state and the stage are compared in it with a great deal of wit and humour;"✶ and Steele, in a letter addressed to Nestor Ironside, Esq. in the Guardian, and signed with his own name, has thus spoken of it: "Old Downes is a fine piece of raillery, of which I wish I had been author. All I had to do in it was to strike out what related to a gentlewoman about the queen, whom I thought a woman free from ambition, and I did it out of regard to innocence."+ It is remarkable, that when Steele wrote his preface to the fourth volume of the Tatler, he was ignorant that Henley was the writer of this epistle, though one of his most intimate friends, and classes it as the production of an unknown correspondent. It should not be concealed, likewise, that Mr. Temple Stanyan is said to have assisted Henley in the composition of this political satire.

34. JAMES GREENWOOD was the teacher of a boarding-school at Woodford in Essex, and the author of an "Essay towards a practical English Grammar," which was accompanied with notes. At the commencement of the 18th century, when few attempts had been made to regulate the structure of our language, this was a very valuable • Life of Cibber, vol. i. p. 298, edition of 1756, 12mo.

↑ No. 53.

work, and justly entitled the writer to the thanks of his countrymen. Mr. Greenwood contributed a very useful letter to the Tatler on education, No 234; in which he particularly insists on the advantage and propriety of well grounding the student in the English grammar preparatory to his initiation in classical literature. Towards the close of this epistle, he speaks in high terms. of a grammar, with notes, then in the

66

press, and

"On

which was afterwards published in 1711.* one page of this grammar," says the annotator, prefixed or annexed, was engraven the head of Cato the Censor, in compliment to Steele in the character of Bickerstaff; and from the other, he (the annotator) copied faithfully the following recommendation of the book. "This treatise being submitted to my censure, that I may pass it with integrity, I must declare,-That as grammar, in general, is on all hands allowed the foundation of all arts and sciences; so it appears to me, that this grammar of the English tongue has done that justice to our language, which till now it never obtained. The text will improve the most ignorant, and the notes will employ the most learned. I therefore enjoin all my female

*. • The full title of this grammar is as follows: "A Grammar of the English Tongue, with Notes, giving the Grounds and Reason of Grammar in general, printed for John Brightland, 1711.".

t

correspondents to buy and study this, grammar, that their letters may be something less enigma-, tic; and on all my male correspondents likewise, who make no conscience of false spelling and false English, I lay the same injunction, on pain of having their epistles exposed in their own proper dress, in my Lucubrations. Isaac Bickerstaff, Censor." Mr. Greenwood was, at, one period of his life, surmaster of St. Paul's school; and, besides his grammatical essay, published "The London Vocabulary," and a selection of poems, under the title of The Virgin Muse. He to have been a very worthy appears and respectable man.

35. JOHN WEAVER. Of this gentleman little' more is known than that he wrote a letter in N°. 334 of the Spectator on Dancing; in the course of which he announces his intention of shortly publishing an Essay on this elegant art. The letter is dated March 24th, 1712; and before the close of the same year he executed his intention by printing the work with the following title:) "An Essay towards a History of Dancing; in: which the whole art, and its various excellen cies, are in some measure explained. Contain

Tatler, vol. iv. p. 292, Note.

ing the several sorts of dancing, antique and mo→ dern, serious, scenical, grotesque, &c. With the use of it as an exercise, qualification, diversion, &c." London, 12mo.

I have had no opportunity of perusing Mr. Weaver's book; but I must in justice say, that his letter in the Spectator reflects considerable credit on his abilities, and exhibits a much greater portion of learning than usually falls to the lot of a dancing master. Steele has spoken with approbation of his book in N° 466 of the Spectator.

36. RICHARD PARKER, the intimate friend, and fellow-collegian of Steele at Merton College, Oxford,* is recorded as a Contributor both to the Tatler and Spectator. He took his degree of M.A. at Oxford, on April the 17th, 1697, and was esteemed one of the most accomplished scho lars of his time. Oldisworth, in his life of Edmund Smith, copied by Dr. Johnson in his Lives, has mentioned Mr. Parker as particularly intimate with that poet; and has related that Smith, having finished a translation of Longinus,“ submitted it to the judgment of the Rev. Mr. Richard' Parker, an exact critic in the Greek Tongue."+'w

See vol. i. of these Essays, p. 43.

↑ Johnson's Lives of the Poets, vol. ii. p. 15, edition of 1797.

Mr. Parker was for many years, vicar of Em bleton, in Northumberland, a living which had been given him by his college; and it is said, by the annotator on the edition of the Tatler pub lished in 1797, that "fourteen or fifteen years ago it was still in the remembrance of several gentlemen in Bamburyshire, that Steele spent some time with Mr. Parker on his way to, or from, Edinburgh."

Though Mr. Parker was much respected in the North for his virtues, his learning and polite ness, he was by no means, calculated as a companion for the generality of those who surrounded him. His parishioners and neighbours were, for the most part, great fox-hunters and great drinkers; and their importunate hospitality and boisteraus mirth were so oppressive to our divine, that he found himself under the necessity of declining their society. The first letter in N° 474 of the Spectator, which is occupied by a description of the unpleasant consequences of such rural company, has been, with great probability, as• cribed to Mr. Parker. It gives a striking pic ture of the uneducated manners, and gross excesses that characterized the gentlemen of the chase about a century ago; when pleasures of a more refined nature, and the resources of elegant

ཟི

* Tatler, vol.ii. p.498, Note.