ness, it is undeniable that, like one of the Passions in Collins's Ode, we forget which, but we fear it is Fear,-we, after showing forth in the best public instructors as the Wits' Miscellany,

Back recoiled,

Scared at the sound ourselves had made.

To this resolution we were also led by the fact, that such a title would altogether exclude from our pages contributions of great merit-which, although exhibiting comic faculty, would also deal with the shadows of human life, and sound the deep wells of the heart.

We agreed that the work should not be called "The Wits" any longer. We massacred the title as ruthlessly as ever were massacred its namesakes in Holland; and, agreeing to an emendatio, we now sail under the title of our worthy publisher, which happens to be the same as that of him who is by all viri clarissimi adopted as criticorum longè doctissimus, RICARDUS BENTLEIUS; or, to drop Latin lore-Richard Bentley.

Here, then, ladies and gentlemen, we introduce to your special and particular notice

BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY.

What may be in the Miscellany it is your business to find out. Here lie the goods, warehoused, bonded, ticketed, and labelled, at your service. You have only, with the Genius in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, to cry, "Fish, fish, do your duty;" and if they are under-cooked or over-cooked, if the seasoning is too high or the fire too low, if they be burnt on one side and raw on the other,-why, gentle readers, it is your business to complain. All we have to say here, is, that we have made our haul in the best fishing-grounds, and, if we were ambitious of pun-making, we might add, that we had well baited our hookscaught some choice souls-flung our lines into right places-and so forth, as might easily be expanded by the students of Mr. Commissioner Dubois's art of punning made easy.

What we propose is simply this :-We do not envy the fame or glory of other monthly publications. Let them all have their room. We do not desire to jostle them in their course to fame or profit, even if it was in our power to do so. One may revel in the unmastered fun and the soul-touching feeling of Wilson, the humour of Hamilton, the dry jocularity and the ornamented poetry of Moir, the pathos of Warren, the tender sentiment of Caroline Bowles, the eloquence of Croly, and the Tory brilliancy of half a hundred contributors zealous in the cause of Conservatism. Another may shake our sides with the drolleries of Gilbert Gurney and his fellows, poured forth from

the inexhaustible reservoir of the wit of our contributor Theodore Hook,--captivate or agitate us by the Hibernian Tales of Mrs. Hall, or rouse the gentlest emotions by the fascinating prose or delicious verse of our fairest of collaborateuses Miss Landon. In the third we must admire the polyglot facetiæ of our own Father Prout, and the delicate appreciation of the classical and elegant which pervades the writings of the Greek-thoughted Chapman; while its rough drollery, its bold bearing, its mirth, its learning, its courage, and its caricatures, (when, confined to the harmless and the mirth-provoking, they abstain from invading the sanctuary of private life,) are all deserving of the highest applause, though we should be somewhat sorry to stand in the way of receiving the consequences which they occasionally entail. Elsewhere, what can be better than Marryat, Peter Simple, Jacob Faithful, Midshipman Easy, or whatever other title pleases his ear? a Smollett of the sea revived, equal to the Doctor in wit, and somewhat purged of his grossness. In short, to all our periodical contemporaries we wish every happiness and success; and for those among their contributors whose writings tend to amuse or instruct,-and many among them there are to whom such praise may be justly applied, we feel the highest honour and respect. We wish that we could catch them all, to illuminate our pages, without any desire whatever that their rays should be withdrawn from those in which they are at present shining.

Our path is single and distinct. In the first place, we have nothing to do with politics. We are so far Conservatives as to wish that all things which are good and honourable for our native country should be preserved with jealous hand. We are so far Reformers as to desire that every weed which defaces our conservatory should be unsparingly plucked up and cast away. But is it a matter of absolute necessity that people's political opinions should be perpetually obtruded upon public notice? Is there not something more in the world to be talked about than Whig and Tory? We do not quarrel with those who find or make it their vocation to show us annually, or quarterly, or hebdomadally, or diurnally, how we are incontestably saved or ruined; they have chosen their line of walk, and a pleasant one no doubt it is; but, for our softer feet may it not be permitted to pick out a smoother and a greener promenade-a path of springy turf and odorous sward, in which no rough pebble will lacerate the ancle, no briery thorn penetrate the wandering

sole?

Truce, however, to prefacing. We well know that speechmaking never yet won an election, because something more tangible than speechifying is requisite. So it is with books; and, indeed, so is it with every thing else in the world.

must be judged by our works. We have only one petition to

make, which is put in with all due humility;-it is this-that we are not to be prejudged by this our first attempt. Nothing is more probable than that many of our readers, and they fairgoing people too, will think this number a matter not at all to be commended; and we, with perfect modesty suggest, on the other side, the propriety of their suspending their opinion as to our demerits until they see the next. And then-And then! Well!-what then? Why, we do not know: and, as it is generally ruled, that, when a man cannot speak, he is bound to sing, we knock ourselves down for a song.

GEORGE COLMAN.

THAT a life of this eminent and much regretted man will be written by some competent author, there can be little doubt. That he himself extended his "Random Records" no further than two volumes, containing the history and anecdotes of the early part of his career, is greatly to be lamented. What is here collected is merely worthy of being called "Recollections," and does not assume to itself the character of a piece of biography.

Mr. Colman was the grandson of Francis Colman, Esq. British Resident at the Court of Tuscany at Pisa, who married a sister of the Countess of Bath. George Colman the elder, father of him of whom we write, was born about the year 1733, at Florence, and was placed at an early age at Westminster School, where he very soon distinguished himself by the rapidity of his attainments. In 1748 he went to Christchurch College, Oxford, where he took his Master's degree; and shortly became the friend and associate of Churchill, Bonnell Thornton, Lloyd, and the other principal wits and writers of the day.

Lord Bath was greatly struck by his merit and accomplishments, and induced him to adopt the law as his profession. He accordingly entered at Lincoln's Inn, and was eventually called to the bar. It appears as it happened afterwards to his son -that the drier pursuits of his vocation were neglected or abandoned in favour of literature and the drama. His first poetical performance was a copy of verses addressed to his cousin, Lord Pulteney. But it was not till 1760 that he produced any dramatic work in that year he brought out "Polly Honeycombe," which met with considerable success.

It is remarkable that, previous to that season, no new comedy had been produced at either theatre for nine years; and equally remarkable that the year 1761 should have brought before the publicThe Jealous Wife," by Colman, "The Way to Keep Him," by Murphy, and "The Married Libertine," by Macklin.

In the following year Lord Bath died, and left Mr. Colman a very comfortable annuity, but less in value than he had anticipated. In 1767, General Pulteney, Lord Bath's successor, died, and left him a second annuity, which secured him in independence for life. And here it may be proper to notice a subject which George Colman the younger has touched before in his "Random Records," in which he corrects a hasty and incautious error of the late Margravine of Anspach, committed by her, in her "Memoirs." Speaking of George Colman the eider, she says, "He was a natural son of Lord Bath, Sir James Pulteney; and his father, perceiving in the son a passion for plays, asked him fairly if he never intended to turn his thoughts to politics, as it was his desire to see him a minister, which, with his natural.

endowments, and the expense and pains he had bestowed on his education, he had reason to imagine, with his interest, he might become. His father desired to know if he would give up the Muses for diplomacy, and plays for politics; as, in that case, he meant to give him his whole fortune. Colman thanked Lord Bath for his kind communication, but candidly said, that he preferred Thalia and Melpomene to ambition of any kind, for the height of his wishes was to become, at some future time, the manager of a theatre. Lord Bath left him fifteen hundred pounds a-year, instead of all his immense wealth."

Mr. Colman, after exposing the strange mistake of calling the Sir William Pulteney, James, goes on to state, that, being the son of his wife's sister, Lord Bath, on the death of Francis Colman (his brother-in-law), which occurred when the elder George was but one year old, took him entirely under his protection, and placed him progressively at Westminster, Oxford, and Lincoln's Inn. In corroboration of the else unquestioned truth of this statement, he refers to the posthumous pamphlets of his highly-gifted parent, and justly takes credit for saving him from imputed illegitimacy, by explaining that his grandmother was exempt from the conjugal frailty of Venus, and his grandfather from the fate of Vulcan.

George Colman the elder suffered severely from the effects of a paralytic affection, which, in the year 1790, produced mental derangement; and, after living in seclusion for four years, he died on the 14th of April 1794, having been during his life a joint proprietor of Covent Garden Theatre, and sole proprietor of the little theatre in the Haymarket.

George Colman the younger became, at Westminster, the schoolfellow and associate of the present Archbishop of York, the Marquess of Anglesea, the late Earl of Buckinghamshire, Doctor Robert Willis, Mr. Reynolds, his brother dramatist, the present Earl Somers, and many other persons, who have since, like himself, become distinguished members of society.

The account which Mr. Colman gives of his introduction by his father to Johnson, Goldsmith, and Foote, when a child, is so highly graphic, and so strongly characteristic of the man, that we give an abridgement of it here:

"On the day of my introduction," says Colman, "Dr. Johnson was asked to dinner at my father's house in Soho-square, and the erudite savage came a full hour before his time. My father, having dressed himself hastily, took me with him into the drawing-room.

66

"On our entrance, we found Johnson sitting in a fauteuil of rose-coloured satin. He was dressed in a rusty suit of brown, cloth dittos, with black worsted stockings: his old yellow wig was of formidable dimensions; and the learned head which sustained it rolled about in a seemingly paralytic motion; but, in the performance of its orbit, it inclined chiefly to one shoulder.