appears to have been admirably calculated, both by his style and manner, for the office of a public instructor and periodical writer. The four numbers which he has written in the last volume of the Spectator claim a very distinguished rank in the estimation of the critic and moralist; and Boswell, in his life of Johnson, has recorded a circumstance relative to one of them, which ought not in this place to be forgotten. The Doctor mentioned, relates the biographer, " with an air of satisfaction, what Baretti had told him; that, meeting, in the course of his studying English, with an excellent paper in the Spectator, one of four that were written by the respectable dissenting minister, Mr. Grove, of Taunton, and observing the genius and energy of mind that it exhibits, it greatly quickened his curiosity to visit our country; as he thought, if such were the lighter periodical essays of our authors, their productions on more weighty occasions must be wonderful indeed *!"

Mr. Grove's first two papers, N° 588 and 601, are on self-love and benevolence; and, with the exception of an unjustifiable censure on the private character of Mr. Hobbes, who, however indefensible his philosophy may have been, was

* Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. iv. p. 31, 8vo. edition of 1799.

an amiable and virtuous man, are worthy of much praise, both in their tendency and execution. They insist upon the dignity of human nature, in opposition to what has been termed the "selfish system." It is probable, however, that the modifications of the latter theory by Mr. Gay* and Dr. Hartley †, and which have, in a great measure, silenced the objections which had with great reason been alledged against it, form the nearest approximation toward the truth.

In N° 626, our author has given us an essay on Novelty; from our addiction to which he deduces in a most ingenious and pleasing manner, and in a style of superior force and elegance to that employed in his prior papers, a strong proof of man being destined to immortality. "One of the finest pieces," remarks Dr. Johnson, “in the English language, is the paper on Novelty, yet we do not hear it talked of t."

The concluding number of the Spectator is the composition of Mr. Grove, and it is a termination worthy of the work; a more sublime, a

* Vide Gay's Dissertation, "concerning the fundamental Principles of Virtue," which is prefixed to Dr. Law's translation of Archbishop King's Essay "on the Origin of Evil."

+ Vide Hartley's "Observations on Man, his Frame, his Duty, and his Expectations," 2 vols. 8vo.

Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. iii. p. 32.

more interesting and impressive paper cannot be found in the series to which it belongs. The expansion of the mental faculties in a future state, though it be an idea over which some obscurity must necessarily hang, is too accordant with our wishes, our hopes, and our religion, to be dismissed for any length of time. There is every reason, indeed, to suppose, that the happiness of an immaterial existence will depend upon the perpetual and illimitable progression of intellect; and the paper of Mr. Grove is, in every respect, well calculated to give force and colour to the exhilarating prospect.

9. JOHN BYROM, the younger son of Mr. Edward Byrom, a linen-draper, was born at Kersall, near Manchester, in the year 1691. After the usual grammatical education in his native place, he was sent to Merchant Taylor's School in London, where he distinguished himself by his attention to, and proficiency in, classical literature. So much greater progress indeed had he made than was usual, that, at the age of sixteen, he was thought sufficiently qualified for the University of Cambridge; where, on the 6th of July, 1708, he was admitted a Pensioner of Trinity College.

At this seat of the Muses, Mr. Byrom culti

vated with assiduity a taste for elegant letters, and especially for poetry, to which, even in his earliest he had shown a marked propenyears, sity. Having taken the usual degrees in Arts, he was, in 1714, elected a Fellow of his College, with the Master of which, the celebrated Dr. Richard Bentley, he had greatly ingratiated himself by the sweetness of his disposition, and the regularity of his conduct.

In the August of the year of his election to the Fellowship, he commenced a writer in the Spectator; and in the October following published in that work his first and best poetical effort, a pastoral under the title of Colin to Phabe. It has been said on good authority, that the Phoebe of this pastoral was Joanna, the daughter of Dr. Bentley, and that it was written, not so much from affection to the daughter, as with the aim of securing the interest of the Doctor in promoting the author's views with regard to the fellowship, for which, at the period of its composition, he was a candidate.

The popularity which this poem has enjoyed for a series of ninety years, must be considered as an indication of no inconsiderable merit; the versification is easy and flowing; and the imagery in the seventh and eighth stanzas may be termed elegantly rural; but there is a fault in

this piece, which, if it were ever intended for a serious composition, completely destroys the effect. A ludicrous air pervades the whole, arising sometimes from the puerility of the expression, and sometimes from the inanity of the sentiment. Since the publication of the Bath Guide by Anstey, this association may have been rendered stronger by the parody, in that humorous work, of the first two lines of Byrom's poem:

My time, O ye Muses, was happily spent,
When Phoebe went with me wherever I went.

BYROM.

My time, my dear mother's, been wretchedly spent,
With a gripe or a hiccup wherever I went.

ANSTEY.

A serious indisposition induced Mr. Byrom, in 1716, to visit Montpelier; and during his residence upon the continent, he imbibed not only a taste for the philosophical reveries of Malebranche, but became a convert to the wild enthusiasm of Mademoiselle Bourignon; attachments which convey no favourable idea of the strength and solidity of his judgment.

On the recovery of his health, he returned to England, and, as his pecuniary circumstances were not such as to support him in an independent style, he adopted the resolution of practising in London as a physician; a scheme which, al