ideal grace of Raphael; in Johnson the strength and energy of Michael Angelo; in Hawkesworth the rich colouring and warmth of Titian; the legerity and frolic elegance of Albani in the productions of Moore, Thornton, and Colman; the pathetic sweetness of Guido in the draughts of Mackenzie; and the fertility and harmonious colouring of Annibale Caracci in the vivid sketches of Cumberland. man. From such an assemblage of diversified excellence, he must be fastidious indeed who receives not the most pleasurable emotions; and incapable of instruction, if he leaves it not a better nor a wiser The grave, the gay, the old, the young, will here find something to arrest attention, and to awaken curiosity; to excite the smile of harmless mirth, or draw forth the tear of pity; to illuminate the page of ancient times, or to invigorate the pursuit of virtue. Such is the useful variety with which these writings teem! "When I hold a volume of these Miscellanies," observes an elegant author, “and run over with avidity the titles of its contents, my mind is enchanted, as if it were placed among the landscapes of Valais, which Rousseau has described with such picturesque beauty. I fancy myself seated in a cottage, amid those mountains, those vallies, those rocks, encircled by the enchantments of optical illusion. I look and behold at once the united seasons. All climates in one place, all seasons in one instant.' I gaze at once on a hundred rainbows, and trace the romantic figures of the shifting clouds. I seem to be in a temple dedicated to the service of the Goddess of VARIETY." * The invention of a paper calculated for general instruction and entertainment, abounding in ele gant literature, appearing periodically, and forming a whole under an assumed name and character, is, without doubt, to be ascribed to this country, and confers on it no small degree of honour. The TATLER presented to Europe in 1709 the first legitimate model. Some years previous indeed to the publication of this work there had appeared several political, controversial, and theological pe riodical papers, the offspring of faction and polemics, insulated, devoid of character, unity, or sound literature, and which seem to have been founded, with scarcely an improvement, upon the common newspapers of the day. As early as the reigns of James and Charles the First these vehicles of political information became known, and probably owe their origin to the Dutch, as in Carew's Survey of Cornwall, page 126, published in 1602, the Mercurius Gallo-belgicus, a Dutch newspaper, is * D'Israeli's Miscellanies, p. 23. -mentioned. This example was speedily followed by successive English Mercuries, which appeared under the titles of Mercurius Aulicus, Rusticus, Civicus, Publicus, Politicus, &c. multiplying during the prevalence of the civil war when party and prejudice were at their height. These were succeeded in 1679 by the "Observator" of L'Estrange, a periodical paper, written with the view of defending the King and his Court against the charge of popery. It reached three volumes folio, and was dropped in 1687. Near seventeen years elapsed before another attempt was made on a similar plan, the "Rehearsals" of Charles Lesley commencing only in 1704. They were published at first once, afterwards twice a week, for the space of seven years, were written in the form of dialogue, and were entirely confined to the state of public affairs. Contemporary with this production of Lesley came forward, under a periodical dress, and of a kind far superior to any thing which had hitherto appeared, the "Review" of Daniel De Foe, a man of undoubted genius, and who, deviating from the accustomed route, had chalked out a new path for himself. The first number of this paper was printed on the nineteenth of February, 1704, in quarto, and was repeated every Saturday and Tuesday until March, 1705, when, from the encouragement it received, Thursday was added to the former days of publication, and thus it continued to visit the public thrice a week until its termination in May, 1713, forming, at its decease, nine thick volumes in quarto. The chief topics were, as usual, news foreign and domestic, and politics; to these, however, were added the various concerns of trade; and to render the undertaking more palatable and popular, he, with much judgment, instituted what he termed, perhaps with no great propriety, a "Scandal Club," and whose amusement it was to agitate questions in divinity, morals, war, language, poetry, love, marriage, &c.* The introduction of this Club, and the subjects of its discussion, it is obvious, approximate the Review much nearer than any preceding work to our first classical model. Yet borne down by the rude mass of temporary and uninteresting matter, defective in unity of design and delineation of character, it appears, notwithstanding its more varied form, to have soon sunk into oblivion; and perhaps in the present day, as a late biographer has conjectured, a complete set of De Foe's Reviews is no longer in existence. Such were the abortive attempts at periodical composition before Steele had planned his admir * Vide Life of De Foe by Chalmers, p. 21. 22. 72. 78. able papers. To correct ludicrous folly, however, by ridicule, to regulate the decencies and duties of mutual intercourse and conversation, to abash vice, to encourage literature, and to attain variety by 'multiplicity of subject, had been the aim of many writers in various nations long anterior to the birth of the Tatler. These productions were either dissertations, dialogues, or unconnected essays, published in volumes, and totally wanting that peculiar form and association, that dramatic cast and union which have rendered the genuine periodi'cal paper so singularly interesting. Yet as the views of these writers in the formation of their works were, in many respects, similar to those which immortalized an Addison or a Steele, were not unfrequently productive of the best effects, and may have furnished numerous data and hints to their more polished successors, it will be necessary, ere we proceed, and in order fully to estimate the originality of the periodical authors, to notice, in a cursory way, the labours of these previous Essayists. Notwithstanding the few specimens which have descended to us from the wreck of ancient literature, it would appear from the Preface of Aulus Gellius, that they delighted in miscellaneous composition. He has enumerated no less than twentynine titles of works of this description then existing among the Greeks and Romans; and if their |