“These two lines are now blended with the original text, and constitute, we are informed on the best authority, the only flaw in Frere’s title to the sole authorship of the First Part. The Second and Third Parts were by Canning.

“By the kindness of [the late] Lord Hatherton, we have now before us a bound volume containing all the numbers of The Anti-Jacobin as they originally appeared, eight pages quarto, with double columns, price sixpence. On the fly-leaf is inscribed: ‘This copy belonged to the Marquess Wellesley, and was purchased at the sale of his library after his death, January, 1842. H.’ On the cover is pasted an engraved label of the arms and name of a former proprietor, Charles William Flint, with the pencilled addition of ‘Confidential Amanuensis’. In this copy Canning’s name is subscribed to (amongst others) the following pieces, which are also assigned to him (along with a large share in the most popular of the rest) by the most trustworthy rumours and traditions:—Inscription for the Door of the Cell in Newgate where Mrs. Brownrigg, the Prenticide, was confined previous to her execution; The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-Grinder; the lines addressed To the Author of the Epistle to the Editors of The Anti-Jacobin; The Progress of Man (all three parts); and New Morality.[[1]]

“With the single exception of The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-Grinder, no piece in the collection is more freshly remembered than the Inscription for the Cell of Mrs. Brownrigg, who

“‘Whipp’d two female ’prentices to death,

And hid them in the coal-hole’.

“The Answer to The Author of the Epistle to the Editors of The Anti-Jacobin is less known, and it derives a fresh interest from the fact, recently [c. 1854] made public, that The Epistle (which appeared in The Morning Chronicle of January 17, 1798) was the composition of William Lord Melbourne. The beginning shows that the veil of incognito had been already penetrated.

“‘Whoe’er ye are, all hail!—whether the skill

Of youthful Canning guides the ranc’rous quill;

With powers mechanic far above his age,

Adapts the paragraph and fills the page;