1821. Taylor, who was the predominant partner, took the opportunity of adding Cary's name to the list of contributors, and the translator's first article, a short paper On Gray's Opinion of Collins, appeared in the July number.

Cary's name had previously, however, come under consideration in another connection, namely, as a possible choice for the still vacant editorship. It was natural that Cary as well as Hazlitt a fairly obvious candidate-should occur to Taylor's mind, since two years previously, when the firm had had some intention of starting a new quarterly review, the editorship had actually been offered to Cary. He refused, partly on account of the heavy responsibilities which the control of book reviewing would entail; and the project came to nothing. It is to be doubted whether Cary, with his gentle and somewhat retiring nature, would ever have taken kindly to the harassing duties of an editor; but he seems to have been not unwilling to attempt the London Magazine, an organ of a somewhat different nature. However, this plan also came to nothing. From correspondence recently discovered, it is clear that Taylor, indulging in a policy of shilly-shally' which was later to prove disastrous, hesitated for nearly two months between choosing Hazlitt or Cary as the new editor, and then decided to have neither, but to run the magazine himself. This seems to have occasioned, between the new proprietors and each of the two gentlemen concerned, 'conversations' which were marked by a certain asperity; but Taylor, an astute negotiator when he did not overreach himself, got his way, and even succeeded in retaining the services of both Hazlitt and Cary as contributors to the magazine neither was ever to edit. Cary was represented, chiefly by articles On the Early French Poets and a series of Lives of the Poets in continuation of Dr. Johnson, in almost every number up to January 1825, when Taylor and Hessey disposed of the magazine to another publisher.

The latter half of 1821 found the magazine well launched on the second stage of its journey, with the affable, if perhaps slightly too affable, Taylor at the helm, the amiable but colourless 'Mistessey' (Keats's nickname for Hessey) as his coadjutor, and an unrivalled list of contributors, including, besides those already referred to, Procter, Allan Cunningham, Clare, George Darley,

Cf. Memoir of H. F. Cary (1847), vol. ii., 35-37, 39.

The correspondence with Hazlitt is dealt with by Mr. Howe in his recent Life of Hazlitt (Secker, 1922, PP. 315, 326). I have made use of that with Cary, not hitherto available. The two sources of information agree in giving the impression that Taylor acted in a somewhat double-faced fashion. Cary had also to threaten the withdrawal of his intended contributions in order to obtain an adequate rate of pay. Ten guineas a sheet (of sixteen pages) for prose and fifteen for verse were first offered; but Cary insisted on a higher rate, and obtained sixteen guineas a sheet for all his work.

De Quincey, J. H. Reynolds, T. G. Wainewright and Hood (the sub-editor), to name only a few of the most regular contributors. Taylor was anxious to maintain among his assistants the spirit of brotherhood which had already been established in some degree under Scott; and with this end in view he instituted the famous ‘magazine dinners,' of which some interesting descriptions have survived.

These meetings were very social [wrote Procter many years later], all the guests coming with a determination to please and be pleased. . . If there had been any shades of jealousy amongst them, they faded away before the light of the friendly carousal; if there was any envy, it died. All the fences and restraints of authorship were cast off, and the natural human being was disclosed.

Some of these convivial gatherings were held at Taylor's house in Waterloo Place, Pall Mall, the editorial headquarters; but others took place at the homes of various members of the circle, who took turns in entertaining their brethren. According to Cary's son, the first dinner was held at the translator's house at Chiswick; on this occasion Lamb and Clare were among the guests, and Cary made the best pun of the day. Other gatherings were held at Lamb's house, Colebrook Cottage, Islington, and, as appears from Wainewright's letter already quoted, at the latter's palatial residence in Great Marlborough Street. The liveliest and also the fullest account of the dinners is given in the reminiscences of Tom Hood (Works, 1870, vol. ii.), which should be read in their entirety, and deserve to be reprinted. Recently, also, some brief but interesting character sketches from Clare's notes for his autobiography were published in the London Mercury (February 1923) by Mr. Edmund Blunden. Clare's penetrating comment on Cary's deep-set eyes-' His eyes are the heavy-lidded sort whose earnest look seems to meet you half closed '-and his cordial praise of the translator suggest that, on one side at least, Clare found Cary's one of the most congenial of the friendships which he formed in London. This is borne out by the letters which passed between the two men from 1822 to 1833, after which ill-health and misfortune on both sides brought their intercourse to a close.

(To be continued.)

R. W. KING.

SIR HENRY WOTTON

Nor many years ago the street of the Holy Well, narrow and mediæval in its aspect, ran parallel with the Strand between St. Clement Danes and St. Martin's. As everyone knows, it was swept away in a so-called improvement scheme promoted by the London County Council in its salad days, when that body wished to show what it would do for London. The scheme as a whole may have been desirable, but no exceptions were made, and thus one of the most interesting thoroughfares was destroyed. Certainly Holywell Street was dark, airless and confined, but it was a street to linger in every shop was open; no glass lay between the purchaser and the wares, which were literally sold in market overt.' Doubtless it was here that Charles Lamb bought Quarles' Emblems for ninepence, and spent many a greedy and joyous hour reading books which he longed to purchase. The alley was lined with a perennial moss-growth of volumes, of which if you took one, another filled its place, and the sweet smell of ancient paper and seasoned leather pervaded the air. At the west end, or nave, of this temple of letters you could buy the latest shilling shocker or pamphlet from Mr. Denny, whereas in the east end, or chancel, of the alley on the right sat Mr. Ridler, surrounded by his Early English tomes. Tall brown folios of great dignity competed with quartos with gilt tooling for your attention, many of which have now been led away captive to America to adorn the walls of those who perhaps care no more for their contents than a chimney sweep.

Here it was that a stout little volume published in 1685 by B. Tooke at the sign of the Ship' in St. Paul's Churchyard took my fancy it appeared to contain juicy matter in the shape of letters, poems, and observations of much pith, so a bargain was struck, and it became mine for eight-and-six. I care not whether my Reliquia Wottoniana be a first edition or whether it be valuable because of a silly misprint on the twentieth page; it is old and authentic, and that is sufficient for me. It is the pious collection of the literary remains of Sir Henry Wotton by Izaac Walton, both notable persons who were intimate friends. The latter was a master biographer who introduces his hero in a short

sketch which could not be bettered. For a more modern and complete estimate of Wotton we must go to Mr. Logan Pearsall Smith, who has made it in two large volumes; such are for the student and historian. But for the lover of the quaint, for the desultory roamer in the field of literature, for one who does not reap, but culls a plant here and there for its individual taste and scent, the gentle Izaac's book is enough.

It is to be regretted that in these days of cheap reprints of English classics this fascinating olla podrida of papers, letters and poems should not be given a wider circulation. For here we have a series of contemporary snapshots which give a far greater insight into the spirit of the times of Elizabeth and James than a more coherent work would give. Its style is just an instance of how Elizabethan euphuism could be adapted for common use and enrich the mother-tongue with sufficient quaintness and originality without the obvious affectation of Lyly or Sidney. For Wotton was what Bacon would call a 'full' man, so widely read that his use of crisp and unexpected phrases came with no conscious effort from his great knowledge of current literature. At the same time it was essentially English, and the wonder is that his familiarity, both in speech and writing, with other European languages did not affect his style. These he must have picked up during his many sojourns abroad. For shortly after his classical career at Oxford, during which he wrote Tancredo, a play now lost, and lectured in Latin on the functions of the eye, we find him setting forth for a tour on the Continent with little more in his purse than what an annuity of 100 marks left him by his father, Thomas Wotton, would afford, ever studying and learning from men what was going on in the world. Consciously, I suppose, he was training himself for the career of an envoy, for we trace diplomacy in his blood from his grandfather Sir Edward Wotton, who was Treasurer of Calais in the sixteenth century; Nicholas, Dean of Canterbury and York, a great-uncle, who was sent by Henry VIII. to negotiate the marriage of Anne of Cleves, to his half-brother Lord Wotton, who was sent as Ambassador to James VI. of Scotland to secure an alliance to help the Dutch.

At any rate, he enters Rome disguised as a German, drinking deep and wearing a 'mighty blue' feather in a black hat to make himself so conspicuous as to escape the Inquisitors of Rome. 'Her delights on earth are sweet, but her judgements in heaven heavy,' and her religion he found converted from a rule of conscience to an instrument of State, and from the mistress of all sciences to a very handmaid of Ambition.' He had need of much discretion at this time, when his youthful curiosity and his knowledge of affairs were such that a plot was set on foot to attaint his loyalty to Elizabeth in order to keep him a prisoner in Italy.

Fortunately the plot failed, and the chiel remained among them taking notes. Your thoughts close, and your countenance loose, will go safely over the whole world,' was his comment, a saying which, if he had consistently obeyed in later years, would have saved him much anxiety.

A refuge from these political dangers was found in the calmer atmosphere of Geneva, the home of Protestantism, in the congenial company of Isaac Casaubon, the Gascon theologian, the scholar who in time became Prebendary of Canterbury. Here he met a true friend, who afterwards recalled those fourteen happy months spent in friendly converse. 'What days those were when, heedless of the hour, we passed whole nights in lettered talk!' Borrowing 260 crowns from his host and a horse to set him on his way, he ambles across Switzerland to Strasburg to visit another scholar, the Rector of the Academy, whose testimonial is that Wotton's first care is to meet with those from whose company he may depart a better and a wiser man.' At first sight a faint suspicion of priggishness seems to attach itself to this good youth: there is no evidence that, beyond that bout of deep drinking assumed for the purpose of camouflage, he ever participated in any of the vices common to courtiers and students; indeed, he carried a reticence and aloofness which sometimes made him suspect. He, either modestly or cautiously, hid his virtue under a cloak of cynicism and wit, which probably his conversation, and certainly his letters, abundantly show.

During these wanderings he poured forth a correspondence with his friend Lord Zouch, then at Altdorf, full of wisdom and observation. Of Pope Gregorius VIII. he writes:

It is much wondered how he came to the Popedom, being half a Fool, as they say who know him and have long conversed with him, and he hath a quality different from all others that he continually laughs, whereby his Humour is soon guessed at.

So stout a Protestant is he that he can never resist the temptation to give a dig at Rome. From Florence,' that Paradise inhabited by devils,' he writes:

The price of a Cardinalship is an hundred thousand crowns. . . . The Pope, in this last general Examination of the Clergy in St. John Lateran, hath deposed four Canonists of that Church, the on: for having Plutarch's Lives found on his Table, the rest for failing in declining of Nouns and Verbs; the particulars are very ridiculous to write.

Occasionally we have a personal description which adds to the picturesqueness of his letters. That the Archduke Maximilian made a visit to Rome is a fact which history relates, but when we are told that he was attired in slight leather, without any manner of trimming, his hat buttoned up on the one side, his Cloak clasped together in the neck and turned over upon his shoulder, the one