enjoyment of a few years in England, he was under the necessity of again crossing the Atlantic; previous to which, he completed his terms at the Temple, and was called to the bar. He met in Jamaica a flattering reception from the governor, General Clarke, and appeared several times at the Jamaica bar; but very soon left it, and returned to private life. His repugnance to living in the West Indies was encreased by the distress of seeing Mrs. Dallas lose her health; and, after spending two years more in Jamaica, he came to the resolution of quitting it for ever. His predecessor in the office which he held having been permitted to nominate him to succeed, he flattered himself that he should be able to obtain the like permission; but he was mistaken. Some of his friends interested themselves in vain, the minister was inexorable; and he was left to the alternative of living in the West Indies, or of losing his office. We presume it is to this circumstance Mr. Dallas alludes in the passage of the History of the Maroons, where, after a panegyric on Mr. Pitt, he evinces his sincerity, by saying, that individually, he had considered him as the cause of a calamity.

He then lived for some years on the continent, which was zendered doubly agreeable to him, by the residence of his sister at Chantilly, where he used to visit her and the amiable and distinguished officer whom she had married while he was in the West Indies. Being at Paris, in the year 1789, he wit- ́ nessed the principal occurences at the commencement of the French Revolution. The effect of that great event on his sentiments we learn in the preface to his History of the Maroons : "It is well known to my friends that I early professed my abhorrence of the cruelties attendant on the state of slavery, and of slavery itself, as it appeared to me in my youth. Lest

*Captain George Byron, son of the late admiral. Both Captain and Mrs. Byron died at an early period of life, and within a few months of each other. Mr. Dallas has a dedicated paper in his Miscellaneous Writings to their memory, the part of which, relative to Captain Byron, was copied into the Naval Chronicle, Vol. vi. No. 32.

the tendency of my sentiments, in these volumes, should expose me to the charge of inconsistency, I beg leave to observe, that it is not my opinions, but things that are changed; I am still an enemy to cruelty. Previous to the French revolution, I was an enthusiast for freedom; but I very soon after learned to substitute the words happiness and order for liberty and right. The former are unequivocal, and proceed from God; the latter are ambiguous, and too ofen become means in the hands of the devil and his agents."

Driven from France by the increasing enormities of the French insanity, he sought, and found a retreat for his family in the county of Suffolk, where, for some years, he devoted himself to the education of his children. His family increa sing, and growing up, he was tempted, by the deceitful reports of the paradisical state of America, to pay a visit to his brother, who was settled at Philadelphia. His voyage served but to confirm his early and constant prepossessions in favour of England, whither he returned, to enter upon a literary career, in which the palm, due to extensive knowledge, fertile imagination, elegance of style, impartial politics, pure morals, and exalted piety, has been conferred upon his works, by a discerning and candid public. They appeared in the following order:

In 1797, Miscellaneous Writings, consisting of Poems, &c. -1801, Percival; or, Nature vindicated.—1802, Eléments of Self-knowledge.-1803, The History of the Maroons.--1804, Au

brey.

Besides these works, Mr. Dallas has very largely contributed to the gratification of the public by translations. Mallet-duPan's political and historical work, called the British Mer cury; published every fortnight, was regularly given to the English reader by his pen; which, at the same time, gave us the valuable Annuls of the French Revolution, by M. Bertrand de Moleville; the original of which was not published in England, but has since come from a Parisian press. He translated Clery's affecting Journal of the sufferings of the Royal Family of France, in the Temple; and the Abbé Ordinaire's ingenious and amusing Natural History of Volcanoes. Mr. Dallas's translations have all been either concurrent with the publication of

the originals, or prior to them : and, where he became a translator, he generally formed a friendship. Poor Mallet-du- Pan, who fell a victim to exertion, was delighted to find such a coadjutor, in his attacks on Jacobinism, and the desolators of Europe; and M. Bertrand's attachment drew the dedication of Aubrey.

We have yet to mention another work of Mr. Dallas's, which we have cited in this memoir more than once; but, as it was published without a name many years prior to his other works, as great alterations have taken place (according to his own account) in the system he reprobated twenty years ago, as it is out of print, and as he has repeatedly declined the republication of it, we shall only say, that the Short Journey in the West Indies, written as a kind of apology to his own mind, for the bold resolution of facing any fate in this country, rather than spend his life in the West Indies, contains the effusions of a young, ardent mind, bordering upon Quixotism: it gratified the professional philanthropists, and offended some of the West Indians. Mr. Dallas's opinions on liberty and on slavery have been moderated by time and experience.

In the Short Journey, descriptive of scenes viewed a quarter of a century ago, he thought that there could be no happiness without freedom; in the History of the Maroons, he thinks that regulated, mild, religious subjection, may afford more genuine content than savage liberty.

Mr. Dallas's sentiments and character appear throughout his writings. In his dedication of Percival alone, short as it is, we see the affectionate husband, the tender father, and the friend of order and society. The description of the death of Cowper's daughter, in the third volume of Aubrey, is said to be the exact narrative of his own loss: a narrative, not to be read without a tear. This dreadful misfortune happened to him about two years and half ago, since which he has mixed very little in society, but divides his time between his own studies and the education of his remaining children.

RICHARD CUMBERLAND, Esq.

In surveying the extensive range of literary talents, it is impossible to overlook those of this gentleman, whom we may consider as a dramatist, as a novelist, as a critic, and as a poet. He is the son of the late Dr. Denison, bishop of Kilmore, in Ireland, whose merits, in that country, were deemed so great, that, as a tribute of grateful acknowledgment, the corporation of Dublin presented him with the freedom of that city; an honour which, till then, had never been conferred on any personage whatever below the dignity of Lord Lieutenant. His great grandfather, likewise a learned bishop, wrote several pieces, among which was that, entitled, "De Legibus Naturæ. His mother was Joanna, daughter of Dr. Bentley, master of Trinity College; Byron, in his Idyll, "My time O ye Muses," has transmitted her name to future ages.

The first place of public instruction to which he resorted was Bury school, where he was placed under the care of the Rev. Arthur Kinsman; but, on the retirement of that gentleman from that post, he proceeded to Westminster, and thence to Trinity College, at the early period of fourteen years. While a very young man, Mr. Cumberland, like Mr. Hayley, wrote some verses on the birth-day of the Prince of Wales. During his station of an under-graduate, his attention was directed entirely to the more abstruse studies, so that he was called up to dispute before he had even commenced his course of Euclid. But when the mathematics once became the object of his study, he pursued it with such rapidity of genius, and acquired such celebrity for his profound knowledge, that, when he entered the lists, crowds attended, who listened with admiration to the astonishing youth. Nor were his labours left unrewarded by the University, who honoured him with the first academical dignity, at the time that he received his degree of bachelor of arts. In addition to this, he was also chosen a fellow of the college, at the age of nineteen, with this distinction, that the appointment took place a year before

the customary time. In the sequel, his prospects in life taking another direction than that which his forefathers had followed, the election as one of the two lay-fellows of that college fell upon him, as an inducement for him not to quit the academic life. By the friendship of the late Lord Sackville, better known by the title of Lord George Germaine, he was introduced to the office of trade and plantations, where he succeeded the late Mr. Pownal, as secretary, in which post he continued till the suppression of that appointment by Mr. Burke's bill, when he retired on a pension.

During a period of twenty years, he was connected with the late Earl of Halifax; and, on his present Majesty's accession to the throne, he attended that nobleman, on his appointment to the honour of lord lieutenant of Ireland, to that country, in the capacity of under secretary. Of his self-denial and disinterestedness we have a striking proof in his refusal of a baronetcy offered him by his patron, and in his soliciting the bishopric of Clonfert for his father.

With respect to his family, we learn that he married Elizabeth, the daughter of George Ridge, by whom he had eight children, four sons and four daughters. The former all fol❤. lowed the honourable profession of arms, two engaging themselves in the army, and the other two preferring the navy; a singular circumstance here is, that in each line, one has paid the debt of nature, and in each one yet survives. One of his daughters died at a very early period of life, two are married, and the fourth is still unmarried. The last was born in Madrid, whither Mr. Cumberland was sent in the year 1780, on some important national charge, but without appearing in a public character.

A fatality not uncommon to patriots even of the greatest integrity, befel Mr. Cumberland in this mission, by the cruel and treacherous conduct of his superiors at home. Whatever its actual nature, and the motives may have been from which it originated, it would be futile here to pretend to unravel, all being idle conjecture, and Mr. Cumberland himself having always been extremely reserved on this point. At this time the unfortunate riots of London commenced, which at once frus