of a fever improperly treated, Feb. 28, 1757. He left one son of the same name, who had a place in the Salt Office, but went afterwards into the naval service, and died at sea, in 1773.

Mr. Moore's abilities, his modest demeanour, and inoffensive manners, and his moral conduct, which is said to have been unexceptionable, recommended him to the men of genius and learning of the age, and procured him the patronage of Lord Lyttelton. Dr. Johnson, after mentioning that Mr. Moore courted the favour of this nobleman by an apologetical poem, called "The Trial of Selim," adds, that his Lordship paid him with "kind words, which, as is common, raised great hopes that at last were disappointed." But this is not the whole truth. Lord Lyttelton did for Moore what few patrons have done for authors; he engaged his friends to assist him in the way which a man not wholly dependent would perhaps prefer. Mr. Dodsley stipulated to pay Moore three guineas for every paper of the World, which he should write, or might be sent for publication, and was approved of. Lord Lyttleton, to render this bargain effectual, and an easy source of emolument to Moore, solicited the assistance of such men as are not often found willing to contribute the labours of the pen, men of high rank in the state, and men of fame and fashion, who cheerfully undertook to supply the paper, while Moore reaped the emolument, and perhaps for a time enjoyed the reputation of the whole. But when it came to be known, as the information would soon

be circulated in whispers *, that such men as the Earls of Chesterfield, Bath, and Cork, Messrs. Walpole, Cambridge, and Jenyns, were leagued in a scheme of authorship to amuse the town, and that the World was "the bow of Ulysses, in which it was the fashion for men of rank and genius to try their strength", we may easily suppose that it would excite the curiosity of the public in an uncommon degree.

The first paper was published Jan. 24, 1753; it was consequently contemporary with the Adventurer, which began Nov. 7, 1752, but as the World was published only once a week, it outlived the Adventurer nearly two years, during which time it ran its course also with the Connoisseur. It was on the same size and type, and at the same price with the Rambler and Adventurer, but the sale, in numbers, was superior to either. In No. 111, Lord Chesterfield states, that the number sold weekly was two thousand, which number, he adds, "exceeds the largest that was ever printed, even of the Spectators." In No. 49, he hints that "not above three thousand were sold." The sale was probably not regular, and would be greater on the days when rumour announced his Lordship as the writer. The usual number printed was 2,500, as stated in the above letter from Mr. Moore to Dr. Warton.

* Lord Orford speaks of two of Lord Chesterfield's papers in his Letters to Bentley, Works, vol. v. p. 344; and I am possessed of a copy of Lord Chesterfield's papers, very splendidly bound in Morocco, a present from his Lordship to Dr. Chaunsey.

+ Duncombe.

Notwithstanding the able assistance of his right honourable friends, Mr. Moore wrote sixty-one of these papers, and the second letter in No. 130. In his first paper, he declines prefixing mottoes, principally, "because the follies he intends to treat of, and the characters he means to exhibit, are such as the Greeks and Romans were entirely unacquainted with." But this excuse would have been as applicable to the Spectator as to the World: it is probable he had not much intimacy with classical learning, and it is certain that the mottoes which were sent were never rejected*. His style is easy and unaffected, and always appropriate to his subjects, which have great variety. If he had not more knowledge of the world than some of his predecessors, he could at least employ it very agreeably. He had professed that the paper should contain novelty of ridicule, and it must be allowed that he seldom betrays the servile copyist when treating of those subjects which had been handled by others. The few narratives he gives are pleasing and instructive, particularly the description of domestic happiness in No. 16, which in the original edition he had nearly spoiled by the introduction of so improbable a circumstance as a chariot. In Nos. 31 and 186, the almost ludicrous distresses of a credulous clergyman, which remind us, in some degree, of

* Some time after this, when he projected a Magazine, he told the Wartons, in confidence, that "he wanted a dull plodding fellow of one of the Universities, who understood Latin and Greek." Wooll's Life of Warton.

Parson Adams, are related with characteristic simplicity. The circumstance of the post-chaise might have been suggested by a similar story in "Greville's Maxims and Reflections," published about this time.

Moore excelled principally in assuming the serious manner for the purposes of ridicule, or of raising idle curiosity, as in No. 144; his irony, also, is admirably concealed, as in Nos. 139 and 145: the plot of the latter, if it may be so termed, is very artfully managed. However trite his subject, he enlivens it by original turns of thought. Some of the papers are mere exercises of humour, which have no direct moral in view, and for this he in one place offers an apology, or at least acknowledges that he aimed at no higher purpose than entertainment.

In the last paper, the conclusion of the work is made to depend on a fictitious accident which is supposed to have happened to the author, and occasioned his death. When the papers were collected in volumes, Mr. Moore superintended the publication, and actually died while this last paper was in the press: a circumstance somewhat singular, when we look at the contents of it, and which induces us to wish that death may be less frequently included among the topics of wit.

It has been the general opinion, for the honour of rank, that the papers written by men of that description in this work, are far superior to those of Moore, or of any of his assistants of "low degree." Whatever may be in this, it

cannot be denied, that the first in point of genius, taste, and elegance, are those we owe to the pen of

Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, a name so well known that it is unnecessary in this place to detail the circumstances of his long and active life. A laudable spirit of ambition led him early to cultivate talents that were calculated to adorn society, and give dignity to the highest stations. That in one memorable instance he perverted these talents, has been again and again repeated, with just indignation, in every vehicle of public instruction; and his biographer has shrunk from the defence of his conduct in this instance, while he adverts to it with respectful delicacy. It is, indeed, utterly incapable of apology, and is, perhaps, as little to the credit of his understanding as of his morals, for it is not very clear that he comprehended the nature or utility of his own plan. He calls it the art of pleasing, or the acquisition of the graces. He speaks of it as a something above the common advantages of genius, virtue, or reputation, as if any thing consistent with honour or honesty could not be obtained by these.

That this nobleman, however, had a respect for pure morality and decorous manners, is sufficiently attested by the papers he contributed to the work before us. He was now at an advanced period of life. Few men had seen more of the world, or knew better how to expose the vices and follies which are sanctioned by high practice and fashion; and it is worthy of remark,