Retrospect of French Literature. 



64,5 



The farther we advance in years, per mount the wheel of fortune, and the 

 the more we are affected with both iieat other sink to the bottom. I have seen 

 and cold. In early life our feelings are a miserable cooper not worth the shav- 



but little influenced by either. 



I can better remember the transac- 

 tions of seventy years, than of yesterday : 

 pour liquor into a full vessel, and the top 

 will run off first. Perhaps I can recollect 

 being in a thousand companies, every 

 person which composed them is now de- 

 parted except myself. Upon whatever 

 family I cast a distant eye, I remark in 

 that family a generation is sprung into 

 life, passed through the bloom of the day, 

 and sunk into the night. My old friends 

 have slipped off the stage, and I am as 

 unfit to unite with new, as new cloth 

 old. Thus I am become a stranger 

 to the world which I have long 

 known. 



As age increases, sleep decreases; 

 when a child in health enters upon life, 

 it can sleep twenty-two out of the twen- 

 ty-four hours. Its sleep will diminish 

 about three hours upon the average 

 every year during the next three, when 

 activity will enable it to nurse itself, 



ings he made, place his son to a banker, 

 and his son become a rich banker, a 

 member of parliament, and a baronet, 



HIS woiiKs. 



The History of Birmingham 1781 



Journey to London 1784! 



'I'he Court of Requests 1737 



The Hundred Court 1788 



History of Blackpool 1788 



Battle of Bosworth Field 1789 



History of Derby 1790 



The Barbers, a Poem 1793 



Edgar and Elftida, a Poem 1793 



The Roman Wall 1801 



Remarks upon North Wales 1801 



Tour to Scarborough 1803 



Poems, chiefly Tales 1804< 



Trip to Coatham 1808 



HIS FINAL OBSERVATIONS. 



1812. — In 1742 I attended divine ser- 

 vice at Castle Gate meeting, in Notting- 

 ham. The minister, in elucidating his 

 subject, made this impressive remark : 

 that it was very probable, in sixty years. 



That reduction will afterwards be nearly every one of that crowded assembly would 



one hour every ten years, till he arrives have descended into the grave. Seventy 



at eighty, when four or five will be his years have elapsed, and there is more 



hours of sleep. reason to conclude that I am the only 



It is curious to contemplate the flue- person left. . , ■ , 



toation of property. I have seen the This day, October 11th, is my birth- 



man of opulence look with disdain upon day- I enter upon my ninetieth year, 



a pauper in rags. I have seen that pau- and have walked ten miles. 



HALF-YEARLY 

 RETROSPECT OF FRENCH LITERATURE. 



ARCII.T,0L0Gy. 



jilonumens Ancieni et Modernesde I'Hin- 

 douston, 4c'' 



The Ancient and Modern Monuments of 

 Hindostan, described under Arch<Eolo- 

 ^ical and Picturesque Points of View ; 

 to which is prefixed an Essay on the 

 liclifiion, Legislation, and Manners of 

 the Hindoos, and Geographical and 

 Historical Notices in India. Bi/ L. 

 Langlis. Vol. II. in folio. 59 plates. 



IT is with pleasure we hail the com- 

 pletion of a volume of this magnifi- 

 tcnt and valuable work, which places the 

 nuthor in the very first line of arcliKolo- 

 girnl and historical writers. The under- 

 tnking was immense, and calculated to 

 inspire alarm and Q|>prehcn&i!)n in the 



mind of any one endowed with less ex- 

 tensive abilities than M. Langles. It 

 required no less than a profound know- 

 ledge of the Sanscrit, the Persian, anti 

 the Arabic, and the principal living lan- 

 guages of Europe, as the French, English, 

 Italian, German, and Danish; and, after 

 all, the acquisition of those various 

 tongues f)rmed only the keys to the va- 

 rious cabinets of information. It re- 

 quired besides, therefore, the official 

 situation of M. Langlfes as Librarian of 

 the richest collection of oriental MS8. in 

 existence, at least in Europe; and that 

 thirst of knowledge, seconded by a liberal 

 fortuue, which induced him to acquire, 

 without any regard to the expence, wh;it- 

 ever was published in any language rela- 

 tive to India ; and his private collection 

 4 N 2 of 



