‘There was no want of low minds and bad hearts in the generation which witnessed her first appearance. There was the envious Kenrick and the savage Wolcot, the asp George Steevens and the polecat John Williams. It did not, however, occur to them to search the parish register of Lynn, in order that they might be able to twit a lady with having concealed her age. That truly chivalrous exploit was reserved for a bad writer of our own time, whose spite she had provoked by not furnishing him with materials for a worthless edition of Boswell’s Life of Johnson, some sheets of which our readers have doubtless seen round parcels of better books.’—_Macaulay’s Essay._ This passage has been often quoted and admired. Yet is not such writing rather too much in the style of Mr. Bludyer, who, the reader will remember, was reproached with mangling his victims? Compare Macaulay’s swashing blow with the deadly thrust of a true master of sarcasm. ‘Nobody was stronger in dates than Mr. Rigby; ... detail was Mr. Rigby’s forte; ... _it was thought no one could lash a woman like Rigby_. Rigby’s statements were arranged with a formidable array of dates—rarely accurate.’—_Coningsby._ Footnote 32: The first edition consisted of 800 copies, the second of 500, the third of 1,000. A fourth edition, the extent of which was not divulged, followed in the autumn. After the third edition, Lowndes paid the author a further sum of ten pounds in full satisfaction of any claim or expectation which she or her friends might found on the continued success of the book. Footnote 33: Mr. Crisp to Miss Burney, January, 1779: “Do you remember, about a dozen years ago, how you used to dance ‘Nancy Dawson’ on the grass-plot, with your cap on the ground, and your long hair streaming down your back, one shoe off, and throwing about your head like a mad thing!” Footnote 34: The sea-captain in ‘Evelina.’ Footnote 35: Diary, i., p. 18; Memoirs, ii., p. 149. Footnote 36: Lockhart’s ‘Life of Scott.’ vi., p. 388. There seems to be some trifling discrepancy between the different accounts, both as to the date and the exact occasion of this incident. Footnote 37: ‘I have this to comfort me: that, the more I see of sea-captains, the less reason I have to be ashamed of Captain Mirvan; for they have all so irresistible a propensity to wanton mischief, to roasting beaux and detesting old women, that I quite rejoice I showed the book to no one ere printed, lest I should have been prevailed upon to soften his character.’—Diary, May 28, 1780. Footnote 38: Suspirius the Screech Owl. See ‘Rambler’ for Tuesday, October 9, 1750. Footnote 39: She was then building her famous house in Portman Square. Footnote 40: