if his education and early practice had been different, have written with more formal correctness and yet none the worse; he could hardly, if the paradox may be pardoned, have written otherwise than he did and yet have written much the better. Of no one is the much-quoted and muchmisquoted maxim of Buffon more justified than of him. His style is exactly suited to his character and his production-which latter, be it remembered, considering the pleasures of his youth and the business of his age, was very considerable. No fault of his style can ever, either in the general reader or in the really qualified critic, have hindered the enjoyment of the best part of his work; and like the work itself the style in which it is clothed is eminently English. It is English no less in its petty shortcomings of correctness, precision, and grace, than in its mighty merits of power and range. Of the letter Fielding may be here and there a little neglectful; in the spirit he always holds fast to the one indispensable excellence, the adjustment of truth and life to art. SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1895, English Prose, ed. Craik, vol. IV, pp. 114, 115. If Richardson was "womanish," Fielding was masculine with a vengeance; gross, too, in a way, which always will, and always should, keep his books outside the pale of decent family reading. Filth is filth, and always deserves to be scored by its name-whatever blazon of genius may compass it about. I have no argument here with the artists who, for art's sake, want to strip away all the protective kirtles which the Greek Dianas wore: but when it comes to the bare bestialities of such tavern-bagnois as poor Fielding knew too well, there seems room for reasonable objection, and for a strewing of some of the fig-leaves of decency.-MITCHELL, DONALD G., 1895, English Lands Letters and Kings, Queen Anne and the Georges, p. 67. His desultory criticism is as sound as it is original, and whatever differences of opinion there may be as to the value of his fiction, there can be none as to the faithfulness with which he adheres in his novels to the theories which his essays propound.-LOBBAN, J. H., 1896, English Essays, Introduction, p. xl. Fielding, in each of his works, but in "Tom Jones" pre-eminently, is above all things candid and good-humoured. He is a lover of morals, but he likes them to be sincere; he has no palliation for their rancid varieties. He has his eye always on conduct; he is keen to observe not what a man pretends or protests, but what he does, and this he records to us, sometimes with scant respect for our susceptibilities. But it has been a magnificent advantage for English fiction to have near the head of it a writer so vigorous, so virile, so devoid of every species of affectation and hypocrisy. In all the best of our later novelists there has been visible a strain of sincere manliness which comes down to them in direct descent from Fielding, and which it would be a thousand pities for English fiction to relinquish.GOSSE, EDMUND, 1897, Short History of Modern English Literature, p. 244. John Conybeare John Conybeare, D. D., 1692-1755, admitted a battler of Exeter College, 1708; Fellow, 1710; Rector of St. Clemet's, Oxford, 1724; Rector of Exeter College, 1730; Dean of Christ Church, 1732; Bishop of Bristol, 1750. "Sermon on Miracles," 1722. Highly esteemed. "Sermon," 1724. "Subscription to Articles of Religion," a Sermon, 1726. Very celebrated. "Defence of Revealed Religion," in answer to Tindal's "Christianity as Old as the Creation," 1732. An admirable confutation. Three editions in a year. Other sermons. After the bishop's death a collection of his sermons was published for the benefit of his family, in 2 vols. 8vo, 1757, on a subscription list of 4600 copies.-ALLIBONE, S. AUSTIN, 1854-58, A Critical Dictionary of English Literature, vol. I, p. 420. PERSONAL On Friday last (Jan. 26) about noon came very privately into Oxford, in a coach and four, Dr. John Conybeare, rector of Exeter coll., being not met by so much. as one soul, and yesterday, at 10 o'clock in the morning, he was installed dean of Christ Church, but very little or no rejoycing was shewed on the occasion. Hel owes this piece of preferment to Mr. [he is not a university Dr.] Edmund Gibson, bp. of London, who hath some private byends in view, to whom he dedicated his "Reply to Christianity as old as the Creation," which book (I am told, for I have not read it) is spun out to a great length, whereas all that is material might have been brought into about a sheet of paper.-HEARNE, THOMAS, 173233, Reliquiæ Hearniana, ed. Bliss, vol. III, p. 92. As a bishop he was unfortunately disabled, through almost all his episcopate, by severe illness. Otherwise he would have been a valuable accession to his bench. "I rejoice," said Berkeley, "in his promotion. His writings and character raise him high in my esteem." He lived on terms of intimate friendship with James Foster and some other leading Nonconformists.-ABBEY, CHARLES J., 1887, The English Church and its Bishops, 1700-1800, vol. II, p. 68. GENERAL Conybeare is a temperate and able writer, but there is little in his book ["Defence of Religion"] to distinguish it from expositions of the same argument by other contemporary divines of the average type. STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1887, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XII, p. 61. Conybeare avoids all the scurrility and personality which mar too many of the works written on both sides, and discusses, in calm and dignified, but at the same time luminous and impressive, language, the important question which Tindal had raised.-OVERTON, JOHN HENRY 1897, The Church in England, vol. II, p. 222. Thomas Wilson 1663-1755. Born at Burton in Cheshire, studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and, chaplain to the Earl of Derby, became Bishop of Sodor and Man in 1697. For fifty-eight years he governed his diocese with constant care. His "Principles of Christianity" (1707), commonly called the Manx Catechism-the first book printed in Manx-and his "Instruction for the Indians," written for Oglethorp's Georgia plantation scheme, were combined to form "The Knowledge of Christianity made easy to the Meanest Capacities" (1755). His name best survives in his "Short Instructions for the Lord's Supper" (1736) and "Sacra Privata" (1800). Other books are "Parochialia, or Instructions for the Clergy" (1788), and “Maxims of Piety" (1789). He instituted a Manx translation of the Bible (1772-75.) The best edition of his works is that by Keble (1847-52), with a Life (reprinted 1863).—PATRICK AND GROOME, eds., 1897, Chambers's Biographical Dictionary, p. 977. PERSONAL The people of the island were SO thoroughly persuaded of his receiving a larger portion of God's blessing, that they seldom began harvest till he did; and if he passed along the field, they would leave their work to ask his blessing, assured that that day would be prosperous. Nor was this opinion confined to the obscure corner of the world where he lived. In Warrington, even in London, there are those who can remember crowds of persons flocking round him, with the cry of "Bless me too, my Lord."-CRUTTWELL, CLMENT, 1785, Life of Wilson. His charity was unbounded. It influenced his sentiments, it formed his character, it regulated his life... he was utterly free from bigotry . . . he possessed a truly Catholic spirit. With the few Dissenters who resided in his diocese he maintained a friendly intercourse. Such of them as were pious in their lives he treated with marks of particular kindness. In this respect he resembled Archbishop Usher, who lived in habits of intimacy with the learned Nonconformist, Mr. Baxter. "Si in necessariis sit unitas, in non necessariis libertas; in utrisque caritas, optimocerte loco essent res nostrae." Bishop Wilson was so great a friend of toleration that the Roman Catholics that resided on the island were not unfrequently at his sermons and prayers, and the Dissenters in the diocese, who were without a minister of their own persuasion, attended even the Communion service, having obtained permission from the Bishop to stand or sit, as their consciences directed.-STOWELL, HUGH, 1819, The Life of Bishop Wilson. As far as man can judge of man, few persons ever went out of this world more thoroughly prepared for the change than Bishop Wilson, not only in heart and conscience, but in comparatively trifling arrangements. He had even provided his coffin long before hand.--KEBLE, JOHN, 1863, Life of Thomas Wilson. No name in the long history of the English episcopate is more honourable than that of Thomas Wilson. For no less than fifty-nine years, from 1696 to 1755, he administered the see of Sodor and Man in a way which excited, as it well might the amazement and admiration of all churchmen to whom his fame was known. Nor was his repute confined to England. Cardinal Fleury, shortly before his death in 1743, sent a special messenger to him. He had heard, he said, about him, and he felt the more interest in the account because they were the oldest, and he believed also the two poorest bishops in Europe. He hoped that it might be possible he would accept an invitation from him, and pay him a visit in France. Fleury likewise procured an order that no French privateer-for the war of the Austrian succession was then at his height -should ravage the Isle of Man. Queen Anne and George I. both offered him bishoprics, and Queen Caroline was specially anxious to keep him in England. "Nay," said the bishop, "I will not leave my wife in my old age, because she is poor." In his own diocese he was honoured with a reverence which sometimes almost bordered upon superstition. -ABBEY, CHARLES J., 1887, The English Church and its Bishops, 1700-1800, vol. I, p. 138. GENERAL Bishop Wilson's "Maxims" deserve to be circulated as a religious book, not only by comparison with the cartloads of rubbish circulated at present under this designation, but for their own sake, and even by comparison with the other works of the same author. Over the far better known "Sacra Privata" they have this advantage, that they were prepared by him for his own private use, while the "Sacra Privata" were prepared by him for the use of the public. The "Maxims"were never meant to be printed, and have on that account,-like a work of, doubtless, far deeper emotion and power, the "Meditations" of Marcus Aurelius, something peculiarly sincere and first-hand about them. Some of the best things from the "Maxims" have passed into the "Sacra Privata;" still, in the "Maxims," we have them as they first arose; and whereas, too, in the "Sacra Privata" the writer speaks very often as one of the clergy, and as addressing the clergy, in the "Maxims" he almost always speaks soley as a man. I am not saying a word against the "Sacra Privata," for which I have the highest respect; only the "Maxims" seem to me a better and a more edifying book still.-ARNOLD, Matthew, 1869, Culture and Anarchy, Preface, p. iv. Wilson, the "Apostolic," was a man of the old sacerdotal type, full of simplicity, tenderness, devotion, and with a sincere. belief, inoffensive because alloyed by no tincture of pride or ambition, in the sacred privileges of the Church. Amongst his scattered reflections there are many of much beauty in expression as in sentiment. They imply a theology of that type of which à-Kempis is the permanent representative; less ascetic, inasmuch as Wilson had the good fortune to be a married man instead of a monk; and, of course, less vivid, as he was one born out of due time. His superstitions-for he is superstitious no more provoke anger than the simple fancies of a child; and we honour him as we should honour all men whose life and thoughts were in perfect harmony, and guided by noble motives. To read him is to love him; he helps us recognise the fact that many of the thoughts which supported his noble nature in its journey through life may be applicable in a different costume to the sorrows and trials which also change their form rather than their character; but we see with equal clearness that he has little or nothing to say upon the speculative difficulties of the time. He may be passed over with the remark that his example proves conclusively that a genuine Christian theologian in the most characteristic sense of the term might still be found under the reign of George II. in the Isle of Man.-STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1876, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. II, p. 384. Gilbert West 1703-1756. One of Gilbert West (1700?-1756) translated the Odes of Pindar (1749), prefixing to the work, which is still our standard version of Pindar-a good dissertation on the Olympic games. New editions of West's Pindar were published in 1753 and 1766. He wrote several pieces of original poetry, included in Dodsley's collection. these, "On the Abuse of Travelling," a canto in imitation of Spenser (1739) is noticed by Gray in enthusiastic terms. West was also author of a prose work, "Observations on the Resurrection," for which the university of Oxford conferred on him the degree of LL. D.; and Lyttelton addressed to him his treatise on St. Paul. Pope left West a sum of £200, but payable after the death of Martha Blount, and he did not live to receive it. By all his contemporaries, this accomplished and excellent man was warmly esteemed; and through the influence of Pitt, he enjoyed a competence in his latter days, having been appointed (1752) one of the clerks of the privy council, and under-treasurer of Chelsea Hospital.-CHAMBERS, ROBERT, 1876, Cyclopædia of English Literature, ed. Carruthers. Now I talk of verses, Mr. Walpole and I have frequently wondered you should never mention a certain imitation of Spenser, published last year [May, 1739], by a namesake of yours, with which we are all enraptured and enmarvailed.-GRAY, THOMAS, 1740, Letter to Richard West, July 16, Works, ed. Gosse, vol. II, p. 90. Lord Cobham's West has published his translation of Pindar; the poetry is very stiff, but prefixed to it there is a very entertaining account of the Olympic games, and that preceded by an affected inscription to Pitt and Lyttelton.-WALPOLE, HORACE, 1749, Letter to George Montagu, May 18; Letters, ed. Cunningham, vol. II, p. 163, He hath not made use [in his "Observations on the Resurrection"] of strained and arbitrary suppositions, but such as seem clearly to arise from the accounts of the evangelists, carefully considered and compared.-LELAND, JOHN, 1754-56, A View of the Deistical Writers, Lecture xi. See a learned and judicious discourse on the Olympic games which Mr. West has prefixed to his translation of Pindar. Affords much curious and authentic information. -GIBBON, EDWARD, 177678, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. xxx, xl, notes. Of his translations I have only compared the first Olympic ode with the original, and found my expectation surpassed, both by its elegance and its exactness. He does not confine himself to his author's train of stanzas; for he saw that the difference A work of this kind, must in a minute His I shall endeavor to account for the decline of poetry after the age of Shakspeare and Spenser, in spite of the great exceptions during the Commonwealth, and to trace the effect produced by the restorers of a better taste, of whom Thomson and Gilbert West are to be esteemed as the chief.-SOUTHEY, ROBERT, 1805, Letter to Grosvenor C. Bedford, April 13, Correspondence, ed. C. C. Southey, ch. xi. The poems of West, indeed, had the merit of chaste and manly diction; but they were cold, and, if I may so express it, only dead-colored.-COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, 1817, Biographia Literaria, ch. i. His work is noticed here on account of the luminous and satisfactory manner in which he has harmonized the several accounts of the evangelical history of the resurrection. HORNE, THOMAS HARTWELL, 1818-39, A Manual of Biblical Bibliography. This is one of the acutest and bestreasoned works which have appeared in English on the Resurrection of Christ. -ÖRME, WILLIAM, 1824, Bibliotheca Biblica. West's two imitations of Spenser are excellent, not merely as Johnson seems to say, for their ingenuity, but for their fulness of thought and vigor of expression. -COLERIDGE, HENRY NELSON, 1843? ed. Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, ch. I note. Besides other verse, he published a translation of a portion of the odes of Pindar, which had long considerable reputation, but is not very Pindaric, though a smooth and sonorous performance. The one of his works that has best kept its ground is his prose tract entitled "Observations on the Resurrection," a very able and ingenious disquisition.-CRAIK, GEORGE L., 1861, A Compendious History of English Literature and of the English Language, vol. II, p. 283. He has left some name in theology by his "Observations on the Resurrection," and in poetry by his translation of Pindar, and his "Imitations of Spenser." His writings in both kinds are the productions of a cultivated rather than of a vigorous mind, and the criticism of Coleridge on his poems exactly describes the general character of his works.-ELWIN, WHITWELL, 1872, ed., The Works of Alexander Pope, vol. vIII, p. 347, note. Colley Cibber 1671-1757. Born, in London, 6 Nov. 1671. Educated at Grantham Free School, 1682-87. Not long after enlisting in forces of Earl of Devonshire he abandoned army, and in 1690 went to London and joined company of Theatre Royal. First appeared as an actor, 1691; at Theatre Royal, 1691-95. Married Miss Shore, 1692. Followed Betterton to new theatre in Little Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1695. Wrote prologue for opening of theatre. His first play "Love's Last Shift" produced there, Jan. 1696. At Haymarket, 1706-08. At Drury Lane, 1708-32. Share in patent of Drury Lane, March 1708. Concerned with management of Haymarket, 1709-10; of Drury Lane, 1710-33. Appointed Poet Laureate, 3 Dec. 1730. Retired from stage, 1733. Reappeared on one or two occasions afterwards; last appearance, 15 Feb. 1745. Died, 12 Dec. 1757. Buried in vault of Danish Church (now British and Foreign Sailors' Church), Whitechapel. Works: "Love's Last Shift," 1694; "A Poem on the Death of Queen Mary," 1695; "Woman's Wit," 1697 (another edn., under title of "The Schoolboy," anon., 1707); "Xerxes," 1699; acting version of Shakespeare's "King Richard III.," 1700; "Love makes a Man," 1701; "She Would and she Would not," 1703; "The Careless Husband," 1705; "Perolla and Izadora," 1706; "The Comical Lovers" (anon.), 1707; "The Double Gallant," 1707; "The Lady's Last Stake," [1708]; "The Rival Fools," [1709]; "Cinna's Conspiracy" (anon.; attributed to Cibber), 1713; "Myrtillo," 1715; "Hob; or the Country Wake," 1715; "Venus and Adonis," 1716; "The Non-Juror," 1718; "Ximena," 1718; "Plays" (2 vols.), 1721; "The Refusal," 1721; "Cæsar in Egypt," 1725; "The Provoked Husband" (with Vanbrugh), 1728; "The Rival Queens," 1729; "Love in a Riddle," 1719 [1729]; "Damon and Phillida" (anon., founded on preceding), 1729; "A Journey to London" (adapted from Vanbrugh), 1730; "An Ode for His Majesty's Birth-Day," 1731; "An Ode to His Majesty for the New Year," 1731; "Chuck," 1736; "Apology," 1740; "A Letter. to Mr. Pope," 1742; "The Egotist; or, Colley upon Cibber," 1743; "Another |