BIOGRAPHY has a peculiar interest for all ranks. To be able to look into the private character of individuals who have been long conspicuous in public life, is in itself a speculation so amusing as to be one of the perpetual employments of society-an employment which, though it may degenerate into gossiping and scandal, yet, when rationally pursued, is as innocent as it is interesting. With what eagerness would we not peruse an exact and minute memoir of the private life of any of the great men of antiquity! -with what delight do we listen to the marking traits of character in the leaders of our own time! How many volumes have been published of the anecdotes, the sayings, and the habits of Napoleon! How gladly would we have heard a thousandfold more of the studies in which Chatham formed his oratory, or his still greater son his principles; of the secret progress of those powerful impulses, which, like the crystallization that forms the diamond in the mine, were yet to flash such brilliancy in the glorious imagination of Burke; or the gradual growth of those profound faculties which made "Newton master of the mysteries of the planetary system, and in Bacon gave a new spirit to the science of his country and his age!"

The lives of the three Colmans are certainly not the lives of philosophers; but the advantage of biography is, that it turns every thing to knowledge. It is human nature exhibited to human nature; the mirror in which, though a thousand faces may be exhibited in succession, or even together, every man may see and study his own. These volumes are a compilation confessedly, and altogether too much so, to reflect any credit on their authorship; but they are perhaps only the more amusing. The Colmans filled a space in the public eye for a century; and the last of the race was the most public of them all.

The grandfather of the late George Colman was a man of some public distinction. Mr Francis Colman, marrying the sister of Mrs Pulteney, afterwards

Countess of Bath, was naturally in the way of public life, and in 1721 he was appointed resident British Minister at Vienna. In the fragments of correspondence which this appointment produced between him and Pulteney, we are brought back amongst the names of the last century. Pulteney writes from Chevening, the seat of Earl Stanhope, inviting the new Minister to visit him on his way to Dover, and bidding him bring with him Williams, (the noted Sir Charles Hanbury,) further bidding him persuade John Gay to come on horseback to join the party. Sir Charles was eccentric from his cradle; and after acting a good deal, which established his character for flightiness, and writing a good deal, which he had better never have written, died lunatic in 1759. He had been British Minister at Berlin.

The name of John Gay is familiar to all who are acquainted with the authorship of the last century. He was born a courtier, and spent all his life hanging on the skirts of the Court, or dependent on great people. Thus he was successively secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth, and to the Earl of Clarendon in his German embassy. He repaid the attentions of his noble patrons by his wit; and, in return for protection, at least assisted them in their way to fame. But it would have been better for his happiness if he had lived in an attic, thanking nothing for his subsistence but his pen; and a more secure way to fame, if he had written nothing but Beggars' Operas. letter from Gay, dated Bath, 1721, is a specimen of his light gossiping style:

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"I live almost altogether with Lord Burlington, and pass my time very agreeably. I left Chiswick about three weeks ago, and have been ever since at the Bath, for the cholical humour in my stomach that you have often heard me complain of. Here is very little company that I know. I expect a summons suddenly to go with Lord Burlington into Yorkshire. You must think that I cannot be now and then without some thoughts that give

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me uneasiness, who have not the least prospect of being ever independent. My friends do a great deal for me; but I think I could do more for them. Mr Pulteney and Mrs Pulteney had some thoughts of the Bath; but I fancy their journey is put off. I saw them at Chiswick just before I left it. You will, before my letter could reach you, have heard of poor Lord Warwick's death. It has given me many a melancholy reflection. I loved him, and cannot help feeling concern whenever I think of him. Dear Colman, be as cheerful as you can: never sink under disappointment. I give you the advice which I have always been obliged to follow, though I hope you will never have occasion to practise it."

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Gay was unlucky; but, as in the case of most unlucky men, he generally had reason to reproach himself. least, in one instance he was the victim of his own imprudence. He was at one time in the possession of stock in the celebrated South Sea scheme, which he could have sold for twenty thousand pounds. Swift, who knew the world, advised him by all means at least to purchase an annuity with a part of it, as a security against chance; but Gay would detract nothing from his golden heap, and suddenly saw it vanish into air. A letter from Pulteney is equally characteristic of a higher man, and one better acquainted with the ways of men. After giving some commissions to Colman, who was then at Florence, he says

"Now I have given you this trouble, I must take a further liberty, and you must not be angry if I chide you a little for your extravagance. What makes you throw away your money in presents? I am much concerned for your expense on my account, and I blame you for it on every other body's. Believe me, Colman, there are few people worth valuing so much as to make one's self a farthing the poorer for them. For my part, I own that I am grown quite out of humour with the world; and the more I grow acquainted with it, the less I like it. There is such a thing as cunning, there is falsehood, and there are views of self-interest, that mix themselves in almost all the friendships that are contracted between man and man. Those make friendships hardly worth cultivating any where; I am sure nowhere

worth being at any considerable charge to preserve them. Do not mistake what I have said. I mean it not particularly to any one person, but in general.'

We regret that these letters are not more numerous. They are the gems of the book. A letter from Lord Chesterfield says, in rather a singular style, speaking of a foreign nobleman who was then in London:

"I have been to wait upon him, and to offer him what services I could do him here, which are none at all; since, as you very well know, it is impossible to break through the inhospitality of this country enough, to make any foreigner pass his time tolerably here. He has been ill of a fever almost ever since his arrival in this country, and seems to have so indifferent an opinion, both of our climate and our politeness, that I believe he will not stay very long."

The inhospitality was probably an allusion to the formality of the court, whose German etiquette was new to the English in 1727, the date of the letter, and formed a heavy contrast with the animation of foreign life. The charge of want of either courtesy or liberality, was never applicable to the higher orders in this country. But he proceeds in a livelier and more characteristic strain :—

"I am very sorry you could imagine that an absence of seven years, or even twice that time, could remove you from the thoughts of one who always thought of your friendship and acquaintance with the utmost satisfaction; and must take this opportunity of desiring in reality, what I shall soon be obliged to desire in form, the honour and pleasure of your correspondence. I hope, too, that our long acquaintance will justify me in desiring that I may be on a more free footing than barely from his Majesty's Minister at Florence, to his Majesty's Minister at the Hague."

Chesterfield was a more remarkable man than our generation is inclined to believe. His "study" of manners has thrown a colour of frivolity over his fame; and the courtier or the dancing master intercepts the merit of a man who figured among the leading personages of a brilliant and vigorous time. Chesterfield succeeded in every task which he undertook. In his embassy to Holland, then the centre of

European diplomacy, he was the leading diplomatist, and probably the most effective instrument of at once restraining the ambition of France, and securing the stability of the Hanoverian succession. In his viceroyalty of Ireland, he kept down the violence of the national parties, and was popular with all. His gayety there was in its natural element, his wit is still remembered; and he stands on record as the only viceroy who ever left behind him a permanent memorial of his manly and judicious interest in the gratifications of the people. The inhabitants of the Irish metropolis owe to Chesterfield a noble park, as large as the three parks of London united, and one of the most beautiful and valuable contributions to the health and indulgence of a great city, as it was one of the earliest in Europe.

As diplomacy in the little Italian courts was generally a very sinecure affair, the English envoys soon fell into the national ways, and evidently thought that the opera was the grand work for which man, woman, and minister were made. The box at the opera was their cabinet; the settlement of theatrical mélées their chief employment abroad; and the engagement of singers and dancers the chief subject of their correspondence at home. It is curious to observe the great Handel adopting this view of the Tuscan envoy's functions, and writing to Colman as his accredited plenipotentiary to the Signori and Donne of the land of song.

After stating some opera engagements-among which he required, that the female singer engaged should be equal to perform in men's characters as well as those of her own sex-the great composer proceeds in a strain which shows how little the opera generation have changed during the last hundred years :-

"I take the liberty of again saying to you, to say nothing whatever in your contracts of first parts, seconds, or thirds; for this is a source of annoyance to us in the choice of performance, and in other ways produces great inconvenience. We also hope to have, by your help, a man and woman for the approaching season; which begins with October of the present year, and ends with July 1731; and we wait with anxiety to hear news of them, that we may inform the court."

Colman performed his bidding with activity, and at last had the diplomatic triumph of inducing Signor Senesino to condescend to sing before the British court and nobility for one thousand four hundred guineas-a sum which, calculating at the present expense of living, would not be far short of three thousand now. Handel concludes with congratulations on this national service," It is to your generous assistance that the court and the nobility owe in part the satisfaction of having a company to their taste, so that nothing remains for me but the expression of my personal thanks," &c. But some real business was now about to be done, even in the land of the lazy. Florentine negotiation was put on the qui vive by the death of the Duke of Parma, the succession to whose pretty, but very little sovereignty, was given to Don Carlos. Pulteney again writes to Colman: his letter has the exact language of an angry politician of the 19th century,

"I must disguise my sentiments extremely, if I enter in the least into the consideration of public affairs, without abusing those fools-I mean our ministers-who have the conducting them. Do not be frightened at what I have said; for this comes to you by a very safe hand." (He then mentions a gentleman by whom he sends some pamphlets :) "He will give you a set of the Craftsman, which you must put, like the monks, into that part of your library which they call L'Inferno; and be sure, like them, to read those books more than any in the rest of the library. There are some other pamphlets, which, old as they are, will be new and entertaining to you." We have given this fragment, chiefly for the sake of the anecdote which accompanies it. It is an additional proof of the absurdity of duelling. In a pamphlet, called "Sedition and Defamation displayed," (which the biographer conceives to have been in this packet,) Pulteney had been attacked, and, supposing that the author was Lord Hervey, vicechamberlain of the household, he had treated his lordship with the usual keenness of his pen, in " A proper Reply to a late scurrilous Libel, entitled Sedition and Defamation displayed." Lord Hervey's retort was a challenge to fight with swords in the Green Park, in the same afternoon. The