ave
recourse to him; but for _six months only_, and on condition that he
should not, on any account whatever, _allow any one to know that he is
the author of the journal_; for his _name_ alone would be sufficient to
make even a passable book discreditable. As you are among my friends, I
will confide to you in secrecy the name of this author; it is Mons. _De
Limiers_.[14] You see how much my interest is concerned that the author
should not be known!" This anecdote is gratuitously presented to the
editors of certain reviews, as a serviceable hint to enter into the same
engagement with some of their own writers: for it is usually the _De
Limiers_ who expend their last puff in blowing their own name about the
town.

In England, Des Maizeaux, as a literary man, made himself very useful to
other men of letters, and particularly to persons of rank: and he found
patronage and a pension,--like his talents, very moderate! A friend to
literary men, he lived amongst them, from "Orator" Henley, up to
Addison, Lord Halifax, and Anthony Collins. I find a curious character
of our Des Maizeaux in the handwriting of Edward, Earl of Oxford, to
whose father (Pope's Earl of Oxford) and himself the nation owes the
Harleian treasures. His lordship is a critic with high Tory principles,
and high-church notions. "This Des Maizeaux is a great man with those
who are pleased to be called _Freethinkers_, particularly with Mr.
Anthony Collins, collects passages out of books for their writings. His
Life of Chillingworth is wrote to please that set of men." The secret
history I am to unfold relates to Anthony Collins and Des Maizeaux. Some
curious book-lovers will be interested in the personal history of an
author they are well acquainted with, yet which has hitherto remained
unknown. He tells his own story in a sort of epistolary petition he
addressed to a noble friend, characteristic of an author, who cannot be
deemed unpatronised, yet whose name, after all his painful labours,
might be inserted in my "Calamities of Authors."

In this letter he announces his intention of publishing a Dictionary
like Bayle; having written the life of Bayle, the next step was to
become himself a Bayle; so short is the passage of literary delusion! He
had published, as a specimen, the lives of Hales and Chillingworth. He
complains that his circumstances have not allowed him to forward that
work, nor digest the materials he had collected.

A work of that nature re