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The Literary Correspondence of John Pinkerton, Esq. Now first printed from the Originals in possession of Dawson Turner, Esq. M.A. F.R.S. 2 vols. 8vo. Colburn and Bentley.

MR. DAWSON TURNER has done the literary world good service by this publication. It is by such letters that many facts connected with literature and its professors, are brought to light; that errors are corrected and motives ascertained; and they serve as guides to the biographer in the true appreciation of character.

The life of Pinkerton probably exhibits as striking a warning to literary men as ever was presented for their government and guidance. With an intellect of uncommon depth and singular acuteness, an understanding clear, forcible, and manly, of extensive learning, and laborious industry; yet all these gifts and endowments were lamentably neutralized by the violence of his temper and the acerbity of his disposition. The pursuits of literature did not humanize, and his intercourse with the most polished of his literary contemporaries failed to soften the asperities of his mind; he lived in an almost constant state of intellectual warfare with those with whom he ought rather "to have taken sweet counsel and walked as friends," and his latter days were spent in indigence and exile. He had the power to have built up for himself a lasting reputation as a scholar, and the permanent resources of independence seemed amply within his grasp; and yet we find him, in the last years of his life, under great bodily decay and severe privation, living in Paris on the precarious charity of those friends whose benevolence was stronger than their resentments. The moral of such a life is upon the surface, and speaks the solemn truth, that something beyond intellect, however capacious, and learning, however great, are necessary to give dignity to character, to conciliate the esteem of the wise and the

[Jan.

approbation of the good; that the possession of "all knowledge," and the understanding of "all mysteries," are "nothing" without the "charity" which softens the temper and purifies the heart. It would be an act of injustice to the memory of this departed scholar not to state that he lamented too late the absence of the principle we have endeavoured to enforce; and it is equally due to Mr. Dawson Turner to say that the instructive lesson to be derived from the errors of Mr. Pinkerton, did not escape his well-informed understanding and his rightly regulated mind. His words are these: "That something more (than talents and industry) are required to turn these advantages to their full account, and that the endowments of the mind, unless accompanied by sound and consistent principles, can tend but little to the happiness of the individual or the good of society."

The

We have only to make a few selections from this correspondence, as a sample of its literary value, and to recommend the volumes as a valuable addition to the stores of epistolary anecdote and literary elucidation. biography of Mr. Pinkerton will be found in this Magazine for May 1826, [he died March 10 that year, not May io, as Mr. Turner has it,] and somewhat enlarged in the Fifth Volume of Nichols's Literary Illustrations.

The following Letter from Dr. Percy is interesting, not only for its characteristic relation to the Bishop's earlier studies, but for the natural desire it evinces that the pursuits by which he is distinguished should be assigned their proper place with regard to time,-and that his severer episcopal duties should not be supposed to have been interrupted by the researches into poetical reliques.

"Carlisle, Jan. 3, 1783.

"I received your very obliging letter, but unluckily mislaid it, as soon as it was perused, so that I only answer it from what I remember of the contents. I am exceedingly glad that I have it in my power to oblige you on the subject of the old poem of King James I. of Scotland, entitled Peblis to the Play; of which, by good luck, I have the transcript here; for, in general, I have left in Northamptonshire whatever collections I had formerly made of this sort. And, indeed, my studies and attention have so long been directed to other objects, that I should not easily have come at this, if I had not had this copy with me. I formerly

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told you that I had laid it by for my son (in case he chose to be editor of some supplemental volumes of the Reliques), or, if he should decline it, for a very poetical nephew of mine. You will, I hope, excuse it therefore, if, whenever either of them undertakes a work of that sort, they should reprint this old poem, which in the interim is at your service to be inserted in any publication of yours.

"I send you the copy I made myself from the old manuscript, wherein alone it is preserved. The transcript is faithfully and correctly made. I hope, therefore, you will print it without any conjectural emendations, at least in the text; and if you propose any, you will confine them to the margin or your notes. Confronting my manuscript with the text, you will see notes variorum, viz. of myself and also my friends, out of which I believe such a commentary may be gathered as will explain every obsolete phrase and obscure passage. When you have made such use of it as is necessary for your intended work, I will beg you to Ideliver safely to me, whenever demanded, for the use above mentioned, this old transcript and notes. If you think it necessary to mention in priut that you received this old piece from me, I will beg you only to quote me by the name of Dr. Percy, or rather the Editor of the Reliques of ancient Poetry, in 3 vols. omitting Rev., much more all mention of my present title, &c. And, if necessary, you may speak of my slight poetical pursuits, as what had been the amusement of my younger years and hours of relaxation from severer studies, which in truth they were, as it is more than twenty years since the three volumes of Reliques, &c. were collected for the press, and even nineteen years since they were printed. And I have been so entirely drawn off from this subject by other unavoidable and necessary avocations, that Dodsley is I believe reprinting the book without my being able to peruse or look at a single sheet or page in it. I am very glad your former volume has been so well received."

The Letters of Horace Walpole are in the best style of that gifted individual. We will select a specimen of

his shortest:

"Strawberry Hill, July 27, 1785. "You thank me much more than the gift deserved, Sir: my editions of such pieces as I have left, are waste paper to me. I will not sell them at the ridiculously advanced prices that are given for them: indeed, only such as were published for sale, have I sold at all; and therefore the duplicates that remain with me are to me of no value but when I can oblige a friend with them. Of a few of my impressions I have no copy but my own set; and as I could give you only an imperfect collection, the

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present was really only a parcel of fragments. My memory was in fault about the Royal and Noble Authors. I thought I had given them to you. I recollect now that I only lent you my own copy; but I have others in town, and you shall have them when I go thither. For Vertue's manuscript I am in no manner of haste. I heard on Monday, in London, that the letters were written by a Mr. Pilkington, probably from a confounded information of Maty's review: my chief reason for calling on you twice this week was to learn what you had heard, and I shall be much obliged to you for farther information, as I do not care to be too inquisitive, lest I should be suspected of knowing more of the

matter.

"There are many reasons, Sir, why I cannot come into your idea of printing Greek. In the first place I have two or three engagements for my press; and my time of life does not allow me to look but a little way farther. In the next, I cannot now go into new expenses of purchase: my fortune is very much reduced, both by my brother's death, and by the late plan of reformation. The last reason would weigh with me had I none of the others. My admiration of the Greeks was a little like that of the mob on other points, not from sound knowledge. I never was a good Greek scholar, have long forgotten what I knew of the language; and, as I never disguise my ignorance of any thing, it would look like affectation to print Greek authors. I could not bear to print them, and such a confession would perhaps be as much affectation as unfounded pretensions. I must therefore stick to my simplicity, and not go out of my line. It is difficult to divest one's self of vanity, because impossible to divest one's self of self-love. If one runs from one glaring vanity, one is catched by its opposite. Modesty can be as vain-glorious on the ground as Pride on a triumphal car. Modesty, however, is preferable; for should she contradict her professions, still she keeps her own secret, and does not hurt the pride of others."

It may be recollected that Gibbon, in an address published in 1793 (which is printed in his Miscellanies, and quoted by Mr. Turner at p. 449), very warmly recommended Mr. Pinkerton to the public as the editor of a Corpus of our English Annals. The letters of the Roman Historian published in the present work, are distinguished by that easy and elegant flow of language in which he is without a rival. The following is a specimen :

"July 25, 1793. "It gave me real concern on last Tuesday se'nnight, the day appointed for our interview, I was not able, as I had forewarned

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"Strand, Jan. 31, 1815.

ter, asking me to withdraw the claim for interest on the sum I lent on the security of a house; but the footing upon which you have the put is one I have uniformly request, at all times thought to be such as I ought to reject, and have rejected accordingly. The bankers in Scotland, and the country banks in England, are on a different plan from those iu London. They circulate their own notes, and make payments in them we give out no notes of our own, aud, if we were to give interest at even one per cent. per annum, we should be losers by our business. We do not consider ourselves

:

as being obliged to any one person who places money in our hands, however considerable it is to the aggregate and general mass of society that we owe our situation, and to the credit our prudence and attention has obtained for us; and people deposit their money in our hands for their own advantage and conveniency, not from favour to us; nor do we desire to have it ou any other terms. Probably you may not understand the explanation I have spent time in making, which I can very ill spare, and it may therefore answer no purpose: but it satisfies myself; and I wish to show equal attention to all my employers, whether they have large or small sums in my hands, which indeed hardly ever occupies my attention.

"My attention is fully engrossed in doing business with honour and regularity, leaving the rest to the common chance and course of things. It surprises me that, though it every day appears that there is very little truth published in the newspapers, yet people will still believe what they read, especially abuse, or what they think is against character or prudence of the person treated of.

"I saw some paragraphs, and heard of more, of what I had done for Mr. Kean, in all which there was not a word of truth; though I see no reason why I might not, without offence to

any

one,

have given to Mr. Kean any thing I pleased. In doing any little matter in my power for any individual, I must add I never had any view to celebrity with the present age or with posterity."

Memoirs of the Life and Times of Daniel De Foe. By Walter Wilson.

admitted 1687-8.

a liveryman in January

It is unnecessary to follow De Foe's editor through the details of the Revolution of 1688, and its consequences, into which he minutely enters; indeed the plan of his work is largely to amalgamate the history of the times with that of his author; nor do we, although the compilation is much swelled by this mode, object to it. It is but exhibiting the hero of his piece on a stage adorned with appropriate scenery and decorations.

(Continued from vol. C. part ii. p. 529.) SOON after his escape from the hazardous consequences of appearing GENT. MAG. January, 1881.

In 1692, De Foe having entered somewhat deeply into mercantile speculations, made a voyage to Spain, where the ship in which he was embarked, and in which he had a share, went on shore in a gale of wind on the coast of Biscay. On this occasion the greater part of the crew perished in sight of a Spanish vessel, which lay at anchor securely under the land, and which might have saved them by merely putting out a boat. The Spaniard being afterwards questioned by the Captain as to the cause of his inhumanity, replied, with an oath, "That if he (the Captain) and all his men had swum to the ship's side, he would not have taken one of them up; for he had himself been once wrecked on the coast of England, and instead of obtaining succour from the inhabitants, they came off, robbed him, tore his ship in pieces, plundered the cargo, and left him and his men to swim ashore for their lives!"

It may be easily conceived that De Foe's lively description of the wreck of Crusoe on the desolate island was drawn from this event, to which he had been eye witness. During his commercial career De Foe visited France and Germany; but his biographer tells us that the occupations of trade do not assort well with literary genius, and De Foe was of too mercurial a nature to follow it with success.....He spent those hours with a small society for the cultivation of polite learning, which he ought to have employed in the calculations of the counting-house."