Charles II., when the diffolute manners of the Court had infected the nation in general, and a vitiated spirit had tranf fufed itfelf particularly into the literature of the time. The most eminent writers, by the abufe of their powers, were the panders of vice, inttead of being the promoters of virtue. Theatrical reprefentations, which have fo power. ful an effect in forming the taste and manners of the time, were peculiarly licentious. In the fucceeding age, at the commencement, and early part of the last century, both literature and manners retained a deep tincture of the reign of Charles. Comedy and other familiar writings abounded in corrupting ingredients. In real life, as well as in fititious exhibitions, loofenefs of manners, and fprightly licentioufnefs, formed the character of a raan of ingenuity, breeding, and refinement.

To correct ideas fo erroneous, to turn men from impropriety, folly, and vice, to propriety, wifdom, and virtue, was the principal object of the SPECTATOR, in which Addifon, in conjunction with his bofom friend Sir Richard Steele, had fo large a fhare.

The uncommon excellence of the Spectator is too well known to ftand in need of any eulogium from our feeble ren; but, as the Editor obferves," the true eftimate of the moral and literary character of Mr. Addifon may be drawn from the papers of his writing in that celebrated work ;-and on this bafis we etablith the merit and recommendation of Addisoniana”-The defign of these volumes being to record the private memorabilia of his life and writings. It was at firit intended to quote the authorities for every article given in thefe volumes; but this would have exhibited an oftentation and difplay of reading highly unbecoming the Compiler of an Ana. It may, however, be proper to affure the reader, that the fources from whence the materials have been drawn are of the most unquestionable character. To the General Dictionary and the Biographia Britannica he is indebted for many important articles. The Life of Addifon is given, as written by different hands. A valt number of manuscripts and private papers were examined, from which any information could be derived.

of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, which may be confidered as a neceffary appendix to the new edition of that Lady's celebrated letters. This correspondence, as well as fome of the letters of Lady Mary, the originals of which are in the poffeffion, and are the property of Mr. Phillips, were retrieved from deftined oblivion by the indefatigable refearches and liberal offers of that enterprizing bookfeller, who found them in the hands of a gentleman of the law formerly employed by the family, and who had not confidered them as being of any value. Seven fac-fimiles, engraved from the hand-writing of the original letters between Addison and Mr. Wortley, are annexed to Vol. I. From 223 anecdotes, illuftrations and notes to the Spectators, written by Addifon, letters, &c. contained in this Volume, we felect the following, as fpecimens of the fund of rational entertainment and information the reader may expect to find in the perufal of the whole.

No. 11. Fees of Office." Addison, though he never remitted the fees of his office, (Secretary of State,) never would accept of any more than was ftated and customary. A remarkable inftance of this integrity was, his refufal of a Bank note of three hundred pounds, and afterwards of a diamond ring of the fame value, from a Major Dunbar.”

No. 33. Lotteries-" The earliest lottery that is recollected was in the year 569, the 11th of Queen Eliza beth; it confifted of 40,000 tickets, at 10s. each. The prizes were, plate; and the profits were to go towards repairing the harbours of the kingdom. It was drawn at the welt door of St. Paul's Cathedral; and the drawing. which began January 11th, continued inceffantly, day and night, till May 6th. There were then only three lottery-offices in London."

beauty

beauty, ftrength, and duration, buckles have been brought; and that the manufacturing of this becoming ornament employed thousands of artizans!

No. 51. Shops in London-Tatler, No. 162, by Additon.-"As for the article of building, I intend hereafter to enlarge upon it; having lately obferved feveral warehouses, nay private fhops, that stand upon Corinthian pillars, and whole rows of tin pots thewing themfelves through a fash-window."-From the foregoing, it is evident that pillars and fath-windows were confidered by the humourous writer as an unlicensed innovation, in the fituations there alluded to. The fhops in London did not begin to be enclosed and glazed, as at prefent, until about the year 1710; and at this day on the Continent the shops very generally remain entirely open.

No. 206. Spring Garden.-" The Spring-garden mentioned by Mr. Addifon in Spectator, No. 383, is now known only by the name of Fauxhall, or Vauxhall, and was originally the habitation of Sir Samuel Morland, who built a fine room there in 1667. The house was afterwards rebuilt, and about the year 1730 Mr. Jonathan Tyers became the occupier of it; and from a large garden belonging to it, planted with ftately trees, and laid out in fhady walks, it obtained the name of Springgarden. The house was converted into a tavern, a place of entertainment, and was much frequented by the votaries of pleasure. Mr. Tyers opened it in 1730, with an advertisement of a Ridotto al frefco, a term which the people of this country had till that time been strangers to. The reputation and fuccefs of thefe fummer entertainments encouraged the proprietor to make his gardens a place of mufical entertainment for every evening during the fummer feason. He decorated it with paintings, engaged a band of excellent musicians, iffued filver tickets for admiffion at a guinea for each season, set up an organ in the orchestra, and, in a confpicuous part of the garden, erected a fine statue of Handel, the work of Roubillac."The very confiderable improvements in the decorations made fince it came into the hands of other proprietors, are not noticed by the Editor, probably from their being familiarly known by the prefent generation.

We now proceed to Vol. II., in which are a great number of equally

curious and entertaining anecdotes, ufeful information, original letters, &c. For inftance :

No. 15. The Guardian.-Encouraged by the celebrity and the extenfive fale of the Spectator, the Guardian was begun upon a fimilar plan; the professed object of which, as we learn from the Preface, was, to make the pulpit, the ftage, and the bar, all act in concert in the caufe of piety, juftice, and virtue; and to have nothing to manage with any particular perfon or party. The principal aid in the first Volume was derived from Pope; in the second, from Addison.

No. 30. Voltaire." In the year 1726, Voltaire having visited England, was introduced to Pope. Being invited to dine with him at his house at Twickenham, he talked at table with fuch combined indecency and blafphemy, as compelled Mr. Pope's mother with difgult and horror to leave the company. Pope difliked Voltaire from that time, and foon found, that the blaf phemer of his Creator was equally deficient in honour and integrity as in piety. He difcovered that he was em ployed as a fpy by the Court, confequently that he was unworthy of all confidence.

No. 39. "Gregorio Leti, mentioned in the Spectator, No. 632, boasted that he had been the author of a book and the father of a child for twenty years fucceffively. Swift counted the number of steps he made from London to Chelfea; and it is faid and demontrated, in the Parentalia, that Bishop Wren walked round the earth while a prifoner in the Tower (about the year 1652.)

To Addifon's account of the Italian Republic of St. Marino, (taken from his Travels,) No. 72, the Editor has annexed a very interefting narrative, No. 73, of the fame republic, nearly a century after Mr. Addison had visited it: his name was still pronounced with refpect on the free mountain of St. Marino.

No. 78. "Milton's only daughter, whom he had learnt to read Greek to him, though he did not understand it, was represented to Addifon to be in great diftrefs, even to the want of common neceffaries; whereupon he fet about making a collection for her amongst his particular friends, and prefented her with a purfe containing one hundred guineas."

M.

THE arts of fculpture and painting, as they were practifed in the fourteenth century, come next under the confideration of our Author. Upon thefe fubjects, perhaps, nothing new remained to be faid, for certainly nothing new occurs. The method of working in gold and filver, and alfo the art of embroidery, are noticed. Respecting the accuracy of the portraits which adorn a variety of manuscripts and mislals*, we think more ftrefs ought to have been laid than Mr. G. is inclined to put on them. It is probable that fome of the perfons reprefented never fat to the Monks who executed their portraits; but it is ftill more probable that many did, and that other of thefe miniatures were the copies from pictures long preferved in churches and the manfions of great families.

Thele kinds of works, whether from nure, ftained glass, or pictures on pannels, which, even in thofe times, were immeniely expenfive, received additional value from the correct delinea tion of the features of thofe they reprefented: they were, though in a higher degree, like the book portraits of the prefent day, intended to convey to pofterity a correct idea of perfons who had been recently, or were then generally known. The illuminators, therefore, motunquestionably availed themfelves of every affiftance that could be obtained from ftatues, pictures, and living objects; and there is little doubt but, in many inftances, the work derived additional value from the correctnels of the portraits with which it was ornamented. Some of thefe that we have examined, we have, with attonishment, obferved, are finished in the highly-laboured manner of the enamel pictures of Petitot. They feemed to bear thofe general traits of refemblance which the eye of an artift only can discern; and where there has been an opportunity to compare them with

"Chaucer" (fays he, adverting to the arts,) "therefore had a right to confider himself as fallen upon no barbarous or inglorious age. Among his immediate predeceffors in the period of their existence were Giotto and Dante; and their fucceffors, his co-equals, perhaps his friends, were fast advancing in the career which they had opened."

Here the cloud which we thought we had caught eludes our grasp, and inftead of our object we find in our hands a philofophical difquifition into the achievements of the human mind. In conclufion, the ignis fatuus again appears, and we catch the following light:

"Chaucer had only to look back for a fingle century to find the whole of Europe in a fitate comparatively barbarous. The fun of fcience had arifen, and the dews which welcomed its beams were not yet diffipated. He smelled the freshness of the morning, and his heart dilated at the fight of its soft and unfullied hues."

Notwithstanding what has been already faid of minitrels, we have now again brought forward the Itate of profane mufic under the Saxons, to which facred mufic fucceeds. These are eked out by discoveries and their effects, together with the inftruments that produce them. Chaucer, in whofe life Mr. G. feems to with to realize the fable of Tantalus, now, for an inftant, appears in the character of a great lover of mufic." He never omits an occaon of celebrating its power, and the

paffiges

paffages in his work which relate to this fubject are peculiarly lively and ani. mated.

We have now" (continues the Author) "taken a furvey of many of the circumstances, fcenes, and inftitutions of this period, which were particularly fitted to imprefs and modify the youthful mind of Chaucer. Many others will fpontaneously prefent themselves in the courfe of this narrative, and unite with thofe already defcribed to furnish a picture of the manners, customs, deficiencies, and improvements, of the English nation in the fourteenth century."

The quotation which we have extracted might very well ferve to explain the nature of the work, and to give us to underland, that the perfon whofe name it bears was only confidered as an object to give a title and to form a frontifpiece to the volume, which, like the frontispiece to a theatre, is foon folded back, and difcoveries are frequently made, fuch as our cooler judgments and contracted ideas could never have connected with the hero of the piece. At the opening of the tenth Chapter we learn, that after paffing through a course of education in London, of what nature the Author has been too bufy in defcribing things which probably the Bard never faw or heard of, to inform us. However, at the age of eighteen, we find that he was removed to the univerfity of Cambridge. He fpeaks of himself at the age of eighteen as Philogenet of Cambridge, Clerk. He, therefore, probably entered himself at the age of fifteen or fixteen, a period till frequently chofen for that purpose. Cambridge, however, prefented a very different fcene from what it now exhibits." Unquestionably it did: fo did this country, or there would have been no occafion for Mr. G. to have taxed his own fagacity, and the patience of his readers, with thefe remarks, which we have fo auspiciously begun to deve lope and defcant on.

Once more we lofe fight of the titular hero of the picce: once more Chaucer finks, while Cambridge and Oxford rife to our view! From the account of Peter of Blois it appears, that our universities, a very short time after their eftablishment, were more numerously attended than even at prefent. With respect to the affertion of the Archbishop of Armagh, in a discourse which

he delivered before Pope Innocent the Fifth, in the year 1357, "That, even in his time, Oxford had contained thirty thousand fcholars," we are afraid the good Prelate made a small blunder in his calculation, which, if he had reflected, that, from the fituation of things at that time, twenty-nine thoufand of his fcholars must have lodged in the open air, and boarded the Lord knows where, he would have corrected. Indeed he does add, that "it had fo decayed, that at the time he was peaking it fcarcely contained fix thousand;” which it requires no great acquaintance with the history of the university, or knowledge of the caufes which operated to deter young men from becoming ftudents, to know, was a num ber exceedingly exaggerated, though why, we cannot conceive; for fuch was the favour of the Holy Sees, whether at Rome or Avignon, to the Mendicant Orders, the great enemies to our Univertities, that we have no question but it would have pleafed Innocent much better to have heard there were only fixty ftudents at both than fix thou fand at one.

The

Contemplating the circumftance that gave rife to the laft obfervation, we thould have thought that we had indeed efcaped had we not alfo heard of the rife and progrefs of the monaftic_orders. These are fully dilated. information of our Author, like the profperous career of the Mendicants, who role upon the decline of the former, feems to flow in a rapid and regular ftream, the channel of which is only impeded by his attendance to the fight of that eagle of divinity Thomas Aquinas, who, for aught we can hi therto obferve to the contrary, would have done as well for the hero of this work as Geoffrey Chaucer. Nay, it does feem, that Mr. G. has given more of what may as yet be termed the life of the former than of the latter. We shall not fop to notice any particulars of this angelic Decor, though we muft commend his introducer for his forbearance, in not giving us also the hiftory of his mafter, Albertus Magnus.

Chaucer came to the Univerfity about eleven years after the Archbishop, whom we have mentioned as an able calculator, had ftated the number of fcholars at Oxford at thirty thousand. In this efimation, Mr. G. feeling, as the faying is, that the venerable Prelate

was

was going too large," fays, "he is fuppofed to allude to fomething as remote as the period of his life." Why The utmost latitude, fuppofing, as Dr. Goldfmith fays, he was apt to bounce, would have been, to have allowed him to have flated it thus: "When I was a ftudent, there were fuch a number of fcholars at the Univerfity, they have fince fallen to a fifth !" which being fettled at fix thoufand, Mr. G, though he has neither houfed nor fed them, thinks was the number when Chaucer was enrolled *.

This kind of hypothetical statement, in which the conjectural shuttlecock is bandied to and fro till it is loft, is but indifferent entertainment for the reader; yet we deemed it neceffry to be drawn forth, that he might fee of what avern-out Auff part of his work was compofed. We now, as we are ftill at the Univerfity, come to the period when Colleges were founded. This laudable paffion, which had operated but little in Chaucer's youth, was, we find, at its height in the reign of Edward the Third. We alfo learn, that "Cambridge attracted the notice of the generous fomewhat later than Oxford, as there were only two or three fmall Colleges" (for fix thousand students +) "then in existence in that place. We may with great probability infer” (from his works) that Chaucer was one of thofe ftudents that lodged promifcuoufly with the Citizens of Cambridge." "An extraordinary paffage," fays Mr. G.,“ occurs in Bishop Lowth's valuable life of William of Wykebham," (a work that we wish he had paid more attention to,) "which it is to our prefent purpose to examine. Whoever,' fays this writer, confiders the miferable state of learning in general, and in particular in the University of Oxford, in that age, will not think it any disadvantage to Wykeham to have been led into a different courfe of ftudies."

This paffage, and one from Ant. Wood (Hift. Univ. Oxon. A. D. an. 1343), refpecting thofe dulleft of all human beings, the nominals, the reals. the invincibles, irrefragables, &c. are the parents of obfervations petrifying as the flock from which they

fprung, that extend through two pages. With refpect to logic, which Mr. G. feems fo highly to prize, as an inftrument for etablishing truth and confounding error, it requires little argument to prove; indeed, to fay nothing of the great examples which might be quoted in fupport of the propofition, it is felf-evident that logic, that acutenefs of perception and facility of deduction which conftitute the art of reafoning, has been in all ages, and is as likely in the prefent to become an inftrument for establishing error and confounding truth.

To prove that the period of the pupilage of Chaucer was by no means unlearned, which, it must be observed, has been proved once before, the science of the Moors, and the literature of the Saracens under the Caliph Almamon, whofe former examination fhould have enabled him to plead autrefois acquit, is once more preffed into the fervice; Roger Bacon again appears with a new ally, Alphonfo, King of Caftile; and again we learn, that "the Greek language was almoft univerfally neglected," which is far from being the fact, even if the Author ineans to limit the fenfe of the word univerfal to the Continent of Europe; "the Latin was properly attended to; and the fourteenth century was far from being unfamiliar in natural knowledge."

Endeavouring to advance per faltem to the next Chapter, we met with a ftumbling-block at the end of this, which the reader will hardly conceive. This was no other than the recapitula tion of the ftate of the early years of Chaucer; which we thall not recapitulate.

We understand, that when he had finished his claffes in London, he was removed to Cambridge, "where fix thousand fellow-ftudents waited to

receive him." Yet "he had no difficulty in finding folitude when his inclination pronipted him to feek it. And we may be certain, that a mind which relished fo exquifitely the beauties of nature fought it often" (where, in a place then fo fmall, furrounded with fuch a multitude, he found it, it is impoffible for us to conceive;) "but he was never palled with it. The effect of both thefe circumstances"