To the disgrace of the nineteenth century, the observations of this popular writer are more applicable than ever. National credulity, with regard to medical imposture, seems to be on the increase; and swarms of adventurers, however ignorant and illiterate, are allowed to prey upon the public, and to accumulate immense fortunes by the ruin of the health and happiness of their fellow creatures. Surely it is the part of every wise government, by whom population must be identified with wealth, to arrest the progress of such wide-wasting mischief, and, scorning to profit by the sale of patent poisons, to enforce the severest punishments for such wanton propagation of disease and death. The subject of N° 633, is on the advantages to be derived to elocution from the sublime and interesting doctrines of christianity. The Bishop compares St. Paul with Demosthenes and Cicero, and accounts for the superiority in eloquence which he ascribes to the apostle, by imputing it to the impressive and stupendous nature of the information that he had to convey, and which would naturally give to his manner a more than common portion of warmth, animation, and zeal. He appeals also with exultation to the fragment of Longinus found prefixed to one of the manuscripts of the New Testament in the Vatican li brary, and in which the great critic, after enumerating the most eminent orators of Greece, closes the list by saying, "add to these Paul of Tarsus, the patron of an opinion not fully proved." Fabricius has, however, in his Bibliotheca Græca *, supposed this fragment to be a forgery of the christians; but, as he brings forward no authority for the conjecture, we may be still allowed to consider this passage as a further proof of the taste and candour of Longinus. * Lib. iv. c. 31. PART IV. ESSAY III. BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES OF THE OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENTS OF STEELE AND ADDISON. THE ten characters, whose biography we have now given, were, after Steele and Addison, the chief contributors to the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian; they have therefore, with propriety, occupied more of our attention than can, consistently with the limits of our original design, be paid to the next two series of periodical writers, of which the first will consist of those only who have composed an entire paper; the second of those who have written merely letters, or portions of a number. 11. JOHN GAY was born A. D. 1688, in the vicinity of Barnstaple, in Devonshire. Having received a good grammatical education under the care of Mr. Luck, the master of the free-school at Barnstaple, he was, owing to the reduced circumstances of his family, destined for trade, and bound an apprentice to a silk-mercer in London. With this occupation, however, he was greatly dissatisfied; for, having imbibed a taste for poetry and classical literature, he was early disgusted with the servility and frivolous nature of his employment, and, shortly afterwards, induced his master, who saw his aversion to the business unconquerable, to resign his indentures for a small consideration. On his release he immediately applied himself to the cultivation of poetry, and, in 1711, published his first attempt in verse, entitled Rural Sports, which he inscribed to Mr. Pope, then nearly of his own age; and an intimacy took place between the poets in consequence of this literary compliment, that ripened into a friendship equally durable and sincere. The poem, though written on a theme so trite, is evidently the production of one who describes what he has himself actually seen; and it can, therefore, boast of several descriptions which are novel, and interesting. In 1712, our author obtained a situation which left him at full liberty to indulge his taste for elegant literature. He was appointed secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth, and the public was soon gratified by the product of his leisure. His Trivia, or, The Art of walking the Streets in London, appeared the same year, and procured him much reputation. It is a fine specimen of that species of burlesque, in which elevated language is employed in the detail of trifling, mean, or ludicrous circumstances. He occasionally, however, touches upon subjects of a very different nature; and the following description of a fire is so minutely correct as to make the reader shudder: At first a glowing red enwraps the skies, And borne by winds the scatt'ring sparks arise; A more sublime and awful, though not a more accurate picture of this dreadful disaster, has been given us by Dr. Darwin, in his Botanic Garden. He is addressing the Aquatic Nymphs: From dome to dome when flames infuriate climb, Moves his dark limbs across the lurid blaze: |