of science.  A short statement of such information as the editor has been able to procure, is all that the limits of this work will permit to be said on the subject of this question.  The public, being interested in what had been generally reported through the medium of the periodical publications, respecting the proceedings and fate of the squadron under Commodore Anson, had eagerly expected some account of this voyage drawn up under his notice, or authenticated by his approval.  This anxiety, it is likely, was not a little enhanced by the circumstance of several small, but curious enough, narratives having been published of the distresses experienced by part of the squadron, especially the Wager; from which it was naturally enough inferred, that a judicious and minute account of the whole could not fail to gratify rational curiosity, and the common disposition to wonder.  Mr Walter, accordingly, who had gone in the Centurion, the commodore’s vessel, as chaplain, and who, it seems, had been in the habit of keeping memorials of the transactions and occurrences of the squadron, prepared materials for publication, and actually procured subscriptions for the liquidation of its expense.  He brought down his narrative to the time of his leaving the Centurion at Macao, when he returned by another conveyance to England.  But as the public expectation had been raised very high, some persons, it would appear, suggested that the materials intended to be published should be carefully examined, and, if need be, corrected, by an adequate judge of literary and scientific composition.  Mr Robins, already well known as an author of both mathematical and political essays, and much valued by several distinguished characters of the times, was engaged to undertake this task, whether with or without the desire of Mr Walter, or under any allegation of that gentleman’s known or reputed incompetency to fulfil the hopes entertained, cannot now be discovered.  On examination, we are told, it was resolved that Mr Robins should write the whole work anew, and merely use the materials furnished by Mr Walter, or otherwise, as the particulars of wind, weather, currents, courses, &c. &c. usually given in a sailor’s journal.  The introduction, and several dissertations interspersed through, the work, are said, moreover, to have been written by Mr Robins without any such assistance whatever; but to what magnitude his labours throughout amounted, it is perhaps impossible to ascertain.  That he acquired reputation by it is unquestionable; but that Mr Walter himself should not have contributed so much as to warrant his name appearing on the title-page of the book, and at its dedication to the Duke of Bedford, would require a proof of both want of talents and meanness of disposition, which no one yet has attempted to adduce.  Mr Walter’s character, indeed, seems to have been quite above either such deficiency; and, in all probability, was, both in point of firmness and moral and intellectual worth, the