This lady, hearing of his intimacy with Stella, never recovered the shock, but died fourteen months afterwards, in 1723. In 1726 appeared the most perfect of the larger compositions of Swift, and that by which he will probably be longest remembered "Gulliver's Travels." It is a production entirely unique in English literature. Its main design is, under the form of fictitious travels, to satirise mankind and the institutions of civilised countries; but the scenes and nations which it describes are so wonderful and amusing, that the book is as great a favourite with children as with those misanthropic spirits who delight in contemplating the imperfections of human nature. It was received with such avidity, that the price of the first edition was raised before the second | could be got ready. It was read by the high and the low, the learned and the illiterate. Criticism was for a while lost in wonder; no rules of judgment were applied to a book that was written in open defiance of truth and regularity. As a writer, the prose works of Swift are among the best specimens we possess of a thorough English style. "He knew," says Dr Blair, “beyond almost any man, the purity, the extent, the precision of the English language; and therefore, to such as wish to attain a pure and correct style, he is one of the most useful models." Sinking into absolute idiocy, Swift died in 1745, aged seventy-seven, after bequeathing the greater part of his fortune to an hospital for lunatics.

TEMPLE, SIR WILLIAM, the son of Sir John Temple, Master of the Rolls in Ireland, was born in 1628, and studied at Cambridge, under the learned Dr Hammond, his maternal uncle. He began to travel in his twenty-fifth year, and spent six years in France, Holland, Flanders, and Germany. In 1655 he was engaged in promoting an alliance between England, Sweden, and Holland. Becoming resident minister at the Hague, he was useful in promoting the marriage of the Prince of Orange with Mary, eldest daughter of the Duke of York, which took place in 1677. On refusing to sanction an intended breach with Holland, he was recalled from his post in 1671, and formally dismissed from his ambassador's office, when he retired into private life at Sheen. Here he wrote an 66 Essay on Government," and part of his "Miscellanies." He was again ambassador to the States-General In 1674; and in 1679 he was appointed Secretary of State, but resigned in the following year. He now retired to his country-seat in Surrey, where he was often visited by Charles II., James II., and William III. As a statesman and man of the world, Temple is said to have been wanting in unselfish devotion, but in private he was respectable and decorous. Dr Johnson once made the remark that "Sir William Temple was the first writer who gave

cadence to English prose; before his time they were careless of arrangement." This may be taken as only comparatively true.

A

WILSON, JOHN, one of the most heart-stirring of Scottish prose writers. He was born in No. 40 High Street, Paisley, on the 18th of May 1785. His father, who bore the same Christian name, was a prosperous manufacturer; and his mother, Margaret Sym, was connected with a respectable family in the west of Scotland. He received his elementary education at the schools of his native town, and afterwards at the manse of Mearns under Dr Macletchie. To his juvenile sports and exercises in the moor of Mearns, and his trouting excursions by the stream of the Humbie and the four parish lochs, he has frequently referred in the pages of Blackwood's Magazine. In his fifteenth year he became a student in the University of Glasgow. Under the instructions of Professor Young of the Greek chair, he made distinguished progress in classical learning; but it was to the clear and mascu line intellect of Jardine, the distinguished Professor of Logic, that he was, in common with Jeffrey, chiefly indebted for a decided impulse in the path of mental cultivation. In 1804 he proceeded to Oxford, where he entered in Magdalen College as a gentleman-commoner. leader in every species of recreation, foremost in every sport and merry-making, and famous for his feats of agility and strength, he assiduously continued the prosecution of his classical studies. Of poetical genius he afforded the first public indication by producing the best English poem of fifty lines, which was rewarded by the Newdigate prize of forty guineas. On attaining his majority he became master of a fortune of about £30,000, which accrued to him from his father's estate; and, having concluded a course of four years at Oxford, he purchased, in 1808, the small but beautiful property of Elleray, on the banks of Lake Windermere, in Westmoreland. In 1811 he married Miss Jane Penny, the daughter of a wealthy Liverpool merchant, and a lady of great personal beauty and amiable disposition, to whom he continued most devotedly attached. He had already enjoyed the intimate society of Wordsworth, and now sought more assiduously the intercourse of the other Lake poets. His guardian (a maternal uncle) having proved culpably remiss in the management of his property, along with other circumstances, convinced him of the propriety of adopting a profession. His inclinations were originally towards the Scottish bar, and he now engaged in legal studies in the capital. In 1815 he passed advocate, and during the term of the law courts, established his residence in Edinburgh. On the establishment of Blackwood's Magazine, in 1817, Wilson was one of the staff of contributors, along with Hogg, Lockhart, and others; and on a difference occurring between the publisher and Messrs Pringle

and Cleghorn, the original editors, a few months after the undertaking was commenced, he exercised such a marked influence on the fortunes of the periodical that he was usually regarded as its editor, although the editorial labour and responsibility really rested on Mr Blackwood himself. In 1820 he was elected by the Town Council of Edinburgh to the chair of Moral Philosophy in the University, which had become vacant by the death of Dr Thomas Brown. In the twofold capacity of Professor of Ethics and principal contributor to a popular periodical, he occupied a position to which his genius and tastes admirably adapted him. He possessed in a singular degree the power of stimulating the minds and drawing forth the energies of youth; and wielding in periodical literature the vigour of a master intellect, he riveted public attention by the force of his declamation, the catholicity of his criticism, and the splendour of his descrip- | tions. Blackwood's Magazine attained a celebrity never before reached by any monthly periodical; the essays and sketches of "Christopher North," his nom-de-plume, became a monthly treasure of interest and entertainment. His celebrated "Noctes Ambrosianæ," a series of dialogues on the literature and

manners of the times, appeared in Blackwood from 1822 till 1835. In 1825 his entire poetical works were published in two octavo volumes; and, on his ceasing his regular connection with Blackwood's Magazine, his prose contributions were, in 1842, collected in three volumes under the title of "Recreations of Christopher North." In 1850 he was elected first president of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, and in the following year a civil list pension of £300 was, on the recommendation of the Premier, Lord John Russell, conferred on him by the Queen. In 1852 he felt necessitated, from a continuance of impaired health, to resign his professorship in the university. He died in his house in Glou cester Place, Edinburgh, on the 3d of April 1854. His remains, at a public funeral, were consigned to the Dean Cemetery, and his memory has been honoured by an elegant monumental statue in bronze in the Princes Street Gardens. With a vast and comprehensive genius, he has gathered from every department of nature the deep and genial suggestions of wisdom; he has found philosophy in the wilds, and imbibed knowledge by the mountain stream. As a contributor to periodical literature, he will find admirers while the English language is understood,