the notice of society is needless, and can only tend to diminish its value by rendering it common.

Great names may, indeed, be urged in favour of the practice of self-admiration and self-praise, but the authority of great names can never render a foible more imocent, or a vice more excusable. Ou the contrary, by rendering it more imposing, they afford a fairer subject for the lash of satire. No man in his proper senses, can ever suppose that the writings of the ingenious and philosophical Cicero, are more elegant and persuasive, on account of the internal evidence they exhibit of his self-estimation. Nay, every discerning Englishman must confess, that it too often begets a ludicrous and unaccountable association between the phi→ losophy of the great Roman, and the razors of Peter Pindar- -a something, in short, more adapted for show than for use. To what source do we trace the inferiority of Cicero's eloquence to that of Demosthenes?— Evidently to this; the latter forgets himself in the magnitude of the topics he discusses, and his subject always makes the greater figure on the canvass, the former, indeed, seldom forgets his subject, but at the same time he seldom fails either to remember himself," or to choose a prominent situation in the picture.

To say that true genius is always allied to modesty is certainly an unqualified assertion, which facts, by no means completely warrant; thus much, however, may be safely affirmed that without diffidence in judging of others, and a proper reserve in eulogizing his own merits, no one can be either very much or very long beloved.

2..

NATIONAL IMPROVEMENT. ITS PROGRESS AND CONNEXION WITH NATIONAL FREEDOM TRA CED DOWN TO THE PRESENT PERIOD.

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THIS investigation, as we proceed, becomes more interesting and instructive. The cursory enquiry, which appeared in a former Number, went no farther than the instances of Greece and Rome; but the philosophic mind looks eagerly for the first dawn of intellect, bursting through the mists of that barbaric ignorance, which succeeded the fall of those mighty empires; and in proportion as the darkness of that period was long and deplorable, we hail the return of intellectual light with increased pleasure.

The different states of Europe, parcelled out among barbarian invaders, had remained in a state of stupor and darkness similar to that which Milton, ascribes to his rebel angels after their fall from heaven, for ten successive centuries. During that slumber of the soul the arts and sciences were forgotten; the monuments of former acquirements were destroyed; the provinces of philosophy and erudition were either deserted with contempt, or committed to the guidance of bigotted monastics whose interest it was to increase the ignorance of the other classes. Nor while they monopolized the whole jurisdiction of literature, did they at all exert themselves to eradicate the errors which had crept into

it-so far from pursuing this course, their whole efforts appear to be spent in fostering the expansion of every literary weed, and strangling the growth of every beneficial production. If some few of these ecclesiastics, inspired with a better spirit, devoted their leisure hours to the gratifications of philosophical taste, the wild and speculative nature of their enquiries too often defeated that gratification. They resembled Egyptian travellers in the desart, who, stimulated by a feverish thirst, mistake an optical illusion of the sun for the waters of the Nile, and render that thirst still more delirious by repeated disappointment. Indeed, if their disquisitions had been useful, the great mass of the people were shut out from the power of participating in them, by the absurd custom, which then prevailed, of writing every subject in Latin. The consequence was, that the people were not only deplorably ignorant, but abjectly slavish. They were, in fact, mere machines, blindly sub"servient to the will of their masters, and grasping alike the ploughshare or the sword with the same unenquiring submission, unsolicitous about the future and unre sentful of the past. In the midst of this stagnation of human energies, the spirit of fanaticism, in the Crusades, opened the channel for mental regeneration. Roused by the exhortations of Peter the Hermit, 200,000 men precipitated themselves, like a deluge, on the fertile regions of Asia Minor. Europe, being thus freed from her most turbulent spirits, had leisure to take advantage of the favourable crisis. Societies and corpora, tions made religion a pretext for acquiring new immunities; communication was opened with the East, and

the operations of commerce began to lay the foundation of a middle class of men, which till that time had been unknown. The peculiar advances of oriental civilization contributed still farther to imp the wings of Euro pean improvement. At the period when the red cross waved in triumph over the mosques of the caliphs, the enthusiasm of religion in those countries had mellowed itself into an enthusiasm for the arts. The spirit of fanaticism had fled, which had actuated Omar to deny the death of Mahomet, while the body of the pretended prophet lay before his eyes; the time was come when the Arabians themselves regretted the conflagration of the Alexandrian library. While Europe was slumbering in ignorance, the barbarians, as they were called, were perusing with avidity the best works of Greece and Rome. Poetry, history, astronomy and the mathematics were cultivated with success amidst the desarts of Arabia. Encouraged by the patronage of the throne, the arts, under the glorious administration of Haroun Alrasched, had risen to an eminence hitherto unknown in the enervating regions of the East. But it cannot be denied, that many of the researches of the Arabians, by partaking of the enthusiasm peculiar to their national character, had deviated from the legitimate track of philosopical improvement. Their grand aim in cultivating astronomy, was to acquire a more thorough knowledge of the influence of the heavenly bodies on earthly affairs. Astronomy was made subservient to judicial astrology; and while they indulged in the experiments and speculations of chemistry with an ardour never to be exceeded, the philosopher's stone was the true object of their

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exertions. Much, however, as we may regret the perversion of human talents, we ought to preserve some tenderness for human nature, in ridiculing the past eccentricities of philosophers, when the fact is considered that all our modern improvements in chemistry, all our knowledge of astronomy, are derived from the sources of astrology and alchymy. Both those sciences were imported by the followers of the cross into Europe. But the chemist, in searching for a nonentity, advanced step by step to the penetralia of nature. Enthusiasm dictated perseverance, and experiment trod on the heels of experiment, till the mists, which had settled round the first ascent of truth, dispersed, and the broad sun of philosophical analysis rose to view. The Arabians, therefore, have left us the same species of enigmatical legacy, as the old man in the fable left his sous. Like him they have directed us to dig for a hidden treasure, and like them we have failed in the research; but we have enriched ourselves by the failure,-we have fertilized the regions of science by an indefatigable industry which nothing but enthusiasm could inspire. It was not, however, till after the protectorate in England that astronomy and chemistry began to purge themselves of the dross of long amalgamated prejudice. The same result had indeed attended the false theories of astrology as those of alchymy, The fundamental tenet of astrology, the universal connexion of all things in nature, suggested the harmonious order and regulated motion of the planets.

But it was not astronomy and chemistry alone which followed the return of the red cross. The platonic