reached the abbey about one o'clock, where they were met by Dr. Vincent, Dean of Westminster, the long-remembered friend and early schoolfellow of Cumberland. His office must, therefore, have been an affecting one. When the body was placed in the grave, he pronounced the following oration, for a correct copy of which I am indebted to the kindness of his daughter, Mrs. Jansen:

ed.

"Good People, we have committed to the dust the body of Richard Cumberland, a man well entitled, by his virtues and his talents, to repose among the illustrious dead by which, in this place, he is surroundNo author has written more; few have written better. His talents were chiefly devoted to the stage: his dramas were pure and classical, the characters drawn from high life as well as low life, but all invariably dealt with according to the strict rules of poetical justice; and we may say of him what we can say of few dramatists, that his plays were not contaminated by oaths or libidinous allusions, such as have disgraced the stage in all ages of the drama, and greatly, nay abominably, so at the present day. He was of opinion that the theatre was not merely a place of amusement, but a school of manners. In his prose works he was a moralist of the highest order. In his two great poems, drawn from holy writ, he well sustained the dignified character of our sacred religion, approved himself a worthy teacher of gospel morality, and a faithful servant of his blessed Redeemer. He was not exempt from the failings and infirmities of human nature; but let us remember, that his talents were never prostituted to the cause of vice or immorality; let us contemplate his long and useful labours in the service of God and his country; and may the God of all mercy pardon his sins, and in the resurrection of the just receive him into everlasting peace and glory!'

To the correctness of this character, given of the deceased by Dr. Vincent, Mr. M. demurs, denying him the praise of a strict ly moral writer, and refusing to allow that his plays are free from oaths; but the passages which are adduced in Mr. M.'s first edition, and suppressed in the second, are not quite in point, if by oaths we mean impious appeals to the Divine Being. The prac tice, too common in the present day, of profane execration or cursing, is indeed exemplified in Cumberland's dramas.

Throughout this work, Mr. M. has aimed at producing a nervous composition, and on the whole he has succeeded: but, as he is a martinet in style, we were surprised to meet in p 469. with the following language: "he affords too many glimpses in the progress of the action, of how it is to terminate ;" and in p. 451. the sentence is not much better, in which he speaks of "negligences which he had already animadverted on in examining the West Indian." He has written on Cumberland's works more than was necessary; but he has in general written well, and in the spirit of sound criticism.

ORIGINAL.

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR

OF THE LATE

BRIGADIER GENERAL ZEBULON MONTGOMERY PIĶE,

ZEBULON MONTGOMERY PIKE was born at Lamberton,* in the state of New-Jersey, January 5th, 1779. His father was a respectable officer in the army of the United States. His family had for several generations resided in New-Jersey, and were descended from a Captain John Pike, whose name is preserved by tradition as having been a gallant and distinguished soldier in the early Indian wars of the colony. He entered the army while yet a boy, and served for some time as a cadet in his father's company, which was then stationed on the western frontiers of the United States. At an early age he obtained the commission of ensign, and some time after, that of lieutenant in the 1st regiment of infantry. He was thus almost from his cradle trained to the habits of a military life; but he did not, like most of the peaceful veterans of the barracks and the parade, while away his days in inactivity, contented with the mechanical routine of military duty. By a life of constant activity and exposure, he invigorated his constitution, and prepared himself for deeds of hardihood and adventure. At the same time, he endeavoured to supply the deficiency of his early education by most ardent, though, probably, often desultory and ill-regulated application to every branch of useful knowledge. He had entered the army with no other edu cation than such as is afforded by the most ordinary village school -reading, writing, and a little arithmetic. By his own solitary exertions he acquired, almost without the aid of a master, the

* This name is a curious instance of the mode in which many of our Indian names have been changed. It is a corruption of Lamaton, which was formerly pronounced and spelt Alamatunk, that being the original Indian name.

French and Latin languages, the former of which, it appears from his journal, he was able to write and speak with sufficient accura cy for all the purposes of business; to these he afterwards added a competent knowledge of the Spanish. He also studied the elementary branches of mathematics, and became very conversant and even skilful in all the ordinary practical applications of that science. He seems, besides, to have had a general curiosity, to which no kind of knowledge was without interest; he read with avidity every book which fell in his way, and thus, without any regular plan of study, acquired a considerable stock of various information, and some tincture of popular English literature. In most of these literary acquirements, Pike scarcely attained to the accuracy of the scholar, but they were such as became the gentleman, and elevated and adorned the character of the soldier. Nor were these studies directed solely to the improvement of the mind; he endeavoured to make them subservient to a much higher end. From his youth he sedulously cultivated in himself a generous spirit of chivalry; not that punctilious and barren honour which cheaply satisfies itself with the reputation of personal courage and freedom from disreputable vice, but the chivalry of the ancient school of European honour-that habit of manly and virtuous sentiment, that spirit of patriotism and self-devotion, which, while it roots out from the heart every other weakness of our nature, spares and cherishes "that last infirmity of noble minds," the love of glory, and in every great emergency in which man may be called upon to act, sends him forth into the service of his country or his kind, at once obeying the commands of duty, and elevated and animated by the warm impulse of enthusiastic feeling.

Among other habits of mental discipline by which Pike was accustomed to cherish these principles and feelings, was a constant practice of inserting upon the blank pages of some favourite volume, such striking maxims of morality, or sentiments of honour, as occurred in his reading, or were suggested by his own reflections. He had been in the practice of making use of a small edition of Dodsley's "Economy of Human Life," for this purpose. Soon after his marriage, he presented this volume to his wife, who still preserves it as one of the most precious memorials of her husband's