Deliciae Literariae. I. AN AUTHOR'S MEMORY. IN conversation with the poet Crabbe, one of the witty authors of the Rejected Addresses quoted the lines, "Six years had pass'd, and forty ere the six, When Time began to play his usual tricks : My locks, once comely in a virgin's sight, Locks of pure brown, now felt th' encroaching white; Gradual each day I liked my horses less, My dinner more,-I learnt to play at chess." "That's very good!" cried the bard; "whose is it ?""Your own.". "Indeed! hah! well, I had quite forgotten it." It is told of Dr John Campbell, the author of the Lives of the Admirals, that one day taking up a pamphlet in a bookseller's shop, he liked it so well as to purchase it; and he read it half through before he discovered that it was his own composition.2 1 Life of Crabbe by his Son, p. 290. 2 Biographia Britannica, vol. iv. edit. Kippis. A These are rare instances, it is to be feared: the case of Madame de Genlis is perhaps less singular. In her latter years, this poor lady, not content with wholesale plagiarisms from Rousseau and Voltaire, took to filching from herself, and, under a different title, would publish the same work twice or thrice. She engaged to compile for a bookseller a Manuel Encyclopédique de l'Enfance. The manuscript was put into his hands; the stipulated price of four hundred francs was paid; and the work was about to be sent to the press, when the publisher discovered that it was nothing but an exact copy of a book on the same subject which Madame de Genlis had published ten years ago. It was in vain that he demanded restitution of his francs; and the authoress of Adèle et Théodore was dragged before the courts to hear them decide against her.1 II. PATRICK HENRY. BYRON has called this great Transatlantic orator 66 the forest-born Demosthenes, Whose thunder shook the Philip of the seas." The allusion is to a famous speech in the Virginia Assembly in 1765. "Caesar had his Brutus," said 1 Biog. Univ. t. lxv. p. 220. 2 The Age of Bronze, st. viii. Henry," Charles the First, his Cromwell,-and George the Third-" "Treason!” cried the speaker; and Treason! Treason! was echoed from all sides. "And George the Third," continued Henry, may profit by their example." The revelations of an indiscreet biographer go far to mar the effect of this bold burst. He tells us that Henry's pronunciation was so depraved that he has been heard to say, "Naiteral parts is better than all the larnin upon yearth."1 III. A HUSBAND CANNOT SELL HIS WIFE. THE provincial journals of England frequently give instances of a drunken boor driving his wife to market, placing a halter round her neck, and selling her to a neighbour for a shilling. The practice, like most others, seems to have descended to the dregs from the cream of society. In the reign of Edward I. it prevailed among persons of noble and knightly rank, as we learn from a deed still preserved, which may be thus translated: "To all good Christians to whom this writ shall come, John de Camoys, son and heir of Sir Ralph 1 Wirt's Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, p. 53. Philadelphia, 1838. Meliciae Literariae. I. AN AUTHOR'S MEMORY. In conversation with the poet Crabbe, one of the witty authors of the Rejected Addresses quoted the lines, "Six years had pass'd, and forty ere the six, When Time began to play his usual tricks : My locks, once comely in a virgin's sight, Locks of pure brown, now felt th' encroaching white; Gradual each day I liked my horses less, My dinner more,-I learnt to play at chess." "That's very good!" cried the bard; "whose is it ?"-"Your own.' "Indeed! hah! well, I had quite forgotten it."1 It is told of Dr John Campbell, the author of the Lives of the Admirals, that one day taking up a pamphlet in a bookseller's shop, he liked it so well as to purchase it; and he read it half through before he discovered that it was his own composition.2 1 Life of Crabbe by his Son, p. 290. 2 Biographia Britannica, vol. iv. edit. Kippis. A |