preferments in the church, though fucceffively numerous, were small and never reached to dignities: the laft of them were the rectories of St. Margaret Pattens, London, and of Depden in Effex.

Dr. John Campbell was an eminent writer, and a labourer in a voluminous work undertaken at the expence and rifque of the bookfellers, the Univerfal Hiftory. Besides many other books, he wrote the lives of the English admirals in four octavo volumes.He had a confiderable hand in the Biographia Britannica, and was the author of a valuable work in two quarto volumes intitled, A political furvey of

Britain; being a series of reflections on the fituation, lands, inhabitants, revenues, colonies, and commerce of this ifland; intended to fhew that they have not as yet approached to near the fummit of improvement,, but that it will afford employment for many ages,, before they push to their utmost extent the natural advantages of Great Britain. The reputation of this work extended to the most remote parts of Europe, and induced the emprefs of Ruffia in the year 1774, to honour the author with a prefent of her picture. By the exercise of his pen alone, and a good use of his time, he was for many years enabled to fupport himfelf, and enjoy the comforts of domeftic life in the fociety of an excellent wife and a numerous offspring. In 1765, he was appointed his majefty's agent for the province of Georgia in North America, and was thereby raised to a state of comparative affluence. His refidence for fome years before his death, was the large. new-built houfe fituate at the north-west corner of Queen fquare, Bloomsbury, whither, particularly on a Sunday evening, great numbers of perfons of the

first eminence for fcience and literature were accuftomed to refort for the enjoyment of converfation. He died in 1775, having nearly completed the fixtyeighth year of his age, leaving behind him the character of a learned, an ingenious, and a pious man.

Dr. John Hill was originally an apothecary and a student in botany, in which he was encouraged by the late duke of Richmond, and lord Petre; but finding that an unprofitable purfuit, he made two or three attempts as a writer for the ftage: a failure in them drove him back to his former ftudy, in the course whereof he got introduced to Mr. Martin Folkes and Mr. Henry Baker, leading members of the royal fociety, who finding him a young man of parts and well skilled in natural hiftory, recommended him among their friends. His firft publication was a tranflation from the Greek of a small tract, Theophrastus on gems, which being printed by fubfcription, produced him fome money, and fuch a reputation as induced the booksellers to engage him in writ, ing a general natural history in two volumes in folio, and foon after, a fupplement to Chambers's dictionary. He had received no academical education; but his ambition prompting him to be a graduate, he obtained, from one of thofe univerfities which would fcarce refufe a degree to an apothecary's horfe, a diploma for that of doctor of phyfic. After this, he engaged in a variety of works, the greater part whereof were mere compilations, which he fent forth with incredible expedition; and though his character was never in fuch eftimation with the bookfellers as to entitle him to an extraordinary price for his writings, he has been

known by fuch works as those above-mentioned, by novels, pamphlets, and a periodical paper called The Infpector,' the labour of his own head and hand, to have earned, in one year, the fum of 1500l. He was vain, conceited, and in his writings disposed to satire and licentious fcurrility, which he indulged without any regard to truth, and thereby became engaged in frequent difputes and quarrels that always terminated in his own difgrace. For fome abuse in his Infpector, of a gentleman of the name of Brown, he had his head broke in the circus of Ranelagh gardens. He infulted Woodward the player in the face of an audience, and engaged with him in a pamphlet-war, in which he was foiled *. He attacked the royal fociety in a review of their transactions, and abused his old friends Mr. Folkes and Mr. Baker for oppofing, on account of his infamous character, his admiffion among them as a member. In the midst of all this employment, he found time and means to drive about the town in his chariot, and to appear abroad and at all public places, at Batfon's coffee-house, at masquerades, and at the opera and playhouses, fplendidly dreffed, and as often as he could, in the front row of

It was faid of Hill, that when he met, in any botanic garden, with a curious plant that was portable, he would convey it away, and that he was once detected in an attempt of that kind. Woodward, in a pamphlet written againft him, alluded to this fact by prefixing to it, as a motto, this appofite citation from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet :

• I do remember an apothecary

-

• Culling of fimples.'

the

the boxes. Towards the end of his life, his reputation as an author was fo funk by the flovenliness of his compilations, and his difregard to truth in what he related, that he was forced to betake himself to the vending a few fimple medicines, namely, effence of water-dock, tin&ture of Valerian, balfam of honey,. and elixir of Bardana, and by pamphlets afcribing to them greater virtues than they had, impofed on the credulity of the public, and thereby got, though not an honest, a competent livelihood.

Two years before his death, he had received from the king of Sweden, the inveftiture of knight of one of the orders of that kingdom, in return for a prefent to that monarch of his Vegetable fyftem' in twenty-fix folio volumes. With all his folly and malignity, he entertained a fenfe of religion, and wrote a vindication of God and nature against the shallow philofophy of lord Bolingbroke.

Befides thefe, there was another class of authors who lived by writing, that require to be noticed: the former were, in fact, penfioners of the bookfellers: these vended their compofitions when completed, to thofe of that trade who would give moft for them. They were moftly books of mere. entertainment that were the fubjects of this kind of commerce, and were and ftill are diftinguished by the corrupt appellation of novels and romances, Though fictitious, and the work of mere invention, they pretended to probability, to be founded in nature, and to delineate focial manners. The first publication of the kind was the Pamela' of Mr.

P3

Richardfon

Richardfon, which being read with great eagerness by the young people of the time, and recommended from the pulpit, begat fuch a craving for more of the fame ftuff, as tempted fome men whofe neceffities and abilities were nearly commenfurate, to try their fuccefs in this new kind of writing.

At the head of these we muft, for many reafons, place Henry Fielding, one of the moft motley of li terary characters. This man was, in his early life, a writer of comedies and farces, very few of which are now remembered; after that, a practising barrister with fcarce any bufinefs; then an anti-minifterial writer, and quickly after, a creature of the duke of Newcastle, who gave him a nominal qualification of 100l. a year, and fet him up as a trading-juftice, in which difreputable ftation he died. He was the author of a romance, intitled The history of Jofeph Andrews,' and of another, The Foundling, or the 'hiftory of Tom Jones,' a book feemingly intended to fap the foundation of that morality which it is the duty of parents and all public inftructors to inculcate in the minds of young people, by teaching that virtue upon principle is impofture, that generous qualities alone conftitute true worth, and that a young

Pamela is the name of a lady, one of the principal characters in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia,' and is thus accented Pamela. So Mr. Pope,

The Gods, to curfe Pamela with her pray'rs,

• Gave the gilt coach and dappled Flanders mares.'

But Richardfon, whether through ignorance or defign, and also all his female pupils, conftantly pronounced it Paměla.

man