28 



AUTHORS. 



by his father's valet crying floun- 

 ders about the streets of Deptforcl, 

 was sent to the West Indies, whither 

 Foster accompanied him. On their 

 return to England a good-natured 

 stratagem was practised to obtain a 

 temporary supply of money from 

 old Montagu, and, at the same 

 time, to give him a favourable 

 opinion of his son's attention to a 

 particular species of erudition. The 

 stratagem was this : Foster wrote 

 a book which he entitled, The Rise 

 and Fall of the Roman Republics. 

 To this he subjoined the name of 

 Edward Wortley Montagu, jun., 

 Esq. Old Wortley seeing the book 

 advertised, sent for his son, and 

 gave him a bank note of one hun- 

 dred pounds, promising him a simi- 

 lar present for every new edition 

 which the book should pass through. 

 It was well received, and therefore 

 a second edition occasioned a second 

 supply. It is now in libraries with 

 the name of Wortley Montagu pre- 

 fixed as the author, although he 

 did not write a line of it. (L. T. 

 Rede's Anecdotes. London. 1799.) 



DR. JOHNSONS SERMONS, ETC. 



The papers in the Adventurer, 

 signed with the letter T., are com- 

 monly attributed to one of Mr. 

 Johnson's earliest and most inti- 

 mate friends, Mr. Bathurst the 

 bookseller; but there is reason to 

 believe they were written by John- 

 son, and by him given to his friend. 

 At that tune Johnson was himself 

 engaged in writing the Rambler, 

 and could ill afford to make a pre- 

 sent of his labours. The various 

 other pieces he gave away have 

 conferred fame, and probably for- 

 tune, on several persons, to the 

 great disgrace of some of his cleri- 

 cal friends; forty sermons, which, 

 he himself tells us he wrote, have 

 not yet been deterre. (L. T. Eede's 

 Anecdotes. London. 1799.) [Query: 

 Are the sermons here alluded to 

 those left for publication by John 

 Taylor, LL.D., which have long been 

 recognized as the genuine produc- 

 tion of the learned lexicographer?] 

 (See a letter of Dr. Beattie's, of 

 date October 31, published in his 

 life by Sir W. Forbes.) 



TENDEBNESS AND AFFECTION. 



DR. CHALMERS. 



The simplicity and tenderness 

 of Dr. Chalmers's character have 

 never been better illustrated than 

 in the details given in the. follow- 

 ing passage from the Memoir by 

 Dr. Hanna: 



"In the spring of 1845, Dr. Chal- 

 mers visited his native village. It 

 almost looked as if he came to take 

 farewell, and as if that peculiarity 

 of old age which sends it back to 

 the days of childhood for its last 

 earthly reminiscences, had for a 

 time, and prematurely, taken hold 

 of him. His special object seemed 

 to be to revive the recollections of 

 his boyhood gathering Johnny- 

 Groats by the sea-beach of the Bil- 

 lowness, and lilacs from an ancient 

 hedge, taking both away to be laid 



up in his repositories at Edinburgh. 

 Not a place or person familiar to 

 him in earlier years was left unvi- 

 sited. On his way to the church- 

 yard, he went up the very road 

 along which he had gone of old to 

 the parish school. Slipping into a 

 poor-looking dwelling by the way, 

 he said to his companion, Dr. Wil- 

 liamson, ' I would just like to see 

 the place where Lizzy Geen's water- 

 bucket used to stand,' the said 

 water -bucket having been a, fa- 

 vourite haunt of the over-heated 

 ball -players, and Lizzy a great 

 favourite for the free access she 

 allowed to it. He called on two 

 contemporaries of his boyhood, one 

 of whom he had not seen for forty- 

 five, the other for fifty-two years, 

 and took the most boyish delight 



