NINETEENTH CENTURY.
921
PreTlouB to the publication of the second part of the poem of the Prea, Mr. M'Creerr sent a copy to one of the reviews ; hut the eaitor not noticing the work, Mr. M'Creery sent the fol- lowing letter to that gentleman :
"Sir,
Took^i Court, 1827.
" Before it was fairly published, I lent you a copy of my poem of the Pros, of which you have not taken any notice. As it appears that you Intend to neg- lect it altogether, perhaps you would think it right to return it to
" Tonr obt. Serrant,
1832, April 10. Died, Willi*m Laing, book- seller, Edinburgh, who may be ranked amongst those who hare reflected honour and credit upon their native place. He was born in that city, July 20, 1764, and after receiving a good edu- cation at a grammar-school there, fixed on the profession of a printer, and served an apprentice- ship for six years, but abandoned this trade, as his eyesight was somewhat delicate. In 1785 he commenced the business of a bookseller on his own account. The members of the trade, at that time, in Edinburgh, were highly respectable
fentlemen ; and the names of John Balfour, ohn Bell, William Creech, Charles Elliot, and others, then engaged in it, would have added reputation to any profession. Modest and unas- suming in \aa manners, and well versed in ancient authors, the exertions which he used for the promotion of Greek learning in Edinburgh, will be long remembered on account of the ele|;ant, accurate, and commodious editions which he published; and many classical works which had never been attempted, except by the Fonlis's, of Olasgow. For the long period of nearly fifty years, Mr. Laing followed this useful and honourable profession, and at the time of his death, was the oldest bookseller in Edinburgh, engaged in actual business. He died at Lauris- ton, near Edinburgh, leaving a widow and nine surviving children, one of whom, since 1821, was in partnership with him in business.
1832, itfojr29. Z>ied, W.R.Henderson, the younger, of Warriston and Eildon hall, Scotland, who had executed a deed of settlement, bV which he conveyed to certain trustees, such funas as he should die possessed of, for the purpose of printing and publishing one or more editions of an Etsay on the Comtitution of Man, eonsidered tn relation to external objects, by George Combe, in a cheap form, so as to be easily purchased by the more intelligent of the labouring classes.
1832, May 30. Mr. Paas, a printer's and bookbinder's ornamental brass rule manufac- turer, of Holbom, London, murdered at Leices- ter, by Thomas Cook, a bookbinder, in his shop, for which crime he was hanged and gibhetted. 1832, May. The magistrates of the city of
Augsburg, in Germany, signified to Dr. Kurz, the responsible editor of the journal called Dit Ziel, a resolution by which he was to suffer eight days' imprisonment, and be banished the city, for having published an invitation to form a society /or me freedom of thepresi.
1832, May 30. Died, Jobs Taylor, who had been for more than forty years connected with the public press of the metropolis, and much with the theatrical world. He was the grandson of the famous chevalier John Taylor, oculist to the principal sovereigns of Europe, and son to John Taylor, many years oculist to George III. and bom at Highgute. He attached himself very early in life to the periodical press, and about 1770, was connected with the Morning Herald, when under the management of the rev. Bate Dudley.* Some years afterwards he became part-proprietor and editor of the Sun, a daily evening paper, but was deprived of his property in that paper by the misconduct of a deceased partner. He was at one time invested with the editorship of the Morning Post, under rather curious circumstances .f He was the author of the Stage, Sonnets, Odes, Prologues, Epilogues, Episodes, Tales, Elegies, and Epitaphs.
The following lines, which are at once happy in themselves, ^nd characterized by that proso- popoeia in which the departed reminiscent and poet himself so freely indulged :
IMPROMPTU, BT OlOBOB COLHAN TRB TOONOBB.t
Nine tailors (as the proverif goes)
Make bnt one man, though many clothes ;
Bat thon art not, we know, like those.
My Taylor!
No — thou can*st make, on Candour's plan. Two of thyself (how few that can 1) The critic and the gentleman.
My Taylor!
Mr. Taylor was by nature a ready man, of bright parts, but perhaps too volatile for profound study. Conversation was therefore his library in a great degree ; — He had a vein of poetical ore,
- Rev. sir Henry Bate Dudley, LL.D. chancellor and
prebendary of Ferns, Ireland, and rector of Willingham, in Suffolk. He was born at Fenny Compton, Aug. 25, 1749, and cdacated at Oxford. He first became acquainted with the.'lfonH'n^Po«fnew8paperabouti775,wldch he afterwards quitted, and in N0V.17&0, established the Morning Herald. His original name was Bate, to which, tn 1 784, he added that of Dudley. Notwithstanding his cloth, he was in early life engaged in two duels, and after he was created a baronet, and preferred to a deanery, he fought a third. He was a magistrate for seven counties in England, and four in Ireland. He was the author of several dramatic pieces, and other works. He died Feb. 1, 1824.
t Mr. Taylor, in the Records of My Life, has cleared up one of the mysteries of Carlton-house, very satisfactorily. The illustration, in fact, belongs to history.— See also the trial of Mr. Benjafield, formerly editor of the MomingPosi, against Mr. Wheble, printer and publisher of the County Chronicle, in the court of king's bench, Dec. 22, 1813.
t George Caiman was the son of George Colman, dis- tinguished as the translator nf Terence, see page 690, ante. Hewasbom in 17^7, and educated at Westminster school, Oxford, and Aberdeen. On his return to London he was entered of the Temple, bnt soon abandoned the dry and unpleasant study of the law, for the more congenial bower of the muses. Few men have been more successful in the dramatic world of literature than George Colman the younger ; and many of his latter years were passed in the office of licenser and examiner of plays. He died October 6, 1836, aged seventy-fonr years.
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