The Edinburgh Review was first published in 1802. The plan was suggested by Sydney Smith, at a meeting of literati, in the fourth or fifth flat or story, in Buccleugh-place, Edinbu...
In the autumn of 1831, died the Rev. Dr. Shaw, at Chesley, Somersetshire, at the age of eighty-three: he is said to have been the last surviving friend of Dr. Johnson. On the 16th...
Thomson, the author of the "Seasons," was a very awkward reader of his own productions. His patron, Doddington, once snatched a MS. from his hand, provoked by his odd utterance, te...
The showman's work is very profitable at the country-house of Voltaire, at Ferney, near Geneva. A Genevese, an excellent calculator, as are all his countrymen, many years ago value...
Mrs. Murray Keith, a venerable Scotch lady, from whom Sir Walter Scott derived many of the traditionary stories and anecdotes wrought up in his novels, taxed him one day with the a...
Cottle, in his Life of Coleridge, relates the following amusing incident:-- "I led the horse to the stable, when a fresh perplexity arose. I removed the harness without difficulty;...
The Empress Catherine of Russia having sent, as a present to Voltaire, a small ivory box made by her own hands, the poet induced his niece to instruct him in the art of knitting st...
Sir Robert Walpole, in one of his letters, thus describes the relations of a skilful Minister with an accommodating Parliament--the description, it may be said, having, by lapse of...
The Rev. Sydney Smith compares Mr. Canning in office to a fly in amber: "nobody cares about the fly: the only question is, how the devil did it get there?" "Nor do I," continues Sm...
Dr. Dibdin, in his Reminiscences, relates:--"Sir John Stoddart married the sister of Lord Moncrieff, by whom he has a goodly race of representatives; but, before his marriage, he w...
The learned Sale, who first gave to the world a genuine version of the Koran, pursued his studies through a life of wants. This great Orientalist, when he quitted his books to go a...
Chatterton, the marvellous boy, wrote a political essay for the North Briton, Wilkes's journal; but, though accepted, the essay was not printed, in consequence of the death of the...
Three of the most celebrated resorts of the literati of the last century were Will's Coffee-house, No. 23, on the north side of Great Russell-street, Covent Garden, at the end of B...
Geoffrey Crayon (Irving), and Wilkie, the painter, were fellow-travellers on the Continent, about the year 1827. In their rambles about some of the old cities of Spain, they were m...