and submitted to the inspection of that literary giant a large portion of his celebrated Annals of Scotland.' He was born at Edinburgh on the 28th of October, 1726, of an illustrious family, and was educated at Eton, and the university of Utrecht. He revisited his native city soon after the suppression of CHARLES EDWARD'S rebellion, and was called to the Scotch bar on the 23d of February, 1748. On the 6th of March, 1766, he became a judge of the court of session; and in May, 1776, he was made a lord commissioner of justiciary, with the title of Lord HAILES. Frequent mention occurs of him in BOSWELL'S life of JOHNSON, and he was quoted by that great oracle as a man of worth, a scholar, and a wit.' Mr. CHALMERS speaks of him as pre-eminent in talents and in virtues, and who, as a judge, a scholar, a Christian, and a citizen, excelled in the respective duties and attributes of these characters, and at his death was praised, wept, and honoured by every friend to wisdom and goodness.'

Lord HAILES was also a large occasional contributor to the MIRROR. He died November 29, 1792.

The allegory of Prosperity and Adversity, in No. 84, was written by WILLIAM DUNCOMBE, the brother-in-law of HUGHES the poet, and editor of his poems. He was a poet and miscellaneous writer himself, and died in 1769. His son, the Rev. JOHN DUNCOMBE of Canterbury, contributed No. 36*. He died in June, 1785.

*For ample memoirs of the DUNCOMBES, father and son, see the last edition of the Biographia, from materials supplied by Mr. NICHOLS.

Nos. 38 and 74 are the production of Mr. PARRAT, or PARROTT, a writer in DODSLEY'S Collection, who appears to have no name, nor local habitation, beyond his allotment in that poorhouse of the muses.

Two ingenious communications, one in No. 78, on Female dress, and painting; and the other, in No. 86, on the utility of botanical employments, were furnished by the Rev. THOMAS COLE, assistant preacher at St. Paul's, Covent-garden. He, also, figures in the great collection; and was the author of several sermons against luxury, infidelity, and enthusiasm.

He died on the 7th of June, 1796; having published in the preceding year a narrative and didactic poem, called The Life of Hubert,' which he outlived.

To the pen of the Rev. FRANCIS COVENTRYE, minister of the donative of Edgeware, and author of Pompey the Little,' another Dodsleyan, we are indebted for No. 15, containing some humorous remarks on gardening, and the ludicrous portrait of Squire Mushroom. He fell a victim to the small-pox-which had not been long propagated by Lady MARY WORTLEY MONTAGUE, about the year 1759.

No. 26, on simplicity in taste, was contributed by Dr. JOSEPH WARTON, who, though at that time engaged in the ADVENTURER, could not refuse so much as a testimony of his friendship for MOORE.

No. 32, on criticism, by the worthy ROBERT DODSLEY himself, is one of the best papers in the whole collection; and it is to be lamented for

the interests of literature, that the pressing avocations of trade, and in all probability a modesty commensurate with his great merit, should have retained so inflexibly in the back-ground, a man calculated to stand forward with such advantage. It was he,' says Mr. CHALMERS, who suggested the name of the WORLD for these papers, and what is yet more to his honour, he was the proprietor of Dr. JOHNSON's Dictionary, as well as of many other literary undertakings of considerable merit.'

No. 37, a beautiful and affecting picture of the miseries of dependence in a great family, is a contribution of Sir CHARLES HANBURY WILLIAMS, K. B., and elegant as it is, the only prose work that we have from his pen. He was formerly minister at the courts of Berlin and St. Petersburgh, and is largely noticed, as a politician, by CoxE, in his Tour through Monmouthshire.'

Sir CHARLES HANBURY WILLIAMS wrote quantities of occasional verse, only a small portion of which was published. They are distinguished by great ease and sprightliness, but seldom by much invention, and they are often the vehicles for stale obscenities, which have been a hundred times repeated.

No. 45, a paper of considerable humour on Posts, was written by WILLIAM HAYWARD ROBERTS, at that time Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and afterwards D.D. and Fellow of Eton. Dr. ROBERTS was a chaplain to the king, and rector of Farnham-Royal, in Buckinghamshire. He published a good deal of sacred

poetry, chiefly in blank verse, of which his Judah Restored,' and an Essay on the Existence of GOD,' are the most favourable specimens. He affected to disdain the trammels of rhyme, and in consequence his sublimity is often too unwieldy, or too familiar:

Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim.

Of

Dr. ROBERTS died in the cloisters at Eton, on the 5th of December, 1791, leaving two sons, who also were at that time fellows of Eton. these, the Rev. WILLIAM ROBERTS, A. M. gave to the public in 1794, a posthumous work by his father, entitled Corrections of various passages in the English version of the Old Testament, upon the authority of ancient manuscripts and ancient versions.'

The writer of this article was at Eton during the incumbency of these ROBERTSES, who were both Doctors in Divinity. They were universally respected and esteemed. But Dr. WILLIAM ROBERTS, in particular, obtained a celebrity for the abolition of many foundational abuses, and introduced some liberalities into the collegekitchen which will not be forgotten by these ge

nerations*.

Mr. WILLIAM WHITTAKER, a serjeant-atlaw and a Welsh judge, remarkable for opposing WILKES at the Middlesex election in 1769, on

*The potatoes, which, before ROBERTS's accession to the cloisters, were served to the scholars unwashed, and with all their tunics, by his orders were first peeled; and the voice of Etonian gratitude, quàsi in perpetuam rei memoriam, has thenceforward saluted him with the cognomen of PEELIPO-ROBERTS.

which occasion he received five suffrages, was the contributor of No. 83. Mr. CHALMERS says of it, that it has more various and delicately concealed strokes of irony, than almost any paper not of ADDISON'S composition.'

The proposal to erect an hospital for decayed actors, in No. 159, is given by DoDSLEY, in his list, to JOHN GILBERT COOPER, Esq. author of a Life of Socrates,' and Letters on Taste;' the last, a very popular book in its day. No: 110, On people who live Nobody knows how, it appears is by the same hand. It was attributed to his son. -Mr. COOPER was related to the Earl of SHAFTESBURY, and a pupil of his school of philosophy. He published many original poems of various merit, but of which the best are the Epistles to Aristippus,' and a Father's Advice to his Son.' His masterpiece, however, is a translation of GRESSET's Vert-vert.

Mr. THOMAS MULSO, a brother of Mrs. CHAPONE, mentioned in a former preface, was the author of No. 131. He published two dialogues in 1768, entitled Calistus, or the Man of Fashion,' and Sophronius, or the Country Gentleman.' He died February 7, 1799, aged seventy-eight.

Mr.

No. 155 was supplied by Mr. JAMES RIDLEY, author of Tales of the Genii,' the History of JAMES LOVEGROVE, Esq.' and a periodical paper of great merit, entitled the SCHEMER. JAMES RIDLEY died on the 24th of February, 1765, in the thirtieth year of his age; consequently, he was only nineteen when he composed