Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, we can now collect little that is likely to gratify curiosity. Al that we are able to ascertain with regard to Mr. Francham, for instance, is, that he was an inhabitant of Norwich, and that he wrote N° 520 of the Spectator on the death of his own wife. This is a paper, however, of so much excellence, that every person who peruses it will naturally wish that his contributions had been more numerous; it may be pronounced, indeed, one of the most pathetic of the series of essays to which it belongs; and of impenetrable materials must that heart be constructed which can refuse to sympathize with feelings and sufferings described with so much touching simplicity, with tenderness so truly unaffected.

20. DUNLOP, MR. Greek Professor in the University of Glasgow, is reported upon the authority of the annotators, to be the author, in conjunction with a Mr. Montgomery, of Spectator, N° 524. It had, prior to this ascription, been given to Professor Simpson of Glasgow; but what were the circumstances which induced the alteration are not specified. Mr. Dunlop is the author of a Greek grammar of some celebrity in Scotland; and Mr. Montgomery was a merchant of high credit and reputation, of a very amiable charac

ter, and possessed of very considerable abilities. "He traded," relates the annotator, "to Sweden; and his business carrying him there, it is said, that in consequence of something between him and queen Christina, he was obliged to leave that kingdom abruptly. This event was supposed to have affected his intellects, much in the same manner as Sir Roger de Coverley is represented in these papers to have been injured by his passion for a beautiful widow *.”

The essay which these gentlemen united to compose consists of a Vision, typical of the effects of heavenly and worldly wisdom. It displays no small portion of invention; and, as Steele justly observes, is written much in the spirit of John Bunyan, though, it should be added, in diction of much greater purity and dignity. This, however, is no mean praise, for few books have been more popular than the Pilgrim's Progress; it has gone through more than fifty editions, and has been translated into most of the European languages. Though treated with contempt by the learned on its first appearance, and for many years afterwards, owing chiefly to the coarseness and vulgarity of its language, it has lately received the applause to which it is enti tled for strength and fertility of imagination.

* Spectator, vol. vii. p. 234-note, 8vo. 1797.

Mr. Granger, Mr. Merrick, Dr. Roberts, and Lord Kaims, have spoken strongly in its favour; the latter remarking, that "the Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe, great favourites of the vulgar, are composed in a style enlivened, like that of Homer, by a proper mixture of the dramatic and the narrative*." To these we may add the encomium of Cowper, who has immortalized the inventive enthusiasm of Bunyan by the following emphatic lines:

Oh thou, whom, borne on fancy's eager wing,
Back to the season of life's happy spring,
I pleas'd remember, and while mem'ry yet
Holds fast her office here, can ne'er forget,
Ingenious dreamer, in whose well-told-tale
Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail,
Whose hum'rous vein, strong sense, and simple style,
May teach the gayest, make the gravest smile,
Witty, and well employ'd, and like thy Lord,
Speaking in parables his slighted word,—
I name thee not, lest so despis'd a name
Should move a sneer, at thy deserved fame ;
Yet ev❜n in transitory life's late day,
That mingles all my brown with sober grey,
Revere the man, whose Pilgrim marks the road,
And guides the Progress of the soul to God +.

* Sketches of the History of Man, vol. i. p. 250, 251.— Note, 2d edition.

+ Tirocinnium: or, a Review of Schools; Poems, vol. ii. p. 300, 4th edit. 1788.

21. THOMAS BIRCH, D. D. Chancellor of Worcester, and Prebendary of that cathedral, is now only known as the author of N° 36, in the Guardian. This paper is ascribed to him on the authority of Dr. Zachary Pearce, Bishop of Rochester, and contains, to adopt the author's own title, a Modest Apology for Punning.

If it be true, as Addison has asserted in the Spectator, N° 61, that" the seeds of punning are in the minds of all men," the endeavour to limit this play upon words to its proper field will be esteemed no useless task. Dr. Birch defends punning merely for its tendency to excite mirth and good humour in conversation, and without any wish for its propagation from the press, or its introduction into composition of any kind.

There was a period in our literature when punning infested almost every department of learning; when the prelate and the poet, the historian and the philosopher, alike considered the pun as one of the greatest ornaments of fine writing; and when even the monarch countenanced the absurdity, and was desirous of being esteemed the best punster of the age. This frivolous fashion existed during the entire reign of James the First, and for several subsequent years

and as a striking proof of the extent of the evil, I shall quote a few paragraphs from a sermon of this era, a species of eloquence in which it will readily be granted that it ought least to have appeared.

"Here I have undertaken one who hath overtaken many, a Machiavillian (or rather a matchless villain), one that professeth himself to be a friend, when indeed he is a fiend.-His greatest amity is but dissembled enmity.-His Ave threatens a va; and therefore listen not to his treacherous Ave, but hearken unto Solomon's Cave; and though he speaketh favourably, believe him not. -Though I call him but a plain flatterer (for I mean to deal very plainly with him), some compare him to a devil. If he be one, these words of Solomon are a spell to expel this devil.-Wring not my words, to wrong my meaning; I go not about to crucifie the sons, but the sins of men.Some flatter a man for their own private benefit: -this man's heart thou hast in thy pocket; for if thou find in thy purse to give him presently, he will find in his heart to love thee everlastingly *."

* A Caution for the Credulous. By Edward Sulton, preacher, quarto, p. 44. Aberdeen printed, 1629, Edinburgh re-printed, 1696. Vide Beattie on Laughter and ludicrous Composition, p. 386.