(Literary Gazette.)

MEMOIRS of the CELEBRATED PERSONS composing the KIT-CAt club.

established in the reign of Henry VIII. and modified and rendered more effective by Queen Elizabeth, but which was set aside, or at least disregarded, during the reign of Charles II. was virtually revived by the bill thus introduced, and the power of licensing players and stage performances with the Lord Chamberlain, who was instructed to compel all persons to send copies of any new plays, parts added to old plays, prologues, and epilogues, fourteen days before they were acted or spoken, and in default of not attending to this injunction, a forfeiture of 50%. was fixed upon for every delinquent, besides the loss of the license of the theatre where the piece was acted. The propriety and utility of this measure has been universally admitted; while the gross licentiousness which used to prevail was suppressed, no real injury was inflicted upon the drama; for the indecency it curbed is not at all a necessary adjuvant of wit, nor are vulgar and disgusting lampoons in any way synonymous with the productions of the satiric muse."

We have also the following anecdotes of the same celebrated Minister:

"In a squabble between Mr. Pulteney and Sir. R. Walpole, in the House of Commons, the former playfully told his antagonist that his Latin was not so good as his politics. Pulteney insisted that Walpole had misquoted a line from Horace, which he was not disposed to admit. A wager of a guinea was immediately staked on the question by each party, and Harding, the clerk of the House, was applied to as arbiter, who rose with ludicrous solemnity, and gave it against his patron. The guinea was thrown across the House, which Pulteney took up, saying it was the first public money he had touched for a long time. He had formerly been in office. At his death this guinea was discovered, carefully preserved in a piece of paper, with a memorandum upon it recording the circumstance.

"Walpole was accustomed to say, when speaking of corruption, We ministers are generally called, and are, sometimes, tempters, but we are oftener tempted.'

"As a proof of Walpole's profuse liberality to those who advocated his cause, we may instance the following anecdote :-About 1735 some severe pamphlets were published against his Among others was a administration. poem intitled' Are these Things so?" A young gentleman of nineteen years of age took it into his head to write an answer to this piece, to which he gave the title of Yes, they are.' Sir Robert was so pleased with it, although but an insignificant performance, that he sent for Roberts the publisher, and expressed his great satisfaction at the compliment paid him, by giving a bank note of a hundred pounds, which he desired the publisher to present to the author."

Of Steele we find a curious story:

"Sir Richard Steele had constructed a very elegant theatre in his house for the recitation of select passages from favourite authors, and wishing to ascertain whether it was as well calculated to gratify the ear as the eye, desired the carpenter, who had completed the work, to ascend a pulpit placed at one end of the building, and speak a few sentences. The carpenter obeyed, but when mounted found himself utterly at a loss for the matter of his harangue. Sir Richard begged he would pronounce whatever came first into his head.

Thus encouraged, the newmade orator began, and looking stedfastly at the knight, in a voice like thunder, exclaimed Sir Richard Steele, here has I and these here men been doing your work for three months and never seen the colour of your money. When are you to pay us? I cannot pay my journeymen without money, and money I must have.' Sir Richard replied, that he was in raptures with the eloquence, but by no means admired the subject."

Of Addison there are many anecdotes, from which we select the subjoined :

"The Countess of Warwick treated her husband, Addison, with extreme superciliousness and contempt; as though she believed that the mere casualty of splendid birth entitled her to arrogate an insolent superiority over a

man of exquisite genius and unsullied virtue. Not content with treating him with the least possible deference, and manifesting her want of consideration to him, even to her servants and dependants, this wretched woman sought to implant the same sentiments in the bosom of their only child, and endeavoured, as we are assured from good authority, to teach her to despise the memory of her father. The lady who had the education of the girl assured the editor of the Tattler (ed. 1797) that her pupil was distinguished for her marked dislike to her father's writings, and her unconquerable aversion to the perusal of them. Indeed it is more than surmised that the days of Addison were shortened by the unhappiness which attended his connexion with his high born and heartless consort."

"The Queen, at the instance of the Duchess of Marlborough, constituted

about and like his company, you admire a thousand things in him, which before lay buried. Then you discern the brightness of his mind and the strength of his judgment, accompanied with the most graceful mirth. In a word, by his enlivening aid he is whatever is polite, instructive, and diverting. What makes him still more agreeable is, that he tells a story, serious or comical, with as much delicacy of humour as Cervantes himself.' The effects produced by wine upon different constitutions has been commented upon with considerable humour by Horace. One man weeps under the influence of the bottle, the miserable martyr of maudlin sensibility; another becomes merry and loquacious; a third grows noisy and quarrelsome; and a fourth goes sottishly to sleep. It is a curious fact, that when Addison and Steele dined in company with each other, such different re

Addison Keeper of the Records in Iresults were produced from the same land; and increased the salary, which, until then, had been very trifling, to 300l. a year. There is an anecdote related by Swift of our author, while in the performance of the duties of this office, which serves to illustrate his prudence and carefulness in matters in which money was to be gained. He would never remit the fees of his office even to his friends. I may,' said he, 'have a hundred friends; and if my fee be two guineas, I shall, by relinquishing my right, lose two hundred guineas, and no friend gain more than two. The evil suffered, therefore, beyond all proportion, exceeds the benefit done.' Of the independence and integrity of his conduct in refusing every thing in the shape of compliment or douceur, we have a remarkable instance in the letter addressed by him to Major Dunbar, who had sent him a bank-note of 3001, by way of gratuity, in order that he might expedite his business with the Lord Lieutenant." *

"Steele, speaking of the effects which were produced by wine upon his friend Addison, remarks: When he is once arrived at his pint, and begins to look

cause, that the former only began to be witty and facetious by the time the latter had absorbed wine enough to make him heavy and uncommunicative. One of the annotators on the Tattler goes so far as to assert that Addison shortened his existence by an immoderate use of Canary wine and Barbadoes water. This person has been informed that Jacob Tonson boasted of paying his court, not unsuccessfully, by inventing excuses for requesting a glass of the last-mentioned liquor, in order to furnish the poet with an opportunity and an apology for his indulging his own inclination. We believe this,' says our author, like many of the stories resting upon the old bookseller (miscalled honest) Jacob's testimony, to be utterly destitute of foundation, as it is quite unlikely that Addison could not have indulged in his favourite potations without waiting for apology so ridiculous and unsatisfactory either to himself or others." "

With these extracts we must conclude, though it is not unlikely that we shall devote another paper to this entertaining volume.

APOLOGY TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

The Editor of the New Monthly Magazine, in his Preface, issued with the December Number, thus remarks :

WHILST the Editor declares nation can be even suspected of exag

himself deeply conscious of being answerable for the general character and moral tendency of the Work which he conducts he must also remark, that his responsibility is not to be too rigorously interpreted as extending to every shade and expression of opinion which the publication may contain. It is impossible to give exact harmony and consistency to the sentiments of a numerous and changing body of contributors; and the spirit and originality of an amusing paper might often be more injured by pruning its eccentricities, than by suffering them to remain.

geration, how unfair and how danger-
ous to have made it.
For his own
part the Editor can say, that he believes
he has known more Americans than
the writer of the paper. Possibly, in
the course of his life, not less than an
hundred-men of various vocations,
characters, and degrees of education.
He has argued with them, and heard
them argue, on national subjects; but
he can safely declare, that he never
thought them more boisterous than o-
ther men; on the contrary, rather dis-
tinguished, in general, by coolness and
self-possession. Exceptions of warmth,
as among the people of all countries
when their prejudices are ruffled, he
may have observed; but unmeasured
hatred, or rudeness, never.

If we dislike the American manner,
(our own, the world says, is not per-
fect) we should not rake up its imper-
fections when we protest our wish to
put an end to a paper war with that
people. It is an useless jar in the
tones of our harmony to talk of their
disagreeable peculiarities at the mo-
ment of confessing that those faults
have not eaten into the heart and sub-
stance of their national character, and
after quoting travellers, who attest" the
gallantry, high feeling, and humanity
of their troops, and the general religion
and hospitality of their people." But
the Americans are told they should be
satisfied with our full acknowledgments
of their virtues. And so they would
have been, no doubt, if the compli-
ments from our press had not come to
them so bedaubed with inconsistent as-
persions, as to resemble oranges that
have been dipped in the kennel. For,
in testifying their humanity, we paren
thetically bemoan their ferocity. We-
reproach them, and yet say we are
willing to be well with them. We
hold out to them the olive-branch, and
whip them with it as a conciliatory ce-

Under this plea the Editor has no desire to excuse himself for one article, which has given offence, rather too justly, on the other side of the Atlantic. He inserted it without reflection, but had observed its unfairness, and felt dissatisfied with himself for having published it, long before the fair and temperate reply which Mr. Everett made to it had reached him. In adverting to this paper he will have occasion for once, and he hopes only for once, to touch upon politics; but it shall be but generally, and nothing but the necessity of self-defence shall make him resume the subject. With reluctance, but from a sense of duty, he must criticise a paper in his own work, communicated to him by a valued friend, to whose taste and sentiments he would defer, perhaps, on any occasion but the present. But when his friend deprecates our literary feuds with America, he applies, in the Editor's opinion, the most faulty methods of appeasing them. He denies, and it is to be hoped we all deny, any systematic hatred to wards the Americans; but he charges the large majority of that people with being vain, vulgar, and boisterous, and full of national prejudices; which, when they come to this country, take the form of unmeasured hatred and rudeness. Hard words these ; and, perhaps, not remony. e; very usefully uttered even if true. But if they be not true-if this sweeping computation of the tolerable or intolerable character of a whole

With all this we tell them, however, that they must not be offended, because it is our way to caricature and gibbet Kings and Queens, and Bishops, for the popular entertainment,

forgetting that the Americans have nothing to do with our treatment of Kings and Bishops, and that our litera ture should be as dissimilar as possible to either gibbets or caricatures. Farther, we enjoin them silence and good humour. The charms of silence we illustrate by harangues on their soreness and irritability; and we suggest their vulgar manners, their scanty literature, and the prospect of their language being for ever amenable to our correction, as themes on which they may meditate during their pleased and pensive taciturinity.

But we admire the writings of Washington Irving, and, it might have been added, the pictures of Lesley, and of the American Newton. And this is a pledge of our perfect liberality. So thinks the Editor's friend, but not so the Editor. For the Americans have gone before us in this species of justice, having praised our British books abundantly, and yet without obtaining credit for entire freedom from prejudices. Nor, in strictness, have they deserved it. It is on neither side an excuse for national abuse to have paid compliments to individuals. The charitable feeling between two kindred and free nations ought to extend much farther, and exclude all collective animosity. How to produce this Christian spirit is, to be sure, the problem which can never be practically solved in perfection. Yet,let antipathies be softened, if they cannot be eradicated. If our interests and those of America be the same, they should unite us; if they jar, the more composure of mind is necessary to adjust them. America is told that she will always find friends in England, from the party which supports the republican side of our mixed constitution. But is this all that England can offer America-not the milk of human kindness, but the spare gall of political wrangling? Is not every English royalist interested to demonstrate, in his demeanour towards America, that Monarchy creates more courtesy of manners, than Republicanism ?—that chivalrous recollection inspire magnanimity? that our Universities teach

dispassionate ethics; and that our Church is at the head of Christian churches, by its having impressed our public character with forbearance and charity?

So much for the feelings that ought to be brought into his business. As to wrangling with America in print, it should be the policy of all honest British politicians to avoid it.

If the anxious Monarchist be alarmed at her citizens over-describing their democratical blessings, he should recollect that every contemptuous word we throw out is a challenge to their pride and boastfulness, and a temptation for them to exaggerate the pictures of their own felicity. And though we may expose many of their false assertions, yet, as all human things have imperfections, those of our own venerable institutions are in turn laid open to the detraction of antagonists, whom we irritate in order to make sure of their candour. It is true that rude remarks on England might come from America, supposing our press to be ever so moderate. English emigrants rail at us; but for these the native American character is not responsible. Granting, however, that this railing is an evil, how is it best to be mitigated? The transatlantic press cannot be silenced by force: though vanquished in argument, it would argue still. All angry discussion on our part that inflames the whole American people, makes them speak ten times of our tithes and taxes for once that they would mention them if not embarked in a provoking controversy. And their boastings of immunity from such burthens-boastings undeniably aggravated by the reproaches which we offer them-come indirectly, through seditious newspapers, to our taxed and tithed, and reading poor. By wrangling with the only nation that speaks English, we render the only fo reign newspaper an uneducated Englishman can read,to the utmost extent in our power, a gazette of his causes for discontent. If the American press be despicable, the surest token of our contempt would be silence; if it be formidable, it is better to be at peace than at

*The Editor calls him American, because there is an ingenious English artist of the

same name.