alls_, that these _alls_ are capable of being
divided and subdivided into as many _alls_ as you please, and
so _ad infinitum_. The following lines may serve for an
illustration:--

'Three children sliding on the ice
Upon a summer's day;
As it fell out, they all fell in;
The rest they ran away.'

"Though this polite author does not directly say there are
_two alls_, yet he implies as much; for I would ask any
_reasonable_ man what can be understood by _the rest they ran
away_, but the _other all_ we have been speaking of? The world
may see that I can exhibit the beauties, as well as quarrel
with the faults, of his composition, but I hope he will not
value himself on his _hasty productions_."

Poor Steele, with the best humour, bore these perpetual
attacks, not, however, without an occasional groan, just
enough to record his feelings. In one of his wild, yet
well-meant projects, of the invention of "a Fish-pool, or
Vessel for Importing Fish Alive," 1718, he complains of
calumnies and impertinent observations on him, and seems to
lay some to the account of his knighthood:--"While he was
pursuing what he believed might conduce to the common good, he
gave the syllables _Richard Steele_ to the publick, to be used
and treated as they should think fit; he must go on in _the
same indifference_, and allow the TOWN _their usual liberty
with his name_, which I find they think they have much more
room to sport with than formerly, as it is lengthened with the
monosyllable SIR."

[346] "Rehearsal Transprosed," p. 45.

[347] The late Gilbert Wakefield is an instance where the political
and theological opinions of a recluse student tainted his pure
literary works. Condemned as an enraged Jacobin by those who
were Unitarians in politics, and rejected because he was a
Unitarian in religion by the orthodox, poor Wakefield's
literary labours were usually reduced to the value of
waste-paper. We smile, but half in sorrow, in reading a
letter, where he says, "I meditate a beginning, during the
winter, of my criticisms on all the ancient Greek and Latin
authors,_ by small piecemeals, on the cheapest possible paper,
and at