become one of those writers whose good things any man may steal without fear of detection. Yet the good things are plentiful, and any leisurely reader may find it very much worth his while to bestow a few hours upon "David Simple" or "Ophelia," or even the "Familiar Letters." Leisurely, however, he must be; and he will do well to bear in mind the observation made by Dr. Johnson upon a greater than Sarah Fielding. "Why, sir," said the Doctor, "If you were to read Richardson for the story your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself." Miss Fielding is not, indeed, as long-winded as her admired friend Richardson (it is only the immortals who can be that, and survive), but she has the comfortable prolixity of her day, and is by no means in a hurry to get on to the next incident. It is for the sprightly narrative, the happy phrase, the ironical turn of mind, that these volumes are worth reading.-BLACK, CLEMENTINA, 1888, Sarah Fielding, The Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 265, p. 485.

Miss Fielding's slight knowledge of the world disabled her from giving fresh life to the picaresque romance. RALEIGH, WALTER, 1894, The English Novel, p. 181.

Richardson sang of chastity; Fielding sang of patience; "David Simple" is an exaltation of friendship. The episode of Dumont and Stainville is as noble and tender as the medieval Story of Palamon and Arcite. Its place in English fiction is as a little companion piece to "Pamela" and "Amelia.”- CROSS, WILBUR L., 1899, The Development of the English Novel, p. 77.

It ["David Simple"] is an exceedingly dull book, boasting of little or no construction, and intended to exemplify the misfortunes and ill-usage which are sure to befall those who judge others by their own high moral standards. The book had a considerable run, but at the present day it can be regarded only as a literary curiosity. literary curiosity. THOMSON, CLARA LINKLATER, 1900, Samuel Richardson, A Biographical and Critical Study, p. 111.

PERSONAL

Mr. Spence is the completest scholar either in solid or polite learning, for his years, that I ever knew. Besides, he is the sweetest tempered gentleman breathing.-PITT, CHRISTOPHER, 1728, Letter.

Here lie the Remains of Joseph Spence, M. A. Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford,

Prebendary of Durham,

And Rector of Great Horwood, Bucks. In Whom Learning, Genius, and Shining Talents

Tempered with Judgment, And Softened by the most Exquisite Sweetness of Manners,

Were greatly Excelled by his Humanity;
Ever ready to Assist the Distressed
By Constant and Extensive Charity to the
Poor,

And by Unbounded Benevolence to All:
He Died Aug. 20, 1768,

In the 70th Year of His Age. -LOWTH, ROBERT, 1768? Inscription on Tablet, Byfleet Church.

At Captain M'Lean's, I mentioned Pope's friend, Spence. JOHNSON. "He was a weak conceited man. BOSWELL. "A good scholar, Sir?" JOHNSON. "Why, no, Sir." BOSWELL. "He was a pretty scholar." JOHNSON. "You have about reached him." -BOSWELL, JAMES, 1773, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, ed. Hill, Oct. 15.

As I knew Mr. Joseph Spence, I do not think I should have been so much delighted as Dr. Kippis with reading his letters. He was a good-natured, harmless little soul, but more like a silver penny than a genius. It was a neat, fiddle-faddle bit of sterling, that had read good books, and kept good company, but was too trifling for use, and only fit to please a child.WALPOLE, HORACE, 1780, Letter to Rev. William Cole, May 19; Letters, ed. Cunningham, vol. VII, p. 366.

There was a moral loveliness in the character and the life of Spence, which could not fail to engage the affections of such an elegant scholar as Lowth, and those of many other men of genius. Cultivating literature and the arts with the ardour and the playfulness of a lover, it was fortunate that the vicissitudes of life rendered him a traveller.-DISRAELI, ISAAC? 1820, Spence's Anecdotes of Books and Men, Quarterly Review, vol. 23, p. 404.

Spence's benevolence was most liberal and unconfined; distress of every sort, and in every rank of life, never preferred its claim to his attention in vain: and he is described by one who knew him well, to have had a heart and a hand ever open to the poor and the needy.

Spence

was in person below the middle size, his figure spare, his countenance benignant, and rather handsome, but bearing marks of a delicate constitution. As in his childhood he had been kept alive by constant care and the assistance of skilful medical aid, he did not expect that his life would have been protracted beyond fifty years. But he possessed those greatest of all blessings, a cheerful temperament, a constant flow of animal spirits, and a most placable disposition. These, with the happy circumstances in which he was placed, and the active nature of his gardening amusements, prolonged its date to his 70th year: when he was unfortunately drowned in a canal in his garden at Byfleet. Being, when the accident occurred, quite alone, it could only be conjectured in what manner it happened; but it was generally supposed to have been occasioned by a fit, while he was standing near the brink of the water. He was found flat upon his face at the edge, where the water was too shallow to cover his head, or any part of his body. SINGER, SAMUEL WELLER,

1820-58, ed. Spence's Anecdotes, Observations and Characters of Books and Men, pp. xxvii, xxxi.

Phesoj Enceps, in the Rev. James Ridley's novel "Tales of the Genii," is Joseph Spence. The sobriquet is an imperfect anagram.-FREY, ALBERT R., 1888, Sobriquets and Nicknames, p. 271.

His generosity towards all kinds of persons is warmly eulogised, and he continued to be a friend to struggling authors, especially to Dodsley before his prosperous bookselling days. One of his earliest friends, Christopher Pitt, and one of the latest, Shenstone, unite in their testimony to his gentleness and urbanity. Gardening continued to be his favourite recreation; he also made several tours in England. His health failed during the later years of his life, and when, on 20 Aug. 1768, he was found dead in a canal in his garden, there were rumours of suicide, but the cause of death was more probably a fit. He was buried in Byfleet church, where there is a monument with an inscription by Bishop Lowth.-GARNETT, RICHARD, 1898, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. LIII, p. 337.

GENERAL

I am indebted to this learned and amia

ble man, on whose friendship I set the greatest value, for most of the anecdotes relating to Pope, mentioned in this work, which he gave me when I was making him a visit at Byfleet, in 1754.-WARTON, JOSEPH, 1756, Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope.

A man whose learning was not very great, and whose mind was not very powerful.-JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1779-81, Pope, Lives of the English Poets.

The Anecdotes of Pope, compared with Boswell's Memoirs of Johnson, want life and spirit, and connexion. They furnish curious particulars, but minute and disjointed:-They want picturesque grouping and dramatic effect. We have the opinions and sayings of eminent men: but they do not grow out of the occasion: we do not know at whose house such a thing happened, nor the effect it had on those who were present. The conversations seldom extend beyond an observation and a reply. We have good things served up in sandwiches; but we do not sit down, as in Boswell, to "an ordinary of fine discourse."-There is no eating and drinking going on. . . .

There is a gap between each conclusion, and at the end of every paragraph we have a new labour to begin. They are not scenes, but soliloquies, with which we are presented: And in reading through the book, we do not seem travelling along a road, but crossing a series of stepping stones consequently, we do not get on fast with it. It is made up of shreds and patches, and not cut out of the entire piece; something like the little caps into which the tailor in Don Quixote cut his cloth, and held them up at his fingers' ends. In a word, the living scene does not pass before us; we have notes and slips of paper handed out by one of the company, but we are not ourselves admitted to their presence, nor made witnesses of the fray.-HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1820, Spence's Anecdotes, Edinburgh Review, vol. 33, p. 305.

Spence had much of Boswell's curiosity and hero-worship, but there is neither insight into character in his pages, nor any trace of the dramatic skill which makes Boswell's narrative so delightful. At the same time there is every indication that he strove to give the sayings of the poet, as far as possible, in his own words.— DENNIS, JOHN, 1894, The Age of Pope, p. 205.

Although inadequate from the first, ["Polymetis"] and long ago superseded, it remains an agreeable book, owing to the urbanity of its old-fashioned scholarship, the justice of some incidental observations, and its affluent stores of quotations; and, as an intellectual if heterogeneous banquet, may be compared with the "Deipnosophists" of Athenæus.-GARNETT, RICHARD, 1898, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. LIII, p. 337.

PERSONAL

Speak, look, and move with dignity and ease, Like mitred Secker, you'll be sure to please. - PITT, CHRISTOPHER, 1748? Art of Preaching.

When Secker preaches the church is crowded. HERVEY, JAMES, 1753-55,

Theron and Aspasio.

As

As a clergyman Secker had greatly won the attachment of his people. Whiston spoke of him "as an indefatigable pastor," and Horace Walpole allows that he was "incredibly popular" in his parish. a bishop he commanded for the most part respect and esteem rather than any warm feeling. That he was generally thought very highly of is indeed very evident. Richard Newton, mentioning his recent death, speaks of him as "that great and excellent prelate." "Few bishops equal to him," said Johnson of Connecticut. But with many he was not at all popular. He was criticised as being rather haughty

and imperious, and of showing too much of an air of prelatical dignity. That he was especially distant towards his old Nonconformist friends seems to be disproved by the undoubted cordiality of his relations towards Doddridge, Leland, Lardner, and Chandler. He was somewhat stiff, formal, and precise, and often seemed reserved and cold. Porteus acknowledges this, but says that it generally rose from the bodily pain, depression, and fatigue to which he was subject, and that faults were often laid to his charge which did not really belong to his character. ABBEY, CHARLES J., 1887, The English Church and Its Bishops, 1700-1800, vol. II, p. 43.

GENERAL

E'en in a bishop I can spy desert; Secker is decent, Rundel has a heart. -POPE, ALEXANDER, 1738, Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue, ii, v. 70-71.

You will find nowhere, perhaps, a nobler

the simplicity of his deportment, his uniform and unaffected piety, his attachment to his Divine master, and good-will of mankind, I cannot help saying, "This was the disciple whom Jesus loved.". RADCLIFF, EBENEZER, 1788, The Life of Dr. Nathaniel Lardner.

His want of popularity as a preacher was partly due to indistinct enunciation; he slurred his words and dropped his voice, defects to which his deafness rendered him insensible. From about 1753 "the only method of conversing with him was by writing," and he amused himself when alone with looking over the sheets covered with miscellaneous jotlings of his visitors. GORDON, ALEXANDER, 1892, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XXXII, p. 148.

THE CREDIBILITY OF THE
GOSPEL HISTORY

1727-57

On this occasion it is proper to mention Dr. Lardner's excellent work of the "Credibility of the Gospel-History;" in the second part of which-consisting of several volumes-he hath made a full and accurate collection of the passages which are to be found in the writers of the first ages of the Christian Church relating to the four Gospels, and other sacred books of the New Testament. This he hath executed with so much fidelity and diligence, and with such exactness of judgment, that the English reader who hath not opportunity to consult the originals will be able to judge for himself, upon considering the passages of the original authors, which are very faithfully translated. This affordeth so clear and continued a proof of their having been generally received in the earliest ages of the Christian Church, that one would hope it should put an end to this part of the controversy.-LELAND, JOHN, 1754-56, A View of the Principal Deistical Writers, vol. 1, Letter iv.

It is, indeed, an invaluable performance, and has rendered the most essential service to the cause of Christianity. Whoever peruses this work, will find it replete with admirable instruction, sound learning, and just and candid criticism.-KIPPIS, ANDREW, 1788, Life of Dr. Nathaniel Lardner.

The services which Dr. Lardner rendered to the cause of Christianity are well

known and very considerable. His extensive and accurate investigations into the credibility of the gospel history have left scarcely any thing more to be done or desired. Subsequent writers on the evidences of Christianity have generally availed themselves of Lardner's collection of testimonies, deeming it useless to verify his quotations or add to their number. His sentiments on the doctrinal part of Christianity did not injure his reasoning as an historian, but they probably influenced his selection of quotations from the early Christian writers. "The History of the Writers of the New Testament" Bishop Watson republished in the second volume of his Tracts. The first part of the "Credibility" was translated into Latin by the celebrated Wolfius. It was also translated into Dutch and German. Walch eulogizes it as insigne opus.ORME, WILLIAM, 1824, Bibliotheca Biblica.

A very candid and learned but Arian writer. He impartially goes through the principal fathers, showing their testimonies to the Scriptures.-BICKERSTETH, EDWARD, 1844, The Christian Student.

This vast quarry of learning supplied Paley with the material for his more neat and substantial "Evidences."-MINTO, WILLIAM, 1872-80, Manual of English Prose Literature, p. 428.

When Christianity was driven by it to appeal to the bar of learning, it chanced that the one eminent scholar who did most to refute the assertions of the Deists, and to satisfy the English mind on the ground of history, was the eminent Unitarian scholar, Lardner, whose great work in defence of historical Christianity is a standard to this day. I do not say how far his argument satisfies the scientific thinkers and historical students of our time, who have shifted their ground a good deal from that of a hundred years ago. I only say that, when modern Unitarianism came to take shape, and began to be known under its own name, it was as a defence of Christianity on the grounds of reason against the attacks of reason. ALLEN, JOSEPH HENRY, 1882, Our Liberal Movement in Theology, p. 11.

GENERAL

Have you read over Dr. Lardner on the Logos? It is, I think, scarcely possible to read it, and not be convinced.