20 



AUTHORS. 



ing to his own songs and his own 

 music for in truth, the whole 

 nation was echoing his verse, and 

 crowded theatres were clapping to 

 his wit and honour while this 

 very man himself, urged by his 

 strong humanity, had founded a' 

 "Fund for decayed musicians" 

 at this moment was poor Carey 

 himself so broken-hearted, and his 

 own common comforts so utterly 

 neglected, that, in despair, not 

 waiting for nature to relieve him 

 from the burthen of existence, he 

 laid violent hands on himself ; and 

 when found dead, had only a half- 

 penny in his pocket! Such was 

 the fate of the author of some of 

 the most popular pieces in our lan- 

 guage ! He left a son who inhe- 

 rited his misery and a gleam of his 

 genius. (D' Israeli's Calamities.) 



JOHN MACDIARSIID 



"Was one of those Scotch stu- 

 dents whom the golden fame of 

 Hume and Robertson attracted to 

 the metropolis. He mounted the 

 first step of literary adventure with 

 credit ; and passed through the 

 probation of editor and reviewer, 

 till he strove for more heroic ad- 

 ventures. He published some vo- 

 lumes, whose subjects display the 

 aspirings of his genius : ' ; An in- 

 quiry into the nature of civil and 

 military subordination;" 'another 

 into " the system of military de- 

 fence." It was during these labours 

 I beheld this inquirer, of a ten- 

 der frame, emaciated, and study- 

 worn, with hollow eyes, where the 

 mind dimly shone like a lamp in 

 a tomb. With keen ardour he 

 opened a new plan of biographical 

 politics. When, by one who wished 

 the author and his style were in 

 better condition, the dangers of 

 excess of study were brought to his 

 recollection he smiled, and, with 

 something of a mysterious air, 

 talked of unalterable confidence in 

 ihe powers of his mind of the in- 



definite improvement in our facul- 

 ties ; and, although his frame was 

 not athletic, he considered himself 

 capable of trying it to the extre- 

 mity his whole life indeed was 

 one melancholy trial often the day 

 cheerfully passed without its meal, 

 but never without its page. The 

 new system of political biography 

 was advancing, when our young 

 author felt a paralytic stroke. He 

 afterwards resumed his pen, and a 

 second one proved fatal. He lived 

 just to pass through the press his 

 Lives of British Statesmen, a splen- 

 did quarto, whose, publication he 

 owed to the generous temper of a 

 friend, who, when the author could 

 not readily procure a publisher, 

 would not see even the dying 

 author's last hopes disappointed. 

 Some research and reflection are 

 combined in this literary and civil 

 history of the sixteenth and seven- 

 teenth centuries but it was writ- 

 ten with the blood of the author, 

 for Macdiarmid died of over-study. 

 (D'Israeli's Calamities.) 



TOBIAS SMOLLETT. 



Of most authors by profession 

 who has displayed a more fruitful 

 genius, and exercised more intense 

 industry, with a loftier sense of his 

 independence, than Smollett ? But 

 look into his life and enter into his 

 feelings, and you will be shocked 

 at the disparity of his situation 

 with the genius of the man. Hia 

 life was a succession of struggles, 

 vexations, and disappointments, 

 yet of success in his writings. 

 Smollett, who is a great poet though 

 he has written little in verse, and 

 whose rich genius had composed 

 the most original pictures of human 

 life, was compelled by his wants to 

 debase his name by selling it to 

 voyages and translations, which he 

 never could have read. When he 

 had worn himself down in the ser- 

 vice of the public or the booksel- 

 lers, there remained not, of all his 



