Note 1497 — Chapter VIII · (continued 3)

The first attempt to recount the exploits of Wolfe in the shape of a regular biography was made by a weak and florid writer, who, in 1760, “according to the rules of eloquence,” as he professed, got out a brief Life of General James Wolfe, which was in the same year reprinted in Boston. (Carter-Brown, iii. 1,280; Haven in Thomas, p. 557.) Nothing adequate was done, however, for a long time after, and the reader had to gather what he could from the Annual Register, Smollett’s England, Walpole’s George II., or from the contemporary histories of Entick and Mante. (Cf. various expressions in Walpole’s Letters.)