Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches

EDINBURGH: WILLIAM P. NIMMO.

EDINBURGH: MURRAY AND GIBB, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE.

CONTENTS

Ale, Bishop Still's Praise of83

A Learned Young Lady149

Alfieri's Hair153

Authors, Hard Fate of59

Authorship, Pains and Toils of125

Bad's the Best—Canning's Criticism50

"Beggar's Opera," Origin of the140

Bell, Death of Sir Charles 46

Blue-Stocking Club, the 10

Boar's Head Tavern, East Cheap, Relics of115

Boileau's, A Carouse at147

Bolingbroke at Battersea112

Bolingbroke, his Creed55

Booksellers in Little Britain27

Boswell as the "Bear-leader"118

Boswell's "Life of Johnson"99

"Boz" (Dickens), Origin of the Word 99

Bottled Ale, Accidental Origin of49

Bulwer's Pompeian Drawing-room 84

Bunyan's Copy of the "Book of Martyrs"53

Bunyan's Escapes57

Bunyan's Preaching56

Burney, Miss, her "Evelina"66

Butler and Buckingham143

Byron, Lord, his Graceful Apology39

Byron's "Corsair"26

Byron and "My Grandmother's Review" 95

Byron's Personal Vanity37

Canning, A Ludicrous Estimate of50

Chalmers'(Dr.) Industry 103

Chalmers' Preaching in London44

Chances for the Drama68

Chatterton's Profit and Loss Reckoning136

Classical Pun, A47

"Clean Hands," Lord Brougham's79

Clever Statesmen, Swift on116

Cobbett's Boyhood121

Coleridge in the Dragoons120

Coleridge as a Unitarian Preacher123

Coleridge's "Watchman"32

Collins' Insanity129

Collins' Poor Opinion of his Poems13

Colton the Author of "Lacon" 52

Conscience, A Composition with133

Copyrights, Value of some65

Cowley at Chertsey108

Cowper's "John Gilpin"58

Cowper's Poems, First Publication of21

Criticism, Sensitiveness to142

Curran's Imagination107

Dangerous Fools84

Day and his Model Wife109

Death-bed Revelations49

Dennis, Conceited Alarms of132

Devotion to Science74

Disadvantageous Correction, Lord North's75

Drollery must be Spontaneous58

Dryden Drubbed151

"Edinburgh Review," Origin of the116

Evelyn's Diary Discovered at Wotton7

"Felon Literature"48

Fielding's "Tom Jones"78

Fine Flourishes, Brougham's Rebuke of39

Flattery, Moderate80

Fontenelle's Insensibility124

Foote's Wooden Leg88

Fox and Gibbon25

French-English Jeu-de-mot81

Fuller's Memory69

Gibbon's House at Lausanne 98

Goldsmith's "She Stoops to Conquer"43

Haydn and the Ship Captain138

Haydn's Diploma Piece at Oxford139

Hearne's Love of Ale22

Hervey, Lord, his wit69

Hone's "Every-day Book"56

Hoole, the Translator of Tasso36

Hope's "Anastasius"51

Ireland's Shakspearian Forgeries33

Jerrold's Jokes, A String of130

Jerrold's Rebuke to a Rude Intruder 155

Joe Miller at Court128

Johnson and Hannah More11

Johnson's Criticisms97

Johnson's Latest Contemporaries105

Johnson's Pretty Compliment to Mrs. Siddons109

Johnson's Pride26

Johnson's Residences and Resorts in London77

Johnson's Wigs76

Johnson and Lord Elibank118

Johnson, Relics of, at Lichfield119

"Junius," Rogers and152

"Junius' Letters," Who Wrote?89

Killing no Murder 141

Lamb, Cary's Epitaph on67

Learning French, Brummell102

Leigh Hunt and Thomas Carlyle19

Lewis's "Monk"42

Literary Coffee-houses in last Century93

Literary Dinners17

Literary Localities in London55

Literary Men, the Families of9

Locke's Rebuke to the Card-Playing Lords137

Lope de Vega's Popularity29

Lope de Vega's Voluminous Writings28

Lovelace, The Last Days of134

Mackintosh, Sir James, and Dr. Parr28

Mackintosh's Humour28

Magazine, the First117

Magazines, the Sale of72

Magna Charta recovered 25

Mathematical Sailors41

Mermaid Club, The144

Milton, Relics of113

Mitford, Miss, her Farewell to Three-Mile Cross12

Moore's Anacreontic Invitation70

Moore's Epigram on Abbott130

Morris, Captain, his Songs14

Negroes at Home130

O'Connell's Opinion of the Authorship of "Junius"92

Patronage of Authors 100

Patronage of Literature in France75

Payment in Kind135

Physiognomy of the French Revolutionists45

Poets in a Puzzle71

Poetry of the Sea, Campbell on the47

Pope, A Hard Hit at150

Popularity of the Pickwick Papers18

Porson's Memory146

Quid pro Quo, Turner's51

Reconciling the Fathers27

Regality of Genius 77

Repartee, A Smart52

Rival Remembrance—Gilford and Hazlitt88

Romilly and Brougham45

Sale, the Translator of the Koran133

Shenstone, An Odd Present to156

Sheridans, The Two141

Sheridan's Careful Study of his Wit23

Silence no sure Sign of Wisdom44

Smith, James, one of the Authors of the "Rejected Addresses" 60, 80

Smollett's Hard Fortunes154

Smollett's History of England 24

Smollett's "Hugh Strap"13

Snail Dinner, the106

Southey's Wife 73

Stammering Witticism, Lamb's49

Sterne's Sermons85

Swift's Disappointed Life18

Swift's Three Loves31

Thomson's Indolence148

Thomson's Recitation of his Poetry42

"Times" Newspaper, Writing up the114

"Tom Cringle's Log," Authorship of 68

Tom Hill85

Trimmer, Mrs.117

Tycho Brahe's Nose87

Voltairean Relics at Ferney, Sale of79

Waller, the Courtier-Poet156

Walton, Izaak, Relics of82

Washington Irving and Wilkie at the Alhambra111

"Waverley," the Authorship of51

Way to Win them, Walpole's96

Wycherley's Wooing 146

NOTE.

This collection of anecdotes, illustrative sketches, and memorabilia generally, relating to the ever fresh and interesting subject of Books and Authors, is not presented as complete, nor even as containing all the choice material of its kind. The field from which one may gather is so wide and fertile, that any collection warranting such a claim would far exceed the compass of many volumes, much less of this little book. It has been sought to offer, in an acceptable and convenient form, some of the more remarkable or interesting literary facts or incidents with which one individual, in a somewhat extended reading, has been struck; some of the passages which he has admired; some of the anecdotes and jests that have amused him and may amuse others; some of the reminiscences that it has most pleased him to dwell upon. For no very great portion of the contents of this volume, is the claim to originality of subject-matter advanced. The collection, however, is submitted with some confidence that it may be found as interesting, as accurate, and as much guided by good taste, as it has been endeavoured to make it.