Mr. Granger, Mr. Merrick, Dr. Roberts, and Lord Kaims, have spoken strongly in its favour; the latter remarking, that "the Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe, great favourites of the vulgar, are composed in a style enlivened, like that of Homer, by a proper mixture of the dramatic and the narrative."* To these we may add the encomium of Cowper, who has immortalized the inventive enthusiasm of Bunyan by the following emphatic lines; Oh thou, whom, borne on fancy's eager wing, • Sketches of the History of Man, vol. i. p. 250, 251.--Note, 24 edition. + Tirocinnium: or, a Review of Schools; Poems, vol. ii. p. 300 4th edit. 1788. 21. THOMAS BIRCH, D. D. Chancellor of Worcester, and Prebendary of that cathedral, is now only known as the author of N° 36, in the Guardian. This paper is ascribed to him on the authority of Dr. Zachary Pearce, Bishop of Rochester, and contains, to adopt the author's own title, a Modest Apology for Punning. If it be true, as Addison has asserted in the Spectator, N°61, that " the seeds of punning are in the minds of all men,” the endeavour to limit this play upon words to its proper field will be esteemed no useless task. Dr. Birch defends punning merely for its tendency to excite mirth and good humour in conversation, and without any wish for its propagation from the press, or its introduction into composition of any kind. There was a period in our literature when punning infested almost every department of learning; when the prelate and the poet, the historian and the philosopher, alike considered the pun as one of the greatest ornaments of fine writing; and when even the monarch countenanced the absurdity, and was desirous of being esteemed the best punster of the age. This frivolous fashion existed during the entire reign of James the First, and for several subsequent years; and as a striking proof of the extent of the evil, I shall quote a few paragraphs from a sermon of this era, a species of eloquence in which it will readily be granted that it ought least to have appeared. "Here I have undertaken one who hath overtaken many, a Machiavillian (or rather a matchless villain,) one that professeth himself to be a friend, when indeed he is a fiend.-His greatest amity is but dissembled enmity.-His Ave threatens a va; and therefore listen not to his treacherous Ave, but hearken unto Solomon's Cave; and though he speaketh favourably, believe him not. -Though I call him but a plain flatterer (for I mean to deal very plainly with him,) some compare him to a devil. If he be one, these words of Solomon are a spell to expel this devil.-Wring not my words, to wrong my meaning; I go not about to crucifie the sons, but the sins of men.Some flatter a man for their own private benefit: -this man's heart thou hast in thy pocket; for if thou find in thy purse to give him presently, he will find in his heart to love thee everlastingly." A Caution for the Credulous. By Edward Sulton, preacher, quarto, p. 44. Aberdeen printed, 1629, Edinburgh re-printed, 1696. Vide Beattie on Laughter and ludicrous Composition, p. 386. 22. THE REV. DEANE BARTELETT. This worthy divine was educated at Merton College, Oxford; where, on the fifth of July, 1693, he was admitted to his degree of Master of Arts. It is generally supposed, that his intimacy with Steele commenced at this University, as Sir Richard was at that time a member of the same College. That he was the author of N° 130, in the Guardian, on the Merits of the speculative and the active Parts of Mankind, we can bring forward the authority of Steele himself to prove, who, in his Apology, after quoting two paragraphs from this paper, adds the following marginal note: "This most reasonable and amiable light in which the clergy are here placed, comes from that modest and good man, the Rev. Mr. Bartelett.” * The paper thus assigned him reflects great credit upon his abilities and good sense. The style is lucid, pure, and simply elegant; and the view which he has taken of the two classes that form the subject of his essay, and the arguments with which he supports his positions, are in a high degree rational and perspicuous. We shall now proceed, according to the arrangement laid down at the commencement of this essay, to notice those authors who have conStecle's Political Writings, 12mo. 1715, p. 253. tributed merely letters, or portions of a number, to the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian. 23. THE REV. WILLIAM ASPLIN. We learn that this gentleman was a writer in the Tatler, from the dedication to a work which he published in 1728, entitled Alkibla; A Dissertation on Worshipping towards the East, &c. and which opens with the following passage: "In the brightest days of Britain, when Bickerstaff presided in the chair of wit, and o'er this happy land showered manna down which suited every taste, I had the honour, though unworthy and unknown, to be accepted as an humble correspondent.”* · Mr. Asplin was a member of Alban's-hall, Oxford; took the degree of A. M. there in 1710, and afterwards resided at Banbury. Three letters in the Tatler, two of which are dated from Hedington, a village near Oxford, and one from the University, are conjectured by the annotators to have been the productions of his pen. The first, in N° 45, is on the subject of Puppetshows; the second, in N°71, gives a ludicrous account of the Reformation of Manners at Oxford; and the third, in N°72, requests a decision on a wager, to which a term made use of by • See vol. i, of this work, p. 158, where the whole of the dedication ik given. |