The “true” modern critics on our elder writers are apt to thunder their anathemas on innocent heads: little versed in the eras of our literature, and the fashions of our wit, popular criticism must submit to be guided by the literary historian. Kippis condemns Sir Symonds D’Ewes for his admiration of two anagrams, expressive of […]

It is an odd circumstance in literary research, that I am enabled to correct a story which was written about 1680. The Aubrey Papers, recently published with singular faithfulness, retaining all their peculiarities, even to the grossest errors, were memoranda for the use of Anthony Wood’s great work. But beside these, the Oxford antiquary had […]

We converse with the absent by letters, and with ourselves by diaries; but vanity is more gratified by dedicating its time to the little labours which have a chance of immediate notice, and may circulate from hand to hand, than by the honester pages of a volume reserved only for solitary contemplation; or to be […]

We are often perplexed to decide how the names of some of our eminent men ought to be written; and we find that they are even now written diversely. The truth is, that our orthography was so long unsettled among us, that it appears by various documents of the times which I have seen, that […]

Lord Orford has in one of his letters projected a curious work to be written in a walk through the streets of the metropolis, similar to a French work, entitled “Anecdotes des Rues de Paris.” I know of no such work, and suspect the vivacious writer alluded in his mind to Saint Foix’s “Essais Historiques […]

Robinson Crusoe, the favourite of the learned and the unlearned, of the youth and the adult; the book that was to constitute the library of Rousseau’s Emilius, owes its secret charm to its being a new representation of human nature, yet drawn from an existing state; this picture of self-education, self-inquiry, self-happiness, is scarcely a […]

Literature, and the arts connected with it, in this free country, have been involved with its political state, and have sometimes flourished or declined with the fortunes, or been made instrumental to the purposes, of the parties which had espoused them. Thus in our dramatic history, in the early period of the Reformation, the Catholics […]

A period in our dramatic annals has been passed over during the progress of the civil wars, which indeed was one of silence, but not of repose in the theatre. It lasted beyond the death of Charles the First, when the fine arts seemed also to have suffered with the monarch. The theatre, for the […]

The Stagyrite discovered that our nature delights in imitation, and perhaps in nothing more than in representing personages different from ourselves in mockery of them; in fact, there is a passion for masquerade in human nature. Children discover this propensity; and the populace, who are the children of society, through all ages have been humoured […]

In the south aisle of Westminster Abbey stands a monument erected to the memory of Lady Grace Gethin.[1] A statue of her ladyship represents her kneeling, holding a book in her hand. This accomplished lady was considered as a prodigy in her day, and appears to have created a feeling of enthusiasm for her character. […]

The memorable grand dinner given by the classical doctor in Peregrine Pickle, has indisposed our tastes for the cookery of the ancients; but, since it is often “the cooks who spoil the broth,” we cannot be sure but that even “the black Lacedaemonian,” stirred by the spear of a Spartan, might have had a poignancy […]

As a literary curiosity, and as a supplemental anecdote to the article of PREFACES,[1] I cannot pass over the suppressed preface to the “Acajou et Zirphile” of Du Clos, which of itself is almost a singular instance of hardy ingenuity, in an address to the public. This single volume is one of the most whimsical […]

The history of a race of singular mendicants, known by the name of Tom o’ Bedlams, connects itself with that of our poetry. Not only will they live with our language, since Shakspeare has perpetuated their existence, but they themselves appear to have been the occasion of creating a species of wild fantastic poetry, peculiar […]

A writer of penetration sees connexions in literary anecdotes which are not immediately perceived by others: in his hands anecdotes, even should they be familiar to us, are susceptible of deductions and inferences, which become novel and important truths. Facts of themselves are barren; it is when these facts pass through reflections, and become interwoven […]

I flatter myself that those readers who have taken any interest in my volume have not conceived me to have been deficient in the elevated feeling which, from early life, I have preserved for the great literary character: if time weaken our enthusiasm, it is the coldness of age which creeps on us, but the […]

Richelieu was the greatest of statesmen, if he who maintains himself by the greatest power is necessarily the greatest minister. He was called “the King of the King.” After having long tormented himself and France, he left a great name and a great empire–both alike the victims of splendid ambition! Neither this great minister nor […]

“Had the Duke of Buckingham been blessed with a faithful friend, qualified with wisdom and integrity, the duke would have committed as few faults, and done as transcendent worthy actions as any man in that age in Europe.” Such was the opinion of Lord Clarendon in the prime of life, when, yet untouched by party […]

The ancient Bacchus, as represented in gems and statues, was a youthful and graceful divinity; he is so described by Ovid, and was so painted by Barry. He has the epithet of Psilas, to express the light spirits which give wings to the soul. His voluptuousness was joyous and tender; and he was never viewed […]

Herbert, the faithful attendant of Charles the First during the two last years of the king’s life, mentions “a diamond seal with the king’s arms engraved on it.” The history of this “diamond seal” is remarkable; and seems to have been recovered by the conjectural sagacity of Warburton, who never exercised his favourite talent with […]

The secret history of Charles the First, and his queen Henrietta of France, opens a different scene from the one exhibited in the passionate drama of our history. The king is accused of the most spiritless uxoriousness; and the chaste fondness of a husband is placed among his political errors. Even Hume conceives that his […]