lter, 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 very circumstance which obtained
for him the appointment to a responsible office in an expedition,
which, in its origin, progress, and issue, attracted the peculiar
regard of the British government, and the admiration of mankind in
general. Besides this office, it may be mentioned, that in 1745, on
his return from the expedition, he was made chaplain of Portsmouth
dock-yard, in which situation he continued till his death on March
10th, 1785. The first edition of the work appeared in 1748; and a
fifth being required in the following year, Mr Robins, it is said,
revised it, and intended, had he remained in England, to have added a
second volume. This rests on the assertion of Dr Wilson, who published
Mr Robins' works after his death, in 2 vols. 8vo. 1761; and who, in
the account of that gentleman's life prefixed, has been at pains to
claim, in the strongest language, the merit of the Narrative for his
friend. A passage or two from that memoir may satisfy the reader as to
this part of the evidence, and as to the opinion of Dr W. one of the
principal witnesses, respecting the proportional labours of Messrs
Walter and Robins. "Upon a strict perusal of both the performances,"
says he, "I find Mr Robins' to contain about as much matter again as
that of Mr Walter--s