for Mr.Gray's poems, which were afterwards engraved & published. To his pen the publick are indebted for the tragedy of Philodamus, which Mr. Gray esteemed so highly, that he wrote a commentary on it, and pronounced it to be one of the first poetical compositions in the English language. Good dramatick poems,however, are not always good plays. It was introduced on the stage, above fifteen years after its publication, in 1782, at the Theatre Royal in Covent-Garden, but it did not succeed.

Dr. Bentley's elder daughter, Elizabeth, was married about the year 1727, to Sir Humphry Ridge, the eldest son of Mr. Ridge, who possessed a considerable fortune, and was brewer to the navy at Portsmouth. A grandson of the learned Dr. Cumberland, Bishop of Peterborough, married his younger daughter, Joanna, a few years after, and died not long ago Bishop of Kilmore, in Ireland. Their son, Mr. Cumberland, who is so well known in the dramatick world, and who defended the character of Dr. Bentley against the attacks of the Bishop of London, may exclaim

Descendam magnorum haud unquam in

dignus avorum.

From the grandson of Dr. Bentley, and the great grandson of the Bishop of Peterborough, literary abilities might be naturally expect

ed.

But these were not the only offspring which Dr. Bentley left behind him.

“ Est tibi quæ natos Bibliotheca parit"

Besides his ample collections for the Greek Testaments and JeTom's Latin version, he left an Homer, with marginal notes and mendations, preparatory to an edi

tion which he proposed to publish and a corrected copy of the Bishop of Peterborough's celebrated book, De Legibus Naturæ. Both of these † are intended to be laid be fore the publick. Almost all his classical authors were enriched with his manuscript notes, and are still in the possession of his executor, Dr. Richard Bentley, or Mr. Cumberland. From one of these, in the year 1744, Squire procured Dr. Bentley's Animadversiones on Plutarch's treatise De Iside et Osiride, and by the consent of the executors, incorporated them into his edition of that piece, with those of Markland and other commentators. Many of these corrections bear the genuine mark of critical sagacity, which Bentley has stamped in a greater or less degree on all his performances.

In 1746, among the prefaces and dedications, which the learned Alberti prefixed to his splendid edition of Hesychius, appeared an inedited letter written by Dr. Bentley, in the year 1714, to John Christian Biel, at Brunswick, De Glosis sacris in Hesychio insititiis. This is a very curious and valuable letter, as it shews the great advantages which Bentley derived from this lexicographer, in the prosecution of his studies, and at what an early period that marked attention, and extraordinary acuteness displayed themselves, which shone forth so conspicuously afterwards in all our critick's philological disquisitions.

In 1760 Mr. Horace Walpole, whose singular abilities and strenuous exertions in the cause of literature are superiour to our praise, printed, at Strawberry hill, a splendid edition of Lucan, in quarto, with the notes and corrections of

Dr. Bentley. The superintendance of the press was committed to Mr. Cumberland, who performed his part of the work with equal learning and fidelity.

The publick had been long in possession of some of Bentley's annotations on Lucan, which were inserted in his remarks on Collins' Freethinking. This work, however, added a fresh laurel to his wreath, as he has restored many passages by his judicious and elegant corrections, which were absolutely unintelligible, and elucidated many difficulties by his acuteness, which had baffled the sagacity of former annotators.

Such are the particulars which we have been able to collect concerning the life and writings of Dr. Richard Bentley. In the mode of arrangement, a plan has been adopted very different from that which the ingenious authors of the Biographia Britannica have pursued. The transactions of his life, and the account of his writings, have been blended in the same narrative. For the publications of an author, like the marches and countermarches of a general,

form the chief part of his history, and ought surely never to be sepapated from the relation of private or other occurrences. To the accounts of this great man which have already been published we have added many particulars, and have ventured to intersperse our narrative with critical remarks on his different works, in order to render it more worthy the attention of our learned readers. But to close these memoirs. We shall conclude with the words with which the learned Englishman, Toup, finishes his Epistola Critica to Bishop Warburton:

Atque hic finem facio vite prolixiori in qua si quid, currente rota, inconsulte aut intemperanter nimis,qui mos nostrorum hominum est, in Bentleium nostrum dixi id omne pro indicto velim: BENTLEIUM inquam, Britanniæ nostræ decus immortale :quem nemo vituperare ausit, nisi fungus; nemo non laudet, nisi

Momus.

"His saltem adcumulem donis, ac fungar inani "Munere."

HOR.

VOLTAIRE.

Or this most distinguished name in French literature we may say, many have written better, but none in the last century so much. Yet he will forever be exempt from the common fate of such authors, the load of whose indifferent productions weighs down and ultimately sinks the rest. All the paths of learning were open to

T. T.

No. 22.

him, and we are not therefore to wonder, that in some his progress was short. He is perhaps greater in poetry, than in any other of his undertakings; yet he was much inferiour to many of his contemporaries in classical erųdition. But the charm of his style delights all, whom his knowledge fails to instruct. When he ceases to astonish by profundity, he en

gages by his ingenuity. Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status,

et res.

In our country he is best known as a historian, and his character may be quoted with advantage from the most learned of historians. "I believe that Voltaire had for this work, (age of Louis XIV.) an advantage, which he has seldom enjoyed. When he treats of a distant period, he is not a man to turn over musty monkish writers to instruct himself. He follows some compilation, varnishes it over with the magick of his style, and produces a most agreea ble, superficial, inaccurate perforBut there the informa

mance.

tion, both written and oral, lay within his reach, and he seems to have taken great pains to consult it. Without any thing of the majesty of the great historians, he has comprized in two small volumes a variety of facts, told in an easy, clear, and lively style. To this merit he has added that of throwing aside all trivial circumstances, and choosing no events, but such as are either instructive or entertaining."*

WATER SPOUTS.

We have summer and winter storms in Thomson, and many a student has trembled with other dread, than of his tutor, over the description of the tempest in En. I.; even one of our most interesting poets has chosen a "Shipwreck" for his subject, and adorned it with every aggravation of misfortune, and every charm of language. But we are in these, cases rather interested in the consequences, than terrified by the instant appearance of the danger.

Gibbon's Miscel. Works.

What poetick picture in Homer, or Virgil, or in the greatest master of the terrifick, Milton, surpasses, or even equals, the following description of a water-spout.

.... Oft, while wonder thrill'd my breast, my eyes To heav'n have seen the watry columa rise.

Slender at first the subtle fume appears, And wreathing round and round its volume rears,

Thick as a mast the vapour swells its size;

A curling whirlwind lifts it to the skies; The tube now straitens, now in width extends,

And in a hov'ring cloud its summit ends; Still gulp on gulp in sucks the rising tide:

Till now the tide, with cumbrous wreath supplied,

Full gorg'd, and black'ning, spreads,

and moves more slow, And waving trembles to the waves below.

Thus, when to shun the summer's sultry beam,

The thirsty heifer seeks the cooling stream,

The eager horse-leech, fixing on her lips,

Her blood with ardent throat insatiate sips,

Till the gorg'd glutton, swell'd beyond

her size,

Drops from her wounded hold, and bursting dies.

So bursts the cloud, o'erloaded with its freight,

And the dash'd ocean staggers with the weight.-Camoen's Lus. 5. tr. Mickle.

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS.

Foreign travel should be the last, and therefore must be an important, part of the education of a gentleman. Though it does not strengthen the mind, it purifies it from the disease of prejudices, inhaled with the atmosphere of our native community; though it cannot create taste, it refines and directs it; and though it may not confirm the moral principles, it

eertainly polishes the manners. Some have ascribed to it miraculous power upon the moral constitution, rendering the foolish wise, and the avaricious munificent. But the authority of Horace in all questions more difficult than this, in all questions where knowledge of human nature will influence the decision, is absolute. Coelum, non animum, mutant, qui trans mare currunt, The vicious disposition is never changed by change of place; nor will he ever become profound, who is originally shallow, though he pass even the limits of the fame of Tully, the waters of the Tigris, or the cliffs of Caucasus. Men of inferiour minds may often be rendered serviceable by sober discipline, at home, whose only acquisition from travel will be to make their folly vivacious, and their ignorance loud and conceited. The incongruous vulgarities of England and France, of Italy and Germany unite in many, like the colours of Harlequin's coat, whose dissimilarity is the more conspicuous from their juxtaposition.

There seems to have been little system among our countrymen in visiting foreign regions. More have gone for business than for health, and more for health than for information. Few have been able to boast more than the least valuable half of the experience of Ulysses, Qui mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes. We have sent abroad many gentlemen, but they have sometimes on the continent of Europe been desirous to pass for Englishmen ; because American travellers are too often our sailors brutal and vicious, or factors indigent and illiterate. The English have been contemptuously denominated by their old enemies a sation of shopkeepers; and, as we

are descended from them, and are thought to have degenerated, the French will soon call us a community of hucksters. The notion often entertained of us is, that, when incited by prospect of gain, nothing is too dangerous for us to attempt, nothing too infamous for us to perform. Hence to defraud a trader from America is deemed more a trial of skill, than a violation of the laws of morality.

SIR JOHN DENHAM.

O could I flow like thee, and make thy

stream

My great example, as it is my theme! Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull; Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full.

Of this famous passage, to which Dryden has nothing equal, and Pope nothing superiour, Dr. Johnson has an excellent criticism, concluding in this remarkable language..." It has beauty peculiar to itself, and must be numbered among those felicities, which cannot be produced at will by wit and labour, but must arise unexpected-ly in some hour propitious to poetry." The "strength of Denham" was long reverenced by our poets; and I should unwillingly believe, that his simplicity of language, which always accompanies energy of thought, is the reason of his being less regarded, than formerly. Pope's " Windsor Forest" is an imitation of "Cooper's Hill;" yet, although the whole compass of English descriptive poetry of fers no rival to the picture of the Thames in about forty lines of the latter, Pope has ten readers, where Denham has one.

Translation, which now composes so large a part of our literature, had been long confined in the disgraceful shackles of literal ex

actness. No faithful interpreter in England, spurning the fear of his pedagogue, had yet dared to follow the dictate of reason and the advice of Horace, Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere, before Denham pointed the way. He gives the perfect eulogy of a perfect transfator in a single line, "True to his sense, but truer to his fame."

No poet, ancient or modern, whose subject was not chosen ex, pressly to afford moral and religious instruction, has so many ethical axioms; and his advice is better on politicks, than any other theme. The mention of Magna Charta leads him into the causes of the civil wars, and he may be considered as prophesying in almost every line. His master Charles had good reason, soon after, to think,

Who gives constrain'd, but his own fear reviles,

Not thank'd, but scorn'd; nor are they

gifts, but spoils.

lick morals. The means are within every man's reach of ob taining a prize, superiour to any reward of talents, or remuneration of many years industry. Many an apprentice is tempted to pilfer from his master's counter, many a chambermaid improves oppor tunities for stealing with impunity, and many a labourer cheats his family of their bread, to adventure upon the ocean of chance in hope of immense profit, which will render such practices unnecessary in future. All private lotteries are forbidden under heavy penalties, and if publick ones only render the evil of gaming more extensive, why are they allowed? It is the meanest way a legislature ever pursues of laying a tax. Hundreds of gambling houses are licensed in Paris and pay large gratuities to the corrupt government, that encourages them; thousands of the strumpets also are employed, as spies, and Talleyrand would never diminish their numbers or their utility. But I hope the per, verse policy of France will never be adopted here.

AMERICAN LITERATURE.

A taste for the belles lettres is rapidly spreading in our country. We have indeed few profound scholars in any branch of science; but, so far as it subserves the general amusement of life, so far as it enlivens conversation and lessens the tædium vitæ, reading is not less attended to in America, than in any other part of the world. I believe, that, fifty years ago, England had never seen a miscellany or a review, so well conducted, as our Anthology, however superiour such publications may now be in that kingdom. Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice was altered by George Grani: