the customs, gave his son the education which every lad of decent rank then received in a country where the avenues to learning were easy and open to men of the most moderate circumstances. After having passed through the tuition of a grammar-school, he was put apprentice to a printer; and when a very young man, removed to a wider sphere in that line of business, and went to follow his trade in London. Sober, diligent, and attentive, while his emoluments were for some time very scanty, he contrived to live rather within than beyond his income; and though he married early, and without such a provision as, prudence might have looked for in the establishment of a family, he continued to thrive, and to better his circumstances. This he would often mention as an encouragement to early matrimony, and used to say, that he never had a child born that Providence did not send some increase of income to provide for the increase of his household. With sufficient vigour of mind, he had that happy flow of animal spirits, that is not easily discouraged by unpromising appearances." By him who can look with firmness upon difficulties, their conquest is already half achieved; but the man on whose heart and spirits they lie heavy will scarcely be able to bear up against their pressure. The forecast of timid, or the disgust of too delicate minds, are very unfortunate attendants for men of business, who, to be successful, must often push improbabilities, and bear with mortifications.

His abilities in his profession, accompanied with perfect integrity, and unabating diligence, enabled bim, after the first difficulties were overcome, to get on with rapid success. And he was one of the most flourishing men in the trade, when, in the year 1770, he purchased a share of the patent for king's printer of Mr. Eyre, with whom he maintained the most

cordial intimacy during all the rest of his life. Besides the emoluments arising from this appointment, as well as from a very extensive private business, he now drew largely from a field which required some degree of speculative sagacity to cultivate; I mean that great literary property which he acquired by purchasing the copy-rights of some of the most celebrated authors of the time. In this his liberality kept equal pace with his prudence, and in some cases went perhaps rather beyond it. Never had such rewards been given to the labours of literary men as now were received from him and his associates in those purchases of copy-rights from authors.

Having now attained the first great object of business, wealth, Mr. Strahan looked with a very allowable ambition on the stations of political rank and eminence. Politics had long occupied his active mind, which he had for many years pursued as his favourite amusement, by corresponding on that subject with some of the first characters of the age. Mr. Strahan's queries to Dr. Franklin in the year 1769, respecting the discontents of the Americans, published in the London Chronicle of 28th July 1778, show the just conception he entertained of the important consequences of that dispute, and his anxiety as a good subject to investigate, at that early period, the proper means by which their grievances might be removed, and a permanent harmony restored between the two countries. In the year 1775, he was elected a member of parliament for the borough of Malmsbury, in Wiltshire, with a very illustrious colleague, the Hon. C. J. Fox; and in the succeeding parliament for Wotton-Basset, in the same county. In this station, applying himself with that industry wl.ich was natural to him, he attended the house with a scrupulous punctuality, and was a useful member.

His talents for business acquired the consideration to which they were entitled, and were not unnoticed by the minister.

He

In his political connexion he was constant to the friends to whom he had first been attached. was a steady supporter of that party who were turned out of administration in spring 1784, and lost his seat in the House of Commons by the dissolution of parliament, with which that change was followed; a situation which he did not show any desire to resume on the return of the new parliament.

One motive for his not wishing a seat in the present parliament was a feeling of some decline in his health, which had rather suffered from the long sitting and late hours with which the political warfare in the last had been attended. Though without any fixed disease, his strength was visibly declining; and though his spirits survived his strength, yet the vigour and activity of his mind were also considerably impaired. Both continued gradually to decline, till his death, which happened on Saturday, the 9th July, 1785, in the 71st year of his age.

Of riches acquired by industry, the disposal is often ruled by caprice, as if the owners wished to show their uncontrolled power over that wealth which their own exertions had attained, by a whimsical allotment of it after their death. In this, as in other particulars, Mr. Strahan's discretion and good sense were apparent: he bequeathed his fortune in the most rational manner; and of that portion which was not left to his wife and children, the distribution was equally prudent and benevolent. Like his predecessor in trade, the celebrated Mr. Bowyer, he left 10007. to the Stationers' Company, of which he was a member, to be stocked, for the benefit of decayed booksellers and printers.

Endued with much natural sagacity, and an attentive observation of life, Mr. Strahan owed his rise to that station of opulence and respect which he attained rather to his own talents and exertion, than to any accidental occurrence of favourable or fortunate circumstances. His mind, though not deeply tinctured with learning, was not uninformed by letters. From a habit of attention to style, he had acquired a considerable portion of critical acuteness in the discernment of its beauties and defects. In one branch of writing himself excelled, I mean the epistolary, in which he not only showed the precision and clearness of business, but possessed a neatness as well as fluency of expression which I have known few letterwriters to surpass. Letter-writing was one of his favourite amusements; and among his correspondents were men of such eminence and talents as well repaid his endeavours to entertain them. One of these, as we have before mentioned, was the justly celebrated Dr. Franklin, originally a printer like Mr. Strahan, and his fellow-workman in early life in a printinghouse in London, whose friendship and correspondence he continued to enjoy, notwithstanding the difference of their sentiments in political matters, which often afforded pleasantry, but never mixed any thing acrimonious in their letters. One of the latest he received from his illustrious and venerable friend contained a humorous allegory of the state of politics in Britain, drawn from the profession of printing, of which, though the doctor had quitted the exercise, he had not forgotten the terms.

There are stations of acquired greatness which make men proud to recal the lowness of that from which they rose. The native eminence of Franklin's mind was above concealing the humbleness of his origin. Those only who possess no intrinsic eleva

tion are afraid to sully the honours to which accident has raised them, by the recollection of that obscurity whence they sprung.

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Of this recollection Mr. Strahan was rather proud than ashamed; and I have heard those who were disposed to censure him blame it as a kind of ostentation in which he was weak enough to indulge. But methinks, 'tis to consider too curiously, to consider it so.' There is a kind of reputation which we may laudably desire, and justly enjoy; and he who is sincere enough to forego the pride of ancestry and of birth may, without much imputation of vanity, assume the merit of his own elevation.

In that elevation, he neither triumphed over the inferiority of those he had left behind him, nor forgot the equality in which they had formerly stood. Of their inferiority he did not even remind them, by the ostentation of grandeur, or the parade of wealth. In his house there was none of that saucy train, none of that state or finery, with which the illiberal delight to confound and to dazzle those who may have formerly seen them in less enviable circumstances. No man was more mindful of, or more solicitous to oblige, the acquaintance or companions of his early days. The advice which his experience, or the assistance which his purse could afford, he was ready to communicate; and at his table in London every gentleman found an easy introduction, and every old acquaintance a cordial welcome. This was not merely a virtue of hospitality, or a duty of benevolence with him; he felt it warmly as a sentiment; and that paper in the Mirror of which I mentioned him as the author (the letter from London in the 94th number), was, I am persuaded, a genuine picture of his feelings on the recollection of those scenes in which his youth had been spent, and of those companions with which it had been associated.

VOL. I.

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