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 prefor 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 Miscellany," 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

of those humorous effusions have been transferred to this volume. In 1837 Mr. Bentley established his "Miscellany," and secured the services of his friend Barham, who, up to this time was unknown to the general public, though he had been for nearly twenty years a successful writer. The "Ingoldsby Legends" now appeared in rapid succession, and proved so popular that their author soon became one of the recognized wits of the day. A large number of these unique and excellent productions enrich the present collection. "As respects these poems," says Mr. Barham's biographer, "remarkable as they have been pronounced for the wit and humor which they display, their distinguishing attractions lies in the almost unparalleled flow and felicity of the versification. Popular phrases, sentences the most prosaic, even the cramped technicalities of legal diction, and snatches from well-nigh every language, are wrought in with an apparent absence of all art and effort that surprises, pleases, and convulses the reader at every turn. The author triumphs with a master hand over every variety of stanza, however complicated or exacting; not a word seems out of place, not an expression forced; syllables the most intractable, and the only partners fitted for them throughout the range of language are coupled together as naturally as those kindred spirits which poets tell us were created pairs, and dispersed in space to seek out their particular mates. A harmony pervades the whole, a perfect modulation of numbers, never, perhaps, surpassed, and rarely equaled in compositions of their class. This was the forte of Thomas Ingoldsby; a harsh line or untrue rhyme grated on his ear like the Shandean hinge." These observations are just. As a rhymer, Mr. Barham has but one equal in English literature-Byron.

Mr. Barham died at London on the 17th of June, 1845, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. He was an extremely amiable, benevolent character. It does not appear that his love of the humorous was ever allowed to interfere with the performance of his duties as a clergyman. Without being a great preacher, he was a faithful and kindly pastor, never so much in his element as when ministering to the distresses, or healing the differences of his parishioners. Unlike his friend, Sydney Smith, he was singularly fond of the drama, and for many years was a member of the Garrick Club. He was one of the few English writers of humorous verse, all of whose writings may be read aloud by a father to his family, and in whose wit there was no admixture of gall. See pp. 41, 44, 125, 129, 136, 146, 156, 164, 282, 287, 417, 418, 419, 568, 569.

"BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY"-A London Monthly Magazine, founded about twenty years ago by Mr. Bentley, the publisher. Charles

Dickens, and the author of the Ingoldsby Legends were among the first contributors. See p. 576.

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE-First appeared in April, 1817. Founded by William Blackwood, a shrewd Edinburgh bookseller. Its literary ability and fierce political partisanship, soon placed it foremost in the ranks of Tory periodicals. Perhaps no magazine has ever achieved such celebrity, or numbered such a host of illustrious contributors. John Wilson, the world-famous "Christopher North," was the virtual, though not nominal editor, Blackwood himself retaining that title. It would be a long task to enumerate all, who, from the days of Sir Walter Scott and the Ettrick Shepherd, to those of Bulwer and Charles Mackay, have appeared in its columns. Maginn, Lockhart, Gillies, Moir, Landor, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, Bowles, Barry Cornwall, Gleig, Hamilton, Aird, Sym, De Quincey, Allan Cunningham, Mrs. Hemans, Jerrold, Croly, Warren, Ingoldsby (Barham), Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Milnes, and many others, of scarcely less note, found in Blackwood scope for their productions, whether of prose or verse. In its early days much of personality and sarcasm marked its pages, savage onslaughts on Leigh Hunt, and "the Cockney School of Literature,” alternating with attacks on the Edinburgh Review, the Quarterly, and all Whigs and Whig productions whatever. The celebrated Noctes Ambrosianæ, a series of papers containing probably more learning, wit, eloquence, eccentricity, humor, and personality than have ever appeared elsewhere, formed part of the individuality of Blackwood. They were written by Wilson, Maginn, Lockhart, and Hogg, the two first named (and especially Wilson), having the pre-eminence. To the New York edition of this work, by Dr. Shelton Mackenzie (whose notes contain a perfect mine of information), we refer the reader for further particulars relative to Blackwood. See pp. 410, 412, 414, 587, 588.

BROUGHAM, LORD-The well-known member of the English

House of Peers. It seems, from some jocularities attributed to his lordship, that he adds to his many other claims to distinction that of being a man of wit. See p. 580.

BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN-The most celebrated of American poets. Editor of the "New York Evening Post." Born 1794. See p. 58.

BURNS, ROBERT-Born 1750, died 1796. The best loved, most national, most independent, truest, and greatest of Scottish poets, of whom to say more here were an impertinence. See pp. 25, 243, 246, 247, 551, 552, 553.

BUTLER, SAMUEL-Born in 1612; the son of a substantial farmer in Worcestershire, England. Very little is known of the earlier portion of his life, as he had reached the age of fifty before he was so much as heard of by his cotemporaries. He appears to have received a good education at the cathedral school of his native county, and to have filled various situations, as clerk in the service of Thomas Jeffries of Earl's Croombe, secretary to the Countess of Kent, and general man of business to Sir Samuel Luke, of Cople Hoo, Bedfordshire, who, it is said, served as the model for his hero, Hudibras. The first part of this singular poem was published at the close of 1662, and met with extraordinary success. Its wit, its quaint sense and learning, its passages of sarcastic reflection on all manner of topics, and above all, its unsparing ridicule of men and things on the Puritan side, combined to render it a general favorite. The reception of Part II., which appeared a year subsequent, was equally flattering. Yet its author seems to have fallen into the greatest poverty and obscurity, from which he never was enabled to emerge. It appears to have been his strange fate to flash all at once into notoriety, which lasted precisely two years, to fill the court and town during that time with continuous laughter, intermingled with inquiries who and what he was, and then for seventeen long years to plod on unknown and unregarded, still hearing his Hudibras quoted, and still preparing more of it, or matter similar, with no result. He died, in almost absolute destitution, in 1680, and was buried at a friend's expense, in the church-yard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. See pp. 199, 527, 528, 529, 530, 531, 532, 533.

BYROM-A noted English Jacobite. Born 1691. See p. 545.

BYRON, GEORGE GORDON NOEL-Born 1788, died in Greece, 1824. Respecting his celebrated Satire on the poet Rogers, which appears in this collection, we read the following in a London periodical:-"The satire on Rogers, by Lord Byron, is not surpassed for cool malignity, dexterous portraiture, and happy imagery, in the whole compass of the English language. It is said, and by those well informed, that Rogers used to bore Byron while in Italy, by his incessant minute dilettantism, and by visits at hours when Byron did not care to see him. One of many wild freaks to repel his unseasonable visits was to set his big dog at him. To a mind like Byron's, here was sufficient provocation for a satire. The subject, too, was irresistible. Other inducements were not wanting. No man indulged himself more in sarcastic remarks on his cotemporaries than Mr. Rogers. He indulged his wit at any sacrifice. He spared no one, and Byron, consequently did not escape. Sarcastic sayings travel on electric wings-and one of Rogers's personal and amusing