"I did not think our friend had so much good sense." He was interrupted by the Shepherd with, "I dinna thank ye for that, Sir Walter!"

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

B. 1772. D. 1834.

"BECAUSE I could read and spell," writes Coleridge, "and had, I may truly say, a memory and understanding forced into almost unnatural ripeness, I was flattered and wondered at by all the old women. And so I became very vain, and despised most of the boys that were at all near my age, and before I was eight years old I was a character. Sensibility, imagination, vanity, sloth, and feelings of deep and bitter contempt for almost all who traversed the orbit of my understanding were even then prominent and manifest."

Coleridge was a capital talker; but when even Carlyle, Wordsworth, or Henry Crabb Robinson were present, they were hardly able to get in a word edgeways. Madame de Staël, when asked what she thought of him, replied, "He is great in monologue, but he has no idea of dialogue."

B. 1774.

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

D. 1843.

SOUTHEY kept upon the anvil his poem of "Madoc" for many years, rewriting and correcting it many times; but it sold very slowly, and all he realized from it was twenty-five pounds. He was not, however, discouraged, and said: "I shall be read by posterity, if I am not read now; read with Milton and Virgil and Dante, when poets whose works are now selling by thousands are only known through a bibliographical dictionary.'

Once when Southey was proceeding in this strain, as usual extolling the merits of his productions, the noted wit, Mr. Porson, observed, "I will tell you, sir, what I think of your poetical works: they will be read when Shakspeare's and Milton's are forgotten," -adding, after a pause, " but not till then."

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The Life of Nelson," by Robert Southey, is reckoned among the best biographies extant, and among the great mass of his other works there is much that is still read with interest; but the exalted opinion entertained by the author of these works has not been confirmed by posterity. Here are some specimens of his estimate of himself:

"1800. Thalaba' is finished. You will, I trust, find the Paradise a rich poetical picture, a proof that I can employ magnificence and luxury of language when I think them in place. One overwhelming propensity has formed my destiny, and marred all pros

pects of rank or wealth; but it has made me happy, and it will make me immortal.

"Thalaba', is a whole and unembarrassed story. I know no poem which can claim a place between it and the Orlando.' Let it be weighed with the 'Oberon ;' perhaps, were I to speak out, I should not dread a trial with Ariosto. My proportion of ore to dross is greater."

At a later date he predicted that, as a historian, he should rank above Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon; and, as if that were not bold enough, even wrote:

"I have always flattered myself that my 'History of Brazil' might, in more points than one, be compared with Herodotus, and will hereafter stand in the same relation to the history of that large portion of the new world as his work does to that of the old."

After this no Englishman should laugh at the egotistical extravagances of Châteaubriand or Lamartine.

B. 1775.

CHARLES LAMB.

D. 1834.

IN one of the Essays of Elia on "The Old Benches of the Inner Temple," Lamb draws his own character under the name of Lovel:

"He was a man of an incorrigible and losing honesty; had a face as gay as Garrick's, whom he was said greatly to resemble; moulded heads in clay or

plaster of Paris to admiration, by the dint of natural genius merely; had the merriest quips and conceits; was altogether as brimful of rogueries and inventions as you could desire; and just such a free, hearty, honest companion as Izaak Walton would have chosen to go a fishing with."

Charles Lamb's reputation has mainly grown since his death. His first ventures had little of public sympathy, and yielded small profits. According to one of his biographers (Talfourd), he wrote to Procter, "Hang the age! I will write for posterity!" It now turns out that the biographer changed the original words, and that Lamb's words were, "Damn the age! I will write for antiquity." It is true that profanity was not at this time wholly banished from good society; and it is a pity that this eccentric genius, as he himself expresses it, "kept a little on the wrong side of abstemiousness."

When Lamb called upon the poet Wordsworth, he addressed him as follows: "Mr. Wordsworth, allow me to introduce to you my only admirer."

B. 1775.

JAMES BOSWELL.

D. 1822.

WHATEVER rank we may think James Boswell fills as the biographer of Dr. Johnson, most men will admit the absolute verity of Boswell's own prefatory estimate of his work, where he says, "As it is, I will venture to say that he [Dr. Johnson] will be seen in

this work more completely than any man who has ever yet lived."

Boswell, thinking himself greatly superior to Goldsmith, says, when the latter obtained an invitation. to dinner from Johnson, that he "went strutting away;" and adds, "I confess I envied him this mighty privilege, of which he seemed so proud; but it was not long before I obtained the same mark of distinction."

Burke takes claret, and

Boswell was admitted to the celebrated London Literary Club, at the "Turk's Head" Tavern, because he was proposed by Dr. Samuel Johnson, about 1774. Burke, Goldsmith, Reynolds, Garrick, and several other noted men of their day, assembling here periodically, made their table-talk of historic interest. Boswell records much of it. When the eating is over the bottles go their round. the Doctor ejaculates, "Poor stuff, sir. Claret is the liquor for boys, port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy." Burke responds, "Then, sir, give me claret, for I like to be a boy, and partake of the honest hilarity of youth." Sir Joshua Reynolds remarked, “ Sir, I think wine is very useful, as well as pleasant; I am sure that moderate drinking makes people talk better." "No, sir," replies the Doctor; "wine gives not light, gay, ideal hilarity, but tumultuous, noisy, clamorous merriment." Boswell, at much risk, now slips in his word: "You must allow, sir, at least, that it produces truth, in vino veritas. A man who is well warmed with wine