celebrated Commentaries ; Wesley and Whitefield had not yet ended their useful career; the star of Edmund Burke was rising; and Jeremy Bentham, being then (1766) but seventeen years of age, had taken his master's degree at Oxford, although, it is true, the first literary performance of the eccentric philosopher did not appear till some years later. Home, Moore, and Colman, had appeared successfully as dramatists, and were about to be followed by Macklin, Cumberland, Goldsmith, and Sheridan. Newcastle or district celebrities of the time included Mark Akenside, the author of The Pleasures of the Imagination ; Dr Thomas Percy, dean of Carlisle, who published, in 1765, his Reliques of English Poetry ; and Dr John Langhorne, a northern divine of no small popularity in his day as a poet. Among other illustrious living men, were Horace Walpole, Henry Mackenzie, Blair, Hume, Adam Smith, Dr Robertson, Garrick, Reynolds; and last, not least, William Pitt, who, in 1766, was created Earl of Chatham.
But let us return to our more immediate purposethat of making a few selections from the Chronicle , some of which will doubtless reflect far less credit on the age than the enumeration we have just made of eminent individuals. Now and then, a duel took place in Hyde Park. The amusements of some of our aristocrats did not always exhibit them in any very dignified position, as witness the subjoined:'Sir Charles Bunbury ran 100 yards at Newmarket for 1000 guineas, against a tailor with 40 lb. weight of cabbage, alias shreds.'
Here is a paragraph, from the number for March 15, 1766, relative to the recreations of some less elevated in the social scale: 'Sunday morning, a little before three o'clock, a match at marbles was played under the piazza at Covent Garden by the light of thirty-two links (by several rogues well known in that circle), for twenty guineas a side.'
A few other quotations may be deemed worthy of republication, although some of them may have no direct or important bearing. The audacity of highway robbers at this period is known to everybody. The following, dated December 21, 1765, gives a tolerably correct idea of the usual style adopted by those gentlemen of the road:'Thursday, the Leeds and Leicester stage-coaches were stopped on Finchley Common by a highwayman, who took from the passengers a considerable sum of money. A nobleman's cook, a young woman about twenty-five, declared she would not be robbed, when the highwayman, admiring her courage, let her alone. He broke the coach-glass with his pistol, and gave the coachman half-a-crown to get it mended.' News from London, dated January 9, 1765, says: 'Early on Tuesday morning, a member of parliament, on his return home in a chair to his house in New Palace Yard, was stopped and robbed by a single footpad of his purse, in which were sixty-three guineas.'
About the same time, we are informed that 'the celebrated J.J. Rousseau hath for the present taken up his residence at a friend's house in Putney.'The number for October 26, 1765, contains an advertisement of a 'beggar's stand' (copied from the Public Advertiser ), 'to be let, in a charitable neighbourhood. Income, about 30s. a week.'
The following reference to our acquaintances, the Sikhs, now sufficiently well known, is curious, as it is doubtless one of their first appearances in the columns of the English press. It is dated July 5, 1766: 'The Seyques, an idolatrous people inhabiting the neighbourhood of Cachemire, whose name was hardly known two years ago, have beaten Abdaly and the Patanes whom he commanded.' Modern Cockneys would stare to read a paragraph like this: 'A great deal of grass hath been cut down about Islington, Kentish-Town,' &c.
We will conclude our selections, which have now grown quite desultory and miscellaneous, by the brief obituary of a 'remarkable' man, from the Chronicle of July 26, 1766: 'Thursday, died at his house near Hampstead, the Rev. Mr Southcote, remarkable for having a leg of mutton every night for supper during a course of forty years, smoking ten pipes as constantly, and drinking three bottles of port.'
GENIUS FOR EMIGRATION
maize were carried into Ireland and given gratis, the famine was not stayed. Though they had the wheat and maize, they could not grind them; if ground, they could not cook themthey had neither vessels nor fuel; if vessels and fuel were given, they were still unable to assist themselvesthey had not skill to cook them; and if cooked, they could not eat themthey had never been accustomed to do so! Such are the effects of carrying contentment too far: the individual becomes wholly resourceless.
We try to induce them to fish with the same results. If we give them boats, they have no nets; give them nets, they know not how to use them; teach them to use them, and they can neither cook nor eat the fish; and as to selling them for other comforts, there is no market! Without a knowledge of agriculture, or fishing, or even talents to feed themselves, such men are useless in any quarter, unless as subjects to be taught; and now at last, but greatly too late, they are being taught, and the much-abused railway will carry their produce to the market.