"Dear Sir, "I should not get through ten books on the progress of virtue in ten months, but wherever I have opened the book, I find the numbers flowing, and the images agreeable. My own taste in regard to didactic poems is, I suppose, vicious, for, excepting the Georgics of Virgil, I never got through a whole poem of this sort in my life. "Sermons, I never published any but such as I was under the necessity of printing for the publick occasions on which they were preached, or one or two, from some censure of their contents which I thought it right to repel. With a powerful voice, a fluent delivery, and a good manner, several have pleased an audience; but though I had bestowed all the pains on them that the subjects deserved, and all the divinity I was master of, yet when I came to read other men's sermons on the same subjects, I have, in many instances, been so conscious of my inferiority, that I never ventured to publish a volume. "In short, I believe my credit can only exist as a geographer, and that of a peculiar turn, and whether soracte is candida or candidum, I will not allow you to triumph over my lapse. I fear many may occur, but, as times go, the work is a good one. Believe me, with much respect, your most obedient and faithful Servant, "Deanery, March 6, 1812." No. III. T. B. HOWELL, Esq. BARRISTER AT LAW, AND EDITOR OF THE STATE TRIALS, &C. Accompanied by an Original Letter. MR. HOWELL was born about the year 1766. ther was a gentleman of competent estate, which he did not, however, improve by a speculation in houses, burgage-tenures, &c. to obtain a certain degree of influence in a borough in his own immediate neighbourhood, for the purpose of acquiring a permanent seat for his family in parliament. His son, Mr. T. B. Howell, was bred a gentleman-commoner, at Oxford, and having entered himself of Lincoln's Inn, afterwards resided in chambers there, which happened to be next to those of the late Mr. Perceval. These gentlemen lived in great intimacy together, and their friendship never suffered any eclipse, although their political opinions were entirely different. Indeed, if the subject of this brief memoir could have accommodated himself to existing circumstances, there can be no doubt, but all the honours of the profession would have been open to him: but his principles were fixed, and his integrity inflexible. Having married Miss Long, one of the co-heirs of the barony of Zouch, he settled in Gloucestershire, was in thẹ commission of the peace during many years, for that county, and offered himself, at one period, as a candidate for the city. He afterwards returned to London, and that place became his chief residence during the remainder of a life which was terminated in 1817, in the 51st or 52d year of his age. His widow still survives him, and by this lady he has had several 9 children; particularly a son, who promises to distinguish himself as a barrister. Mr. Howell did not practise much as a counsel, but was always deemed an able and judicious lawyer. He was induced of late years to superintend the new edition of the State Trials; and it is allowed by all good judges, that he has enriched that work with many curious and valuable additions. Here follows the copy of an original letter from T. B. Howell, Esq., to Francis Hargrave, Esq., K. C. and Recorder of Liverpool. "Dear Sir, "Northumberland-Street (London). June 30th, 1810. "I am extremely gratified by the information, that your Jurisconsult Exercitations are to be published; and partaking of that lively interest concerning them which might be felt by every friend to the promotion of legal knowledge, and the dissemination of the best and soundest constitutional doctrines; I entreat of you to pardon the liberty which I take in suggesting my hope, that they will be accompanied by an Index. "In the consideration of great questions, the vast copiousness of your learning, the profundity of your reflection, the pregnancy of your imagination, and the tact of your intuitive sagacity, enable you at once to discover and to apply, not only the most minute features of resemblance, and the most delicate connections of analogy, but at the same time the most remote and subtle topics which operate, or may be supposed to operate, in contraversion of such analogy. In short, the cogency of your mind presses into the service of truth whatever is capable of inforcing conviction. Hence it happens, that your disquisitions, besides exhausting the learning, ingenuity, and eloquence applicable immediately to their respective subjects, afford most interesting and valuable illustration to a variety of dependant propositions, and to a number of law principles, and of law cases, in which those propositions are involved, or with which they are connected. Much, there fore, is to be found of most important matter in every page of your disquisitions, to which the title can give no direction or intimation to any person who does not possess (and who does possess?) your comprehensive mind, and the faculty of exercising it as you have done. “Without an Index, therefore, your most valuable work will, as it appears to me, be much less useful than it would be with the aid of that mechanical supplement. "I know not how sufficiently to excuse myself for the liberty I have thus taken. Indeed, unless you will accept my anxiety for the effect of your work, I can only allege your civilities to me and I fear I make, by this intrusion, but a sorry return for them. I trust, however, you do me the justice to be assured, that I am, dear Sir, Your very obliged, and respectful Servant, No. IV. REV. CHARLES BURNEY, D.D. LL. D. F. R. AND A. S. &c. &c. THE death of this respectable divine, and very eminent. scholar, has produced no small degree of grief and sorrow, on the part of all those connected with the republic of let-` ters, of which he was an ornament. [In consequence of this melancholy incident having occurred at the close of the preceding year, it was impossible to compose a memoir of him, for the present volume; but one shall certainly appear in the next.] |