than strong humour, and Sterne found it to be anecdotes which one of his companions+ commuso; and latterly, in despair, he asserted that "the nicated to me, confirm Garrick's account pretaste for humour is the gift of heaven!" I have served in Dr. Burney's collections, that "He was frequently observed how humour, like the taste more dissolute in his conduct than his writings, for olives, is even repugnant to some palates, and and generally drove every female away by his have witnessed the epicure of humour lose it all ribaldry. He degenerated in London like an illby discovering how some have utterly rejected his transplanted shrub; the incense of the great spoiled favourite relish! Even men of wit may not taste his head, and their ragouts his stomach. He grew humour! The celebrated Dr. Cheyne, who was not sickly and proud-an invalid in body and mind.” himself deficient in originality of thinking with Warburton declared that " he was an irrecoverable great learning and knowledge, once entrusted to a scoundrel." Authenticated facts are, however, friend a remarkable literary confession. Dr. wanting for a judicious summary of the real chaCheyne assured him that "he could not read 'Don racter of the founder of sentimental writing. An Quixote' with any pleasure, nor had any taste for impenetrable mystery hangs over his family conHudibras or Gulliver; and that what we call wit and duct; he has thrown many sweet domestic touches || humour in these authors, he considered as false in his own memoirs and letters addressed to his ornaments, and never to be found in those com- daughter: but it would seem that he was often positions of the ancients which we most admire parted from his family. After he had earnestly soliand esteem." Cheyne seems to have held Aris-cited the return of his wife from France, though tophanes and Lucian monstrously cheap! The she did return, he was suffered to die in utter ancients, indeed, appear not to have possessed that comic quality that we understand as humour, nor can I discover a word which exactly corresponds with our term humour in any language, ancient or modern. Cervantes excels in that sly satire which hides itself under the cloak of gravity, but this is not the sort of humour which so beautifully plays about the delicacy of Addison's page; and both are distinct from the broader and strong humour of Sterne.

neglect.

His sermons have been observed to be characterised by an air of levity; he attempted this unusual manner. It was probably a caprice which induced him to introduce one of his sermons in "Tristram Shandy;" it was fixing a diamond in black velvet, and the contrast set off the brilliancy. But he seems then to have had no design of publishing his "Sermons." One day, in low spirits, complaining to Caleb Whitefoord of the state of his finances, Caleb asked him "if he had no sermons like the one in Tristram Shandy?'" But Sterne had no notion that "sermons" were saleable, for two preceding ones had passed unnoticed. "If you could hit on a striking title, take my word for it that they would go down." The next day Sterne made his appearance in raptures. "I have it!" he cried: "Dramatic Sermons by Yorick." great difficulty he was persuaded to drop this allusion to the church and the playhouse!

With

The result of Dr. Cheyne's honest confession was experienced by Sterne, for while more than half of the three kingdoms were convulsed with laughter at his humour, the other part were obdurately dull to it. Take, for instance, two very opposite effects produced by Tristram Shandy on a man of strong original humour himself, and a wit who had more delicacy and sarcasm than force and originality. The Rev. Philip Skelton declared that "after reading Tristram Shandy, he could not for two or three days attend seriously to his devotion, We are told in the short addition to his own it filled him with so many ludicrous ideas." But memoirs, that "he submitted to fate on the 18th Horace Walpole, who found his "Sentimental day of March, 1768, at his lodgings in BondJourney" very pleasing, declares that of "his tire-street." some 'Tristram Shandy' he could never get through

three volumes."

The literary life of Sterne was a short one: it was a blaze of existence, and it turned his head. With his personal life we are only acquainted by tradition. Was the great sentimentalist himself unfeeling, dissolute, and utterly depraved? Some

* This friend, it now appears, was Dr. King of Oxford, whose anecdotes have recently been published. This curious fact is given in a strange hodge-podge, entitled "The Dreamer;" a remarkable instance where a writer of learning often conceives that to be humour, which to others is not even intelligible!

But it does not appear to have been noticed that Sterne died with neither friend nor relation by his side! a hired nurse was the sole companion of the man whose wit found admirers in every street, but whose heart, it would seem, could not draw one to his death-bed. We cannot say whether Sterne, who had long been dying, had resolved to practise his own principle,-when he made the philosopher Shandy, who had a fine saying for everything, deliver his opinion on death -that "there is no terror, brother Toby, in its

Such is the simple narrative of the death of this infelicity; he communicates to her the minutest wit !

• "Travels in various parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, during a series of thirty years and upwards, by John Macdonald, a cadet of the family of Kippoch, in Invernesshire, who after the ruin of his family in 1765, was thrown, when a child, on the wide world, &c. Printed for the author, 1790."-He served a number of noblemen and gentlemen in the humble station of a footman. There is such an air of truth and sincerity throughout the work I had the pleasure to drink your health last

LETTER II.

"MY DEAR KITTY,

"If this billet catches you in bed, you are a lazy sleepy little slut, and I am a giddy, foolish, unthinking fellow for keeping you so late upbut this Sabbath is a day of rest; at the same time that it is a day of sorrow, for I shall not see my dear creature to-day, unless you meet me at Taylor's half an hour after twelve; but in this do as you like. I have ordered Matthew to turn thief and steal you a quart of honey-what is honey to the sweetness of thee, who art sweeter than all the flowers it comes from! I love you to distraction, Kitty, and will love you on so to eternity —so adieu, and believe, what time will only prove me, that I am, "Yours."

LETTER III.

"MY DEAR KITTY,

whole season; and indeed leaves nothing undone that can do me either service or credit. He has undertaken the whole management of the booksellers, and will procure me a great price-but more of this in my next.

"And now, my dear girl, let me assure you of the truest friendship for you that ever man bore towards a woman-wherever I am my heart is warm towards you, and ever shall be, till it is cold for ever. I thank you for the kind proof you gave me of your desire to make my heart easy in ordering yourself to be denied to you know who— while I am so miserable to be separated from my dear dear Kitty, it would have stabbed my soul to have thought such a fellow could have the liberty of coming near you.—I therefore take this proof of your love and good principles most kindly-and have as much faith and dependence upon you in it, as if I was at your elbow-would to God I was at this moment-for I am sitting solitary and alone in my bedchamber (ten o'clock at night after the play), and would give a guinea for a squeeze of your hand. I send my soul perpetually out to see what you are a doing-wish I could convey my body with it—adieu, dear and kind girl.— Ever your kind friend and affectionate admirer. "I go to the oratorio this night. My service to your mama. am

"I have sent you a pot of sweetmeats and a pot of honey-neither of them half so sweet as yourself-but don't be vain upon this-or presume to grow sour upon this character of sweetness I give you; for if you do I shall send you a pot of pickles (by way of contraries) to sweeten you up, and bring you to yourself again-whatever changes happen to you, believe me that I ar unalterably yours, and according to your motto such a one, my dear Kitty,

"I have arrived here safe and sound-except for the hole in my heart which you have made, like a dear enchanting slut as you are. I shall take lodgings this morning in Piccadilly or the Haymarket, and before I send this letter will let you know where to direct a letter to me, which letter I shall wait for by the return of the post with great impatience.

LETTER V.

"MY DEAR KITTY,

'Though I have but a moment's time to spare, I would not omit writing you an account of my good fortune; my lord Fauconberg has this day given me a hundred and sixty pounds a year, which I hold with all my preferment; so that all or the most part of my sorrows and tears are going to be wiped away.-I have but one obstacle to my happiness now left—and what that is you know as well as I *.

"I long most impatiently to see my dear Kitty. I had a purse of guineas given me yesterday by a bishop-all will do well in time.

"From morning to night my lodgings, which by the bye are the genteelest in town †, are full of the greatest company.-I dined these two days with two ladies of the bedchamber-then with Lord Rockingham, Lord Edgcumb, Lord Winchelsea, Lord Littleton, a bishop, &c. &c.

"I assure you, my dear Kitty, that Tristram is the fashion.-Pray to God I may see my dearest girl soon and well.-Adieu.

"Your affectio nate friend,
"L. STERNE."

"I have the greatest honours paid me and most civilities shown me that were ever known from the great; and am engaged already to ten noblemen and men of fashion to dine. Mr. Garrick pays me all and more honour than I could look for: I dined with him to-day-and he has prompted numbers of great people to carry me to dine with year he tells his daughter he had taken a house at York,

them he has given me an order for the liberty of his boxes and of every part of his house for the

Can this allude to the death of his wife ?-that very

"for your mother and yourself."

They were the second house from St. Alban's Street, Pall-Mall.

HUME, ROBERTSON, AND BIRCH.

THE rarest of literary characters is such an historian as Gibbon; but we know the price which he paid for his acquisitions-unbroken and undeviating studies. Wilkes, a mere wit, could only discover the drudgery of compilation in the profound philosopher and painter of men and of nations. A speculative turn of mind, delighting in generalising principles and aggregate views, is usually deficient in that closer knowledge, without which every step we take is on the fairy-ground of conjecture and theory, very apt to shift its unsubstantial scenes. The Researchers are like the inhabitants of a city who live among its ancient edifices, and are in the market-places and the streets : but the theorists, occupied by perspective views, with a more artist-like pencil may impose on us a general resemblance of things; but often shall we find in those shadowy outlines how the real objects are nearly, if not wholly lost-for much is given which is fanciful, and much omitted which is true.

Of our two popular historians, Hume and Robertson, alike in character but different in genius, it is much to be lamented that neither came to their tasks with the previous studies of half a life; and their speculative or theoretical histories are of so much the less value whenever they are deficient in that closer research which can be obtained only in one way; not the most agreeable to those literary adventurers, for such they are, however high they rank in the class of genius, who grasp at early celebrity, and depend more on themselves than on their researches.

enlarges his figures to a colossal dimension. Such is theoretical history.

The theoretical historian communicates his own character to his history; and if, like Robertson, he be profound and politic, he detects the secret motives of his actors, unravels the webs of cabinet councils, explains projects that were unknown, and details stratagems which never took place. When we admire the fertile conceptions of the Queen Regent, of Elizabeth, and of Bothwell, we are often defrauding Robertson of what. ever ådmiration may be due to such deep policy.

"What

When Hume received from Dr. Birch Forbes's Manuscripts and Murdin's State-papers, in great haste he writes to his brother historian: I wrote you with regard to Mary, &c., was from the printed histories and papers. But I am now sorry to tell you that by Murdin's State-papers, the matter is put beyond all question. I got these papers during the holidays by Dr. Birch's means; and as soon as I read them I ran to Millar, and desired him very earnestly to stop the publication of your history, till I should write to you, and give you an opportunity of correcting a mistake so important; but he absolutely refused compliance. He said that your book was now finished; that the whole narrative of Mary's trial must be wrote over again; that it was uncertain whether the new narrative could be brought within the same compass with the old; that this change would require the cancelling a great many sheets; that there were scattered passages through the volumes founded on your theory." What an interview was this of Andrew Millar and David Hume ! truly the bibliopole shone to greater advantage than the two theoretical historians! And so the world had, and eagerly received, what this critical bookseller declared "required the new printing (that is, the new writing) of a great part of the edition !"

When this successful history of Scotland invited Robertson to pursue this newly-discovered province of philosophical or theoretical history, he was long irresolute in his designs, and so unpractised in those researches he was desirous of attempting, that his admirers would have lost his popular productions, had not a fortunate introduction to Dr. Birch, whose life had been spent in

In some curious letters to the literary antiquary Dr. Birch, Robertson acknowledges "my chief object is to adorn, as far as I am capable of adorning, the history of a period which deserves to be better known." He probably took his lesson from Voltaire, the reigning author of that day, and a great favourite with Robertson. Voltaire indeed tells us, that no writers, but those who have composed tragedies, can throw any interest into a history; that we must know to paint and excite the passions; and that a history, like a dramatic piece, must have situation, intrigue, and catastro-historical pursuits, enabled the Scottish historian phe; an observation which, however true, at least shows that there can be but a moderate quantity of truth in such agreeable narratives. Robertson's notion of adorning history was the pleasing labour of genius,—it was to amplify into vastness, to colour into beauty, and to arrange the objects of his meditation with a secret artifice of disposition. Such an historian is a sculptor, who, though he display a correct semblance of nature, is not less solicitous to display the miracles of his art, and

to open many a clasped book, and to drink of many a sealed fountain. Robertson was long undecided whether to write the history of Greece, of Leo X., that of William III. and Queen Anne, or that of Charles V., and perhaps many other subjects.

We have a curious letter of Lord Orford's, detailing the purport of a visit Robertson paid to him to inquire after materials for the reigns of William and Anne; he seemed to have little other

wrote but from manuscripts. They are the true materia historica.

Birch, however, must have enjoyed many a secret triumph over our popular historians, who had introduced their beautiful philosophical history into our literature; the dilemma in which they sometimes found themselves must have amused him. He has thrown out an oblique stroke at Robertson's "pomp of style, and fine eloquence," "which too often tend to disguise the real state of the facts*." When he received from Robertson the present of his "Charles V.," after the just tribute of his praise, he adds some regret that the historian had not been so fortunate as to have seen Burghley's State-papers, "published since Christ

knowledge than what he had taken upon trust. "I painted to him," says Lord Orford, "the difficulties and the want of materials-but the booksellers will out-argue me." Both the historian and "the booksellers" had resolved on another history; and Robertson looked upon it as a task which he wished to have set to him, and not a glorious toil long matured in his mind. But how did he come prepared to the very dissimilar subjects he proposed? When he resolved to write the history of Charles V., he confesses to Dr. Birch: "I never had access to any-copious libraries, and do not pretend to any extensive knowledge of authors; but I have made a list of such as I thought most essential to the subject, and have put them down as I found them mentioned in any book I hap-mas," and a manuscript trial of Mary Queen of pened to read. Your erudition and knowledge of books is infinitely superior to mine, and I doubt not but you will be able to make such additions to my catalogue as may be of great use to me. I know very well, and to my sorrow, how servilely historians copy from one another, and how little is to be learned from reading many books; but at the same time, when one writes upon any particular period, it is both necessary and decent for him to consult every book relating to it upon which he can lay his hands." This avowal proves that Robertson knew little of the history of Charles V. till he began the task; and he further confesses that he had no knowledge of the Spanish or German," which, for the history of a Spanish monarch and a German emperor, was somewhat ominous of the nature of the projected history.

Scots, in Lord Royston's possession. Alas! such is the fate of speculative history; a Christmas may come, and overturn the elaborate castle in the air. Can we forbear a smile when we hear Robertson, who had projected a history of British America, of which we possess two chapters, when the rebellion and revolution broke out, congratulate himself that he had not made any further progress? "It is lucky that my American history was not finished before this event; how many plausible theories that I should have been entitled to form are contradicted by what has now happened!” A fair confession!

Let it not be for one moment imagined, that this article is designed to depreciate the genius of Hume and Robertson, who are the noblest of our modern authors, and exhibit a perfect idea of the literary character.

Forty-four years ago, I transcribed from their originals the correspondence of the historian with the literary antiquary. For the satisfaction of the reader, I here preserve these literary relics.

Letters between Dr. Birch and Dr. W. Robertson, relative to the Histories of Scotland and of Charles V.

TO DR. BIRCH. "REVEREND SIR,

Yet Robertson, though he once thus acknowledged, as we see, that he "never had access to any copious libraries, and did not pretend to any extensive knowledge of authors," seems to have acquired from his friend, Dr. Birch, who was a genuine researcher in manuscripts as well as printed books, a taste even for bibliographical ostentation, as appears by that pompous and voluminous list of authors prefixed to his History of America; the most objectionable of his histories, being a perpetual apology for the Spanish Government, adapted to the meridian of the court of Madrid, rather than to the cause of humanity, of truth, and of philosophy. I understand, from good authority, that it would not be difficult to prove that our historian had barely examined them, and probably had never turned over half of that deceptive catalogue. Birch thought so, and was probably a little disturbed at the overwhelming success of our eloquent and penetrating historian, while his own historical labours, the most authentic "I have been engaged for some time in writing materials of history, but not history itself, hardly the history of Scotland from the death of James repaid the printer. Birch's publications are either V. to the accession of James VI. to the throne of originals, that is, letters or state-papers; or they England. My chief object is to adorn (as far as I are narratives drawn from originals, for he never *See Curiosities of Literature, 11th edition, p. 515.

"Though I have not the good fortune to be known to you personally, I am so happy as to be no stranger to your writings, to which I have been indebted for much useful instruction. And as I have heard from my friends Sir David Dalrymple and Mr. Davidson, that your disposition to oblige was equal to your knowledge, I now presume to write to you and to ask your assistance without any apology.