equally conspicuous. In his life he was innocent and eminently useful, and he died full of years and full of hope, trusting in the mercies and promises of that religion which it had been the primary object of his life to inculcate and obey.

Of the periodical compositions which have entitled him to notice in this work, the first is a humorous letter in N° 121 of the Guardian, signed Ned Mum, and descriptive of a very novel species of society, under the appellation of the Silent Club.

To the last volume of the Spectator he contributed N° 572, and N° 633; the former a piece of keen ridicule on quacks and quackery, an evil which, though great at the period when this paper was composed, has since attained a magnitude so enormous, as loudly to demand the vigorous interference of the legislature. About thirty years ago the late Dr. Buchan exclaimed, "As matters stand at present, it is easier to cheat a man out of his life, than of a shilling, and almost impossible either to detect or punish the offender. Notwithstanding this, people still shut their eyes, and take every thing upon trust, that is administered by any pretender to medicine, without daring to ask him areason for any part of his conduct. Implicit faith, every where else the object of ridicule, is still sacred here."

To the disgrace of the nineteenth century, the observations of this popular writer are more applicable than ever. National credulity, with regard to medical imposture, seems to be on the increase; and swarms of adventurers, however ignorant and illiterate, are allowed to prey upon the public, and to accumulate immense fortunes by the ruin of the health and happiness of their fellow creatures. Surely it is the part of every wise government, by whom population must be identified with wealth, to arrest the progress of such wide-wasting mischief, and, scorning to profit by the sale of patent poisons, to enforce the severest punishments for such wanton propagation of disease and death.

The subject of N° 633, is on the advantages to be derived to elocution from the sublime and interesting doctrines of christianity. The Bishop compares St. Paul with Demosthenes and Cicero, and accounts for the superiority in eloquence which he ascribes to the apostle, by imputing it to the impressive and stupendous nature of the information that he had to convey, and which would naturally give to his manner a more than common portion of warmth, animation, and zeal. He appeals also with exultation to the fragment of Longinus found prefixed to one of the manuscripts of the New Testament in the Vatican li

brary, and in which the great critic, after enumerating the most eminent orators of Greece, closes the list by saying, “add to these Paul of Tarsus, the patron of an opinion not fully proved." Fabricius has, however, in his Bibliotheca Græca *, supposed this fragment to be a forgery of the christians; but, as he brings forward no authority for the conjecture, we may be still allowed to consider this passage as a further proof of the taste and candour of Longinus.

* Lib. iv. c. 31.

PART IV.

BIOGRAPHICAL

ESSAY III.

AND CRITICAL SKETCHES OF THE

OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENTS OF STEELE AND
ADDISON.

THE ten characters, whose biography we have

now given, were, after Steele and Addison, the chief contributors to the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian; they have therefore, with propriety, occupied more of our attention than can, consistently with the limits of our original design, be paid to the next two series of periodical writers, of which the first will consist of those only who have composed an entire paper; the second of those who have written merely letters, or portions of a number.

11. JOHN GAY was born A. D. 1688, in the vicinity of Barnstaple, in Devonshire. Having received a good grammatical education under the care of Mr. Luck, the master of the free-school

at Barnstaple, he was, owing to the reduced circumstances of his family, destined for trade, and bound an apprentice to a silk-mercer in London.

With this occupation, however, he was greatly dissatisfied; for, having imbibed a taste for poetry and classical literature, he was early disgusted with the servility and frivolous nature of his employment, and, shortly afterwards, induced his master, who saw his aversion to the business unconquerable, to resign his indentures for a small consideration.

On his release he immediately applied himself to the cultivation of poetry, and, in 1711, published his first attempt in verse, entitled Rural Sports, which he inscribed to Mr. Pope, then nearly of his own age; and an intimacy took place between the poets in consequence of this literary compliment, that ripened into a friendship equally durable and sincere. The poem, though written on a theme so trite, is evidently the production of one who describes what he has himself actually seen; and it can, therefore, boast of several descriptions which are novel and interesting.

In 1712, our author obtained a situation which left him at full liberty to indulge his taste for elegant literature. He was appointed secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth, and the public was