April 16.

On the 16th of April, 1717, died Richard Guinnet, esq., of Great Huntingdon, Gloucestershire, who had been educated at Christ-church, Oxford, under Dr. Gastrell, and entered of the Middle Temple; whence, from ill health, he retired into the country, and abandoned his profession. He was an admirer of Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas, the subject of the next notice, but their union was suspended from prudential motives. After waiting sixteen years, and when Dr. Garth had pronounced he could not survive, he urged his immediate marriage with the lady. She told him, to prevent his importunity, she would be his in six months. He replied, with a deep sigh, "Ah! madam, six months now are as much as sixteen years have been; you put it off, now, and God will do it for ever." The poor gentleman retired to his seat in the country, made has will, and left Mrs. Thomas £600; and sorrow was her "food ever after:" he died within the six months. He was a man of piety, prudence, and temperance, and author of a little piece, entituled " An Essay on the Mischief of giving Fortunes with Women in Marriage," 1727, 12mo., and of various poems, interspersed in the me noirs of Pylades and Corinna.

Mrs. Thomas was the child of a lady who, after living in all the luxury of forensic splendor, was obliged, in widowhood, to shelter herself and her only child in obscurity. The dowager lady Wentworth losing her daughter Harriot, the zistress of the ill-fated duke of Monmouth, said to the mother of Mrs. Thomas, "I am indebted to your late husband; but I know not, nor you, how much; for his books were, I find, burnt in the fire which happened in his chambers in the Temple. Let me do better than pay you; let your daughter be my adopted child." The separation was abhorrent to maternal feelings, and lady Wentworth would hear no apologies, but, dying in a few years, left an estate in Stepney, of £1500 per annum to her chambermaid. The mother of Mrs. Thomas fell a victim to an adventurer, who spent the wreck of her fortune, which had only been £1000, in attempting to transmute the common metals into gold. She was prevailed on to take an elegant house in Bloomsbury, where, under the familiar names of Jack, and Tom, Will, and Ned, the dukes of Devon, Bucking

ham, Dorset, and other noblemen met, to concert the expulsion of James II. at the risk of their lives and fortunes, and the ruin, if ruin there could be, to Mrs. Thomas and Elizabeth. The revolution made no alteration in the situation of the widow and her daughter, except a profligate offer to the latter, and the promise of a place at court to her lover, Mr. Gwinnet. These proposals were received with indignant contempt. By Mr. Gwinnet's premature death, Elizabeth became entitled to his bequest of £600, but his brother suppressed the will, and tarnished the poor girl's reputation. She finally compromised with him for the receipt of £400. Half of this he paid, and the money was surrendered to her mother's creditors; but he led her from court to court, for the recovery of the remaining £200, until, at the threshold of the house of peers, he paid the money. Besides pecuniary distress, she endured, for several years, great personal misery, from a chicken bone, swallowed inadvertently.

Some letters of Mr. Pope to Mr. Henry Cromwell fell into her hands, and, while in confinement for debt, she sold them to Curl, who published them. This transaction excited Mr. Pope's resentment and vengeance; and she died under his displeasure at wretched lodgings in Fleetstreet, on the 3rd of February, 1730, at the age of 56, and was buried in St. Bride's church. Her memoirs, with the letters between her and Mr. Gwinnet, under the assumed names of Corinna and Pylades, are curious. Dryden humanely commended her verses; and she had been visited by Pope. In her extraordinary history there is much to excite pity for her fate. Her life, though virtuous, was spent in " disappointment, sickness, lawsuits, poverty, and imprisonment;" for though her talents were not above mediocrity, she was flattered by friends, and praised by poets. This stimulated her to "write for the booksellers," and she experienced the hardships of ill-directed drudgery. She might have been happier, had she known how to labor with her hands, and once tasted the fruits of useful industry.*

Edward Ward, commonly called "Ned Ward," was a publican in Moorfields, who wrote many pieces, of much popu

*Noble.

larity in their day. In 1706, for his "Hudibras Redivivus," which reflected upon the queen and the government, he was sentenced to stand twice in the pillory, and to pay forty marks, and give security for good behaviour for a year. Mr. Granger says, "There is in his writings a vulgarity of style and sentiment borrowed from, and adapted to, most of the scenes of low life, in which he was particularly conversant. He mistook pertness and vivacity for wit; and distortion of thought and expression for humor: all which are abundantly exemplified in what he published, both of verse and prose." His best performance is the "London Spy," which Jacob, in his "Lives of the Poets," deservedly complimented as a "celebrated work." In this book there is much of curious detail concerning the manners of the times. Ward died in 1731, at about the age of seventy.

DRESS, TEMP. ANNE.

While speaking of persons who lived in the reign of queen Ann, it may not be out of place to mention the dress of that period, when French fashions were imported, much to the satisfaction of the youthful and gay, though they were greatly disapproved by the aged and sedate.

Gentlemen contracted the size of their wigs, and, for undress, tied up some of the most flowing of their curls. In this state they were called Ramillie wigs, and afterwards tie-wigs; but were never worn in full dress. The cravat had long ends, which fell on the breast; it was generally of point lace; but sometimes only bordered or fringed. The coat had no collar, was long, open at the bottom of the sleeves, and without cuffs, and edged with gold or silver from the top to the bottom, with clasps and buttons the whole length, and at the opening at the sleeve. Young gentlemen often had the sleeves only half way down the arm, and the short sleeve very full and deeply ruffled. An ornamental belt kept the

coat tight at the bottom of the waist. The vest, and lower part of the dress, had little clasps, and was seldom seen. The roll-up stocking came into vogue at this period, and the sandal was much used by the young men; these were finely

Noble.

wrought. Elderly gentlemen had the shoe fastened with small buckles upon the instep; and raised, but not high, heels.

Ladies wore the hair becomingly curled round the face. A flowing coif, or rather veil, of the finest linen, fastened upon the head, and fell behind it. This prevailed till the high projecting head-dress was restored, after it had been discontinued fifteen years. Swift, when dining with Sir Thomas Hanmer, observed the duchess of Grafton with this ungraceful Babel head-dress; she looked, he said, “like a mad woman." The large necklace was still used, though not constantly worn. Ear-rings were discontinued. The bosom was either entirely exposed, or merely shaded by gauze. Most of the silver money of this reign has the royal bust with drapery; the gold pieces are without. The queen commanded that the drapery should appear upon both. The chemise had a tucker or border above the boddice, which was open in front, and fastened with gold or silver clasps or jewellery: the sleeves were full. The large tub hoop made its appearance in this reign. The apology for it was its coolness in summer, by admitting a free circulation of air. Granger says, "it was no more a petticoat, than Diogenes's tub was his breeches." Flounces and furbe

lows prevailed in this reign, and became ridiculously shoes continued in fashion. Ladies and gentlemen had their gloves richly em

broidered.

in her dress, and appears to have made it Queen Ann strictly observed decorum her study. She would often notice the dress of her domestics of either sex, and remark whether a periwig, or the lining of a coat, were appropriate. She once sent for Lord Bolingbroke in haste; and he gave immediate attendance in a Ramillie, or tie, instead of a full bottomed wig, which so offended her majesty, that she said, "I suppose his lordship will come to court, the next time, in his nightcap."

and give him three, four, or five pieces, according as he will take them, as big as peas; then set him some meat mingled with store of ants, that, when he goes to pick up the ants, he may eat some of the heart and egg with it. At first shred three or four meal-worms in his meat, the better to entice him, that so he may eat some of the sheep's heart by little and little, and, when he eats freely, give him less of ants, &c., and, at last, nothing but sheep's heart and egg. You should take some of this meat with you when you go to catch nightingales, and in an hour or two after they are taken force them to eat, by opening the mouth and cramming them. Take care that the meat be not too dry; moisten it by sprinkling a little clean water upon it, as you prepare it. Birds that are long in feeding, and make no "curring" or "sweeting" for eight or ten days, seldom prove good. On the contrary, when they are soon familiar, and sing quickly, and eat of themselves without much trouble, these are sure tokens of their proving excellent birds. Those which feed in a few hours, or the next day after they are taken, and sing in two or three days, never prove bad. Tie the wings no longer than till the bird is grown_tame.*

When nightingales their lulling song

For me have breathed the whole night long,
Thus soothed, I sleep ;-yet, when awake,
Again will joy my heart forsake,
Pensive in love, in sorrow pining,
All other fellowship declining:
Not such was once my blest employ,
When all my heart, my song, was joy.
And none who knew that joy, but well
Could tell how bright, unspeakable,
How far above all common bliss,
Was then my heart's pure happiness;
How lightly on my fancy ranged,
Gay tale and pleasant jest exchanged,
Dreaming such joy must ever be
In love like that I bore for thee.

They that behold me little dream
How wide my spirit soars from them,
And, borne on fancy's pinion, roves
To seek the beauteous form it loves :
Know, that a faithful herald flies
To bear her image to my eyes,
My constant thought, for ever telling
How fair she is, all else excelling.

Bernard de Ventadour.*

• Albin.

Lays of the Minnesingers.

OPINION.

Where there is much desire to learn, there will of necessity be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the waking. Milton.

STUDY AND EDITORSHIP.

Study is a weariness without exercise, a laborious sitting still, that racks the inward and destroys the outward man; that sacrifices health to conceit, and clothes the soul with the spoils of the body; and, like a stronger blast of lightning, not only melts the sword, but consumes the scabbard.

Nature allows man a great freedom, and never gave an appetite but to be instrumental of enjoyment, nor made a desire but in order to the pleasure of its satisfaction. But he that will encrease knowledge must be content not to enjoy, and not only to cut off the extravagances of luxury, but also to deny the lawful demands of convenience, to forswear delight, and look upon pleasure as his mortal enemy.

He must call that study that is indeed confinement; he must converse with solitude; walk, eat, and sleep, thinking; read volumes, devour the choicest authors, and (like Pharaoh's kine), after he has devoured all, look lean and meagre. He must be willing to be sickly, weak, and consumptive; even to forget when he is hungry, and to digest nothing but what he reads.

He must read much, and perhaps meet little; turn over much trash for one grain of truth; study antiquity till he feels the effects of it; and, like the cock in the fable, seek pearls in a dunghill, and, perhaps, rise to it as early. This is

"Esse quod Arcesilas aerumnasique Solones," to be always wearing a meditating countenance, to ruminate, mutter, and talk to a man's self for want of better company; in short, to do all those things which, in other men, are counted madness, but, in a scholar, pass for his profession. -South.