gone abroad, was obliged to defer the execution of my plan to another opportunity. Now though this event had absolutely slipped my memory, I now recollected it perfectly,―ay, so my fire was out indeed, and my maid did go abroad sure enough.-Good Heavens!" said I, 'how great events depend upon little circumstances!' However, I looked upon this as a memento for me no longer to trifle away my time and resolution; and thus I began to reason,-I mean, I would have reasoned, had I not been interrupted by a noise of some one coming up stairs. By the alternate thump upon the steps, I soon discovered it must be my old and intimate friend Rudliche.

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"But, to return, in walked Rudliche. So, Fred.'-'So, Bob.' - Were you at the Grecian to-day?—I just stepped in.'—'Well, any news? No, no, there was no news. Now, as Bob and I saw one another almost every day, we seldom abounded in conversation; so, having settled one material point, he sat in his usual posture, looking at the fire and beating the dust out of his wooden leg, when I perceived he was going to touch upon the other subject; but, having by chance cast his eye on my face, and finding (I suppose) something extraordinary in my countenance, he immediately dropped all concern for the weather, and putting his hand into his pocket, (as if he meant to find what he was going to say, under pretence of feeling for his tobacco-box,) Hernan! (he began) why, man, you look for all the world as if you had been thinking of something."Yes,' replied I, smiling, (that is, not actually smiling, but with a conscious something in my face,) I have, indeed, been thinking a little.'—' What, is't a secret? Oh, nothing very material.' Here ensued a pause, which I employed in considering whether I should reveal my scheme to Bob; and Bob in trying to disengage his thumb from the string of his cane, as if he were preparing to take his leave. This latter action, with the great desire I had of disburthening myself, made me instantly resolve to lay my whole plan before him. Bob,' said I, (he immediately quitted his thumb,) you remarked that I looked as if I had been thinking of something,-your remark is just, and I'll tell you the subject of my thought. You know, Bob, that I always had a strong passion for literature:-you have often seen my collection of books, not very large indeed, however I believe I have read every volume of it twice over, (excepting · -'s Divine Legation of Moses, and —'s Lives of the most notorious Malefactors,) and I am now determined to profit by them.' I concluded with a very significant nod;--but, good heavens! how mortified was I to find both my speech and my nod thrown away, when Rudliche calmly replied, with the true phlegm of ignorance, My dear friend, I think your resolution in regard to your books a very prudent one; but I do not perfectly conceive your plan as to the profit, for, though your volumes may be very curious, yet you know they are most of them second-hand.” I was so vexed with the fellow's stupidity that I had a great mind to punish him by not disclosing a syllable more. However, at last my vanity got the better of my resentment, and I explained to him the whole matter.

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In examining the beginning of the Spectators, &c. I find they are all written by a society. Now I profess to write all myself, though

I acknowledge that, on account of a weakness in my eyes, I have got some under-strappers who are to write the poetry, &c.

In order to find the different merits of these my subalterns, I stipulated with them that they should let me feed them as I would. This they consented to do, and it is surprising to think what different effects diet has on the writers. The same, who after having been fed two days upon artichokes produced as pretty a copy of verses as ever I saw, on beef was as dull as ditch-water

"It is a characteristic of fools," says some one, "to be always beginning,"-and this is not the only point in which folly and genius resemble each other. So chillingly indeed do the difficulties of execution succeed to the first ardour of conception, that it is only wonderful there should exist so many finished monuments of genius, or that men of fancy should not oftener have contented themselves with those first, vague sketches, in the production of which the chief luxury of intellectual creation lies. Among the many literary works, shadowed out by Sheridan at this time, were a Collection of Occasional Poems, and a volume of Crazy Tales,--to the former of which Halbed suggests that "the old things they did at Harrow out of Theocritus," might, with a little pruning, form a useful contribution. The loss of the volume of Crazy Tales is little to be regretted, as from its title we may conclude it was written in imitation of the clever, but licentious productions of John Hall Stephenson. If the same kind oblivion had closed over the levities of other young authors, who, in the season of folly and the passions, have made their pages the transcript of their lives, it would have been equally fortunate for themselves and the world.

But, whatever may have been the industry of these youthful authors, the translation of Aristænetus, as I have already stated, was the only fruit of their literary alliance, that ever arrived at sufficient maturity for publication. In November 1770, Halhed had completed and forwarded to Bath his share of the work, and in the following month we find Sheridan preparing, with the assistance of a Greek grammar, to complete the task. "The 29th ult. (says Mr. Ker, in a letter to him from London, dated Dec. 4, 1770,) I was favoured with yours, and have since been hunting for Aristænetus, whom I found this day, and therefore send to you, together with a Greek grammar. I might have despatched at the same time some numbers of the Dictionary, but not having got the two last numbers, was not willing to send any without the whole of what is published, and still less willing to delay Aristænetus's jour

ney by waiting for them." The work alluded to here is the Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, to which Sheridan had subscribed, with the view, no doubt, of informing himself upon subjects of which he was as yet wholly ignorant; having left school, like most other young men at his age, as little furnished with the knowledge that is wanted in the world, as a person would be for the demands of a market, who went into it with nothing but a few ancient coins in his pocket.

The passion, however, that now began to take possession of his heart was little favourable to his advancement in any serious studies; and it may easily be imagined that, in the neighbourhood of Miss Linley, the Arts and Sciences were suffered to sleep quietly on their shelves. Even the translation of Aristænetus, though a task more suited, from its amatory nature, to the existing temperature of his heart, was proceeded in but slowly; and it appears from one of Halhed's letters, that this impatient ally was already counting upon the spolia opima of the campaign, before Sheridan had fairly brought his Greek grammar into the field. The great object of the former was a visit to Bath; and he had set his heart still more anxiously upon it, after a second meeting with Miss Linley at Oxford. But the profits expected from their literary undertakings were the only means to which he looked for the realizing of this dream; and he accordingly implores his friend, with the most comic piteousness, to drive the farce on the stage by main force, and to make Aristænetus sell whether he will or not. In the November of this year we find them discussing the propriety of prefixing their names to the work-Sheridan evidently not disinclined to venture, but Halhed recommending that they should wait to hear how "Sumner and the wise few of their acquaintance" would talk of the book, before they risked any thing more than their initials. In answer to Sheridan's enquiries as to the extent of sale they may expect in Oxford, he confesses that, after three coffee-houses had bought one a-piece, not two more would be sold.

That poverty is the best nurse of talent has long been a most humiliating truism; and the fountain of the Muses, bursting from a barren rock, is but too apt an emblem of the hard source, from which much of the genius of this world has issued. How strongly the young translators of Aristænetus were under the influence of this sort of inspiration, appears from every paragraph of Halhed's letters,

and might easily, indeed, be concluded of Sheridan, from the very limited circumstances of his father--who had nothing beside the pension of 200l. a-year, conferred upon him in consideration of his literary merits, and the little profits he derived from his lectures in Bath, to support with decency himself and his family. The prospects of Halhed were much more golden, but he was far too gay and mercurial to be prudent; and from the very scanty supplies which his father allowed him, had quite as little of "le superflu, chose si necessarie," as his friend. But whatever were his other desires and pursuits, a visit to Bath,--to that place which contained the two persons he most valued in friendship and in love, was the grand object of all his financial speculations; and among other ways and means that, in the delay of the expected resources from Aristænetus, presented themselves, was an exhibition of 201. a-year, which the college had lately given him, and with five pounds of which he thought he might venture "adire Corinthum."

Though Sheridan had informed his friend that the translation was put to press some time in March, 1771, it does not appear to have been given into the hands of Wilkie, the publisher, till the begining of May, when Mr. Ker writes thus to Bath: "Your Aristænetus is in the hands of Mr. Wilkie, in St. Paul's Church-yard, and to put you out of suspense at once, will certainly make his appearance about the 1st of June next, in the form of a neat volume, price 3s. or 3s. 6d., as may best suit his size, &c., which cannot be more nearly determined at present. I have undertaken the task of correcting for the press. . . . Some of

the Epistles that I have perused seem to me elegant and poetical; in others I could not observe equal beauty, and here and there I could wish there were some little amendment. You will pardon this liberty I take, and set it down to the account of oldfashioned friendship." Mr. Ker, to judge from his letters, (which, in addition to their other laudable points, are dated with a precision truly exemplary,) was a very kind, useful, and sensible person, and in the sober hue of his intellect exhibited a striking contrast, to the sparkling vivacity of the two sanguine and impatient young wits, whose affairs he so good naturedly undertook to negotiate.

At length in August, 1771, Aristænetus made its appearance-contrary to the advice of the bookseller, and of Mr. Ker, who represented to Sheridan the unpropitiousness of ·

the season, particularly for a first experiment in authorship, and advised the postponement of the publication till October. But the translators were too eager for the rich harvest of emolument they had promised themselves, and too full of that pleasing but often fatal delusion that calenture, under the influence of which young voyagers to the shores of Fame imagine they already see her green fields and groves in the treacherous waves around them-to listen to the suggestions of mere calculating men of business. The first account they heard of the reception of the work was flattering enough to prolong awhile this dream of vanity. "It begins (writes Mr. Ker, in about a fortnight after the publication,) to make some noise, and is fathered on Mr. Johnson, author of the English Dictionary, &c. See today's Gazetteer. The critics are admirable in discovering a concealed author by his style, manner, &c."

Their disappointment at the ultimate failure of the book was proportioned, we may suppose, to the sanguineness of their first expectations. But the reluctance, with which an author yields to the sad certainty of being unread, is apparent in the eagerness with which Halhed avails himself of every encouragement for a rally of his hopes. The Critical Reviewers, it seems, had given the work a tolerable character, and quoted the first Epistle.* The Weekly Review in the Public Ledger had also spoken well of it, and cited a specimen. The Oxford Magazine had transcribed two whole Epistles, without mentioning from whence they were taken. Every body, he says, seemed to have read the book, and one of those hawking booksellers who attend the coffee-houses, assured him it was written by Dr. Armstrong, author of the Economy of Love. On the strength of all this he recommends that another volume of the Epistles should be published immediatelybeing of opinion that the readers of the first volume would be sure to purchase the second, and that the publication of the second would put it in the heads of others to buy the first. Under a sentence containing one of these san

* In one of the Reviews I have seen it thus spoken of:-"No such writer as Aristænetus ever existed in the classic æra; nor did even the unhappy schools, after the destruction of the Eastern empire, produce such a writer. It was left to the latter times of monkish imposition to give such trash as this, on which the translator has ill spent his time. We have been as idly employed in reading it, and our readers will in proportion lose their time in perusing this article."