trap, and to tell you the truth (lowering his voice as though he would not be overheard telling the truth for the world) to tell you the truth, I was no sooner elected alderman of the ward, than I determined to sit for my picture, not for the sake of the scarlet gown and gold chain-no, hang it, its vulgar to be drawn in thingumbobs of that kind, but for the sake of→ of""Of posterity," cried I. "Right," rejoined the alder man, "you have hit the nail on the head. And, now Mr. Varnish, let's see how you get on." Mr. Varnish assured him that in half an hour the job would be jobbed, and my friend re-occupied his post for the allotted time with the pa tience of a self-tormented Bramin. The picture being finished, we both pronounced it a wonderful likeness, and the whole counting household was called in clerk by clerk, to gaze at the canvas, and corroborate our testimony. We learn, on the authority of the most humorous of modern English dramatists, that "the human mind is naturally progressive." My hint of the engraver naturally engendered in Transfer's mind the idea of a public exhibition, and that idea as naturally begat a' notion of the exhibition at Somerset House. "How," cried he, with an enquiring eye, "how is a body to secure his picture a good place, so that it may stand a chance of being seen?" "By interest with the hanging committee," answered the ar tist. The hint was sufficient, Transfer took down the names and address of three of them in his pocket-book, and invited them to dinner: he was profuse of port, and they of promises, and the affair was adjusted to mutual satisfaction. The aus. picious first of May at length arrived, that day of London ju bilee, when many-coloured ribbons decorate the hat of the stage. coachman, gilt paper the head of the brusher of chimneys, and laurels the brow of the brusher of canvas. The doors of the exhibition were thrown open, and the rooms were soon filled with the promiscuous mob, which London never fails to pour from her populous loins at that genial' season. Transfer and I had the patience to wait till three o'clock, when rank and fashion might be supposed present, and of course when we ought not to be absent. We ascended a length of winding staircase, Y Y-VOL, VII.*

which made the lungs of my plethoric companion, puff and blow like the bellows of Mulciber, and entered the door of the great room, pleasing ourselves with the anticipation of graphic notoriety. But, alas! frail as the fabric of Arachne, is the happiness that depends upon a hanging committee. Our anxious eyes wandered impatiently over ladies of quality, painters, volunteers, and views in China, and at length discovered the mimic Transfer in an obscure angle, with his poor powdered pate in contact with the cieling, like a stray cherub watching the apotheosis of Louis the Fourteenth. Expectation had been long on the tiptoe, and we were obliged to assume the same attitude, or poor Timothy would have been completely invisible. Nay, as if the Muse of painting had resigned her pallet to the demon of Discord, the most conspicuous spot on the wall was occupied by a family picture of his old rival in trade, Sir Da vid .Drudge, consisting of Sir David and his lady in their re spective arm chairs, supported by seven little Drudges, in a grave and dutiful semi-circle. This was too much for human fortitude. Transfer damned all hanging committees, and wished Somerset House at the devil, which wish, as it comprehended the navy and stamp offices I ventured to object to, as being rather of too sweeping a cast. This was adding fuel to fire; the alderman sent me to the regions below, by an especial conveyance, and throwing his catalogue upon the floor in a rage, dived down the well staircase as eagerly as though he expected to find Truth at the bottom, in lieu of the gigantic Alcides. A stray catalogue is in strict law the property of the lord of the manor. I ventured, however, to appropriate Transfer's, and calmly proceeded to examine the works of the British artists.

...And now for a dissertation on painting! you exclaim. Now for a critique on the merits and demerits of British artists! We shall now find whether Mr. Shee has reason for his rhymes: whether painters in modern England are caressed like those of ancient Italy, or whether, like the rival of Minerva, they are destined to spin ornaments for walls, while they themselves reside in obscure corners. No, sir, you are mistaken with re.

spect to the operations of the brush, I am free to confess that I know nothing of the matter. But my ignorance of the merits of the old masters is most especially profound. I have viewed a large saint in a little boat, painted by the divine Raphael, and have thought of Lord Duberley's bear in a bathing tub I have seen our lady of Nazareth painted with more jewels in her ears than the Lady Mayoress, and have pronounced the ornaments inappropriate to her rank and disposition. These ideas I once ventured to express to the infinite annoyance of the dilletanti world. Not a shoulder of one of them that was not shrugged up in disdain till it shrouded the critical ear I had offended. I have been called more Goths than are to be met with in Gibbon's Roman Empire. These punctures in the flesh of my vanity have at length inoculated me with a little of the taste now in vogue. The laurels of criticism are as grateful to the brow as the olives of Spain to the palate. But in either case an apprenticeship to the mystery of taste is indispensable. Place a Titian before a young eye, or an olive in an infantine mouth, and 'tis ten to one a nausea ensues. I have learned the true art of traversing an exhibition-room. Modern works I call terribly bad, or at best pretty well. But when I alight upon a dingy daub of antiquity, with an old worm-eaten frame, (for that guides me as much as the picture itself,) where water, earth, and air, seem to maintain an elemental conflict, with lamp black, brick dust, and brown sugar, in which the three last come off with flying colours, I instantly start back and clasp my hands in mute wonder, as a man may be, supposed to do when his wife tumbles from Dover cliff. I then take from my coat pocket a red morocco pocket-book, and uncovering my critical nob, I place my hat upon my left knee, and scribble something (no matter what) upon a piece of asses' skin. The scheme succeeds to a miracle, and Mr. Vamp, the dilletanti broker, has dubbed me a "devilish good judge."

REVIEW OF LITERATURE.

"Beaucoup de personnes lisent, mais il y en a fort peu qui sachent lire. Si l'on est prévenu en ouvrant le livre, tout ce qu'il contient est inutile on fait penser l'auteur soi-même, ou on ne le lit que pour se moquer de lui."

The Epistolary Correspondence of Sir Richard Steele, including his familiar Letters to his Wife and Daughters; to which are prefixed Fragments of three Plays, two of them undoubtedly Steele's, the third supposed to be Addison's. Faithfully printed from the originals, and illustrated with literary and historical Anecdotes by John Nichols, F.S. A. E. and P. 2 vol. 8vo. pp. xxiv. 696, Lond. Nichols and Son, 1809.

THESE volumes are calculated to do all the mischief to good letters which book-making effects, without giving that encouragement to the fine arts, which the splendid decorations of modern books undoubtedly bestow. The "epistolary correspondence" which they publish, or rather republish, (for almost the whole of this part of the present manufacture was in the market as long ago as 1787,) is just of that private and confidential nature, that it was a sin to publish it at all; and if Sir Richard Steele had been aware of the want of faith, of which his "legal personal representatives" have been guilty in publishing it, he would have burnt it before he died: and the "fragments of three plays" are such as will not add to the dramatic reputation of Steele, and should have made it પ very stuff of the conscience" in their possessors "to do it no contrived murder." The volumes are brought to their proper saleable size, by the insertion of all the " epistles dedicatory" to Steele's various productions, and all the epistles dedicated to him in the works of other authors, as in and by the said several publications themselves, reference be ing thereunto had, will as fully and at large appear. And, lastly, the book-maker has not thought proper to go to the expence of engraving a new portrait of Steele, but has hashed up an old worn-out medallion, by Basire, which we dare say has

answered as many purposes as the "disjecta membra❞ of fowl, which are served up to us at a mail-coach supper.

The present book commences with the preface to the edition of 1787, to which it adds a "postscript, 1809;" the follow. ing extracts from which will sufficiently explain the history of its manufacture:

"For the three dramatic fragments, and for such part of the letters of Sir Richard Steele as are now first published, I am indebted to the liberal communication of Mrs. Scurlock, by whom they have been presented to me, in full conformity with the intention of her late husband, who, in conjunction with the present editor, proposed to have published them, together with many other letters in his possession from characters of the first eminence in life, which respect however for these characters withheld him from committing to the press.**

"One letter from Mr. Scurlock, from a considerable number which passed between us on this subject, will be a sufficient proof of the propriety of his ideas on this subject.

"Lovehill Farm, Langley, Dec. 24, 1787. "Sir, I have not given up the intention of publishing another volume; but the different pursuits I have been engaged in have prevented my giving time to a work that requires critical attention. I have no doubt but, with your assistance, we shall be able to extract such materials from the manuscripts in my possession as may be entertaining to the publick. I have observed that there are no productions read with greater avidity, nor more eagerly enquired for, than those that are replete with interesting events, and private historical anecdotes of families who now figure in the world. Of these I have a copious fund, yet I would rather be less enter taining than disturb the repose of private families, or wound the bosom of domestic tranquillity. * "Steele and Addison wrote the Spectators, &c. &c. chiefly in the room where I now write: they rented the house of my father,

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"The following paragraph was actually published in 1787, at the end of my advertisement of the first edition. It may be proper to announce that, since these volumes have appeared before the publick, the editor has been favoured with many valuable original fetters and other genuine productions of Sir Richard Steele, which have in the politest manner been communicated to him by the Rev. David Scurlock, M. A. of Lovehill-Place, Langley, Bucks, who became possessed of them, (together with many other curious correspondences of several eminent persons,) as administrator to the effects of Lady Trevor, Sir Richard Steele's last surviving daughter. These valuable and authentic documents the present editor has undertaken to publish, as soon as they can be properly digested, with the full concurrence, and under the immediate inspection of Mr. Scurlock."

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