host of prejudices, the removal of which requires considerable address, and much patience and perseverance. So incontrovertible, however, is now the nature of the evidence in support of vaccination, that it becomes an imperious duty on the part of government and individuals, to promote, to the utmost of their power, its extension and utility. One important step to this effect, the establishment of the Royal Jennerian Society, has already, under the sanction of the highest authority in the kingdom, been carried into execution. More, however, remains to be done before we can congratulate our country on the probability of beholding the complete extinction of variolous contagion. A second, and most powerful mean, would be, the interdiction of the practice of inoculation for the Small-Pox throughout the British Empire; a practice which, if not speedily superseded by authority, must necessarily, from the lingering prejudices of individuals, for a long period keep alive the seeds of a most loathsome and destructive plague. A third, and scarcely less effectual plan, would be, an injunction of the Legislature on every clergyman, and on every sponsor at the font, to take care, both as a religious and moral duty, that every infant be protected from danger by immediate vaccination.*

At Geneva this very plan has, for some time, I under stand, been strictly enjoined.

These regulations, which with perfect ease and safety might be universally adopted, would speedily, and beyond the power of reversal, establish a preventive, which every fact and every experiment has proved to be as certain and salutary as the warmest wishes of humanity could either hope for or suggest.

As to individuals, whether we consider them as christians, as men, as parents, or as members of society, they are called upon by every consideration due to themselves, their children, and their friends, to embrace and circulate a blessing, which, from the evidence widely propagating in its favour, cannot now be neglected without a violation of piety, of sympathy, and affection.

29. THE LONDON JOURNAL. The Journal was a species of newspaper, including letters and essays on every topic, but too frequently on controversial subjects. It was a great deterioration of the admirable plan of Steele and Addison, and, for a time, the town was deluged with these motley productions. Aaron Hill, in the preface to his Plain Dealer, speaking of the dramatic plan of the Spectator and Guardian, remarks, that "writing under an assumptive character was a fine improvement;" and he then proceeds to say, that "it must eternally please, if, as new matter is continually rising, some geniuses could be found

able to treat it in a manner equal to their predecessors. Though perhaps the stamp-act first, and then the rise and multiplication of Weekly Journals, are now such impediments to a fair hearing in this method, as almost amount to a prohibition of such essays for the future. The invention of Weekly Journals was," he observes, "owing to the taste which the town began to entertain from the writings of the Tatler, Spectator, and others. Small essays were so much liked, that it was imagined worth while to put a little wit, and a great deal of history, in a large quantity of paper, and sell it for the same or a less price than the stamp-duty had raised the half-sheet treatise to.The general way now of communicating our thoughts to the public, is, by distinct and unconnected letters to the author of this or that journal." The London Journal commenced about the year 1726, and its politics were in favour of government. It had been preceded by Mist's Journal, the Daily Gazetteer, and several others, and was succeeded by the Weekly Medley, and Literary Journal 1728, by the British Journal in 1731, by the Weekly Register 1731, by Fog's Journal in 1732, by Read's Journal, and by the Weekly Miscellany 1736. Of these Journals, therefore, as they are not the legitimate offspring of the periodical papers as established by Steele,

I shall take no further notice, except when a şelection of essays shall have been published from their contents, and of which the immediately. succeeding article is a specimen.

30. ESSAYS ON THE VICES AND FOLLIES OF THE TIMES. This volume is the production of Amhurst, the author of Terræ Filius, and consists of select papers formerly published in Pasquin and the London Journal." It appeared in the year 1726.

Amhurst was, for

31. THE CRAFTSMAN. several years, the principal conductor of this political paper, which commenced on December 5th, 1726. It was written to oppose the adminis tration of Sir Robert Walpole, and he was assisted in the attack by very powerful coadjutors. "He was the able associate," remarks Davies, "of Bolingbroke and Pulteney in writing the celebrated weekly paper called The Craftsman. His abilities were unquestionable; he had almost as much wit, learning, and various knowledge, as his two partners; and when these great masters chose not to appear in public themselves, he supplied their places so well that his essays were often ascribed to them."* Such was the popularity of these essays, and such the indignation of the country against the measures of Walpole,

* Lord Chesterfield's characters reviewed, p. 42.

that ten or twelve thousand were frequently sold in a day. A complete set of the Craftsman forms fourteen volumes duodecimo.

32. THE INTELLIGENCER. Dr. Thomas Sheridan, the chief author of this work, was a native of the county of Cavan in Ireland, and born about 1684. Though his parents were not able, from their narrow circumstances, to afford him the benefit of a liberal education, he had fortunately that great advantage conferred upon him by the generosity of a friend to the family, who, perceiving in young Sheridan indications of uncommon ability, sent him to Trinity College, Dublin, and supported him there during the necessary period of education. At this university he took his Doctor's degree, entered into holy orders, and shortly afterwards established a school at Dublin, which, for several ycars, was esteemed the first in the kingdom. His intimacy with Swift, which commenced soon after the Dean's settlement in Ireland, might, had he possessed common prudence and economy, have been of essential service to him; but carelessness and extravagance were the rocks on which Sheridan's fortunes were continually wrecked. He had no sooner obtained a living from the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to whom he had been appointed chaplain, and which was meant but as an earnest of