more extensive acquaintance, than Mr. Robin- | son; and it is particularly noticeable in his history, that amidst the strictest attention to business, he was throughout the whole of his early life enabled, by a due division of time, to appropriate more to social pleasures than many men could venture to do with impunity. For the social enjoyments of life, indeed, he was eminently qualified. He had improved the scanty education of a northern village by some reading, but principally by the company of literary men, and by a memory uncommonly tenacious. His own mind was shrewd, penetrating, and enriched by varied experience. He had likewise a great share of wit and vivacity; many of his bons mots, which have been pretty extensively circulated among his friends, would lo credit to men of the first reputation in this ninor department of genius. His sense of idicule was remarkably strong, and few men excelled him in telling a story, of which he had 1 plentiful stock, and which he varied with cirumstantial embellishments that were irresistibly aughable. Versed, too, in the literary and siness-history of his time, his conversation was trich fund of information, and his memory in lates and minutie gave an authority which nade him be frequently consulted when points n dispute were to be accurately ascertained. Of ate years he visited less abroad, but was seldom happy without the company of his friends at ome, who found themselves welcomed to a vell-spread table, without ceremony and withut affectation. He imposed no condition but hat of punctuality to the hour of dinner; and n that particular, it is well known, he never reaxed to persons of rank or condition. Of him t may be truly said, no man discharged the luties of private life with more active zeal or nore steady virtue; as a husband, a father, and friend, he was warm and sincere, affectionate and tender. These, however, are the common eatures of every worthy man's character; but Mr. Robinson's death was felt and regretted on a broader and more public ground, as a loss to the world of letters. He was seized with an illness which proved fatal, on Monday, May 25, while at a meeting of booksellers, at the accustomed place, the Chapter coffee-house; from this he was obliged to retire hastily, and soon exhibited symptoms of fever; this abated so far, in the subsequent week, as to give hopes of recovery; these hopes were particularly encouraged, even on the evening, June 5, preceding his death, when he became calm, took his medicines willingly, and seemed, to all human appearance, free from fever. These symptoms, however, were fallacious; the snares of death were wound around him, and at five o'clock on Saturday morning he expired. He was interred in the burying-ground belonging to St. Faith's, in St. Paul's church-yard.

1801, June. Died, JOHN COPELAND, printer, at Reading, Berkshire, in the eighty-third year of his age. He had worked as a pressman in the ffice of the Reading Mercury, for sixty years,

with so much assiduity, sobriety, and regularity, as to obtain the name of honest John. He enjoyed a remarkable good state of health, and worked at his business, with his accustomed regularity, till within a short time of his death.

1801, June 10. MR. SPENCE, a bookseller, was sentenced to pay a fine of £50, and to suffer twelve months' imprisonment, for publishing a work entitled, Spence's Restorer of Society, which

was deemed a seditious libel.

1801, June 27. An act of parliament was passed to indemnify all persons who have printed, published, or dispersed, or who shall publish or disperse any papers printed under the authority of any head officer of state, or of public boards, or other public authorities, from all penalties incurred by reason of the name and place of abode of the printer of such papers not being printed thereon.

1801,July 2. Irish literary property act passed, wherein it was directed," that two copies of every printed book shall be delivered for Ireland." The claims extend only to books which should be entered in the register of stationers' hall, which entry is optional.

1801, Aug. 12. Died, THOMAS HASTINGS, long known as an itinerant bookseller and pamphleteer. He was a native of the bishoprick of Durham, and served his apprenticeship to his uncle, as a joiner and builder. After visiting most parts of the kingdom, he went to London, and worked for a while as a carpenter. The memorable election of Charles James Fox for Westminster, (1780) gave Mr. Hastings an opportunity to exert himself in the popular cause, and he produced a quarto pamphlet, intituled, the Wars of Westminster. This was soon followed by others in the style of oriental apologues, and he got considerable sums by hawking them about the town. From this period, it is believed, he wrought no more at his trade. For many years he had been in the habit of publishing, in different newspapers, on the 12th of August, a voluntary ode on the prince of Wales's birth-day, for which he annually received some small emolument at Carlton-house; but this he had discontinued some time by order. His last publications were the Devil in London, 12mo. and the Regal Rambler; or, Lucifer's Travels, Svo. Mr. Hastings was a constant attendant on the popular Sunday orators; and in his habit very much adumbrated a clerical appearance. His travelling name was Dr. Green. He was found dead in his bed, at his lodgings, in New-court, Moor-lane, Cripplegate, London. He was near sixty years of age.

1801, Sept. 1. Died, ROBERT BAGE, a paper maker, and a writer of no ordinary merit in the department of fictitious composition. He was one of that class of men occurring in Britain alone, who unite successfully the cultivation of letters with those mechanical pursuits, which, upon the continent, are considered incompatible with the character of an author. The case of a paper maker, or a printer, employing their own art upon their own publications, would be thought uncommon in France or Germany; yet such

were the stations of Bage, Bowyer, Richardson, Nichols, and a host of others, whose names are recorded in these pages, and whose labours add a lustre over the literature of their country.

The father of Robert Bage was a paper maker at Darley, near Derby, and was remarkable only for having had four wives. Robert was a son of the first, and was born at Darley, Feb. 29, 1728. His mother died soon after his birth; and his father, though he retained his mill, and continued to follow his occupation, removed to Derby, where his son received his education at a common school. His attainments were very remarkable, and such as excited the surprise and admiration of all who knew him. To a knowledge of the Latin language succeeded a knowledge of the art of making paper, which he acquired under the tuition of his father. At the age of twenty-three, Robert Bage married a young woman who possessed beauty, good sense, good temper, and money; the last aided him in the manufacture of paper, which he commenced at Elford, four miles from Tamworth, and conducted to the end of his days. Though no man was more attentive to business, and no one in the country made better paper, or so good of its kind, yet the direction of a manufactory, combined with his present literary attainments, did not satisfy the comprehensive mind of Bage. His manufactory, under his eye, went on with the regularity of a machine, and left him leisure to indulge his desire of knowledge. In the year 1765, Bage entered into partnership with three persons (one of whom was Dr. Darwin*) in an extensive manufactory of iron; and at the end of fourteen years, when the partnership was terminated, he found himself à loser, it is believed, of £1500. In 1781 appeared his novel of Mount Henneth, in two vols. which was sold to Lownds for £30. This was succeeded by Barham Downs, two vols. 1784; the Fair Syrian, two vols. about 1787; James Wallace, three vols. 1788; Man as he is, four vols. 1792; Hempsprong; or, Man as he is not, three vols. 1796. These works of Bage are of a high and decided merit. It is scarcely possible to read them without being amused, and to a certain degree instructed, and, what is without a parallel in the annals of literature, that of six different works, comprising a period of fifteen years, the last should be, as it

*Erasmus Darwin, eminent as a physician and a poet, educated at Cambridge, where he took his batchelor's degree in medicine. From Cambridge he removed to

was born at Elston, near Newark, Nottinghamshire, and

Edinburgh, where he took his doctor's degree; after which he practised at Lichfield, with reputation; and in 1757, married Miss Howard, of that city, who died in 1770, leaving three sons. His second wife was the widow of colonel Pole, who brought him a good fortune, on which he removed to Derby in 1781, where he passed the remainder of his life. He died suddenly at Bredsall, April 17, 1802.

Dr. Darwin's literary fame rests upon the Botanic Garden, with philosophical notes, in two parts. He was the author of papers in the philosophical transactions and a tract on female education, 4to. He had also a share in the formation of the system of vegetables of Linnæus, published in the name of the botanical society at Lichfield.

See Songs of the Press, pages 66. 67, for some poetry and observations on the praise of printing, by Dr. Darwin. Charles Darwin, his son, born at Lichfield, 1758, who promised fair to become eminent in medicine, died in 1782.

unquestionably is, the best. Several of his novels were translated into German, and published at Frankfort. William Hutton, the celebrated bookseller and author at Birmingham, purchased nearly all the paper which Bage made during forty-five years; and betwixt whom a strong friendship existed to the last. He had quitted Elford, and during the last eight years of his life resided at Tamworth, where he died, leaving his wife to lament his loss. In his person, Robert Bage was somewhat under the middle size, and rather slender, but well proportioned. His complexion was fair and ruddy; his hair light and curling; his countenance intelligent, mild, and placid. His manners were courteous, and his mind was firm. His integrity, honour, and devotion to truth, were undeviating and incorruptible. His humanity, benevolence, and generosity, were not less conspicuous in private life than they were in the principal character of his works. He supplied persons he never saw with money, because he heard they were in want, He kept his servants and his horses to old age, and both men and quadrupeds were attached to him. He behaved to his sons (he had three) with the unremitting affection of a father; but as they grew up, he treated them as men and equals, and allowed them that independence of mind and conduct which he claimed for himse

1801. The Porcupine. This was a daily newspaper started by William Cobbett,* in London. It contained some articles of extraordinary talent and energy, one especially, which was read from every pulpit in the kingdom; and for which, Mr. Windham declared in his place in the house of commons, the author deserved a statue of gold. The career of the Porcupine was not of long duration; he then commenced his far-famed Weekly Register, which for upwards of thirty years was the vehicle of his opinions and hi feelings. About the time of his commencing the Register, he opened a bookseller's shop in Pall Mall.

1801, April 1. The Orthodox Churchman's Magazine, No. 1.

1801. Monthly Musical Journal, edited by Thomas Busby, Mus. Doc. and LL.D. 1801. Waterford Mirror.

1802, Jan. 9. CHARLES HAYES, who kept book-stall in Piccadilly, London, was prosecuted in the court of king's bench, by the society for promoting christian knowledge, for having on his stall a pamphlet called the Man of Fashion Mr. Alley contended that the witness's merely

*The first appearance of William Cobbett, on the politi cal horizon, we have already noticed at page 777 ante was at Philadelphia, as the author of Peter Porcupine, and a bookseller. From Philadelphia he was driven by the ver dict of a jury, for a libel on Dr. Rush, with a verdict of five thousand dollars, Dec. 1799. He settled for a short time at New York, and published the Rushlight, in which he held up to ridicule the judge, the jury, and the press, and others concerned in the late trial; he soon afterwards returned to England.

+ Right Hon. William Windham, M.P., died June 4, 1814. Dr. Busby, in conjunction with Dr. Arnold, published in 1786, the Musical Dictionary, 197 numbers; and in 1801, he published a New and complete Musical Dictionary, Svo. third edition, 1812.

taking up a book was no proof of a publication by the defendant. Mr. Bosanquet insisted, that, as the book lay exposed to public view, it was a publication. The court, however, ruled in favour of Mr. Bosanquet, but the jury returned a verdict of not guilty.

1802, Feb. 1. Died, PAUL VAILLANT, an opulent and respectable bookseller in the Strand, London, in the eighty-seventh year of his age, being at that time father of the company of stationers, of which he had been a liveryman sixty-four years. He left two sons, one of them in holy orders; the other, well known and respected as a gentleman of great literary talents, and eminent as one of the counsellors at law in the corporation of London. In 1739, or 1740, Mr. Vaillant went to Paris, for the purpose of superintending the famous edition of Cicero by the abbé Olivet; and again, in 1759, to settle the plan for a new edition of Tacitus, by the bbé Brotier. He was one of the sheriffs of London and Middlesex in 1760, memorable for he conviction of a noble earl,* who, previous o his execution, made Mr. Vaillant a present of is stop-watch, with many acknowledgments for is polite attentions and civilities; and he was also in the commission of the peace for Middleex. His grandfather (Paul Vaillant) was of a espectable Protestant family at Samur, in the French province of Anjou. At the time of the evocation of the edict of Nantes, he escaped with his life from the bloody Dragonade of the Jugonots by that merciless tyrant Louis XIV.; nd in 1686, settled as a foreign bookseller in the Strand, opposite Southampton-street, (see page 64 ante,) where himself, his sons Paul and Isaac, tis grandson, the late Mr. Vaillant, and Mr. Elmsly, successively carried on the same trade, n the same house, till nearly the end of the ighteenth century.

1802, Feb. 19. Died, R. TRUEMAN, proprietor nd printer of the Exeter Flying Post, which he ad established and conducted for forty years. 1802, March. Died, HENRY SERJEANT, printer and bookseller, at Preston, Lancashire; a young nan highly valued by all who knew him.

1802, March 8. The lord chancellor (Eldon) letermined "that bibles printed by the king's rinter in Scotland, cannot be sold in England." 1802. The German plan of disposing of books by means of literary fairs, was adopted in the Cnited States of America: the first was held at New York, when it was proposed to hold them tatedly in that city.

1802. April 16. Died, Mr. BURGESS, printer o the university of Cambridge.

1802. May 3. Died, PETER ELMSLY, some ime partner with, and many years successor to Paul Vaillant, in the Strand, in that department principally of an importer of foreign books. He was a native of Aberdeenshire, and to the tolerable education which it is in the power of almost

Lawrence Shirley, earl Ferrers, was committed to The tower, Feb. 30, 1760, for the murder of his steward, Mr. Johnson, and executed at Tyburn, May 5.

⚫ Mrs. Vaillant died in London, Jan 18, 1827, aged 91.

every Scotchman without much difficulty to attain, Mr. Elmsly had gradually superadded, as he advanced in life and prosperity, such a fund of general knowledge, and so uncommonly accurate a discrimination of language, that, had he chosen to have stood forward as a writer, he would have secured a permanent niche in the temple of fame. Nor was he less critically nice in the French language than his own. For a short time before his death he had wholly quitted business with a competent fortune, most handsomely acquired by consummate ability, the strictest integrity, and respected by every human being who knew him. He died at Brighton, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. His remains were conveyed to Sloane-street, London, and deposited in the family vault at Marybone, attended by a large party of friends, sincere mourners on the melancholy occasion; as for strength of mind, soundness of judgment, and unaffected friendship, he left not many equals. He left a widow to whom he had long been an affectionate husband. Mr. Elmsly resigned his business to his shopman, Mr. David Bremner; whose anxiety for acquiring wealth rendered him wholly careless of indulging himself in the ordinary comforts of life, and hurried him prematurely to the grave. He was succeeded by Messrs. James Payne and J. Mackinlay; the former of whom was the youngest son of Thomas Payne, of the Mews-gate, noticed at page 799, ante; the latter shopman to Mr. Elmsly.

1802. The printing office of Samuel Hamilton, of London, destroyed by fire. Amongst other property destroyed, was the second edition of the Travels of Anacharsis the Younger, in Greece, from the French of Barthelemy, seven vols. 8vo. It was then given to Mr. Gillett, to print, and finished within a few sheets, when the whole impression perished in a second conflagration,-a circumstance which gave rise to an expensive litigation between the printer and the proprietors of the work. See under Dec. 12, 1805.

1802. The Holy Bible, printed in a new manner, with notes, ten vols. 8vo. by John Reeves, esq. F. R.S. This gentleman, who followed the profession of the law, became a sort of lay-brother of our profession, (in conjunction with George Eyre and Andrew Strahan, as king's printers) by means of the right hon. William Pitt, as a reward for some political services which he had rendered to the cause of that statesman. Mr. Reeves embarked pretty largely in his new profession of prayer-book and bible-printing, until his interest in the patent was purchased by Mr. Strahan. This mode of requiting political services in the reign of George III. gave rise to some parliamentary inquiries, which caused a new patent to be made out. Mr. John Reeves died at London, August 7, 1829.

1802 It was announced that 20,000 per day of the Moniteur, French newspaper, was printed.

1802. JOHN PARES, printer, of Leicester, was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment, at the sessions held in that town, for publishing a song of a seditious tendency.