When L’Advocat published his concise Biographical Dictionary, the Jansenists, the methodists of France, considered it as having been written with a view to depreciate the merit of their friends. The spirit of party is too soon alarmed. The Abbe Barral undertook a dictionary devoted to their cause. In this labour, assisted by his good friends […]

—-BENTLEY, long to wrangling schools confined,And but by books acquainted with mankind—-To MILTON lending sense, to HORACE wit,He makes them write, what never poet writ. DR. BENTLEY’S edition of our English Homer is sufficiently known by name. As it stands a terrifying beacon to conjectural criticism, I shall just notice some of those violations which […]

It surprises one to find among the literary Italians the merits of Ariosto most keenly disputed: slaves to classical authority, they bend down to the majestic regularity of Tasso. Yet the father of Tasso, before his son had rivalled the romantic Ariosto, describes in a letter the effect of the “Orlando” on the people:–“There is […]

Ben Jonson, like most celebrated wits, was very unfortunate in conciliating the affections of his brother writers. He certainly possessed a great share of arrogance, and was desirous of ruling the realms of Parnassus with a despotic sceptre. That he was not always successful in his theatrical compositions is evident from his abusing, in their […]

The characters of these three great masters of English poetry are sketched by Fuller, in his “Worthies of England.” It is a literary morsel that must not be passed by. The criticisms of those who lived in or near the times when authors flourished merit our observation. They sometimes elicit a ray of intelligence, which […]

Whatever may be the defects of the “Turkish Spy,” the author has shown one uncommon merit, by having opened a new species of composition, which has been pursued by other writers with inferior success, if we except the charming “Persian Letters” of Montesquieu. The “Turkish Spy” is a book which has delighted our childhood, and […]

It would be no uninteresting literary speculation to describe the difficulties which some of our most favourite works encountered in their manuscript state, and even after they had passed through the press. Sterne, when he had finished his first and second volumes of Tristram Shandy, offered them to a bookseller at York for fifty pounds; […]

Among the most singular characters in literature may be ranked those who do not blush to profess publicly its most dishonourable practices. The first vender of printed sermons imitating manuscript, was, I think, Dr. Trusler. He to whom the following anecdotes relate had superior ingenuity. Like the famous orator, Henley, he formed a school of […]

Abridgers are a kind of literary men to whom the indolence of modern readers, and indeed the multiplicity of authors, give ample employment. It would be difficult, observed the learned Benedictines, the authors of the Literary History of France, to relate all the unhappy consequences which ignorance introduced, and the causes which produced that ignorance. […]

Anthony Magliabechi, who died at the age of eighty, was celebrated for his great knowledge of books. He has been called the Helluo, or the Glutton of Literature, as Peter Comestor received his nickname from his amazing voracity for food he could never digest; which appeared when having fallen sick of so much false learning, […]

M. Du Boulay accompanied the French ambassador to Spain, when Cervantes was yet living. He told Segrais that the ambassador one day complimented Cervantes on the great reputation he had acquired by his Don Quixote; and that Cervantes whispered in his ear, “Had it not been for the Inquisition, I should have made my book […]

Few philosophers were more deserving of the title than, Bayle. His last hour exhibits the Socratic intrepidity with which he encountered the formidable approach of death. I have seen the original letter of the bookseller Leers, where he describes the death of our philosopher. “On the evening preceding his decease, having studied all day, he […]

It is an ingenious observation made by a journalist of Trevoux, on perusing a criticism not ill written, which pretended to detect several faults in the compositions of Bruyere, that in ancient Rome the great men who triumphed amidst the applauses of those who celebrated their virtues, were at the same time compelled to listen […]

Writers who have been unsuccessful in original composition have their other productions immediately decried, whatever merit they might once have been allowed to possess. Yet this is very unjust; an author who has given a wrong direction to his literary powers may perceive, at length, where he can more securely point them. Experience is as […]

When Crebillon, the French tragic poet, published his Catiline, it was attended with an honour to literature, which though it is probably forgotten, for it was only registered, I think, as the news of the day, it becomes one zealous in the cause of literature to preserve. I give the circumstance, the petition, and the […]

Pere Bohours seriously asks if a German can be a BEL ESPRIT? This concise query was answered by Kramer, in a ponderous volume which bears for title, Vindiciae nominis Germanici. This mode of refutation does not prove that the question was then so ridiculous as it was considered. The Germans of the present day, although […]

Scarron, as a burlesque poet, but no other comparison exists, had his merit, but is now little read; for the uniformity of the burlesque style is as intolerable as the uniformity of the serious. From various sources we may collect some uncommon anecdotes, although he was a mere author. His father, a counsellor, having married […]

It will appear by the following anecdotes, that some men may be said to have died poetically and even grammatically. There must be some attraction existing in poetry which is not merely fictitious, for often have its genuine votaries felt all its powers on the most trying occasions. They have displayed the energy of their […]

In the republic of letters the establishment of an academy has been a favourite project; yet perhaps it is little more than an Utopian scheme. The united efforts of men of letters in Academies have produced little. It would seem that no man likes to bestow his great labours on a small community, for whose […]

The writings of the Fathers once formed the studies of the learned. These labours abound with that subtilty of argument which will repay the industry of the inquisitive, and the antiquary may turn them over for pictures of the manners of the age. A favourite subject with Saint Ambrose was that of Virginity, on which […]