sending into the press a few more wise and political essays. I shall therefore first, to try the experiment, only publish twenty, viz. the Speaker, the Answerer, the Rejoinder, the Replier, the Continuer, the Annexer, the Objector, the Dauber, the Complimenter, the Flatterer, the Growler, the Puffer, the Maligner; and that my pupils may be pleased in all parts, the Taffy, the Teague, the Sawney, the Planter, the India-man, the Farmer, and the Londoner."*

This number of the Schemer and the two subsequent are actually occupied by specimens of the opening papers of these supposed essayists. I shall copy the first.

The Speaker, N° 1.

"It is full time, I think, in this whirlwind of periodical authors, that I began to speak. For what tongue can be silent, what lips unopened, what mouth shut, and what teeth but must wag, when all the world is in an uproar.-Speak I will, though I know not what to say; speak [ must, for the words burn within me, and strive for utterance; and I shall either commend or abuse some one or other just as I may be hired or paid; wherefore any person wanting one to speak for him in any matter of business, love, politics, or religion, may come to me; for I can instruct * Schemer, p. 190.

them to whine, either at the foot of a mistress, or in a tub of enthusiasm; or to speak politics in a coffee-house, or nonsense on a bench, or before a bench."

Relinquishing the field of temporary politics, let us now return to subjects of a more miscellaneous and interesting nature.

10. THE INVESTIGATOR. The volume to which this title is affixed, contains only four essays, which were published at distant periods, but thrown together in the year 1762. They embrace rather copious dissertations on Ridicule, on Elizabeth Canning, on Naturalization, and on Taste, and were written by Mr. Ramsay, the painter, the son of Allan Ramsay, the Scotch poet. Their primary object is, to shew the utility and necessity of experimental reasoning in philological and moral enquiries. The first and fourth of these tracts are the most elaborately composed, and that on Taste is conducted in the form of dialogue; but the theory of poetry which he has attempted to support is cold, limitary, and inconclusive.

11. THE GENIUS. This paper, the production of George Colman, Esq. was originally published in the St. James's Chronicle; it was printed

at irregular periods, and extends but to fifteen numbers, the first dated Thursday, June the 11th, 1761; and the last, Saturday, January the 9th, 1762. In point both of style and matter, it is perhaps superior to the Connoisseur, and therefore the abruptness of its termination forms a subject of regret.

12. TERRE-FILIUS, another periodical paper by the author of the Genius, which he published daily during the Encania, at Oxford, in 1763, in honour of the Peace; the first number appearing on July the 5th, and the fourth and last on July the 8th. This jeu d'esprit is seasoned with a considerable portion of wit and pleasantry.

13. THE BABLER. Two volumes of essays written by Mr. Hugh Kelly; a selection, published in 1767, from papers which he had contributed, during the years 1763, 1764, 1765, and 1766, to Owen's Weekly Chronicle. In its selected state, the Babler consists of one hundred and twenty-three numbers, the general character of which may be given by the term respectable. The subjects are well varied; the moral is, for the most part, good; and the style, though not perfectly correct, or much polished, is easy and perspicuous. Among the critical papers, of

which, however, there are not more than eight or ten, the observations on Dryden's Guiscard and Sigismonda in No 68, and the reflections on Literature, in No 122, are the best; the critique on Gray's Elegy, which occupies No 55, is, with the exception of the remark on the last stanza, captious and trifling. Mr. Kelly died in 1777, at the early age of thirty-eight: he was a rapid and voluminous writer; and soon after his death," says the author of his life in the General Biographical Dictionary, "one of his own comedies, A Word to the Wise, which had been acted but once, being driven from the stage by a mob, because our author sometimes wrote in defence of government, was performed for the benefit of his distressed wife and his infant family. On this occasion, Dr. Samuel Johnson, whose charity is wont to assume a variety of shapes, produced a new prologue. It is almost needless to add, that his lines were heard with the most respectful attention, and dismissed with the loudest applause."

14. THE MEDLEY. Of this work the intention only can be praised; it is a thin octavo, consisting of" thirty-one essays, on various subjects, presented by the author to one of the Governesses

* Vol. 12. p. 698.-Edition of 1784.

of the Lying-In Hospital, in Newcastle, to be printed for the Benefit of that Charity." It was accordingly published, by subscription, at Newcastle, in 1766; and, the object for which it was written being unequivocally excellent, the number of subscribers was very considerable. I wish the execution had done more justice to the motives of the writer; but, with respect both to style and matter, it falls much below mediocrity.

15. THE WHISPERER; a violent party paper, written in opposition to the Government, under Lord North's administration. The first number appeared on Saturday, February the 17th, 1770; and the hundredth, the last with a number affixed, on January the 11th, 1772. There were four numbers extraordinary.

16. THE SCOTCHMAN. This paper, which embraces the same side in politics as the preceding work, commenced immediately on the decease of the Whisperer, the first number being dated January the 21st, 1772; it was continued every Friday, and, with the Whisperer, is remarkable for little beyond the zeal with which it ran its

course.

17. THE FREEHOLDER. This collection of po