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ROBERT BAGE.

ROBERT BAGE, a writer of no ordinary merit in the department of fictitious composition, was one of that class of men occurring in Britain alone, who unite successfully the cultivation of letters with the pursuit of professions, which, upon the continent, are considered as incompatible with the character of an author. The professors of letters are, in most nations, apt to form a caste of their own, into which they may admit men educated for the learned professions, on condition, generally speaking, that they surrender their pretensions to the lucrative practice of them; but from which mere burghers, occupied in ordinary commerce, are as severely excluded, as roturiers were of old from the society of the noblesse. The case of a paper-maker or a printer employing their own art upon their own publications,

would be thought uncommon in France or Germany; yet such were the stations of Bage and Richardson.

The editor has been obliged by Miss Catherine Hutton, daughter of Mr Hutton, of Birmingham, well known as an ingenious and successful antiquary, with a memoir of the few incidents marking the life of Robert Bage, whom a kindred genius, as well as some commercial intercourse, combined to unite in the bonds of strict friendship. The communication is extremely interesting, and the extracts from Bage's letters show, that amidst the bitterness of political prejudices, the embarrassment of commercial affairs, and all the teazing technicalities of business, the author of Barham Downs still maintained the good-humoured gaiety of his natural temper. One would almost think the author must have drawn from his own private letter-book and correspondence the discriminating touches which mark the men of business in his novels.

The father of Robert Bage was a papermaker at Darley, a hamlet on the river Derwent, adjoining the town of Derby, and was remarkable only for having had four wives. Robert was the son of the first, and was born at Darley on the 29th of February, 1728.

His mother died soon after his birth; and his father, though he retained his mill, and continued to follow his occupation, removed to Derby, where his son received his education at a common school. His attainments here, however, were very uncommon, and such as excited the surprise and admiration of all who knew him. At seven years old, he had made a proficiency in Latin. To a knowledge of the Latin tongue succeeded a knowledge of the art of making paper, which he acquired under the tuition of his father.

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At the age of twenty-three, Robert Bage married a young woman, who possessed beauty, good sense, good temper, and money, may be presumed, that the first of these was the first forgotten; the two following secured his happiness in domestic life, the last aided him in the manufacture of paper, which he commenced at Elford, four miles from Tamworth, and conducted to the end of his days.

Though no man was more attentive to business, and no one in the country made paper so good of its kind, yet the direction of a manufactory, combined with his present literary attainments, did not satisfy the compre hensive mind of Robert Bage. His manufactory, under his eye, went on with the regularity of a machine, and left him leisure to indulge his desire of knowledge. He acquired the French language from books alone, without any pre

ceptor; and his familiarity with it is evinced by his frequent, perhaps too frequent use of it in The Fair Syrian. Nine years after his marriage, he studied mathematics; and, as he makes one of his characters say, and as he probably thought respecting himself, «< he was obliged to this science for a correct imagination, and a taste for uniformity in the common actions of life. »

In the year 1765, Bage entered into partnership with three persons, in an extensive manufactory of iron (one of them the celebrated Dr Darwin); and, at the end of about fourteen years, when the partnership terminated, he found himself a loser, it is believed, of fifteen hundred pounds. The reason and philosophy of the paper-maker might have struggled long against so considerable a loss; the man of letters committed his cause to a better champion literary occupation,—the tried solace of misfortune, want, and imprisonHe wrote the novel of Mount Henneth, in two volumes, which was sold to Lowndes for thirty pounds, and published in 1781. The strong mind, playful fancy, liberal sentiments, and extensive knowledge of the author, are every where apparent; but, as he says himself, too great praise is a bad letter of recommendation,» and truth which he worshipped, demands the acknowledgment, that its sins against decorum are manifest.

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The succeeding works of Bage were, Barham Downs, two volumes, published 1784; The Fair Syrian, two volumes, published (about) 1787; James Wallace, three volumes, published 1788; Man as he is, four volumes, published 1792; Hermsprong, or, Man as he is not, three volumes, published 1796. It is, perhaps, without a parallel in the annals of literature, that, of six different works, comprising a period of fifteen years, the last should be, as it unquestionably is, the best. Several of Bage's novels were translated into German, and published at Frankfort.

Whoever has read Hayley's Life of Cowper will not be sorry that an author should speak for himself, instead of his biographer speaking for him: on this principle are given some extracts from the letters of Robert Bage to his friend William Hutton. Hutton purchased nearly all the paper which Bage made during forty-five years; and, though Bage's letters were letters of business, they were written in a manner peculiarly his own, and friendship was, more or less, interwoven in them; for trade did not, in him, extinguish or contract one finer feeling of the soul. Bage, in his ostensible character of a papermaker, says,

« March 28, 1785.

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