those inconveniences which attended its indiscriminate use? Or perhaps they did not care to deprive so large a body as their scribes of their business. Not a hint of the art itself appears in their writings.

When first the art of printing was discovered, they only made use of one side of a leaf; they had not yet found out the expedient of impressing the other. Specimens of these early printed books are in his Majesty's and Lord Spencer's libraries. Afterwards they thought of pasting the blank sides, which made them appear like one leaf. Their blocks were made of soft woods, and their letters were carved; but frequently breaking, the expense and trouble of carving and gluing new letters suggested our moveable types, which have produced an almost miraculous celerity in this art. Our modern stereotype consists of entire pages in solid blocks of metal, and, not being liable to break like the soft wood at first used, is profitably employed for works which require to be perpetually reprinted. Printing in carved blocks of wood must have greatly retarded the progress of universal knowledge: for one set of types could only have produced one work, whereas it now serves for hundreds.

When their editions were intended to be curious, they omitted to print the first letter of a chapter, for which they left a blank space, that it might be painted or illuminated, to the fancy of the purchaser. Several ancient volumes of these early times have been found where these letters are wanting, as they neglected to have them printed.

The initial carved letter, which is generally a fine woodcut, among our printed books, is evidently a remains or imitation of these ornaments. Among the very earliest books printed, which were religious, the Poor Man's Bible has wooden cuts in a coarse style, without the least shadowing or crossing of strokes, and these they inelegantly daubed over with colours, which they termed illuminating, and sold at a cheap rate to those who could not afford to purchase costly missals, elegantly written and painted on vellum. Specimens of these rude efforts of illuminated prints may be seen in Strutt's Dictionary of Engravers. The Bodleian library possesses the originals.

In the productions of early printing may be distinguished the various splendid editions they made of Primers or Prayer-books. They were embellished with cuts finished in a most elegant taste; many of them were ludicrous, and several were obscene. In one of them an angel is represented crowning the Virgin Mary, and God the Father himself assisting at the ceremony. Sometimes St Michael is overcoming Satan; and sometimes St Anthony is attacked by various devils of the most clumsy forms-not of the grotesque and limber family of Callot!

editions were then valued according to the abilities of the

corrector.

The prices of books in these times were considered as an object worthy of the animadversions of the highest powers. This anxiety in favour of the studious, appears from a privilege of Pope Leo X, to Aldus Manutius for printing Varro, dated 1553, signed Cardinal Bembo. Aldus is exhorted to put a moderate price on the work, lest the Pope should withdraw the privilege, and accord it to others.

Robert Stephens, one of the early printers surpassed in correctness those who exercised the same profession. It is said that to render his editions immaculate, he hung up the proofs in public places, and generously recompensed those who were so fortunate as to detect any errata.

er.

Plantin, though a learned man, is more famous as a print

His printing-office claims our admiration: it was one of the wonders of Europe. This grand building was the chief ornament of the city of Antwerp. Magnificent in its structure, it presented to the spectator a countless number of presses, characters of all figures and all sizes, matrixes to cast letters, and all other printing materials; which Baillet assures us amounted to immense sums.

In Italy, the three Manutii were more solicitous of corrections and illustrations than of the beauty of their printing. It was the character of the scholar, not of the printer, of which they were ambitious.

It is much to be regretted that our publishers are not literary men. Among the learned printers formerly a book was valued because it came from the presses of an Aldus or a Stephens and even in our time the names of Bowyer and Dodsley sanctioned a work. Pelisson in his history of the French academy tells us that Camusat was selected as their bookseller, from his reputation for publishing only valuable works. He was a man of some literature and good sense, and rarely printed an indifferent work; when we were young I recollect that we always made it a rule to purchase his publications. His name was a test of the goodness of the work. A publisher of this character would be of the greatest utility to the literary world; at home he would induce a number of ingenious men to become authors, for it would be honourable to be inscribed in his catalogue; and it would be a direction for the continental reader.

So valuable an union of learning and printing did not, unfortunately, last. The printers of the seventeenth cen tury became less charmed with glory than with gain. Their correctors and their letters, evinced as little delicacy of choice.

The invention of what is now called the Italic letter in printing was made by Aldus Manutius, to whom learning owes much. He observed the many inconveniences result

The tradition of the Devil and Dr Faustus was derived from the odd circumstance in which the Bibles of the first printer, Fust, appeared to the world. When he had discovered this new art, and printed off a considerable number of copies of the bible, to imitate those which were commonly sold in мss, he undertook the sale of them at Paris. It was his interest to conceal this discovery, and to pass off his printed copies for Mss. But as he was enabled to sell his bibles at sixty crowns, while the other scribes demanded five hundred, this raised universal astonishment; and still more when he produced copies as fast as they were wanted, and even low ered his price. The uniformity of the copies increased wonder. Informations were given in to the magistrates against him as a magician; and in searching his lodgings a great number of copies were found. The red ink, and Fust's red ink is peculiarly brilliant; which embellished his copies was said to be his blood; and it was solemnly adjudg ed that he was in league with the devil. Fust was at length obliged, to save himself from a bonfire, to reveal his art to the Parliament of Paris, who discharged him from all prosecution in consideration of this useful invention.

When the art of printing was established, it became the glory of the earned to be correctors of the press to eminent printers. Physicians, lawyers, and bishops themselves, occupied this department. The printers then added frequently to their name those of the correctors of the press; and

so frequent among the printers, that a book was difficult to understand a treatise was actually written on the art of reading a printed book, and this addressed to the learned! He contrived an expedient, by which these abbreviations might be entirely got rid of, and yet books suffer little increase in bulk This he effected by introducing what is now called Italic letter, though it formerly was distinguished by the name of the inventor, hence called the Aldine.

ERRATA.

Besides the ordinary errata, which happened in printing a work, others have been purposely committed that the errata may contain what is not permitted to appear in the body of the work. Wherever the Inquisition had any power, particularly at Rome, it was not allowed to employ the word fatum, or fata, in any book. An author, desirous of using the latter word adroitly invented this scheme: he had printed in his book facta, and, in the errata, he put for facta, read fata.

Scarron has done the same thing on another occasion. He had composed some verses, at the head of which he placed this dedication-A Guillemette, Chienne de ma Sour; but having a quarrel with his sister he maliciously put into the errata, instead of Chienne de ma Sœur, read ma Chienne de Saur.

Lully at the close of a bad prologue said, the word fin du prologue was an erratum, it should have been fi du prologue.

In a book, there was printed le docte Morel. A wag put into the errata, for le docte Morel, read le docteur Morel, This Morel was not the first docteur not docte.

When a fanatic published a mystical work full of unintelligible raptures, and which he entitled Les Delices de

nal d'Este, was gratified with the bitter sarcasm of 'Dove diavolo avete pigliato tante coglionerie? Where the devil have you found all this stuff?

When the French historian Dupleix, whose pen was indeed fertile, presented his book to the Duke d'Epernon, this Mæcenas, turning to the Pope's Nuncio, who was present, very coarsely exclaimed-Cadedis! ce Monsieur a un flux enragé, il chie un livre toutes les lunes!'

Thomson, the ardent author of the Seasons, having extravagantly praised a person of rank, who afterwards appeared to be undeserving of eulogiums, properly employed his pen in a solemn recantation of his error. A very dif ferent conduct from that of Dupleix, who always spoke highly of Queen Margaret of France for a little place he held in her household: but after her death, when the place became extinct, spoke of her with all the freedom of satire. Such is too often the character of some of the literati, who only dare to reveal the truth when they have no interest to conceal it.

Poor Mickle, to whom we are indebted for so beautiful a version of Camoens' Lusiad, having dedicated this work, the continued labour of five years, to the Duke of Buccleugh, had the mortification to find, by the discovery of a friend, that he had kept it in his possession three weeks before he could collect sufficient intellectual desire to cut open the first pages! and what is worse, the neglect he had experienced from this nobleman preyed on his mind, and reduced him to a state of despondency. This patron was a political economist, the pupil of Adam Smith! It is pleasing to add, in contrast with this frigid Scotch patron, that when Mickle went to Lisbon, where his translation had passed before him, he found the Prince of Portugal waiting on the quay to be the first to receive the translator of has great national poem; and during a residence of six months, Mickle was warmly regarded by every Portuguese

nobleman.

Every man believes,' writes Dr Johnson, in a letter to Barotti,that mistresses are unfaithful, and patrons are capricious. But he excepts his own mistress, and his own patron.

A patron is sometimes obtained in an odd way. Benserade attached himself to Cardinal Mazarine; but his friendship produced nothing but civility. The poet every day indulged his easy and charming vein of amatory and panegyric poetry, while all the world read and admired his verses. One evening the cardinal, in conversation with the king, described his mode of life when at the papal court. He loved the sciences; but his chief occupation was the belles lettres, composing little pieces of poetry; he said that he was then in the court of Rome what Benserade was now in that of France. Some hours afterwards the friends of the poet related to him the conversation of the cardinal. He quitted them abruptly, and ran to the apartment of his eminence, knocking with all his force, that he might be certain of being heard. The cardinal had just gone to bed. In vain they informed him of this circumstance, while he persisted in demanding entrance; and as he continued this incessant disturbance, they were compelled to open the door. He ran to his eminence, fell upon his knees, almost pulled off the sheets of the bed in rapture, imploring a thousand pardons for thus disturbing him, but such was his joy in what he had just heard, which he repeated, that he could not refrain from immediately giving vent to his gratitude and his pride, to have been Compared with his eminence for his poetical talents! Had the door not been immediately opened, he should have expired; he was not rich, it is true, but he should now die contented! The cardinal was pleased with his ardour, and probably never suspected his flattery; and the next week our new actor was pensioned.

On Cardinal Richelieu, another of his patrons, he grateFully made this epitaph,

Cy gist, ouy gist par la mort bleu

Le Cardinal de Richelieu,

Et ce qui cause mon ennuy

Ma pension avec lui.

Here lies, egad, 'tis very true!
The illustrious Cardinal Richelieu:
My grief is genuine-void of whim'
Alas! my pension lies with him!

Le Brun, the great French artist, painted his own portrait, holding in his hand that of his earliest patron. In this accompaniment Le Brun may be said to have pour

trayed the features of his soul, as his pencil had his physi ognomy. If genius has too often complained of its patrons, it has often too-overvalued their protection.

POETS, PHILOSOPHERS, AND ARTISTS, MADE BY ACCIDENT.

Accident has frequently occasioned the most eminent geniuses to display their powers. It was at Rome, says Gibbon, on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the City first started to my mind.

Father Malebranche having completed his studies in philosophy and theology without any other intention than devoting himself to some religious order, little expected the celebrity his works acquired for him. Loitering in an idle hour in the shop of a bookseller, and turning over a parcel of books, L'Homme de Descartes fell into his hands. Having dipt into some parts, he read with such delight, that the palpitations of his heart compelled him to lay the volume down. It was this circumstance that produced those profound contemplations which made him the Plato of his age.

Cowley became a poet by accident. In his mother's apartment he found, when very young, Spenser's Fairy Queen; and, by a continual study of poetry, he became so enchanted of the Muse, that he grew irrecoverably a poet.

Dr Johnson informs us, that Sir Joshua Reynolds had the first fondness of his art excited by the perusal of Richardson's Treatise.

Vaucanson displayed an uncommon genius for mechanics. His taste was first determined by an accident; when young, he frequently attended his mother to the residence of her confessor; and while she wept with repentance, he wept with weariness! In this state of disagreeable vacation, says Helvetius, he was struck with the uniform motion of the pendulum of the clock in the hall. His curiosity was roused; he approached the clock case, and studied its mechanism; what he could not discover, he guessed at. He then projected a similar machine; and gradually his genius produced a clock. Encouraged by this first success, he proceeded in his various attempts; and the genius which thus could form a clock, in time formed a flutting automaton.

If Shakspeare's imprudence had not obliged him to quit his wool trade, and his town; if he had not engaged with a company of actors, and at length, disgusted with being an indifferent performer, he had not turned author; the prudent wool-seller had never been the celebrated poet.'

Accident determined the taste of Moliere for the stage. His grandfather loved the theatre, and frequently carried him there. The young man lived in dissipation; the father observing it, asked in anger, if his son was to be made an actor. "Would to God," replied the grandfather, "he was as good an actor as Montrose." The words struck young Moliere; he took a disgust to his tapestry trade; and it is to this circumstance that France owes her greatest comic writer.'

Corneille loved; he made verses for his mistress, became a poet, composed Melite, and afterwards his other celebrated works. The discreet Corneille had remained a lawyer.'

Thus it is, that the devotion of a mother, the death of Cromwell, deer-stealing, the exclamation of an old man, and the beauty of a woman, have given five illustrious characters to Europe.'

We owe the great discovery of Newton to a very trivial accident. When a student at Cambridge, he had retired during the time of the plague into the country. As he was reading under an apple-tree, one of the fruit fell, and struck him a smart blow on the head. When he observed the smalness of the apple, he was surprised at the force of the stroke. This led him to consider the accelerating motion of falling bodies; from whence he deduced the principle of gravity, and laid the foundation of his philosophy.

Ignatius Loyola was a Spanish gentleman, who was dangerously wounded at the siege of Pampaluna. Having heated his imagination by reading the Lives of the Saints, which were brought to him in his illness, instead of ro mance, he conceived a strong ambition to be the founder

of a religious order; whence originated the celebrated society of the Jesuits.

Rousseau found his eccentric powers first awakened by the advertisement of the singular annual subject which the academy of Dijon proposed for that year, in which he wrote his celebrated Declamation against the arts and sciences. A circumstance which determined his future literary efforts.

La Fontaine, at the age of twenty-two, had not taken any profession, or devoted himself to any pursuit. Having accidentally heard some verses of Malherbe, he felt a sudden impulse, which directed his future life. He immediately bought a Malherbe, and was so exquisitely delighted with this poet, that after passing the nights in treasuring his verses in his memory, he would run in the day-time to the woods, where, concealing himself, he would recite bis verses to the surrounding dryads.

Flamstead was an astronomer by accident. He was taken from school on account of his illness, when Sacrobosco's book de Sphæra having been lent to him, he was so pleased with it, that he immediately began a course of astronomic studies. Pennant's first propensity to natura! history was the pleasure he received from an accidental perusal of Willoughby's work on birds: the same accident, of finding on the table of his professor, Reaumur's History of Insects, of which he read more than he attended to the lecture, and having been refused the loan, gave such an instant turn to the mind of Bonnet, that he hastened to obtain a copy, but found many difficulties in procuring this costly work; its possession gave an unalterable direction to his future life; this naturalist indeed lost the use of his sight by his devotion to the microscope.

Dr Franklin attributes the cast of his genius to a similar accident. I found a work of De Foe's, entitled an "Essay on Projects," from which perhaps I derived impressions that have since influenced some of the principal events of my life.'

I shall add the incident which occasioned Roger Ascham to write his Schoolmaster, one of the most curious and useful treatises among our elder writers.

At a dinner given by Sir William Cecil, during the plague in 1563, at his apartments at Windsor, where the queen had taken refuge, a number of ingenious men were invited. Secretary Cecil communicated the news of the morning, that several scholars at Eton had run away on account of their master's severity, which he condemned as a great error in the education of youth. Sir William Petre maintained the contrary; severe in his own temper, he pleaded warmly in defence of hard flogging. Dr. Wootton, in softer tones, sided with the Secretary. Sir John Mason, adopting no side, bantered both. Mr. Haddon seconded the hard-hearted Sir William Petre, and adduced, as an evidence, that the best schoolmaster then in England was the hardest flogger. Then was it that Roger Ascham indignantly exclaimed, that if such a master had an able scholar it was owing to the boy's genius, and not the preceptor's rod. Secretary Cecil and others were pleased with Ascham's notions. Sir Richard Sackville was silent, but when Ascham after dinner went to the queen to read one of the orations of Demosthenes, he took him aside, and frankly told him that though he had taken no part in the debate, he would not have been absent from that conversation for a great deal; that he knew to his cost the truth Ascham had supported; for it was the perpetual flogging of such a schoolmaster, that had given him an unconquerable aversion to study. And as he wished to remedy this defect in his own children, he earnestly exhorted Ascham to write his observations on so interesting a topic. Such was the circumstance which produced the admirable treatise of Roger Ascham.

INEQUALITIES OF GENIUS.

Singular inequalities are observable in the labours of genius; and particularly in those which admit great enthusiasm, as in poetry, in painting, and in music. Faultless mediocrity industry can preserve in one continued degree; but excellence, the daring and the happy, can only be attained, by human faculties, by starts.

Our poets who possess the greatest genius, with, perhaps, the least industry, have at the same time the most splendid and the worst passages of poetry. Shakspeare and Dryden are at once the greatest and the least of our poets. With some, their great fault consists in having none.

Carraccio sarcastically said of Tinteret-Ho veduto il

Tintoretto -hora eguale a Titiano, hora minora del Tintoretto- I have seen Tintoret now equal to Titian, and now less than Tintoret.'

Trublet very justly observes-The more there are beauties, and great beauties, in a work, I am the less surprised to find faults, and great faults. When you say of a workthat it has many faults; that decides nothing: and I do not know by this, whether it is execrable, or excellent. You tell me of another-that it is without any faults; if your account be just, it is certain the work cannot be excellent.

CONCEPTION AND EXPRESSION.

There are men who have just thoughts on every subject; but it is not perceived, because their expressions are feeble. They conceive well, but they produce badly.

Erasmus acutely observed-alluding to what then much occupied his mind-that one might be apt to swear that they had been taught, in the confessional cell, all they had learnt; so scrupulous are they of disclosing what they know. Others, again, conceive ill, and produce well; for they express with elegance, frequently, what they do not know.

It was observed of one pleader, that he knew more than he said; and of another, that he said more than he knew.

The judicious Quintilian observes, that we ought at first to be more anxious in regard to our conceptions than our expressions-we may attend to the latter afterwards. While Horace thought that expressions will never fail with luminous conceptions. Yet they seem to be different things, for a man may have the clearest conceptions, and at the same time be no pleasing writer; while conceptions of no eminent merit may be very agreeably set off by a warm and colouring diction.

Lucian happily describes the works of those who abound with the most luxuriant language, void of ideas. He calls their unmeaning verbosity anemony-words (anemonæ verborum;) for anemonies are flowers, which, however brilliant, can only please the eye, leaving no fragrance. Pratt, who was a writer of flowing, but nugatory verses, was compared to the daisy; a flower indeed, but without the fragrance.

GEOGRAPHICAL DICTION.

There are many sciences, says Menage, on which we cannot, indeed, compose in a florid or elegant dictionsuch as geography, music, algebra, geometry, &c. When Atticus requested Cicero to write on geography, the latter excused himself, observing, that its scenes were more adapted to please the eye than susceptible of the embellishments of style. However, in these kinds of sciences, we may lend an ornament to their dryness by introducing occasionally some elegant allusion, or noticing some incident suggested by the object.

Thus when we notice some inconsiderable place, for instance, Woodstock, we may recall attention to the resi dence of Chaucer, the parent of our poetry; or as a late traveller, in an Autumn on the Rhine,' when at Ingelheim, at the view of an old palace built by Charlemagne, adds, with a hundred columns brought from Rome,' and was the scene of the romantic amours of that monarch's fair daughter, Ibertha, with Evinhard, his secretary;' and viewing the Gothic ruins on the banks of the Rhine, has noticed them as having been the haunts of those illustrious chevaliers voleurs, whose chivalry consisted in pillaging the merchants and towns, till, in the thirteenth century, a citizen of Mayence persuaded the merchants of more than a hundred towns to form a league against these little princes and counts; the origin of the famous Hanseatic league, which contributed so much to the commerce of Europe. This kind of erudition gives an interest to all local histories and associates in our memory the illustrious personages who were their inhabitants.

The same principle of composition may be carried with the happiest effect into some dry investigations, though the profound antiquary may not approve of these sports of wit or fancy. Dr Arbuthnot, in his Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights, and Measures, a topic extremely barren of amusement, takes every opportunity of enlivening the dul ness of his task; even in these mathematical calculations he betrays his wit; and observes, that the polite Augustus, the Emperor of the World, had neither any glass in his windows, nor a shirt to his back! Those uses of glass and linen were, indeed, not known in his time. Our