libraries of prouder mansions. We wish to see it, what we are sure it might be made, a pocket-volume, the mother's companion in every situation of life to which literary education, even in its rudiments, shall have penetrated.

ART. II. The Annual Biography and Obituary for the Year 1826. Vol. X. 8vo. pp. 470. 15s. Boards. London. Longman and Co.

1826.

THE elaborate biographical pieces in the present volume of this very useful and interesting work are sixteen in number. The subjects are Lord Radstock, the Rev. Henry Kett, Mrs. Barbauld, the Rev. Charles Wolfe, Lord Whitworth, Dr. Parr, Mr. Bowdler, the Bishop of Salisbury, Mr. Fuseli, Dr. Rees, Lord Carlisle, Dr. Tilloch, Mrs. Franklin, Mr. Owen, R. A., Sir Thomas Bertie, and Lord Donoughmore. The selection has very properly been confined to the memoirs of celebrated persons who have died during the years 1824-5,' with only one exception, the Rev. C. Wolfe; in whose case, although the period of his decease might place him rather beyond the usual limits of the work, the editor has justly preferred the slight relaxation of a general rule to the omission of all notice of an individual who was beloved wherever he was known, and who has left behind him more than one production of genius, which the world will not willingly let die.'

The measure of interest pertaining to the memoirs of so many individuals, must of course vary as much as the relative degrees of their celebrity for virtue and talent. The harvest of death must be unusual and tremendous, which could fill our annual obituary exclusively with the illustrious immortal;" and many names must swell the yearly volume, whose sum of existence, however praiseworthy in itself, and dear to an admiring circle, can offer little matter highly worthy of public regard, or very attractive to general curiosity. Yet the story even of private worth must do good as far as its example can be inculcated; and if we cannot, with the compiler of the work before us, include the subject of every memoir which he has here inserted in the list of really celebrated persons, we may at least commend the general spirit in which he has made his selection. We cannot expect him to find sufficient matter of permanent value to engross every year's volume; but he has suc-.ceeded in giving not only a harmless but an agreeable and wholesome variety to his work. We know not, in short, any annual publication which is better fitted for family-perusal, not only as abounding in amusing anecdote and instructive details, but for its higher utility, as holding out, from authentic examples, every incitement to manly, honourable, and virtuous exertion.

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On the articles upon Mrs. Barbauld and the Rev. C. Wolfe (whose memory has been rescued from oblivion by the attention

recently drawn to his admirable Lines on the Burial of Sir John Moore) no comment on our part is here necessary for the papers have been compiled from the memoirs of the parties by Miss Aikin and the Rev. J. A. Russell; of which, our readers will remember, notices have already appeared in the pages of this Journal. The articles on Lord Radstock and Sir Thomas Bertie are rather interesting pieces of naval biography; for those officers' names are honourably associated with the glorious days of Cape St. Vincent and Copenhagen. Lord Radstock was, moreover, distinguished as a munificent patron of the fine arts: he left an excellent gallery of pictures by Italian, French, Spanish, Dutch, and Flemish masters; and this fine assemblage, entirely of his own collection, was valued at upwards of fifty thousand pounds. To this elegant taste he united the higher qualities of private benevolence and of sincere attachment to his country.

The short memoir on Mr. Kett is only an account of an amiable man and an exemplary divine, who did his utmost in the cause of his religion, but who, notwithstanding the eulogy which partial friendship has here exhausted upon his writings, was certainly not a person of any remarkable talents. Of the late venerable Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Fisher, the preceptor of the Princess Charlotte, it is impossible for any one to speak without respect and affection, who ever observed his meek and unaffected yet dignified deportment, his serene temper, and his earnest exercise of his functions. A person of brilliant attainments he was not: but he was a beautiful example of a Christian prelate, pious, unostentatious, and charitable; and we have here a very sensible sketch of his life and character, as free from injudicious pretension as the man himself.

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We pass rapidly over several of the other minor memoirs in the collection of Dr. Tilloch, the able and scientific conductor of the Philosophical Magazine; Mr. Owen, the painter and Royal Academician; and Mr. Thomas Bowdler, the editor of the Family Shakspeare and of the forthcoming expurgate edition of Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Mr. Bowdler was a truly amiable man, but whose undistinguished and "even tenor of life" is here related with rather more prolixity, perhaps, than was necessary, from a tedious memoir by his nephew. In the two papers on Lords Whitworth and Donoughmore we have a very careful, able, and impartial digest of the remarkable political transactions in which these noblemen were engaged: but we cannot bestow the same praise of ability on the composition of the memoir of Lord Carlisle. This is apparently by a different hand, with an absurd and laboured attempt at "fine writing" and flowery diction. We cannot be told in simple terms that the young nobleman was placed at Eton, but that he was early sent to the celebrated seminary erected by the ill-fated Henry;' and then we are favoured with the novel information, in an explanatory note, that Eton College was founded by

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Henry VI.' We hear also, in curious phrase, of verses being appended to a school-room on account of their excellence;' of Charles Fox, ere yet he was in manhood's bloom;' of taste for the classic page;' of being borne on the bosom of the silvery flood;' of contending for the prize of eloquence and the meed of fame;' of 'shining a meteor of fashion;' and, id genus omne, of tropes and figures, sadly out of place in plain narrative prose. It is amusing, however, to be told of the youthful Charles Fox and His Lordship, as the two greatest beaux of their day, striving to introduce the foreign foppery of red heels!

We have purposely reserved ourselves to speak lastly of the best papers in the volume. These are on Dr. Parr, Dr. Rees, Mrs. Franklin, and Mr. Fuseli. And here we will say, of the life of Dr. Parr, that it is an admirable compilation from all that has yet been published of him, with some curious additional matter. It completely introduces us to the person and peculiarities of the man; and it affords us a full and satisfactory account of the most profound scholar and one of the most original and eccentric minds of the age. We cannot analyse the paper, but we shall extract the author's brief summary of his character; which, if it too much forgets the hasty temper and overbearing manner of the literary Ajax, appears to us in other respects remarkably just.

His views were most comprehensive, his arguments most acute; his diction was correct without stiffness, and his imagery splendid without glare. It was the vulgar notion of those who did not know Dr. Parr, that his information was confined to the structure of sentences, the etymology of words, the import of particles, and the quantity of syllables. But those who intimately knew and appreciated his singular mental acquirements, were struck alike with their variety and with their depth. In classical erudition he was without a rival, and was one of the few surviving devotees of the old school of learning. His knowledge of ecclesiastical history, particularly as connected with the church history of Britain, was most extraordinary: all the minute and illustrative facts connected with the liturgies, forms, doctrines, and creeds of the establishment, were most accurately known to him. As he idolized the memories of those who had fallen martyrs in the cause of political truth, so, in his own words, he "loved to soar in the regions of religious liberty." His religious sentiments were formed on the most mature reflection, the most accurate balance of evidence, the most extensive, bold, and impartial results. There were no doubts he dared not investigate, no difficulties he did not grapple with. But although there was no polemical question which he did not analyze, yet he entertained the most profound contempt for established bigotry, and sectarian dogmatism. Above all, he early discovered the limitation of the human understanding; the folly of diving after hidden knowledge. To use his own quotation from Johnson, "by the solicitous examination of objections, and judicious comparisons of opposite arguments, he attained what inquiry never gives but to industry, and perspicuity, firm and unshaken settlement of conviction; but his firmness was with

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out asperity, for knowing with how much difficulty truth was sometimes found, he did not wonder that many missed it."

Dr. Parr was extensively read in history and legislation, and was well acquainted with what are called the constitutional writers. His character as a politician was most manly and consistent. His own words, in the contrast of the characters of Warburton and Hurd, may be applied to himself; "he never thought it expedient to expiate the artless and animated effusions of his youth by the example of a temporising and obsequious old age; he began not his course, as others have done, with speculative republicanism; nor did he end it, as the same persons are now doing, with practical toryism." It has already appeared, that he was indebted for all his perferment to the affection of private friends; for though he was animated by an ardent but liberal and enlightened attachment to our civil and ecclesiastical constitution, though he was distinguished by unparalleled learning, gigantic strength of intellect, the most unblemished morals, Christian humility, and profound unaffected piety, he was never patronised by the government of his country. This was a circumstance which many will perhaps consider explained by the passage in his character of Mr. Fox, in which Dr. Parr truly states of himself, that, "from his youth upward, he never deserted a private friend, or violated a public principle; that he was the slave of no patron, and the drudge of no party; that he formed his political opinions without the smallest regard, and acted upon them with an utter disregard to personal emoluments, and professional honours." He adds (what his friends must rejoice to recollect was the truth), "that although for many and the best years of his life he endured very irksome toil, and suffered very galling need, he eventually united a competent fortune with an independent spirit; and that, looking back to this life and onward to another, he possessed that inward peace of mind which the world can neither give nor take away." Nor will this be wondered at by those who know that his long residence at Hatton was spent by him in diligently performing all the duties of a parish priest; in assisting, advising, and befriending the poor; in the exercise of a generous hospitality; in encouraging and patronising merit; in communicating knowledge, whenever required, from his own inexhaustible stores; in contributing, by a most extensive correspondence, to the general illumination of the literary world; in manifesting by his words and deeds, that he cultivated a spirit of unbounded philanthropy, as the practical essence of our holy religion; and in endeavours to promote from the pulpit and by the press whatever is most conducive to the public and private welfare of mankind,'—pp. 164-166.

The memoir of Dr. Abraham Rees is also ably compiled, and will be read with considerable interest. Dr. Rees, besides being one of the most eminent divines of his day, has left a distinguished name in literature and science; and to establish the just title of his reputation, we need only point to the completion of that Herculean labour, his Cyclopædia, and to the prodigious improvement in subsequent works of the kind, to which his example and success so essentially contributed.

The very interesting paper on Mrs. Franklin owes its attraction. less to the literary reputation of that lady, than to some affecting

incidents in her life, the romantic colouring of her marriage, and the premature and saddened close of her existence. The article, moreover, which is from the pen of a friend, is interspersed with some pleasing anecdotes. Mrs. Franklin is best known to our readers, probably, by her maiden name of Porden, and as the talented daughter of the late respectable architect of Eaton Hall, the splendid seat of Earl Grosvenor. Mr. Porden himself was a man of some literary taste, and an amusing little account is here given of a private periodical paper, established at Eaton upon a festive occasion some forty years since. To this sportive journal Mr. Porden was a contributor; and, under its auspices, Mr. Gifford fledged his critical talent as its editor; -a whimsical anticipation of a graver office! The paper made its appearance every morning at the breakfast-table, under the name of the Salt-Box; so called from the circumstance of a salt-box being used as the most convenient receptacle for the effusions of the various members of the party.

Miss Porden showed very early precocity of talent: she began to acquire a respectable knowledge of Greek at eleven years of age, and, while yet a mere girl, became a good mineralogist, geologist, and theoretical chemist. But it was by her poetical taste that she was particularly distinguished. At seventeen years of age she wrote her first poem, "The Veils; or, the Triumph of Constancy:" three years afterwards appeared another piece, "The Arctic Expedition;" and after another interval a third poem, or as her friend calls it, rather too ambitiously, her grand work,' "Coeur de Lion; or, the Third Crusade." The "Arctic Expedition" was prompted by a visit to the discovery-ships, which produced also her first acquaintance with Captain Franklin, the intrepid northern voyager and traveller, and eventually her marriage to him. But fatal symptoms of decay in her constitution had already manifested themselves before this interesting union; and she sank under consumption just after her gallant husband's last departure for the perilous enterprise on which he is still engaged. The narrative of her end is too touching to be omitted.

'A circumstance which occurred just before their union places the character of the amiable subject of this memoir in so elevated a point of view, and affords so admirable an example to her sex, that we can not pass it unnoticed. Captain Franklin, with the manly and honourable candour which belongs to his profession, was observing to her that his country had an undoubted right to his services while he was capable of rendering them; and, therefore, that she must not be annoyed or mortified at his occasional absence: "I am an Englishwoman!" was the noble and comprehensive answer.

In June, 1824, Mrs. Franklin gave birth to a daughter; and it was for some time hoped that her constitution would rally, and her health be restored; but these flattering expectations were soon destroyed. It has been said that the agitation occasioned by the preparations for the