ced about the year 1762. The management was entrusted to him for several years; and its success has exceeded the most sanguine expectations which were formed of it. Dr. Henry was accustomed, in the last years of his life, to speak of this institution with peculiar affection, and to reflect on its progress and utility with that kind of satisfaction which a good man can only receive from "the labour of love, and of good works."

It was probably about the year 1763, that he first conceived the idea of his History of Great Britain; a work already established in the public opinion, and which will certainly be regarded by posterity, not only as a book which has greatly enlarged the sphere of history and gratifies our curiosity on a variety of subjects, which fall not within the limits prescribed by preceding historians, but as one of the most accurate and authentic repositaries of historical information which this country has produced. The plan adopted by Dr. Henry, which is indisputably his own, and its peculiar advantages, are sufficiently explained in its general preface. In every period it arranges, under separate heads or chapters, the civil and military history of Great Britain; the history of religion, the history of our constitution, government, laws, and courts of justice; the history oflearning, of learned men, and of the chief seminaries of learning; the history of arts; the history of commerce, of shipping, of money or coin, and ofthe price of commodities; and the history of manners, virtues, vices, customs, language, dress, diet, and amusements. Under these seven heads, which extend the province of an historian greatly beyond its usual

limits, every thing curious or interesting in the history of any country may be comprehended. But it certainly required more than a common share of literary courage to attempt, on so large a scale, a subject so intricate and extensive as the History of Britain from the invasion of Julius Cæsar. That Dr. Henry neither over-rated his powers nor his industry could only have been proved by the success and reputation of his works.

But he soon found that his residence at Berwick was an insuperable obstacle to the minute researches which the execution of his plan required. His situation there excluded him from the means of consulting the original authorities; and though he attempted to find access to them by means of his literary friends, and with their assistance made some progress in his work, his information was notwithstanding so incomplete, that he found it impossible to prosecute his plan to his own satisfaction, and was at last compelled to relinquish it.

By the friendship of Gilbert Laurie, esq. late lord provost of Edinburgh, and one of his majesty's commissioners of excise in Scotland, who had married the sister of Mrs. Henry, he was removed to Edinburgh in 1768; and it is to this event that the public are indebted for his prosecution of the History of Great Britain. His access to the public libraries, and the means of supplying the materials which these did not afford him, were from that time used with so much diligence and perseverance, that the first volume of this History, in quarto, was published in 1771, and the second in 1774, the third in 1777, the fourth in 1781, and the fifth (which brings down the history to the accession of

Henry

Henry VII.) in 1785. The subject of these volumes comprehends the most intricate and obscure periods of our history; and when we consider the scanty and scattered materials which Dr. Henry has digested, and the accurate and minute information which he has given us under every chapter of his work, we must have a high opinion both of the learning and industry of the author, and of the vigour and activity of his mind; especially when it is added, that he employed no amanuensis, but completed the manuscript with his own hand; and that, excepting the first volume, the whole book, such as it is, was printed from the original copy.-Whatever corrections were made on it, were inserted by interlineations, or in revising the proof-sheets. He found it necessary, indeed, to confine himself to a first сору, from an unfortunate tremor in his hand, which made writing extremely inconvenient, which obliged him to write with his paper on a book placed on his knee instead of a table, and which unhappily increased to such a degree, that in the last years of his life he was often unable to take his victuals without assistance. An attempt, which he made after the publication of the fifth volume, to employ an amanuensis, did not succeed. Never having been accustomed to dictate his compositions, he found it impossible to acquire a new habit; and though he persevered but a few days in the attempt, it had a sensible effect on his health, which he never afterwards recovered.

He did not profess to study the ornaments of language; but his arrangement is uniformly regular and natural, and his style simple and VOL. XXXIII.

perspicuous; and, as a book of facts and solid information, supported by authentic documents, his History will stand a comparison with any other History of the same period.

Not having been able to transact with the booksellers to his satisfaction, the five volumes were originally published at the risk of the author. When the first volume appeared, it was censured with an unexampled acrimony and perseverance, in several magazines, reviews, and newspapers. In compliance, with the usual custom, he had permitted a sermon to be published which he had preached before the Society in Scotland, for propagating Christian knowledge, in 1773; a composition containing plain good sense on a common subject, from which he expected no reputation. This was eagerly seized on by the adversaries of his History, and torn to pieces with a virulence and asperity which no want of merit in the sermon could justify or explain. An anonymous letter had appeared in a newspaper, to vindicate the History from some of the unjust censures which had been published, and asserting, from the real merit and accuracy of the book, the author's title to the approbation of the public. An answer appeared in the course of the following week, charging him, in terms equally confident and indecent, with having written this letter in his own praise. The efforts of malignity seldom fail to defeat their purpose, and to recoil on those who direct them. Dr. Henry had many friends, and till lately had not discovere that he had any enemies. But the author of the anonymous vindication was known to him, till the learned and respectable Dr. Macqueen, from X

un

the

the indignation excited by the confident petulance of the answer, informed him that the letter had been written by him. These anecdotes are still remembered.-The abuse of the History, which began in Scotland, was renewed in some of the periodical publications in South Britain; though it is justice to add (without meaning to refer to the candid observations of English critics,) that in both kingdoms the asperity originated in the same quarter, and that paragraphs and criticisms written at Edinburgh, were printed in London. The same spirit appeared in Strictures published on the second and third volumes; but by this time it had in a great measure lost the attention of the public. The malevolence was sufficiently understood, and had long before become fatal to the circulation of the periodical paper from which it originally proceeded. The book, though printed for the author, had sold beyond his most sanguine expectations; and had receivedboth praise and patronage from men of the first literary characters in the kingdom; and though, from the alarm which had been raised, the booksellers did not venture to purchase the property, till after the publication of the fifth volume, the work was established in the opinion of the public, and at last rewarded the author with a high degree of celebrity, which he happily lived to enjoy.

Dr. Henry was no doubt encouraged from the first by the decided approbation of some of his literary friends, who were allowed to be the most competent judges of his subject; and in particular by one of the most eminent historians of the present age, whose history of the

same periods justly possesses the highest reputation. The following character of the first and second volumes was drawn up by that gentleman, and is well entitled to be inserted in a narrative of Dr. Henry's life: "Those who profess a high esteem for the first volume of Dr. Henry's History, I may venture to say, are almost as numerous as those who have perused it, provided they be competent judges of a work of that nature, and are acquainted with the difficulties which attend such an undertaking. Many of those who had been so well pleased with the first, were impatient to see the second volume, which advances into a field more delicate and interesting; but the doctor hath shewn the maturity of his judgement, as in all the rest, so particularly in giving no performance to the public that might appear crude or hasty, or composed before he had fully collected and digested the materials. I venture with great sincerity to recommend this volume to the perusal of every curious reader who desires to know the state of Great Britain, in a period which has hitherto been regarded as very obscure, ill supplied with writers, and not possessed of a single one that deserves the appellation of a good one. It is wonderful what an instructive, and even entertaining book, the doctor has been able to compose from such unpromising materials: Tantum series juncturaque pollet. When we see those barbarous ages delineated by so able a pen, we admire the oddness and singularity of the manners, customs, and opinions, of the times, and seem to be introduced into a new world; but we are still more surprised, as well as interested, when we reflect that those strange per

sonages