rough draft or loose minutes of an essay have often travelled in the stage coach from town to country, and from country to town: and we have frequently waited for the postman (whom we expected to bring us the precious remainder of a CONNOISSEUR) with the same anxiety, as we should wait for the half of a bank note, without which the other half would be of no value.”

Such, indeed, was the similarity of manner, that, after some years, the survivor, Mr. CoLMAN, was unable to distinguish his share from that of his colleague, in the case of those papers which were written conjointly. Neither had an appropriate style by which conjecture might be now assisted. The prose compositions of both were of the light and easy kind, sometimes with a dramatic turn, and sometimes with an air of parody or imitation, and their objects were generally the same, the existing follies and absurdities of the day, which they chastised with ironical severity, but rarely attempted a serious discussion of any question of morals or taste. When young men, who have seen little of the world, commence ESSAYISTS, their highest merit must be novelty of manner. They take their subjects at secondhand, and their remarks are generally of the common-place kind. In their best state they are but promising.

That the reigning follies are a necessary branch of the ESSAYIST's business, is established by the great standards of periodical writing; but they who entirely devote their talents to temporary subjects, must be content if they reap only temporary fame.

Mere wit pleases for a while, but

it does not please many. The majority of readers have been accustomed to look for moral instruction as well as entertainment in the labours of the ESSAYISTS, and to expect that sometimes a principle should be confirmed, as well as a laugh provoked; and although they are not unwilling to unbend with the gay and the frivolous, where gaiety and frivolity are seasonable and moderate, they contract no great veneration, and certainly no lasting respect, for men who are pedants in wit. It is probably owing to this looseness of composition, and continued effort at ridicule and caricature, that the paper now before us has been in less request since its first publication than any of those which form the present collection. There are in it essays of unquestionable merit in the humourous style, but there is wanting that mixture of the grave and the elegant, upon which the popularity of works of this kind must ultimately depend, whatever their first reception may have

been.

GEORGE COLMAN, by whom it is probable the CONNOISSEUR was projected, was the son of THOMAS COLMAN, Esq. British Resident at the Court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, at Pisa, by a sister of the countess of Bath. He was born at Florence about the year 1733, and placed at a very early age at Westminster school, where his talents soon became conspicuous, and where he contracted an acquaintance with LLOYD, CHURCHILL, THORNTON, and others, who were afterwards the reigning wits of their day, and unfortunately employed their genius only on the perishable beings and events of that day. Mr.

COLMAN'S Biographers do not remove him to Oxford until 1758; but he was elected to Christ's Church in 1751, and received the degree of M. A. in the month of March 1758. It was at college that he projected the CONNOISSEUR, which was printed at Oxford by the late Mr. JACKSON, and sent to London for publication: and it afforded him and THORNTON a very laudable relaxation from their classical studies, to which, however, COLMAN was particularly attached, and which he continued to cultivate at a more advanced period of life, his last publication being a Translation of Horace's Art of Poetry.

When he left the University, he was entered of the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, and after the usual studies, called to the bar. But his disposition was averse from a profession which required so much depth of thought, patience of research, and assiduity of application; and although not wholly inattentive to the business of the bar, he gradually withdrew himself to the easier and more agreeable pursuits of the humourist, and the dramatic writer.

In 1760, he produced the popular farce of "Polly Honeycombe," and in 1761 the comedy of the "Jealous Wife," which at once enabled him to take rank with the most successful dramatic writers of the century. About the same time the news paper, entitled, "The St. James's Chronicle" was established; of which he became a proprietor, and exerted the full force of his prosaic talents to promote its interest, in a series of essays and humourous sketches on occasional subjects. Among these he opened a paper called "The

GENIUS," which he published at irregular intervals as far as the fifteenth number. These papers appear, upon the whole, to be superior to the general merit of the CONNOISSEURS; they have rather more solidity, and the humour is more chaste and classical. His occasional contributions to the St. James's Chronicle were very numerous, and upon every topic of the day, politics, manners, the drama, &c. A selection from them appears in his prose works published by himself in 1787.

In the establishment of the St. James's Chronicle, he had likewise Mr. THORNTON for a colleague, who was one of the original proprietors : and by their joint industry they drew the productions of many of the wits of the times to this paper, which, as a depository of literary intelligence, literary contests and anecdotes, and articles of wit and humour, soon eclipsed all its rivals. By a minute now before me, in the hand writing of Mr. THOMAS*, who was for nearly thirty years its editor, it appears that the principal departments were for some time filled by the following persons. The papers entitled "The Genius,' by Mr. COLMAN: "Smith's Letters," by PEREGRINE PHILLIPS, Esq. short essays of wit, by BONNEL THORNTON, Esq. longer essays of wit, by WALLER, Esq. rebusses and letters, signed, "Nic Testy" and" Alexander Grumble,'

FORREST; letters, signed "Oakly,” Mr. GARRICK. Among the numerous successors to these wits, may be mentioned, GEORGE STEE

* Communicated in a note to the late learned printer Mr. BowYER, and by his successor to the present writer.

VENS, Esq. the Commentator on SHAKSPEARE, and the late great and good Dr. HORNE, Bishop of Norwich. Men of literature in general found it necessary to contribute their occasional effusions to a paper in which they were sure to be read by those who could realise and understand the various species of ironical remarks, and harmless deception practised on the devotees of fashion, or the credulous in politics, history, or antiquities.

To other weekly or diurnal vehicles, Mr. COLMAN contributed some papers, entitled "The GENTLEMAN," and the "TERRÆ FILIUS:" but in all his prose compositions of the periodical form, we find an excellent design soon abandoned. His theatrical productions had conferred upon him the character of which he appears to have been most ambitious, and the business of the theatre of which he became a manager in 1768, employing all his time and attention, from this period he reserved his talents almost entirely for the stage: his dramatic pieces were sometimes produced too hastily, but they had at least the charm of novelty, and were in general well received by the publick and by the critics. Of the twentyseven dramas which he either composed or altered for the stage, the "Jealous Wife," the "Clandestine Marriage," written in conjunction with GARRICK, the "Man and Wife," the "Spleen," the "Suicide," and the " Separate Maintenance," have preserved their station the longest. As a manager, his name is still mentioned with high respect. He encouraged rising genius, and by displaying the talents of his per