Numberless are seen the ways That she fascinates our gaze; Magic arts her power improve, Witcheries that wait on Love.

"Though the situation of Mount Edgecumbe be confessedly more beautiful than Shenstone's Leasowes, taste would lead many men to prefer the latter as more pleasing; and at the time when true perfection of female beauty appeared among us in the form of Maria Gunning,* I well remember hearing men say that other women might justly be preferred to her as pleasing, and perhaps graceful too, in a far more eminent degree; and so true was the observation, that her inferiors made it their amusement to steal away lovers from her who commanded admiration they had no chance to attain."

"The late Earl of Erroll, dressed in his robes at the coronation of George the Third,† and Mrs. Siddons in the character of Murphy's Euphrasia, were the noblest specimens of the human race I ever saw. While he, looking like Jove's own son Sarpedon, as described by Homer, and she looking like radiant Truth, led by the withered hand of hoary Time, seemed alone fit to be sent out to some distant planet for the purpose of shewing its inhabitants to what a race of exalted creatures God had been pleased to give this earth as a possession."

* Afterwards the beautiful " Lady Co ventry." See Walpole's Letters passim' and Correspondence of George Selwyn; also the Gentleman's Magazine 1831, vol. CI. ii. 585.-ED.

James thirteenth Earl of Erroll succeeded 1758, died 1778. His biographer relates this anecdote: "At the coronation of George III. in 1761, his lordship officiated as hereditary Constable of Scotland; and neglecting, by accident, to pull off his cap when the King entered, he apologised for his negligence in the most respectful manner; but his Majesty with great complacency entreated him to be covered, for he looked on his presence at the solemnity as a very particular honour." (Douglas's Peerage, by Wood.) The reason of the King's complaisant speech was because the Constable was the son of the Earl of Kilmarnock, who had joined the rebellion of 1745, and was beheaded in 1746, on Tower Hill.-ED.

I am

"With regard to mere grace, not sure which produces most pleasing sensations in the beholder-which, in a word, gives most delight-well varied or nicely studied elegance, carried to perfection by an inferior form, as in the younger Vestris; or that free, natural charm resulting from a symmetric figure put into easy motion by pleasure or surprise, as I have seen in the late Lady Coventry. To both attesting spectators have often manifested their just admiration by repeated bursts of applause, particularly to the Countess, who, calling for her carriage one night at the theatre-I saw her-stretched out her arm with such a peculiar, such inimitable manner, as forced a loud and sudden clap from all the pit and galleries, which she, conscious of her charms, delighted to increase and prolong, glancing round with a familiar smile toward the enraptured company.‡

For she was fair beyond their brightest bloom,

This Envy owns, since now her bloom is fled; Fair as the forms which, wove in Fancy's loom, Float in bright vision o'er the poet's head. Whene'er with sweet serenity she smil'd,

Or caught the overt blush of quick surprise, How sweetly mutable! how brightly wild! The living lustre darted from her eyes. Each look, each motion, wak'd a new-born grace That o'er her form a transient glory cast; Some lovelier wonder soon usurp'd the place, Chas'd by a charm still lovelier than the last.§

In her description alone might then all our Synonomy be happily engaged; and truly might we say, that her unrivalled, her consummate beauty, was the effect of perfect symmetry, spontaneously producing grace irresistible; although her mien and carriage had less of dignity than sweetness in it; and the expression of her countenance, illuminated by the brightest tints, although lovelily mutable,-as Mason says, in verses alone worthy of the original,-was always the expression

A singular and curious anecdote. Though Walpole mentions many a triumph effected by the beauty of Lady Coventry and her sister, he has recorded none so great as this.-ED.

§ These verses are from Mason's Elegy on the death of Lady Coventry. She died in 1760, in her 29th year. Anecdotes of her in her illness may be seen in Walpole's Correspondence, and portraits of her at Croome in Worcestershire.-ED.

of pleasure felt, or pleasure given. Her dress was seldom chosen with elegance, as I remember; and I recollect no splendour, except of general beauty, about her."

Of the words before us. An Italian would soon find out that a dirty postillion vaunted of his horsemanship; while an honest Hanoverian would see nothing in the late pompous accounts of Abyssinia given by a modern traveller of eminence but that the writer was a pragging fellow,* just as he would say of Sir Sampson Legend in Congreve's Love for Love, who, to fright old Foresight, says, "I know the length of the Emperor of China's foot, have kissed the Great Mogul's slipper, and rode a hunting on an elephant with the Cham of Tartary. Why, body o' me, man! I have made a cuckold of a king, and the present Majesty of Bantam is the issue of these loins!" Such boasts as these are, at the best, only contemptible; but the word 'puff" is come into discredit for dishonesty of late, since, from the newspaper trick of calling undeserved attention to violet soap, or other equally paltry commodities, we have adopted the term-Puff."

"His study, with what authors is it stor❜d? In backs, not authors, curious is my lord. To all their dated backs he turns you round, These Aldus printed, those De Sueil has bound. For to know the booksellers' marks about fifty years ago was a kind of learning in itself, and many contented themselves in collecting volumes curious only in their exterior from bearing the exergue or symbolical devices by which the exquisite workmanship of Morel, or Fabricius, or, above all, the celebrated Aldus Manucius, was acknowledged. Morel gave the mulberry tree, being expressive of his name; as Voconeus Vitulus, Mintmaster at Rome, marked his arms on the reverse with a calf. But I was senseless enough never to inquire what relation the

It was the fashion of that day to disbelieve Bruce, and doubt the veracity of his descriptions of Abyssinia; the truth of his narrative has, however, been vindicated, and the value of his work established.-ED.

anchor and dolphin has to Aldus Manucius, although Count Manucci, who perhaps at this day gives the same arms, went with me to the Laurentian Library at Florence, when I had so good an opportunity of informing myself. I did learn the falsehood of what Scaliger advances, that Erasmus corrected the press for him; the librarian told me it was a gross mistake. De Sueil was a French abbé, who, about the beginning of the tenth century, carried to great perfection the art of gold ornamenting, or, as they then called it, antiquing of books, to which custom Mr. Pope alludes. At Salzburg, in Prussia, a bookseller was long, and, as far as I could learn, is still, distinguished from the vulgar and mechanical trades, and is exempted (which the modern booksellers would probably value more than empty honours) from paying dues, taxes, and impositions laid on the trading companies; while Francis the First, who loved letters, and I believe expired in the arms of Guicciardini [!!]† for whose works he had a prodigious value, brought the booksellers under his own immediate authority, and granted the art statutes himself."

"Lord Peterborough endured the painful operation of lithotomy without shrinking or fainting, having previously stipulated that he should not be bound; and, though free, he never impeded the surgeons, but turned by their direction to receive each pang they were obliged to inflict."

"Brood-clutch-flock.-Mr. Addison, who was more an elegant author than good naturalist, teaches in his Spectator to say a brood of ducks when he expresses his admiration of the providence by which all the works of heaven are governed; and he is the best language master; though that very paper betrays the little skill with which he looked on such matters in a thousand instances."

(To be continued.)

This is a new version of the story of Francis the First and Titian, which also is without any historical authority.-ED.