of hand-mills, or of small horse-mills for this purpose, would be well worth the consideration of those who are interested in the prosperity of the Canadian settlers.

Perhaps too the society we have been speaking of may hereafter be led to adopt the plan of establishing a kind of mechanical school in this country, for communicating a slight degree of instruction in several of the most necessary arts: it would take but a very short time to make a man a tolerable carpenter, smith, &c. and the acquisition would be, in a new settlement, invaluable. We have no doubt, however, that the combined activity of intelligent individuals on both sides of the Atlantic, guided by local knowledge, and stimulated by benevolent zeal, will in time, if their numbers and funds should become considerable, devise and bring into practice every expedient, as far as the power of individuals extends, by which the prosperity of the colony may be promoted; and if the fostering hand of government is extended, to afford free scope for their exertions, to co-operate with them, where its aid is indispensable, and to rectify from time to time the various abuses which must be expected to creep in,-we see every reason to anticipate both a valuable resource to the redundant population of this country, and a great accession of strength to our transatlantic dominions, by the diversion thither of the better part of that tide of emigrants which is now poured into the territories of the United States; we say, the better part, because there are doubtless many emigrants of a character which would not promise much benefit to the colony; and one of the chief advantages perhaps which would result from the labours of a well-constituted society for promoting emigration, would be the careful selection of proper persons on whom to bestow their encouragement and assistance. Those in whom a rooted aversion to our constitution in church and state is one of the principal inducements for emigrating to republican America, it would neither be easy nor desirable to divert from their purpose. That is the best place for them. If they are disappointed in finding that a democratical government and the absence of a church establishment do not imply freedom from taxes, and the universal diffusion of virtue and happiness; though their hopes are not gratified, their complaints, at least, will be silenced, or at any rate will cease to disturb our government. There may nevertheless be many, who, though not radically corrupt in their notions, nor altogether hostile to our government and religion, may have been goaded by the pressure of distress, combined with the inflammatory declamations of designing men, to feel a great degree of impatience of the burden of taxes, tithes, and poor-rates; and such men may become, by the removal of the cause of their irritation, loyal and peaceable subjects in that part of the empire

which

which is entirely exempt from those burdens. At least their angry feelings will have time and opportunity to subside, in a country where there are no tumultuous meetings in populous towns of unemployed manufacturers; but where all their neighbours, as well as themselves, have something better to do (as Mr. Gourlay found by experience) than to set about new modelling the constitution;where the chief reform called for is to convert forests into cornfields, in which no one will hinder them from laying the axe to the root of the evil;—and in which the desire of novelty may be fully gratified, without destroying established institutions; where, in short, the whole structure of society is to be built up, without being previously pulled down.

ART. V. 1. Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters of Books and Men, collected from the Conversation of Mr. Pope, and other eminent Persons of his Time. By the Rev. Joseph Spence. Now first published from the original Papers, with Notes and a Life of the Author by Samuel Weller Singer. London. 8vo.

1820.

2. Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and Men. By the Rev. Joseph Spence. Arranged with Notes by Edmund Malone, Esq. London. 8vo. 1820..

3. The invariable Principles of Poetry, in a Letter addressed to Thomas Campbell, Esq. occasioned by some Critical Observations in his Specimens of British Poets, particularly relating to the Poetical Character of Pope. By the Rev. W. L. Bowles. 1819.

AT length, after a tedious retention by one possessor, and, as we

now find, a concealment by another, appear the Anecdotes of Spence;' an authentic collection which has hitherto remained unpublished, but not unreferred to, during the many years in which it has enjoyed a sort of paradoxical existence. The history of books is often curious, but that of the present is mysterious; and the mystery originates in the nature of the work itself, which was wished to be, and not to be, suppressed. The late Duke of Newcastle was supposed, till Mr. Singer's volume appeared, to be the sole possessor of the manuscript; and his Grace having liberally submitted the volume to Dr. Johnson for public use, when it became a desideratum among the lovers of literary history, it was sullenly announced as a sealed book. Mr. Malone, however, was afterwards allowed to rifle it for his own purposes, and some imperfect transcripts, or capricious selections, crept abroad from time to time.

The close of the history of this publication seems as mysterious

as

as its progress; for, after contending with the obstructions of half a century, Two editions appeared on the same day! Mr. Singer, the only person who could elucidate the matter, has not informed us how he himself obtained the manuscript, and we can only supply the vacuum by the report which has reached us. Spence, who was known to have been engaged during many years in the design of this work, had prepared it for posthumous publication, and conditionally sold it to Dodsley: but his executors, among whom was his old friend Bishop Lowth, uniting with his patron Lord Lincoln, afterwards Duke of Newcastle, prevailed on the bookseller to relinquish his claim, as the time, it was alleged, had not yet arrived when the anecdotes could be safely published.* Joseph Warton formerly told us that these Anecdotes were sealed up and delivered into the hauds of the late Duke of Newcastle;' and this manuscript was long appreciated as an unique. It now appears, that it was no such precious thing, but a transcript of part of the Anecdotes which had been prepared for the press; the originals of which, with valuable supplements, were deposited in a chest with all Spence's manuscript remains. From this chest (which was in the Lowth family) we have heard that a late speculator in fine editions had the dexterity to extract it, and probably designed it, like the Arabian Nights, for some splendid publication adapted to the literary dandyism of Bond-street. What means he used, we have not heard, and cannot pretend to guess. It was a sacred deposit, and such the late Bishop had always considered it; for, during this long interval, no one appears even to have suspected its existence. How it travelled down to the present publisher might perhaps form an amusing incident in the story. But such is the history of the original Spence. That of the Malone Manuscript is no less enveloped in mystery.

The Newcastle Manuscript, as we have said, was put into the

The lovers of literary history may be gratified by our giving the particulars, which we are enabled to do, and which have not been published. The manuscript was deposited in the library of the Duke of Newcastle, to whom Spence had been private tutor, by his three executors, the Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Ridley, and Mr. Rolle, and the following elegant address, probably by Bishop Lowth, assigning their reasons, is pasted in the first volume of the Anecdotes.

The Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Ridley, and Mr. Rolle, executors of the late Mr. Spence, present their most respectful compliments to the Duke of Newcastle, and beg his Grace's acceptance of the manuscript fair copy of Mr. Spence's Anecdotes. They did not think it advisable to publish this work, and they were confirmed in this opinion as they had reason to believe that it coincided with his Grace's judgment. But that it may not run the hazard of being lost or of falling into improper hands, they beg leave to commit it to his Grace's custody; and they propose to act in the same manner, with his Grace's approbation, in regard to any other of his papers, which they think it right to -preserve; being persuaded that in so doing they shall act most agreeably to Mr. Spence's sentiments, and shall place his literary remains in those hands to which his love, respect, and gratitude would certainly have directed them.-May 15, 1771.'

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hands

hands of Dr. Johnson, who drew from it many of those personal traits and those domestic incidents which, with such skill, he has introduced into his admirable life of Pope. Yet while Johnson said, I consider this communication as a favour worthy of public acknowledgment,' he studiously concealed the name of the noble benefactor; and it is understood that the Duke felt that his own zeal claimed a more particular notice than an acknowledgment, where a pomp in the manner served only to conceal a penury in the feeling. It was therefore (as we have seen) somewhat indignantly closed. Mr. Malone, however, when employed on the Life of Dryden, had sufficient influence to procure its use, and made, not as Mr. Singer supposes, a complete transcript,' but a selection; to which he added some useful notes. This copy was presented to the late Mr. Beloe, who sold it to Mr. Murray. For more than two years past it was announced as in the press, while the publisher persisted in its suppression; an incident quite in keeping with the rest of this strange history. Motives of delicacy probably induced him to refrain from publishing what the noble possessor of the (supposed) original 'would not sanction, while it was rumoured that the precious 'unique' was mislaid or lost; and the editor, who was no more, could no longer authenticate the transcript. When Mr. Singer's Spence was unexpectedly announced, it probably ceased to be a matter of choice; and the Malone Manuscript, with all its imperfections on its head, was eagerly hurried through the press.

Mr. Singer has prepared his enlarged edition with greater care; and has given proofs in its progress of the skill and intelligence ever necessary in such a work, of which however the authenticity is the main recommendation.

It is evident that these 'Anecdotes of Books and Men' were designed by Spence to belong to the numerous race of ANA, of which though we possess but few in our literature, yet those few are excellent. Our vivacious neighbours, more fond of talk, found a pleasure, when silent, in writing down the talk of others, even to their Arlequiniana, for Harlequin too must talk in France. Of their flock, the bell-wether is the Menagiana. Yet the four volumes, improved by the learned editor La Monnoye, are eclipsed by the singular splendour of Boswell's Johnson.-On this work we must make one observation. An Italian, a man of letters and of genius, compares Johnson to some uncommon bear, and Boswell to the Savoyard who goes shewing him about.' This sarcasm has been anticipated by some of our own wits; but wits are bad critics! All other Ana are usually confined to a single person, and chiefly run on the particular subject connected with that person; but Boswell's is the Ana of all mankind: nor can the world

speedily

speedily hope to receive a similar gift; for it is scarcely more probable to find another Boswell than another Johnson.

It must not be concealed that such collections as this of Spence have frequently spread an alarm in their circles. It is a case of conscience whose solution we leave to some future Paley, how far may be practised the liberty of chronicling conversations, or perpetuating domestic incidents. Is friendship, placed under the rose, no longer to look up to that emblem of secrecy and silence? When our heart moves with our lips, or circulates with the warmth of wine, are our unpremeditated thoughts, our negligent assertions, and our playful deceptions, the mere odds and ends of our fancy, all our humours, good and evil, to be permanently recorded? Are love and hatred to be the short-hand writers of social life, and are men to be brought to a bar without even a suspicion that they are undergoing a trial? These observations extend to the writers of Diaries, from Cole, the literary antiquary, to Bubb Dodington, the jobbing statesman. The very precaution which some of them used, (and Cole among the rest,) that their papers should not be opened till a given period, only served to protract the torture of the sufferers; while the calumny begins to live just when the calumniated had passed the power of vindication. We believe that these examples have occasioned the destruction of much of this kind of secret history by those who trembled at the imprudence of future editors, or dreaded the consequences of their own too faithful chronicle. The late Dean of Christ-Church, Cyril Jackson, an extraordinary character, who, if he did not feel the ambition, at least possessed the genius of governing, and who (after a reign of twenty years) retired, like the imperial philosopher of antiquity, into the uttermost solitude, appearing to forget all men and all things, and himself as much forgotten as the greatness of the character he had left behind him allowed, had kept, it is said, a Diary of his life, which, in an unfortunate hour, he destroyed, from an apprehension that his records, by the imprudence of friends, or the maliciousness of cynics, might be productive of some of the mischief which he had witnessed in those of others.

Even Spence had long raised similar alarms by his Anecdotes.' Not only had his own friends (as we have seen) protested against their publication, (for they were then treading on ashes whose fires were not extinct,) but even some of the editors of Pope have vented their outcries against opening this box of Pandora. Listen to Mr. Bowles, a sort of sentimental critic:- I tremble for every character when I hear any thing of "Spence's Anecdotes." Neither friend nor foe are spared. He seems to have opened his mouth and his ears to every thing Pope told him; and it makes the heart sick to think how

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