and her friends, as it was no other than a defire to provide permanently for Mrs. Yearfley and her young family. She, however, had a different opinion, and thought it was unjuft in them to withhold from her the management of her own property. She went further, and endeavoured to represent her best friend as actuated by unworthy fentiments, the leaft of which was, that of envy. Some attacks were, in confequence, made upon Mifs More in different publications: but, confcious of the purity of her own views, fhe paffed over those invidious attempts to prejudice the public mind against her in filence.

Another phenomenon in that neighbourhood alfo attracted Miss More's curiofity and benevolence about the fame period. Aftrange female, of elegant figure and manners, had been feen, for fome confiderable time hovering about the fields near French-hay, and Hanham, of whom no particulars could be discovered. She thankfully received any humble food that was prefented to her by the peasants; but always took up her night's lodging under a haystack. Various attempts were made to gain from her the place of her birth, but in vain. It was evident that the was a foreigner, and ftrange furmifes were naturally formed, refpecting her country and connexions. Mifs More's humanity was roused upon this interesting occafion; and chiefly by her means the fair ftranger found a comfortable asylum in the house of Mr. Henderfon, at the Fifh-ponds, father of the celebrated, but eccentric, John Henderson, of Pembroke college, Oxford.

Our

Our benevolent author wrote an account of the "Maid of the Hayftack," which was printed in most of the publications of the period; and fhe has juft published a complete edition of all her works, including fome pieces that never appeared before, in eight vols. 8vo.

par

Mifs More has long been honoured with the ticular friendship of fome of the moft diftinguished perfonages in the kingdom. She fpends fome months in the year at the Duke of Beaufort's feat in Gloucestershire. She is alfo greatly esteemed by the Bishop of London, Mr. Wilberforce, and other perfons eminent for literature and piety.

In the village where the refides, with her fifters, a great and pleafing reformation has been accomplished by their means. Every Sunday evening the children of the funday-schools, under their immediate patronage, are affembled in the school-room, together with the farmers' fervants, and fuch other grown perfons as choose to attend. In this little congregation prayers are offered up, a plain difcourfe read, and hymns fung. Pertinent questions are proposed to the adult part of the auditory, on the plain truths of chriftianity; and the whole of this pleafing service is concluded with a cheerful hymn of praise to the God of all these mercies.

MR. ALDERMAN BOYDELL,

IN a volume containing the biography of the eminent artists of this country, claims a peculiar and preeminent diftinction; for though the productions of his own burin cannot be claffed with those men who have devoted their lives to the practical part of their profeffion, he has rendered more real fervice to the English school than the whole mafs of our nobility, and may very fairly be denominated the father of the arts in Great Britain.

He was born on the 19th of January, 1719, at Dorrington, in Shropshire, of which place his grandfather was vicar.* His father, who was a land-furveyor, intended his fon for his own profeffion; and had it not been for one of thofe little accidents which determine the path that men are defined to walk, he had wafted that life, which has been fo honourable to himself and beneficial to his country, in measuring and valuing the acres of Shropshire fquires, and the manors of Welth baronets. Fortunately for himself, and the arts, a trifling incident gave a different direction to his mind, and led him to aim at the delineation of fcenes more picturefque than the groundplans of houfes, boundaries of fields, or windings of obfcure roads.

While he was yet very young, chance threw in his way "Baddesley's Views of different Country Seats ;"

He was afterwards vicar of Afhbourne, and rector of Mableton, both in Derbyshire.

amongst

amongst them was one of Hawarden Cafile, Flintfhire, which being the feat of Sir John Glynn, by whom he was then employed in his profeffional capacity, and fituated in the parish of which his father was an inhabitant, naturally attracted his attention. An exact delineation of a building he had fo often contemplated, afforded him pleasure, and excited an aftonishment easier to conceive than defcribe. Confidering it as an engraving, and naturally reflecting that from the fame copper might be taken an almost indefinite number of impreffions, he determined to quit the pen and take up the graver, as an inftrument

which would enable him to diffeminate whatever work he could produce, in fo much wider a circle. This refolution was no fooner made, than it was put in execution; for with that fpirit and perfeverance which he has manifefted in every fucceeding feene of his life, he, at twenty-one years of age, walked up to the metropolis, and, at the age of TWENTY-ONE, bound himself apprentice for feven years to Mr. Toms, the engraver of the print which had fo forcibly attracted his attention.

Thefe, and accidents equally trifling, fometimes attract men of ftrong minds into the path that leads direct to fame, and have been generally confidered as proving that they were born with fome peculiar genius for fome peculiar ftudy; though after all, genius. is, perhaps, little more than what a great moralift has defined it—“ A mind with strong powers, accidentally directed to fome particular object; for it is not cafy to conceive that a man who can run a given distance in

a fhort

a fhort time with his face to the eaft, could not do the fame thing if he turned his face to the weft." Be this as it may it is recorded of Cowley, that by reading Spenfer's "Faerie Queen," he became a poet. Pope fays of himself that while yet a boy he acquired his his first taste for poefy by the perufal of Sandy's Ovid and Ogilby's Virgil; Sir Joshua Reynolds had the first fondness for his art excited by the perufal of Richardfon's Treatife on Painting; and, as we have before obferved, Mr. Alderman Boydell was induced to learn the art of engraving by the coarse print of a coarse artist, representing a mishapen Gothic castle.

His conduct, during his apprenticeship, was eminently affiduous; eager to attain all poffible knowledge of an art on which his mind was bent, and of every thing that would be useful to him; and impelled by an induftry that fecms inherent in his nature,* whenever he could, he attended the academy in St. Martin's-lane, to perfect himfelf in drawing; his leisure hours in the evening were devoted to the study of perspective, and learning French without the aid of a mafter;-to improve himself in the pronunciation of the language he had thus acquired, he regularly attended at the French chapel.

After very fteadily purfuing his bufinefs for fix

How ftriking a contraft does his conduct form to that of Chatelaine, who was at the fame period employed by Mr. Toms, and in the fame workshop etched and engraved at one fhilling an hour; but who, with all his tafte and talents, and he had much of both, was fo diffipated and idle, that at the expiration of the first half-hour he frequently demanded his fixpence, and retired to a neighbouring alchoufe to expend it.

years,