CATALOGUE OF SOURCES.

ADDISON, JOSEPH-The Essayist of the "Spectator;" born 1632; died 1708. Addison, though one of the most celebrated of English humorists, wrote scarcely a line of humorous verse.

See p. 538.

ALLINGHAM, WILLIAM-An American writer; contributor to "Putnam's Magazine;" author of a volume of poems recently published in Hartford. See p. 70.

ANONYMOUS-To Punch's Almanac, for 1856, we are indebted for an account of this prolific writer:

Of ANON," says Punch, "but little is known, though his works are excessively numerous. He has dabbled in every thing. Prose and Poetry are alike familiar to his pen. One moment he will be up the highest flights of philosophy, and the next he will be down in some kitchen garden of literature, culling an Enormous Gooseberry, to present it to the columns of some provincial newspaper. His contributions are scattered wherever the English language is read. Open any volume of Miscellanies at any place you will, and you are sure to fall upon some choice little bit signed by 'Anon.' What a mind his must have been! It took in every thing like a pawnbroker's shop. Nothing was too trifling for its grasp. Now he was hanging on to the trunk of an elephant and explaining to you how it was more elastic than a pair of India-rubber braces; and next he would be constructing a suspension bridge with a series of monkey's tails, tying them together as they do pocket-handkerchiers in the gallery of a theater when they want to fish up a bonnet that has fallen into the pit.

"Anon is one of our greatest authors. If all the things which are signed with Anon's name were collected on rows of shelves, he would require a British Museum all to himself. And yet of this great man so little is known that we are not even acquainted with his Christian name. There is no certificate of baptism, no moldy tombstone, no musty washing-bill in the world on which we can hook the smallest line of speculation whether it was John, or James,

or Joshua, or Tom, or Dick, or Billy Anon. Shame that a man should write so much, and yet be known so little. Oblivion uses its snuffers, sometimes, very unjustly. On second thoughts, perhaps, it is as well that the works of Anon were not collected together. His reputation for consistency would not probably be increased by the collection. It would be found that frequently he had contradicted himself-that in many instances when he had been warmly upholding the Christian white of a question he had afterward turned round, and maintained with equal warmth the Pagan black of it. He might often be discovered on both sides of a truth, jumping boldly from the right side over to the wrong, and flinging big stones at any one who dared to assail him in either position. Such double-sidedness would not be pretty, and yet we should be lenient to such inconsistencies. With one who had written so many thousand volumes, who had twirled his thoughts as with a mop on every possible subject, how was it possible to expect any thing like consistency? How was it likely that he could recollect every little atom out of the innumerable atoms his pen had heaped up?

"Anon ought to have been rich, but he lived in an age when piracy was the fashion, and when booksellers walked about, as it were, like Indian chiefs, with the skulls of the authors they had slain, hung round their necks. No wonder, therefore, that we know nothing of the wealth of Anon. Doubtless he died in a garret, like many other kindred spirits, Death being the only score out of the many knocking at his door that he could pay. But to his immortal credit let it be said he has filled more libraries than the most generous patrons of literature. The volumes that formed the fuel of the barbarians' bonfire at Alexandria would be but a small book-stall by the side of the octavos, quartos, and duodecimos he has pyramidized on our book-shelves. Look through any catalogue you will, and you will find that a large proportion of the works in it have been contributed by Anon. The only author who can in the least compete with him in fecundity is Ibid." See pp. 569, 570, 571, 572, 584, 587, 646.

ANTI-JACOBIN, THE-Perhaps the most famous collection of Political Satires extant. Originated by Canning in 1797, it appeared in the form of a weekly newspaper, interspersed with poetry, the avowed object of which was to expose the vicious doctrines of the French Revolution, and to hold up to ridicule and contempt the advocates of that event, and the sticklers for peace and parliamentary reform. The editor was William Gifford, the vigorous and unscrupulous critic and poetaster the writers, Mr. John Hookham Frere, Mr. Jenkinson (afterward Earl of Liverpool); Mr. George

Ellis, Lord Clare, Lord Mornington (afterward Marquis Wellesley), Lord Morpeth (afterward Earl of Carlisle), Baron Macdonald, and others. These gentlemen spared no means, fair or foul, in their attempts to blacken their adversaries. Their most distinguished countrymen, if opposed to the Tory government of the time being, were treated with no more respect than foreign adversaries, and were held up to public execration as traitors, blasphemers, and debauchees. The period was one of great political excitement, a fierce war with republican France being in progress, the necessity for which divided the public into two great parties; national credit being affected, the Bank of England suspending cash payments, mutinies breaking out in the fleets at Spithead and the Nore, and Ireland at the verge of rebellion. Spain, also, had declared war against Britain, which was thus left to contend singly against the power of France. Party feeling running very high, the anti-Jacobins were by no means discriminating in their attacks, associating men together who really had nothing in common. Hence the reader is surprised to find Charles Lamb and other non-intruders into politics, figuring as congenial conspirators with Tom Paine. Fox,. Sheridan, Erskine, and other eloquent liberals of the day, with Tierney, Horne Tooke, and Coleridge were at the same time writing and talking in the opposite extreme, and little quarter was given certainly none on the part of the Tory wits. The poetry of the "Anti-Jacobin," however, was not exclusively political, comprising also parodies and burlesques on the current literature of the day, some being of the highest degree of merit, and distinguished by sharp wit and broad humor of the happiest kind. In these, Canning and his coadjutors did a real service to letters, and assisted in a purification which Gifford, by his demolition of the Della Cruscan school of poetry had so well begun. Perhaps no lines in the English language have been more effective or oftener quoted than Canning's "Friend of Humanity and the Knife Grinder." Many of the celebrated caricatures of Gilray were originally designed to illustrate the Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin. It had, however, but a brief, though brilliant existence. Wilberforce and others of the more moderate supporters of the ministry became alarmed at the boldness of the language employed. Pitt (himself a contributor to the journal), was induced to interfere, and after a career of eight months, the "Anti-Jacobin" (in its original form), ceased to be. See pp. 384, 386, 387.

AYTOUN, WILLIAM-Professor of Polite Literature in the Edinburg University: editor of "Blackwood's Magazine:" son-in-law of the late Professor Wilson. Professor Aytoun was bred to the bar, but, we believe, never came into practice. He is the author of

several humorous pieces, and of many in which the intention to be humorous was not realized. He is what the English call a very clever man. Like many others who excel in ridicule and sarcasm, he is devoid of that kind of moral principle which makes a writer prefer the Just to the Dashing. Aytoun is a fierce Tory in politics-a snob on principle. The specimens of his humorous poetry contained in this collection were taken from the "Ballads of Bon Gaultier," and the "Idées Napoléoniennes," editions of both of which have been published in this country. See pp. 181, 345, 347, 503, 504, 506, 507, 510, 511, 512, 513, 514, 516, 576.

BARHAM, REV. RICHARD HARRIS-Author of the celebrated "Ingoldsby Legends," published originally in "Bentley's Miscel lany," afterward collected and published in three volumes, with a memoir by a son of the author.

Mr. Barham was born at Canterbury, England, December 6th, 1788. His family is of great antiquity, having given its name to the well-known Barham Downs," between Dover and Canterbury. He was educated at St. Paul's School in Canterbury, where he made the acquaintance of Richard Bentley, who afterward became his publisher. From this school, he went to Oxford, entering Brazennose College, as a gentleman commoner, where he met Theodore Hook, and formed a friendship with that prince of wits which terminated only with Hook's life. At the University, Barham led a wild, dissipated life-as the bad custom then was-and was noted as a wit and good fellow. Being called to account, on one occasion, by his tutor for his continued absence from morning prayer, Barham replied,

"The fact is, sir, you are too late for me."

"Too late?" exclaimed the astonished tutor.

"Yes, sir," rejoined the student, "I can not sit up till seven o'clock in the morning. I am a man of regular habits, and unless I get to bed by four or five, I am fit for nothing the next day."

The tutor took this jovial reply seriously, and Barham perceiving that he was really wounded, offered a sincere apology, and afterward attended prayers more regularly.

Entering the church, he devoted himself to his clerical duties with exemplary assiduity, and obtained valuable preferment, rising at length to be one of the Canons of St. Paul's Cathedral. This office brought him into relations with Sydney Smith, with whom, though Barham was a Tory, he had much convivial intercourse.

Very early in life Mr. Barham became an occasional contributor to Blackwood's Magazine, then in the prime of its vigorous youth. The series of contributions called "Family Poetry," which appear in the volumes for 1823, and subsequent years, were by him. Most