143 
1811 .] Extracts from the Portfolio of a Man of Letters. 
mrmy ! he zras a colonel a month ago, and 
may, Jor what I know, be yroinoled a ge¬ 
neral by this time ! In the arm\^, Sir!—you 
astonish me; I thouglit you had a great 
iiuinber of gentlemen whose talents and 
experience qualified them, and whose 
ioiig services entitled them, to promotion 
in that. Pray what have your govern¬ 
ment done with vSir Guy Carleton, who I 
remember distinguished himself so much 
while I was in America? If you wish to 
see Sir Guy Carleton, Sir, (replied I,) you 
will find him at VVhiteliall, zcith a pen 
stuck behind his ear, auditing thenationul 
accounts 
INGENIOUS QUOTATION. 
Moore’s erratic poetry having become 
celebrated, a reviewer applied to it this 
line of Waller, concerning Apollo and 
Daphne: 
** He-graspM at love, and frll’d his hand with 
bays.” 
■DISAPPOINTMENT IS CENSORIOUS. 
An unsuccessful writer often hecomes a 
morose critic:—insipid white wine ra:dtes 
sharp vinegar. 
ERRORS IN THE IMPROVED VERSION. 
Two grammatical errors have been 
committed in a single sentence, by liie 
authors of tiie improved version, in ren¬ 
dering the anecdote of the cintedus: 
IMark xiv. 51. They unite: “ And the 
young men lay hold on him,’’ instead of 
writing: layed hold of. I'he past tense 
of to lay is layed : and we always say, to 
take hold of, to lay hold of a thing or 
person; not to take hold on, to lay hold 
on. 
CRAZINESS. 
The Germans have a Magazine of Ex¬ 
perimental Psychology (der Erfahrungs- 
seelene-kundc), which for ten years or 
more was regularly continued at Berlin. 
It compiles the Beauties of Insatdty ; and 
narrates with philosophic, and sometimes 
witli medical, commentaries, the more 
remarkable cases of credulity, supersti¬ 
tion, errancy of idea, internal apparition, 
transport of mind, idiotism, or phrenzy, 
which came under the author’s obser¬ 
vation. A favourite system with him 
seems to be, that guilt is but a form of 
iivanity, and crimes the exjrjJosions of 
uii<ivatched madness; that a''t enlightened 
police would call its jailers, keepers; and 
its Newgate, Bedlam; and that, during 
their lucid intervals, the worst men are 
entitled to the charities of inteicourse, 
and the recommencemeuts of freedom. 
IMAGINARY AUTHORSHIP. 
Durinii the seven years’ war, a German, 
Monthly Mag. No, 217, .. 
named John Matthias King, wlio vAas 
connected with the commissai iate of the 
Prussian army, came over to London; It 
does not appear tiiat he published iu 
England any book. 
On his return to Germany, lie said, 
that he had written a refutation of tlie 
King of Prussia’s infidel philosophy, and 
boasted of his triumph in tliis literary 
crusade. Afterwards, he said, that the 
King of Prussia was seeking lor him to 
imprison him, and that he should perish 
iu a protestant inqiiisititm, suffering iika 
Trenck. In order to avoid this suppo¬ 
sitious danger, he took refuge in the im¬ 
perial city of Frankfort on the Maine; 
hired a garret in the house of a Jew, 
named Brentano, which he never quit¬ 
ted; had the door, which fronted his 
stair case, filled up with grating, so that 
he could receive provisions through the 
lattice, without opening his apartment; 
bought fire arms, which lay about always 
loaded; and in every thing lived after 
the manner of a man, who hourly ex¬ 
pected to be seized by the constables, 
and was determined to repel force by 
force. His chairs, his tables, his clothes, 
made himself, with singular dexteriiv.' 
He had sunk upon his life a sufficient 
sum to buv all he wanted; and would 
frequently treat himself with oranges, 
which the Jew-bnys brought to his 
grating. Of his savings he made an an¬ 
nual rouleau, to the amount sometimes 
of three hundred ducats, which he sent 
to some evangelical pastor for charitab'a 
uses. He died in 1776. 
IMPERSONAL VERBS, 
A continental metaphysician and phi- 
lologer maintains, that the first idea.S of 
divinity arise in human minds from 
use of impersonal verbs. It. is warm. It 
is cold. It rains'. It snozvs. It lights 
ens and thundez's. 
- .So long, says he, as the cause of any 
phenomenon is announced .by language, 
we seek no further. The wind blozcs, is 
a phrase which seems to tel! us all vce 
w'ant to know about the fact. But by 
endeavouring to commebend and define 
* 
the great 1 T, we at length [lersonify the 
unknown cause of all the operations of 
nature. Ac.cordingiy we slum, with w 
sort of secret piety, to use impersonally 
verbs of ill omen, such ns: it blasts; it 
tempests. We say, I am hurt; but not 
it hurts me; unless the it has a sj,>-ecinG 
auterA-dent. 
Unfortunately for the theorist, these 
idioms are not common to ail languages; 
T aUhuugh 
