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tion despair, it is a character also to make despair itself patient, and to convert it into an invincible spirit.

It is not generally known to the admirers of Alfred, that there is a life of him extant, written in Latin by one of his most familiar and intelligent friends, Asser of Saint David's, whom he had invited to court from a monastery. There is a good edition of it, and I believe, not a scarce one, by Francis Wise, who was Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and Assistant Librarian of the Bodleian*. The life is the

more interesting, not only as it furnishes an authentic document for some of the most curious particulars, which our known historians have made popular, and for more which have been related by others, but inasmuch as the author exhibits evident marks of his being a plain-spoken, impartial man, and with all his veneration for Alfred, does not scruple to speak of the faults of his youth, and even to attribute his misfortunes to

* The one I have is an octavo, printed at Oxford in 1722, but the first edition appears to have been in quarto. Asser was edited also by Camden and by Archbishop Parker.

such causes as were likely to strike a churchman in that age. The substance of Asser is contained in the fourth and fifth books of Mr. Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, where the reader will find a more copious and interesting account of Alfred, though written in a singular style, than in any other English performance.

It is still however a disgrace to English biogra phy, that there is no life of our unrivalled countryman, important enough from the size and the composition to do him justice. The notices of Milton, Hume, and Burke, who like all other wise men, of all opinions and countries, have united to speak of him with one voice, are mere notices, however excellent of their kind. Little perhaps could be added to the facts of his story; but they are of a nature to be rendered doubly interesting by proper management; no subject, it is evident, could be more justly provocative of elegant reflection and illustration; and a compact, lively volume, written by one who was learned enough to enter into the language of his hero, of taste enough to relish his

accomplishments, and of knowledge and spirit enough to apprehend the real greatness of his character, would be a treasure to be laid up in the heart of every Englishman, and tend to perpetuate those solid parts of our character, which are the only real preservatives of our glory.

5 'Twas lucky for Colman he wasn't there too,
For his pranks would have certainly met with their due,—
And Sheridan's also, that finished old tricker ;-
But one was in prison, and both were in liquor.

It cannot be supposed, especially in my present situation, that I should object to a man on the mere ground of his being circumscribed in his movements; but it is pretty well known, I believe, that it is not plain-dealing which sent Mr. Colman to prison, nor any very great care for his honour which keeps him there. These are matters, however, upon which I am loth to touch, and therefore dismiss them.-The pertinacious ribaldry of Mr. Colman, and his affectation of regarding it's reprovers as hypocrites,—— things which look more like the robust ignorance of

a vulgar young rake, than the proceedings of even an old man of the world who is approaching his grave, have met with their just reprobation from every reader of common sense. The truth is, that Mr. Colman the Younger, as he calls himself, has been prodigiously overrated in his time, partly perhaps from his real superiority to the Dibdins and Reynoldses as a writer of huge farces, and partly from the applauses of a set of interested actors and gratuitous playwrights, whom he has helped to spoil in return; so that it really seems to be half vanity as well as sottishness, that persuades him he has a right to talk as he pleases, and to make us acquainted with this obscene dotage of his over his cups.

On Mr. Sheridan I spare myself additional comment, especially after the climax with which he finished his moral, when explanations were going to and fro respecting the Regent's cabinet. Apollo's rebuke of him, had he made his appearance, would have been on the old score of his neglect of the drama. As a comic writer, he has certainly, for a long time past, been our only connexion with a better race,-for

there was an ideal sickliness about Mr. Cumberland,

-a hankering after petty effects and smooth-speak

ing sympathies, an inaptitude, in short, to fall in

with the real forms and spirits of life, which made him look rather like a sickly foreigner who had got among us, than one of the native stock. The best part about him was his elegant scholarship. But may I say, that Mr. Sheridan, upon the whole, appears to me to have been overrated as an observer, and that the best part of him is his elegance also an informed elegance no doubt, and one that is full of a social and sprightly humour,-but still a business of words rather than thoughts,-an elegance informing us little in it's turn, and quite on the tasteful side instead of the inventive.

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Apollo just gave them a glance with his eye,

Spencer--Rogers--Montgomery,'-and

putting them by,

Begg'd the landlord to give his respects to all three,
And say he'd be happy to see them to tea.

These writers, though classed together, and equally denied admittance to Apollo's dinner-table, either

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