A letter in No. 140, signed Leonora, and another in No. 163, with the same signature, are said to have been written by a Miss Shepheard, and a letter in No. 92, by her sister. Of these ladies, it is only related that they were collateral descendants of Sir Fleetwood Shepheard," of facetious memory." A very short letter in No. 480, signed M. D., was written by Mr. Robert Harper, of Lincoln's-Inn, an eminent conveyancer. Steele omitted some parts of it, and made some alterations in it.

The last contributor to the Spectator, of whom we have any knowledge, and who was the longest survivor, is Dr. Zachary Pearce, a late Bishop of Rochester. He was the son of an opulent distiller in Holborn, and was born in 1690. He had his education at Westminster-school, where he was distinguished by his merit, and elected one of the king's scholars. In 1710, he was elected to Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1716, he published the first edition of his "Cicero de Oratore," and, at the desire of a friend, dedicated it to Lord Chief Justice Parker, afterwards Earl of Macclesfield, to whom he was an entire stranger. This incident laid the foundation of his future fortune, for Lord Parker soon after recommended him to Dr. Bentley, Master of Trinity, to be made one of the Fellows. In 1717, being then M. A., he was ordained, and, in 1718, was invited to live with the Lord Chancellor Parker, as his lordship's domestic chaplain. In 1719, he was instituted to the rectory of Stapleford Abbots, in Essex, and in 1720, to that of St. Bartholomew,

Exchange, London. In 1723, his noble patron presented him to St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and, in 1726, he preached a sermon at the consecration of that church, when rebuilt in its present splendid form. In 1724, the degree of D. D. was conferred on him by Archbishop Wake. In 1739, he was appointed to the deanery of Winchester, and, in 1748, to the bishopric of Bangor; in 1756, he was removed to the see of Rochester and the deanery of Westminster. In 1763, when the infirmities of age began to be felt, he wished to resign both, and retire into a quiet station, but his majesty prevailed on him to continue. Dr. Pearce's reasons for an application so unusual do him much honour; he said, that as he never made a sinecure of his preferments, he was tired with business, and, being in the 74th year of his age, he wished to resign his preferments while his faculties were entire, lest he should outlive them, and the church suffer by his infirmities.* In 1763, however, he obtained leave to resign the deanery. In 1773, he lost his lady, with whom he had enjoyed an uninterrupted course of domestic comfort for fifty-two years, and, after some months of lingering decay, he died at Little Ealing, June 29, 1774. Being asked one day how he could live with so little nutriment, "I live," said he, "upon the recollection of an innocent and well-spent life, which is my only sustenance." He supported through this

* MS. Letter from Dr. Pettingal to Mr. Cole, in Brit. Mus.
Nichols' Anecdotes of Bowyer.

long life the character of an able divine and a sound critic and philologer.*

During his early years he amused himself with light compositions, of which it is to be regretted he did not publish more than the Spectator, No. 572, on quacks, which was a little retouched by Addison, and No. 633, on eloquence. He wrote also a paper in the Guardian, which is noticed in its proper place, and an exquisite little fancy in a periodical paper entitled the Freethinker.

At the conclusion of No. 555 Steele says, "It had not come to my knowledge, when I left off the Spectator, that I owe several excellent sentiments and agreeable pieces in that work to Mr. Ince, of Gray's Inn." The annotators follow this intimation with some account of Mr. Ince, but no discovery has been made of his "sentiments," or "pieces." In a conversation with Dr. Johnson, 1777, Mr. Murphy said, he remembered when there were several people alive in London, who enjoyed a considerable reputation merely from having written a paper in the Spectator. He mentioned particularly Mr. Ince, who used to frequent Tom's coffee-house. Dr. Johnson, who seemed to think this kind of mention depreciating, repeated how highly Steele

His life was prefixed to his posthumous works by the Rev. Mr. Derby, his chaplain, 2 vols. 4to. 1777, but his papers in the Spectator and Guardian were acknowledged by Dr. Pearce, in a letter to Dr. Birch, dated June 5, 1764.

The annotators on the Spectator, by some mistake, say that No. 633 was printed by Tickell, in his edition of Addison's works. Tickell published no Spectators in that edition, after No. 600.

speaks of Mr. Ince. He was secretary to the accounts of the army, and died October 11, 1758. That many persons wrote single papers or letters in the Spectator, whose names are now irrecoverable, may be easily supposed. Mr. Cole, in his MSS. in the British Museum, mentions a Mr. Western, father of Thomas Western, of Rivenhall, in Essex (which last died in 1766), as the author of a few numbers; and I learn, from a recent letter in the Gentleman's Magazine, that the Rev. John Lloyd, M. A. who published a poem entitled "God," about the year 1724, calls himself, in the title-page, "Author of several of the Spectators."

The paper in which the above compliment is paid to Mr. Ince, is the concluding one of the seventh volume of the original second edition,* to which Steele signs his name, and in which he introduces the names of the principal writers. The Spectator was then laid down about a year and a half, in which interval the Guardian, and its sequel, the Englishman, were published. The time when the Spectator was revived, Dr. Johnson thought "unfavourable to literature," as "the succession of a new family to the throne filled the nation with anxiety, discord, and confusion." The attempt, however, was made (for which a whimsical reason is assigned in No. 632), and not unsuccessfully with respect to merit, but the sale was not so extensive as that of the preceding papers. They now came out only three times a-week, and Steele, it is thought,

*See vol. vi. of this edition, No. 555, note.

had no concern in it. Addison wrote above a fourth part, and conducted the whole with Eustace Budgell, whose share, if he had any, has not been ascertained. There are none of the papers lettered at the close, as in the preceding volumes, and Addison's contributions are marked in this edition upon the authority of Mr. Tickell, who collected them in his works.

In Dr. Johnson's opinion, this volume is more valuable than any of those which went before it. There is certainly more variety of style and manner in it, and perhaps of subject, but in general the papers are less lively, and have been less popular. Why the Spectator was revived after the Guardian had closed, and why it ends abruptly with a paper from a stranger, are questions which cannot now be resolved. There is some reason to think this eighth volume was a bookseller's project, who perhaps employed Budgell as editor, and engaged Addison as a writer.

Of the great success of the Spectator, both in papers and in volumes, we have unequivocal evidence from Steele's declaration, in No. 555, that an edition of the reprinted volumes, of above "nine thousand each book," were then sold off; such was the laudable avidity in those days for moral instruction and elegant amusement. The tax on each half sheet brought into the stamp-office, one week with another, above 207. per week, notwithstanding it at first reduced the sale to less than half the number that was usually printed before the tax was imposed.

VOL. I.-5