singularly violent: he published several pieces, in prose and verse, and among these the Terræ Filius, reflecting strongly on the discipline of the University, and on the characters of its members.

Our author's expulsion took place about the year 1720, and, shortly after this event, he fixed in London, where he supported himself by the labours of his pen. He was a zealous Whig, and an inveterate enemy to the clergy of high-church principles; he entered with alacrity, therefore, into a warfare against priestly power and tory politics; his "Convocation," a poem in five cantos, was written in defence of Bishop Hoadley; and he conducted "The Craftsman," with uncommon popularity and success, in opposition to the measures of Sir Robert Walpole. He was, nevertheless, cruelly neglected by his party, when, in the year 1742, they were admitted into power; an instance of ingratitude which so affected his health and spirits, that he survived the shock but a few months, and expired at Twickenham on April 27th, 1742, a martyr to his dependence on the promises of the great. "Poor Amhurst!" exclaims his friend Mr. Ralph, “after having been the drudge of his party for the best part of twenty years together, was as much forgotten in the famous compromise of 1742, as if he had never been born! and when he died of

what is called a broken heart, which happened within a few months afterwards, became indebted to the charity of his very Bookseller for a grave; not to be traced now, because then no otherwise to be distinguished, than by the freshness of the turf, borrowed from the next common to cover it." This worthy bookseller was Mr. Richard Franklin, of Russel-street, Covent Garden, our author's printer and publisher. Mr. Amhurst was a man of powerful talents, but of strong passions; his imprudencies were many, and his morals not correct; but nothing can justify the base desertion of his employers, who ascended to power through the medium of his exertions.

The Terra Filius is a sharp and too frequently a virulent satire on the statutes, the manners, and the politics of the University of Oxford: many faults and glaring inconsistencies are pointed out; but mixed with so much personal invective, and gross scurrility, as to defeat the salutary purposes which the author might have in view. For the title which he has given to his paper he thus accounts in his first number. "It has till of late," says he," been a custom, from time immemorial, for one of our family, who was called Terræ Filius, to mount the Rostrum at Oxford at certain seasons, and divert an innumerable crowd of spectators, who flocked thither to hear him

from all parts, with a merry oration in the Fescennine manner, interspersed with secret history, raillery, and sarcasm, as the occasions of the times supplied him with matter. Something like this jovial solemnity were the famous Saturnalian feasts among the Romans." And in his second essay he declares, that he shall not confine himself to any particular method, "but shall be grave or whimsical, serious or ludicrous, prosaical or poetical, philosophical or satirical, argue or tell stories, weep over his subject, or laugh over it, be in humour or out of humour, according to whatever passion is uppermost in his breast." It must be conceded, that the character which he has chosen is not ill supported; there is much wit and humour in the work, with several curious anecdotes, and there is also a plentiful portion of the coarseness and vulgarity of the Saturnalia.* One great object of the work is, to reprobate the attachment of the University

*Nos. 15 and 16 of Terra Filius contain a severe attack

upon Mr. Warton, then professor of poetry, and father of the late Laureat, for preaching, as the author supposed, a masqued sermon in favour of the exiled family; and Nos. 25 and 26 exhibit a very ludicrous description of a poetical club and its laws, of which the poetical professor is constituted president. Mr. Warton was a worthy and amiable man, and these papers display in a striking light the virulence and exaggeration of Amhurst.

to the Stuarts, and to prove that his own perse→ cution and expulsion originated from his zeal in support of the House of Hanover.

The Terra Filius was published twice a week, commencing on Wednesday, January 11th, 1721, and concluding with the fiftieth number on Saturday, July 6th, of the same year. A second edition, now before me, appeared in 1726, in two vols. 12mo, with a preface; a dedication to Dr. Mather, President of Corpus Christi College, and Vice-Chancellor; and an Appendix, addressed to Dr. Newton, Principal of Hart-Hall, and occasioned by his book entitled University Education.

24. MIST'S JOURNAL, A SELECTION FROM. A re-publication of Essays which had originally been printed in a Newspaper with this title, and which was undertaken to oppose the government of George I, and the claims of the protestant succession. Some of these essays, which include manners as well as politics, possess merit; they form 2 vols. 12mo, and appeared in 1722.

25. PASQUIN. This paper, whose title is taken from the celebrated statue in Rome (Pasquino,) to which the people are accustomed to affix lampoons and satires, was written in defence of government. It started in January, 1723, was published twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, and, about six months after its commencement,

entered into a controversy with the True Briton Its literary merit is not great; and, being confined to temporary and political topics, it is now no longer remembered.

26. THE TRUE BRITON. Of this publication, which was written in opposition to the measures of Administration, and in defence of Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, the profligate Duke of Wharton was the author. It displays abilities which might have been rendered serviceable to his country, but which debauchery, and want of all principle, either stifled or directed into a wrong channel. The True Briton was published twice a week, and several thousands of each number were regularly dispersed; it began on June 3d, 1723, and, having reached the seventy-fourth number, closed on February 17th, 1724. A portion of it has been re-printed in two volumes octavo.

27. THE HUMOURIST. The period to which these papers in their single state* ought to be ascribed, I am not able to ascertain. The first volume of my copy, which is in 12mo, and the third edition, is dated 1724; and the second, owing to the encouragement which the former collection had received, appeared in 1725. The

*The author says in his preface, that they had already appeared abroad singly, and, being well received, the bookseller was encouraged to gather them into a volume.