Chapter 9

The expression, ‘nemorumque noctem' occurring in one of Gray's Latin odes, has been repeatedly found fault with—yet Virgil has ‘medio nimborum in nocte.’

Selden observes of Henry VIII, that he was a king with a pope in his belly.

In the ‘Nubes’ of Aristophanes, there are several Greek verses inrhyme.

Of the ten tragedies which are attributed to Seneca, (the only Roman tragedies extant,) nine are on Greek subjects.

Ariosto says of one of his heroes, that, in the heat of combat, not perceiving that he was a dead man, he continued to fight valiantly, dead as he was.

Il pover' huomo che non s'en era accorto,Andava combattendo, e era morto.

The author of ‘La Maniere de bien Penser’ speaks of a French divine who, to prove that young persons sometimes die before old ones, cited the text, ‘Prœcucurrit citius Petro Johannes et venit primus ad monumentum.’

There is no passage among all the writings of antiquity more sublime than these lines of Silius Italicus. The words are addressed to a young man of Capua, who proposed to assassinate Hannibal at a banquet.

Fallis te mensas inter quod credis inermem,Tot bellis quæsita viro, tot cœdibus armatMajestas eterna ducem: si admoveris oraCannas et Trebium ante oculos, Trasymenaque busta,Et Pauli stare ingentum miraberis umbram.

Giace l'alta Cartago: à pena i segniDe l'alte sui ruine il lido serba:Muoino le città, muoino i regni;Copre i fasti e le pompe arena et herba:E l'huom d'esser mortal per che si sdegni.

These lines of Tasso are a curious specimen of literary robbery—being made up entirely of passages from Lucan and Sulspicius. Lucan says of Troy

Jam tota tegunturPergama dumetis: etiam perire ruinæ:

and Sulspicius in a letter to Cicero says of Megara, Egina, Corinth, &c.—“Hem! nos homunculi indignamur si quis nostrum interiit, quorum vita brevior esse debet, cum uno loco tot oppidorum cadavera projecta jaceant.”

An epigram upon the subject of Francois de Bassompiere being released from the Bastille upon the death of Richelieu, is a strange mixture of lofty thought and puerile conceit.

Enfin dans l'arriere saisonLa fortune d'Armand s'accorde avec la mienne:France, Je sors de ma prisonQuand son ame sort de la sienne.

The line, “France, Je sors de ma prison,” is the anagram of Francois de Bassompiere.

The epigrams of the Greek Anthology are characterized more bynáivetéthan point. They are for the most part insipid.

Longinus calls pompous and inflated thoughts, “reveries of Jupiter”—insomnia Jovis.

A French writer of celebrity dedicated a book to Richelieu in terms of the most blasphemous flattery. But being disappointed in his expectations, he suppressed all his praises in a second edition, and re-dedicated his volume “á Jesus Christ.”

The following inscription intended for the Louvre, possesses both simplicity and dignity:

Pande fores populis, sublimis Lupara: non estTerrarum imperio dignior ulla domus.

Under a fine painting of St. Bruno in solitude, some Italian wrote these words, “Egli è vivo, e parlerebbe se non osservasse la rigola del silentio.” Malherbe has taken the hint in his epigram upon a picture of Saint Catherine.

A fine sample ofgalimatiasis to be found in an epigram of Miguel de Cervantes:

Van muerte tan escondida,Que no te sienta venir;Porque el plazer del morirNo me torne à dar la vida.

Quintillian mentions a pedant who taught obscurity, and who was wont to say to his scholars, “This is excellent—I do not understand it myself.”

An Italian metaphysician to disprove that greatness of mind is proportioned to the size of the skull, argues thus: “Non sano, che la mente è il centro del capo; e il centro non cresce per la grandezza del circolo.”

A horse is often seen on ancient sepulchral monuments. Caylus quotes a passage from Passeri, “de animæ transvectione,” implying that the horse designates the passage of the soul to Elysium.

The Satyre Menippée of the French is, in prose, the exact counterpart of Hudibras in rhyme.

A remarkable instance of concord of sound and sense is to be seen in the following stanza by M. Anton. Flaminius:

Ast amans charæ thalamum puellæDeserit flens, et tibi verba dicitAspera amplexu teneræ cupito a——vulsus amicæ.

Voltaire's ignorance of antiquity is laughable. In his Essay on Tragedy, prefixed to Brutus, he actually boasts of having introduced the Roman senate on the stage in red mantles. “The Greeks,” as he asserts, “font paraitre ses acteurs (tragic) sur des especes d'echasses, le visage couvert d'un masque qui exprime la douleur d'un coté et la joye de l'autre!” The only circumstance upon which he could possibly have founded such an accusation is, that in thenew comedymasks were worn with one eyebrow drawn up and the other down, to denote a busy-body or inquisitive medler.

Several ancient tragedies, viz: Eumenides, Philoctetes, and Ædipus et Colonos, besides many pieces of Euripides, have a happy and enlivening termination.

The only historical tragedies by Grecian authorswere The Capture of Miletus by Phrynicus and the Persians of Æschylus.

The foundation of all the erroneous opinions on the subject of the old Greek comedy (Voltaire's opinion particularly) may be found in the comparison between Aristophanes and Menander, in Plutarch.

Schlegel says justly, that Harlequin and Pulcinello descend in a direct line from the buffoons of the ancient Romans. On Greek vases are seen also dresses like theirs—long breeches and waistcoats with arms, articles worn by neither Greeks nor Romans except upon the stage. At present Zanni is one of the names of Harlequin, and Sannio in the Latin farces was a buffoon who had a shaven head, and a dress patched together of all colors.

In Racine'sBereniceAntiochus says to the queen

——Je me suis tû cinq ansMadame, et vais encore me taire plus long tems,

and to give a direct proof of his intention, recites immediately no less than fifty verses in a breath.

In Voltaire's scruples about unity of place he has committed a thousand blunders. In the Mort de Cæsar the scene is in the Capitol, but the people seem not to know their precise situation. On one occasion Cæsar exclaims, “Courons au Capitole!”

Denis de Sallo's “Journal des Sçavans,” in 1665 may be considered as the origin of Literary Journals or Reviews.

Sous ce tombeau git Le Sage abattuPar le ciseau de la Parque importune,S'il ne fut pas ami de la fortuneIl fut toujours ami de la vertu,

was Le Sage's epitaph.

These lines although extremely French are forcible,

Et comme un jeune cœur est bientot enflamméIl me vit, il m'aima, je le vis, je l'aimai.

On Cardinal Richelieu, Benserade made the following epitaph:

Cy gist—ouy gist par la mort bleuLe Cardinal de Richelieu,Et ce qui cause mon ennuyMa pension avec lui.

The Jesuits called Crebillon ‘Puer ingeniosus, sed insignis nebulo.’

Dr. E. Young published “A true Estimate of Human Life, Part I,” dedicated to Queen Anne, and describing theshadesof existence. The second part, however, which should have contained the lights never appeared.

The “Batrachomyomachia,” is nothing more than a burlesque poem, much in the manner of Aristophanes, and doubtfully attributed to Homer. Philip Melancthon however, wrote a commentary to prove the poet's object was to excite a hatred for tumults and sedition. Pierre La Seine going a step farther, thinks the intention was to recommend to young men temperance in eating and drinking.

“Amare et sapere vix Deo conceditur,” is not Seneca's as generally supposed.

The heathen poets are mentioned three times in the New Testament. Aratus in the seventeenth chapter of Acts—Menander in the fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians—also Epimenides.

“Semper sub Sextis perdita Roma fuit,”

was a line written during the pontificate of Alexander VI. Sextus Tarquinius provoked by his tyranny the expulsion of the kings of Rome. Urban VI began the great schism of the West. Alexander VI astonished the world by the enormity of his crimes, and Pius VI did not falsify the saying.

A letter was once addressed from Rome “Alla sua Excellenza Seromfidevi,” in London. It caused much perplexity at the Post-office and British Museum, and after foiling the acumen of a minister of state, was found to be intended for Sir Humphrey Davy.

The vulgar Christian era is the invention of Dionysius Exiguus.

The book of Judith was originally written in Chaldee, and thence translated into Latin by St. Jerom. There are several particulars in our English version which are not to be found in St. Jerom's, and which seem to be those readings which he professes to omit as vicious corruptions.

The proverb, “Evil communications corrupt good manners,” which is found in Corinthians, is a quotation, intended as such, from Euripides.

Varro reckons three epochs: the first from the beginning of the world to the first flood, which he callsuncertain;the second from the flood to the first Olympiad,fabulous;the third from the first Olympiad to his own time,historical.

Politian, the poet and scholar, was an admirer of Alessandra Scala, and addressed to her this extempore:

To teach me that in hapless suitI do but waste my hours,Cold maid, whene'er I ask for fruit,Thou givest me naught but flowers.

In the Latin version of Herodotus, the lowest of the towers forming the temple of Belus, is said to be a furlong thick and a furlong high; and some writers concluding each of the eight to be as high, make the whole one mile in height. In the Greek text, however, the lowest tower is merely said to be a furlongthrough—nothing is said of its height. Strabo makes the temple a furlong altogether in altitude.

Jacobus Hugo was of opinion that by the Harpies Homer intended the Dutch; by Euenis, John Calvin; by Antinous, Martin Luther; and by the Lotophagi, Protestants in general.

“Impune quæ libet facere id est esse regem,” is a definition of a king to be found in Sallust.

The first collection of the Iliad was by Pisistratus, or some of the Pisistratidæ. There were, after this, innumerable editions—but Aristarchus in the reign of Ptolemy Philometer,B.C.150, published from a collection of all the copies then existing, a new edition, the text of which has finally prevailed.

Some one after the manner of Santeuil, composed the following quatrain for the gates of the market to be erected on the site of the famous Jacobin Club at Paris,

Impia tortorum longas hic turba furoresSanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit.Sospite nunc patriâ, fracto nunc funeris antro,Mors ubi dira fuit, vita salusque patent.

A version of the Psalms was published in 1642 by William Slatyer, of which this is a specimen:

The righteous shall his sorrow scanAnd laugh at him, and say ‘Behold!What hath become of this here manThat on his riches was so bold.’

At the bottom of an obelisk which Pius VI was erecting at great expense near the entrance of the Quirinal Palace in 1783, while the people were suffering for bread, were found written these words,

Signore, di a questa pietra che divenga pane.Lord, command that these stones be made bread.

Constantine Koliades wrote a book to prove that Homer and Ulysses were one and the same—but Joshua Barnes attributes the authorship of the Iliad to Solomon.

In Σ. xviii. 192, of the Iliad, Achilles says none of the armor of the chieftains will fit him except the shield of Ajax: how then did his own armor fit Patroclus?

In the reign of Edward VI, Dr. Christopher Tye turned the Acts of the Apostles into rhyme. They begin thus,

In the former epistle to theeDear friend TheophilusI have written the veritieOf the Lord Christ Jesus.

Empedocles professed the system of four elements, and added thereto two principles which he called ‘principium amicitiæ and principium contentionis.’ What are these but attraction and repulsion?

The Count Bielfeld's definition of poetry is ‘L'art d'exprimer les pensées par la fiction.’ The German terms Dichtkunst,the art of fiction, and Dichten tofeign, which are used forPoetry, andto make verses, are in full accordance with his definition.

The Germans have epic poems composed in metre of sixteen and seventeen syllables.

The following Vaudeville is one of the drollest of its kind:

Quand un bon vin meuble mon estomacJe suis plus savant que Balzac—Plus sage que Pibrac.Mon bras seul faisant l'attaqueDe la nation CossaqueLa mettroit au sac.De Charon Je passerois le lacEn dormant dans son bac.J'irois au fier EacSans que mon cœur fit tic ni tacPrésenter du tabac.

On ancient monuments are often found the letters A. E. R. A. meaning Annus erat Regni Augusti. The ignorance of copyists may probably have formed of these letters the single word ÆRA. Would it not be a better derivation than the Latin ÆS?

The work of John Albert Fabricius, the Hamburg professor, entitled Bibliotheca Græca, in which his sole object is to render an account of theGreekauthorsextant, occupies fourteen thick volumes in quarto.

The usual derivation of the word Metaphysics is not to be sustained.Meta physicamis tortured into meaningsuper physicam, and the science is supposed to take its name from its superiority to physics. The truth is, that Aristotle's treatise on Morals is next in succession to his Book of Physics, and this order he considers the rational order of study. His Ethics consequently commence with the words Μετα τα φυσικα, &c. from which the word Metaphysics.

The commentators upon Mr. Beckford's Vathek say that thelocustsderive their name from having been so called by the first English settlers in America. The word comes evidently fromloco usto, the havoc they made wherever they passed leaving the appearance of a place desolated by fire.

M. Patru was convinced that in all his prose writings no sentence or part of a sentence could be found socadencedas to form a verse. A friend, however immediately pointed out to him the words in his ‘Plaidoyers’

Septième plaidoyer pour un jeune Allemand.

Despreaux speaking of the cæsura in French versification, asserts,

Que toujours dans nos vers—le sens coupant les mots,Suspende l'hemistiche—en marquant le repos.

M. Despreaux seems to have forgotten that hemistich is a composite Greek word signifying a demi-line, and that consequently his own admired verses have no meaning at all.

Every one is acquainted with the excellentcommencementof the Annals of Tacitus. From this, principally he has acquired his reputation for concision. It is singular that no notice has ever been taken of the extreme prolixity of theirconclusion.

There is a dissertation upon Hebrew, or Samaritan medals by Père Soucier, in which he proves the existence of Hebrew money struck by the Jews upon the model of the coins current before the captivity. All the Hebrew medals, however, bearing a head of Moses or of Christ, are manifestly forgeries.

There is a book by a Jesuit, Père Labbe, entitled La Bibliothèque des Bibliothèques. It is a catalogue of all authors in all nations who have written catalogues of books.

Lucretius, lib. v. 93, 96, has the words,

——terras—Una dies dabit exitio.

Ovid the lines,

Carmine sublimis tunc sunt peritura LucretiExitio terras cum dabit una dies.

Albert in his Hebrew Dictionary, pretends to discover in each word, in its root, in its letters, and in the manner of pronouncing them, the reason of its signification. Loescher in his treatise De causis Linguæ Hebreæ, carries the matter even farther.

In Judges is this expression, ‘And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter.’ The phrase ‘to smite hip and thigh’ arises from these words. No meaning, however, can be attached to them as they stand—but the original will admit of a different signification, viz: ‘He smote them with his leg on the thigh,’ and alludes to the wrestling matches which were common in the east. In this sense the phrase exactly answers to the ‘crus femori impingere’ and the σκελιξειν or αποσκελιξειν of the ancients.

It is a remarkable fact, that during the whole period of the middle ages, the Germans lived in utter ignorance of the art of writing.

The silver shekel of the Hebrews has on its face the rod of Aaron with the inscription, Jeruschalaim Hakkedoucha, Jerusalem the Holy, and on the reverse a cup with the words Chekel Ischrael, money of Israel.

The Masoretical punctuation is a kind of critique upon the Hebrew text invented by the Jewish teachers to prevent its alteration. The first original being lost, recourse was had to the Masore as an infallible method of fixing the text. The verses, words, and even letters are there counted, and all their variations recorded.

Among the Hebrew text of the Old Testament are mingled a few passages of Chaldaic.All the charactersas we have them now, are properly speaking Chaldaic.

A version of the Psalms in 1564, by Archbishop Parker, has the following—

Who sticketh to God in stable trustAs Sion's mount he stands full justWhich moveth no whit, nor yet can reel,But standeth for ever as stiff as steel.

A part of the 137th Psalm runs thus: ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,’ which has been thus paraphrased in a version of the Psalms,

If I forget thee everThen let me prosper never,But let it causeMy tongue and jawsTo cling and cleave together.

THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW.

The Old World and the New; or, a Journal of Reflections and Observations made on a Tour in Europe. By the Reverend Orville Dewey. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Mr. Dewey assures us, in the beginning of hisPreface, that his volumes are not offered to the public as an itinerary—but it is difficult to say in what other light they should be regarded. To us they appear as strictly entitled to the appellation as any book of travels we have perused. They are indeed an itinerary of the most inartificial character—a journal in which unconnected remarks follow one upon another—object upon object—day upon day—and all with a scrupulous accuracy in regard to dates. Not that we have much objection to this methodical procedure, but that we cannot understand Mr. Dewey in declaring his book not to be what it most certainly is, if it is any thing at all. His subsequent remark, that every American traveller to the old world enjoys a vantage ground for surveying the institutions, customs, and character of his own country is what we can readily appreciate. We think, also, that in many respects our author has made excellent use of this advantage. But we would be doing our conscience a great wrong in recommending the work before usas a whole. Here is some amusement—great liberality—much excellent sense—a high spirit of sound morality and genuine philanthropy; but indeed very little, so we think, of either novelty or profundity. These two latter qualities are, however, of a nature so strictly relative, and liable to so many modifications from the acquirements or character of the reader, that we feel some hesitation in what we say—and would prefer leaving a decision where itmustfinally be left—to the voice of the public opinion.

One remarkable feature in theOld World and the New, is its amusingnaivetéof manner—a feature which will immediately arrest the attention of every reader. We cannot do better than give a few specimens.

What a pity it is [says Mr. D., and so it is undoubtedly] that cities, or at least streets in cities, could not, like single edifices, be built upon some regular and well considered plan! Not that the result should be such regularity as is seen in Philadelphia or Dublin; the plan indeed would embrace irregularity. But there might be an arrangement, by which a block of buildings, a street, or indeed a whole city, might stand before us as one grand piece of architecture. If single specimens of architecture have the effect to improve, humanize, and elevate the ideas of a people; if they are a language, and answer a purpose kindred to that of literature, poetry and painting, why may not a whole city have this effect? To secure this result, there must, I am afraid, be a power like that of the autocrat of Russia, who, I am told, when a house is built in his royal city of St. Petersburg which does not conform to his general plan, sends word to the owner that he must remove that building and put up another of a certain description.

And again, speaking of the Menai bridge—

A celebrated lady (since dead) in speaking of this stupendous work, said that she first saw it from the Isle of Anglesea, so that it was relieved against the lofty mountains of North Wales; and she added in a strainof eloquent and poetical comparison familiar to her, that Snowdon seemed to her a fit back ground for the Menai Bridge.

All this may be very true, but then only think of theeloquent and poetical comparisonof Snowdon being a back ground for the Menai Bridge!

Mrs. Hemans and our author go to church together.

She spoke (says he) of the various accompaniments of the service, and when she came to the banners she said ‘they seemed to wave as the music of the anthem rose to the lofty arches!’ I ventured here to throw in a little dash of prose—saying thatI was afraid that they did not wave, that I wished they might, and looked up to see if they did, but could not see it.

Mr. Dewey does not like oatmeal cake.

In good truth I should never desire to have any thing to do with it save as a specimen; for of all the stuff that ever I tasted, it was the most inedible, impracticable, insufferable, dry, hard, coarse, rasping, gritty, chaffy: Icouldnot eat it, and it seemed to me that if I could, it would be no more nourishing than gravel kneaded into mud, and baked in a lime-kiln. As to drink—whiskey! whiskey! the boatman said was the only thing, and the thing indispensable. I tasted of it—and truly it had not the usual odious taste of our American whiskey!

We quote these passages merely as specimens of the singular simplicity—more properlynaiveté—which is the prevailing feature of the book.

Mr. Dewey left New York for England on the 8th June 1833, and arrived in St. George's channelon the 24th of the same month, having a fair wind and smooth sea during the entire passage. Leaving England, he visited Wales, Ireland, Scotland, France, Belgium, Prussia, Switzerland, and Italy. Returning by way of Liverpool, he reached home on the 22d of May, 1834.

RICHARDSON'S DICTIONARY.

A New Dictionary of the English Language: By Charles Richardson. London: William Pickering—New York: William Jackson.

Theperiodicalnature of this publication absolves us from what would otherwise be a just charge of neglect in not speaking of it sooner. Five numbers have been issued, and twenty-five more are to be added, at intervals of a fortnight. These numbers are of quarto form, and contain eighty pages in triple columns. The paper is excellent, and the matter beautifully stereotyped. The whole will form, when the publication is completed, two very large quarto volumes, of which the entire cost will have been fifteen dollars. We say when the publication is completed—the work itself is already so—a consideration of great importance, and sure to be appreciated by the thousands of subscribers to the many costly periodicals which have failed in completing their issue, and thus thrown a number of odd volumes upon the hands of the public. In what farther we have to say of this Dictionary, we shall do little more than paraphrase the very satisfactory prospectus of Mr. Richardson himself.

When Dr. Johnson, in 1747, announced his intention of writing a Dictionary of the English language, he communicated theplanof his undertaking in a letter to Lord Chesterfield. The plan was as follows. He would give, first—the natural and primitive meaning of words; secondly, the consequential—and thirdly the metaphorical, arranging the quotations chronologically. The book, however, was published in 1755,without the plan, and strange to say, in utter disregard of the principles avowed in the letter to the Earl of Chesterfield. That these principles were well-conceived, and that if followed out, they would have rendered important service to English lexicography, was not doubted at the time, and cannot be doubted now. Moreover, the necessity for something of the kind which was feltthen, is more strongly felt now, for no person has as yet attempted to construct a work upon the plan proposed, and the difficulties which were to have been remedied, are greatly aggravated by time. Eighty years have passed, and not only has no new work been written upon the plan of Dr. Johnson—but no systematic work of reform upon the old basis.

The present Dictionary of Mr. Richardson is, distinctly, anew work, upon a system never attempted before—upon the principles of Horne Tooke, the greatest of philosophical grammarians, and whose developments of an entirely novel theory of language have excited the most profound interest and respect in the minds of all who think.

In theDiversions of Purley, it is positively demonstrated that a word has one meaning and one only, and that from this one meaning all theusagesof the word must spring. “To discover this meaning,” says Mr. Richardson, “etymological research was indispensable, and I have stated the results of such research with conciseness, it is true, yet with a fullness that will enable the more learned reader to form a judgment for himself, and the path of deeper investigation is disclosed to the pursuit of the curious inquirer.” In tracing theusagesof words, Mr. R. has availed himself of the materials collected by Johnson and his editors, “the various supplements and provincial vocabularies, the notes of editors and commentators upon our older poets, and of abundant treasures amassed for his own peculiar use.” The quotations are arranged chronologically, and embrace extracts from the earliest to the latest writers of English. The etymology is placed distinctly by itself for the convenience of hasty reference. As an example of the arrangement of the work, we will give the wordCalefy.

But crystal willcalefieinto electricity; that is, a power to attract straws or light bodies and convert the needle freely placed.—Brown. Vulgar Errours, b. ii. c. 1.

As [if] the remembrance ofcalefactioncan warm a man in a cold frosty night.—More. Philos. Poems, c. 2,Pref.

But ice will dissolve in any way of heat; for it will dissolve with fire; it will colliquate in water, or warm oyl; nor doth it onely submit unto an actual heat, but not endure the potentialcalidityof many waters.—Brown. Vulgar Errours. b. ii. c. 1.

Since the subterraneancaliductshave been introduced.Evelyn.

In his prospectus, Mr. Richardson has had occasion to speak in no measured terms of the Dictionary of Dr. Webster. We here repeat his observations because we think them entirely just.

The author is conscious that he should be chargeable with great want of courtesy if he passed unnoticed the American Dictionary of Dr. Webster. Hiscensurehowever must be short. Dr. Webster disarmed and stripped himself for the field, and advanced unaided and unshielded to the combat. He abjured the assistance of Skinner and Vossius, and the learned elders of lexicography; and of Tooke he quaintly says, ‘I have made no use of his writings.’ There is a display of oriental reading in his Preliminary Essays, which as introductory to a Dictionary of the English Language, seems as appropriate and useful as a reference to the code of Gentoo laws to decide a question of English inheritance. Dr. Webster was entirely unacquainted with our old authors.

We believe the North American Review has remarked of the work before us, that its definitions are in some measure too scanty, and not sufficiently compact. This defect, which cannot altogether be denied, and which is, to say the truth, of more importance to the mass of readers than to the philologist, will be found, upon examination, a defect inseparable from the plan originally proposed, and which insists upon an arrangement of derivatives under primitives. We are not tempted, however, to wish any modification of the principal design, for the sake of a partial, and not very important amendment.

We conclude in heartily recommending the work of Mr. Richardson to the attention of our readers. It embraces we think, every desideratum in an English Dictionary, and has moreover a thousand negative virtues. Messrs. Mayo and Davis are the agents in Richmond.

BOOK OF GEMS.

The Book of Gems. The Poets and Artists of Great Britain. Edited by S. C. Hall. London and New York: Saunders and Otley.

This work combines the rich embellishments of the very best of the race of Annuals, with a far higher claim to notice than any of them in its strictly literary department. If we regard this volume as the only one to appear, the title will convey no idea of the design—but we are promised a continuation. The whole, if we comprehend, will contain specimens ofallthe principal poets and artists of Great Britain. In the present instance we have the poets as far as Prior, including a period of about four hundred years, with extracts from Chaucer, Lydgate, James I, Hawes, Carew, Quarles, Shirley, Habington, Lovelace, Wyatt, Surrey, Sackville, Vere, Gascoigne, Raleigh, Spenser, Sidney, Brooke, Southwell, Daniel, Drayton, Shakspeare, Walton, Davies, Donne, Jonson, Corbet, Phineas Fletcher, Giles Fletcher, Drummond, Wither, Carew, Browne, Herrick, Quarles, Herbert, Davenant, Waller, Milton, Suckling, Butler, Crashaw, Denham, Cowley, Marvell, Dryden, Roscommon, Dorset, Sedley, Rochester, Sheffield, and Prior. Of these, all the autographs have been obtained and are published collectively at the end of the book, with the exception of the nine first mentioned. The work is illustrated by fifty-three engravings, each by different artists. A sea-side group by Harding, and L'Allegro and Il Penseroso by Parris, are particularly good—but all are excellent.

We had prepared some observations in regard to the book itself, (over which we have been poring for many days with intense delight) and in regard more especially to the character and justice of that deep feeling with which most men, having claim to taste, are wont to look, even through a veil of exceedingly troublesome obscurity and antiquity, upon the writings of the elder poets and dramatists of Great Britain. But we have been so nearly anticipated in our design by a paper in the American Monthly Magazine for July, that what we should now say, and saycon amore, would be looked upon as little better than arifacimentoof the article we mention. At the same time it would be an ill deed to remodel our thoughts, and proceed to think falsely, for the mere purpose of proving that we can think originally. In this dilemma then, we will merely express our general accordance in the opinions of the Northern Magazine, copy, of itscritique, a portion which seems to embody, in little compass, much of what we have said less forcibly and more diffusely, and add some few additional observations which have lately suggested themselves.

“Among the early English poets, so called,” says the American Monthly, “there is combined with marked individuality, a sort of general resemblance, not easily defined, but readily perceived by a discriminating reader. They lived in an age of invention, and wrote from a pleasurable impulse which they could not resist. They did not borrow from one another, or from those who had gone before them, nor pass their time in pouring from one vessel into another. Thus, however different their styles, however various their subjects, whether the flight of their genius be high or low, there is the same aspect of truth and naturalness in the poetry of them all; as we can trace a common likeness in all faces which have an open, ingenuous expression, however little resemblance there may be in the several features. Most of them were well acquainted with books, and many of them were deeply learned; and an air of ripe scholarship sometimes degenerating into pedantry, pervades every thing they wrote. As a class too, they are remarkable for a healthy, intellectual tone, defaced neither by moody misanthropy, nor mawkish sentimentality. The manly Saxon character beams out from every line; and that vigorous good sense, so characteristic of the English stock, every where leaves its impress. Another trait which, with a few exceptions, honorably distinguishes them, is the purity of their sentiments, and their high moral feeling, especially in all that touches the relation of the sexes. We shall find many coarse expressions, such as a man would not read aloud to his family; but very rarely any thing bordering upon heartless profligacy, or studied licentiousness, or any intimation of a want of respect for the great principles of the moral law. Due reverence is always shown for those high personal qualities which constitute the best security for the greatness and prosperity of a people. Homage is always paid to honor in man, and chastity in woman. The passion of love, in its multitudinous forms and aspects, supplies a large proportion of their themes, and it is treated with equal delicacy and beauty. In the amatory strains of the old English poets, we perceive a romantic self-forgetfulness, an idealization of the beloved object, a tenderness and respectfulness of feeling, in which the passion is almost wholly swallowed up in the sentiment, and a wooing with the best treasures of the intellect as wellas the heart, such as can be found in no other class of poets.”

Notwithstanding the direct truth of what has been here so well advanced, it cannot, we think, be a matter of doubt with any reflecting mind, that at least one-third of thereverence, or of theaffection, with which we regard the elder poets of Great Britain, should be credited to what is, in itself, a thing apart from poetry—we mean to the simple love of the antique—and that again a third of even the properpoetic sentimentinspired by these writings should be ascribed to a fact which, while it has a strict connection with poetry in the abstract, and also with the particular poems in question, must not be looked upon as a merit appertaining to the writers of the poems. Almost every devout reader of the old English bards, if demanded his opinion of their productions, would mention vaguely, yet with perfect sincerity, a sense of dreamy, wild, indefinite, and he would perhaps say, undefinable delight. Upon being required to point out the source of this so shadowy pleasure, he would be apt to speak of the quaint in phraseology and of the grotesque in rhythm. And this quaintness and grotesqueness are, as we have elsewhere endeavored to show, very powerful, and if well managed, very admissible adjuncts to Ideality. But in the present instance they arise independently of the author's will, and are matters altogether apart from his intention. TheAmerican Monthlyhas forcibly painted the general character of the old English Muse. She was a maid, frank, guileless, and perfectly sincere, and although very learned at times, still very learned without art. No general error evinces a more thorough confusion of ideas than the error of supposing Donne and Cowley metaphysical in the sense wherein Wordsworth and Coleridge are so. With the two former ethics were the end—with the two latter the means. The poet of theCreationwished, by highly artificial verse, to inculcate what he considered moral truth—he of theAuncient Marinerto infuse thePoetic Sentimentthrough channels suggested by mental analysis. The one finished by complete failure what he commenced in the grossest misconception—the other, by a path which could not possibly lead him astray, arrived at a certainty and intensity of triumph which is not the less brilliant and glorious because concentrated among the very few who have the power to perceive it. It will now be seen that even the “metaphysical verse” of Cowley is no more than evidence of the straight-forward simplicity and single-heartedness of the man. And he was in all this but a type of hisschool—for we may as well designate in this way the entire class of writers whose poems are bound up in the volume before us, and throughout all of whom runs a very perceptible general character. They used but little art in composition. Their writings sprang immediately from the soul—and partook intensely of the nature of that soul. It is not difficult to perceive the tendency of this gloriousabandon. To elevate immeasurably all the energies of mind—but again—so to mingle the greatest possible fire, force, delicacy, and all good things, with the lowest possible bathos, baldness, and utter imbecility, as to render it not a matter of doubt, but of certainty, that the average results of mind in such aschool, will be found inferior to those results in one (ceteris paribus) more artificial. Such, we think, is the view of the older English Poetry, in which a very calm examination will bear us out. The quaintness in manner of which we were just speaking, is an adventitious advantage. It formed no portion of the poet's intention. Words and their rhythm have varied. Verses which affect us to day with a vivid delight, and which delight in some instances, may be traced to this one source of grotesqueness and to none other, must have worn in the days of their construction an air of a very common-place nature. This is no argument, it will be said, against the poemsnow. Certainly not—we mean it for the poetsthen. The notion ofpower, of excessivepower, in the English antique writers should be put in its proper light. This is all we desire to see done.

We cannot bring ourselves to believe that the selections made use of in theBook of Gems, are such as will impart to a poetical reader the highest possible idea of the beauty of theschool. Better extracts might be made. Yet if the intention were merely to show thecharacterof the school the attempt is entirely successful. There are long passages now before us of the most utterly despicable trash, with no merit whatever beyond their simple antiquity. And it is almost needless to say that there are many passages too of a glorious strength—a radiant loveliness, making the blood tingle in our veins as we peruse them. The criticisms of the Editor do not please us in a great degree. He seems to have fallen into the common cant in such cases. In one instance the American Monthly accords with him in an unjust opinion touching some verses by Sir Henry Wotton, on the Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I, and about which it is said that “there are few finer things in our language.” Our readers will agree with us, we believe, that this praise is exaggerated. We quote the lines in full.

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