man's Magazine for July 1820, p. 90 ; and a portrait in the European Magazine some years before. On his death he was succeeded by his nephew, Mr. George Dollond, under whose able management the well-known establishment in St. Paul's Church-yard has been continued with increasing reputation to the present day.

Mr. Dollond presented a fine marble bust of his grandfather, John Dollond, to the Royal Society, and it now ornaments the staircase of their apartments at Somerset House. He contributed one or more papers to the Philosophical Transactions, and also to the Transactions of the Royal Astronomical Society, of which latter body he was one of the original founders.

Mr. George Dollond was the inventor of the instrument called "The Atmospheric Recorder, or self-registering Apparatus for the various changes of the Barometer, Thermometer, Hygrometer, Electrometer, Pluviometer, and Evapo. rator, and of the force and direction of the Wind." This apparatus he exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851, and was rewarded by the Council's Gold Medal.

Mr. Dollond remained a bachelor; his constant friend and companion being his sister, Miss Huggins, an amiable lady, who died at his house at Camberwell, Jan. 31, 1819, aged 77.

He is succeeded in business by his nephew, and able assistant, Mr. George Huggins, who, on the 18th June last, obtained the royal permission to assume the surname of Dollond, instead of Huggins, as his uncle had done before him in 1804.

The body of the deceased was interred in the Norwood Cemetery.

removed there when I was about eleven years old, and I soon after began to make acrostics. Self-instructed, the history of my early attempts would divert you. I berhymed the seven first chapters of the Acts at 13; I read Martin's Philosophy soon after, and composed an astronomic poem. Pope's Homer inspired me with the epic strain at 16; and I sung (or rather howled) the glories of Caractacus, The catalogue of my compositions previous to my attaining 20 would be formidable. Thousands of lines flowed in very easy measure; I scorned correction, and never blotted.

"Like most of my friends, I perceive your Lordship thinks that I had better adhere to my fictitious narratives: but I feel that in writing the Tale of the Times,' I exerted all my strength. It was the result of much forethought, of much investigation. Several circumstances have since happened which have depressed my powers; and it is not easy to begin a work with a presentiment that it will fail.

*

"My first novel of Maria Williams' was a trial of my strength, and published in disguise. I have been very ill used by the man to whom I sold it, Lane. The errors of the press absolutely disguise the work. Whatever blunders fell from my pen, I am certain the literary friend who revised my manuscript suffered none to remain."

In the same letter she had previously stated

My

"The same misfortune (want of leisure) which has prevented me from indulging in the retrospect of our old minstrels, has retarded the progress of the work which I announced to your Lordship. season for study and composition (if I may use those terms without being thought to pasquinade them) is winter. I am engaged in the duties of active life, and to those duties my pleasures ever have been subservient. You noticed my pile of stockings; they were not affectedly introduced. My needle always claims the preeminence of my pen. I hate the name of rhyming slattern.''

This was written in the year 1800, and in the postscript to the same letter Mrs. West stated that she had "lately been a frequent contributor to the Gentleman's Magazine." (Nichols's Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, vol. viii. p. 331.)

The letter from which we have quoted was in answer to one from Bishop Percy, dated at Brighton, in which he had bestowed the following very warm praise upon the lady :

"Your Poems afforded me an entertainment of a superior kind indeed. Your 'Odes on Poetry' are of the first-rate excellence; nor could I read them without emotions which I have seldom experienced. They are sublime, animated, rich in imagery, and, what I could scarce have expected from a lady's pen, learned.

"As for your excellent moral fictions, I have been reading them with no common interest. They have the entire possession of this first of watering-places. Here are three circulating libraries, and the demand for your novels is very great in them all. In the shop where I have been waiting for my turn in your Tale of the Times,' I was told there were three sets; nor was it till last night that I could procure the first volume of one of them, although the season is scarce here begun."

It was some twenty years before this, that Mrs. West had first appeared as an author. She had married Mr. Thomas West, a yeoman farmer at Little Bowden, a relative of Admiral West, distinguished by his share in the relief of Minorca in 1756, and also of Gilbert West, author of the treatise on the Resurrection; and whose maternal ancestors constituted an unbroken chain of Rectors of Little Bow

den for above 150 years. He died in Jan. 1823, in his 67th year, and his character, drawn by her own pen, was then given in our Obituary; as in that for Dec. 1821, was that of her youngest son Edward. Thomas, the eldest (formerly of Copthall Court, London), to whom the letters hereafter mentioned were addressed, died at Northampton, April 1843, aged 59.

We add a list of Mrs. West's works:Miscellaneous Poems, Translations, and Imitations. 1780. 8vo.

Miscellaneous Poems. 1786. 4to. The Humours of Brighthelmstone. 1788. 4to.

Edmund, a Tragedy. 1791. 8vo. Miscellaneous Poems, and a Tragedy. 1791. 8vo.

A Gossip's Story, a novel. 1794. Two vols. 8vo.

Elegy on the Death of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke. 1797. 4to.

A Tale of the Times. 1799. 3 vols. 12mo. Poems and Plays. 1799. 2 vols. 12mo. The Advantages of Education. 2 vols. 12mo.

Letters addressed to a Young Man on his first entrance into Life, and adapted to the peculiar circumstances of the present times. 1801. 3 vols. 12mo. These letters were addressed to her son Thomas. (Reviewed fully in Gent. Mag. for August, 1801.)

The Infidel Father; a novel. 1802. 3 vols. 12mo.

Poems and Plays, vols. III. and IV. 1805. 12mo.

Letters to a Young Lady [Miss Maunsell], wherein the Duties and Characters of Women are considered. 1806. 2 vols. 12mo.

The Mother; a poem. 1809. fcap. 8vo. The Refusal; a novel. 1810. 3 vols. 12mo. The Loyalists; an historical novel. 1812. 3 vols. 12mo.

Scriptural Essays, adapted to the Holidays of the Church of England; with Meditations on the prescribed Services. 1817. 2 vols. 12mo.

In August 1811, we find Mrs. West writing to Bishop Percy as follows:

"I have lately been accumulating my stores, preparatory to the work I have so long meditated, and yesterday wrote about two hours of a something of an Introduction, which I shall reconsider, and perhaps blot out. But I have ever found beginning a very important step in the business of composition. My natural character makes me very averse to leaving anything half done, so perhaps I may find some tolerably favourable ideas; and five hundred and ninety-eight more hours' leisure to modify, set down, correct, re-arrange and re-transcribe them; for such is the process my novels go through, and such the time they usually cost me. My two standard works, the Letters to T. West and Miss Maunsell, were much more laborious.

66

'My work will, I predict, be very serious. The wings of my gaiety have been clipped; the history of the times I date in, and the moral purposes of my work, preclude jocularity: beside, in writing of a period long past, scenes of humour would require that intimate acquaintance with the manners and costume of past times, which far exceeds my knowledge, or my ability of acquisition. My assistants are Clarendon, Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography, Walton's Lives, and Malcolm's Anecdotes. Mrs. Prudentia Homespun, your Lordship knows, is dead and buried. I knew how to manage her calash and cane, but what to do with the ruff and farthingale I scarce know: however, I will attempt it, and will hide my ignorance under the prudent caution of avoiding minutiæ."

This letter alluded evidently to her novel of "The Loyalists." There are various other notices of Mrs. West, together with some of his own letters, among the correspondence of Bishop Percy, in vols. VII. and VIII. of the Literary Illustrations. We shall, however, on this occasion, confine

ourselves to the following opinion addressed to the Bishop, by Dr. Anderson, of Edinburgh, the Editor of the British Poets.

"I owe your Lordship my particular thanks for Mrs. West's poems, with the perusal of which I have been, upon the whole, much delighted. They do credit to the genius, taste, piety, and benevolence of the amiable and elegant writer. They do not, in general, possess the spirit and elevation of the higher poetry; but they abound in tender, interesting, and moral sentiments, elegantly expressed in easy numbers, and adorned with pleasing imagery. In some instances, as in the Ode to Poetry, she soars far above mediocrity, and approaches to sublimity. I am interested in Mrs. West as a wife, a mother, and a friend. She is little known here; but the domestic sketches your Lordship has sent me have been eagerly circulated among my friends, and I have frequently had the pleasure to introduce her ingenious, chaste, and elegant volumes into the collections of persons of taste and virtue. Her novels are more generally read and admired." (Sept. 14, 1800.)

Mrs. West's productions were reviewed in several instances by the British Critic, and in that periodical for Nov. 1801 is "a very satisfactory account of her person, character, and family," written, we have reason to believe, by the Bishop of Dro

more.

MR. WILLIAM BERRY.

July 2, 1851. At the residence of his son, Spencer-place, Brixton, in his 77th year, Mr. William Berry of Kennington, having survived his wife only two months.

Mr. Berry was the author, or compiler, of several works, chiefly on heraldry, of which we append some particulars :

"An Introduction to Heraldry, containing the Rudiments of the Science in General, and other necessary particulars connected with the subject. 1810." 4to. In the title-page to this book he styled himself "fifteen years clerk to the Register of the College of Arms."

"History of the Island of Guernsey, from the remotest period of antiquity to the year 1814, with particulars of the neighbouring Islands of Alderney, Sark, and Jersey. Compiled from the collections of the late Henry Budd, esq. his Majesty's Receiver, and more than thirty years resident in that island, as well as from authentic documents, &c. 1815." 4to. (price 31. 38.)

"Genealogia Antiqua; or Mythological and Classical Fables. 1816." fol.

"Encyclopedia Heraldica, or a Com

plete Dictionary of Heraldry," published in Monthly Parts from 1824 to 1828, and forming four quarto volumes, without date in the titles.

"A Genealogical Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland," in folio, Nos. 1-4, and left imperfect.

County Genealogies," commenced in 1829. By this work the Gentleman's Magazine was brought into a disagreeable collision with Mr. Berry. The first portion, relating to the County of Kent, was reviewed by a distinguished genealogical critic in our Magazine for August 1829; and shortly after the proprietors received notice of an action for libel. The chief offence alleged was that we had declared that Mr. Berry had wrongfully assumed in his titlepage the designation of "late and for fifteen years Registering Clerk in the College of Arms." The trial took place in the court of King's Bench on the 1st Nov. 1830, before Lord Tenterden and a special jury. Mr. Brougham (shortly afterwards Lord Chancellor) stated the case for the plaintiff, and the Attorney-General (the late Lord Abinger) conducted the defence. The result proved that Mr. Berry's allegation was groundless: inasmuch as the college had no such officer as a Registering Clerk, and Mr. Berry had been merely a writing clerk in the private employ of two of its members. Mr. Berry was consequently nonsuited. A full report of this trial-which is not unamusing from the sparring on literary matters which took place between the two very eminent counsel-will be found in our Magazine for Nov. 1830.

As compilations principally from the Heralds' Visitations, which had not previously been printed, Berry's County Genealogies are useful books for reference, though not to be depended upon for perfect accuracy either in the statement of facts, or even in transcription. Some glaring proofs of this with regard to the Kent volume will be seen in an article following our report of the trial. The volumes containing the families of Kent and Sussex were completed in 1830, and those of Hampshire, in a corresponding volume, in 1833. Mr. Berry afterwards produced those of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Surrey, in one volume, in 1837; those of Essex, without date, but in 1839; and those of Hertfordshire, also without date, in 1842. These three latter volumes were printed by means of lithography.

GENERAL ARTHUR O'CONNOR. April 25. At his residence, the Château de Bignon, near Nemours, (Seine et Marne,) aged 89, General Arthur O'Con

nor, one of the prominent actors in the Irish rebellion of 1798.

He was a member of a family of considerable eminence in the county of Cork; its fortunes having been founded by his great-grandfather Daniel Conner, a merchant in Bandon. His grandfather, William, built Connerville house in that county in 1727, and was M. P. for Bandon in 1765. His wife was Anne Bernard, of the family of the present Earl of Bandon. Arthur was the fifth and youngest son of Roger Conner, of Connerville, by Anne Longfield, sister to Lord Longueville. His elder brother Roger, of Connerville, was like himself, distinguished by his " patriotism" and political "sufferings;'* and was the father of Feargus-Edward O'Connor, of recent unfortunate notoriety, who was M.P. for the co. Cork in 1832, and subsequently for Nottingham. The two brothers, Roger and Arthur, adopted the surname of O'Connor, (instead of Conner,) in accordance with a family tradition that it had been discontinued by an ancestor to escape the persecution of the English Government; but their example has not been followed by their nephew Mr. John Conner, the present head of the family; nor does he, or any member of the family, reside at the mansion of Connerville, which is much dilapidated. He lives at Maneh, near Dunmanway.

Arthur was called to the Irish bar in Michaelmas term 1788. He was the favourite nephew of Lord Longueville, by whom he was returned to the Irish parliament for the borough of Philipstown in 1790; and he had previously, through his uncle's liberality, been enabled to make the European tour usual to young men of rank and fortune, in company with Mr. Standish O'Grady and that gentleman's brother-in-law Mr. Waller, of Castletown, co. Limerick. O'Grady subsequently became Lord Chief Baron and Viscount Guillamore, and when Arthur O'Connor returned to his native country in 1834 he paid a long visit to him in renewal of old acquaintance.

In the year 1795 Arthur O'Connor seriously offended his uncle Lord Longueville by a violent and inflammatory speech in parliament, which he made in favour of "Catholic Emancipation." This led not merely to the loss of his seat, but event

* Roger was apprehended in 1798 under the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, on the charge of having connived at the descent of the French under Humbert, and he was detained a prisoner for eighteen months in Fort St. George.

ually to his being disinherited-no inconsiderable sacrifice, for the Longueville estates were worth 10,000l. a-year. They were afterwards left to the Longfield family in various divisions.

Meanwhile, O'Connor became an active member of the United Irishmen, and one of the five who constituted their Directory. In Nov. 1796 he was apprehended by the Government on a charge of high treason, and committed to the Castle of Dublin, but shortly after discharged for want of sufficient proof. It was in the following month that the French descent was made under the command of General Hoche; after its failure he went with another member of the Directory to the continent, and had an interview with Hoche at Frankfort. After his return he was arrested at Margate, on the 28th Feb. 1798, together with James O'Coigly, a priest, Binns, and another. They were tried at the Maidstone assizes in the April following, where O'Coigly was found guilty, and he was executed at Penenden Heath on Thursday, the 7th June, O'Connor was acquitted on this charge, but detained on a warrant from the Duke of Portland. Some of his friends thereupon formed a scheme to effect his escape; and the Earl of Thanet and Mr. Robert Ferguson were afterwards tried and sentenced to imprisonment for having aided in the attempt. Mr. O'Connor was sent over to Ireland, where he remained for some time in custody, but in consequence of a negociation with the Government he and his friends made a disclosure of their plans and were allowed to retire to foreign countries.

Mr. O'Connor took up his residence in France; where, in 1804, the First Consul gave him the rank of Lieutenant-General, and he was afterwards promoted to that of General of Division.

About the year 1809 he married Mdlle. de Condorcet, daughter of the distinguished mathematician, the Marquis de Condorcet, and niece by her mother to Marshal Grouchy, to whom Napoleon imputed the disaster of Waterloo. Her father, at his death in 1805, had left her a child of five years. He was intimate with all the persons who used to meet at the house of Mme. Helvetius, and afterwards at M. de Tracy's; and he is said to have been the editor of an edition of Condorcet's works, which appears to have been that of 1804.

He was also the author of

Letters to the Earl of Carlisle in reply to Earl Fitz William's two Letters on the State of Ireland. 1795. 8vo.

Letters to Earl Camden. 1798.

The Present State of Great Britain. 1804.

He was for some time one of the conductors of The Argus, an English journal published at Paris; and in 1830 he published under his assumed name of Condorcet O'Connor a volume against the French dethroned family, and monarchical system generally, the style of which was corrected by his wife. In his earlier days, while as yet uncondemned, though well known to be engaged in the Rebellion, he was a principal contributor to The Press, a most violent anti-Anglican journal.

In 1834, by permission of the Government of Earl Grey, General O'Connor revisited Cork, with the view of disposing of his inherited and not confiscated property, in order to invest the produce in France. He thereupon purchased from the heirs of Mirabeau the château of Bignon (the birthplace of that great orator,) in which his death has taken place. He had previously for sixteen years occupied apartments at Paris in the house of the eminent bibliographer, bookseller, and printer, Mons. Renouard, in the Rue de Tournon, leading to the Luxembourg.

When at Cork General O'Connor informed our old correspondent Mr. Roche, of that city, that he was preparing a narrative of the events of his life. No such work has hitherto been published; but, if in existence, it cannot fail to be interesting.

Madame Condorcet O'Connor survives her husband. Their only child, Daniel, died about two years ago, leaving two children by his wife, a French lady.

JACQUES PRADIER.

June 5. Aged 56, Jacques Pradier, the most distinguished sculptor of France.

Pradier was born of a respectable family of artists, of limited means, at Geneva, on Jan. 3, 1796. His strong inclination for sculpture manifested itself when he was but ten years old; and at fifteen he was distinguished by his fine taste and talent for observation of nature. About the year 1811, M. Denon, President of the French Institute, visited Geneva, and heard of the juvenile artist, who was in a few days placed under the eminent French sculptor Lernot. In 1812 he was a competitor for the great prize of Rome, given by the French Government, but failed to obtain it, because the work he executed exceeded the required dimensions; he, however, obtained a gold medal instead. The next year he carried off the grand prize, and went to Rome to study for five years. He there executed several works

which were much admired. In 1819 he settled in Paris, and his fame rose rapidly. In 1827 he was elected a member of the Academy of Fine Arts, and in 1828 was appointed an officer of the Legion of Honour. In addition to his vast talent, he was possessed of extraordinary facility, and his works are remarkably numerous. Amongst the principal may be mentioned, a Saint Peter, in the church of Saint Sulpice; Saint Andrew and Saint Augustin, in the church of Saint Roch; one of the basso-relievos of the triumphal arch of the Place du Carrousel; a monument of the Duc de Berri, at Versailles; a Venus and a Psyche, in the palace of the Luxembourg; Prometheus and Phidias, at the Tuilleries; the figures of Fame on the Arc de l'Etoile; a Marriage of the Virgin, at the Madeleine; twelve colossal Victories on Napoleon's tomb at the Invalides; a group of the Three Graces, in the principal saloon at Versailles; Jesus Christ lying Dead on the Knees of the Virgin, at Toulon; a statue of Rousseau, at Geneva; a Christ on the Cross, of gigantic size, in Russia; Pandora, purchased by the Queen of England; a Young Huntress; a Satyr and Bacchante; Hebe giving Water to Jupiter's Eagle; a Sappho, in silver, of great beauty; and a host of groups, and busts, statues and statuettes, in marble, plaster, and bronze. He possessed great originality, and combined boldness with remarkable chasteness and elegance. In the Exhibition now open at Paris he had a statue of Sappho, and he had several important works on hand.

Pradier had gone with his daughter, his pupils, and some friends, to take a stroll in the country, a few miles from Paris, when, after walking a little time, he staggered and fell. He was conveyed to the nearest house, and medical assistance was procured; but he had been attacked with apoplexy, and in a few hours he was dead.

His funeral took place, with much pomp and solemnity, at Père la Chaise. Many of the most distinguished artists and literary men of Paris were present. General Roguet, aide-de-camp of the President, attended in one of Louis Napoleon's carriages. The pall-bearers were, M. RaoulRochette, Perpetual Secretary of the Académie des Beaux Arts, M. Romieu, Directeur des Beaux Arts, and MM. Petitot and Caristie, members of the Institute, of the sections of sculpture and architecture. M. Pradier's son, and relatives, with his pupils and workmen, surrounded the grave. Speeches were delivered by MM. RaoulRochette, Dumont, Mery, and Etex. The religious services were conducted by the Protestant pastor Coquerel.