Burns, were absolutely inseparable from the brilliance of his talents, or the sensibilities of his heart. I am not justifying, I only attempt to plead for them, in mitigation of the harsh and narrow censures of malignity and envy. I call on those of dull heads and sour tempers to judge with candour and mercy, to respect human frailties, more especially when redeemed by accompanying virtues, and to enter not into the garden of Fancy with implements too coarse, lest in the attempt to destroy the weeds, they pluck up also all the flowers.

September 23, 1805.

ART. DCXCVI. MISS JONES, (Poetess.) "MISS JONES," says T. Warton, " lived at Oxford, and was often of our parties. She was a very ingenious poetess, and published a volume of Poems; and on the whole, was a most sensible, agreeable, and amiable woman.. She was sister to the Rev. River Jones, Chanter of Christ-Church Cathedral at Oxford, and Johnson used to call her the Chantress. I have heard him often address her in this passage from Il Penseroso.'

"Thee, Chantress, oft the woods among

I woo,' &c.

She died unmarried."*

ART. DCXCVII. F. LEWIS.

66

SOME of the Mottos to Johnson's Rambler ❝ were very happily translated," says Boswell, “by F. Lewis, of whom I have never heard more, except that Johnson thus described him to Mr. Malone; Sir, he lived in London, and hung loose upon society." * Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson, I. p. 295,

ART. DCXCVIII. PROFESSOR PORSON..

"ON October .. the remains of Professor Porson were removed, from the house of the London Institution in the old Jewry, in order to be deposited in Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge. The directors of the institution ordered the house to be shut for the day, and the under librarians and other officers assisted in the solemnity. The procession from London consisted of four mourning coaches, followed by six private carriages: and the persons who attended him were his relatives and most intimate friends..

At half after two o'clock on Tuesday afternoon the hearse arrived at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was received at the great gate and conveyed to the hall, where, according to the ancient usage, in cases where this distinguished tribute of respect is paid to a member, the body lay in state till five o'clock.

At which the Lord Bishop of Bristol, Master of the College, the Vice-Master, Senior and Junior Fellows, Bachelors of Arts, scholars, and other members resident in the university, in their academical habits, and in black scarfs, bands, and gloves, walked from the combination room, accompanied by the chief mourners into the hall; and after moving round the body, which was placed in the midst, they' took their seats, the chief mourners being placed on the right hand and left of the master. Upon the pall, several epitaphs in Greek and English verse, the effusions of reverential respect for his high attainments and of love for his virtues, were placed on

the pall, and were read with the most sympathetic interest by his former associates in study. An anthem was chaunted by the choir. After which the body was raised by the bearers, and a most solemn procession was made round the great quadrangle of the college, from the hall to the chapel, in the following order:

Two Porters.

Singing Men and Boys, two and two.

Mr. Wilson the Undertaker.

The Feather-lid.

A Page.

Dr. Davy, Physician

}

A Page.

Mr. Oakes, Apothecary.

The Rev. Henshaw,

The Rev. John Shepherd, {Conduct of the Chapel.

Minister of Trin. Church.

The Lord Bishop of Bristol.

James Perry, and Sidny Hawes, Jun.
Brother in Law, and Nephew of the deceased.

Junior Fellows, two and two.

Bachelors, two and two.

Scholars, two and two.

Pensioners, two and two.

Mr. John Newby, Clerk of the Chapel.

And other Servants of the College, two and two.

On entering the chapel, which was illuminated, the Lord Bishop, chief mourners, and all the members of the college, took their places, and the choir performed an anthem.

After which the Lord Bishop read the lesson, and the procession moved in the same order to the grave, which was at the foot of the statue of Sir Isaac Newton, and surrounded by those of all the illustrious persons, which this great and distinguished college has produced. When they had taken their stations around the grave, and the body was placed above it ready for interment, the funeral anthem was performed by the choir in the adjoining chapel, during the most perfect silence of the auditory, and with the most solemn effect.

The service was then read by the Lord Bishop with such an awful, dignified, and impressive pathos, as we never witnessed on any former solemnity of the kind. He was himself overwhelmed as he proceeded by his feelings; and he communicated the sympathetic emotion to every listening friend of the deceased. Nothing could be more solemn nor more affecting than his tone and delivery. The senior members of the college, who had lived with the Professor in habits of the most endearing intercourse for thirty years, and who had had the best means of estimating the wonderful height and variety of his attainments, shed tears of sorrow over the grave; and the whole assembly displayed a feeling of grief and interest, which bespoke the sense they entertained of the irreparable loss that not only their own society, but the literary world had suffered by his death.

The following was the simple inscription engraved in brass on his coffin:

LINGUAE · GRAECAE · PROFESSOR ·

ET

COLL. TRIN.. S.. S. ET IND. OLIM.. SOCIUS

APUD LONDINENSES.

NATUS VIII. · CAL. · IAN. MDCCLX. · OBIIT. VIII. CAL. OCT. MDCCCVIII." Mr. Professor Porson was born at East Ruston, in Norfolk, on Christmas Day, 1759; so that he was only in his forty-ninth year. Every thing about this most eminent scholar, and particularly the circumstances which laid the foundation of that most inestimable memory by which he was enabled to store his mind with all the riches of literature, ancient and modern, will become truly interesting to the world. He owed the blessing to the care and judgment of his father, Mr. Huggin Porson, who was parish clerk of East Ruston, and who, though in humble life, and without the advantages himself of early education, laid the basis of his son's unparalleled acquirements. From the earliest dawn of intellect, Mr. Porson began the task of fixing the attention of his children, three sons and a daughter, and he had taught Richard, his eldest son, all the common rules of arithmetic, without the use of book or slate, pen or pencil, up to the cube root, before he was nine years of age. The memory was thus incessantly exercised; and by this early habit of working a question in arithmetic by the mind only, he acquired such a talent of close and intense thinking, and such a power of arranging every operation that occupied his thought, as in