WHEN I first became ac

HEN I first became acquainted with Mr. Murphy, in the year 1792, he was then sixty-five years of age, and in very good health. He resided at that time on Hammersmith Terrace, and was preparing his Tacitus for the press.

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Our acquaintance arose from a coincidence in opinion, respecting the following circumstance. The Proprietor of Covent-Garden Theatre thought proper to enlarge it beyond the extent for representation of genuine drama; and he demolished the old two shilling gallery, erected boxes in its place, turned the old one shilling gallery into a new two shilling one, with a design to cheat the people out of a one shilling gallery altogether. Constituted as human nature is, with different objects and different determinations to be pleased, neither of us could refrain from avowing our opinions against the conduct of the proprietor: and more so because he had attempted, in an insidious manner, as if he were going about a wrong act, to take the town by surprise, without consulting pets, players, or people, upon the occasion. This will be all the notice I shall take of the affair in this place: though I am free to confess, that on the day the two theatres opened, under these extended dimensions, the English drama received a mortal stab. The expression, the by-acting, the whisper, the dramatic force, which aidedGarrick's immortal fame in his own appropriate theatre, never can be realized again by any future genius. The proprietor, having a patent in his pocket, might have multiplied his theatres.

"I shall now proceed to relate

what occurs to me concerning Mr. Murphy. I cannot confine myself to the strict rule of a regular narrative; because I never was aware that I should have had the lot of being his biographer: but I still mean to be correct in what I relate, and honest in what I may deliver in the way of opinion.

Quid verum atque decens caro et rego.

"When Mr. Murphy left the bar, he was not rich enough to be able to live comfortably on what he possessed. To speak of wealth, or any condition of it, would be degrading, if it were not necessary to refer to it in order to explain the consequences from the possession or the want of it. Mr. Murphy certainly flattered himself, that the profits of his Tacitus, of his dramatic works that had already been performed, and those he had finished and was writing, would, with other occasional engagements, maintain him in comfortable independence. The printing his Tacitus occupied three years: he composed four new plays; he printed a new edition of bis dramatic works which had been published: and during all this time, he certainly lived in expectation of receiving a greater reward for his labours than he ever obtained. He sold his house on Hammersmith Terrace, and the choice part of his library; and be left a society, where he had experienced the friendship of some, and the regard of all his neighbours. He was not at that time so often seen in the London streets: not being then a Commissioner of Bankrupts, he only went occasionally to town. He had not directly experienced the mortification of a want of money,

hor had he been attacked by disease. He went on in his studies, and in his relaxations: he served his neighbours, drew up their memorials, wrote their letters, &c.: he promoted the interest of the French emigrants; being able to converse with them, he knew how to set a value upon their individual merits: he also drew up their cases, and he circulated their subscriptions. His house was the westernmost on Hammersmith Terrace, and his ostensible plea for leaving it was, the distance from town, while he was printing his Tacitus; indeed, he often lamented that, by being deprived of the luxury of a carriage, he was obliged to leave Hammersmith. He took apartments at No. 14, Queen'sRow, Knightsbridge, but he soon removed to others in Brompton Row, where he did not remain long, not liking the mistress of the house; but returned to his former residence, where he resided till the time of his death.

"The parting with his pleasant residence at Hammersmith, his fine library in a great measure disposed of, and being literally among strangers, the consequent agitation of his mind, brought upon him an urinary attack, which had nearly carried him off; and changed his appearance into that of an old man, of which he had no appearance before; and he never recovered his former health or robust condition. Whilst he was printing his Tacitus, he sometimes took up his abode at the hotel in DeanStreet; and he was there during the trials of Hardy and others at the Old Bailey. He was a constant attendant upon them, and very unreserved in his animadversions on those proceedings.

"The urinary complaint that I have just alluded to attacked him again whilst he was at Brompton, and at

the coldest season of the year.-The distance being too far for him to have that attendance which was necessary; he came to Slaughter's Coffee-House, where he speedily recovered from the violence of the symptoms, by application of the vesica lotura. He copied his plays, read one of them to Mrs. Siddons, was visited by many of the theatrical performers, the principal of whom was the late John Palmer, who had an open sincerity of manner pleasing to Mr. Murphy. But not one of these plays was ever brought upon the stage.

"And here is room for reflexion of the most serious nature. Mr. Murphy had in disgust quitted the bar, was living upon the anticipation of what his Tacitus might produce, the stage-door shut against all his unpublished plays, his fame and his fortune decreasing, afflicted for the first time with disease, advanced in years, unable to engage in any new enterprize, with other petty vexations;-yet under all these visitations, it has frequently astonished me, when I saw how stoutly he braved this uncomfortable situation. At this time, to my knowledge, he enjoyed no other income than what he expected from his own literary efforts. He fortunately soon after was made a Commissioner of Bankrupts; but that was nothing to repay the debts incurred for more than three years in the laborious pursuits of scholastic literature, as the translator of Tacitus, Sallust, Vida, Vaniere, Gray, and Addison. What would have become of a man so conditioned, and in a country where literature is supposed to meet with the highest rewards? what would have become of a man thus worn down by disease, and chagrin, if there had not been in him those superior qualities which could and did support and bear him

through?

through It was thus that as Mr. Murphy naturally despised money, honour, and fame, not derived from his own merit, so he was content to draw a subsistence from the adventure of that alone; and if he failed, the shock to him was not like that which is felt by an ambitious man, who depended upon what others could assist him in, and who failed, without the consolation of having the merit of his own talent again to resort to for any new resource.

"No man permitted, like Mr. Murphy, opportunities of independence to pass by him. A great part of the prime of his life, when he might have seized many advantages, was consumed and mouldered away in the services of the Blake family; and when he said, "Thank God, I have done with the Blakes," I am sure he spoke an emphatic truth: as there can never be any recompence, short of independence, for calling off a man's attention from his own pursuits, and thus diverting the current of them, towards the advantage of others. This practice, often flatter ing, and which appears at the first approach but trifling, becomes in the end a habit, takes off from the energy of an independent mind, and lowers the pride of an enterprizing talent: to have a plate at any man's table; to have the range of his country seat for the purpose of being at his call whenever he wants the use of that talent which he possesses not himself; to have the value of the claim weakened by a set-off of hospitality, will dishonour the person who has thus so unjustly and credulously dealt by himself. If Mr. Murphy had applied closely to his own interest, he would have excelled. It was not because he had not taJents for the law that he did not arrive at a pitch of eminence; but it was because he so divided his atten

tion, that no particular talent had the benefit of that excellence his strength of mind could have given to it. His study of the law was profound. His manuscripts prove that. His law extracts and reflexions, and his notes on cases, will make many volumes. But it must be remembered, that the world does not think the better of a lawyer because he is a polite scholar, an admirer of the Belles Lettres, and a dramatic author: had Lord Kenyon written a play, though it had been as serious as the old moralities, he would not perhaps have been the Chief Justice. He perhaps was made made Chief Justice from having nothing but law to recommend him.

"It appears, that Mr. Murphy associated and formed his friendships with the world, without any other design than that of self-gratification.

"With all the great men of the law of his time, he was on terms of intimacy; for he always kept the best company, if getting into the circle of learning, wit, genius, and title, constitute what may be called keepping the best company. But latferly, when at Knightsbridge, be was rather retired and solitary. In that neighbourhood, he found but few only to whom he was attached.

"Mr. Morgan, who was one of the Commissioners of the Hackney Coach Office, was Mr. Murphy's favourite neighbour. That gentleman formerly distinguished himself, by having written a pamphlet to prove that Falstaff was no coward; and with the same turn of singularity, he reasoned, in his own manner, upon other characters of Shakespear. Mr. Murphy when he visited him, which was frequently, (for he always declared that Mr. Morgan was a very worthy and a very honourable man,) from a dread that Mr. Morgan's singularities in the construction

he put upon many of the characters of Shakespear should excite altercacation between them, generally bespoke an agreement of silence upon that topic; and with a cheerful countenance, at the same time insinuated that the intimation he gave to forbear the Shakespearean conversation, was the rallying point, at which the challenge was given and accepted for its commencement, Whenever he told this, as he would at last repeat the same thing at different times, it always excited in his mind a pleasing merriment. "O! heavens!" said Mr. Murphy one day to Mr. Morgan, when he was about to leave him, and had the door in his hand, "O! heavens! we soon, I suppose, shall have another pamphlet from you, to prove that Iago was not a villain." Mr. Morgan died a twelvemonth before Mr. Murphy: and I know, he sincerely lamented his loss, and received a shock as applicable to the condition of his own age and infirmities.

"Mr. Murphy was naturally a man of modest demeanour; he never was ambitious of shining in company, and yet he was not in any one point a misanthrope. Though his life was spent in a continual round of society, from the first to the last of it, yet no man disliked the company of strangers more than himself. Whenever he formed new acquaintances, he generally found them first of all in the society of his respectable friends. The late Mr. Macnamara of Streatham, a gentleman of high consideration, and known for his hospitality and select societies, had been his long and habitual friend. At this gentleman's table, he experienced the honour of being admitted of the party, and of enjoy ing the society of the Prince of Wales, the late Duke of Bedford, aud other eminent persons. To say

that his state of mind, that the strength of it, was in its most peffect condition, or that he displayed himself in brilliant and striking observations, would be what no one could ever expect, considering his years, and how he stood in life at the period of time to which I now allude: but it was just so with bim then as it ever was,-bis appearance secured him respect. He particu larly attracted the attention of the Prince. His Royal Highness asked him what provision he had ever received from the throne? and he seemed astonished at finding that he was without any. Mr. Murphy was never more happy than when he talked of this introduction to the Prince; and he always added that "the Prince of Wales was the most accomplished gentleman he had

ever seen."

"Mr. Murphy composed an epitaph for his old friend Mr. Macnamara, which has a place in Streatham church..

"This visit of Mr. Murphy was followed almost immediately after, by an invitation to his grace the Duke of Bedford's seat at Wobun, to meet a part of the same society he found at Streatham; where he remained a whole week in the enjoyment of the

easy and splendid hospitality which distinguished that noble resi dence. At this time his Tacitus was published: and in a morning con versation, as they passed their time in the library, the Duke of Bedford remarked to Mr. Murphy, that the chasm which he saw in the rank of quartos, next to Mr. Gibbon's works, was destined to be filled up by his Tacitus, which was then at the bookbinder's. On Mr. Murphy's return to town, I met him the following morning in Coventry Street, and he dined with me, full of the hospitality and the pleasure he had

received;

received; but after all, he added, that this would have been a most exquisite repast to him twenty years ago; but now, said he, "I was, before such guests, only an object that had been, both in mind and in body!"

There is a tide in the affairs of men, and Mr. Murphy's began now to take a more favourable turn; and I consider him to have been, for the last seven years of his life, far removed from want. A legacy of one thousand pounds from his relation Mrs. Ford, came very acceptably his appointment as Commissioner of Bankrupts, and his sale of the Life of Garrick followed. His generous allowance from Mrs. Plunkett followed that. And lastly, though late, came his pension from the crown. Besides all this, there flowed in from the generous purses of private individuals, not in the way of subscription, some very liberal donations.

"I consider Mr. Murphy's time to have been employed for the few last years in an irregular and desultory manner. He had to attend to his duties of Commissioner of Bankrupts; he had law-suits upon his bands; he attended to the politics of his country; he wrote a few es. says; and he was obliged to consider his state of health, which was evideutly declining, insomuch that it was a matter of astonishment to those who knew him best, that he held out so long. His being called by the Society of Lincoln's-Inn to his seat as a bencher, flattered him; for there were remaining in the Society some of his oldest friends the reason of his being invited so late, arose from the appointments of Crown Officers being mostly filled up from that Society, and that it was a rule to invite Crown Offcers to become benchers out of their turn: their turns, however, being

all served, his came at last. He spoke of the time he intended to join the Society with great pleasure, and after he had been there, the satisfaction he expected appeared to have been increased by the respect he received. To enhance all this, there was a particular occurrence, which, however trivial, ought not to be omitted; for trivial occurrences, if they give delight, should not escape attention.

"No man, and I am sure it cannot be called in question, lived better with his brethren of the profession, than Mr. Murphy: and though he was the intimate friend of Mr. Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton, and esteemed his talents beyond those of any other man's, still he had a proper regard for the talents and integrity of Mr. Wallace, the Attorney General, and Mr. Dunning's opponent in the Court of King's Bench. This procured for him, to the end of his life, the friendship of Mr. Wallace's brother, his Majesty's woollen-draper, who presented him with a piece of blue broad cloth, made entirely from his Majesty's wool. With a new coat of this he made his first appearance amongst the Benchers. The mind of a school-boy in new clothes, could not be susceptible of more delight, than he professed to feel from this circumstance and on that occasion.

"Of the Life of David Garrick, written in sickness and in sorrow, it hardly becomes me to say more than what I have said already. It has appeared before the public, who have doubtless formed their opinions upon it, which will not be affected by any praise or blame of mine. He certainly wrote it on the spur of the occasion; and I am convinced, that, from a wish in him to forget whatever was not pleasing for him