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lustre from the brook" it came forth with all that smoothness and polish, which it wears in his inimitable farce, The Critic. Thus it is, too, and but little to the glory of what are called our years of discretion, that the life of the man is chiefly employed in giving effect to the wishes and plans of the boy.

Another of their projects was a Periodical Miscellany, the idea of which originated with Sheridan, and whose first embryo movements we trace in a letter to him from Mr. Lewis Ker, who undertook with much good nature the negotiation of the young author's literary concerns in London. The letter is dated 30th of October, 1770.-" As to your intended periodical paper, if it meets with success, there is no doubt of profit accruing, as I have already engaged a publisher of established reputation to undertake it for the account of the authors. But I am to indemnify him in case it should not sell, and to advance part of the first expense, all which I can do without applying to Mr. Ewart."-" I would be glad to know what stock of papers you have already written, as there ought to be ten or a dozen at least finished before you print any, in order to have time to prepare the subsequent numbers, and ensure a continuance of the work. As to the coffee-houses, you must not depend on their taking it in at first, except you go on the plan of the Tatler, and give the news of the week. For the first two or three weeks the expense of advertising will certainly prevent any profit being made. But when that is over, if a thousand are sold weekly, you may reckon on receiving 51. clear. One paper a week will do better than two. Pray say no more as to our accounts."

“Her

The title intended by Sheridan for this paper was nan's Miscellany," to which his friend Halhed objected, and suggested "The Reformer," as a newer and more significant name. But, though Halhed appears to have sought among his Oxford friends, for an auxiliary or two in their weekly labours, this meditated Miscellany never proceeded beyond the first number, which was written by Sheridan, and which I have found among his papers. It is too diffuse and pointless to be given entire ; but an extract or two from it will not

be unwelcome, to those who love to trace even the first, feeblest beginnings of genius.

HERNAN'S MISCELLANY.

No. I.

***I will sit down and write for the good of the people-for (said I to myself, pulling off my spectacles, and drinking up the remainder of my sixpen'worth) it cannot be but people must be sick of these same rascally politics. All last winter nothing but-God defend me! 'tis tiresome to think of it.' I immediately flung the pamphlet down on the table, and taking my hat and cane walked out of the coffee-house.

"I kept up as smart a pace as I could all the way home, for I felt myself full of something, and enjoyed my own thoughts so much, that I was afraid of digesting them, lest any should escape me. At last I knocked at my own door. So' said I to the maid who opened it, (for I never would keep a man; not, but what I could afford it-however, the reason is not material now,) So!' said I with an unusual smile upon my face, and immediately sent her for a quire of paper and half a hundred of pens-the only thing I had absolutely determined on in my way from the coffee-house. I had now got seated in my arm chair,—I am an infirm old man, and I live on a second floor,--when I began to ruminate on my project. The first thing that occurred to me (and certainly a very natural one) was to examine my common-place book. So I went to my desk and took out my old faithful red-leather companion, who had long discharged the office of treasurer to all my best hints and memorandums: but, how was I surprised, when one of the first things that struck my eyes was the following memorandum, legibly written, and on one of my best sheets of vellum:- Mem.-Oct. 20th, 1769, left the Grecian, after having read's Poems, with a determined resolution to write a Periodical Paper, in order to reform the vitiated taste of the age; but, coming home and finding my fire out, and my maid gone abroad, was obliged to defer the execution of my plan to another opportunity.” Now though this event had absolutely slipped my memory, I now recol. lected it perfectly,-ay, so my fire was out indeed, and my maid did go abroad sure enough.-' Good Heavens!' said I, 'how great events depend upon little circumstances! However, I looked upon this as a memento for me no longer to trifle away my time and resolution; and thus I began to reason,—I mean, I would have reasoned, had I not been interrupted by a noise of some one coming up stairs. By the alternate thump upon the steps, I soon discovered it must be my old and intimate friend Rudliche.

"But, to return, in walked Rudliche. So, Fred.'—' So, Bob.'~' Were you at the Grecian to-day?'-'I just stepped in.'~'Well, any news?'--'No, no, there was no news.' Now, as Bob and I saw one another almost every day, we seldom abounded in conversation; so, having settled one material point, he sat in his usual posture, looking at the fire and beating

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the dust out of his wooden leg, when I perceived he was going to touch upon the other subject; but, having by chance cast his eye on my face, and finding (I suppose) something extraordinary in my countenance, he immediately dropped all concern for the weather, and putting his hand into his pocket, (as if he meant to find what he was going to say, under pretence of feeling for his tobacco-box,) Hernan! (he began) why, man, you look for all the world as if you had been thinking of something.'--'Yes,' replied I, smiling, (that is, not actually smiling, but with a conscious something in my face,) 'I have, indeed, been thinking a little.'--' What, is't a secret ?'—' Oh, nothing very, material.' Here ensued a pause, which I employed in considering whether I should reveal my scheme to Bob; and Bob in trying to disengage his thumb from the string of his cane, as if he were preparing to take his leave. This latter action, with the great desire I had of disburthening myself, made me instantly resolve to lay my whole plan before him. 'Bob,' said I, (he immediately quitted his thumb,) you remarked that I looked as if I had been thinking of something,--your remark is just, and I'll tell you the subject of my thought. You know, Bob, that I always had a strong passion for literature:-you have often seen my collection of books, not very large indeed, however I believe I have read every volume of it twice over, (excepting —'s Divine Legation of Moses, and —'s Lives of the most notorious Malefactors,) and I am now determined to profit by them.' I concluded with a very significant nod ;—but, good heavens! how mortified was I to find both my speech and my nod thrown away, when Rudliche calmly replied, with the true phlegm of ignorance, My dear friend, I think your resolution in regard to your books a very prudent one; but I do not perfectly conceive your plan as to the profit; for, though your volumes may be very curious, yet you know they are most of them secondhand.'—I was so vexed with the fellow's stupidity that I had a great mind to punish him by not disclosing a syllable more. However, at last my vanity got the better of my resentment, and I explained to him the whole matter.

....

In examining the beginning of the Spectators, &c. I find they are all written by a society.-Now I profess to write all myself, though I acknowledge that, on account of a weakness in my eyes, I have got some understrappers who are to write the poetry, &c. . . . . In order to find the different merits of these my subalterns, I stipulated with them that they should let me feed them as I would. This they consented to do, and it is surprising to think what different effects diet has on the writers. The same, who after having been fed two days upon artichokes produced as pretty a copy of verses as ever I saw, on beef was as dull as ditch-water

"It is a characteristic of fools," says some one, “to be always beginning," and this is not the only point in which folly and genius resemble each other. So chillingly indeed do the difficulties of execution succeed to the first ardour of conception, that it is only wonderful there should exist so

many finished monuments of genius, or that men of fancy should not oftener have contented themselves with those first, vague sketches, in the production of which the chief luxury of intellectual creation lies. Among the many literary works, shadowed out by Sheridan at this time, were a Collection of Occasional Poems, and a volume of Crazy Tales, to the former of which Halhed suggests that "the old things they did at Harrow out of Theocritus," might, with a little pruning, form a useful contribution. The loss of the volume of Crazy Tales is little to be regretted, as from its title we may conclude it was written in imitation of the clever, but licentious productions of John Hall Stephenson. If the same kind oblivion had closed over the levities of other young authors, who, in the season of folly and the passions, have made their pages the transcript of their lives, it would have been equally fortunate for themselves and the world.

But, whatever may have been the industry of these youthful authors, the translation of Aristænetus, as I have already stated, was the only fruit of their literary alliance, that ever arrived at sufficient maturity for publication. In November, 1770, Halhed had completed and forwarded to Bath his share of the work, and in the following month we find Sheridan preparing, with the assistance of a Greek grammar, to complete the task. "The 29th ult. (says Mr. Ker, in a letter to him from London, dated Dec. 4, 1770,) I was favoured with yours, and have since been hunting for Aristænetus, whom I found this day, and therefore send to you, together with a Greek grammar. I might have dispatched at the same time some numbers of the Dictionary, but not having got the two last numbers, was not willing to send any without the whole of what is published, and still less willing to delay Aristænetus's journey by waiting for them." The work alluded to here is the Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, to which Sheridan had subscribed, with the view, no doubt, of informing himself upon subjects of which he was as yet wholly ignorant; having left school, like most other young men at his age, as little furnished with the knowledge that is

wanted in the world, as a person would be for the demands of a market, who went into it with nothing but a few ancient coins in his pocket.

The passion, however, that now began to take possession of his heart was little favourable to his advancement in any serious studies; and it may easily be imagined that, in the neighbourhood of Miss Linley, the Arts and Sciences were suffered to sleep quietly on their shelves. Even the translation of Aristænetus, though a task more suited, from its amatory nature, to the existing temperature of his heart, was proceeded in but slowly; and it appears from one of Halhed's letters, that this impatient ally was already counting upon the spolia opima of the campaign, before Sheridan had fairly brought his Greek grammar into the field. The great object of the former was a visit to Bath; and he had set his heart still more anxiously upon it, after a second meeting with Miss Linley at Oxford. But the profits expected from their literary undertakings were the only means to which he looked for the realising of this dream; and he accordingly implores his friend, with the most comic piteousness, to drive the farce on the stage by main force, and to make Aristænetus sell whether he will or not. In the November of this year we find them discussing the propriety of prefixing their names to the work-Sheridan evidently not disinclined to venture, but Halhed recommending that they should wait to hear how "Sumner and the wise few of their acquaintance" would talk of the book, before they risked any thing more than their initials. In answer to Sheridan's enquiries as to the extent of sale they may expect in Oxford, he confesses that, after three coffee-houses had bought one a-piece, not two more would be sold.

That poverty is the best nurse of talent has long been a most humiliating truism; and the fountain of the Muses, bursting from a barren rock, is but too apt an emblem of the hard source, from which much of the genius of this world has issued. How strongly the young translators of Aristænetus were under the influence of this sort of inspiration appears from every paragraph of Halhed's letters, and might

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