at each solstice. Dr. Halley's medium for discovering the same, is the moon. He has been making his observations from that planet thirteen years already, and says it will require seven more. He is fully persuaded that it may be discovered that way.-Ramsay.

Cavalier was the first who stirred up the Cevennois. His own imagination was inflamed; and he took advantage of the constitution of his countrymen, who are very subject to epileptic disorders. The agitations, which their fits gave them, were looked on as the effects of inspiration; and so were made of great service toward carrying on a religious war. They defended themselves long, and in a surprising manner, against the king's armies. On their dispersion, at last, many of them got over into England. Their fits continued when they were here; and on the return of them would give involuntary motions to their bodies and shakings to their limbs. These were what were then called the

French prophets. The great aim of their doctrines was the near approach of the millenary state. Everything was to be altered, the hierarchy destroyed, and an universal theocracy to obtain on earth. I was then at London, learning the mathematics, under Fatio; and, by his desire, went two or three times with him to hear them. He thought all their agitations the effect of a heavenly inspiration; and actually caught them of them himself.—When that gentleman was speaking, one day, of the cause of attraction, he said, (with a confidence unusual to him,) that he had absolutely discovered it; that it was the ethereal fluid: "and where," added he very gravely," do you think I discovered it? I was yesterday at a meeting of the prophets, and whilst I was lost in thought, it struck into my mind, like a sudden gleam of light, all at once."-However this happened, it is the very thing which Sir Isaac Newton has since shown. Sir Isaac himself had a strong inclination to go and hear these prophets, and was restrained from it, with difficulty, by some of his friends, who feared he might be infected by them as Fatio had been.-R.

The Abbé Fleury's Ecclesiastical History is allowed, on all sides, to be the best that ever was written, though it is put into the Index Expurgatorius.-R.

Cardinal Alberoni has the greatest art imaginable of seeing into the hearts and designs of men; but when he is a little heated, he lays himself too open to others: was he as impenetrable, as he is penetrating, he would be one of the completest politicians that ever was.-R.

The Archbishop of Cambray often said, that " of all the Protestant Churches, the Church of England alone could do anything in disputing with the Catholics: the Calvin

ists," says he," have made themselves harmless enemies, by holding their fatality; and the Lutherans have disarmed themselves of one of their chief weapons, by their doctrine of consubstantiation."-R.

Pope's character of Addison is one of the truest, as well as one of the best things he ever wrote: Addison deserved that character the most of any man.-Yet how charming are his prose writings! He was as much a master of humour, as he was an indifferent poet.—Dr. Lockier,* Dean of Peterborough.

* The Dean is about sixty-four years old. He travelled with Sir Paul Rycaut, and was chaplain and secretary to Lord Molesworth, whilst that lord was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Marlborough.-Note by Mr. Spence from papers.

"Dr. Lockier in the former part of his life was chaplain to the factory at Hamburgh, from whence he went every year to visit the court of Hanover; whereby he became well known to the king, George the First, who knew how to temper the cares of royalty with the pleasures of private life; and commonly invited six or eight of his friends to pass the evening with him. His majesty seeing Dr. Lockier one day at court, spoke to the Duchess of Ancaster, who was almost always of the party, that she should ask Dr. Lockier to come that evening.—When the company met in the evening, Dr. Lockier was not there; and the king asked the duchess if she had spoken to him, as he desired. Yes,' she said, but the doctor presents his humble duty to your majesty, and hopes your majesty will have the goodness to excuse him at present: he is soliciting some preferment from your majesty's ministers; and fears it might be some obstacle to him, if it should be known that he had the honour of keeping such good company.' The king laughed very heartily, and said, he believed he was in the right. Not many weeks afterwards, Dr. Lockier kissed the king's hand for the Deanery of Peterborough; and as he was raising himself from kneeling, the king inclined forwards, and with great good humour whispered in his ear, Well, now, doctor, you will not be afraid to come in an evening; I would have you come this evening.'

"Lockier was a man of ingenuity and learning, had seen a great

I was about seventeen, when I first came up to town, an odd looking boy, with short rough hair, and that sort of awkwardness which one always brings up at first out of the country with one. However, in spite of my bashfulness

deal of the world, and was a most pleasant and agreeable companion; was one of Dr. Pearce's (Bishop of Rochester) most intimate friends, and at his death bequeathed to him his library, which was a good one. As Dr. Lockier was himself an excellent story-teller, so had he written in a large quarto book every good story that ever he had heard in company; and this book used to lie in his parlour, for his visitors to turn over and amuse themselves, till he should come to them. It contained a fund of entertainment; and it is a sign that it was conceived so, because some one or other thought it worth while to steal it: it never came to Dr. Pearce's hands, and he often regretted the loss of it.”—Bishop Newton's Memoirs of his own Life, p. 48.

Mr. Malone observes that this can hardly be correct, for had the MS. come into Dr. Pearce's hands he must have immediately consigned it to the flames, in conformity to the solemn injunction of Dr. Lockier's will, which adjures his executors to burn all his papers or manuscripts whatsoever as soon as possible after his burial. And therefore Dr. Pearce could not have often regretted the loss of it.

From Mr. Malone's very accurate researches, it appears, that Francis Lockier, son of William Lockier of Norwich, was born 1668; and in 1683 became a member of Trinity College, Cambridge; he was entered as a sub-sizer, (i. e. a candidate for the first sizership, but the term is not now in use.)—His first conversation with Dryden therefore took place in 1685. In January, 1686-7, he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and that of A. M. in 1690. In 1717, when George the First visited Cambridge, he was created Doctor in Divinity; and on the 19th March, 1724-5, was made Dean of Peterborough. He was also rector of Hanworth and Aston. He probably died in 1740, for in August in that year he was succeeded in the Deanery of Peterborough by Dr. John Thomas. The only known printed work of Lockier's is a sermon preached before the House of Commons on the 30th January, 1725-6.-Editor.