a worthy man, in the strain of an enraged and irrit able author; this produced a severe rejoinder in the Review for February 1759; and on the part of both there was more of personality and vituperation than was becoming, or the occasion demanded. In the previous autumn he had engaged to travel for four years with a young friend, a Mr. Bourryan, of large West India property, whose studies from an early period had been in part committed to his charge. The reward for this appropriation of time, was to be an annuity for life of 2001. per annum. The resolution to quit London, he writes to Dr. Percy in letters from which this abstract is taken, was not adopted in a hurry; for though "his practice was not exceeded by that of any young physician in London," the proposed term of absence, he believed, would not interfere materially with his views, while it promised to add to the number and respectability of his friends. In April 1759, he embarked for the island of St. Christopher in the West Indies quarrelled soon after reaching it, as is said, with his patron; commenced practising physician; and married a lady of good family but small fortune, some of whose friends fancied the union not to her advantage. A grossly defamatory and untrue account of the lady appeared during her life, in a memoir of her husband, inserted in the Westminster Magazine for 1773, which the exertions of Mr. Percy and others, who knew her and her friends, caused to be contradicted by the threat of legal proceedings. Her affection for his memory was apparently strong; and his letters already mentioned speak of her in terms of similar regard. In the autumn of 1763, he returned to England. The poem of the Sugar Cane, written during his abode in the West Indies, had been previously transmitted home, and after some uncertainty as to the mode of publication, did not appear until after he had sailed in May 1764, on his return to St. Christopher's. There, it appears, his affairs had become involved during his absence, which an inheritance derived from the death of a brother in Scotland, enabled him soon after to obviate in part. Unsettled in his plans at this period, as the letters alluded to evince; speculating on the advantages to be derived from removing to other islands less populous and more open to the enterprise of new settlers; anticipating wealth as well from planting as his profession; and the enjoyment, as he says, of many happy days in England when that good should be acquired, projects conceived with all the warmth of poetry, and overthrown with the usual speed and sternness of matter of fact, - he was taken ill, and died on the 16th December, 1766, in the forty-sixth year of his age. Grainger possessed considerable learning and genius his temper, according to Dr. Percy with whom a close friendship had been formed, generous; his habits social; his disposition benevolent, and as Dr. Johnson said, "who would do any good in his power; " his manners simple and un obtrusive in general society, and therefore sometimes overlooked for more loud and commonplace though less gifted and informed talkers. He looked earnestly to the acquisition of fame as a poet; more so than the merits of his pieces warranted; and wishing to rise to literary eminence by this alone, believed he had in some measure secured it, for on first proceeding to the West Indies, he expressed to Mr. Percy the intention of leaving with him, in case of his own death, a corrected copy of his works for publication, with a request that not a line should be permitted to appear which might be thought to derogate from his reputation. His poems however have not had all the success he expected. Attempts to introduce them to public favour made by some admirers in Scotland have failed*, either from being deficient in true poetical power, or from the subject of the principal piece - the Sugar Cane-possessing little interest for general readers; and so slightly was poetry valued on the spot where the theme was sufficiently familiar, that though advertised for a charitable purpose, no more, as he admits, than twelve subscribers could be obtained in the * An edition of his poems, with a new life prefixed, was undertaken and printed by Dr. Anderson, Editor of the British Poets, chiefly at the suggestion of Bishop Percy, by whom many new pieces were supplied; but the work has not been published. A long correspondence on this subject has been examined by the writer. West India islands. With its fate in England he was better satisfied, as appears by the extract already given from his letters. It is now seldom read, or no imperfect test of merit - quoted. Neither has the Ode on Solitude retained firm hold on the public mind. * The neglect is said by some of his countrymen - if indeed he be really a Scotsman-to be unjust; but to what other tribunal than the mass of readers shall we appeal? The version of Tibullus, though not without spirit and tenderness in parts, is deficient as a whole in that felicitous execution which stamps the genuine poet of a high order. It was through Grainger that the acquaintance of the Rev. Mr. Percy with Goldsmith commenced in the year 1758. The latter alludes to his former friend in the description of fishes in Animated Nature, when speaking of such as are poisonous.† * A critic of the present day will find fault with the rhyme even of the first lines "O Solitude, romantic maid! Whether by nodding towers you tread." + "The fact of their (certain descriptions of fish) being poisonous when eaten is equally notorious; and the cause equally inscrutable. My poor worthy friend Dr. Grainger, who resided for many years at St. Christopher's, assured me, that of the fish caught of the same kind at one end of the island, some were the best and most wholesome`in the world; while others, taken at a different end, were always dangerous and most commonly fatal." CHAPTER VII. VISIT OF HIS BROTHER TO LONDON.-LETTER TO MR. HODSON. -MEMOIRS OF A PROTESTANT.-GRAND MAGAZINE. — LETTERS TO MR. MILLS, TO MR. BRYANTON, AND TO MRS. JANE LAWDER.-APPOINTMENT TO INDIA. -LETTER TO MR. HODSON. ATTEMPTS TO PASS SURGEONS' HALL. HAVING inadvertently mentioned in a letter to Mrs. Lawder, in Ireland, his acquaintance with several names eminent in literature, he was surprised shortly after by the arrival thence of his brother Charles. No previous intimation of the design preceded this visit, the object of which was, with the characteristic simplicity of a country youth, to be provided for by some of his brother's influential friends; for although at the age of twenty-one, he possessed neither provision, nor profession to enable him to obtain it. - The error as to his brother's power of serving him was soon apparent. However eminent might be his friends, the honour of their acquaintance by no means implied the freedom of drawing upon their purses or their patronage, had they such to bestow ; while Oliver, pressed by the difficulty of providing for his own wants, found no little embarrassment in the demands of another. When Charles expressed disappointment, as he told Mr. Bindley |