tour was ridiculed in a witty jeu d'esprit, 'My Pocket-book,' written by Mr. E. Dubois of the Temple. Sir John prosecuted the publishers of this satire, but was non-suited. His Caledonian Sketches' were happily ridiculed by Sir Walter Scott in the Quarterly Review; and Byron-who had met the knight-errant at Cadiz, and implored not to be put down in black and white'-introduced him into some suppressed stanzas of Childe Harold,' in which he is styled Green Erin's knight and Europe's wandering star.'

REV. JAMES BERESFORD.

A humorous work, in the form of dialogues, entitled 'The Miseries of Human Life,' 1806-7, had great success and found numerous imitators. It went through nine editions in a twelvemonth-partly, perhaps, because it formed the subject of a very amusing critique in the Edinburgh Review,' from the pen of Sir Walter Scott. 'It is the English only,' as Scott remarks, who submit to the same tyranny, from all the incidental annoyances and petty vexations of the day, as from the serious calamities of life;' and it is these petty miseries which in this work form the subject of dialogues between the imaginary interlocutors, Timothy Testy and Samuel Sensitive. The jokes are occasionally heavy, and the classical quotations forced, but the object of the author was attained-the book sold, and its readers laughed. We subjoin two short 'groans.'

After having left a company in which you have been galled by the raillery of some wag by profession, thinking at your leisure of a repartee, which, if discharged at the proper moment, would have blown him to atoms.

Rashly confessing that you have a slight cold in the hearing of certain elderly ladies of the faculty,' who instantly form themselves into a consultation upon your case, and assail you with a volley of nostrums, all of which, if you would have a moment's peace, you must solemnly promise to take off before night-though well satisfied that they would retaliate by taking you off' before morning.

The author of this jeu d'esprit was a clergyman, the REV. JAMES BERESFORD, Fellow of Merton College, Oxford (1764-1840). Mr. Beresford was author of several translations and essays.

BRYDGES DOUCE-FOSBROOKE-ETC.

In the style of popular literary illustration, with imagination and poetical susceptibility, may be mentioned SIR EGERTON BRYDGES (1762-1837), who published the Censura Literaria,' 1805-9, in ten volumes; the British Bibliographer,' in three volumes; an enlarged edition of Collin's British Peerage;' 'Letters on the Genius of Lord Byron, &c. As principal editor of the Retrospective Review,' Sir Egerton Brydges drew public attention to the beauties of many old writers, and extended the feeling of admiration which Charles Lamb, Hazlitt, and others had awakened. In 1835 this veteran au

thor edited an edition of Milton's poetical works in six volumes. A tone of querulous egotism and compiaint pervades most of the works of this author, but his taste and exertions in English literature entitle him to high respect. Sir Egerton's original works are numerous-Sonnets and Poems,' 1785-95; Imaginary Biography,' 1834; * Autobiography, 1834; with several novels, letters, &c. Wordsworth praised highly the following sonnet by Brydges:

Echo and Silence.

In eddying course when leaves began to fly,
And Autumn in her lap the stores to strew,

As mid wild scenes I chanced the muse to woo

Through glens untrod, and woods that frowned on high
Two sleeping nymphs with wonder mute I spy;
And lo! she's gone-in robe of dark-green hue

"Twas Echo from her sister Silence flew :

For quick the hunters' horn resounded to the sky.
In shade affrighted Silence melts away.

Not so her sister. Hark! For onward still

With far-heard step she takes her listening way,
Bounding from rock to rock, and hill to hill;

Ah! mark the merry maid, in mockful play,"

With thousand miniic tones the laughing forest fill!

The Illustrations of Shakspeare,' published in 1807, by MR. FRANCIS DOUCE (1762-1834), and the British Monachism, 1802, and Encyclopædia of Antiquities,' 1824, by the REV. T. D. FosBROOKE (1770-1842), are works of great research and value as repositories of curious information. Works of this kind illustrate the pages of our poets and historians, besides conveying pictures of national manners.

A record of English customs is preserved in Brand's Popular Antiquities,' published, with additions, by SIR HENRY ELLIS, in two volumes, quarto, in 1808; and in 1842 in two cheap portable volumes. The work relates to the customs at country wakes, sheep-shearings, and other rural practices and is an admirable delineation of olden life and manners. Mr. Brand (1743-1806) was a noted collector and antiquary.

ROBERT MUDIE (1777-1842), an indefatigable writer, self-educated, was a native of Forfarshire, and for some time connected with the London press. He wrote and compiled altogether about ninety volumes, including Babylon the Great, a picture of Men and Things in London; Modern Athens,' a sketch of Edinburgh s ciety; The British Naturalist;'The Feathered Tribes of Great Britain;' A Popular Guide to the Observation of Nature;' two series of four volumes each, entitled 'The Heavens, the Earth, the Sea, and the Air,' and Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter;' and next, 'Man, Physical, Moral, Social, and Intellectual; The World Described,' &c. He furnished the letterpress to Gilbert's 'Modern Atlas,' the natural History to the British Cyclopedia, and numerous other

contributions to periodical works. Mudie was a nervous and able writer, deficient in taste in works of light literature and satire, but an acute and philosophical observer of nature, and peculiarly happy in his geographical dissertations and works on natural history. His imagination could lighten up the driest details; but it was often too excursive and unbridled. His works were also hastily produced, ‘to provide for the day that was passing over him;' bu, considering these disadvantages, his intellectual energy and acquirements were wonderful.

END OF VOLUME VI.