Prints, and a vast many other things.

Now of

what use a careful and observant view of these things may be to the Divine, the Naturalist, Physician, Antiquary, Historian, or indeed any Person of Curiosity, will not be hard to determine."

In the Athenian Mercury of December 19th, 1693, appeared the following advertisement: "The works of F. Rabelais, M.D., or the Lives, Heroick Deeds, and Sayings of Garguntua and Pantagruel. Done out of French by Sir Thomas Urchard, Knight, and others. With a large account of the Life and Works of the author, particularly an explanation of the most difficult passages in them. Never before published in any language. London: Printed for Richard Baldwin, near the Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane, 1694." The first edition of Urquhart's translation of "The Heroick Deeds" was published in 1653. The influence of the famous French doctor's amusing and unique literary style is evident in the replies to the queries, "What is knight-errantry?" and "What is love?" “Knight-errantry is loving, sighing, whining, rambling, starving, tilting, fighting, dying, reviving, waking, staring, singing, crying, praying, wishing, composing, writing, serenading, rhyming, hoping, fearing, despairing, raving."

With regard to love :-"'Tis very much like light—a thing that everybody knows and yet none can tell what to make of it. 'Tis not money, fortune, jointure, raving, stabbing, hanging, romancing, flouncing, swearing, ramping, desiring, fighting, dying. Although all these have been, are, and still will be mistaken and miscalled for it. What shall we say of it? 'Tis a pretty little soft thing that plays about the heart, and those who have it will know it well enough by this description. 'Tis extremely like a sigh, and could we find a painter could draw one, you'd easily mistake it for the other. 'Tis all over eyes, so far is it from being blind, as some old dotards have described it, who certainly were blind themselves. It has a mouth too, and a pair of pretty hands, but yet the hands speak, and you may feel at a distance every word that comes out of the mouth gently stealing through your very soul. But we dare not make any further inquiries, lest we should raise a spirit too powerful for all our art to lay again.”

Like the British Apollo of a later date, the Athenian Oracle had also some verses in definition of true happiness:—

THE HAPPY MAN.

The Happy Man the pompous Palace Flies,
Lives not on airy Fame's phantastick Noise,
The Tyrant's Frowns ne'er ruffle his Affairs,
Nor fill his trembling Breast with anxious Cares.
The Monarch's Smiles ne'er toss him to the skies
In tempests of Romantic Extasies.

He laughs at all his threats and stormy power
As Sailors at the Waves, themselves ashore.
Bright heaps of Gold, in vain his Envy move,
And brighter Charms of beauteous Dames, his
Love,

Lewd Ribaldry and Insolence he hates,

And the loud Tumult of the Bar's Debates.
He drowns no Day in sparkling Bowls of Wine,
But feeds on joys, and drinks from Springs Divine.
An humble house, and Rural Joys he loves,

Green Vales and Woods, and Streams and Silent
Groves.

With solid Truths his healthful Mind is fraught
With Care received, as by hard labour fought. .
He spends each Day as if the setting Light
Would close his glimmering Eyes in Death's dark
Night.

...

Tho' Nature's self should shake, and sink, and Die,
And Blazing orbs fall headlong from the Skie,
The firm Supporters of his Joys would stand
Proof against Fate, and Time's devouring Hand.

CHAPTER II.

THE BRITISH APOLLO.

"See me ready to slake my thirst at your fountain of knowledge, my Magnus Apollo."-" The Liar," Samuel Foote.

THESE lines are in every way applicable to the short period of twelve years, 1702-14, comprising the reign of good Queen Anne, and which, in consequence of the brilliancy of the prose and poetical writers who then flourished, has been justly called the Augustan Age of English Literature. The opening years of the reign saw important and rapid advances in the evolution of periodical literature, some of which, as we have seen, had

their genesis in the preceding reign. On the 11th of March, 1702, three days after Anne's coronation, the first daily newspaper, The Daily Courant, made its appearance. In the first number "the author " promises to give the names of the Foreign Prints from which his extracts were taken, and he adds the further assurance "that he will not, under Pretence of having Private Intelligence, impose any Additions of feigned circumstances to an Action." Unlike the modern editor, who likes to have his say on all subjects, he of The Courant modestly said: "Nor will he take upon him to give any Comments or Conjectures of his own, but will relate only Matters of Fact; supposing other People to have sense enough to make Reflections for themselves;" the very last thing his modern successor would think of allowing his readers, particularly on political subjects.

The literary warfare that arose between the two parties of Church and Dissent, resulted in a number of pamphlets being published, necessarily more of a political than a literary character. From pamphlets issued irregularly from the press to regularly published periodicals, at a period when there was a good demand for such literary ware, was an easy transition, and we have Daniel Defoe