With the late Mr. Bicknel, then a barrister in considerable practice, and of taintless reputation, and several years older than himself, Mr. Day lived on terms of intimate friendship. Credentials were procured of Mr. Day's moral probity, and with them, on his coming of age, these two friends journied to Shrewsbury to explore the hospital in that town for foundling girls. From the little train, Mr. Day, in the presence of Mr. Bicknell, selected two of twelve years each, both beautiful: one fair, with flaxen locks and light eyes; her he called Lucretia. The other, a clear auburn brunette, with darker eyes, more glowing bloom, and chesnut tresses, he named Sabrina.

These girls were obtained on written conditions, for the performance of which Mr. Bicknel was guarantee. They were to this effect: that Mr. Day should, within the twelvemonth after taking them, resign one into the protection of some reputable tradeswoman, giving 100l. to bind her apprentice; maintaining her, if she behaved well, till she married, or began business for herself. Upon either of these events, he promised to advance 4001. more. He. avowed his intention of educating the girl he should retain, with a view to make her his future wife; solemnly engaged never to violate her innocence; and, if he should renounce his plan, to maintain her decently in some creditable family till she married, when he promised 5001. as her wedding portion.

Mr. Day went instantly into France with these girls; not taking an English servant, that they might receive no ideas except those which himself might choose to impart. They teazed and perplexed him; they quarrelled and fought incessantly; they sickened of the small-pox; they chained him to their bed-side by crying and screaming, if they were even left a moment with any person who could not speak to them in English. He was obliged to sit up with them many nights, to perform for them the lowest offices of assistance.

They lost no beauty by their disease. Soon after they had recovered, crossing the Rhone with his wards in a tempestuous day, the boat overset. Being an excellent swimmer, he saved them both, though with difficulty and danger to himself.

Mr. Day came back to England in eight months, heartily glad to separate the little squabblers. Sabrina was become the favourite. He placed the fair Lucretia with a chamber milliner. She behaved well, and became the wife of a respectable linen-draper in London, On his return to his native country, he entrusted Sabrina to the care of Mr. Bicknel's mother, with whom she resided some months in a

N-VOL. XVIII.

country village, while he settled his affairs at his own mansion-house, from which he promised not to remove his mother.

The fame of Dr. Darwin's talents had allured Mr. Day to Lichfield: thither he led, in the spring of the year 1770, the beauteous Sabrina, then thirteen years old; and taking a twelve-month's possession of the pleasant mansion in Stow Valley, resumed his preparations for implanting in her young mind the characteristic virtues of Arria, Portia, and Cornelia. His experiments had not the success he wished and expected. Her spirit could not be armed against the dread of pain, and the appearance of danger. When he dropped melted sealing-wax upon her arms, she did not endure it heroically; nor when he fired pistols at her petticoats, which she believed to be charged with balls, could she help starting aside, or suppress her screams. When he tried her fidelity in secret-keeping, by telling her of well-invented dangers to himself, in which greater danger would result from its being discovered that he was aware of them, he once or twice detected her having imparted them to the servants, and to her play-fellows. She betrayed an averseness to the study of books, and of the rudiments of science, which gave little promise of ability, that should one day be responsible for the education of youths, who were to emulate the Gracchi.

Thus, after a series of fruitless trials, Mr. Day renounced all hope of moulding Sabrina into the being his imagination had formed, and ceasing to behold her as his future wife, he placed her at a boarding-school in Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire; and, in her 26th year, she married Mr. Bicknel, the friend of Mr. Day, since whose death she has lived as housekeeper with the learned Dr. Charles Burney, of Greenwich.

SELECT SENTENCES.

When Socrates passed through shops of toys and ornaments, he cried out, "How many things are here which I do not need?" The same exclamation may every man make who surveys the common accommodations of life!

Physicians tell us, that there is a great deal of difference between taking a medicine, and the medicine getting into the constitution. A difference not unlike which obtains with respect to those great moral propositions which ought to form the directing principles of human conduct. It is one thing to assent to a proposition of this sort; another, and a very different thing, to have properly imbibed its influence.

Q. Z.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE.

Qui monet quasi adjuvat.

The Lives of the Scotish Poets; with preliminary Dissertations on the Literary History of Scotland, and the early Scotish Drama. By David Irving, A. M. in two Volumes, 8vo. 18s. Lawrie and Co. Edinburgh; Vernor and Hood, London; 1804.

THIS work is honourable to the author and to his country: to the author, as a man of learning, industry, and candour; to his country, as a more intelligent digest of its poetical and literary history than had before been drawn together.

The preliminary dissertation on the literature of Scotland, occupies nearly half of the first volume, and comprises a summary statement of its scholastic ornaments from St. Columba to Dr. Geddes, deduced from a copious survey of ancient and modern authorities. The diligent research, and ingenuous discrimination of the author, will appear from the following extracts.

"Scotland, after its conversion, is said to have made rapid advances in every branch of knowledge: but it is more than probable, that a large portion of the praise bestowed on this country is due to Ireland. Among other Scotishmen, who are said to have flourished during the early ages, our historians have unanimously classed Johannes Scotus Erigena. But, on the other hand, the English and the Irish writers have, with equal zeal, preferred the claims of their respective countries. The arguments of each party chiefly consist of etymological strictures on his name. Dempster contends, that Erigena signifies a native of Ayr:* but he ought previously to have enquired, whether this Scotish town was founded so early as the ninth century. Ware and Ledwich have, with higher probability, represented him as an Irishman. He is commonly designated Scotus, that is, a native of Scotia or Ireland: for it was not till the eleventh century

* Dempsteri Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum, p. 42. Bononiæ, 1627, 4to. + A folio edition of Erigena De Divisione Naturæ was published at Oxford so lately as the year 1681. Specimens of his prose and verse may be found in Usher's Veterum Epistolarum Hibernicarum Sylloge. Dublin, 1632, 4to. The following MSS. are mentioned by Philip Labbe: "Joannis Scoti Expositio in Martianum Capellam ;" Disputatio Abbatis Theodori Græci cum Joanne Scoto." (Nova Bibliotheca MSS. Librorum, p. 45. 90. Paris. 1653, 4to.) Erigena was formerly denominated Gloria Græcorum, or the Glory of the Greeks; an appellation to which, in the opinion of Montfaucon, he was not sufficiently entitled. (Palæographia Græca, p. 42.) His translations from Dionysius Areopagita are however commended by an excellent critic: "Johannis Erigenæ, in exponendo Dionysio, industriam pauci omnino adæ. quarunt: studet ille sententiis, assectatur verba, ordinem tenet'; nec pro ætate illa barbarus est tamen, vel indisertus." (Huetius de Interpretatione, p. 154.)

century that the name of Scotland was applied to the country by which it is now exclusively retained.*

"To support the honour of Scotland, many other eminent names have been pilfered. Ailred, Sedulius, Rabanus Maurus, and Claudius Clemens, if we may credit various of our writers, were all natives of one country; and that country is Scotland. Yet, to an unprejudiced enquirer, it will perhaps appear sufficiently evident, that the first was an Englishman, the second an Irishman, the third a German,† and the fourth a Spaniard. Of the name of Sedulius, however, there were two different writers; whom Archbishop Usher, departing from his wonted accuracy, has confounded with each other.‡

"The most ancient author, who can with apparent justice be claimed as a native of Scotland, is Richard, prior of St. Victor at Paris; a celebrated theologian, who flourished about the middle of the twelfth century. That he was born in Scotland is without hesitation affirmed by the author of the biographical sketch prefixed to an edition of his works, published by the canons regular of the monastery over which he had presided.§ His compositions are numerous, and display vestiges of profound scholastic knowledge.

"Adam, a canon regular of the order of Premonstratenses, died about the year 1180; Richard of St. Victor died in the year 1173. The former of these writers is frequently mentioned in literary history by the name of Adamus, Scotus. Some of his works, which relate to theology, are still preserved : collections of them having been published at Paris and Antwerp."||

Mr. Irving proceeds with similar impartiality of inquiry to investigate the claims of his country to the early philosophers and schoolmen, John Holybush, Michael Scot, John Duns Scotus, Francis Mayron, John Bassol, and John Suisset; after which he has recourse to the poetical phalanx of Scotish writers, in order to exemplify, with more precision, the progress of literary taste among his compatriots. This examination is conducted with a comprehensive brevity, from the earliest ages to the period of the union; and the influence of that event on the national genius of Scotland, is described in the forcible words of Dr. Robertson.¶ Mr. I. then combats, with considerable force, the unqualified assertions of the eccentric Pinkerton, that "not one writer, who does the least credit to the nation, flourished from 1615 to 1715, excepting Burnet: in * Usserii Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates, p. 734. Dublin, 1639, 4to. + Fabricii Bibliotheca Latina Mediæ et Infimæ Etatis, tom. vi. p. 25. edit. Patavii.

Usserii Britannic. Eccles. Antiq. p. 771.

M. Richardi S. Victoris Parisiensis Doctoris Præclarissimi Opera. Rothomagi, 1650, 2 tom. fol.--- His works had also been printed at Paris in 1518 and 1540, at Venice in 1592, and at Cologne in 1621.

Cave, Historia Literaria, p. 679.

History of Scotland, vol. iii. p, 196.

particular no poet whose works merit preservation arose." The latter of these assertions was belied by Mr. Pinkerton's own estimate of the "exquisite genius of Drummond," in his list of Scotish poets; and the former is disproved by Mr. Irving's reference to Napier, the celebrated inventor of the logarithms, " to whom," says David Hume, "the title of a great man is more justly due than to any other that his country has ever produced."

Mr. I. goes on to enumerate and to appreciate the most distinguished writers of Latin poetry among the scholars of Scotland; and rectifies two casual errors into which the learned Wasse had fallen in his “Memorial concerning the Desiderata in Learning.” He also challenges Mr. Chalmers (p. 102.) with being guilty of considerable inaccuracy, in affirming that Wedderburn of Aberdeen had the honour of instructing Dr. Arthur Johnston; and, in another place, (p. 161.) subverts a correction offered by the same critic, that George Logan was not the nephew of Alexander Cunnyngham. As truth should be the prevailing object in every literary disquisition, we point out these revisional emendata for the observation of studious readers. Mr. I. in his enumeration of Scotian writers addicted to Latin poetry, seems to have overlooked John Dunbar, who, in his Epigrammata, 1616, pointed out another unnoticed poet, John Douglas. Ninian Paterson of Glasgow, whose Latin epigrams and versions of the Psalms were published at Edinburgh in 1678, highly extols another forgotten bard, in his tribute *D. Henrico Henrisono medico, et poetæ celeberrimo.”

Nor are other branches of literature neglected or slightingly observed in these annals of Scotish erudition. From professor Bellenden to bishop Burnet, Mr. I. pursues his attentive and dispassionate career through the political and historical galaxy of writers in North Britain. The task of appreciating the merits of the Scotish mathematicians he leaves to some more able investigator; but expatiates freely among the theologians, and affords a biographical breviary of the heads of the universities; which he continues to the final union of the two kingdoms in 1707---an æra, he observes, whence "we may date the prosperity of Scotland."

"The muses," (he continues)" as their votaries have often declared, love dignified tranquillity. The increasing opulence of the nation, and its happy coalescence with England, have afforded our countrymen a more favourable opportunity of exercising their native ingenuity; and the experience of another