*

came to Norwich, he generally visited Cossey Hall, where the good old style of English hospitality has long prevailed.

I will now mention two anecdotes of Parr, which I believe to be authentic, and I hope will be thought amusing, these Recollections of him being thrown together desultorily as they occur to me.

During the period when my preceptor was master of the Free-school at Norwich, and when balloons were the frequent topic of conversation, some mischievous wag inserted a paragraph in a newspaper, stating that "the celebrated Dr. Parr, on such a day, went up in a balloon with Blanchard or Lunardi (I forget which of them), and that several days had since elapsed without any tidings having arrived at Norwich, either of the balloon or Dr. Parr, to the unspeakable grief of his disconsolate family." This hoax succeeded so completely, that the Doctor's then wife received numerous letters of condolence on the sad catastrophe.

The occasion of the other occurrence, which took place during the same period, was a ball given by the Doctor at Norwich. The time fixed for the arrival of the party was shortly after the hour when the boys usually went to bed. The dormitory adjoined the ball-room, from which it was only separated by folding-doors; the company arrives; the music strikes up; country-dances commence, and all is mirth and gaiety. In the meantime the boys jump out of their beds, and crowd together, like a swarm of bees, against the folding-doors. The Doctor hearing the sound of voices in the dormitory, and being desirous to ascertain the cause, on a sudden opened one of the foldingdoors, upon which down came all the boys on the floor in no other habiliment than their shirts. The effect of such an irruption in the ball-room may readily be imagined. Parr's vexation was extreme. vowed he would flog them all the next morning. Away scampered the boys amidst peals of laughter on every side.

He

In writing Latin epitaphs, Parr was unrivalled; he adhered strictly to the style of the ancient inscriptions. His epitaphs on Dr. Johnson, and on Gibbon, the former inscribed on the monument in St. Paul's Cathedral, the latter on a mausoleum erected by Lord Sheffield, are happy specimens of his powers in that species of composition. In the original copy of the epitaph on Johnson, Parr, in alluding to his poetry, described him as "Poetae probabili." The word probabili, which is Ciceronian, the Doctor considered to be peculiarly appropriate to characterize the poetical powers of the great lexicographer. But the expression having been objected to on the ground of its not being sufficiently laudatory, Parr, (with great reluctance, and much against his own judgment, as he himself told me,) was prevailed upon to substitute the following words, which are now on the monument. "Poetæ luminibus sententiarum et ponderibus verborum admirabili." This alteration was a source of great vexation to Parr, who said to me, "The blockheads made me spoil the epitaph. In a conversation which I had with Sir William Scott on the subject, I convinced him that I was right." The epitaph to the memory of Gibbon was dictated to me: it is to be found in the last edition of Gibbon's posthumous works.

If Parr were now to range the old hereditary groves of Cossey, he might well exclaim, on meeting the present honoured and exalted lady of that hospitable mansion: "Gratior est pulchro veniens in corpore virtus."

THE SOLDIER'S WILL.*

'Twas near Aboukir Bay,

Where waved the tri-color,
That sign which led to victory
Proud warriors now no more ;-
'Twas near Aboukir Bay,

Where Nelson's prowess shone,
Dimming those high names of their day-
France and Napoleon-

That deadly raged the fight;

Until the Crescent flew,

And hurried after, high and bright,

The white, the red, and blue.

And fast the victors prest

The vanquish'd in the rout;
Like ocean-bird that finds no rest,
The Turk ranged wild about.
And far and faint the sound
Of battle soon rolls by,
And slow and slower peal around
The deep artillery.

"Tis now the set of sun-
It goes down darkly red,
And flings a dusky glare upon
The desert and the dead.
But where the fight has been,
And thickest lie the slain,
Moslem and Gaul still quench in blood
Their last of mortal pain.

And curse, and prayer, and moan,
And the soul-breaking sigh,
And the despair too great to groan
Its mighty misery-

Are on the sandy shore,

With many a swordless hand;
And one whose dream of glory o'er
Is dying on that strand-

One who had nursed fond hope.

Of honour and a name,

And given ambition's yearning scope
In war's flagitious game.

Valour is his, and love,

The spur that adds fresh speed
To glory's race, and aids to prove
Its claim to beauty's meed.
That love hangs lingering still
Upon his latest breath,
Changeless alike in good or ill,

The conqueror of death.

It lately came out in a law court that a soldier had traced his will with his

sword on the sand, and it was held to be good.-Daily Paper.

There, while his dropping blood
Slower and slower fell,
The soldier in that solitude
Thought of his Gabrielle;

And how her heart would bear
His doom's untimely shock,
And of his home, a dwelling fair
In fertile Languedoc ;

And vineyards that in peace
Smiled sweet on vale and hill;
And how but for Ambition's chace
He had been with them still.
He fain to her will say,

In this his closing scene,
When other dreams dissolve away,
His love's has steadfast been.

He sees no comrade near,
Save in life's agony;

No friend the pious wish to bear
Of him who soon must die.

Fast cools the vital heat;

He can but raise his hand,

And trace with his red sword his fate
Upon Aboukir's sand;
Bequeath the love he bears,
That but with life has left,
His vineyards and a ring he wears,
To her who is bereft ;

And that even to the last,
When vagrant Hope has fled,
His love a faithful friend clings fast,
And cheers his gory bed.

And he will write of more,

But his stiff fingers fail :

One throb-another-all is o'er!-
Both name and love a tale!

REYNOLDS'S MEMOIRS.*

We can conceive few things more pleasant to a man somewhat advanced in the shady part of his life's road, than to sit down and review, calmly and dispassionately, the circumstances of a busy and eventful career. Scene after scene is brought in succession to the mind's eye, with more or less vigour according to the degree of imagination possessed by the individual. Although laid up in ordinary, the veteran loves to recount past dangers-to fight his battles o'er again-to look from his easy chair, through the haze of distance, upon scenes of turbulent emotion, whether painful or pleasurable-to glance retrospectively, from his silvered hair or shrunken limb, at the full-blooded activity, the sinewy exertions of his ripe manhood. And if this kind of retrospect be agreeable to the party himself, it administers, when made public, to a very general and craving appetite. Life has been not inaptly compared to a game of chess, the successful decision of which is the fruit of unceasing caution and unwearied diligence; and we catch eagerly at an exposition of the

* Life and Times of Frederic Reynolds, written by Himself, 2 vols. 8vo.

manner in which our neighbour has played his game, more particularly if his skill should have attracted observation. Indeed, we strongly suspect that the occurrences of any individual's existence, if faithfully set down, would not fail to present some circumstances of interest, something calculated to benefit us in the way of experience, or to fascinate us by the excitement of sympathy, "To point a moral, or adorn a tale."

The style of the work before us is exceedingly gay and buoyant, leading one from page to page, without the least feeling of tedium. The first chapter is headed Infancy, the second Schooldays and Boyhood; and upon this era, the author seems to dwell with peculiar gratification, although by no means inclining to the common notion of the paramount felicity of that period of birchen rule. His childish tricks and exploits are related with uncommon unction, and manifest him to have been, in the unvarying phrase of his maternal aunt, a monstrous funny boy." One of his brothers, it appears, was afflicted with a passion for writing verses, which mania at length exploded in a regularly printed volume, bearing the astounding title of the "Indian Scalp!" With reference to this young litterateur and his production, a little scene is introduced, the most prominent actor in which is no less a person than Dr. Johnson. This anecdote is so amusing in itself, and, at the same time, so characteristic of the great author alluded to, that we make no apology for laying it before the reader as we proceed.

Pope says of Dryden, "Virgilium tantum vidi ;" so I may say of Dr. Johnson. One morning, shortly after our return, he called on my father concerning some law business, and was ushered into the drawing-room, where I and my three brothers, eager to see, and still more eager to say we had seen, the leviathan of literature, soon followed. All were, or affected to appear, struck with awe, except my brother Jack; who having just published his "Indian Scalp," was most anxious to elicit the Doctor's opinion. Accordingly, he seated himself close to him, and began: "Any news in the literary world, Sir ?”

"Sir!" cried the Doctor.

“Anything new, Doctor, I say, in the literary world?" continued the unhesitating poet.

"Young man, talk to me of Ranelagh and Vauxhall; of what you may understand; but not a word on literature."

We all smiled aside; but the author was omnipotent in Jack's mind, and, scarcely ruffled, he returned to the charge.

"Have you heard of a new poem, Sir ?"—(No answer.) "A new poem, Sir ?— A new poem, Sir, called" (with rising confusion) "called the Indian Scalp,'— rather I believe," (confusion increasing,) "I believe it is tolerably-well spoken of. You don't know who wrote it, Doctor?"

"No, but I do," cried I, eagerly seizing the opportunity of making myself conspicuous in my turn; "don't I, Jack ?-Indeed, Sir, he awakened me so many nights, and taught me so many verses, that, if you like, I can repeat you almost the whole poem, Sir, with the same rapidity and facility with which he wrote it."

"Facilis descensus Averni," muttered the Doctor, and then added, in an authoritative tone, "ring the bell, one of you, ring the bell," and the servant was ordered to summon my father, on whose appearance the Doctor formally arose, and said

"When next I call here, Sir, show me where there is civilization-not into your menagerie."

There is indeed, in the course of these lively volumes, a very strong muster of anecdotes, equally piquant and laughable, and interspersed with others, the interest of which is of a graver nature. The latter, it must be confessed, however great may be our willingness to admit the existence of romance in real life, look rather theatrically cooked up, in one or two instances, and demand a most amiable proportion of credulity. This, nevertheless, although open to some objection on the score of weakening our faith in other parts of the narrative, certainly is very far from lessening the excitement produced by the book and there is such an evident spirit of truthtelling-we may say of

scrupulous truthtelling-generally running throughout, that a trifling peccadillo or two of this kind, if it really exist, which we are not prepared to assert, may readily be forgiven.

One of the most curious parts of Mr. Reynolds's book is the perfect openness which he has displayed with respect to pecuniary matters. The public have always a prodigious degree of curiosity on these sort of subjects, which cannot, at all times, be accounted for. It would seem obvious enough that a man should have an itching to know the depth of another's purse, with whom he is in any way identified or concerned. To be aware how far our neighbour's or our friend's means may be entitled to our compassion or envy, is also, no doubt, rationally and legitimately desirable. But it is quite clear that the propensity is not any way bounded by considerations such as these, or indeed by any considerations at all. Witness the extreme avidity with which the reported salaries of actors and other prominent persons are discussed, even when the public must, in the first place, be quite uninterested, virtually speaking, in the matter; and, in the next, equally unable to get at the truth of it. The author before us has availed himself of this universal principle of Paul Pry-ism, and has administered to it in the fullest, and, apparently, in the frankest manner. He communicates the relative profits of each of his literary labours, and thus furnishes a kind of ledger account, which we have no doubt will be referred to with anxious eyes by many a young votary of the dramatic Muse.

Mr. Reynolds's life has not been without its vicissitudes, and those occasionally of a trying nature. Yet it must be pronounced, generally speaking, a fortunate, and, we should think, a cheerful one. If his plays are now, with one or two exceptions, forgotten, yet they caused a great laugh at the time, lined the author's pocket, and were honoured by the approval of Majesty. The late King, by the by, was a far greater frequenter and patron of the theatre than his royal successor; and this circumstance must have been a prodigious source of encouragement at once to playwright, manager, and performer. Neither should we omit to observe, that Mr. Reynolds's philosophy, so far at least as we may be warranted in extracting it from his book, is of the hopeful and enjoying cast, and has not permitted him to quarrel with Fortune, because she has not gifted his works with immortality, as well as the labour which produced them with increase. He, in fact, jokes very complacently in noticing his failures, and particularly in speaking of his two first productions-tragedies entitled Werter and Eloisa. His first and best comedy

was the Dramatist.

In England, the era of comedy was fast verging to its close, and the dramatist was gradually relaxing his grasp of the theatrical sceptre, to resign it to the musician, the mechanist, and the scene-painter, when this play made its appearance, and set the fashion of a new school, which, if it wanted the authorial merits of the older pieces, at least possessed to a great extent the power of pleasing the audience to which it addressed itself. At the period in question, the passions had been exhausted, and all the prominent situations which their ordinary workings exhibit, had been appropriated and made familiar on the stage. The distinctive character of casts and profes sions was worn out and obliterated, and a country justice, or a fox-hunter, differed so little from a town-bred gentleman, that, without caricature, they could no longer be discriminated in representation. But, worst of all, an epoch of universal education and refinement had commenced, which, while it opened other stores of amusement to wean the public from the theatre, had given a tone and polish to social intercourse, which authors might in vain strive to exceed, so that unless the dialogue of the stage became a mere firework of points and conceits, fatiguing while it excites, it inevitably remained below, or at best but on a level with ordinary good conversation, for wit and brilliancy. "We say better things ourselves every day," was a remark made at the representation of one of our witty comedies; and if this is in some degree an exaggeration of the fact, it is because a dread of the imputation of