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varied. Some of these lectures and essays, published in a collected form, bear such titles as: "The Ethics of the Dust," "Sesame and Lilies," "Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds," an ecclesiastical pamphlet, and "Unto this Last," a reprint of four articles which appeared in the Cornhill Magazine. Mr Ruskin's other chief works are: "Study of Architecture in our Schools;" "The Queen of the Air," being a study of the Greek myths of cloud and storm; "Lectures on Art," "Munera Pulveris," "Essays on Political Economy," "Aratra Pentilici," "Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture," "The Eagle's Nest," "Ten Lectures on the Relation of Natural Science to Art," etc. Mr Ruskin has been censured for leaving the safe path of art criticism for that of Political Economy. His works are now somewhat difficult of purchase, owing to their being withdrawn from the ordinary channels of publication. Some years ago he started a periodical pamphlet called Fors Clavigera, only to be had on direct application to an agent, which expounds his particular views on art, literature, and the social life around him in England. Mr Ruskin still (1876) continues its publication. The Slade professorship on art, arising from a bequest by the late Felix Slade, and worth between £300 and £400 per annum, was again conferred on Mr Ruskin in 1876. He has held this important professorship since its foundation in 1869.

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SMITH, ALEXANDER, was born at Kilmarnock, in Ayrshire, on the 31st December 1829. His father was a pattern designer, who, soon after his birth, removed to Paisley, and thence, in a short time, to Glasgow. His education was fairly good, with a tincture of Latin and mathematics. In Glasgow, he followed the occupation of his father as a pattern designer. Some of his verses appeared from time to time in the Glasgow Citizen. In 1851 he forwarded some of his pieces to the Rev. George Gilfillan, Dundee, who, readily recognising the talent of the writer, secured their publication by instalments in the London Critic. Elsewhere he spoke of the rise of a new poet, and excited not a little interest in his favour in literary circles. In 1852 he published the "Life Drama." In 1854, through the influence of the then Lord Provost, Mr

Duncan M'Laren, he was elected to the post of secretary to the Edinburgh University. In the spring of 1857 he married Miss Flora Macdonald, from Skye, and settled down shortly afterwards at Wardie, near Granton, where he died, from the effects of fever, brought on by overwork, on the 5th of January 1867. A neat monument was erected over his grave in Warriston Cemetery by some of his personal friends, in the shape of a Runic cross, bearing the inscription, "Alexander Smith, Poet and Essayist." His other poetical works are "City Poems," "Edwin of Deira," and besides he was an occasional contributor to Good Words, the Argosy, and the North British Review. His prose works are "Alfred Hagart's Household," "Dreamthorp," a book of essays written in the country, and "A Summer in Skye." "Last Leaves," a volume of sketches and criticisms, to which we are indebted for our Introduction, was published in 1868, shortly after his death. "The poet," says Mr Stedman, the American critic, "became a genuine man of letters, but died young, and when he was doing his best work."

He

SMITH, SYDNEY, was born in 1771 at the village of Woodford, in Essex. He was educated at the collegiate school of Winchester, rose tc be captain of the school, was elected a scholar of New College, Oxford, in 1780, and a fellow in 1790. He afterwards spent six months in Normandy, where he acquired the French language. Taking his degree of M.A. in 1796, he shortly afterwards obtained the curacy of Nether-Avon, near Amesbury, Wiltshire, which he held for two years, and afterwards became travelling tutor to the son of a country gentleman. was to have gone to Weimar with his pupil, but the German war altered his plans, and he came to Edinburgh. In Edinburgh he became acquainted with Henry Brougham, afterwards Lord Brougham, and Francis Jeffrey, afterwards Lord Jeffrey, and many others of the same line of politics. The result of this acquaintance was the founding of the Edinburgh Review, and we give the story in his own words. "The principles of the French Revolution, "were then fully afloat, and it is impossible to conceive a more violent and agitated state of society. Among the first persons with whom I became acquainted, were Lord Jeffrey, Lord Murray-late Lord Advocate of Scotland-and Lord Brougham; all of them maintaining opinions upon political subjects a little too liberal for the dynasty of Dundas, then exercising supreme power over the northern division of the island. One day we happened to meet in the eighth or ninth story or flat in Buccleuch Place, the elevated residence of the then Mr Jeffrey. I proposed that we should set up a Review; this was acceded to with acclamation. I was appointed editor, and remained long enough in Edinburgh to edit the first number of the Edinburgh.

"

he says,

Review. The motto I proposed for the Review was: Tenui musam meditamur avena' (We cultivate literature upon a little oatmeal). But this was too near the truth to be admitted, and so we took our present grave motto from Publius Syrus, of whom none of us had, I am sure, ever read a single line. And so began what has since turned out to be a very important and able journal. When I left Edinburgh it fell into the stronger hands of Lord Jeffrey and Lord Brougham, and reached the highest point of popularity and success." The first number of the Edinburgh Review was published in October | 1802. In 1804 he went to London, and a few years afterwards married a daughter of Mr Pybus the banker. In 1806, Lord Erskine gave him the rectory of Foston-le-clay, in Yorkshire. In 1828 Lord Lyndhurst presented him to a stall in Bristol Cathedral, and in a year or two afterwards he left Foston for the rectory of Combe-Florey, in Somersetshire. In 1831 he was appointed one of the canons residentiary of St Paul's Cathedral, by Earl Grey. He died in London, February 21, 1845. Besides three volumes of sermons, and two volumes of his lectures which were published after his death, he issued in 1839 his works in three volumes, with preface and portrait.

censor, the vast number of his own elegant and useful papers, and the beauty and value of those which, through his means, saw the light, we cannot hesitate in honouring him with the appellation of the father of periodical literature.” Of the 271 papers in the Tatler, Steele wrote 188, Addison, 42, and both together, 36. The Tatler appeared regularly three times a week, price one penny each number, until January 2, 1710-11. The first number of the Spectator appeared on March 1, 1711, and was carried on with great success, through 555 numbers, the publication ceasing on the 6th of December 1712. Of 635 Spectators, Addison wrote 274, and Steele 240. Another miscellany, entitled the Guardian, extended to 175 numbers, to which Steele contributed 82 papers. The other periodicals which he projected, the Lover, the Reader, etc., were unsuccessful. In 1717 Steele was nominated one of the commissioners of forfeited estates in Scotland, and visited Edinburgh four times on the business of the commission. Steele appears to have received fair remuneration for his literary work; and on the publication of his "Conscious Lovers" in 1722, the king, to whom it was dedicated, gave him £500. But he was always poor, because often lavish, scheming, and unbusiness-like. Nothing, however, could depress his spirits. Being always engaged in some unsuccessful scheme or other, and with habits both benevolent and lavish, he wasted his regular in. come in anticipation of a greater, until absolute pecuniary distress was the result. Shortly before his death he retired into Wales, solely for the purpose of retrenching his affairs, so that he might pay his creditors. But it was too late, and before he could carry his honest intentions into effect, death overtook him, and he died on September 1, 1729, at Llangunnor, at the age of fifty-eight.

STEELE, SIR RICHARD, was born in Dublin in the year 1671. He was educated at the Charter-house School along with Addison, and thence he removed to Merton College, Oxford. After leaving college he enlisted in the Horse Guards, for which he was disinherited by a rich relation. He rose to the rank of captain in the army, and published "The Christian Hero" in 1701. Some comedies which he wrote at this time met with indifferent success. He married, and in 1706 got the appointment of Gazetteer, with a salary of £300 per annum. His wife dying only a few months after marriage, he paid his addresses to Mary Scurlock, to whom he was married SWIFT, DR JONATHAN, Dean of St Patrick's, September 9, 1707. Extravagant living brought was born at Dublin, in 1667. He attended him frequently into difficulties, but he was gay school at Kilkenny, and next went to Trinity and cheerful through it all. To his second wife College, Dublin, where he applied himself parhe wrote some 400 letters, addressing her in the ticularly to the study of history and poetry, to most endearing terms. In 1709 he projected the neglect of other branches of learning. Losing the publication of a periodical paper. The title his uncle in 1688, and his thoughts being of the paper, as the author observes in the first directed to the Church, he came to England and number, was decided upon in honour of the fair waited upon Sir William Temple, through whose sex, and the Tatler was therefore placed under influence, and that of Lord Berkeley, he obtained their jurisdiction. The name of its conductor, the livings of Laracor and Rathbiggan, to the "Isaac Bickerstaff," was taken from a previous former of which he went to reside. During his publication of Swift's. It was commenced on residence there he invited to Ireland Miss Johnthe 12th of April 1709. "If we consider," says son, the lady celebrated as Stella, whom he had one writer, "the invention of Steele, as discov-known intimately since girlhood, and to whom erable in the scheme and conduct of the Tatler, if we reflect upon the finely drawn and highly finished character of Bickerstaff, in his varied offices of philosopher, humorist, astrologer, and

* "Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur" (The judge is condemned when the guilty are absolved).

he had acted as tutor. In 1701 he took his doctor's degree, and began publishing his political pam. phlets, the most celebrated of which are the "Tale of a Tub," and the "Battle of the Books." While in London he was a chief contributor to the

Examiner, and in 1712 acquired a fatal influence over another lady's life-Miss Hester Vanhomrigh.

66

cadence to English prose; before his time they were careless of arrangement." This may be taken as only comparatively true.

A

This lady, hearing of his intimacy with Stella, never recovered the shock, but died fourteen months afterwards, in 1723. In 1726 appeared the most perfect of the larger compositions of Swift, and that by which he will WILSON, JOHN, one of the most heart-stirring probably be longest remembered-" Gulliver's of Scottish prose writers. He was born in No. Travels." It is a production entirely unique in 40 High Street, Paisley, on the 18th of May English literature. Its main design is, under 1785. His father, who bore the same Christian the form of fictitious travels, to satirise mankind name, was a prosperous manufacturer; and his and the institutions of civilised countries; but mother, Margaret Sym, was connected with a the scenes and nations which it describes are so respectable family in the west of Scotland. He wonderful and amusing, that the book is as received his elementary education at the schools great a favourite with children as with those of his native town, and afterwards at the manse misanthropic spirits who delight in contem- of Mearns under Dr Macletchie. To his juvenile plating the imperfections of human nature. It sports and exercises in the moor of Mearns, and was received with such avidity, that the price of his trouting excursions by the stream of the the first edition was raised before the second Humbie and the four parish lochs, he has frecould be got ready. It was read by the high quently referred in the pages of Blackwood's and the low, the learned and the illiterate. Magazine. In his fifteenth year he became a Criticism was for a while lost in wonder; no student in the University of Glasgow. Under rules of judgment were applied to a book that the instructions of Professor Young of the Greek was written in open defiance of truth and regu- chair, he made distinguished progress in classi larity. As a writer, the prose works of Swift cal learning; but it was to the clear and mascu are among the best specimens we possess of a line intellect of Jardine, the distinguished Prothorough English style. "He knew," says Dr fessor of Logic, that he was, in common with Blair, beyond almost any man, the purity, Jeffrey, chiefly indebted for a decided impulse the extent, the precision of the English lan- in the path of mental cultivation. In 1804 he guage; and therefore, to such as wish to attain proceeded to Oxford, where he entered in Maga pure and correct style, he is one of the most dalen College as a gentleman-commoner. useful models." Sinking into absolute idiocy, leader in every species of recreation, foremost in Swift died in 1745, aged seventy-seven, after every sport and merry-making, and famous for bequeathing the greater part of his fortune to his feats of agility and strength, he assiduously an hospital for lunatics. continued the prosecution of his classical studies. Of poetical genius he afforded the first public indication by producing the best English poem of fifty lines, which was rewarded by the Newdigate prize of forty guineas. On attaining his majority he became master of a fortune of about £30,000, which accrued to him from his father's estate; and, having concluded a course of four years at Oxford, he purchased, in 1808, the small but beautiful property of Elleray, on the banks of Lake Windermere, in Westmoreland. 1811 he married Miss Jane Penny, the daughter of a wealthy Liverpool merchant, and a lady of great personal beauty and amiable disposition, to whom he continued most devotedly attached. He had already enjoyed the intimate society of Wordsworth, and now sought more assiduously the intercourse of the other Lake poets. His guardian (a maternal uncle) having proved culpably remiss in the management of his property, along with other circumstances, convinced him of the propriety of adopting a profession. His inclinations were originally towards the Scottish bar, and he now engaged in legal studies in the capital. In 1815 he passed advocate, and during the term of the law courts, established his residence in Edinburgh. On the establishment of Blackwood's Magazine, in 1817, Wilson was one of the staff of contributors, along with Hogg, Lockhart, and others; and on a difference occurring between the pablisher and Messrs Pringle

TEMPLE, SIR WILLIAM, the son of Sir John Temple, Master of the Rolls in Ireland, was born in 1628, and studied at Cambridge, under the learned Dr Hammond, his maternal uncle. He began to travel in his twenty-fifth year, and spent six years in France, Holland, Flanders, and Germany. In 1655 he was engaged in promoting an alliance between England, Sweden, and Holland. Becoming resident minister at the Hague, he was useful in promoting the marriage of the Prince of Orange with Mary, eldest daughter of the Duke of York, which took place in 1677. On refusing to sanction an intended breach with Holland, he was recalled from his post in 1671, and formally dismissed from his ambassador's office, when he retired into private life at Sheen. Here he wrote an "Essay on Government," and part of his "Miscellanies." He was again ambassador to the States-General in 1674; and in 1679 he was appointed Secretary of State, but resigned in the following year. He now retired to his country-seat in Surrey, where he was often visited by Charles II., James II., and William III. As a statesman and man of the world, Temple is said to have been wanting in unselfish devotion, but in private he was respectable and decorous. Dr Johnson once made the remark that "Sir William Temple was the first writer who gave

In

and Cleghorn, the original editors, a few months manners of the times, appeared in Blackwood after the undertaking was commenced, he exerfrom 1822 till 1835. In 1825 his entire poetical cised such a marked influence on the fortunes of works were published in two octavo volumes; the periodical that he was usually regarded as and, on his ceasing his regular connection with its editor, although the editorial labour and Blackwood's Magazine, his prose contributions responsibility really rested on Mr Blackwood were, in 1842, collected in three volumes under himself. In 1820 he was elected by the Town the title of "Recreations of Christopher North." Council of Edinburgh to the chair of Moral In 1850 he was elected first president of the EdinPhilosophy in the University, which had become burgh Philosophical Institution, and in the folvacant by the death of Dr Thomas Brown. In lowing year a civil list pension of £300 was, on the twofold capacity of Professor of Ethics and the recommendation of the Premier, Lord John principal contributor to a popular periodical, he Russell, conferred on him by the Queen. In occupied a position to which his genius and 1852 he felt necessitated, from a continuance of tastes admirably adapted him. He possessed in impaired health, to resign his professorship in a singular degree the power of stimulating the the university. He died in his house in Glouminds and drawing forth the energies of youth; cester Place, Edinburgh, on the 3d of April 1854. and wielding in periodical literature the vigour His remains, at a public funeral, were consigned of a master intellect, he riveted public attention to the Dean Cemetery, and his memory has been by the force of his declamation, the catholicity honoured by an elegant monumental statue in of his criticism, and the splendour of his descrip- bronze in the Princes Street Gardens. With a tions. Blackwood's Magazine attained a cele- vast and comprehensive genius, he has gathered brity never before reached by any monthly from every department of nature the deep and periodical; the essays and sketches of "Chris- genial suggestions of wisdom; he has found topher North," his nom-de-plume, became a philosophy in the wilds, and imbibed knowledge monthly treasure of interest and entertain- by the mountain stream. As a contributor to ment. His celebrated "Noctes Ambrosianæ," | periodical literature, he will find admirers while a series of dialogues on the literature and the English language is understood.

INDEX.

ADDISON, JOSEPH, 114-151.
life of, 518.

Adversity, 12.

Affection, 79.

Age and Youth, 31.
Agriculture, 60.

AIRD, THOMAS, 493-501.
- life of, 518.

Alexander the Great, 40.
Ambition, 28.

Amusements of great men, 155.
Anningait and Ajut, 234.
Architecture, fine, 508.
Art of being agreeable, 172.
Atheism, 17.
Authors, a club of, 205.
-, proceedings of, 206.
Autumn, 493.

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life of, 521.
Counsel, 37.

Country churches, 239.

Coverley, Sir Roger de, papers on,
133-150.

-, country residence, 133-Will
Wimble, 135-the ghost, 136-
Sunday, 136-exercise, 137-
witchcraft, 138-the assizes, 139
-malice of parties, 140-the
gipsies, 141-opinions about
"Spectator," 143-in London, 144
-in Westminster Abbey, 145-at
the theatre, 146-at Vauxhall,
148-death of Sir Roger, 149.
COWLEY, ABRAHAM, 58-71.

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Flowers, gathering of, 400.
Forgiveness, 232.

Fortune, 30, 37.

FOSTER, JOHN, 327-345.

life of, 522.

Friend, letter to a, 83.

Friends, on the death of, 158.
Friendship, 23.

FULLER, THOMAS, 47-57.

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Faculties, right development of LAMB, CHARLES, 286-327.

man's, 515.

Fancy, 52.

Female education, 350.

Flattery, 39.

life of, 526.

Laughter, theory of, 129.
Liberty of the press, 72.
Life, 79.

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