thing of that kind from seeing how much every body that did write for the stage was obliged to subject themselves to the players and the town.-The same.

The Deucalion in that epic poem was a second Deucalion, not the husband of Pyrrha. I had flung all my learning into it, as indeed Milton has done too much in his Paradise Lost. The Bishop of Rochester, not many years ago, advised me to burn it. I saw his advice was well grounded, and followed it, though not without some regret.—The same.

How very strange and inconclusive does the reasoning of Tully and Plato often appear to us, and particularly that of the latter in his Phædo. Is there not something like a fashion in reasoning? I believe there may, a good deal; but, with all that, there certainly is not any of the ancients who reasons so well as Mr. Locke.-The same.

In my first setting out, I never read any art of logic or rhetoric. I met with Locke: he was quite insipid to me. I read Sir William Temple's Essays too then; but,

whenever there was any thing political in them, I had no manner of feeling for it. -The same. [Those five or six years, from about thirteen to twenty, were all poetical: he was then diverting himself wholly in wandering through the poets and the better sort of critics, who showed and set off the beauties in the former.]

The little copy of verses on Ditton and Whiston, in the third volume of the Miscellanies, was written by Gay; that on Dennis by myself; and the Origin of the Sciences from the Monkeys in Ethiopia, by me, Dean Parnelle, and Dr. Arbuthnot.The same.

The Scriblerus Club consisted of Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, Parnelle, and Gay.The same.

Lord Lansdown insisted on my publishing my Windsor Forest, and the motto* shows it. The same.

Mr. Pope was born in the city of London, in Lombard-street, at the house which is now Mr. Morgan's, an apothecary.― Mr. Hooke.

* Non injussa cano.

There is no one study that is not capable of delighting us after a little application to it. How true, even in so dry a thing as Antiquities? Yes, I have experienced that myself. I once got deep into Grævius, and was taken greatly with it; so far, as to write a treatise in Latin, collected from the writers in Grævius, on the old buildings in Rome. It is now in Lord Oxford's hands, and has been so these fifteen years. -Mr. Pope.

My brother was whipped and ill used at Twyford school for his Satire on his Master, and taken from thence on that account. -Mrs. Racket* (of Mr. Pope).

I never saw him laugh very heartily in all my life.-Mrs. R. (of the same.) This is odd enough; because she was with him so much in all the first part of his life, when he is said by persons most intimate with him to have been excessively gay and

* Mrs. Racket was probably the wife of Mr. Racket, a son of Mrs. Pope, by a first husband, before she married Mr. Pope, the father. She was, I think, above forty when Pope was born. M.

lively. It is very true, that in the latter part of his life, when he told a story, he was always the last to laugh at it, and seldom went beyond a particular easy smile on any occasion that I remember.

The man will never be contented! He has already twice as much as I; for I am told he has a good thousand pounds a year, and yet I am told he is as eager for more preferment as ever he was.-The same,

Let Clarke make half his life the poor's support; But let him give the other half to Court― Was a couplet in the manuscript for the fourth book of the Dunciad; but I believe I shall omit it, though, if rightly understood, it has more of commendation than of satire in it.-The same.

I had all the subscription money for the Iliad, and Tonson* was at all the expense of printing, paper, &c. for the copy. An author who is at all the expenses of publishing, ought to clear two-thirds of the

* This I believe is a mistake of Mr. Spence. It was Lintot, I think, that published the Iliad. M.

whole profit into his own pocket.-The same. [For instance, as he explained it in a piece of 1000 copies at 3s. each to the common buyer, the whole sale at that rate will bring in 150l. The expense therefore to the author for printing, paper, publishing, selling, and advertising, should be but 50l. and his clear gains should be 100%.]*

What is your opinion of placing prepositions at the end of a sentence ?-It is certainly wrong, but I have made a rule to myself about them some time ago; and I think verily it is the right one. We use them so in common conversation, and that

* This calculation is inaccurate and fallacious. Each of these books must be sold by the author's publisher to the other booksellers for 2s. 3d. and the produce will be but 1127. 10s.; consequently, supposing a volume of 22 sheets to cost but 50l. including the publisher's per centage, the author gains but 627. 10s. But such a book at present (1794), would cost in printing and paper 671. and advertising and publishing would consume 157. more. Total 827. consequently the author would gain but 30%. 10s. To gain a hundred pounds on such a book, it ought to be sold by the booksellers for 4s. 6d. M.