Destructive war and all-involving age. (50) See! from each clime the learn'd their incense bring! 185 Hear! in all tongues consenting Pæans (51) ring! In praise so just let every voice be joined, And fill the general chorus (52) of mankind. Hail, bards triumphant! born in happier days: Immortal heirs of universal praise, (53) 182. Beyond; touch, or power; unholy. I 183. Safe; fire; intenser wrath. 184. Pernicious; time. 185. Behold; land; cultured; homage offer. 186. List; every language; harmonious; resound. 190 187. Commendation; well-deserved; united. 188. Heighten; universal. 190. Deathless possessors; unanimous renown. his sphere of learning in the literature of modern Europe, the more deeply, though the more wisely, will he reverence that of classical antiquity; and in declining age, when the appetite for magazines and reviews, and the ten times repeated trash of the day, has failed, he will retire, as it were, within a circle of school fellow friends, and end his secular studies, as he began them, with his Homer, his Horace, and his Shakspere."-H. N. Coleridge's "Introductions to the Study of the Greek Classic Poets," General Introduction, pp. 24-26. (49) "Envy is the grudging or receiving of pain from any accomplishment or advantage possessed by another. It is but an excess or excrescence of the other passions (such as pride or avarice), or of a wish to monopolize all the good things of life to ourselves, which makes us impatient and dissatisfied at seeing any one else in possession of that to which we think we have the only fair title. Envy is the deformed and distorted offspring of egotism; and when we reflect on the strange and disproportioned character of the parent, we cannot wonder at the perversity and waywardness of the child."-W. Hazlitt's" Men and Manners,” p. 262. "Emulation is grief arising from seeing one's self exceeded or excelled by his concurrent [competitor], together with hope to equal or exceed him in time to come by his own ability. But envy is the same grief joined with pleasure conceived in the imagination of some ill-fortune that may befall him."-Hobbe's "Human Nature," chap. ix., p. 12, " Works," Molesworth's edition, vol. iv., p. 45. (50) "Tempus edax rerum."- Ovid's "Metam.," xv., 234. (51) "Paan.-A religious hymn, a song of triumph or praise; a festive lyricoriginally a song in honour of Apollo, but transitively used for hymns addressed to other deities, and generally to poetical eulogies in the lyric form. It is derived from the epithet Tatav, healing, applied to Apollo."-Eschyl.," Agamemnon,” 153. (52) Chorus, among the ancients, meant a band of singers and dancers, who at festive seasons added pomp to spectacles; or on the stage acted as witnesses of the performances of tragedy or comedy, giving testimony of feelings in favour of or against the occurrences represented; thus interpreting to the actual spectators the aim of the author. In modern usage the word implies the joint performance of singers or musicians in the execution of any concerted piece, or the simultaneous musical expression of similar sentiments by a united but mixed multitude. (53) "Blessings be with them, and eternal praise, Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares The poets-who on earth have made us heirs Of truth and pure delight, in heavenly lays !"-Wordsworth. (54) "A magnificent burst of thoughtful enthusiasm, an urgent and monitory exhortation, in which Pope calls upon rising critics and poets to pursue, in the great writings of classical antiquity, the study of that art which proceeds from the true study of nature. It depictures his own studies, and expresses the admiration of a glowing disciple, who, having found his own strength and light in the conversation of his high instructors, will utter his own gratitude, will advance their honour, and will satisfy his zeal for the good of his brethren by engaging others to use the means that have prospered with himself. The art delivered by Greece was self-regulated nature. Criticism was the well-expounded reason of inspiration, calling and instructing emulation. The critic that will be must transport himself into the mind of antiquity; and, in particular, into the mind of his author for the time being. Homer is your one great, all-sufficient lesson. Read him after Virgil's manner of reading him, who sought Nature by submitting himself to rules drawn from her, and emblazoned in the Iliad' and 'Odyssey.' Nevertheless the rules do not yet comprehend everything; and emergencies occur when they whom the rules have trained to mastery, inspired by their spirit, and following out their design, transcend them; so creating a new excellence, which in its turn becomes a rule-but, O ye moderns! beware, and dare tremblingly! There are critics of a confined and self-confident wit, who impeach these liberties, even the masters, most unthinkingly and rashly; for sometimes the skilful tactician is on his way to winning the victory when you think him flying. Withhold not your "The fame of those ancients is now safe and universal. solitary voice. Hail, ye victorious inheritors of ever-gathering renown! And oh, enable the last and least of poets to teach the pretenders of criticism modesty and reverence!"—North's "Specimens of the British Critics," "Blackwood's Magazine," March, 1845, p. 400. *The "Essay" is in one book, but divided into three principal parts or numbers; and Warburton, in a few words, tells its plan:-"The first gives the rules for the study of the art of criticism; the second exposes the causes of wrong judgment; and the third marks out the morals of the critic." Literary Notes. J. H. PARKER, of Oxford, is preparing an "Archæological Handbook of Rome." During the winter season 751 gratuitous courses of lectures have been delivered in France and Algeria. C. T. Brooks, of Newport, U.S., translator of Richter's "Titan," has in the press a version of "Hesperus." Wm. Sharp McLeay, a distinguished Australian naturalist, died at Sydney, N. S. Wales, 25th Jan. He has left MSS. on "The Insects of Australia" ready for publication. A magazine entitled the Attempt, issued by the Edinburgh Young Ladies' Essay Society, has reached its fifth number. Dr. Wm. Smith, the master-compiler of dictionaries, has on hand a new one "Christian Antiquities from the Days of the Apostles to those of Charlemagne." on Mr. J. H. Blunt is preparing an "Annotated Book of Common Prayer." Hours at Home is the title of a new American religious magazine. A biography of Carl Ritter, the father of scientific geography, is in the press, by W. L. Gage. Prof. V. Botta has nearly ready for the Philadelphia press, "Dante; as Philosopher, Patriot, and Poet: with an Analysis of the Divine Comedy.'" A volume of "Sermons of the Paulist Fathers "-members of a new order, that of St. Paul, founded in America by Mr. Hecker, a gentleman ordained as priest in 1849 by the late Cardinal Wiseman, the purpose of which is to reconcile Catholicity and republicanism -has just been issued. "Characters and Criticisms," by James Hannay, author of "Singleton Fontenoy," "Essays from the Quarterly Review," &c., a collection of magazine papers, are in the press. A number of Bishop Warburton's letters have been acquired by the British Museum from Rev. J. M. Chanter, Rector of Ilfracombe; excerpts from them are published in the Journal of Sacred Literature, April, 1865, pp. 40-60. M. Cousin has sent to the press a "Memoir of Mazarin." The number of magazines issuing in Britain, in 1865 (including quarterlies), is 555, of which 208 are of a professedly or strictly religious character. The classical commentator, P. H. Peerlkamp, died at Utrecht, 29th March. Bishop D. E. Monrad (b. 1811), author of "Political Fly-leaves," &c., late Prime Minister of Denmark, is engaged on a metrical translation of the prophecies of Isaiah. Madame Libri, author of an essay on "Pascal crowned by the French Institute," and other works, died 28th April. Mr. J. Moffatt, Calderbank, Airdrie, N.B., has gained the Palmerston prize, £36, for the best English essay on "The Influence of Party on the Development of the British Constitution," by students of the University of Glasgow. Dr. E. L. Youman has edited, in America, with biographical notices of their authors, papers on the "Correlation and Conservation of Forces," by Grove, Helmholtz, Mayer, Faraday, Liebig, and Carpenter. J. F. Maguire, M.P., is not, it seems, to be the authorized biographer of Cardinal Wiseman, but the Right Rev. H. E. Manning, D.D., his successor, who seceded in 1851 from the English to the Roman church. Isaac Williams, B.D., one of the writers in "Tracts for the Times," poet and theologian, is dead. M. Nourisson, author of monographs on Leibnitz, Bossuet, &c., has gained the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences' prize for an essay on "The Philosophy of St. Augustine; its Origin and Character, its Merits and Defects," which has been published and favourably noticed. On dit that a play of Shakspere's not hitherto known has been discovered in MS., with notes and autograph corrections. Prof. Sybel, of Bonn, has detected some forgeries relating to Marie Antoinette, Mr. Lowe's speech on the Borough Franchise Bill has been separately published as a pamphlet. A series of "Reform Tracts" has been begun at Bristol. No. I. contains quotations (curiously falsified) of the prognostications of the opponents of the Bill of 1832. Don Ant. Alcala Galiano (born at Cadiz, 1790), the Mirabeau of Spain, who, when in exile (1823-33), acted as Professor of Spanish Literature for some time in the University of London, died 16th April. H. H. Milman, D.D., has translated the "Agamemnon" and "Bacchanals" of Euripides, with fragments from the Greek lyric poets. J. G. Philimore (b. 1809), author of "The History of England during the Reign of George III." (1863), "The Study and History of Roman Law" (1851), "Lectures on Jurisprudence and Canon Law" (1856), died 27th April. He has left a volume of his History of England" ready for publication. 66 Henry Christie, the archæologist, died 4th May, aged 56. Fun is now edited by Tom Hood the younger. An unpublished volume by Voltaire has been found in the Imperial Hermitage of Catherine II., at St. Petersburg. Prof. J. S. Blackie's ballad-metre translation of Homer, with notes, dissertations, prolegomena, &c., is in the press. The Archbishop of Dublin has in the press "Gustavus Adolphus: Social Aspects of the Thirty Years' War." M. E. Miller, Librarian to the Corps Législatif, on an exploring tour, 1864-5, through the monastic libraries of the East, has discovered several important additions to historical, classical, and grammatical literature-an unpublished volume of the Byzantine Historians," by Critobulus; "An Ecclesiastical History, in Ten Books," "Letters of Photius," "Zenodorus on the Homeric Language," and "Grammatical Observations, with Extracts." 66 The Rev. Arthur West Haddan, B.D., late Fellow, Vice-President, and Tutor of Trinity College, and Dr. John Johnson's theological scholar, 1839, has been appointed Bampton Lecturer for 1866. The Hon. Evelyn Ashley is said to be the present editor of the Owl; Mr. L. Oliphant, its projector, having resigned that post. A memorial prize in honour of Archdeacon Hare has been instituted at Cambridge. The examiners have issued the subject for the first composition, which must be 66 an English essay on some subject taken from Greek or Roman history, political or literary, or from the history of Greek or Roman philosophy;" viz., " Ennius, and his Influence on Latin Poetry." M. Brisson, Professor of History, has received a commission from M. Duruy, Minister of Education in France, to examine the Roman antiquities recently found in Wallachia. M. Sainte-Beauve is engaged upon a "History of French Literature under Napoleon İ." Mr. John Bruce edits for Messrs. Bell and Daldy a new edition of Cowper, with additional poems. Jean C. Lévégnac (b. 1818), author of works on Aristotle and Plato, Alfred the Great and Thomas Aquinas, &c., a disciple of Cousin, has been made a member of the Academy of Science. Lord Shaftesbury, it is said, has accepted from his admirers a memoir of himself, engrossed on parchment. |