In the meanwhile, Pope faints, and Mrs. Heywood carries him off

To where a fragrant bed of nettles lay

Soft smiling, bore him in her lap away.

Moore then comes forward, and compliments Philips on his victory:
All hail'd him chief-the god approv'd the sound,

And with the evergreen his temples crown'd.

We have nothing more to say concerning Mr. Cooke.

P. 34. Dr. A. Ferguson, whose Essay on the History of Civil Society "gives him a respectable place in the ranks of literature.

Boswell did not accurately weigh the import of his terms, or we should wish the word respectable to be changed:-a better estimate of the merits of this eloquent and well-informed writer may be seen in the biographies of D. Stewart; and see his Moral Philosophy praised in the Life of Sir James Mackintosh. The History of Civil Society was highly commended by the late Lord Mansfield, and is an eloquent work; see Warton's Pope, vol. iii. p. 115; and see an account of Ferguson in Quarterly Review, No. lxxi. p. 196. On Ferguson's "History of Sister Peg," in imitation of Arbuthnot's John Bull, see Scott's edition of Swift, vol. vi. p. 4. and Mackenzie's Life of Home. We believe he visited Rome, for the first time, after he was eighty years old; he died in his ninety-third year. On his History of the Roman Republics, see Foreign Quarterly, No. vi. p. 400.

:

P. 36. "Swift is clever, but he is shallow." "What could Johnson mean," says Mr. Croker, "by calling Swift shallow? If he be shallow, who, in his department of literature, is profound? Without admitting that Swift was inferior in coarse humour to Arbuthnot (of whose precise share in the work to which he is supposed to have contributed, we know little or nothing), it may be observed, that he who is second to the greatest masters of different styles, may be said to be the first on the whole."-Now we do not conceive that Johnson alluded to Swift's humourous writings when he called him shallow; he mentions his humour afterwards and shallow is not a word applicable to witty and humourous writings. What he meant is shown by a subsequent passage: "I doubt if the Tale of the Tub was his; it has so much more thinking, more knowledge, more power, more colour, than any of the works which are indisputably his." Swift must be considered as a first-rate writer in his favourite line; but as an historian, a divine, and a scholar, he might, by such a man as Johnson, be called shallow. His history is a contemptible party pamphlet; his sermons shew no deep divinity; and his scholarship was confined to a few authors of note, which he read as a man of taste. Certainly in point of knowledge, if compared to Arbuthnot, he was shallow. Mr. Croker must mean by "Swift's department of literature," the satyrical and humourous.' Do the terms profound and shallow characterize that?-Surely not. Therefore Johnson alluded to his other writings and general attainments. To us his opinion seems very just.

P. 40. Dr. Johnson said, "It was easier to him to write poetry, than to compose his Dictionary." Mr. Croker's note is, "There is hardly any operation of the intellect which requires more and deeper consideration than definition. A thousand men may write verses, for one who has the power of defining and discriminating the exact meaning of words, and the principles of grammatical arrangement." That Johnson's poetical labours were easier to him than his philological may be conceived; for, in the first place, the subject matter (we are speaking of his two greatest per

formances) was found for him; 2ndly, eloquent, and even poetical words were, by habit, at his command; and 3dly, his poetry made no very urgent call on the higher powers of the mind, as the invention and the imagination. But we differ from the commentator's remark; as we maintain that the Poet defines his words with a delicacy of feeling and a nicety of discrimination, beyond that of the mere grammarian. If, as Mr. Coleridge justly observes, in truly great poets, as Shakespeare and Milton, you cannot change a single word without injury to the sense,-how finely must their language be selected! and that selection is formed on the most beautiful and exact definition. The definition of Poetry, we maintain, is more delicate and discriminating than that of Grammar When Mr. Croker uses the expression 'a thousand may write verses,' he leaves his text, and also the force of the passage. Assuredly, a thousand men must write such verses as require no labour of thought, and impart no gratification, and their mechanical or worthless manufacture would not enter into the argument; for who ever heard of a thousand people who could be called poets? Dr. Johnson was speaking of his own poetry, which he of course estimated at its worth; the foot of the comparison should have been placed by the Commentator here. If he had said " a thousand men may write poetically," it would have been correct; as it is, such verses as a thousand men must write, may be opposed to such definitions as a thousand men would be very unwilling to read.

P. 42. "Our friend chose Vane, who was far from being well looked' Is this a Scotticism? if so, why was not it remarked?

P. 67 "We went and saw Colonel Nairne's garden and grotto. There was a fine old Piane Tree. Sir W. Scott mentions also the Prior Letham Plane, measuring near 20 feet. This giant of the forest stands in a cold exposed situation," &c. Why has not one of the Commentators informed us that the Scotch always call the sycamore, the Acer Major or Sycamorus, the Plane. The real Plane Tree of England, the Platanus, whether Orientalis or Occidentalis, is too tender to grow to any size in Scotland, and, if it would bear the climate of the south-western parts, would be rent in pieces by the storms. The Prior Letham Sycamore is a well-known tree, and still exists. In England few fine specimens of the American Plane (the Occidentalis) now exist: perhaps few finer than that in Mr. Longman's garden at Hampstead; and the finest specimen of the eastern (Orientalis) is at Lee in Kent; but neither of these trees would attain a circumference of 28 feet in our Northern climate.

P. 90. "As Bacon says:

Who then to frail Mortality shall trust,

But limns the water, or but writes in dust."

In what treatise of Bacon's are these lines? and why they are not referred to by the Editor?

We shall now extract a story of Johnson from a book which we believe has not yet been called into the illustration of Boswell :

"The following anecdote of Dr. Johnson and Garrick may be relied on. Dr. Johnson being with Foster, Holland, Woodward, and others on a party at Mr. Garrick's villa at Hampton, as they were conversing on different subjects, he fell into a reverie, from which his attention was drawn by the accidentally casting his eyes on a book-case, to which he was GENT. MAG, VOL. VII.

as naturally attracted as a needle to the Pole. On perusing the title-pages of the best bound, he muttered, inwardly, with ineffable contempt; but, proceeding on his exploring business of observation, ran his finger down the middle of each page, and then dashed the volume disdainfully upon the floor, the which Garrick beheld with much wonder and vexation, while the

T

P. 62. "Sir Walter Scott, in his celebrated Tale, entitled Old Mortality, has told this story (the murder of Archbishop Sharpe) with all the force of history, and the interest of romance."-CROKER. We know this Tale of Sir Walter's very well; but in our repeated readings of it, have never met with the story to which Mr. Croker alludes; nor is it to be found there or in any other novel of Sir Walter's. There are allusions to the murder, but no narrative of it, as Mr. Croker says. From what can this mistake of the Commentator have arisen?

By way of Appendix to the present Notes, we make an extract from Les Cinq Années Littéraires de M. Clement." 2 vols. Berlin. 1756, containing some Notices of the Rambler which have not been, as far as we know, mentioned by any of Johnson's editors or commentators.

C'est le nom de l'auteur auparavant connu par divers ouvrages, et qui nous fait espérer un Dictionnaire Anglais, dont nous avons un besoin honteux, et pour lequel il mérite les plus grands encouragements.

la variété des richesses du Printems, et la Nature en choeur sembloit chanter dans les bosquets. Mais j'ai apperçu bientôt à quelque distance des fleurs plus brillantes encore, des eaux plus claires, des arbres plus toupes, d'un plus beau verd, plus fleuris, où les oiseaux, que je n'avois d'abord entendus qu' imparfaitement, faisoient éclater tous les charmes de la mélodie. Cependant ma vue étoit distraite par des fruits mûrs, qui sembloient n'attendre que ma main pour les cueillir. Je fis quelques pas pour me mettre à portée, mais les fleurs se fanerent à mon approche, les fruits tomboient avant que j'y puisse atteindre, les oiseaux fuyoient devant moi en chantant toujours, et quel

que diligence que je fisse, je ne pouvois arriver aux plaisirs qui appelloient mes regards, se jouoient de mon empressement, et s'eloignoient à mesure que j'avançois,' &c.

"Le songe est un peu long, ainsi que tout à que fait l'Auteur. Je ne vous ai traduit que le mieux rêve, et fort peu littéralement, je prends ici, je laisse la, je decous, je brode, c'est ma manière; si je m'avisois de traduire ainsi L'Apocalypse, se serois rasé de livre de vie. Ce que M. Johnson entend le moins, c'est la plaisanterie; combien de chemin il auroit à faire pour arriver au leger badinage de votre Requête des Sous-fermiers au Roi!"

NEW RECORD COMMISSION.-No. VI.

Report from the Select Committee on the Record Commission, together with the Minutes of Evidence. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 15th August, 1836. THOSE of our readers who take an interest in the subject to which these papers have been devoted, may recollect that, in our Magazine for March last, we announced that the affairs of the Record Commission had been referred by the House of Commons to the consideration of a Select Committee. At that time we determined that we would desist from noticing the subject until the Committee had concluded its labours and published its Report; and we did so, partly from a feeling of the impropriety of discussing matters which might be said to be 'sub judice;' and partly, also, because we anticipated that the inquiries before the Committee would make us better acquainted with the affairs of the Record Commission, and better able, therefore, to do our duty to our readers.

With the exception of an article in our July number, we have adhered to our determination, and that article, our readers may remember, was called forth by an attack upon Mr. Hunter, so unprincipled and unjust as to defy all previous calculation.

After some months of unaccountable delay, we are at length released from our restraint. The Report and the Evidence are before us, and we shall proceed to give our readers some account of their contents, prefacing our observations with such remarks upon the objects and constitution of the Record Board, as seem necessary for fully understanding the subject.

Throwing aside all verbal quibbling, which has been too much encouraged upon this subject, it may be said that the objects contemplated upon the institution of the Record Commission were,

I. The preservation of the Records, and securing to the public all reasonable facilities of access to them.

II. The publication of such documents as seem the most to stand in need of perpetuation by means of the press, or the best to deserve it.

Over and above these general objects, two special directions were given to the Commissioners; one by the Report of a Committee of the House of Commons in the year 1800, which must be considered as the Commissioners' instructions, and the other by the Government, acting under the authority of a resolution of the House of Commons. These were,

III. To complete and continue Rymer's Foedera. And,

IV. To superintend the publication of a Collection of the Materials for the History of Britain.

In the first of these objects, the preservation and accessibility of the Records, all classes of the people are interested; and that, not merely as the natives of a country whose glories are reflected upon every one who bears its name, but even personally, immediately, and directly. The Records contain the proofs of the descent of the nobly-born; the evidences of the dignity of the titled; the warranty of the estates of the wealthy. But it is as a shelter to the poor and the humble that they are of the most importance. They constitute the strong barrier by which privilege is kept back from becoming oppression; they guarantee to every man that he may eat of the fruit of his own vine, and of his own fig-tree, and drink of the waters of his own well, none daring to make him afraid;' they secure to the poor man the enjoyment of whatever his honest labour may obtain, and teach him, that even in the "lowest deep" of poverty he may yet lift up his head as a free man.

During the middle ages, the closeness with which the more important of these documents were kept amounted almost to exclusion, and some of the restrictions which were then devised by the jealousy of authority, have been continued down to our times by the short-sighted cupidity of the office-keepers. During some periods, and in some offices, these gentlemen seem to have acted as if the fees, and not the records, were the chief objects of their guardianship; and whilst, consequently, they maintained the former in all their dignified extravagance, they permitted the latter pretty much to take care of themselves. Some keepers have indeed left their records altogether uncared for, whilst with others, although some little attention was bestowed upon the great series of records and the new documents, which were occasionally wanted for legal purposes, the rest were thrown away into closets and corners, uncalendared, undusted, and unsorted.

Successive generations of keepers followed one another, each setting up the negligence of his predecessor as the standard of his own duty; and, in this manner, during the lapse of several centuries, the miscellaneous masses accumulated to an almost inconceivable extent. The Records which yielded profit to the keeper were principally regarded; the establishments were kept merely in such condition as that the clerks could, within certain prescribed hours, answer the calls of the public, and make imperfect calendars of the new accumulations; and if any clerk, seized with some unaccountable record-furor, remained beyond the narrow office hours to pluck a few documents from the unsorted masses, or to add an omitted name or place to an imperfect calendar, the work was regarded as one of such entire supererogation, that the industrious individual acquired a right to deny the public any participation in his merits, except upon the usual terms by which indulgences might be obtained. Hence arose private indexes," compiled in "over-hours," one of the pleasantest absurdities that was ever tolerated, even for an instant. These indexes, by giving the keepers an interest directly opposed to their duty as public officers, were obviously calculated to perpetuate carelessness and abuse. But the system throve; the public indexes were framed so as to give the minimum of information; and the disappointed inquirer was driven to make the best bargain he could with the industrious gentlemen who turned their over-hours' to such excellent account.

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Such was one portion of the state of things which existed when the Record Commission was first issued. Some offices were in such confusion, that the character of their contents was unknown to any animals but rats; others, which were partly arranged, possessed only public calendars, which were always imperfect; whilst some, more fortunate, were also enriched by over-hours' indexes of more or less value.

The public anticipated that all these oddities would instantly disappear before the authoritative mandate of the King's commissioners. It was expected that an uniform system of care would at once take the place of one of palpable carelessness, and that exclusion would give way to reasonable facilities of access.