suggested to me a plan for composing Lectures on the Philosophy of Natural History, which I highly relished. I immediately began the work; and proceeded for some years collecting materials, till it received a long interruption from BUFFON. After finishing my translation of that work, I resumed my former scheme; and shall complete the lectures in less than twelve months.

ABOUT three years ago Dr RAMSAY, Professor of Natural History, died. My friends applied to Lord SUFFOLK in my favour; but Dr WALKERS political interest was strongest, and I lost the chair.

Ar the last meeting of the Antiquarian Society, I was appointed Keeper of their Museum, with a request to deliver my Lectures in their hall when they were ready. This office, though no salary is annexed to it, increased my prospect of success, from the patronage of a body so numerous and respectable. But jealousy always rises in proportion to the narrowness of a country. Dr WALKER accordingly, though he has never yet lectured himself, has taken the alarm, and is using all his influence to get my Lectures suppressed.

I have endeavoured to convince his friends that no interference can ever happen. This explanation, however, has not satisfied him; and how the matter is to terminate, time alone can discover.

I BEG pardon for consuming so much of your valuable time with a detail of my private affairs. Were I not certain that I am communicating an abstract both of my past and present situation to the breast of an honourable friend, prudence would have prevented me from being so explicit. I have the honour, &c.

WILLIAM SMellie.

MR WILLIAM STRAHAN, to whom the foregoing letter was written, was born at Edinburgh in 1715. His father held a small appointment in the head office of the Customs in Scotland, and gave his son the education which every boy of decent rank in Edinburgh could then, and still does receive, in consequence of the very moderate fees of all the elementary schools rendering the avenues to learning accessible even to the most moderate circumstances. After acquiring the ele

mentary foundations of learning at the grammar school, he, like Mr SMELLIE, was bound apprentice to a printer in Edinburgh. Soon after the expiry of his apprenticeship, he went to London, as a wider field for improvement in his profession. Before which change he appears to have entered into matrimony, while yet very young, and only a journeyman printer. Though he married early, and without looking forwards to any such provision for the establishment of a family as prudence might have dictated; yet, by sobriety, diligence, and attentive economy, even while his emoluments were extremely confined, he contrived always to live rather within his income, and gradually bettered his circumstances. This is the true golden rule by which every man may thrive, and which he used often to adduce as an encouragement for early marriage. He used often to say, That on every augmentation of his family, Providence always sent a sufficient increase of income to enable him to provide for his increased household expences.

By his abilities in his profession, joined to correct literary taste and judgment of the opinions of the public in relation to books, ac

companied by perfect integrity, unabating diligence, and honourable economy, he got on in business with almost unexampled success, after his first difficulties were mastered. Having become one of the most flourishing men in the printing trade in London, he purchased in 1770, from Mr EYRE, a share in the patent of Kings Printer for England; which, besides the right to print bibles and prayer-books, in which the two English universities have an equal participation, gave an exclusive right to print all statutes of the Legislature, after the royal assent has constituted them the Kings laws. Besides the emoluments arising from this appointment, and from very extensive private business as a printer, he now entered largely into the speculation of literary property, which requires considerable knowledge and sagacity to conduct with advantage. Chiefly in conjunction with his friend, the late Alderman THOMAS CADELL, the great London bookseller, he purchased the copy-rights of many of the most celebrated literary productions of his time; a considerable number of which, by Scots authors, were purchased through the judgment of, and in conjunction with, Mr WILLIAM CREECH, the apprentice, partner,

and successor of the late Mr ALEXAnder KINCAID, Kings printer and stationer for Scotland. In these purchases of literary property, the liberality of Mr STRAHAN was equally conspicuous with his prudence and judgment, and, in some instances, may rather have exceeded the bounds of discretion. Yet, although no such liberal rewards had ever been before given for literary exertion as were bestowed by him and his associates, affluence to no common degree was the rewardof this liberality; although, in a few individual instances, the sales may have not remunerated them for the expences, as must necessarily be the case in every extensive trade, in which some adventures must be expected to fail, while others have a prosperous issue.

HAVING acquired considerable wealth, the honourable reward of patient industry and judicious adventure, Mr STRAHAN, at the age of sixty, came into Parliament for the first time, as one of the members for the borough of Malmsbury in Wiltshire, having that illustrious and enlightened statesman and ora. tor, C. J. Fox, as his colleague. He began his political career too late in life to attempt VOL. I. Y