reign; he sent out his runners upon the search for men of talents, and Dodington was perfectly reconciled to the honour of being his provider in that laudable pursuit, for which no man was better qualified. He was not wanting in intuition to discern what the powers of Bentley's genius were, and none could better point out the purposes, to which they might be usefully directed. Opposition was then beginning to look up, and soon felt the sharp point of Bentley's pen in one of the keenest and wittiest satires, extant in our language. Lord Temple, Wilkes, and others of the party were attacked with unsparing asperity, and much classical acumen. Churchill, the Dryden of his age, and indisputably a man of a first-rate genius, was too candid not to acknowledge the merit of the poem, and when he declined taking up the gauntlet so pointedly thrown down to him, it was not because he held his challenger in contempt. It was this poem, that brought an accumulation of favours on its author, but I don't know that he ever had an interview with the bestower of them, and I am rather inclined to think they never met. About the same time my uncle composed his witty but

eccentric drama of The Wishes, in which he introduces the speaking Harlequin after the manner of the Italians. This curious production, after being circulated in manuscript, admired and applauded by all who had seen it, and those the very party, which led the taste of the time under the auspices of Lord Bute, was privately rehearsed at Lord Melcombe's villa of La Trappe. It was on a beautiful summer's evening when it was recited upon the terrace on the banks of the Thames, by Obrien, Miss Elliot, Mrs. Haughton and some few others under the management of Foote and Murphy, who attended on the occasion. At this rehearsal, there was present-a youth unknown to fame-who was understood to be protected by Lord Bute, and came thither in a hackney coach with Mrs. Haughton. This gentleman was of the party at the supper with which the evening's entertainment concluded; he modestly resigned the conversation to those, who were more disposed to carry it on, whilst it was only in the contemplation of an intelligent countenance that we could form any conjecture as to that extraordinary gift of genius, which in course of time advanced him to the

Great Seal of the kingdom and the Earldom of Rosslyn.

Foote, Murphy and Obrien were then joint conductors of the summer theatre, and performed their plays upon the stage of Drury Lane, and here they brought out The Wishes, which had now been so much the topic of conversation, that it drew all the wit and fashion then in town to its first representation. The brilliancy of its dialogue, and the reiterated strokes of point and repartee kept the audience in good humour with the leading acts, and seemed to augur favourably for the conclusion, till when the last of the Three Wishes produced the ridiculous catastrophe of the hanging of Harlequin in full view of the audience, my uncle, the author, then sitting by me, whispered in my ear-" If they don't damn "this, they deserve to be damn'd themselves—” and whilst he was yet speaking the roar began, and The Wishes were irrevocably condemned. Mr. Harris some years after gave it a second chance upon his stage: the judgment of the public could not take away the merit of the poet, but it decided against his success. Upon the hint of this play, and the entertainment at

La Trappe, where Foote had been a guest, that wicked wit took measure of his host, and founded his satirical drama of The Patronin short he feasted, flattered and lampooned.

Mr. Bentley also wrote a very elegant poem, and addressed it as an epistle to Lord Melcombe: it was in my opinion a most exquisite composition, in no respect inferior to his satire, but for reasons I could never understand, nor even guess, it was coolly received by Melcombe, and stopt with him. If that poem is in the hands of any of Mr. Bentley's family, it is much to be regretted that they withhold it from the public, though all that was then temporary is now long past and forgotten.

What may be the nature or amount of the manuscripts, which my uncle may have left behind him, I do not know: I can speak only of two dramas; one of these entitled Philodamus has been given to the public by Mr. Harris, and Henderson performed the character, that gives its name to the play. The ingenious author always wrote for the reader, he did not study how to humour the spectator: Philodamus has much of the old cast in its style, with a considerable portion of originality

and a bold vein of humour running through it, occasionally intermixed even with the pathos of the scene, which in a modern composition, professing itself to be a tragedy, is a perilous experiment. Such it proved to Philodamus; its very best passages in perusal were its weakest points in representation, and it may be truly said it was ruined by its virtues: but in the galleries of our theatres the Graces have no seats, and he that writes to the populace must not borrow the pen of the author of PhilodaPoet Gray wrote a long and elaborate critique upon this drama, which I saw, and though his flattery was outrageously pedantic, yet the incense of praise from author to author is always sweet, and perhaps not the less acceptable on account of its being so seldom offered up. The other drama on the Genoese Conspiracy I saw in its unfinished state, and can only say that I was struck by certain passages, but cannot speak of it as a whole.

mus.

When the ceremony of the coronation was over, the Lord Lieutenant set out for Ireland with a numerous cavalcade. I was now the father of two infant children, a daughter and a son; these I left with their grandmother Mrs.