master, whose service he had unceremoniously quitted.  But this new situation had few advantages over the old, and he relinquished it in about a year to try his fortune in the metropolis.  He had previously sent a manuscript volume of poetry to Harrison, the bookseller of Paternoster Row, who, while declining to publish it, commended the author’s talents, and so far promoted his views as now to receive him into his establishment.  But Montgomery’s aspirations had no reference to serving behind a counter; he only accepted a place in the bookseller’s establishment that he might have an opportunity of leisurely feeling his way as an author.  His literary efforts, however, still proved fruitless.  He composed essays and tales, and wrote a romance in the manner of Fielding, but none of his productions could find a publisher.  Mortified by his failures, he quitted London in eight months, and returned to the shop of his former employer at Wath.  After the interval of another year, he proceeded to Sheffield, to occupy a situation under Mr Joseph Gales, a bookseller, and the proprietor of the Register newspaper.

Montgomery was now in his twenty-first year, and fortune at length began, though with many lowering intervals, to smile upon his youthful aspirations.  Though he occupied a subordinate post in Mr Gales’ establishment, his literary services were accepted for the Register, in which he published many of his earlier compositions, both in prose and verse.  This journal had advocated sentiments of an ultra-liberal order, and commanding a wide circulation and a powerful influence among the operatives in Sheffield, had been narrowly inspected by the authorities.  At length the proprietor fell into the snare of sympathising in the transactions of the French revolutionists; he was prosecuted for sedition, and deemed himself only safe from compulsory exile by a voluntary exit to America.  This event took place about two years after Montgomery’s first connexion with Sheffield, and he had now reverted to his former condition of abject dependence unless for a fortunate occurrence.  This was no less than his being appointed joint-proprietor and editor of the newspaper by a wealthy individual, who, noticing the abilities of the young shopman, purchased the copyright with the view of placing the management entirely in his hands.

The first number of the newspaper under the poet’s care, the name being changed to that of The Sheffield Iris, appeared in July 1794; and though the principles of the journal were moderate and conciliatory in comparison with the democratic sentiments espoused by the former publisher, the jealous eye of the authorities rested on its new conductor.  He did not escape their vigilance; for the simple offence of printing for a ballad-vender some verses of a song celebrating the fall of the Bastile, he was libelled as “a wicked, malicious, seditious, and evil-disposed person;” and being tried before the Doncaster Quarter Sessions,