Coffey, was long a favorite, chiefly for the female character, Nell, which made the fortune of several actresses. The operas of this description by Isaac Bickerstaff, among which are The Padlock, Love in a Village, and Lionel Clarissa, present a pleasing union of lyrical charms with those of dramatic incident and dialogue. The Quaker, by Charles Dibdin, author and composer of a multitude of these operas, and dramatic trifles, was produced in 1777, contains much excellent music, and is still popular.

Lecture the Forty-Second.

PROSE WRITERS.

CONYERS MIDDLETON -NATHANIEL LARDNER ARCHIBALD BOWER THOMAS CARTE-WILLIAM LAW-WILLIAM STUKELEY-JOSEPH BUTLER-JOHN LELAND

-FRANCIS HUTCHESON-JAMES FOSTER-JOHN GILL-JOHN JORTIN-WILLIAM WARBURTON-PHILIP DODDRIDGE-JOHN WESLEY-GEORGE WHITEFIELD-FERDINANDO WARNER-THOMAS LELAND-LORD CHESTERFIELD-LORD KAMES.

NE of the most striking features of the prose writing of this period is

ONE of the most striking of the subjects which it embraces. Periodical

essayists, novelists, historians, metaphysicians, theologians, political writers, and writers of miscellanies, were equally numerous. Without reference, therefore, to their relative claim upon our attention, we shall notice them as the order of time presents their names.

DR. CONYERS MIDDLETON, the first that occurs, was the son of the rector of Hinderwell, near Whitby, and was born at York, on the twenty-seventh of December, 1683. At the age of seventeen he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he afterwards became fellow. In 1709, he joined the other fellows of the society in opposition to Dr. Bentley, the master; but having soon after married a widow lady of large property, he relinquished his fellowship and retired from the college. His life now presented little variety for a number of years; but in 1723, desiring an active occupation, he accepted the office of principal librarian at Cambridge. In the following year he was induced, by the death of his wife, to visit the continent, and wherever he went he was received by men of learning and rank with the greatest kindness and respect.

Soon after his return to England, Dr. Middleton issued some letters and other papers, which created suspicions of his orthodoxy, and by this means he was involved in a succession of controversies, which consumed, very unprofitably, many years. During much of this period, however, he was engaged in preparing and arranging materials for a history of the Life and Writings of Cicero, and the great work made its appearance in 1741. ReVOL. II.-2 H

viewing the whole of the celebrated orator's public career, and the principal transactions of his times-mingling together questions of philosophy, government, and politics, with the details of biography, Middleton compiled a highly interesting work, full of varied and important information, and written with great care and taste. An admiration of the rounded style and flowing periods of Cicero, seems to have produced in his biographer a desire to attain to similar excellence; and perhaps no author, prior to Dr. Johnson, wrote English with the same careful finish and sustained dignity. The graces of Addison, it is true, were wanting, but certainly no historical writings of the day were at all comparable to Middleton's memoir. The following sentences from his summary of Cicero's character will be sufficient to exemplify the author's style :

CHARACTER OF CICERO.

He made a just distinction between bearing what we can not help, and approving what we ought to condemn; and submitted, therefore, yet never consented to those usurpations; and when he was forced to comply with them, did it always with a reluctance that he expresses very keenly in his letters to his friends. But whenever that force was removed, and he was at liberty to pursue his principles and act without control, as in his consulship, in his province, and after Cæsar's death-the only period of his life in which he was truly master of himself—there we see him shining out in his genuine character of an excellent citizen, a great magistrate, a glorious patriot; there we could see the man who could declare of himself with truth, in an appeal to Atticus, as to the best witness of his conscience, that he had always done the greatest service to his country when it was in his power; or when it was not, had never harboured a thought of it but what was divine. If we must needs compare him, therefore, with Cato, as some writers affect to do, it is certain that if Cato's virtues seem more splendid in theory, Cicero's will be found superior in practice; the one was romantic, the other was natural; the one drawn from the refinements of the school, the other from nature and social life; the one always unsuccessful, often hurtful; the other always beneficial, often salutary to the republic.

To conclude: Cicero's death, though violent, can not be called untimely, but was the proper end of such a life; which must also have been rendered less glorious if it had owed its preservation to Antony. It was, therefore, not only what he expected, but, in the circumstances to which he was reduced, what he seems even to have wished. For he, who before had been timid even in dangers, and desponding in distress, yet, from the time of Cæsar's death, roused by the desperate state of the republic, assumed the fortitude of a hero; discarded all fear; despised all dangers; and when he could not free his country from a tyranny, provoked the tyrants to take that life which he no longer cared to preserve. Thus, like a great actor on the stage, he reserved himself, as it were, for the last act, and after he had played his part with dignity, resolved to finish it with glory.

Lardner, Bower, Carte, Law, Stukeley, Butler, Leland, Hutcheson, Foster, Gill, Jortin, Warburton, Doddridge, and Wesley, are among the earliest writers of this period who distinguished themselves by any marked excellence.

NATHANIEL LARDNER, a dissenting minister, was born at Hawkhurst, in Kent, where his father owned a small estate, in 1684. His early studies

1766 A.D.]

ARCHIBALD BOWER.-THOMAS CARTE.

483

were pursued in London, after which he went to Utrecht, and thence to Leyden, where he remained until his education had become very complete. In 1713, he became tutor to the younger son of Lady Treby, widow of the chief justice of the English common pleas, with whom he travelled over France, Holland, and the Netherlands. In 1723, having returned to England, Lardner was employed with others in a course of lectures at the old Bailey; but though his abilities were great and universally acknowledged, he did not obtain a settlement among the dissenters until the forty-fifth year of his age, when he became assistant minister at Crutched Friars. His literary labors had now so distinguished him that the university of Aberdeen conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Towards the close of his life this learned divine retired to his patrimonial estate at Hawkhurst, where he died of natural exhaustion, in 1768.

Some of Dr. Lardner's theological treatises are of the highest importance to the divinity student. His greatest performance is his Credibility of the Gospel History, in fifteen volumes, and in which proofs are brought from innumerable sources in the religious history and literature of the first five centuries in favor of the truth of Christianity. Another voluminous work, entitled A Large Collection of Ancient Jewish and Heathen Testimonies to the Truth of the Christian Religion, appeared towards the close of the author's life, and completed a design, which, making allowance for the interruptions occasioned by other studies and writings of less importance, occupied his attention for forty-three years.

ARCHIBALD BOWER was born at Dundee, in Scotland, on the seventeenth of January, 1685, and educated at Douay, in France, whence he went to Rome, and became a Jesuit. Dissatisfaction, however, with his relations to the order, induced him, in 1726, to escape to England, where he soon after embraced the Protestant faith. His learning recommended him to the great, and he had the good fortune to become acquainted with Lord Aylmer, in whose family he passed several years. Unsteady and insincere in his principles, and not realizing the advantages that he had anticipated from his union with the Protestants, he became, in 1745, reconciled to the Jesuits; but two years afterwards he again made public his dissent from the religion of those within whose pale he had lately been received as a penitent refugee. Late in life Bower gave to the public his great literary performance, a History of the Popes. This work displays extensive learning, and much skill in composition; but unfortunately the versatile character of the author, and the want of stability in his religious principles, render his statements of doubtful authority. His death occurred on the second of September, 1766.

THOMAS CARTE was born at Clifton, Warwickshire, in April, 1686, and educated at University College, Oxford. Immediately after he left the university he entered into orders, and being appointed reader of the Abbeychurch, Bath, he there, in a sermon, ably vindicated the memory of Charles