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will get very little food, if any, on the road. It is requisite also to take wine, and this is carried in a leathern bottle, having a wooden stopper, which forms likewise the cup to drink from, the liquor being brought to the lips in a sort of stream by raising and pressing the bag. The convenience of a glass for each person in these cases is not thought of, and you have only to wipe the cup and pass it to the rest." We tied our mules to the branches of some cork trees, and sat on the green turf by the side of a purling stream, enjoying our fare in the true Quixotic style.

We re-mounted our mules as soon as possible, and continued to ford rivers, ride through vallies, swamps, and woody uneven country, for three leagues, no part of which appeared to be cultivated. It was now about noon, and we rested at a wretched hovel, called a "Venta," for the purpose of feeding our mules and again refreshing ourselves. We had passed what was termed an inn, but it Jooked more like an English barn than a place for the accommodation of travellers. Near it was a wooden crucifix of uncouth workmanship, intended to mark the spot where a murder had been perpetrated; around it were a number of stones, thrown there by pious passengers who had offered up their prayers for the soul of the deceased: this is always the custom en such occasions.

The solitary dwelling where we now rested, was even worse, in outward appearance, than the former. It was built entirely with mud, covered with branches of trees and straw; at one end was a division for the mules, at the other, close to a door, an inclosure with rails about six feet square, which appeared to be the sleeping apartment, as we saw something like a mattress laying there. In the centre was a fire-piace, formed by a circle of stones, the smoke from which issued either at the door or through a small aperture in the wall, which served, with the doorway, to admit the only light into this habitation. The hardened earth was the floor, a block of wood served for a seat, and our table was like a stool which flax spinners sit on, not quite so high as the knees. A knife, fork, or plate, were things out of the question, but we had one glass tumbler to drink from, and a pitcher in one corner of the place contained water, the only liquid refreshment they could give us. There was no second floor to the house, and we saw no one belonging to the inn but a miserable-look.

ing man, and a woman, whom we had a difficulty to prevail on to receive any money for our accommodation, because we were "Capitans Ingleses," "Englishmen.'

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We were joined here by a Spanish messenger with dispatches from Malaga, to the governor of the Isla. He rode up in a gold lace blue uniform, with a huge fellow behind him on the same mule, and presently began to have some sausages fried; and here we were obliged to submit to the fumes of this delicacy, partaking of garlick and oil in its flavor, amid

the smoke of chaff and the suffocation of charcoal. It would have been a breach of good manners to have quitted him, or refused his solicitation to drink with him out of his cup, which, as is customary, be pressed on us, requesting our company the remaining part of our journey.

We had now about four leagues farther to Vegel, where we were to rest at night, and on our way thither we met some English travellers, with their guide, who were as bespattered with dirt as ourselves, and complained sadly of the country they had passed, which was not a very consoling intimation to us. Our route was, however, considerably im proved, as we had no mountains to as cend, and the plains exhibited some signs of cultivation. We saw large herds of cattle and some tillage-land. The corn was just springing up; but as there was no division for a road, we could not avoid trampling on it. The cattle graze in herds, and are constantly at tended by a certain number of men to prevent their straying into the thickets; to each bullock is attached a bell, whose sound is intended to denote where he is, in case he should be missing. We saw large flocks of wild-ducks and turkeys, and for the last league were saluted by the hoarse croaking of innumerable quantities of frogs which inhabit the marshes. We saw also a number of mares, in droves, which are kept solely for the purpose of breeding mules, as they are never put into the harness in Spain. They now and then occasioned a display of horsemanship, by one of our companions, who was well mounted on a gay Andalusian horse. The frequent restive disposition of the animal caused him much inconvenience, which was increased by the form of the Spanish saddle, which is not at all adapted for ease, but only for use; the pommel not being low and rounded off like our's, but

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rising with a peak, six or eight inches; which, on a trot, or a descent, is apt to Strike the body in no very pleasant manner; on the hind part of the saddle is a slanting projection to suit the position of the thigh, and somewhat to wedge the rider into a seat where he is more or less confined. The motion of riding naturally causes unusual fatigue, from this construction, to those who are not accustomed to such saddles; but the Spaniard cannot be prevailed on to adopt a more commodious fashion.

It had been dark an hour before we arrived in the town, and we found that we had not rode three miles an hour during the day; but considering that much rain had lately fallen, we were fortunate to get on as we did; the rivers having swelled considerably, which obliged us often to traverse the banks to find a fordable passage. We entered the town by a bridge, but it was so dark that we could not see it, and we trusted to our mules to discover the way over fragments of rock that lay by the side of the river. At the inn we were soon visited by an old officer, who came to examine our passports and luggage; he gladly accepted a few rials, a segar, and a bumper of our wine. The room provided for our accommodation was about eight feet square, without a window, a table or chair; we were furnished with a lamp, and we converted our portmanteaus into a table and seats; and were fortunate to get a few boiled eggs and some brandy for supper. In this room we slept on straw mattresses, spread on the brick-floor, and covered ourselves with our cloaks, while the muskitoes and fleas tormented us in our slumbers, until an hour before sun-rise, when the mu leteer announced the time for departure. It was a star-light morning; the frogs had not ceased their croaking, and the old officer renewed his visit. We sat off, dark as it was, and gave the reins to the steeds who scrambled instinctively over a path on the side of a hill, which none of us could discern.

Soon after day-light we saw a building where an aqueduct worked several gristmills, that were built over each other; the fall of water being conveyed from the upper one to the lower, with some in genuity in the contrivance.

The country now became more cultivated than the part passed on the preceding day; but we had no other beaten road than sheep-walks, amid the heath, the broom, and other shrubs, which

abound on the plains. On descending the high land near the mountains of Conil, which is on the coast, our muleteer missed his direction, and we got within hearing of the sca; we were indebted to a poor-looking-fellow who was watching some goats, for correcting this mistake, and were obliged to dismount in order to descend with safety; our mules and ourselves getting down the precipice as well as we could.

4

We presently had a view of Chiclana, and of Medina Sidonia; the latter is a considerable town, but we did not pass through it; and the territory around it belongs to a duke of that name, who is also the Marquis of Villa Franca. His estates are among those doomed to confiscation by Buonaparte; and the Junta have represented this nobleman, as

among those who have the most contributed to the just cause of their beloved Ferdinand; for since the beginning of the present revolution, he has given the sum of fifty thousand rials monthly, (upwards of six hundred pounds sterling,) to the support of the armies."

On this estate are extensive plantations of the pine, which do not however grow to much perfection, as they are cultivated chiefly for the purpose of making charcoal; we saw a number of men engaged in this occupation, and I observed that the trees are not rooted up; but a stump is left about a foot and a half from the ground, from which project shoots that are left to grow, until they are large enough for the same use as the old tree.

I mentioned Chiclana to you in a former letter; and having passed it, as also the flying-bridge, we arrived at the Isla de Leon, and were detained at the barrier a considerable time, while we were examined by a priest, and other persons, who endorsed our passports, which cost each of us about one shilling. On getting into the town we were again examined, but with more politeness, and we met with no farther interruption until the same ceremony was required at the barrier here, where we arrived early in the afternoon.

As a king's messenger is about to de part in a day or two for England, I shall send this by him, and I intend to take my passage home by the next packet. I shall therefore conclude this last letter with an extract by way of summary, from Padre Du Chesne's Compendio of the History of this Country, which you will probably say is the exaggerated der scription of an enthusiastic author.

"This beautiful part of Europe is separated from France by an extended chain of inaccessible mountains, and surrounded by the ocean on all sides. It owes to nature this double wall of water and land; a strong defence against the covetous irruption of foreign nations. Spain, happy and rich in itself, neither envies nor desires the aid of other countries. Its situation is in a temperate climate, and its fields are beautifully fertilized. Divided into mountains, valleys, and extensive plains, it appears to be thus distributed, in order to vary its productions. Watered by

mighty rivers, and many lesser ones they soften labour, enrich the soil, and correspond to the wishes of its inhabi tants, providing them with abundance of necessaries. Neither the finest grain, the richest vines, nor the most delicate fruits are scarce; and the better to establish reciprocal society, or the com munication between the provinces, whatever is wanting in one, is happily supphed by the other. The air is generally healthy, and breathed under a sky at most times serene and pure; and disorders are seldom known in Spain unless they arise from excess."

MEMOIRS AND REMAINS OF EMINENT PERSONS.

MEMOIRS of the LIFE of RICHARD CUMBERLAND, Esq. B.A of CAMBRIDGE, L.L.D. of the UNIVERSITY of DUBLIN, &c. &c. &c.

I

T is no less true than melancholy, that the harvest of literature is rather seductive than profitable, and that the lives of men of letters generally exhibit either a sad series of great disasters, or an ill omened catalogue of petty evils. Every other profession repays most of its vota ries with bread, if not with affluence, All the liberal, and not a few even of the mechanical arts, hold out a prospect of successful exertion and advantageous in dustry. The pursuits of divinity, law, and physic, enable multitudes not only to pass away their time in the sun-shine of prosperity, but also afford sufficient wealth to lay the foundations of family greatness, and either procure or trans mit riches and honours on the part of themselves or posterity. But it is far otherwise with literature. Not to mention the fate of many ancient poets and philosophers, it cannot be recollected without emotion, that Dryden lived in indigence, and that Otway died in want, Advancing nearer to our own times, it must not be forgotton, that the earlier part of Johnson's progress was spent in poverty, while the latter portion of Mur phy's did not remain unvisited by domestic calamities. It is melancholy also to reflect, that the name of the individual, who is the subject of the present article, will perhaps be added hereafter to the list of those who have deserved well of their country, without sharing its favours; that he has contributed to amuse, enlighten, and instruct the age

in which he lived, without any adequate remuneration; and that he is one of those whose fate ought to reflect a blush on the cheeks of their contemporaries.

While treating of the life of Mr. Cum. berland, it happens luckily for his biogra phers, that they cannot justly complain of penury, in respect to materials: it is selection rather than abundance that is wanting. He passed upwards of half a century in public life, while his conversa tion and person were familiar to many hundreds of those who passed the spring season at Tunbridge Wells, or spent the winter in the metropolis. For many years his merits were annually discussed by the public, either as a writer of a play, a novel, or a farce; he was known and distinguished as a man of taste; the earlier portion of his existence called forth and exhibited all the stores of profound liter ature; during the latter, he attempted to excel in the more difficult station of a critic, and either in one shape or another, his name was constantly in the mouths of all those who possessed or affected a knowledge of the classical pursuits of the present age. Nor was he himself for getful of his own fame. His life and adventures are consigned to posterity, in memoirs written by his own pen, and he will live long in the memory of his friends and his family, who, although perhaps not best able on account of their par tiality to estimate his merits, a.e assuredly the most competent judges of his private virtues, his domestic habits, and bis so cial converse.

Richard Cumberland was born on the 5th of February, O.S. 1732. He origi nally sprung from a citizen of London.

and

and to adopt his own language, he was
descended from ancestors illustrious
for their piety, benevolence, and erudi-
tion." Dr. Richard Cumberland, cou-
secrated bishop of Peterborough in 1691,
was his great grandfather. This learned
clergyman is the author of a very adini
rable work," De Legibus Naturæ," in
which he has bestowed much pains to
refute the doctrines of Hobbes. He had
been a simple parish-priest in the town of
Stamford, in Lincolnshire; and so little
was he disposed to intrigue for advance-
ment, that he received the first intelli-
gence of his preferment by means of a
paragraph in the newspapers, at a period
when he was sixty years of age, and in a
disposition of mind that induced him ra-
ther to shrink from, than to accept of,
a mitre. He was at length induced to
episcopate by the persuasion of his friend,
the celebrated Sir Orlando Bridgman:
but he afterwards resisted every offer of
a translation; and such was the virtuous
simplicity of his life, that on the settle-
ment of his accounts, at the end of every
year, he distributed the surplus to the
poor, reserving only the small deposit of
twenty-five pounds in cash, found at bis
death in his bureau, with directions to
employ it for his funeral expences, a sum,
in his mode of calculation, fully sufficient
to commit his body to the earth. Such
was the humility of this christian prelate,
and such his disinterested sentiments,
as to the appropriation of his clerical
revenue!

Doctor Richard Bentley, the maternal grandfather of the subject of this memoir, was also a remarkable man, being the first critic of his age, and not only the friend of Meade, Wallis, and Newton, but celebrated by Swift in his " Battle of the Books," on account of his controversial intrepidity. Denison Cumberland, the younger son of Archdeacon CumberJand, was his father, and Joanna, the younger daughter of Dr. Bentley, and the Phoebe of Byron's Pastoral, his mother. Their only son, Richard, was horn in the Master's Lodge of Trinity College, "inter sylvas Academi," under the roof of his grandfather Bentley, alluded to above, in what is called the "Judge's Chamber." During his infancy, he persisted in a stubborn repugnance to all instruction, and remained for a long time in a state of mutiny against the letters of the English alphabet! When turned of six years of age, he was sent to the school of Bury St. Edmunds, and remained for a

considerable period there, under the tuition of the Rev. Arthur Kinsman, who formed his pupils on the system of Westminster, and was a Trinity College man. This, worthy master first raised the spirit of emulation in his bosom, by reprimanding him for his ignorance and inattention, in the presence of all the boys; and his diligence being as usual followed by success, success in its turn encouraged him to fresh exertions. After this, he rose rapidly to the head of his class, and never once lost that envied situation, although daily challenged by those, who aspired to the chief place. Bishop Warren, and Dr. Warren, his brother, were two of the most forinidable of his form-iellows.

About this period, young Cumberland first displayed a practical taste for the drama, by acting the part of Juba, while the virtuous Marcia "towered above her sex" in the person of a most ill-favoured wry-necked boy. Nearly at the same time he began to form both his ear and his taste for poetry, by reading, during every evening to his mother, while at home, at the parsonage house of Stanwick, near Higham-Ferrars, in Northamptonshire. Shakespeare, at this period, was his favourite author, and he soon after resolved to try his own strength in slight dramatic attempts. His first composition was a Cento, which he entitled, "Shakespeare in the Shades," and was produced when only twelve years of age.

As his worthy old master at Bury school had intimated his purpose of retiring, the elder Mr. Cumberland transplanted his son to Westminster, where he was admitted under Dr. Nichols, and lodged in Ludford's boarding-house. On reading a passage in Homer, and another in Horace, he was immediately placed in the shell, which was no small honour; and among his contemporaries reckoned Cracherode, the learned collector, the late Earls of Bristol and Buckinghamshire; the Right Honourable Thomas Harley, who sat on the same form; while the Duke of Richmond, Warren Hastings, Colman and Lloyd, were in the under school, together with Hinchcliffe, Smith, and Vincent, who have succeeded in rotation as head masters.

In the fourteenth year of his age, young Cumberland left Westminster school, and was admitted a member of Trinity College, Cambridge. His father accompanied him thither, and placed him under

the

the care of the Rev. Dr. Morgan, an old friend of the family, and a senior fellow of that society.

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, My rooms," says Mr. Cumberland,* were closely adjoining to his, belonging to that stair-case which leads to the chapel bell; he was kind to me when we met, but as a tutor I had few communications with him, for the gout afforded him not many intervals of ease, and with the exception of a few trifling readings in Tully's Offices, by which I was little edified, and to which I paid little or no attention, he left ine and one other pupil, my friend and intimate, Mr. William Rudd, of Durham, to choose and purThis desue our studies as we saw fit. reliction of us was inexcusable; for Rudd was a youth of fine talents, and a wellgrounded scholar. In the course of no long time, however, Dr. Morgan left college, and went to reside upon his living of Gainford, in the bishopric of Durham, and I was turned over to the Reverend Dr. Philip Young, professor of oratory in the University, and afterwards bishop of Norwich. What Morgan made a very light concern, Young made an absolute sinecure, for from him I never received a single lecture, and I hope his lordship's conscience was not much disturbed on my account, for though he gave me free leave to be idle, I did not make idleness ny choice.

"In the last year of my being an under-graduate, when I commenced Soph, in the very first act that was given out to be kept in the mathematical schools, I was appointed to an opponency, when at the same time I had not read a single proposition in Euclid; I had now been just turned over to Mr. Backhouse, the Westminster tutor, who gave regular lectures, and fulfilled the duties of his charge ably and conscientiously. To tally unprepared to answer the call now made upon me, and acquit myself in the schools, I resorted to him in my distress, and through his interference my name was withdrawn from the act; in the mean time, I was sent for by the master, Dr. Smith, the learned author of the wellknown Treatises upon Optics and Harmonics, and the worthy successor to my grand-father Bentley, who strongly reprobated the neglect of my former tutors, and recommended me to lose no more time in preparing myself for a degree, but to apply closely to my academical

* Memoirs, 4th edit. p. 69.

studies for the remainder of the year, which I informed him I would do.”

Mr. Cumberland accordingly kept his word, and began a course of study so apportioned, as to allow himself but six hours of sleep, living almost entirely upon milk, and using the cold-bath very frequently. At length he was appointed, "nothing loth," to keep an act, and having distinguished himself on this occasion, ty moderator concluded the day He soon with a compliment to him, after took his bachelor's degree, with great credit, and returned home to the paternal mansion, to suffer for his severe studies, a fever having taken place in consequence of intense application.

On his recovery, our author made an excursion to the city of York, and entered into a new scene of life; for we find him hunting in the mornings, dancing in the evenings, and reading nothing but Spenser's Fairy Queen. He appears, at this period, to have been much pleased with some elegiac verses, written by Lady Susan Stewart, daughter of a late Earl of Galloway,and,in return, composed some poetry of his own, rather celebrated for its piety than its point, of which we shall insert only the two first stanzas:

"True! we must all be chang'd by death,
Such is the form the dead must wear,
And so, when beauty yields its breath,
So shall the fairest face appear.

"But let thy soul survey the grace,
That yet adorns its frail abode,
And through the wondrous fabric trace
The hand of an unerring God." &c.

On his return to college, a fellowship presented itself to Mr. Cumberland's view; but he was suddenly called on to take a part in very different pursuits, having been invited by Lord Halifax, then one of the ministers, to assume the situation of his private and confidential Notwithstanding this, he found means to make a short visit to his college, and was again admitted to its honours.

secretary.

Meanwhile, his father, who like himself, had been educated at Westminster and Trinity College, Cambridge, having exerted his patriotism in behalf of the House of Hanover, was also patronized by Lord Halifax, and at length obtained the bishopric of Clonfert, in Ireland, whence he was afterwards translated to the see of Kilmore. His son, who looked up. to the same source for protection, visited their noble friend at Horton, on the demise of his lady, and having re muved

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