"that the reigning family could not have

"been very well pleased with

Waverley.'

"There is a degree of charlatanism in some "authors keeping up the Unknown. Junius "owed much of his fame to that trick; and 66 now that it is known to be the work of Sir

Philip Francis, who reads it? A political "writer, and one who descends to person"alities such as disgrace Junius, should be “immaculate as a public, as well as a pri"vate character; and Sir Philip Francis was neither. He had his price, and was

66

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gagged by being sent to India. He there "seduced another man's wife. It would "have been a new case for a Judge to sit in

66

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'judgment on himself, in a Crim. con.

It

seems that his conjugal felicity was not

great, for, when his wife died, he came “into the room where they were sitting up

"with the corpse, and said, Solder her up,

"solder her up!' He saw his daughter

66

crying, and scolded her, saying, An old

hag-she ought to have died thirty years

ago!' He married, shortly after, a young 66 woman. He hated Hastings to a violent

66

degree; all he hoped and prayed for was "to outlive him.-But many of the news

papers of the day are written as well as "Junius.

66

"Mathias's book, The Pursuits of Literature,' now almost a dead-letter, had 66 once a great fame.

66

"When Walter Scott began to write

poetry, which was not at a very early 66 age, Monk Lewis corrected his verse. "He understood little then of the me"chanical part of the art. The Fire King "in "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Bor"der,' was almost all Lewis's. One of the "ballads in that work, and, except some of

66

Leyden's, perhaps one of the best, was "made from a story picked up in a stage"coach ;-I mean that of Will Jones.'

They boil'd Will Jones within the pot,

And not much fat had Will.'

"I hope Walter Scott did not write "the review on 'Christabel;' for he cer

66

tainly, in common with many of us, is "indebted to Coleridge. But for him, per

66

haps, The Lay of the Last Minstrel' "would never have been thought of. The

"line

'Jesu Maria shield thee well!'

"is word for word from

Christabel.'

"Of all the writers of the day, Walter "Scott is the least jealous: he is too confi"dent of his own fame to dread the rivalry "of others. He does not think of good writ

66

ing, as the Tuscans do of fever-that there "is only a certain quantity of it in the "world.” 99 #

"What did you mean," said a gentleman who was with Lord Byron, " by calling Rogers a Nestor and an Argonaut? I suppose you meant to say that his poetry was old and worn out."

"You are very

hard upon the dead* poet,

* Travellers in Italy should be cautious of taking bouquets of flowers from the Contadini children, as they are in the habit of placing them on the breasts of persons having malignant fevers, and think that, by communicating the disorder to another, it will be diminished in the person affected.

* He used to tell a story of Rogers and

visiting the Catacombs at Paris together. As

66 -upon the late lamented Mr. Samuel Ro

gers, (as he has been called,)—and upon

me too, to suspect me of speaking ironically upon so serious a subject."

"It was a very doubtful expression, however, that Nestor of little poets,"" rejoined the other. Compliments ought never to have a double sense -a cross meaning. And you seem to be fond of this mode of writing, for you call Lady

Morgan's Italy' a fearless and excellent work. What two odd words to be coupled 'together!"

"Take it as you like,” replied Lord By

Rogers, who was last, was making his exit, said to him, "Why, you are not coming out, are you? Surely you are not tired of your countrymen! You don't mean to forsake them, do you? 1?"