imagination. In the critical department are to be found many ingenious dissertations and literary remarks; of these, No 50, vol. 1, p. 340, on the "Ruins of Rome" by Dyer, is an elegant and pleasing example; and from the literary articles which are frequently appended to the "Index to the Times," I shall beg leave to copy one, which, being on the subject of periodical composition, will require no apology for its insertion.

66

"Short occasional essays,” observes the author, on the follies, vices, humours, controversies, and amusements of the age, have been esteemed. both so useful and entertaining, that not a library in the three kingdoms, and scarce a lady's closet, is without those great originals, the Tatlers and Spectators. And that no subsequent pieces have obtained the like success, is perhaps as much owing to an opinion, that those volumes had exhausted all the wit and humour the subject was capable of, as that the merits of Steele and Addison are above comparison and imitation.

"But there's a sort of craft attending vice and absurdity; and when hunted out of society in one shape, they seldom want address to re-insinuate themselves in another:-Hence the modes of licence vary almost as often as those of dress, and consequently require continual observation

to detect and explode them anew. There is room, then, for other papers to shine as well as those quoted with so much deference and honour above; and 'tis an affront to the nation to imagine its whole stock of genius depended on any two lives whatever. Those justly celebrated gentlemen have, certainly, a claim to be placed at the head of this Table of Fame, but the door ought not to be shut on their successors; and among them, the Free-Thinker has a legitimate title to be introduced the foremost.

"In the volumes under that title, is contained a great variety of discourses on subjects not touched, or but slightly, by the two accomplished masters, his predecessors; some handled with wit and pleasantry, some with great force of reason, some with the charms of eloquence and persuasion, and all with the strictest regard to politeness, good sense, and virtue. There are in particular certain papers on government, laws, religion, enthusiasm, and superstition, which are admirable; and many short pieces of poetry, that would have done honour to the most eminent writers among us.

”米

Of the coadjutors of Fielding in this paper, a Mr. Ralph, whom we shall have occasion shortly to notice, was the principal; he, it is probable,

* Vol. 1, p. 258,

wrote the Index to the Times, and the numbers marked with two asterisks, or signed Lil

bourne.

48. OLD ENGLAND, OR THE CONSTITUTIONAL JOURNAL, was a weekly paper written to oppose the ministry which succeeded to the long reign of Sir Robert Walpole. It commenced in February, 1743, and had many contributors, of which William Guthrie, the author of the Geographical Grammar, and who died in 1769, was the principal. It was continued for several years, and had, in the early part of its progress, the occasional assistance of Lord Chesterfield.

49. THE FEMALE SPECTATOR. Eliza Haywood, the author of the Female Spectator, was the daughter of a tradesman, and born in London in the year 1693. She early imbibed a taste for dramatic poetry and the stage; and having received a good education, and, though not beautiful, possessing a fine person, she made her appearance on the Dublin Theatre in 1715. Neither in this attempt, however, nor in writing for the stage, had she any success, and therefore turned her attention to novel-writing, in which her first productions, entitled, "The Court of Caramania," and "The New Utopia," owing to their looseness and immorality, involved her in considerable disgrace, and promoted her to a situation in the Dunciad of Pope.

Her subsequent life and writings, however, amply atoned for the errors of her youth; as she became undeviatingly correct in the former, and in the latter it was her constant aim to inculcate the purest precepts of morality and decorum. Her imagination was fertile, her industry great, and in the course of the last twelve or fifteen years of her existence, she produced the following effusions of fancy. The Female Spectator; Epistles for the Ladies; Fortunate Foundling; Adventures of Nature; History of Betsy Thoughtless; Jenny and Jemmy Jessamy; Invisible Spy; The Husband; and The Wife; in all, nineteen volumes 12mo, independent of pamphlets, miscellaneous pieces, and a collection of some of her early productions in four volumes 12mo, with her portrait,

In flow'rs and pearls by bounteous Kirkall dress'd.* Mrs. Haywood died in 1756, in the sixty-fourth year of her age.

The Female Spectator was published monthly in books; the first in April, 1744, and the twentyfourth and last in March, 1746. As soon as completed, they were immediately collected into four volumes 12mo, and have gone through several impressions; the seventh, and, I believe, the last edition, is now before me, and was *Dunciad, b. 2, l. 160.

printed in 1771. Mrs. Haywood and three female friends, a wife, a widow, and a maid, and who are represented as highly accomplished, are supposed to meet two evenings in every week at Mrs. H-'s lodgings, for the purpose of communicating their essays and remarks, and selecting and arranging the topics of future lucubrations.

The subjects are well chosen, and are rendered very interesting by a great variety of anecdotes, characters, and tales, which are usually related with vivacity and judgment, and in a style, if not elegant, yet easy and perspicuous, and, with a few exceptions, free from vulgarisms. If love, marriage, modesty, coquetry, jealousy, scandal, intrigue, dress, &c. are topics more immediately addressed to the ladies, there are many also which are equally adapted to either sex, and to every age; such as taste, imagination, good nature, ingratitude, gaming, truth, superstition, religion, &c. and one strong recommendation of the whole work is, that its tendency is powerfully and uniformly in favour of all that is decent and virtuous. The eleventh book, which contains a dissertation on the intellectual world, is singularly curious and entertaining; and in the fifth, the author, while speaking with approbation of properly regulated dramatic exhibitions, expresses an opinion of Shakspeare's merit, which does.