The text of Theophrastus has come down to us in a very defective and disjointed state. It is quite clear, that, even in many sections which present the aspect of entireness, there is much dislocation and transposition. Mr. Howell (?) has taken considerable pains, and, if we may judge from internal evidence, with great success, to reconcile discrepancies and restore corrupted passages, though he has wisely omitted the cheap parade of pedantic annotation. His description of his difficulties is worth citing. ' 'The text of, perhaps, few ancient authors has come down to us in a more mangled state than that of Theophrastus. The most sagacious and learned of his editors,—Casaubon, is perpetually exclaiming conclamatus locus !-ulcus,mulcus insanabile!-locus et mutilus et corruptus ;-locus est vitii manifestus ;-vel subobscurus vel corruptus, vel utrumque ;-sensum, puto, expressimus ; verba autem valde sunt depravata. And the most judicious of them-Needham, frequently brings a laborious criticism merely to this conclusion, • Liberum esto lectori judicium. In some instances, where a manifest depravation of the text exists, I have used a greater liberty of emendation than I could venture to admit in the Greek: and when there has been left in the latter, uncured, a wound pronounced by the cri. tics to be insanabile ; I have, in the version, endeavoured to conceal the offence by giving a less specific turn to the passage.' pp. 189, 90. An amusing article might be written, though at the expense of more space and leisure than we are willing to assign, on the numberless imitations of Theophrastus that have been published in this and in other countries. Breton, Earle, Overbury, Ellis, Quarles, and others, have, with various success, taken him as their model, or, at least, have been indebted to him for their primary idea. But the most celebrated of all his imitators, is La Bruyere, whose amusing work has transformed the broad and vigorous handling of the Grecian satirist, into the smart and epigrammatic touch of Parisian persiflage. The Frenchman never loses sight of the Boudoir and the Ruelle ; he gives you the scandal of the tea-table and the Green-room. His work is a catalogue raisonnée of all the blunders, failures, and faux pas occurring in high life. It is true, that this is all very cleverly done, but it is not Theophrastus, nor has it any thing in common with his manly and masterly style. The • Notes' have afforded us very high gratification. They contain a piquant mixture of metaphysical acumen, philosophical investigation, powerful reasoning, and humorous illustration; they are, moreover, admirably written. The general remarks on the Study of Human Nature' are highly important, but they would lead us too far, both în extract and com ment, were we to give them the attention they deserve. The occasional strictures on the reveries of phrenologists contain many shrewd hits, and we shall make room for a paragraph or two. • In the examination of extreme cases,—such, for example, as that of a bold invader of property, or perpetrator of unusual barbarities, we are liable to very false conclusions by taking up that measurement of crime which is given to us by the verdict of a jury. In the eye of the philosophical moralist or the physiologist, this instance will, perhaps, appear to differ scarcely at all from a thousand other instances of equal turpitude, that attract no attention, except in what is purely accidental or circumstantial. A man commits a murder, and is hanged for it ; and the head is borne away in glee by eager speculatists upon the bony and medullary development of ora gans :- the cast is taken with religious care; and the ominous protuberance of destructiveness is triumphantly pointed out, at the due degree of its latitude and longitude: and forthwith the instance goes to the corroboration of a system; and all this upon the very inconsequential presumption, that a man who has caused the death of another, under the circumstances which bring the case within a legal definition, must be by his physical conformation a destroyer of life. But even supposing there to have been in this case plain indications of the existence of some original propensity to destructiveness or combativeness, or what not, they ought to be considered simply as furnishing a suggestion for inquiry : it is egregiously unphilosophical to assume overt acts, indiscriminately, as the ground of scientific classifications of character. Before any general inductions relative to the correspondence between forms and dispositions can be established with precision, many correlative questions which have yet scarcely been distinctly stated, must be brought to a satisfactory conclusion. I am far from intending to affirm the non-existence of this correspondence;-on the contrary, I have a strong belief in the existence of an absolute, perfect, and invariable relation between the form, the complexion, the texture of the integuments, the chemical qualities, solids and fluids, and the qualities of mind. But, I do not perceive that, hitherto, any approach has been made towards a scientific knowledge of the physical concomitants of mind.' pp. 191-193. * • But let us open our eyes to the light that has lately been poured upon the science of human nature by those who have taught us that, -imagination is not imagination, but-IMAGINATIVeness; and that the power of recalling or of re-combining ideas is,-IDEALITY. I say, under this guidance, in spite of the difficulties to which I have here adverted, we shall be able to pick from a crowd of persons, at discretion, either the Enthusiast or the Superstitious: for both of them, having the biform organ of Imaginativeness, will have foreheads bulging at the corners like the bows of a Dutch Indiaman. Where we are to seek for the indication of the very essential difference between the two minds, I am not sufficiently versed in the system to be able to determine. • But what should we say if we were to meet with a case of eminent Imaginativeness, of that class, for example, in which the current of thought is evidently ruled by the suggestions of fear, which, instead of being indicated, as it ought-by two walnut-like protuberances just over the temples—is, in fact, symbolized by an impending frontal mass that usurps the localities of some score of neighbour organs ? Every one knows, indeed, that the Imagination is å bold faculty ; but that it should be an invader of medullary freeholds to this extent, almost surpasses belief. * By the latest and the best authorities, we are informed that,-in the interval between the eye-brows and the insertion of the hair, — twelve or fifteen distinct elements of mind, like so many petty feudal lords, cooped up between a forest and a marsh,-have a local habitation and a name;' where, fenced about by impassable, though imaginary partitions, they maintain their state ; and whence, in proportion to their several forces, not being able to elbow space for themselves laterally, they impatiently drive bone before them, and obtrude their violence upon the superficies. If it be indeed true, that a symbolic chart of the human head must be as thick set with divisions, and as intricate, as a map of Germany; and that the entire surface, from ear to ear, is claimed by a clustering host of Dignities, Powers, Energies, Faculties, Functions, &c.,—it seems not less true, that what commonly takes place in politics, commonly takes place, also, in phrenology ; namely-that the stronger powers are wont to drive the weaker from their patrimonies. If this be the fact, it will be very necessary to remember, that what might be laid down as an ideal phrenological topograph-duly numbered and lettered,—will yield us as little information relative to the site of particular organs in any, individual head, as we should gain from one of D'Anville's maps in Cæsar's Commentaries, if we wished to understand the present boundaries of the Electoral states: it is a map of the country, but not a map of its actual occupations.' We find some difficulty in giving an opinion on the embel lishments. As works of art, they are, both in design and execution, clever and spirited. As physiognomical diagrams, though they are generally emphatic illustrations of the text, yet, they seem occasionally to border on caricature. They add, however, much to the interest, as well as to the decoration of the volume. Art. VI. Massillon's Thoughts on different Moral and Religious Şubjects, extracted from his Works, and arranged under distinct pp. 258. Price 58. London, 1824. WITH all his faults, Massillon is, among all the great oma ments of the French pulpit, decidedly the chief. Bourdaloue will not stand the comparison for a moment. Bossuet, maugre his superiority in learning, vigour, originality, and imagination, is manifestly inferior in that which is properly eloquence. Loftiness and luminousness of thought, grasp, power, and profundity, distinguish the bishop of Meaux, but his mastery is over the intellect exclusively. A higher exciteinent to the mind can scarcely be conceived, than that which is supplied by the oratory of Bossuet; he lifts it to his own level, and invigorates it for holding communion with his own unrivalled combination of grandeur and strength. Massillon, in this respect, stands at humble distance; but, in the more peculiar province of the preacher, the command over the feelings and affections, he leaves his great competitor far behind. We admit that he is occasionally rich to redundancy, eloquent to wordiness, and pathetic to the very verge of sentimentality; yet, after these abatements, there will remain an ample meed of fame, justly and appropriately his due, and placing him among the few great masters of eloquence, whose influence, great in their own day, has descended on our own times, and will be felt to the latest ages. To the last edition of the works of this great man, is appended a volume of arranged extracts, which is, we suppose, (for we have not compared them,) the same that Mr. Morris has translated in the work before us. Under a considerable variety of important heads, a number of detached passages are brought together, so as to produce an interesting and impressive whole. The selection might, we think, have been more judiciously made, and we could have wished that Mr. M. had used his own discretion on this point, instead of adopting an arrangement previously existing. His own part of the work is respectably done, and, if the translation does not always adequately express the fine flow and rich melody of the original, it is, at least, far superior to any former attempts that have fallen under our notice. The following extracts will afford a fair specimen of the general style. • Where are our carly years? What reality have they left in our remembrance ? Nothing more than a dream of the night; we dreamed that we had lived, and this is all that remains. The whole interval which has elapsed from our birth to the present day, is only like a fleeting arrow, which we scarcely perceive to pass through the air. When we shall have begun to live with the world, the past will appear neither longer nor more real. All the ages which shall previously have glided away, we shall regard as fleeting moments; all the nations which have appeared and disappeared in the universe, all the revolutions of empires and kingdoms, all the great events which adorn our histories, will be to us only as the different scenes of a spectacle which we have seen completed in a day. Let us only recollect the victories and sieges; the glorious treaties, the grand and pompous events of the last reign; they are scarcely past; we ourselves were witnesses to most of them, and they will be transmitted in our annals even to our latest posterity, yet to us they already ap pear as a dream, or as a flash of lightning which has passed away in a moment, and which will every day become more effaced from our memories.' pp. 231–232. Every thing passes away like ourselves: a rapidity, which nothing can stop, drags every thing into the the abyss of eternity. Our an cestors lately made room for us, and we shall soon clear the way for those who are to succeed us. Ages are renewed; the living are continually replacing and succeeding to the dead. Nothing continues the same: all things change; every thing around us wastes and expires. We hasten to take advantage of each other's ruin. We resemble those foolish soldiers who, in the midst of the battle, and while their companions are falling around them on every side, by the sword of their enemies, eagerly load themselves with their garments; and scarcely are they invested with them, before a mortal blow takes away, together with their lives, the foolish decorations with which they had just adorned themselves. So far from being undeceived by the fate of those whom we see taken away, there arises even from their ashes the fatal sparks which rekindle all our desires.' pp. 233-234. Mr. Morris proposes to publish a volume of Massillon's most striking sermons.' Art. VII. Lectures on the Essentials of Religion, Personal, Domestic, and Social. By H. F. Burder, M.A. Author of Lectures on the Pleasures of Religion. 8vo. pp. 378. Price 98. London. 1825. W ERE all Christian divines to insist on the great duties which we owe to God and man, in the evangelical strain in which they are urged by the estimable Author of this excellently written volume, we cannot help thinking, that the supra-lapsarian scheme of divinity would every day become less an object of attraction to that portion of the community, at least, who know any thing of what it is to be spiritually |