to a conclusion—a work which had occupied him for years, and which supplied a desideratum in the literature of the profession. The design had been suggested by one Scott, and approved of by Sir Edward Hawke; and the book, when it appeared in 1769, was greatly commended by Dr Hamel, the Frenchman, who had gained note himself, by producing some works on naval architecture. From the
Glory
Falconer received an appointment in the
Swift-sure
. In 1764 he issued a new edition of
The Shipwreck
, carefully corrected, and with considerable additions. The next year he issued a political poem, in which, like a true tar of the
Royal George
, he took the King's side, and emitted much dull and drivelling bile against Lord Chatham, Wilkes, and Churchill. The satire proved that, though at home on the ocean, he was utterly "at sea" in land-politics.
Falconer had now left his cabin study with its many pleasant accommodations, and become a scribbler of all work in a London garret. Here his existence ran on for a while in an obscure and probably miserable current. It is said that Murray, the bookseller, the father of