the Funeral. Mr. Stevenson Hall [i. e. John HallStevenson], the Author of 'Crazy Tales' was applyed to, but refused to attend or give himself the least concern about his deceased friend's body." When this story was related by Dr. Farmer, twenty years and upwards had passed since the publication of Tristram Shandy.' Farmer had been guilty of what George Eliot called the most gratuitous form of folly a prophecy. "However much it may be talked about at present," said he, speaking of Sterne's great piece of fantasy and humour, " in the course of twenty years, should anyone wish to refer to it, he will be obliged to go to an antiquary."

A yet more gruesome story is related of a contemporary of Sterne, and to this incident that invaluable treasury the 'Dictionary of National Biography,' which devotes a couple of columns to Robert Butts, Bishop successively of Norwich and Ely, makes no allusion. Before transcribing my citation from Reed, it may be worth while to note that the date of Farmer's birth as given in the 'Dictionary' and the date given by Farmer himself, as recorded by Reed, are not in agreement. The 'Dictionary,' following Nichols's 'Anecdotes,' gives the date, August 28th, 1735. On Tuesday, October 5th, 1790, Reed enters in his diary: "Dr. Farmer said this evening he was born 4th May, 1735.” "Dined in the Hall," the diarist writes on October 11th, 1790. "The conversation turning on Bishop Butts, Mr. Cory said he had heard from Mr. Masters that that Prelate had been buried before he was dead, and Mr. Hardy had been told to the same effect by Mrs. Owen, the Bishop's daughter. The fact seems

to have been as follows: The bishop had the Gout, and was in the habit of taking laudanum. By a mistake a greater quantity was administered than was intended, and he to appearance died. The body was delivered to the undertaker, put into the Coffin, and closed up. On the night preceding the funeral a person who slept in the adjoining Room thought she heard a noise and persisted in her assertion; the coffin was opened, the body found turned on its face and the elbows bruised." A pompous inscription glorified the bishop's monument in Ely Cathedral, but, according to Cole, his chief merit was that of "hallooing at elections.'

Another note-book of Reed's contains "Anecdotes of Celebrated Persons," including an account of Horace Walpole's relations with the poet Chatterton, as communicated by Walpole to Reed in a conversation of February, 1777; Glover's reminiscences of the author of The Spleen'; Lord Mansfield's anecdotes of Pope, and various odds and ends of which the greater part have in some form found their way into print. From one of these records it is pleasant to learn that Steevens-Johnson had called him

mischievous," but would not allow that he was malignant "—was admitted to see the Doctor while he was still suffering from the stroke of palsy of June, 1783, and that Johnson confided to him the same details of his composing in Latin verse a prayer that his understanding might be spared which appear in the well-known letter to Mrs. Thrale.

* The Dictionary of National Biography' makes the bishop over sixty years old when he married his second wife, whose age was twenty-three. His age was in fact fifty-one.

Possibly it may add something to what is known to mention that Dodsley told Reed that Sterne received the sum of £250 for the first two volumes of Tristram Shandy,' for which Dodsley himself, before they were printed at York, had-as is known -refused to give fifty pounds. In the copy of the poem "The Sick Monkey' in the Bodleian Library is a manuscript note by Reed stating that he had learnt from Garrick that he was the author of this attack upon himself. But perhaps the followingwith which I shall end-may give somewhat fuller information than the Bodleian note: "26 Febry, 1777. I received from Mr. Garrick a Poem I had lent him entitled The Sick Monkey, A Fable,' Quarto, 1765, and which he informed me he was the Author of himself. The occasion of writing it was this. Being at Paris studying la Fontaine he wrote this imitation of that author and sent it to Mr. Colman in order to be ready to publish as soon as he arrived. The imposition succeeded, and his friends were very angry at this supposed attack upon him, which they spoke of to him as equally cruel and indecent, The Design to it was by Gravelot."

The sale catalogue of Reed's library, in which his portrait appears, in an " advertisement," speaks of the number, the accuracy, and the interest of the notes which he prefixed to many of his books. It adds a character of the collector of the books which is written without extravagant eulogy. It speaks of his generous communication of his knowledge to his fellow scholars. "He was, indeed," says the writer, "a most friendly man; endeared to all who

knew him by his unassuming manners, his instructive conversation, and his honest heart. He was stern, and justly stern, only when he detected in others. the violation of truth, and observed sophistry assuming the place of argument. With an inde pendent spirit he displayed also a truly modest and retired disposition; surrounded with books and content with a very moderate income, to him, as Prospero says, 'his library was dukedom large enough.'" The sale of his library kept collectors on the watch during thirty-nine days.

EDMUND SPENSER.

BY PERCY W. AMES, LL.D., F.S.A., SECRETARY R.S.L.

[Read April 27th, 1904.]

To the question "What is a great poet?" a French poet gave the answer "A passage through which the wind blows." We cannot agree with that definition, whether it means divine inspiration or only that he is the product of his times. A poet is more than a transmitter of current thought; more than the resultant of the forces of his age, or than its mere focussing reflector. Those impressions which build up human experience become in the plexus of the poet a vast field of creation, combination and projection. Ordinarily these impressions and their transformations repose in the labyrinths of the mind at the best like faithfully kept archives of our intellectual and emotional past, but in the great poet they are always alive and alert, and at times of exaltation pour themselves forth in a copious flood. Why do we continue to direct attention to the great masters whose supremacy is assured, and to works recognised as imperishable? There comes a period of life to each of us when, as Sainte-Beuve says, "there is no keener pleasure than to study and deepen the things we know, to relish what we taste, just as when you behold again and again the people 10

VOL. XXV.