he attracted the favour of SWIFT, who obtained for him the employment of Secretary to Lord RABY, afterwards Earl of STRAFFORD, and then ambassador at the Hague. A letter of his while at Utrecht, dated December 16, 1712, is printed in the Dean's works, from which it appears that his office was attended with much vexation and little advantage. SWIFT gives a remarkable instance of this, at the time HARRISON brought over the barrier treaty. Jan. 31, 1712-13. HARRISON was with me this morning; we talked three hours, and then I carried him to court. When we went down to the door of my lodging, I found a coach waited for him. I chid him for it: but he whispered me, it was impossible to be otherwise; and in the coach he told me, he had not one farthing in his pocket to pay for it; and therefore took the coach for the whole day, and intended to borrow money somewhere or other. So there was the QUEEN'S MINISTER intrusted in affairs of the greatest importance, without a shilling in his pocket to pay a coach.' He died Feb. 14, 1712-13. He was professedly Editor of the spurious Tatler hereafter mentioned. Dr. BIRCH, in a note on his letter to SWIFT, has confounded him with THOMAS HARRISON, M. A. of Queen's College*.

NICHOLS's Select Collection of Poems, vol. iv. p. 181. In this Collection are all the Poems that can be traced to Mr. HARRISON, except Woodstock Park,' which is in DoDsLEY'S Collection.

The very humorous genealogy of the family of Bickerstaff in No. 11, is ascribed by STEELE in his Preface to the Octavo Edition, 1710,' to Mr. TWISDEN, who died at the battle of Mons, and has a monument. in Westminster Abbey, suitable to the respect which is due to his wit and his valour.' HENEAGE TWISDEN was the seventh son of Sir WILLIAM TWISDEN, Bart. of Roydon Hall, East Peckham, Kent; and a youth of great expectations.

mory

At the time of his death (1709, aged 29,) he was a captain of foot in Sir RICHARD TEMPLE'S regiment, and Aid-de-Camp to JOHN DUKE of ARGYLE, who commanded the right wing of the Confederate Army. Near his monument in the north aisle of the Abbey, are two other small ones to the meof his brothers JOSIAH and JOHN. JoSIAH was a captain of foot at the siege of Agremont, near Lisle in Flanders, and was killed by a cannon-ball, in 1708, in the 23d year of his age. JOHN was a Lieutenant in the Admiral's ship, under Sir CLOUDESLEY SHOVEL, and perished with him in 1707, in the 24th year of his age.

The character of Aspasia, in No. 42, was written by CONGREVE. The person meant was Lady ELIZABETH HASTINGS, the daughter of Theophilus, the seventh Earl of Huntingdon, a lady celebrated as a pattern of munificence and piety. By her historical character drawn up by THOMAS BARNARD,

M. A. and published in 1742, it appears that she was indeed 'little lower than the Angels.' It does honour to CONGREVE that he could relish the beauties of such a character.

An excellent paper on gluttony, No. 205, is ascribed by STEELE, in the Theatre, No. 26,' to a Mr. FULLER, with this encomium : 'The mind usually exerts itself in all its faculties, with an equal pace towards maturity and this gentleman, who at the age of sixteen, could form such pleasant pictures of the false and little ambitions of low spirits, as Mr. FULLER did, to whom, when a boy, we owe, with several other excellent pieces, The Vain-Glorious Glutton, when a secret correspondent of the Tatler; I say, such a one might, easily, as he proceeded in human life, arrive at this superior strength of mind at four and twenty.' Of this young writer, and of his other pieces, I have not been able to obtain any account. I hazard a conjecture that he might be THOMAS FULLER, M. D. a physician, who died at Sevenoaks in Kent, Feb. 10, 1731, and who published Introductio ad Sapientiam, or the Right Art of Thinking, assisted and improved.'

6

The letter on language, education, &c. in No. 234, was written by Mr. JAMES GREENWOOD, author of an Essay towards a practical English Grammar,' and teacher of a boarding-school at Woodford in Essex.

In 1717, he published, under the title of The Virgin Muse,' a collection of poems from our most celebrated English poets. He was also the author of The London Vocabulary, English and Latin, &c.' It appears that for a considerable time of his life he was Sur-master of St. Paul's School, in which office he died Sept. 12, 1737.

These are the names of all the contributors whose writings can be ascertained with any degree of probability. When their contributions are deducted, it will be seen that the continual supply of the work rested chiefly on STEELE. That he had however some unknown correspondents whose favours he admitted, is certain, and not less so that there were many whose communications he thought proper to reject. In No. 619, of the SPECTATOR, written most probably by STEELE, a design is announced of publishing these rejected contributions.

'I

have often thought,' says the writer of that paper, that if the several letters which are written to me under the character of SPECTATOR, and which I have not made use of, were published in a volume, they would not be an unentertaining collection. The variety of the subjects, styles, sentiments, and informations, which are transmitted to me, would lead a very curious, or very idle reader, insensibly along through a great many pages. I know some authors who would pick up a secret history out of such materials, and

make a bookseller an alderman by the copy. I shall therefore carefully preserve the original papers in a room set apart for that purpose, to the end that they may be of service to posterity.'

Such a work actually appeared in 1725, entitled Original and Genuine Letters sent to the TATLER and SPECTATOR, during the time these works were publishing: none of which have been before printed' 2 vols. 8vo. The design of this work, however, is here attributed to CHARLES LILLIE, the perfumer, who probably took the hint from the above passage in the SPECTATOR, and obtained the manuscripts from STEELE; who, in a short letter prefixed to the first volume, says, 'I have a great deal of business, and very ill health, therefore must desire you to excuse me from looking over them; but if you take care that no person or family is offended at any of them, or any thing in them published contrary to religion or good manners, you have my leave to do what you please with them.'

This sanction being obtained, Mr. LILLIE returned the compliment in as handsome a dedication as he could frame; and, in a long preface written with equal ability, endeavours to recommend these rejected

wares.

A short specimen of this may, perhaps, amuse the reader. " Here are near three hundred letters wrote by as many different writers, no two of which, though very