[118] I subjoin, for the gratification of the curious, the titles of a few of these books. "Spanhemii Opera;" "Clerici Pentateuchus;" "Constantini Lexicon Græco-Latinum;" "Fabricii Codex Apocryphus Vet. et Nov. Test.;" "Synesius de Regno;" "Historia Imaginum Coelestium Gosselini," 16 volumes; "Caryophili Dissertationes;" "Vonde Hardt Ephemerides Philologicæ;" "Trismegisti Opera;" "Recoldus, et alia Mahomedica;" all the Works of Buxtorf; "Salviani Opera;" "Reland de Relig. Mahomedica;" "Galli Opuscula Mythologica;" "Apollodori Bibliotheca;" "Palingenius;" "Apuleius;" and every classical author of antiquity. As he was then employed in his curious history of the Druids, of which only a specimen is preserved, we may trace his researches in the following books: "Luydii Archæologia Britannica;" "Old Irish Testament," &c.; "Maccurtin's History of Ireland;" "O'Flaherty's Ogygia;" "Epistolarum Hibernicarum;" "Usher's Religion of the ancient Irish;" "Brand's Isles of Orkney and Zetland;" "Pezron's Antiquités des Celtes."
There are some singular papers among these fragments. One title of a work is "Priesthood without Priestcraft; or Superstition distinguished from Religion, Dominion from Order, and Bigotry from Reason, in the most principal Controversies about Church government, which at present divide and deform Christianity." He has composed "A Psalm before Sermon in praise of Asinity." There are other singular titles and works in the mass of his papers.
A lover of all literature, and knowing more than ten languages; a champion for truth, an assertor of liberty, but the follower or dependant of no man; nor could menaces nor fortune bend him; the way he had chosen he pursued, preferring honesty to his interest. His spirit is joined with its ethereal father from whom it originally proceeded; his body likewise, yielding to Nature, is again laid in the lap of its mother: but he is about to rise again in eternity, yet never to be the same TOLAND more.
POPE said that STEELE, though he led a careless and vicious life, had nevertheless a love and reverence for virtue. The life of Steele was not that of a retired scholar; hence his moral character becomes more instructive. He was one of those whose hearts are the dupes of their imaginations, and who are hurried through life by the most despotic volition. He always preferred his caprices to his interests; or, according to his own notion, very ingenious, but not a little absurd, "he was always of the humour of preferring the state of his mind to that of his fortune." The result of this principle of moral conduct was, that a man of the most admirable abilities was perpetually acting like a fool, and, with a warm attachment to virtue, was the frailest of human beings.