tions for his wit." Again, the same idea is expanded into" When he makes his jokes, you applaud the accuracy of his memory, and 'tis only when he states his facts that you admire the flights of his imagination." But the thought was too good to be thus wasted on the desert air of a common-place book. So, forth it came, at the expense of Kelly, who, having been a composer of music, became a wine-merchant. "You will," said the ready wit, "import your music and compose your wine." Nor was this service exacted from the old idea thought sufficient; so, in the House of Commons, an easy and, apparently, off-hand parenthesis was thus filled with it, at Mr. Dundas's cost and charge, "who generally resorts to his memory for his jokes, and to his imagination for his facts."

SMOLLETT'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

THIS man of genius among trading authors, before he began his History of England, wrote to the Earl of Shelburne, then in the Whig Administration, offering, if the Earl would procure for his work the patronage of the Government, he would accommodate his politics to the Ministry; but if not, that he had high promises of support from the other party. Lord Shelburne, of course, treated the proffered support of a writer of such accommodating principles with contempt; and the work of Smollett, accordingly, became distinguished for its high Toryism. The history was published in sixpenny weekly numbers, of which 20,000 copies were sold immediately. This extraordinary

popularity was created by the artifice of the publisher. He is stated to have addressed a packet of the specimens of the publication to every parish-clerk in England, carriage-free, with half-a-crown enclosed as a compliment, to have them distributed through the pews of the church: this being generally done, many people read the specimens instead of listening to the sermon, and the result was an universal demand for the work.

MAGNA CHARTA RECOVERED.

THE transcript of Magna Charta, now in the British Museum, was discovered by Sir Robert Cotton in the possession of his tailor, who was just about to cut the precious document out into "measures "for his customers. Sir Robert redeemed the valuable curiosity at the price of old parchment, and thus recovered what had long been supposed to be irretrievably lost.

FOX AND GIBBON.

WHEN Mr. Fox's furniture was sold by auction, after his decease in 1806, amongst his books there was the first volume of his friend Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: by the title-page, it appeared to have been presented by the author to Fox, who, on the blank leaf, had written this anecdote of the historian-"The author, at Brookes's, said there was no salvation for this country until six heads of the principal persons in administration were laid upon the table. Eleven days after, this same gentleman accepted

C

a place of lord of trade under those very ministers, and has acted with them ever since!" Such was the avidity of bidders for the most trifling production of Fox's genius, that, by the addition of this little record, the book sold for three guineas.

DR. JOHNSON'S PRIDE.

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS used to relate the following characteristic anecdote of Johnson:-About the time of their early acquaintance, they met one evening at the Misses Cotterell's, when the Duchess of Argyll and another lady of rank came in. Johnson, thinking that the Misses Cotterell were too much engrossed by them, and that he and his friend were neglected as low company, of whom they were some what ashamed, grew angry, and, resolving to shock their suspected pride, by making the great visitors imagine they were low indeed, Johnson addressed himself in a loud tone to Reynolds, saying, "How much do you think you and I could get in a week if we were to work as hard as we could ?" just as though they were ordinary mechanics.

LORD BYRON'S "CORSAIR."

THE Earl of Dudley, in his Letters, (1814) says:"To me Byron's Corsair appears the best of all his works. Rapidity of execution is no sort of apology for doing a thing ill, but when it is done well, the wonder is so much the greater. I am told he wrote

this poem at ten sittings-certainly it did not take him more than three weeks. He is a most extraordinary person, and yet there is G. Ellis, who don't feel his merit. His creed in modern poetry (I should have said contemporary) is Walter Scott, allWalter Scott, and nothing but Walter Scott. I cannot say how I hate this petty, factious spirit in literature—it is so unworthy of a man so clever and so accomplished as Ellis undoubtedly is."

BOOKSELLERS IN LITTLE BRITAIN.

LITTLE BRITAIN, anciently Breton-street, from the mansion of the Duke of Bretagne on that spot, in more modern times became the "Paternoster-row" of the booksellers; and a newspaper of 1664 states them to have published here within four years, 464 pamphlets. One Chiswell, resident here in 1711, was the metropolitan bookseller, "the Longman" of his time and here lived Rawlinson ("Tom Folio" of The Tatler, No. 158), who stuffed four chambers in Gray's Inn so full, that his bed was removed into the passage. John Day, the famous early printer, lived " over Aldersgate."

RECONCILING THE FATHERS.

A DEAN of Gloucester having some merry divines at dinner with him one day, amongst other discourses they were talking of reconciling the Fathers on some points; he told them he could show them the best way in the world to reconcile them on all points of difference; so, after dinner, he carried them into his stu!

and snowed them all the Fathers, classically ordered, with a quart of sack betwixt each of them. · L'Estrange.

MODERN BOOKMAKING.

IN Goldsmith's History of England, (temp. Charles II.,) no mention is made of either the great plague or the fire of London.—(Athenæum.) These omissions remind us of a similar oversight in a Geography issued by one of the publishing societies-the name of Switzerland is not once mentioned! Yet, of this work many thousand copies were sold before the detection was made.

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH'S HUMOUR.

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH had a great deal of humour ; and, among many other examples of it, he kept a dinner-party at his own house for two or three hours in a roar of laughter, playing upon the simplicity of a Scotch cousin, who had mistaken the Rev. Sydney Smith for his gallant synonym, the hero of Acre.

WRITINGS OF LOPE DE VEGA.

THE number of Lope de Vega's works has been strangely exaggerated by some, but by others reduced to about one-sixth of the usual statement. Upon this computation it will be found that some of his contemporaries were as prolific as himself. Vincent Mariner, a friend of Lope, left behind him 360 quires of paper full of his own compositions, in a writing so exceedingly