EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
677
was a rery {uniable and 1}eneroleiit man; he was in person large and ungainly, with a heavy unanimated countenance, and nothing in his ap- pearance or manner in mixed society indicating the man of genius or refinement. No poet has deserved more pr^se for the moral tenor of bis works. Undoubted philanthropy, enlarged ideas of the dignity of man, and of his rights ; lore of Tirtue, public and private, and of a devotional spirit, narrowed by no views of sect or party, give soul to his verse, when not merely descrip- tive : and no man can rise from the perusal of his pages, without melioration of his principles or feekngs. His death was occasioned by a cold caught while sailing upon the Thames: he was buried under a plain stone in Kichmund church.
1748. Died, Edmund Cdrll, a noted book- seller, at the sign of the Bible, Covent Garden, rendered memorable by Pope, in his Dimciad.
In 1721, upon Curll printing the Life of the Duke of Buckingham, and pirating his works, an order was made by the house of lords, declaring "that whosoever should presume to print any account of the Life, the Lettert, or ouier works, of any deceased peer, without the consent of his heirs or executors, should be punished as guilty of a breach of privilege of this house."
The memory of Edmund Curll has been trans- mitted to posterity with an obloquy more severe than he deserved. Whatever were his demerits in having occasiomdly published works that the present ag^ would very properly consider too licentious, be certainly deserves commendation for bis industry in preserving our national re- mains. And it may perhaps be added that he did not publish a single volume but what, midst a profusion of b^se metal, contained some precious ore, some valuable reliques, which future collectors could no where else have found.
Henby Cdrll, son of the above, was also a bookseUer, in Bow -street, Covent Garden. He kept a separate shop in Henrietta-street.
1748, Not. 7. In the Bottom Evening Pott, edited b^ Thos.Fleet,already noticed at page 644, ante, is inserted the following humorous adver- tisement : " Choice Fennylvania tobacco paper, to be sold by the publishers of this paper, at the Heart and Crown : where may also be had the BVLXiS or Indulgences of me present pope Urban VIII. either by the single bull, quire, or ream, at a much cheaper rate than they can be purchased of the French or Spanith priests, and yet will be warranted to be of the same advan- tage to the possessors."
These hJU, or indulgences of the pope, were printed on one side of a small sheet ; several bales of them were taken in a Spanish ship captured by an English cruizer, and sent into Boston. Fleet purchased a very large quantity at a low price, and printed vanous editions of ballads on the backs of them. One side of the sheet was blank, and the paper very good ; one bull answered for two half-sheet ballads, or songs, such as Black- eyed Stuan, Teagtie'i ramble to the camp, ^e.
1748, Nov. 25. Dr. Johnson disposes of The Vanity of Human Wtthet, to Dodsley, for fifteen
guineas, reserving to its author the right of printing one edition.
1748. Samuel Richardson produced the two first volumes of Claritta Marlowe; these were soon succeeded by a third and fourth volume ; and then, after an interval of some months, four more volumes completed the nar- rative. The production of Claritta, perhaps the most pathetic tale ever published, at once elevated its author to the highest rank among novelists, and has secured to him an immortality to which very few writers, in the department which he cultivated, can ever hope' to aspire. In the character of Claritta, Richardson has presented us with a picture of nearly female perfection, a delineation which, unless in the hands of a great master, would be apt to pro- duce a formal insipidity; but the heroine of our author passes through such severe trials, through distresses so minutely described, yet so faiui- fully true to nature, that the interest excited in her behalf rises in every scene, and at length becomes poignantly keen. " It is probable," says Dr. Drake, "that no book, in any language, ever occasioned so many tears to flow, as ue Claritta of Richardson." " The tale," says sir Walter Scott, " is very simple ; but the scene is laid in a higher rank of life, the characters are drawn with a bolder pencil, and the whele ac- companiments are of a far loftier mood."
1748. The Jacobite't Journal. This paper appeared on the decease of the True Patnot, and was written by the same author.
1748, Oct. The Mitre and Crown, No. 1.
1749, May. The Monthly Beview,No. 1. This woric was commenced by Mr. Ralph Griffiths, bookseller, in London, which he edited, with unremitting perseverance, for fifty-four years. The first number was published at the sign of the Dunciad, St. Paul's church yard, whence in 1754 Mr. Griffiths removed to Vatemotter-row, and in 1759 into the Strand, still retaining the sign of the Dunciad. In 1764 Mr. Thomas Becket, a very respectable bookseller, in the Strand, be- came the publisher. When the Monthly Review started there was no regular established Literary Review in Great Britain ; nor was this one very successful on its first publication. Several times it was about to be abandoned, as Dr. Griffiths often told his friends; but patience,perseverance, and attention, surmounted every obstacle, and procured it a firm establishment. At this period the Genlleman't Magazine occasionally noticed works of genius ; but much more frequently those of a political or party tendency, in which all the worid knows that genius is the last thing expected, or perhaps aomired. The Monthly Review has this singular circumstance atten^g its introduction, that it came into the world almost unannounced. In contradiction to the promises, parade, and verbosity, which are gene- rally the precursors of periodical works, the two first lines of an advertisement, which scarcely contains twenty, most truly state, that " Under- takings which, in their execution, carry the de- signation of their use, need very little preface."
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