be. And now, the only cause why noblemen be not made lord presidents is, because they have not been brought up in learning.

And now I would ask a strange question; who is the most diligentest bishop and prelate in all England that passeth all the rest in doing his office? I can tell, for I know him who it is; I know him well. But now I think I see you listening and hearkening that I should name him. There is one that passeth all the other, and is the most diligent prelate and preacher in all England. And will ye know who it is? I will tell you: it is the devil. He is the most diligent preacher of all other; he is never out of his diocess; he is never from his cure; ye shall never find him unoccupied; he is ever in his parish; he keepeth residence at all times; ye shall never find him out of the way; call for him when you will, he is ever at home; the diligentest preacher in all the realm : he is ever at his plough; no lording nor loitering can hinder him, he is ever applying his business, ye shall never find him idle, I warrant you. And his office is to hinder religion, to maintain superstition, to set up idolatry, to teach all kind of Popery. He is ready as can be wished for to set forth his plough, to devise as many ways as can be to deface and obscure God's glory. Where the devil is resident, and hath his plough going, there away with books and up with candles; away with bibles and up with beads; away with the light of the gospel, and up with the light of candles, yea, at noon-days. Where the devil is resident, that he may prevail, up with all superstition and idolatry; censing, painting of images, candles, palms, ashes, holy water, and new service of men's inventing: as though man could invent a better way to honour God with, than God himself hath appointed. Down with Christ's cross, up with purgatory pickpurse, up with him, the popish purgatory I mean. Away with clothing the naked, the poor and impotent, up with decking of images, and gay garnishing of stocks and stones; up with man's traditions and his laws, down with God's traditions and his most holy word. Down with the old honour due to God, and up with the new god's honour. Let all things be done in Latin: there must be nothing but Latin, not so much as— -Memento, homo, quod cinis es, et in cinerem reverteris : Remember, man, that thou art ashes, and unto ashes shalt thou return:" which be the words that the minister speaketh unto the ignorant people, when he giveth them ashes upon Ash Wednesday, but it must be spoken in Latin. God's word may in no wise be translated into English.

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Oh that our prelates would be as diligent to sow the corn of good doctrine, as Satan is to sow cockle and darnel!

SMOLLETT.

[TOBIAS SMOLLETT, whose novels will continue to be read in spite of their defects as works of art and their habitual coarseness, was the descendant of an old Scottish family, and was born at Cardross, in 1721. He was apprenticed to a surgeon at Glasgow, and served as a surgeon's mate in a ship of the line. Many of his early adventures are supposed to be told in his 'Roderick Random.' He came to London, in 1746, and entered upon a career of authorship, which he pursued till his death in 1771. Inferior to Fielding in knowledge of character, he is equal to him in describing scenes of real life; but the poetical power, without which no work of fiction can be perfect, is wholly wanting in his writings. He had amongst his literary brethren a turmoil of controversy; and his position, as the Editor of the Critical Review,' gave him the opportunity, which some anonymous critics know how to exercise, of gratifying his vanity and love of power, with slight regard to truth and justice. He is, however, represented as a generous man, and exhibited much kindness to the needy writers by whom he was surrounded. The state of letters at that period is admirably described in a paper on Johnson, by Mr. Macaulay, which we have taken the liberty of quoting. Smollett has painted a literary scene at his own house, in his 'Humphrey Clinker,' which is, perhaps, not a greatly exaggerated picture of the class of men who lived by the pen, when "the age of patronage had passed away, and the age of general curiosity and intelligence had not arrived."]

In my last I mentioned my having spent an evening with a society of authors, who seemed to be jealous and afraid of one another. My uncle was not at all surprised to hear me say I was disappointed in their conversation. "A man may be very entertaining and instructive upon paper," said he, "and exceedingly dull in common discourse. I have observed

that those who shine most in private company are but secondary stars in the constellation of genius. A small stock of ideas is more easily managed and sooner displayed, than a great quantity crowded together. There is very seldom anything extraordinary in the appearance and address of a good writer; whereas a dull author generally distinguishes himself by some oddity or extravagance. For this reason I fancy that an assembly of grubs must be very diverting.”

My curiosity being excited by this hint, I consulted my friend Dick Ivy, who undertook to gratify it the very next day, which was Sunday last. He carried me to dine with S-, whom you and I have long known by his writings. He lives in the skirts of the town, and every Sunday his house is open to all unfortunate brothers of the quill, whom he treats with beef, pudding, and potatoes, pork, punch, and Calvert's entire butt-beer. He has fixed upon the first day of the week for the exercise of his hospitality, because some of his guests could not enjoy it on any other, for reasons that I need not explain. I was civilly received, in a plain yet decent habitation, which opened backwards into a very pleasant garden, kept in excellent order; and, indeed, I saw none of the outward signs of authorship, either in the house or the landlord, who is one of those few writers of the age that stand upon their own foundation, without patronage, and above dependence. If there was nothing characteristic in the entertainer, the company made ample amends for his want of singularity.

At two in the afternoon I found myself one of ten messmates seated at table; and I question if the whole kingdom could produce such another assemblage of originals. Among their peculiarities I do not mention those of dress, which may be purely accidental. What struck me were oddities originally produced by affectation, and afterwards confirmed by habit. One of them wore spectacles at dinner, and another his hat flapped, though, as Ivy told me, the first was noted for having a seaman's eye when a bailiff was in the wind, and the other was never known to labour under any weakness or defect of vision, except about five years ago, when he was complimented with a couple of black eyes by a player with whom he had quarrelled in his drink. A third wore a laced stocking, and made use of crutches, because, once in his life, he had been laid up with a broken leg, though no man could leap over a stick with more agility. A fourth had contracted such an antipathy to the country, that he insisted upon sitting with his back towards the window that looked into the garden; and when a dish of cauliflower was set upon the table he snuffed up volatile salts to keep him from fainting: yet this delicate person was the son of a cottager, born under a hedge, and had many years run wild among asses on a common. A fifth affected distraction; when spoken to, he always answered from the purpose; sometimes he suddenly started up, and rapped out a dreadful oath-sometimes he burst

out a laughing-then he folded his arms and sighed and then he hissed like fifty serpents.

At first I really thought he was mad, and, as he sat near me, began to be under some apprehensions for my own safety, when our landlord, perceiving me alarmed, assured me aloud that I had nothing to fear.— "The gentleman," said he, "is trying to act a part for which he is by no means qualified—if he had all the inclination in the world, it is not in his power to be mad. His spirits are too flat to be kindled into frenzy.""""Tis no bad p-p-puff, how-ow-ever," observed a person in a tarnished laced coat; "aff-affected m-madness w-will p-pass for w-wit, w-with nine-nine-teen out of t-twenty."-" And affected stuttering for humour," replied our landlord; "though, God knows, there is no affinity between them." It seems this wag, after having made some abortive attempts in plain speaking, had recourse to this defect, by means of which he frequently extorted the laugh of the company, without the least expense of genius; and that imperfection which he had at first counterfeited, was now become so habitual that he could not lay it aside.

A certain winking genius, who wore yellow gloves at dinner, had, on his first introduction, taken such offence at S- because he looked and talked, and eat and drank, like any other man, that he spoke contemptuously of his understanding ever after, and never would repeat his visit until he had exhibited the following proof of his caprice :-Wat Wyvil, the poet, having made some unsuccessful advances towards an intimacy with S—, at last gave him to understand by a third person, that he had written a poem in his praise, and a satire against his person; that, if he would admit him to his house, the first should be immediately sent to the press; but that if he persisted in declining his friendship, he would publish the satire without delay. S- replied, that he looked upon Wyvil's panegyric as, in effect, a species of infamy, and would resent it accordingly with a good cudgel; but if he published the satire, he might deserve his compassion, and had nothing to fear from his revenge. Wyvil, having considered the alternative, resolved to mortify S- by printing the panegyric, for which he received a sound drubbing. Then he swore the peace against the aggressor, who, in order to avoid a prosecution at law, admitted him to his good graces. It was the singularity in S- -'s conduct on this occasion that reconciled him to the yellowgloved philosopher, who owned he had some genius, and from that period cultivated his acquaintance.

Curious to know upon what subjects the several talents of my fellowguests were employed, I applied to my communicative friend, Dick Ivy, who gave me to understand that most of them were, or had been, under. strappers or journeymen to more creditable authors, for whom they translated, collated, and compiled, in the business of book-making; and

that all of them had, at different times, laboured in the service of our |landlord, though they had now set up for themselves in various departments of literature. Not only their talents, but also their nations and dialogues were so various, that our conversation resembled the confusion of tongues at Babel.

We had the Irish brogue, the Scotch accent, and foreign idiom, twanged off by the most discordant vociferation; for, as they all spoke together, no man had any chance to be heard, unless he could bawl louder than his fellows. It must be owned, however, that there was nothing pedantic in their discourse; they carefully avoided all learned disquisitions, and endeavoured to be facetious; nor did their endeavours always miscarry. Some droll repartees passed, and much laughter was excited; and if any individual lost his temper so far as to transgress the bounds of decorum, he was effectually checked by the master of the feast, who exerted a sort of paternal authority over this irritable tribe.

The most learned philosopher of the whole collection, who had been expelled the university for atheism, had made great progress in a refutation of Lord Bolingbroke's metaphysical works, which is said to be equally ingenious and orthodox; but in the mean time he has been presented to the grand-jury as a public nuisance, for having blasphemed in an alehouse on the Lord's day. The Scotchman gives lectures on the pronunciation of the English language, which he is now publishing by subscription.

The Irishman is a political writer, and goes by the name of My Lord Potatoe. He wrote a pamphlet in vindication of a minister, hoping his zeal would be rewarded with some place or pension; but finding himself neglected in that quarter, he whispered about that the pamphlet was written by the minister himself, and he published an answer to his own production. In this he addressed the author under the title of your lordship with such solemnity, that the public swallowed the deceit, and bought up the whole impression. The wise politicians of the metropolis declared they were both masterly performances, and chuckled over the flimsy reveries of an ignorant garreteer as the profound speculations of a veteran statesman, acquainted with all the secrets of the Cabinet. The imposture was detected in the sequel, and our Hibernian pamphleteer retains no part of his assumed importance but the bare title of my lord, and the upper part of the table at the potatoe ordinary in Shoe Lane.

Opposite to me sat a Piedmontese, who had obliged the public with a humorous satire, entitled The Balance of the English Poets, a performance which evinced the great modesty and taste of the author, and, in particular, his intimacy with the elegancies of the English language. The sage who laboured under the ȧypoloßia, or horror of green fields, had just finished a treatise on practical agriculture, though in fact he had never seen corn growing in his life, and was so ignorant of grain, that