knowledge from his lectures, and primitive Christianity from his sermons. He took apartments in Newport-market, and opened his "Oratory." He declared, "He would teach more in one year than schools and universities did in five; and write and study twelve hours a day, and yet appear as untouched by the yoke, as if he never bore it." In his "Idea of what is intended to be taught in the Week-days' Universal Academy," we may admire the fertility, and sometimes the grandeur of his views. His lectures and orations* are of a very different nature from what they are imagined to be; literary topics are treated with perspicuity and with erudition, and there is something original in the manner. They were, no doubt, larded and stuffed with many high-seasoned jokes, which Henley did not send to the printer. Every lecture is dedicated to some branch of the Royal Family. Among them one is on “University Learning," an attack.-"On the English History and Historians," extremely curious."On the Languages, Ancient and Modern," full of erudition." On the English Tongue," a valuable criticism at that moment when our style was receiving a new polish from Addison and Prior. Henley, acknowledging that these writers had raised correctness of expression to its utmost, height, adds, though, "if I mistake not, something to the detriment of that force and freedom that ought, with the most concealed art, to be a perfect copy of nature, in all compositions." This is among the first notices of that artificial style which has vitiated our native idiom, substituting for its purity an affected delicacy, and for its vigour profuse ornament. Henley observes that, "to be perspicuous, pure, elegant, copious, and harmonious, are the chief good qualities of writing the English tongue; they are attained by study and practice, and lost by the contrary but imitation is to be avoided; they cannot be made our own but by keeping the force of our understandings superior to our models; by rendering our thoughts the original, and our words the copy."-" On Wit and Imagination," abounding with excellent criticism. "On grave conundrums and serious buffoons, in defence of burlesque discourses, from the most weighty authorities." "A Dissertation upon Nonsense." At the close he has a fling at his friend Pope; it was after the publication of the Dunciad. "Of Nonsense there are celebrated professors; Mr. Pope grows witty like Bays in the 'Rehearsal,' by selling bargains (his subscriptions for Homer), praising himself, laughing at his joke, and making his own works the test of any man's criticism; but he seems to be in some jeopardy; for the ghost of Homer has lately spoke to him in Greek, and Shakespeare resolves to bring him, as he has brought Shakespeare, to a tragical conclusion. Mr. Pope suggests the last choice of a subject for writing a book, by making the Nonsense of others his argument; while his own puts it out of any writer's power to confute him." In another fling at Pope, he gives the reason why Mr. Pope adds the dirty dialect to that of the water, and is in love with the Nymphs of Fleet-ditch; and in a lecture on the spleen, he announced "an anatomical discovery, that Mr. Pope's spleen is bigger than his head!" Henley was a charlatan and a knave; but in all his charlatanerie and his knavery he indulged the reveries of genius; many of which have been realised since; and, if we continue to laugh at Henley, it will indeed be cruel, for we shall be laughing at ourselves! Among the objects which Henley discriminates in his general design, were, to supply the want of a university, or universal school, in this capital, for persons of all ranks, professions, and capacities ;-to encourage a literary correspondence with great men and learned bodies; the communication of all discoveries and experiments in science and the arts; to form an amicable society for the encouragement of learning, "in order to cultivate, adorn, and exalt the genius of Britain;" to lay a foundation for an English Academy; to give a standard to our language, and a digest to our history; to revive the ancient schools of philosophy and elocution, which | last has been reckoned by Pancirollus among the artes perditæ. All these were "to bring all the parts of knowledge into the narrowest compass, placing them in the clearest light, and fixing them to the utmost certainty." The religion of the Oratory was to be that of the primitive Church in the first ages of the four first general councils, approved by parliament in the first year of the reign of Elizabeth. The Church of England is really with us; we appeal to her own principles, and we shall not deviate from her, unless she deviates from herself." Yet his "Primitive Christianity" had all the sumptuous pomp of popery; his creeds and doxologies are printed in the red letter, and his liturgies in the black; his pulpit blazed in gold and velvet (Pope's "gilt tub"); while his "Primitive Eucharist" was to be distributed with all the ancient forms of celebrating the sacrifice of the altar, which he says, "are so noble, so just, sublime, and perfectly harmonious, that the change has been made to an unspeakable disadvantage." It was restoring the decorations and the mummery of the mass! He assumed even a higher tone, and dispersed medals, like those of Louis XIV., with the device of a sun near the meridian, and a motto, Ad summa, with an inscription expressive of the genius of this new adventurer, Inveniam viam aut faciam! There was a snake in the grass; it is obvious that Henley, in improving literature and philosophy, had a deeper design-to set up a new sect! He called himself "a Rationalist," and on his death-bed repeatedly cried out, "Let my notorious enemies know I die a Rational*." His address to the town† excited public curiosity Thus he anticipated the term, since become sc notorious among German theologians. + It is preserved in "The Historical Register," vol. xL for 1726. It is curious and well written. to the utmost; and the floating crowds were ribaldry to attract curiosity, while his own good repulsed by their own violence from this new sense would frequently chastise those who could paradise, where "The Tree of Knowledge" was not resist it; his auditors came in folly, but they said to be planted. At the succeeding meeting departed in good-humour. These advertise"the Restorer of Ancient Eloquence" informed ments were usually preceded by a sort of motto, persons in chairs that they must come sooner. generally a sarcastic allusion to some public transHe first commenced by subscriptions to be raised action of the preceding week §. Henley pretended from "Persons eminent in Arts and Literature," to great impartiality; and when two preachers who, it seems, were lured by the seductive pro- had animadverted on him, he issued an advertisemise, that, "if they had been virtuous or penitents, ment, announcing "A Lecture that will be a they should be commemorated;" an oblique hint challenge to the Rev. Mr. Batty, and the Rev. at a panegyrical puff. In the decline of his Mr. Albert. Letters are sent to them on this popularity he permitted his doorkeeper, whom head, and a free standing place is there to be had he dignifies with the title of Ostiary, to take a gratis." Once Henley offered to admit of a disshilling! But he seems to have been popular for putation, and that he would impartially determine many years; even when his auditors were but the merits of the contest. It happened that Henfew, they were of the better order*; and in notes ley this time was overmatched; for two Oxonians, respecting him which I have seen, by a contem-supported by a strong party to awe his "marrowporary, he is called "the reverend and learned." boners," as the butchers were called, said to be His favourite character was that of a Restorer of in the Orator's pay, entered the list: the one to Eloquence; and he was not destitute of the quali- defend the ignorance, the other the impudence, of fications of a fine orator, a good voice, graceful the Restorer of Eloquence himself. As there was gesture, and forcible elocution. Warburton justly a door behind the rostrum, which led to his house, remarked, "Sometimes he broke jests, and some- the Orator silently dropped out, postponing the times that bread which he called the Primitive award to some happier day. Eucharist." He would degenerate into buffoonery on solemn occasions. His address to the Deity was at first awful, and seemingly devout; but, once expatiating on the several sects who would certainly be damned, he prayed that the Dutch might be undamm'd! He undertook to show the ancient use of the petticoat, by quoting the Scriptures where the mother of Samuel is said to have made him "a little coat," ergo, a PETTIcoat + ! His advertisements were mysterious Gent. Mag. vol. lvii. p. 876. + His "Defence of the Oratory" is a curious perform ance. He pretends to derive his own from great authority. "St. Paul is related, Acts 28, to have dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and to have received all that came in unto him, teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him. This was at Rome, and doubtless was his practice in his other travels, there being the same reason in the thing to produce elsewhere the like circumstances." He proceeds to show "the calumnies and reproaches, and the novelty and impiety, with which Christianity, at its first setting out, was charged, as a mean, abject institution, not only useless and unserviceable, but pernicious to the public and its professors, as the refuse of the world." Of the false accusations raised against Jesus-all this he applies to himself and his oratory-and he concludes, that " 'Bringing men to think rightly will always be reckoned a depraving of their minds by those who are desirous to keep them in a mistake, and who measure all truth by the standard of their own narrow opinions, views, and passions. The principles of this institution are those of right reason: the first ages of Christianity; true facts, clear criticism, and polite literature-if these corrupt the mind, to find a place where the mind will not be This age of lecturers may find their model in Henley's "Universal Academy," and if any should corrupted, will be impracticable." Thus speciously could "the Orator" reason, raising himself to the height of apostolical purity. And, when he was accused that he did all for lucre, he retorted, that "some do nothing for it ;" and that he preached more charity sermons than any clergyman in the kingdom." He once advertised an oration on marriage, which drew together an overflowing assembly of females at which, solemnly shaking his head, he told the ladies, that "he was afraid, that oftentimes, as well as now, they came to church in hopes to get husbands, rather than be instructed by the preacher;" to which he added a piece "Away with the wicked before the king, CHALMERS'S BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. aspire to bring themselves down to his genius, I furnish them with hints of anomalous topics. In the second number of "The Oratory Transactions," is a diary from July 1726 to August 1728. It forms, perhaps, an unparalleled chronicle of the vagaries of the human mind. These archives of cunning, of folly, and of literature, are divided into two diaries; the one "The Theological or Lord's days' subjects of the Oratory;" the other, "The Academical or Week-days' subjects." I can only note a few. It is easy to pick out ludicrous specimens ; for he had a quaint humour peculiar to himself; but among these numerous topics are many curious for their knowledge and ingenuity. common places of wit, memoranda," &c. They were sold for much less than one hundred pounds; I have looked over many; they are written with great care. Every leaf has an opposite blank page, probably left for additions or corrections, so that if his nonsense were spontaneous, his sense was the fruit of study and correction. Such was "Orator Henley!" A scholar of great acquirements, and of no mean genius; hardy and inventive, eloquent and witty; he might have been an ornament to literature, which he made ridiculous; and the pride of the pulpit, which he so egregiously disgraced; but, having blunted and worn out that interior feeling, which is the instinct of the good man, and the wisdom "The last Wills and Testaments of the Patri- of the wise, there was no balance in his passions, archs." "An Argument to the Jews, with a proof that they ought to be Christians, for the same reason which they ought to be Jews." and the decorum of life was sacrificed to its selfishness. He condescended to live on the follies of the people, and his sordid nature had changed him till he crept, "licking the dust with the "St. Paul's Cloak, Books, and Parchments, serpent." left at Troas." "The tears of Magdalen, and the joy of Angels." "New Converts in Religion." After pointing out the names of "Courayer and others, the Dof W-n, the Protestantism of the P-, the conversion of the Rev. Mr. B-e, and Mr. Har-y," he closes with "Origen's opinion of Satan's conversion; with the choice and balance of Religion in all countries." THE MALADIES OF AUTHORS. THE practice of every art subjects the artist to some particular inconvenience, usually inflicting some malady on that member which has been over-wrought by excess: nature abused, pursues man into his most secret corners, and avenges herself. In the athletic exercises of the ancient Gymnasium, the pugilists were observed to become "Feb. 11. This week, all Mr. Henley's writ-lean from their hips downwards, while the superior ings were seized, to be examined by the State. parts of their bodies, which they over-exercised, Vide Magnam Chartam, and Eng. Lib." There is one remarkable entry : were prodigiously swollen; on the contrary, the It is evident by what follows that the personal-racers were meagre upwards, while their feet ities he made use of, were one means of attracting auditors. "On the action of Cicero, and the beauty of Eloquence, and on living characters; of action in the Senate, at the Bar, and in the Pulpit-of the Theatrical in all men. The manner of my Lord -, Sir -> Dr., the B. of, being a proof how all life is playing something, but with different action." acquired an unnatural dimension. The secret source of life seems to be carried forwards to those parts which are making the most continued efforts. In all sedentary labours, some particular malady is contracted by every worker, derived from particular postures of the body and peculiar habits. Thus the weaver, the tailor, the painter, and the glass-blower, have all their respective maladies. The diamond-cutter, with a furnace before him, In a Lecture on the History of Bookcraft, an may be said almost to live in one; the slightest account was given air must be shut out of the apartment, lest it scatter away the precious dust-a breath would ruin him! "Of the plenty of books, and dearth of sense; the advantages of the Oratory to the booksellers, in advertising for them; and to their customers, in making books useless; with all the learning, reason, and wit, more than are proper for one advertisement." The analogy is obvious*; and the author must participate in the common fate of all sedentary occupations. But his maladies, from the very nature of the delicate organ of thinking, intensely exercised, are more terrible than those of any * Hawkesworth, in the second paper of the Adventurer, Amid these eccentricities it is remarkable, that "the Zany" never forsook his studies; and the amazing multiplicity of the MSS. he left behind has composed, from his own feelings, an elegant descriphim, confirm this extraordinary fact. "These," he says, are six thousand more or less, that I value at one guinea apiece; with 150 volumes of tion of intellectual and corporeal labour, and the sufferings of an author, with the uncertainty of his labour and his reward. Among the correspondents of the poets Hughes and Thomson, there is a pathetic letter from a student. Alexander Bayne, to prepare his lectures, studied fourteen hours a day for eight months successively, and wrote 1600 sheets. Such intense other profession; they are more complicated, more hidden in their causes, and the mysterious union and secret influence of the faculties of the soul over those of the body, are visible, yet still incomprehensible; they frequently produce a perturbation in the faculties, a state of acute irrita- | application, which, however, not greatly exceeds bility, and many sorrows and infirmities, which are not likely to create much sympathy from those around the author, who, at a glance, could have discovered where the pugilist or the racer became meagre or monstrous: the intellectual malady eludes even the tenderness of friendship. The more obvious maladies engendered by the life of a student arise from over-study. These have furnished a curious volume to Tissot, in his treatise "On the Health of Men of Letters;" a book, however, which chills and terrifies more than it does good. that of many authors, brought on the bodily complaints he has minutely described, with "all the dispiriting symptoms of a nervous illness, commonly called vapours, or lowness of spirits." Bayne, who was of an athletic temperament, imagined he had not paid attention to his diet, to the lowness of his desk, and his habit of sitting with a particular compression of the body ;--in future, all these were to be avoided. He prolonged his life for five years; and, perhaps, was still flattering his hopes with sharing, one day, in the literary celebrity of his friends, when, to use his words, again, and has kept me in a very bad state of inactivity and disrelish of all my ordinary amusements: those amusements were his serious studies. There is a fascination in literary labour: the student feeds on magical drugs; to withdraw him from them requires nothing less than that greater magic, which could break his own spells. A few months after this letter was written, Bayne died on the way to Bath, a martyr to his studies. The unnatural fixed postures, the perpetual acti-"the same illness made a fierce attack upon me vity of the mind, and the inaction of the body; the brain exhausted with assiduous toil deranging the nerves, vitiating the digestive powers, disordering its own machinery, and breaking the calm of sleep by that previous state of excitement which study throws us into, are some of the calamities of a studious life for like the ocean, when its swell is subsiding, the waves of the mind too still heave and beat; hence all the small feverish symptoms, and the whole train of hypochondriac affections, as well as some acute ones". * Dr. Fuller's "Medicina Gymnastica, or, a treatise concerning the power of Exercise, with respect to the Animal Economy, fifth edition, 1718," is useful to remind the student of what he is apt to forget; for the object of this volume is to substitute exercise for medicine. He wrote the book before he became a physician. He considers horse-riding as the best and noblest of all exercises, it being "a mixt exercise, partly active and partly passive, while other sorts, such as walking, running, stooping, or the like, require some labour and more strength for their performance." Cheyne, in his well-known treatise of "The English Malady," published about twenty years after Fuller's work, acknowledges that riding on horse back is the best of all exercises, for which he details his reasons. "Walking," he says, though it will answer the same end, yet is it more laborious and tiresome;" but amusement ought always to be combined with the exercise of a student; the mind will receive no refreshment by a solitary walk or ride, unless it be agreeably withdrawn from all thoughtfulness and anxiety; if it continue studying in its recreations, it is the sure means of obtaining neither of its objects a friend, not an author, will at such a moment be the better companion. The last chapter in Fuller's work contains much curious reading on the ancient physicians, and their gymnastic courses, which Asclepiades, the pleasantest of all the ancient physicians, greatly studied; he was most fortunate in the invention of exercises to supply the place of much physic, and (says Fuller) no man in any age ever had the happiness to obtain so general an applause; The excessive labour on a voiuminous work, which occupies a long life, leaves the student with a broken constitution, and his sight decayed or lost. The most admirable observer of mankind, and the truest painter of the human heart, declares, "The corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthy tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth on many things." Of this class was old Randle Cotgrave, the curious collector of the most copious dictionary of old French and old English words and phrases. The work is the only treasury of our genuine idiom. Even this labour of the lexicographer, so copious and so elaborate, must have been projected with rapture, and pursued with pleasure, till, in the "the mind was musing on many things." progress, Fuller judiciously does not recommend the gymnastic courses, because horse-riding, for persons of delicate constitutions, is preferable; he discovers too the reason why the ancients did not introduce this mode of exercise-it arose from the simple circumstance of their not knowing the use of stirrups, which was a later invention. Riding with the ancients was, therefore, only an exercise for the healthy and the robust; a horse without stirrups waɛ formidable animal for a valetudinarian. Then came the melancholy doubt, that drops mildew from its enveloping wings over the voluminous labour of a laborious author, whether he be wisely consuming his days, and not perpetually neglecting some higher duties, or some happier amusements. Still the enchanted delver sighs, and strikes on, in the glimmering mine of hope. If he live to complete the great labour, it is, perhaps, reserved for the applause of the next age; for, as our great lexicographer exclaimed, "In this gloom of solitude I have protracted my work, till those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds;" but, if it be applauded in his own, that praise has come too late for him whose literary labour has stolen away his sight. Cotgrave had grown blind over his dictionary, and was doubtful whether this work of his laborious days and nightly vigils was not a superfluous labour, and nothing, after all, but a "poor bundle of words." The reader may listen to the gray-headed martyr, addressing his patron, Lord Burghley: volumes of MSS., preserved in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth. These great labours were pursued with the ardour that only could have pro duced them; the author had not exceeded his thirtieth year, when he sank under his continued studies, and perished a martyr to literature. Our literary history abounds with instances of the sad effects of an over-indulgence in study: that agreeable writer, Howel, had nearly lost his life by an excess of this nature, studying through long nights in the depth of winter. This severe study occasioned an imposthume in his head; he was eighteen days without sleep; and the illness was attended with many other afflicting symptoms. The eager diligence of Blackmore, protracting his studies through the night, broke his health, and obliged him to fly to a country retreat. Harris, the historian, died of a consumption by midnight studies, as his friend Hollis mentions. I shall add a recent instance, which I myself witnessed: it is that of John Macdiarmid. He was one of those Scotch students whom the golden fame of Hume and Robertson attracted to the metropolis. He "I present to your lordship an account of the mounted the first steps of literary adventure with expense of many hours, which, in your service, credit; and passed through the probation of and to mine own benefit, might have been other-editor and reviewer, till he strove for more heroic wise employed. My desires have aimed at more adventures. He published some volumes, whose substantial marks; but mine eyes failed them, and subjects display the aspirings of his genius: "An forced me to spend out their vigour in this bundle Inquiry into the Nature of Civil and Military of words, which may be unworthy of your lord- Subordination ;" another into "the System of ship's great patience, and, perhaps, ill-suited to Military Defence." It was during these labours the expectation of others." I beheld this inquirer, of a tender frame, emaciA great number of young authors have died of ated, and study-worn, with hollow eyes, where over study. An intellectual enthusiasm, accom- the mind dimly shone like a lamp in a tomb. | panied by constitutional delicacy, has swept away With keen ardour he opened a new plan of biohalf the rising genius of the age. Curious calcu- graphical politics. When, by one who wished the lators have affected to discover the average number author was in better condition, the dangers of of infants who die under the age of five years: had excess in study were brought to his recollection, they investigated those of the children of genius he smiled, and, with something of a mysterious who perish before their thirtieth year, we should air, talked of unalterable confidence in the powers not be less amazed at this waste of man. There of his mind; of the indefinite improvement in our are few scenes more afflicting, nor which more facuities; and, with this enfeebled frame, condeeply engage our sympathy, than that of a youth, sidered himself capable of continuous labour. glowing with the devotion of study, and resolute His whole life, indeed, was one melancholy to distinguish his name among his country- trial. Often the day cheerfully passed without men, while death is stealing on him, touching with premature age, before he strikes the last blow. The author perishes on the very pages which give a charm to his existence. The fine taste and tender melancholy of Headley, the fervid genius of Henry Kirke White, will not easily pass away; but how many youths as noble-minded have not had the fortune of Kirke White to be commemorated by genius, and have perished without their fame! Henry Wharton is a name well known to the student of English literature; he published historical criticisms of high value; and he left, as some of the fruits of his studies, sixteen its meal, but never without its page. The new system of political biography was advancing, when our young author felt a paralytic stroke. He afterwards resumed his pen; and a second one proved fatal. He lived just to pass through the press his "Lives of British Statesmen," a splendid quarto, whose publication he owed to the generous temper of a friend, who, when the author could not readily procure a publisher, would not see the dying author's last hope disappointed. Some research and reflection are combined in this literary and civil history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but it was written with the blood |