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could. All the intelligence which I did receive, came from his brother, Mr. Neville White: for whom at his desire I this day have made up a pacquet, containing the two volumes of MSS. with which I have long been favoured. They are a proof with what zeal and diligence he improved his short academical opportunities of proficiency in literature and science. The honours he obtained in that one long-to-be-remembered year, the character he left, are an affecting proof of the sense entertained of his signal and exemplary merits, in his great college, distinguished as it is in literature and science, and in the University.

The sacrifice that he made while there, of his earliest and most captivating pursuit, by writing comparatively so little of poetry, is a proof that he possessed and exercised that Miltonian fortitude, which preferred what he conceived to be duty, to pleasure, in its most attractive form : and the certainty of immediate fame, and the cultivation of an art, the habit of which once successfully indulged in, is one of the most difficult to overcome, especially in the morning of life. I cannot say that I am glad he did overcome it. But who can be insensible to the purity and magnanimity of the effort? Others of your readers and correspondents may find much to add. And on such a theme, they would assuredly have been right, had I written volumes.

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the executive power, it is scarcely possible that justice should not sole sometimes be sacrificed to politics. Persons, connected with the great interests of the state, may, even without corrupt views, oc- ne casionally imagine it necessary to sacrifice the rights of private individuals to those interests. This is particularly the case with

U U-VOL. VI.*

our Chancellors, and Barons of the Exchequer. It is, indeed, a great error, to make the highest law-officers political ministers; for, independent of the consideration of human passions, weaknesses, partialities, and the long train of human frailties, of which every man has his share, not one of those alloys should be permitted to discolour the purity of our courts. How often does it happen, that, after the suitors in Chancery (to speak now only of a Court of Equity) have, at a vast expence, brought their cause to a final hearing, the Chancellor is obliged to attend the privy council, or his place in the house of lords, as well as to take time to consider the matter before he makes his decree, and that sometimes while causes are in this manner laying before him, a change of ministry takes place, including the Chancellor, as in a recent instanceor he alone may be removed, as in the case of Lord Camden in other days? All such causes must then be reheard, the counsel must again be feed, fresh stamps are wanted, much money is shamefully expended, and time uselessly as irretrievably lost→ this ought to be remedied. The delays of courts of equity are very great, from the very nature of their constitution, and do not need the procrastination of individuals to be added to them; and the necessary anxiety of those, whose property is to depend on the voice of one man, seems to entitle their interests to his sole attention.

A still greater evil attends on the execution of our laws, in the existence of useless offices, and oppressive fees-the evil of pocketing principals, and working deputies.

In the Exchequer, Lord HALE recommended the abolition of the offices of" Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer-the Receiver and Remembrancer of the First Fruits-a Chief Clerk of the PipeKing's Remembrancer-Usher of the Exchequer-Chief MarshalChamberlain and some of the Auditors." His lordship's remark is this-If these offices are not necessary, why are they continued? If they are, why should they not be executed at the single charge of the deputy, and the benefit of the nominal officer, who does nothing, be retrenched as needless?digy by bát s k

The same observation applies with double force to the offices executed by deputy in the Court of Admiralty.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE.

Shall we for ever make NEW BOOKS, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another? Are we to be for ever twisting and untwisting the same rope? for ever in the same track---for ever at the same pace? Tristram Shandy.

Anonymiana; or, ten Centuries of Observations on various Authors, and Subjects. (Concluded from P. 159.)

We shall continue our exemplification of the entertainment and instruction of this work.

The isles of a church, says he, is wrong-it should be ailes, French, wings. In the will of R. Smith, vicar of Wirksworth, 1504, he translates isle, as it is called, insula, which shews the blunder very clearly.

"XLIV.

"A man of a great heart means, in common speech, one that is ambitious, spirited, obstinate, unwilling to yield or submit. But otherwise, the largeness of that viscus, according to Sir Simonds D'Ewes, does not betoken any uncommon degree of spirit or courage; but rather the contrary. So he judged from the dissection of the body of our King James I. See Mr. Nichols, Bibl. Top. Brit. No. XV. p. 31." P. 251.

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"It is a whimsical observation, but nevertheless true, that the word devil, shorten it as you please, will still retain a bad signification,-devil, evil, vil, il; and it but too often happens that, give Satan an inch, and he will take an l." P. 251.

"LXIX.

"Women are often complained of for not suckling their own children, and with reason, as a multitude of evils are known to arise from putting them out to nurse. This practice arose, I presume, at first from wantonness, it not being thought lawful formerly for husband and wife to sleep together, while the woman gave suck. Beda, Eccl. Hist. I. 27. So the 17th canon of the 3d Council of Toledo, held in 589, is against fathers or mothers who put their children to death, through a desire of Copulation. Du Pin, V. p. 156." P. 261.

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"LXXI.

"To quid, i. e. to chew tobacco. In Kent, a cow is said to chew her quid; so that cud and quid are the same: and to quid is a metaphor taken from that action of the cow." P. 261.

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"LXXIII.

"When a person sneezes, it is usual to say, God bless you: as much as to say, May God so bless you as that portends; for as sneezing is beneficial to the head, and an effort of nature to remove an obstruction, or to throw off any thing that either clogs or stimulates, so it was anciently reckoned a good omen. Xenophon, Kug. Avab. III. c. 2. § 5.”

P. 262.

" LXXV.

"At Barkway in Herts there was formerly a sort of old strong malt liquor, which was called Old Pharaoh, because it often detained, and would not let the children of Israel go, for that was the reason given for the name and the house, or the man of the house, was customarily called Old Pharaoh." P. 263.

"XCIV.

"One cannot approve of that drawling way in which some people read the church service: 'érred and are deceived, accused, absolved, oppressed,' &c. These words should be curtailed a syllable; for, no doubt, we ought to read as we speak." P. 269.

"XCIX.

"People affect to eat venison with a haut-gout in the country; but this is mis-judging the matter extremely. It seldom gets to London perfectly sweet, so the citizens are forced to dispense with it, and to make the best of it, and at last to commend it for a quality unnatural to it. And the people I speak of are so absurd as to follow the town mode, though they live in the country, and might, if they pleased, eat it while good." P. 271.

This assertion is untrue.

"XII.

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To humm, I take to be a mere technical word, as representing the sound which we call a humm. Baxter indeed, in his Glossary, p. 4, speaking of the river Humber, makes hummen to be a Saxon word: Unde et Saxonibus eodem planè intellectu Humber dicebatur, sive bombitator: nam verbum hummen, bombitare sonat.' But you will find no

such word in Lye. Camden, however, agrees with him in the etymon." P. 282.

Torbay is, we have been told, a corruption of Turbot, the place being formerly very famous for that fish.

"XVIII.

6

"The prince whom we commonly call Henry the Third, was properly Henry the Fourth, and all the later Henrys will be consequently removed one step higher as to number, and Henry VIII. will be, in strictness, Henry IX. It is the observation of Henry de Knyghton, who writes, speaking of Henry the Third, Iste Henricus filius Johannis vocatus est Henricus III. in cronicis et cartis, et omnibus aliis scriptis, non causâ nominis, quia nomine quartus rex Henricus fuit, sed causâ dignitatis regalis et regnabilis, et dominatione regnandi; nam si primus Henricus, filius autem Imperatricis, et rex Henricus filius ejusdem regis Henrici qui vocatus est Henricus rex junior qui coronatus est vivente patre [reputentur; this, or some such word, is missing] tunc iste Henricus filius Johannis esset quartus in numero: sed quia ille Henricus rex junior moriebatur ante patrem suum, et non regnavit, ea de causa respectu eorum qui regnaverunt ita dictus est Henricus tertius.' H. Knyghton." P. 285, 6.

Earl of Hardwicke, so many years Lord Chancellor.

"The chancellor is furnished every year with a new purse for the great seal; but as one is not wanted so often, his lordship reserved a new one every now and then, till at last, having got a competent number, he had them wrought into a bed, as so many ornaments; and the bed, which may exhibit a dozen or more of these purses, is now in being at Wimpole." P. 289.

❝ XXXIV.

"Harlot has the appearance of a French word: and some have imagined it came from Arlotta, the mother of William the Conqueror, he being a bastard. Dr. Johnson thinks it the Welch Herlodes, a wench or girl perhaps it may be the Saxon hor, a whore, with the diminutive French termination, quasi, a little whore." P. 295.

Because Skelton, the Mirrour of Magistrates, used a peculiar spelling, our author proposes the following absurdity to enrich our poetical diction.

"No plague on earth like love to hatred turn'd;

Hell has no fury like a woman scorn'd,'

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