FROM THE YEAR 1700, TO THE PRESENT TIME.

Bards, statesmen, sages, loved, rever'd; admir'd,
Whom sense enlighten'd, and whom glory fir'd,
Rise to my view, still sweet, still great, still bold,
Alive in power, and active as of old.
Yes! wasteful time! here, here thy rage is vain,
Away! fond boaster! Genius scorns thy reign.

IN TWO VOLUMES."

VOL. I.

BISHOP.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR MATTHEW ILEY,

SOMERSET STREET, PORTMAN SQUARE ;

AND SOLD BY G. AND W. B. WHITTAKER, AVE MARIA LANE;
SİMPKIN AND MARSHALL, STATIONERS' COURT;

AND W. TURNBULL, GLASGOW.

3585
1699

BY A. M. B..

OF GREAT GADDESDEN VALE.

W. SHACKELL, Printer, Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, London.

ADVERTISEMENT.

IN introducing the following sheets to the world, it will perhaps be necessary to premise, that care has been taken to select from the diurnal and other publications for the last hundred years, not only the occurrences of the day, of whatever variety they may have consisted, but also such 2- articles as might be considered of a more general and permanent nature, and, consequently, interesting to the philosopher, the gentleman of science, the man of letters, &c.; with a strict and studied attention on the part of our female readers, to reject every thing that might have the least tendency to start the blush of innocence, or wound the ear of modesty.

1761

F40766

If in the course of these selections the Editor may have made choice of articles which by some may be considered as too trifling to have "a local habitation," it should be recollected, that he had in this undertaking to provide for a very numerous

class of readers, whose opinions and tastes must be expected, in many instances, very materially to differ. His aim, however, has been, to give satisfaction to all; and if in this he may prove partially successful, the trouble taken in wading through such a task, will be amply compensated.

Hence, in the ensuing pages, the philosopher will find occasional records of whatever revolutions have taken place either "in the heavens above, on the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth;"-the scientific man will meet with notices of those improvements in the arts, which have gradually succeeded each other during the above period;-the gentleman and the scholar with such brief extracts from the publications of the passing day, as will not only give them sufficient information of the progressive state of the literary world, but they will also thereby be put into possession of some of their choicest ideas ;the poet will be occasionally indulged with those gentle effusions which have issued from the elegant pen of a Byron, a Moore, a Montgomery, a Sheridan, and many others;—and the man of wit with a variety of bon mots, anecdotes, repartees, &c., which were "wont to set the table in a