1823.] 
with this exception, the embassy to 
Russia was the last of his public em- 
ployments. i ‘ 
The public missions in which Mr. 
Pinkney was employed, occupied seven, 
years of his life, for which he received 
abot 120,600 dollars. 
In the latter end of February, 1822, 
he was seized with a fit of illness, occa- 
sioned by the great exertions which he 
had made in a cause in which he was 
Stephensiana, No. XXIII, 
329 
engaged. It is said that he had em- 
ployed himself a whole night in prepar- 
ing for the labours of the ensning day. 
He contracted a severe cold, and was 
not able to deliver what had cost him so 
much toil and privation. He endea- 
voured to strmount these obstacles ; but 
the struggle was too violent; he burst 
the chords of life ; and fell on the theatre 
of his greatness, and in the plenitude of 
his fame ! 
ae eeneeneeeeal 
NO. XXIII. 
STEPHENSIANA. 
The late ALEXANDER STEPHENS, Esq. of Park House, Chelsea, devoted an active and 
well-spent life in collecting Anecdotes of his contemporaries, and generally entered,in a 
book the collections of the passing day ;—these collections we have purchased, und propose to 
present a scleclion from them to our readers. As Editor of the Annual Obituary, and many 
other biographical works, the Author may probubly have incorporated some of these scraps ; 
but the greater part are unpublished, and stand alone as cabinet-pictures of men and 
manners, worthy of a place in a literary miscellany. 
— 
PUNS BY BURKE. 
R. Burke’s classical pun on Mr. 
Wilkes’s being carried on the 
shoulders of the mob, was as follows :-— 
Numerisque fertur 
Lege solutus. 
Another of Mr. Burke’s playful conceits 
was the description of a good manor, 
as given by Horace in a single line:— 
Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique 
fines. 
Or, in other words, “ A modus as to the 
tithes, and certain fines to be paid by 
those holding of the lord.” 
GUELPHIC LITERATURE. 
It has been long mentioned, as a re- 
proach to the House of Brunswick, that 
it never encouraged men of Jetfers, or 
men of science. It ought not to be 
forgotten, however, that Prince Ernest- 
Augustus sent the illustrious Leibnitz 
to travel through Germany and Italy ; 
that the Elector, George I. employed 
him to write the history of his family ; 
and that his statue was erected in the 
city of Hanover. 
RACINE, 
Tt was from Euripides that Racine 
Jearned the art of moving the passions ; 
and, whatever gifts nature may have 
bestowed on the French nation, they 
have always been in need of models to 
form themsclyes by: for he who is 
always obliged to draw all {rom himself, 
never produces any thing great. The 
works of the ancients were familiar to 
the good writers of the age of Louis the 
Fourteenth; and it. was by imitating 
MontTHLy Mac. No. 388. 
the former that the latter became their 
equals. 
BONAPARTE AND CORSICA. 
Felix Guiliatia, at Aliola, in Corsica, 
was nearly related to Bonaparte. He 
called himself a merchant and a banker; 
but was so poor, that he could not give 
change fora bill on England without 
sending it to Leghorn. He supplied 
the Lowestoffe, Capt. Plampin, and se- 
veral other kiug’s ships, with beef. He 
lived in a miserable ruinated house, and 
had a little shabby counting-house. 
BAYLEs: /)) 
Bayle, perhaps with too much seve- 
rity, pretends that whoever does not 
understand Greek cannot call himself a 
learned man. Af present, among those 
who assume that name,. how niany are 
there who scarcely understand Latin? 
A romance, or any work of fiction, the 
most contemptible pamphlet, are by 
the authors of them thought sufficient 
titles to this appellation. 
LA HARPE, 
‘This Frenchman had much learning 
and ingenuity, but £ must object alto- 
gether to his want of candour, His 
hatred to England extended to English 
literature, which he vilified and tra-, 
duced ; pretending that our language 
was so poor, that the conditional tense 
cannot be expressed without a_peri- 
phrase. It is certain tliat, with the 
.assistance of those most simple, signifi- 
cant, and easy, signs, might, could, 
would, and should, every complex varia- 
tion of the Greek or Latin tense may 
be clearly expressed. La Harpe un- 
2U dertook 
’ 
