him. I was in my fifteenth year, when I built these castles : a storm, however, was collecting, which unexpectedly burst upon me, and swept them all away,

On mentioning my little plan to C, he treated it with the utmost contempt; and told me, in his turn, that as I had learned enough, and more than enough, at school, he must be considered as having fairly discharged his duty (so, indeed, he had ;) he added, that he had been negotiating with his cousin, a shoe-maker, of some respectability; who had liberally agreed to take me without a fee, as an apprentice. I was so shocked at this intelligence, that I did not remonstrate; but went in sullenness and silence to my new master, to whom I was soon after bound *, till I should attain the age of twenty-one.

The family consisted of four journeymen, two sons about my own age, and an apprentice somewhat older. In these there was nothing remarkable; but my master himself was the strangest creature! He was a Presbyterian, whose reading was entirely confined to the small tracts published on the Exeter Controversy. As these (at least his portion of them) were all on one side, he entertained no doubt of their infallibility, and being noisy and disputatious, was sure to silence his opponents; and became, in consequence of it, intolerably arrogant and conceited. He was not, however, indebted solely to his knowledge of the subject for his triumph: he was possessed of Fenning's Dictionary, and he made a most singular use of it. His custom was to fix on any word in common use, and then to get by heart the synonym, or periphrasis by which it was explained in the book; this he constantly substituted for the other, and as his opponents were commonly ignorant of his meaning, his victory was complete.

A

With such a man I was not likely to add much to my stock of knowledge, small as it was; and, indeed, nothing could well be smaller. At this period, I had read nothing but a black letter romance called Parismus and Parismenus, and a few loose magazines which my mother had brought from South Molton. The Bible, indeed, I was well acquainted with; it was the favourite study of my grandmother, and reading it frequently with her had impressed it strongly on my mind; these then, with the Imitation of Thomas à Kempis, which I used to read to my mother on her death-bed, constituted the whole of my literary acquisitions.

As I hated my new profession with a perfect hatred, I made no progress in it; and was consequently little regarded in the family, of which I sunk by degrees into the common drudge: this did not much disquiet me, for my spirits were now humbled. I did not however quite resign the hope of one day succeeding to Mr. Hugh Smerdon, and therefore secretly prosecuted my favourite study, at every interval of leisure.

These intervals were not very frequent; and when the use I made of them was found out, they were rendered still less so. I

My indenture, which now lies before me, is dated the 1st of January, 1772.'

could not guess the motives for this at first; but at length I discovered that my master destined his youngest son for the situation to which I aspired.

I possessed at this time but one book in the world: it was a treatise on Algebra, given to me by a young woman, who had found it in a lodging-house. I considered it as a treasure; but it was a treasure locked up for it supposed the reader to be well acquainted with simple equation, and I knew nothing of the matter. My master's son had purchased Fenning's Introduction: this was precisely what I wanted, but he carefully concealed it from me, and I was indebted to chance alone for stumbling upon his hiding-place. I sat up for the greatest part of several nights successively, and, before he suspected that his treatise was discovered, had completely mastered it. I could now enter upon my own; and that carried me pretty far into the science.

This was not done without difficulty. I had not a farthing on earth, nor a friend to give me one: pen, ink, and paper, therefore, (in despite of the flippant remark of Lord Orford,) were, for the most part, as completely out of my reach, as a crown and sceptre.

There

was indeed a resource; but the utmost caution and secrecy were necessary in applying to it. I beat out pieces of leather as smooth as possible, and wrought my problems on them with a blunted awl: for the rest, my memory was tenacious, and I could multiply and divide by it, to a great extent.'

Though mathematics constituted Mr. G.'s favourite pursuit, he made some attempts at rhime; and with the trifling pecuniary rewards which he obtained for his verses, in addition to empty praise, he purchased paper, &c. and books of geometry and algebra. The love of science, however, having rendered him negligent of his master's concerns, he naturally fell under his displeasure; and, on refusing to give up his papers, his garret was searched, and his literary treasure taken from him. By this misfortune, he was thrown into a state of melancholy, in which he endeavoured to relieve himself with the hope that, at the end of his apprenticeship, (which was drawing to a conclusion,) he should be able to open a private school, and for ever throw aside an employment which he detested. On a sudden, the horizon began to brighten beyond his gayest hopes. Mr. Cookesley, the surgeon of the place, found him out in his twentieth year, in this state of obscurity and extreme poverty; and, by the help of a subscription, he purchased the remainder of the time which he had to serve, and enabled him to pursue his studies under the Rev. Mr. Smerdon, With this preceptor, when the whole vigour of his mind was directed without check or incumbrance to the acquisition of knowlege, he made so rapid a progress, that in two years and two months he was pronounced to be fit for the University; and through the exertions and generosity of his valuable friend Mr. Cookes

ley, he obtained a situation in Exeter College, Oxford. Mr. G.'s attention had been directed by his tutor to the satires of Juvenal, the 10th of which he had translated for a holiday task; at the University, he employed himself in attempting other Satires; and he was advised by his Mæcenas, Mr. Cookesley, to open a subscription for a complete version of all the Satires of Juvenal. Proposals were accordingly issued in January 1781 but the sudden death of his friend, soon afterward, plunged him into such affliction as to interrupt his studies; and on regaining the tranquillity of his mind, he was mortified by the discovery of his incompetency for the task which the partiality of Mr. C., united with his own wants, had tempted him to undertake. His first resolution, therefore, was to renounce the publication for the present, and to return the subscriptions. This was done in part, but it could not be effected entirely; and hence Mr. G. considered himself as still pledged to give a translation: hoping that, in a country residence, in the course of two years, his design might be fulfilled. About this time, however, a trivial circumstance opened to him unexpected prospects, and changed the system of his life. Corresponding with a friend, to whom he addressed his letters under cover to the late Lord Grosvenor, and one day inadvertently omitting the direction on the inclosure, his Lordship opened and read the letter, supposing it to have been intended for himself. Its contents interested him so much that he wished to see the writer; and on the simple exposure of his humble circumstances, the Earl generously undertook his present support and future establishment; inviting Mr. G. to reside with him till his wishes could be accomplished. This was a request not to be resisted. I did go,' says Mr. G. and reside with him;' and, to the honour of his patron, he adds, I experienced a warm and cordial reception, a kind and affectionate esteem, that has known neither diminution nor interruption from that hour to this, a period of twenty years!'

In the house of this nobleman, Mr. Gifford occasionally proceeded with Juvenal: but two successive tours on the continent with the Earl's son Lord Belgrave (now Earl Grosvenor) interrupted the work; and on his return to his own country in circumstances of happy competence, though his translation was not forgotten, he could have wished to decline the publication of it. Feeling, however, that there were people who had just and forcible claims on him for the due performance of his engagement, he persisted in the completion of his work; and he now offers it to the public in a matured and improved state.

Mr

Mr. Gifford's subscribers will be amply recompensed in two ways, first in the satisfaction which they must feel at having lent their assistance to rising genius, and secondly in receiving a translation far superior to their highest expectations. To account for the long space which has intervened between the original promise and its fulfilment, is the sole reason assigned by Mr. G. for becoming his own biographer :-if there were any other motive, which the reader of party effusions may conjecture, we forbear to comment. After this exhibition of the particulars of his life, all must rejoice that Mr. Gifford has risen, because they must admit that he deserved to rise. We bave already observed that he is to be respected for having cul tivated his talents under more than ordinary difficulties; and we could now almost tempt him to be vain, by addressing him in the words of his author;

"altaque si te

Nomina delectent, omnem Titanida pugnam
Inter majores, ipsumque Promethea ponas :
De quocunque voles proavum tibi sumito libro."

We proceed to compliments of another kind.

The Translation before us is preceded by a Life of Juvenal, and by an Essay on the Roman Satirists. In the former, Mr. G. does not attempt to give us an idea of Juvenal's person and features by exhibiting, as Holyday did, at the head of his preface, a portraiture of him; nor does he undertake to substi tute facts in the place of conjecture: but he endeavours to give such an account of the author as shall bear the stamp of probability. Juvenal is generally said by his biographers to have been banished by Domitian, as a 'facetious' kind of punishment, into Egypt, when eighty years old, for having satirized Paris the actor, a minion of the Emperor. The accuracy of this account, however, Mr. G. calls in question. To the observation that Domitian's was not a facetious reign,' he subjoins his reasons for doubting whether this banishment, which must have resulted from the tyrant having been in a very merry mood, ever took place. It is admitted that Juvenal was in Egypt, but it is evident that he was never long absent from Rome, where all his Satires were written. In 95, when Juvenal was in his 54th year, Domitian banished the philosophers from Rome, and soon after from Italy; and, though Juvenal did not (strictly speaking) come under the description of a philosopher, he might reasonably entertain apprehensions of his safety, and, with many other persons eminent for learning and virtue, judge it prudent to withdraw from the city.' To this period Mr. G. assigns the journey into Egypt: two years

B 4

after

after which, the world having been happily relieved from the yoke of Domitian, Nerva his successor recalled the exiles; and from this time there is little doubt that Juvenal was at Rome, where he continued his studies in tranquillity.

Mr. Gifford offers substantial reasons, which are indeed strenghtened by the nerve and vigour of Juvenal's style, for discrediting the common opinion, that any part of his works was produced when he was trembling on the verge of 90.

It is known that the present order of the Satires is not that in which they were written; and the translator despairs of their ever being chronologically arranged. He conceives, however, that the 8th was Juvenal's first effort; that the 2d, 3d, 5th, 6th, 7th, and perhaps the 13th Satires were written during Domitian's reign; and that the eleventh closed his poetical career, since there he thus speaks of himself as an old man; "Nostra bibat vernum contracta cuticula solem."

Beyond this, all is conjecture.

In the Essay on the Roman Satirists, Mr. G. represents the subject as in a manner exhausted, and offers himself to hia readers in the humble character of a compiler: but, while he aspires at no higher merit than that of exhibiting with candour and truth the sentiments of his predecessors, he manifests so much taste and discrimination, and exhibits the whole with so much correctness and elegance, that he amply rewards us for leading us over ground repeatedly trodden.

Of Dryden's long dedication to the Earl of Dorset, in which this subject is discussed with great ease and pleasantry, due notice is taken; and Mr. G. coincides with him (who followed Casaubon) in deriving the word Satire, or Satura, from satur, full; the word lanx, a charger, or platter, in which all sorts of fruits were offered to the Gods, being understood so that the term signified, when applied to a poem, a composition full of various matters or various subjects. He soon, however, turns to better critics than Dryden, who was sometimes superficial as well as fulsome. To Dusaulx and to Rupert, the latter of whom has given an ingenious and learned Essay De diversa Satirarum Lucil. Horat. Pers, et Juvenalis Indole, he acknowleges himself to have been particularly indebted, for the able manner in which they have appreciated the respective merits of the Roman Satirists; and with their assistance he en

How could the Earl of Dorset tolerate the inordinate, we might say impious, adulation of Dryden? who, in complimenting his Lordship's talents for verse, says, "We cannot subsist intirely without your writing, any more (I may almost say) than the world with out the daily course of ordinary Providence."

deavours