only sitter whom his extravagant pencil could not caricature; for he had a solemn intrepidity of egotism and a daring contempt of absurdity that fairly outfaced imitation, and like Garrick's 'Ode on Shakespeare,' which Johnson said defied criticism, so did George, in the original spirit of his own perfect buffoonery, defy caricature. He never deigned to join in the laugh that he had raised, nor seemed to have a feeling of the ridicule he had provoked. At the same time that he was pre-eminently and by preference the butt and buffoon of the company, he could find openings for hits of retaliation which were such left-handed thrusts as few could parry. Nobody could foresee where they would fall, nobody, of course, was fore-armed; and as there was in his calculation but one super-eminent character in the kingdom of Ireland, and he, the printer of the 'Dublin Journal,' there was no shield against George's arrows, which flew where he listed, and hit or missed as chance directed, he cared not about consequences.

"He gave good meat and excellent claret in abundance; I sate at his table once from dinner till two in the morning, while George swallowed immense potations with one solitary sodden strawberry in the bottom of the glass, which he said was recommended to him for its cooling properties. He never lost his recollection or equilibrium the whole time, and was in excellent foolery; it was a singular coincidence, that there was a person in company who had received his reprieve at the gallows, and the very judge who had passed sentence of death upon him. This did not in the least disturb the harmony of the society nor embarrass any human creature present. All

went off perfectly smooth, and George, adverting to an original portrait of Dean Swift, which hung in the room, told us abundance of excellent and interesting anecdotes of the Dean and himself with minute precision and an importance irresistibly ludicrous. There was also a portrait of his late lady, Mrs. Faulkner, which either made the painter or George a liar, for it was frightfully ugly, whilst he swore she was the most divine object in creation. George prosecuted Foote for lampooning him on the stage of Dublin. His counsel, the Prime Serjeant, compared him to Socrates, and his libeller to Aristophanes. This, I believe, was all that George got by his course of law, but he was told he had the best of the bargain in the comparison, and sate contented under the shadow of his laurels."

The account of Soame Jenyns is no less happy.

"A disagreement about a name or a date will mar the best story that ever was put together. Sir Joshua Reynolds luckily could not hear an interrupter of this sort; Johnson would not hear, or if he heard, would not heed him. Soame Jenyns heard him, heeded him, set him right, and took up his tale where he had left it without any diminution of its humour, adding only a few more twists to his snuffbox, a few more taps upon the lid of it, with a preparatory grunt or two, the invariable forerunner of the amenity that was at the heels of, them. He was the man who bore his part in all societies with the most even temper and undisturbed hilarity of any man I ever knew. He came into your house at the very moment you had put upon your card; he dressed himself, to do your party honour, in all the colours of the jay;

his lace, indeed, had long since lost its lustre, but his coat had faithfully retained its cut since the days when gentlemen wore embroidered figured velvets, with short sleeves, high cuffs, and buckram skirts. As Nature had cast him in the exact mould of an illmade pair of stiff stays, he followed her so close in the fashion of his coat, that it was doubted if he did not wear them; because he had a protuberant wen just under his poll, he wore a wig that did not cover above half his head. His eyes were protruded like the eyes of the lobster, who wears them at the end of his feelers, and yet there was room between one of these and his nose for another wen, that added nothing to his beauty. Yet I heard this good man very innocently remark, when Gibbon published his history, that he wondered anybody so ugly could write a book.

"Such was the exterior of a man who was the charm of the circle, and gave a zest to every company he came into. His pleasantry was of a sort peculiar to himself; it harmonised with everything; it was like the bread to your dinner; you did not, perhaps, make it the whole or principal part of your meal, but it was an admirable and wholesome auxiliary to your other viands. Soame Jenyns told you no long stories, engrossed not much of your attention, and was not angry with those who did. His thoughts were original, and were apt to have a very whimsical affinity to the paradox in them. There was a terseness in

his repartees that had a play of words as well as of thought, as when speaking of the difference of laying out money upon land, or purchasing into the funds, he said, 'One was principal without interest, and the other interest without principal.'

Although the serious part of "The Wheel of Fortune," that is to say, the whole character of Penruddock, is admirably conceived and admirably written (the recollection of John Kemble in that play can never be erased), Mr. Cumberland's power seemed to desert him whenever he attempted tragedy or verse of any sort. His lines on " Affectation," which have great merit, form the only exception that I remember to this assertion; certainly his epic of "Calvary" does not; neither does his share in the "Richard Cœur de Lion," of Sir James Bland Burgess.

AFFECTATION.

Why, Affectation, why this mock grimace ?
Go, silly thing, and hide that simpering face!
Thy lisping prattle, and thy mincing gait,
All thy false mimic fooleries I hate;
For those art Folly's counterfeit, and she
Who is right foolish, hath the better plea:
Nature's true idiot I prefer to thee.

Why that soft languish? Why that drawling tone?
Art sick? art sleepy ?-Get thee hence: begone!

I laugh at all those pretty baby tears,

Those flutterings, faintings, and unreal fears.

Can they deceive us? Can such mummeries mové,
Touch us with pity, or inspire with love?

No, Affectation, vain is all thy art,

Those eyes may wander over every part,

They'll never find their passage to the heart.

A great part of Mr. Cumberland's amusing work is taken up by an account of his disastrous mission in Spain, which, undefined in its object, and unsuccessful in its result, brought nothing but disappointment to the Government or the negotiator. After his return from Madrid, he fell back upon literature, and closed a long and varied life in an advanced age at Tunbridge Wells.

XXII.

FEMALE POETS.

MRS. CLIVE, MRS. ACTON TINDAL, MISS DAY,
MRS. ROBERT DERING.

THERE never was a more remarkable contrast between the temperament of the poetess and the temperament of the woman, than that which exists between the thoughtful gravity, the almost gloomy melancholy that characterise the writings of that celebrated initial letter, the "V." of " Blackwood's Magazine," and the charming, cheerful, light-hearted lady, known as Mrs. Clive. This discrepancy has been acknowledged before now to exist between the tastes and the tempers of nations. The French in their old day, before this last revolution, perhaps before any of their revolutions, the French of our old traditions and our old travellers, the Sternes and the Goldsmiths, with their Watteau pageantries, their dances in the open air, and their patient love of the deepest and most unmingled tragedy, afforded a notable instance of this contrast. But that which is observable in Mrs. Clive's case is still more striking. I have never known any creature half so cheerful. Happy sister, happy mother, happy wife, she even bears the burden of a large fortune and a great house without the slightest diminution of the delightful animal spirits, which always seem to me to be of her many gifts the choicest. Moreover, enjoyment seems to be her mode of thankfulness; as,