"As from their own clear north, in radiant streams, Bright over Europe bursts the Boreal morn." And what spirit does Pope often give his lines by using this inversion in the impera tion, T. Warton's Critical Notes to Milton's version is beautifully used, while its author Lesser Poems, will show you how very is paying, in a simile, the finest compliment largely Milton took, not only from the clas-imaginable to the talents and excursive sics, but from his verse-predecessors in our spirit of his countrymen :own language: from Burton's writings, interlarded with verse; from Drayton; from Spenser; from Shakspeare; from the two Fletchers, and from Drummond. The entire plan, and almost all the outlines, of the sweet pictures in L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, are in Burton's Anatomie of Melancholy, or a Dialogue between Pleasure and Pain, in verse, with a passage of his in prose; and these were taken and combined in Milton's imagination with the fine hints in a song in Beaumont and Fletcher's play, the Nice Valour, or Passionate Madman. In Comus, Milton was much indebted to Fletcher's beautiful pastoral play, The Faithful Shepherdess; but Milton and Pope, though with excellence different both in nature and degree, were arch-chymists, and turned the lead and tinsel of others to the purest and finest gold. Dr. Stokes is mistaken in supposing Milton my first poetic favourite. Great as I deem him, the superior of Virgil, and the equal of Homer, my heart and imagination acknowledge yet greater the matchless bard of Avon. I thank you for the discriminating observations in your letter of April the 24th upon my late publication. Milton says, that from Adam's lip, not words alone pleased Eve; so may I say, that from your pen praise alone would not satisfy my avidity of pleasing you. The why and wherefore you are pleased, which is always so ingenious when you write of verse, from the zest, which makes encomium nectar. Mr. Haley's [Hayley's?] letter to me on the subject is very gratifying: it joins to a generous ardency of praise the elegance, spirit, and affection of his former epistles. Ah! yes, it is very certain that not only some, but all our finest poets, frequently invert the position of the verb, and prove that the British Critic, who says it is not the habit of good writers, is a stranger to their compositions. When Thomson says, "Vanish the woods, the dim-seen river seems Sullen and slow to roll his misty train," it is picture; which it would not have been, if he had coldly written, "The woods are vanished;" since in the former, by the precedence of the verb to the noun, we see the fog in the very act of shrouding the woods: but to these constituent excellencies of poetry the eye of a reviewer is the mole's dim curtain. Again, in the same poem, Autumn this in tive mood:- "Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem, rise!" Then, as to the imputed affectation of the word Lyceum, Thomson calls the woods Nature's vast Lyceum." For his purpose it was necessary to elevate the term by its epithet, for mine to lower it by that which I applied,-minute Lyceum; and in neither place is its application affected. I am allowed to be patient of criticism, and trust no one is readier to feel its force, and, when just, to acknowledge and to profit by it; but to a censor who does not know the meaning of the word thrill, I may, without vanity, exclaim, "Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests!" Nature and Art? She is a favourite novelist Have you seen Mrs. Inchbald's late work, with me. Her late work has improbable Story, which ought to have been the title situations, and is inferior to her Simple suited than to the history of Dorriforth: of this composition, to which it is better teristic force of her pen, which, with an air yet we find in Art and Nature the characof undesigning simplicity, places in a strong point of view the worthlessness of such characters as pass with the world for respectable. She seems to remove, as by accident, their its removal: and certain strokes of blended specious veil, and without commenting upon pathos and horror indelibly impress the recollection. JEREMY BENTHAM, the eminent Law Reformer, born 1748, died 1832, was the author of A Fragment on Gorernment, Lond., 1776, 8vo; Principles of Morals and Legislation, printed 1780, published 1789; Defence of Usury, 1787; Traites de Législation Civile et Pénale, Paris, 1802, in English by R. Hildreth, Boston, 1840, 2 vols. 12mo; Théorie des Peines et des Récompenses, Lond., 1811, 2 vols. 8vo, in English, as follows: The Rationale of Reward, Lond., 1825, 8vo, and the Rationale of Punishment, Lond., 1825, 8vo; and other works. Works Published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring, with an Introduction by John Hill Burton, Esq., Edin., 1843, 8vo. JEREMY BENTHAM. "It cannot be denied without injustice and ingratitude, that Mr. Bentham has done more than any other writer to rouse the spirit of juridicial reformation which is now gradually examining every part of law; and when further progress is facilitated by digesting the present laws, will doubtless proceed to the improvement of all. Greater praise it is given to few to earn."-SIR J. MACKINTOSH: Prelim. Dissert. to Encyc. Brit. "Of Mr. Bentham we would at all times speak with the reverence which is due to a great original thinker, and to a sincere and ardent friend of the human race. . . Posterity will pronounce its calm and impartial decision: and that decision will, we firmly believe, place in the same rank with Galileo, and with Locke, the man who found jurisprudence a gibberish and left it a science."LORD MACAULAY: Edin. Review, July, 1832: Mirabeau; and his Essays. ON SLEEPING LAWS. Tyranny and anarchy are never far asunder. Dearly indeed must the laws pay for the mischief of which they are thus made the instruments. The weakness they are thus struck with does not confine itself to the peccant spot; it spreads itself over their whole frame. The tainted parts throw suspicion upon those that are yet sound. Who can say which of them the disease has gained, which of them it has spared? You open the statute-book, and look into a clause: does it belong to the sound part, or to the rotten? How can you say? by what token are you to know? A man is not safe in trusting to his own eyes. You may have the whole statute-book by heart, and all the while not know what ground you stand upon under the law. It pretends to fix your destiny: and after all, if you want to know your destiny, you must learn it, not from the law, but from the temper of the times. The temper of the times, did I say? you must know the temper of every individual in the nation; you must know, not only what it is at the present instant, but what it will be at every future one: all this you must know, before you can lay your hand upon your bosom, and say to yourself, I am safe. What, all this while, is the character and condition of the law? Sometimes a bugbear, at other times a snare: her threats inspire no efficient terror; her promises no confidence. The canker-worm of uncertainty, naturally the peculiar growth and plague of the unwritten law, insinuates itself thus into the body, and preys upon the vitals of the written. All this mischief shows as nothing in the eyes of the tyrant by whom this policy is upheld and pursued, and whose blind and malignant passions it has for its cause. His appetites receive that gratification which the times allow of: and in comparison with that, what are laws, or those for whose sake laws 271 were made? IIis enemies, that is, those whom it is his delight to treat as such, whose enemy he has thought fit to make himself, are his footstool: their insecurity is his comfort; their sufferings are his enjoyments; their abasement is his triumph. Whence comes this pernicious and unfeeling policy? It is tyranny's last shift, among a people who begin to open their eyes in the calm which has succeeded the storms of It is her last stronghold, retained civil war. by a sort of capitulation made with good government and good sense. Common humanity would not endure such laws, were they to give signs of life: negligence, and the fear of change, suffer them to exist so long as they promise not to exist to any purpose. Sensible images govern the bulk of What the eye does not see, the heart does not rue. Fellow-citizens dragged in crowds for conscience' sake to prison, or to the gallows, though seen but for the moment, might move compassion. Silent anxiety and inward humiliation do not meet the eye, and draw little attention, though they fill up the measure of a whole life. men. Of this base and malignant policy an example would scarcely be found, were it not for religious hatred, of all hatred the bitterest and the blindest. Debarred by the infidelity of the age from that most exquisite of repasts, the blood of heretics, it subsists as it can upon the idea of secret sufferings,-sad remnant of the luxury of better times. It is possible that, in the invention of this policy, timidity may have had some share: for between tyranny and timidity there is a near alliance. Is it probable? Hardly: the less so, as tyranny, rather than let go its hold, such is its baseness, will put on the mask of cowardice. It is possible, shall we say, that in England forty should be in dread of one: but can it be called probable, when in Ireland forty suffer nothing from fourscore? pos When they who stand up in the defence of tyrannical laws on pretence of their being in a dormant state vouchsafe to say they wish not to see them in any other, is it sible they should speak true? I will not say: the bounds of possibility are wide. Is it probable? That is a question easier answered. To prevent a law from being executed, which is the most natural course to take? to keep it alive, or to repeal it? Were a man's wishes to see it executed ever so indisputable, what stronger proof could he give of his sincerity than by taking this very course, in taking which he desires to be considered as wishing the law not to be executed? When words and actions give one another the lie, is it possible to believe both? If not, which have the best title to be be lieved? The task they give to faith and charity is rather a severe one. They speak up for laws against thieves and smugglers: they speak up for the same laws, or worse, against the worshippers according to conscience in the first instance, you are to believe they mean to do what they do; in the other, you are to believe they mean the contrary. Their words and actions are at variance, and they declare it: they profess insincerity, and insist upon being, shall we say, or upon not being, believed. They give the same vote that was given by the authors of these laws; they act over again the part that was acted by the first persecutors: but what was persecution in those their predecessors, is in these men, it seems, moderation and benevolence. This is rather too much. To think to unite the profit of oppression with the praise of moderation is drawing rather too deep upon the credulity of mankind. ance! no Draught for the Organization of Judicial Establishments compared with the Draught by the Committee of the National Assembly of France, Tit. vi. 6. "If I were to be asked what was the nature of Mr. Fox's eloquence, I should answer that it was only asking me in other words what I understood to be the character of eloquence itself, when applied to the transactions of British eloquence and laws."-LORD CHANCELLOR ERSKINE. Mr. Fox was an excellent classical scholar, in evidence of which see his letters to Gilbert Wakefield. To GILBERT Wakefield. ST. ANNE'S HILL, Feb. 16, 1798. SIR, I should have been exceedingly sorry if, in all the circumstances you mention, you had given yourself the trouble of writing me your thoughts upon Homer's poetry; indeed, in no circumstances should I have been indiscreet enough to make a request so exorbitant; in the present. I should be concerned if you were to think of attending to my limited question, respecting the authenticity of the 24th Iliad, or to any thing but your own business. For those who insist there is no hardship in a state of insecurity there is one way of proving themselves sincere: let them change I am sorry your work is to be prosecuted ; places with those they doom to it. One wish because, though I have no doubt of a prosecu may be indulged without a breach of char- tion failing, yet I fear it may be very trouble ity may they, and they only, be subject to some to you. If, either by advice or other proscription, in whose eyes it is griev-wise, I can be of any service to you, it will make me very happy; and I beg you to make no scruple about applying to me: but I do not foresee that I can, in any shape, be of any use, unless it should be in pressing others, whom you may think fit to consult, to give every degree of attention to your cause. I suppose there can be little or no difficulty in removing, as you wish it, the difficulty from the publisher to yourself. for to prosecute a printer who is willing to give up his author would be a very unusual, and certainly a very odious, measure. CHARLES JAMES FOX, the famous Whig orator and statesman, second son of the first Lord Holland and the eldest daughter of Charles, Duke of I have looked at the three passages you Richmond, was born 1749, entered Parlia- mention, and am much pleased with them: ment 1768, and, after a brilliant political I think "curalium," in particular, a very career, died 1806. He was the author of happy conjecture: for neither "cæruleum" some juvenile Greek and Latin compositions, nor "beryllum" can, I think, be right; and some pieces in the New Foundling Hospital there certainly is a tinge of red in the necks for Wits, an Essay on Wind (50 copies, pri- of some of the dove species. After all, the vately printed), papers in The Englishman, Latin words for colour are very puzzling: political pamphlets, and A History of the for, not to mention "purpura," which is Early Part of the Reign of James the Second, evidently applied to three different colours etc., Lond., 1808. 4to, large paper, royal 4to, at least,-scarlet, porphyry, and what we and 50 copies elephant folio, Speeches in call purple, that is, amethyst, and possibly the House of Commons, Lond., 1815, 6 vols. to many others, -the chapter of Aulus 8vo. See Characters of the late Charles Gellius to which you refer lias always apJames Fox, Selected and in part Written peared to me to create many more difficulties by Philopatris Varvicensis (S. Parr, D.D.), than it removes; and most especially that Lond., 1809, Svo: Memoirs of the Latter passage which you quote, "virides equos." Years of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox, by J. B. Trot- I can conceive that a poet might call a horse ter, Lond., 1811, 8vo; Memorials and Cor-"viridis," though I should think the term respondence of C. J. Fox, Lond., 1853-57, 4 vols. 8vo, and Life and Times of C. J. Fox, Lond., 1859, 2 vols. p. 8vo, both by Lord John [Earl] Russell. rather forced; but Aulus Gellius says that Virgil gives the appellation of "glauci," rather than "cærulei," to the virides equos. not as if it were a poetical or figurative VICESIMUS KNOX way of describing a certain colour of horses, I am, Sir, your most obedient servant, VICESIMUS KNOX, D.D., for thirty-three years Master of Tunbridge School, was born 1752, and died 1821. He published Essays, Moral and Literary, Lond., 1777, 12mo; Liberal Education, Lond., 1780, Svo; Elegant Extracts in Prose, Verse, Epistles, 1783-90-92, 3 vols. 8vo, Boston, by J. G. Percival (Mass.), 6 vols. 8vo; Winter Evenings, Lond., 1788, 3 vols. 12mo; Family Lectures, Lond., 1791, 8vo; Sermons (23), Lond., 1792, 8vo; Personal Nobility, Lond., 1793, 12mo; Christian Philosophy, Lond., 1795, 2 vols. 12mo; Nature and Efficacy of the Lord's Supper, Lond., 1799, 12mo: Remarks on the Tendency of a Bill now Pending to Degrade Grammar Schools, Lond., 1821, 8vo. Works, with a Biographical Preface, Lond., 1824, 7 vols. 8vo. "The Reverend Dr. Knox, Master of Tunbridge School, appears to have the imitari aveo of Johnson's style perpetually in his mind; and to his assiduous, though not servile, study of it, we may partly ascribe the extensive popularity of his writings."-BOSWELL: Life of Dr. Johnson. In so constituted by nature as to make greater It may then be numbered among the fol- enness. It would infallibly sink the lower classes to that degenerate state in which they appear in some neighbouring countries, and would consequently facilitate the annihilation of civil liberty. The decent observation of Sunday is indeed to be urged by arguments of a nature greatly superior to political reasons: but a few political ones are here offered; because with the opposers of the observation of the Sabbath, political arguments are more likely to have weight than religious. They who hold the Bible so cheap as to have confuted, in their own minds, everything it contains, without ever having looked into it, are often idolators of Magna Charta. And though it might be in vain to urge that Sunday should be decently kept for the sake of promoting the interests of the Gospel, it would probably be an inducement to pay it all due attention, if we could convince certain persons that a decent regard to it promotes such sentiments and principles among the people as have a tendency to support the Bill of Rights, and secure the Protestant succession. Every thing which promotes virtue is salutary to the mind, considered only as a medicine; as a brace, if I may so say, or a combative remedy. Now strength and vigour of mind are absolutely necessary, if we would constantly entertain an adequate idea of the blessings of liberty, and take effectual methods to defend it when it is infringed. But, setting aside both religious and political arguments, or allowing them all their force, still it will be urged by great numbers, and those too in the higher spheres of life, that all business being prohibited on Sundays, they are really at a loss to spend their time. Let us then," say they, "since we are forbidden to work, let us play. Let us have public diversions. There can be no harm in a polite promenade. Indeed," they insist, "if it were not for the prejudices of the canaille, it would be right to permit more places of public diversion on Sundays than on other days; obviously because we have nothing else to do but to attend to them. But English prejudices are too deeply rooted to be eradicated. On the continent the return of Sunday is delightful; but in our gloomy island it is a blank in existence, and ought to be blotted out of the calendar." The arguments indeed, such as they are, were of late presented in the best form, I presume, which they will admit, by one of those noble senators who opposed the late laudable act for the suppression of some enormities which had been introduced as the pastime of the Sabbath; and whose speech would condemn him to eternal infamy, if its extreme insignificancy did not reverse the sentence, and insure it a friendly and speedy oblivion. Such arguments are indeed attended with their own refutation; but it is certainly true that some orders among us are distressed for methods of employing their time on a Sunday. I will therefore beg leave, from motives of compassion, to suggest some hints which may contribute to relieve them from the very painful situation of not knowing how to pass away the lagging hours. Sunday is selected by them for travelling; and the highroads on a Sunday are crowded with coaches adorned with coronets. But to Christians there are other employments peculiar to the day, which will leave no part of it disengaged. If they are not Christians, their contempt of the Sabbath is one of the least of their errors, and before it can be removed, a belief must be produced: to attempt which does not fall within the limits or design of this paper. But supposing them Christians, let us endeavour to provide amusement for them during the twelve hours in every seven days in which the business of the world is precluded. If lords and dukes would condescend to go to their parish church, they might find themselves well employed from ten o'clock to twelve. To the prayers they can have no reasonable objection; and with respect to the sermon, though its diction or its sentiments may not be excellent, yet in the present times the want of merit is usually compensated by brevity. And the great man may comfort himself during its continuance with reflecting that, though he is neither pleased nor instructed by it, yet he himself is preaching in effect a most persuasive sermon by giving his attendance. His example will attract many auditors, and bad indeed must be the discourse from which the vulgar hearer cannot derive much advantage. If any charitable purpose is to be accomplished, and there never passes a Sunday but in the metropolis many such purposes are to be accomplished,—the bare presence of a man in high life will contribute greatly to the pecuniary collection. And if a peer of the realm was as willing to give his presence at a charity sermon as at a horse-race, to contribute to the support of orphans and widows as to keep a stud and a pack of hounds, perhaps he would find himself no loser, even in the grand object of his life, the enjoyment of pleasure. The interval between the morning and evening service may surely be spent in reading, or in improving conversation. The rest of the day even to eight o'clock, may be spent in the metropolis at church (if any one chooses it), for evening lectures abound. And though there is no obligation to attend at more than the established times, yet no inan can say there are no public places of resort, when he can scarcely turn a corner without seeing a church-door open, and hearing a bell importunately inviting him to enter. The little time which remains after the usual religious duties of the day, may cer tainly be spent in such a manner as to |