works now lie buried under the brick and mor'tar tombs of four or five folios, which, on a moderate calculation, might now be "wirewoven" into thirty or forty modern octavos. In Charles I. time, love and honour were heightened by the wits into florid romance; but Lord Goring turned all into ridicule; and he was followed by the Duke of Buckingham, whose happy vein of ridicule was favoured by Charles IL who gave it the vogue it obtained. Sir William Temple justly observes, that chang es in veins of wit, are like those of habit, or other modes. On the return of Charles II. none were more out of fashion among the new courtiers, than the old Earl of Norwich, who was esteemed the greatest wit, in his father's time, among the old. Modern times have abounded with what may be called fashionable literature. Tragedies were some years ago as fashionable as comedies are at this day; Thomson, Mallet, Francis, Hill, applied their genius, to a department, in which they lost it all. Declamation and rant, and overrefined language were performed to the fable, the manners and nature, and these sleep on our shelves. Then we had a family of paupers in the parish of poetry, in "Imitations of Spenser." Not many years ago, Churchill was the occasion of deluging the town with political poems in quarto,—these were succeeded by narrative poems, in the ballad measure, from all sizes of poets.-The Castle of Otranto was the father of that marvellous, which overstocks the circulating library.-Travels and voyages have long been a class of literature so fashionable, that we begin to complain. Different times, then, are regulated by different tastes. What makes a strong impression on the public at one time, ceases to interest it at another; an author who sacrifices to the prevailing humours of his day, has but little chance of being esteemed by posterity; and every age of modern literature might, perhaps, admit of a new classification, by dividing it into its periods of fashionable literature. C. and R. Baldwin, Printers, THE END. I. LITERARY MISCELLANIES; consisting of Essays on the following subjects: Anecdotes; Miscellanies; Professors of Art; Style; Historical Characters; false Representations of Nature, Prefaces; Diaries, Self-Biography, and Self-Characters; Character of Dennis the Critic; Erudition and Philosophy; Poetical Opuscula; "The Enlightened Public" and "The Age of Reason;" Licensers of the Press; Reading; Poetical Expression; habituating ourselves to an individual Pursuit; Literary Genius; Literary Industry; the Influence of the Female Character in Polities and Religion; the Alliance between Love and Religion. SECOND Edition, 12mo. 4s. 6d. II. AN ESSAY ON THE MANNERS AND GENIUS OF THE LITERARY CHARACTER. Contents: Of Literary Men; Of Authors; Men of Letters; On some Characteristics of a Youth of Genius; Of Literary Solitude; On the Meditations and Conversations of Men of Genius; Men of Genius limited in their Art; Some Observations respecting the Infirmities and Defects of Men of Genius; Of Literary Friendships and Eumities; The Characters of Writers not discoverable in their Writings; Of some private Advantages which induce Men of Letters to become Authors; Of the Utility of Authors to Individuals; Of the Political Influence of Authors; On an Academy of Polite Literature, Pensions, and Prizes. ROMANCES. III. Consisting of Mejnoun and Leila, the Arabian Petrarch and Laura; Love and Humility, a Romance; The Lovers, or the Origin of the Fine Arts; The Daughter, a modern Romance. SECOND Edition, 12mo. with a Plate. 4s. IV. NARRATIVE POEMS; or LOVE TALES, consisting of The Carder and the Carrier, or the Poisonous Plant, from Boccaccio; Cominge, or an Adventure in the Abbey of La Trappe; A Tale addressed to a Sybarite, including Advice to Beauty. 46. JOHN MURRAY, LONDON, AND ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE, EDINBURGH. · An ACCOUNT of the LIFE and WRITINGS of JAMES BEATTIE, LL. D. Professor of Moral Philosophy in the Marischal and King's College, Aberdeen; including many of his Letters and Literary Correspondence. By Sir WILLIAM FORBES of Pitsligo, Bart. one of the Executors of Dr. Beattie, 2 vols. 4to. handsomely printed by Ballantyne. With a Portrait of Dr. Beattie, engraved from a Picture of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and seven plates of Fac Similes of Dr. Beattie's hand-writing. Price 2. 12s. 6d. boards. * A very few copies are printed in royal 4to, in a most superb manner with proof impressions of the plates, price 51. 5s. boards. ORIGINAL MEMOIRS, written during the Great Civil War, being the Life of Sir HENRY SLINGSBY, Bart. from 1638 to 1648, by Himself.-Memoirs of Captain JOHN HODGSON, of Coally Hall, near Halifax, in Yorkshire, touching his Conduct in the Civil Wars, and his Troubles after the Restoration; including several remarkable Passages, and a more particular Account of many important Military Actions during that interesting Period, than has hitherto been made Public; written by Himself. Carefully transcribed from Original MSS. To which are added, Copies of various important Papers, relative to the Operations of Oliver Cromwell and his Army, while they were in Scotland. 1 vol. 8vo. with a Portrait of Sir H. Slingsby. 12s. boards. Of this very curious Volume only a small Number are printed, of which a few are on Royal Paper. Price 11. 7s. 6d. in boards. THE LIFE and WRITINGS of MICHEL ANGELO BUONARROTI, comprising his Poetry and Letters; containing also a critical Disquisition on his Merit as a Painter, a Sculptor, an Architect, and a Poet. By R. DUPPA, Esq. The work is ornamented with a Portrait of Michel Angelo, by Bartolozzi, Fac-similes of his Hand-writing, Outlines of the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and his principal Compositions in Sculpture and Painting. 4to. 21. 28. MEMOIRS OF MARMONTEL; written by himself.— Containing his Literary and Political Life, and Anecdotes of the principal Characters of the Eighteenth Century, including those of Voltaire, Rousseau, D'Alembert, Diderot, Cardinal Maury, Madame Pompadour, the Duke of Choisseul, the Mareschal de Saxe, Cardinal Bernis, Lord Albemarle, the Prince of Kaunitz, Duke of Brunswick, Calonne, Necker, the Comte D'Artois, the late Queen of France, the King of Sweden, &c. &c. SECOND Edition, Four Volumes, 12mo. il. Is |