ing the several sorts of dancing, antique and modern, serious, scenical, grotesque, &c. With the use of it as an exercise, qualification, diversion, &c." London, 12mo.

I have had no opportunity of perusing Mr. Weaver's book; but I must in justice say, that his letter in the Spectator reflects considerable credit on his abilities, and exhibits a much greater portion of learning than usually falls to the lot of a dancing-master. Steele has spoken with approbation of his book in N° 466 of the Spectator.

36. RICHARD PARKER, the intimate friend, and fellow-collegian of Steele at Merton College, Oxford *, is recorded as a contributor both to the Tatler and Spectator. He took his degree of M. A. at Oxford, on April the 17th, 1697, and was esteemed one of the most accomplished scholars of his time. Oldisworth, in his Life of Edmund Smith, copied by Dr. Johnson in his Lives, has mentioned Mr. Parker as particularly intimate with that poet; and has related that Smith, having finished a translation of Longinus, "submitted it to the judgment of the Rev. Mr. Richard Parker, an exact critic in the Greek Tongue +."

* See vol. i. of these Essays, p. 43.

+ Johnson's Lives of the Poets, vol. ii. p. 15, edition of 1797.

Mr. Parker was for many years vicar of Embleton, in Northumberland, a living which had been given him by his college; and it is said, by the annotator on the edition of the Tatler published in 1797, that "fourteen or fifteen years ago it was still in the remembrance of several gentlemen in Bamburyshire, that Steele spent some time with Mr. Parker on his way to, or from, Edinburgh *."

Though Mr. Parker was much respected in the North for his virtues, his learning and politeness, he was by no means calculated as a companion for the generality of those who surrounded him. His parishioners and neighbours were, for the most part, great fox-hunters and great drinkers; and their importunate hospitality and boisterous mirth were so oppressive to our divine, that he found himself under the necessity of declining their society. The first letter in No 474 of the Spectator, which is occupied by a description of the unpleasant consequences of such rural company, has been, with great probability, ascribed to Mr. Parker. It gives a striking picture of the uneducated manners and gross excesses that characterized the gentlemen of the chase about a century ago; when pleasures of a more refined nature, and the resources of elegant *Tatler, vol. ii. p. 498, Note.

literature were, when compared with their present diffusion, the portion but of very few. Mr. Parker has expressed his sufferings in strong language. "It is to me," he observes, “an insupportable affliction, to be tormented with the narrations of a set of people, who are warm in their expressions of the quick relish of that pleasure which their dogs and horses have a more delicate taste of. I do also in my heart detest and abhor that damnable doctrine and position, of the necessity of a bumper, though to one's own toast; for though it is pretended that these deep potations are used only to inspire gaiety, they certainly drown that cheerfulness which would survive a moderate circulation."

Mr. Parker lived to a very advanced age, and died the vicar of Embleton. He was a man of exemplary virtue, and was considered, by the best judges, as a most accomplished classical scholar.

37. NICHOLAS ROWE, the son of John Rowe, Esq. serjeant at law, was born at Little Berkford, in Bedfordshire, in 1673. He obtained the prior part of his education at a private school in Highgate, and was afterwards removed to Westminster, where, under the care of the celebrated Dr. Busby, he made a rapid progress in the acquisi

tion of the learned languages, and at the age of fifteen was elected one of the king's scholars.

His father, who had destined him to the study of the law, thought him qualified, when sixteen, for a student of the Middle Temple; and for some years he prosecuted the initiatory studies of his profession with so much zeal and ability, as to promise the attainment of considerable eminence as a barrister. The death of his father, however, which took place when he had reached his nineteenth year, relaxed his efforts; and a partiality for elegant literature, and especially for poetry, which he had early imbibed with enthusiasm during his residence at Westminster, began to share, and at length to occupy the whole of his time.

The fruit of this change in the direction of his pursuits, was, at the age of twenty-five, the production of a tragedy, under the title of The Ambitious Step-Mother, and which being received with very general applause, fixed him for ever in the service of the Muses. He relinquished, therefore, entirely any further attention to his profession; and we are to view him, for some years, as almost exclusively occupied in writing for the stage.

We shall therefore proceed to notice briefly his dramatic pieces without interruption from in

tervening events; they form the prominent fea ture of his life and character, and upon them his reputation with posterity is, in a great measure, built. In 1702, four years after the appearance of his first play, he brought forward a second tragedy, named Tamerlane; and which, from its allusion to personages then acting an important part on the political stage, met with more applause than it intrinsically merited. When it was known that Tamerlane was drawn for King William, and Bajazet for Lewis the Fourteenth, nothing at that time was wanting to render it a favourite with the public.

To this popular production succeeded, in 1703, the tragedy of the Fair Penitent, which, from the beauty and melody of the versification, the sweet, ness of the diction, and the interesting conduct of the fable, still continues to attract, with power equal to what it first possessed, the lovers and admirers of the drama. It has had the merit, likewise, of furnishing to Richardson the basis on which he has constructed the highly-finished character of Lovelace.

The next two tragedies of Rowe; the Ulysses acted in 1706, and the Royal Convert in 1708, met with a very cold reception on the stage, and are now no longer remembered. The poet, however, made ample atonement for these failures