HALL AND COLERIDGE. Robert Hall was greatly distinguished for his conversational powers, and was generally very communicative. In this respect a parallel might be instituted between him and Coleridge, presenting, however, some striking diversities. Coleridge was more studied in his conversations; Hall more free and spontaneous. Coleridge was frequently involved and metaphysical; Hall, simple, natural, and intelligible. Coleridge usurped and engrossed conversation; Hall never did so voluntarily. Coleridge could and would talk upon any thing; Hall required to be more invited and brought out by the remarks or inquiries of others. Coleridge was more profound; Hall more brilliant. Coleridge did not deal in polished sentences, but would continue to talk for hours in a plain and careless diction; Hall was invariably elegant and classical, commonly vivacious and sparkling with wit. Coleridge was sure to be heard; Hall to be remembered. Coleridge had the advantage of a more universal knowledge; Hall of a more unencumbered and clearly perceptive intellect. Each was in his day the first of his class, rarely equalled, and probably never surpassed.-North British Review. OUR RAILWAY PROSPECTS. Marvellous as is the change which has been wrought in the condition of mankind by the agency of the printing press, not less marvellous will be the result of railways, when they shall emerge from their present cramped condition into full development. Writing and printing are mediums of thought, but they are slow and imperfect processes, compared with speech. The press and the post-office link mind to mind, but do not thoroughly unite them. The railway serves to unite both mind and matter, and to draw the ends of the earth together. He who looks on the realities of nature and art, makes more rapid progress than he who studies their written or printed descriptions. The road is the first work, a newspaper the second, in all new settlements. It is the office of the railway to perfect the civilization which the road and the press have commenced. How much has already been done by English railways to increase our national wealth and national happiness, we do not now stop to inquire. Great it has been, and proud may be the boast of the men who have given such an example for the world, but the objects achieved are as nothing to those which may yet be attained, when the causes of retardation shall be removed. -Westminster Review. TAILORS. Sir John Hawkwood was usually styled Joannes Acutus, from the sharpness, it is said, of his needle or his sword. Fuller, the historian, says, he turned his needle into a sword, and his thimble into a shield. He was the son of a tanner-was bound apprentice to a tailor-and pressed for a soldier. He served under Edward III., and was knighted; distinguished himself at the battle of Poictiers, where he gained the esteem of the Black Prince, and finished his military career in the pay of the Florentines. He died in 1394, at Hedingham, in Essex, his native place, where there is a monument to his memory. Sir Ralph Blackwell was his fellow-apprentice-also knighted for his bravery by Edward III-married his master's daughter-and founded Blackwell Hall. John Speed, the historian, was a Cheshire tailor; and John Stowe, the antiquary, was also a tailor: he was born in London in 1525, and lived to the age of eighty. Benjamin Robins was the son of a tailor at Bath; he compiled Lord Anson's Voyage round the World. Elliot's regiment of lighthorse was chiefly composed of tailors; and the first man who suggested the idea of abolishing the slave trade was Thomas Woolman, a quaker and tailor of New Jersey. He published many tracts on this species of traffic-went great distances to consult individuals on the subject, on which business he came to England, and went to York, where he caught the small-pox, and died October 7, 1772. -Old Magazine. MENTAL CULTIVATION. What stubbing, ploughing, digging, and harrowing an to land, thinking, reflecting, and examining are to the mind. Each has its proper culture; and as the land the is suffered to lie waste and wild for a long time will beg overspread with brushwood, brambles, thorns, and suci vegetables, which have neither youth nor beauty, so there | will not fail to sprout up in a neglected mind a great man prejudices and absurd opinions, which owe their orica partly to the soil itself, the passions and imperfections d the mind of man, and partly to those seeds which change to be scattered in it by every wind of doctrine which the cunning of statesmen, the singularity of pedants, and the superstition of fools shall raise.-Berkeley. MIGHT IS RIGHT. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN. Upon a tree a sparrow caught A fine fat fly and held it fast; Nor tears nor groans avail'd it oughtYet, Spare my life! it cried at last. No: Murder said, for my good beak Is sharp and strong, and thine is weak.' A hawk descried him at his feast And shot down from his airy height'Let go your hold, you cruel beast! What have I done that is not right?" No,' Murder cried, you're fairly mine, For my beak's stronger far than thine." Just then an eagle, poised to strike, Pounced down, and snapp'd his back in two'Let go, my lord! you would not like That one should do the same to you." The eagle cried, and fell down dead. A hungry bear was passing by, Is might not right, here, everywhere, The last verse is not in the original. G. J. THE ANCIENT GREEK AND ROMAN TABLE. The difference between that of the ancients and that of us moderns is very striking. The ancient Greeks and Romans used no alcoholic liquor, it being unknown to them; nor coffee, nor tea, nor chocolate, nor sugar, not even butter; for Galen informs us he had seen butter b once in his life. They were ignorant of the greater number of tropical spices, as clove, nutmeg, mace, ginger, Jamaica pepper, curry, pimento. They used neither buckwheat, nor French beans, nor spinach, nor sago, tapioca, salep, arres root, nor potato, nor even the common but a sort of mars grown bean, nor many of our fruits, as the orange-tamarind. On the other hand, they ate substances which we now neglect-the mallow, the herb ox-tongue, the sweet acorn, the lupin. They used greatly radish, lettuce, sorrel They liked the flesh of wild asses, of little dogs, of the dormouse, of the fox, of the bear. They ate the flesh o parroquets, and other rare birds, and of lizards. They were fond of a great many fish, and shell-fish which w now hold in no esteem. They employed as seasoning rue and assafoetida.-Dick on Dict. BIBLICAL LITERATURE IN SCOTLAND. PRICE 1d. losopher who ascertains the peculiarities of Jewish and Pagan science-all these contribute to the advancement of Biblical literature, because they enable us to read the Bible with greater intelligence. There are several considerations which would have led us to anticipate that this department of literature would flourish in Scotland. The Bible has hitherto been in Scotland a household book. Multitudes cannot remember the time when they were initiated into the knowledge of its leading facts and doctrines. Before they are able to read they are familiar with the story of Eve and the serpent, of Noah and the ark, of Joseph and his coat of many colours, of Moses and the bush, of David and the giant of Gath, of Jonah and the whale, of Daniel and the lions, of Jesus in Bethlehem, THEOLOGY appropriates to itself a large proportion of the literature of every country into which Christianity has been introduced. This province of the republic of letters' has been generally abandoned to those who are professionally engaged in the study of religion; and it is right that an intimate acquaintance with its stores should be held as an indispensable part of the professional education of all who have consecrated their lives to the defence and diffusion of Christian truth. Yet there is no reason why it should not be explored by the general reader: on the contrary, it appears most irrational that an educated person, who would be ashamed to avow his ignorance of the literature of philosophy, or history, or criticism, or fic-in Nazareth, in the wilderness, in the garden, on the tion, should not scruple to avow his ignorance of another department, not inferior in excellence, merely because it is chiefly cultivated by a class to which he does not belong. Apart from the bearing of its subjects on individual happiness in the present or in the future world, theology must always draw toward itself, by the attraction of its own grandeur and sublimity, no inconsiderable number of the higher order of minds. British genius has nowhere reared a nobler monument of its own greatness than our theological literature affords; and if ever its glory should depart, the inquirer of other times will nowhere discover more incontestable evidence of its ancient triumphs. There are not, in any language, finer specimens of profound disquisition, of subtle argumentation, of brilliant description, of high-toned eloquence, of seraphic elevation, of devotional address, than you may cull from the writings of our divines. Biblical literature is not co-extensive with theological. Its special object is the illustration of the Bible. It includes biblical criticism, or the investigation of the sacred text; Hermeneutics, or the laws of interpretation; and Exegesis, or the application of these laws to the exposition of particular passages or books. These three names designate a vast extent of territory, which furnishes constant employment to a regularly increasing body of labourers. The philologist who examines the structure and laws of the original languages; the geographer who identifies and describes the localities of the ancient world; the antiquarian who deciphers the hieroglyphics on an Egyptian pyramid or the inscription on a Roman coin; the chronologist who assigns to events their true position in the course of time; the traveller who observes the stereotyped manners and customs of eastern countries; the natural historian who explains the nature of minerals, vegetables, and animals different from our own; the phi cross. As most schools have a Bible-class, the schoolroom carries on what the nursery has commenced: so that, whatever may be thought of the propriety of employing the sacred volume as a text-book in seminaries of elementary instruction, all who learn to read, read more or less of the Bible. Wherever the practice prevails, which has been so touchingly described by Burns in 'The Cottar's Saturday Night,' and the family are accustomed, in Scottish phrase, to take the books,' the younger members insensibly imbibe a reverence for the Book of books,' and acquire an acquaintance with its contents; for along with the big ha' Bible,' which is reserved for the use of the priest of the household, there are produced sundry other volumes, of various dimensions, and in various degrees of preservation, on which the schoolmaster of the village has written the names of the brothers and sisters in his best hand. Then there is reason to believe that the private perusal of the Scriptures is at least as frequent here as in any other country. Is it not natural to expect that Scotland should be fertile in scholars, eminent for their illustration of what may be called without flattery The Scotchman's own book ?' Exposition of the Scriptures is a regular part of the course of religious instruction in the Scottish pulpit. Ministers of all denominations are accustomed to deliver an expository discourse ('a lecture,' as it is usually called) on the forenoon of each Sabbath. This practice is almost peculiar to Scotland; at least we are not aware that there is any part of the world where it is adopted with so few exceptions. On its manifold advantages this is not the place to dilate; how it conveys to the hearer accurate and comprehensive views of scriptural truth, how it yields to the preacher opportunities of adverting to topics which could not be properly treated in a separate discourse, and how it checks the undue love of excitement which might otherwise be generated. The point before us is, how it compels every teacher of Christianity to become a student of biblical literature. In preparing his exposition, he must consider all the questions suggested by the passage which forms its groundwork; and as this process is repeated each successive week, he must, if his ministry be extended over the average duration, examine in detail no small part of the Bible. One would suppose that, in a country where thousands are daily practising an art which renders them conversant with biblical literature, many would become masters of it, and that Scotland should have produced hosts of biblical scholars, were it only by chance. Yet it is strange how few even of these expository discourses themselves have found their way to the press; so that we have scarcely half-a-dozen books which can be recommended as models for the lecturing of a Scottish clergyman. When we think, however, of the solid merits of such works as Lawson on Proverbs, Wardlaw on Ecclesiastes, M‘Crie on Esther, Dick on Acts, Chalmers on Romans, and M'Lean on Hebrews, we cannot but regret that so many a goodly commentary should slumber in the portfolio of its author. The philosophy of Scotland is not calculated to hinder, if it do not facilitate, the progress of biblical literature. To what degree our philosophy may affect our interpretation of the Bible, is either a very easy or a very difficult question, as we choose to view it. Viewed as a question of duty, nothing can be easier; what can be more undeniably improper than that the principles of a philosophy which was unknown to the sacred writers should be assumed as tests by which to determine their meaning. Viewed as a question of fact, it is far from being easy; it is the tendency of all interpreters to look at the Bible through the medium of spectacles which they have purchased or pilfered in the schools. There are few so superior to the fascination of 'the idols of the theatre' as to be able to divest themselves of all preconceived opinions, and to sit down in the attitude and in the spirit of a child to inquire what saith the Scripture.' Hence they fail to distinguish between what they bring to and what they bring from the book they profess to explain; so that many of the feuds which have exercised the pen of the ecclesiastical historian are as much philosophical as theological. The great controversy between Calvinists and Arminians, which, with some modifications of form, has disturbed the church for more than a thousand years, belongs essentially to philosophy; when the metaphysicians settle the claims of liberty and necessity, the theologians will soon cease to wrangle about the divine decrees. Robert Hall used to say, that when a person professed Arminianism, he inferred that he was not a good metaphysician, but not necessarily that he was not a good Christian; and without deciding whether the preponderance of philosophy is really on the side which he espoused, we gladly shelter our own opinion under the authority of this prince of modern preachers. It is impossible to exaggerate the evils which arise from applying a false system of philosophy to the interpretation of the sacred writings; nor can we be sufficiently grateful that in Scotland we are all but strangers to its baleful influence. Suppose that some of the theories which are now struggling to obtain for themselves a local habitation and a name' in the science of this country-such as phrenology, and mesmerism, and phreno-mesmerism-suppose that some of these theories should be patronized by a school of interpreters, contending that the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles should be construed in accordance with these discoveries of the nineteenth century, and bringing into requisition all the apparatus of critical torture for the purpose of reconciling the contradictions between what is written and what should have been written-would it not 'fright the isle from its propriety?' Something allied to this supposition has happened in Germany, which far outstrips all other countries in the cultivation of biblical literature. The philosophy of Kant, and Fichte, and Hegel, has successively gained the ascendency; and each, in its turn, has been employed to explain the Scriptures, till it is no ex travagance to say, that if Matthew the publican, and Luke the beloved physician, and John the fisherman of Galilee, and Saul the lion-hearted disciple of Gamaliel, could be served with a copy of some German commentaries, they would scarcely be able to recognise their own inimitable common sense amid the clouds of transcendental jargon by which it has been obscured. We learn from the preface to the American edition of 'Coleridge's Aids to Reflection,' that the philosophy of that gifted but erratic sage is used by many of the clergy in the United States as the only key with which to unlock the storehouse of sacred truth. The colleges are swarming with apes of Coleridge, mimicing, of course, his eccentricity rather than his genius; and the churches are illuminated with sermons moulded according to his definition of 'nature' and 'reason' and kindred terms. Bush's Anastasis, a work in which a professor of Hebrew explains away the cardinal doctrine of the resurrection of the body, is a sufficient index of the natural result of this deference to 'science falsely so called.' What is generally known as the Scottish school of philosophy has little sympathy with a spirit of visionary speculation. There is nothing in the writings of Reid, or Stewart, or Brown, which arrays itself in avowed hostility to the authority of the Bible; and within these few years several works have been published on intellectual and moral philosophy, which leave to an enlightened Christian little to deside rate in this matter. We allude to Ballantyne's Examination,' Abercrombie's 'Intellectual Faculties and Moral Feelings,' Chalmers' Mental and Moral Philosophy,' Wardlaw's Christian Ethics,' and Douglas' 'Philosophy of the Mind.' The most profound study of the Scottish system of metaphysics, especially as it is developed in the pages of these authors, so deeply imbued with a diviner philosophy, is no detriment, but rather a safeguard, to those who have in prospect the study of theelogy. The training appears so excellent, that there is ample cause of wonder that these who have passed from the class-rooms of the professors of logic and moral philosophy, in our universities, to the divinity halls of our various religious denominations, have not done more to extend the interests of biblical literature in Scotland. There has not been in Scotland any of that flagrant abuse of biblical science which elsewhere has awakened a prejudice against its cultivation. In Germany, it has urged its speculations to an excess so daring and so impious, that the friends of revelation are strongly tempted to abhor its very name. The system of interpretation introduced by Semler, has been followed out to its legitimate consequences by his disciples, till they have er punged from the Old and New Testament every trace of the supernatural, and treated a book which carries in its front so many marks of a divine origin with a degree of insult and indignity they would not have dared to show toward the most contemptible of the Greek or Roman classics. On a review of the ravages which have thas been wrought, a pious German might be excused for wishing that those giants in sacred literature, who have extended so widely the intellectual fame of his fatherland, had never been. The wish would not be wise, for the same era which the rationalists disfigure is adorned with the names of Tittman, Lucke, Olshausen, and Tholuck, of whom any country may be proud. The common sense which is allowed to form a leading feature of our national character, has preserved our biblical scholars from following their continental associates in their career of extravagance. Dr Geddes, indeed, who about the end of last century published a translation of part of the Bible, ac companied with critical remarks, propounded some opinions to which the author of The Age of Reason' might have affixed his name; but he has had no followers. The worst effect that has flowed from the increased attention to biblical study in Scotland (and it is a minor ill) is a deviation from the familiar phraseology of the olden time in speaking and writing on certain subjects. This change must have been observed by all who have been accustomed to read books and hear discourses for a quarter of a cen tury. Abraham, who was then a patriarch, is now an Arabian Emir; Joseph, who rode in the second chariot of Egypt and married the daughter of the priest of On, is a young Hebrew promoted to the rank of an Egyptian Mufti, and strengthening his influence by a matrimonial alliance with the sacerdotal caste; the Israelites, instead of being forty years in the wilderness, are now in a nomadic condition; the period of the Judges has become the heroic age of the Jewish nation; the Psalms of Korah have been converted into Korahite or Korahitic; it is discovered that the Epistles of Paul, his sentiments, and his style, are all Pauline; a clause that explains another is exegetical; a noun without an article is anarthrous; and we are not sure if the innocent conjunction that' is not suspected of having sometimes a telic and sometimes an ecbatic sense. We do not object to the adoption of these more classical forms of speech, provided it be understood that a mere change of terms throws no light on the subject. But we do not like our understanding to be insulted by our being addressed as if we were so dull as not to be capable of distinguishing between words and thoughts. PORTRAIT GALLERY. THOMAS MOORE. To be the poet par excellence of Ireland, the cleverest man in the cleverest nation in the world, is to hold no mean position, and that position we claim for Thomas Moore. We do not of course mean that he is by many degrees the greatest poet at present alive; but for sparkle, wit, and brilliance, his country's qualities, he is unsurpassed. The bard of the butterflies, he is restless, gay, and gorgeous as the beautiful creatures he delights to depict. It would require his own style adequately to describe itself. Puck putting a girdle round about the globe in forty minutes-Ariel doing his spiriting gently-the Scotch fairy footing it in the moonlight, the stillness of which seems intended to set off the lively and aerial motion-any of these figures may faintly express to us the elegant activities of Moore's mind and fancy. We are never able to disconnect from his idea that of minuteness. Does he play in the plighted clouds?' It is as a 'creature of the element,' as tiny as he is tricksy. Does he flutter in the sunbeam? It is as a bright mote. Does he hover over the form and face of beauty? It is as a sylph-like sprite, his little heart surcharged and his small wings trembling with passion. Does he ever enter on a darker and more daring flight? It is still rather the flight of a fire-fly than of a meteor or a comet. Does he assail powers and potentates? It is with a sting rather than a spear—a sting small, sharp, bright, and deadly. Thomas Moore is a poet by temperament, and by intellect a wit. He has the warmth and the fancy of the poet, but hardly his powerful passion, his high solemn imagination, or his severe unity of purpose. His verses, therefore, are rather the star-dust of poetry than the sublime thing itself. Every sentence he writes is poetical, but the whole is not a poem. The dancing lightness of his motion affects you with very different feelings from those with which you contemplate the grave walk of didactic or the stormy race of impassioned poetry. You are delighted, you are dazzled; you wonder at the rapidity of the movements, the elegance of the attitudes, the perfect self-command and mastery of the performer; you cry out encore, encore,' but you seldom weep; you do not tremble or agonize; you do not become silent. Did the reader ever feel the blinding and giddy effect of level winter sunbeams pouring through the intervals of a railing as he went along? This is precisely the effect which Moore's rapid and bickering brilliance produces. Our mental optics are dazzled, our brain reels, we almost sicken of the monotonous and incessant splendour, distinct but distant, clear, but ah, how cold!' Our great quarrel with Moore's poetry, apart from its early sins against morality and good taste, is its want of deep earnestness and of high purpose. Not more trivial is the dance of a fairy in the pale shine of the moon, than are the majority of his poems. And though he did belong to that beautiful family, he could not in his poetry meddle less with the great purposes, passions, and destinies of humanity. What to him are the ongoings and future prospects of what Oberon so finely calls the human mortals?' He must have his dance and his song out. We believe that Thomas Moore is a sincere lover of his kind, and has a deep sympathy with their welfare and progress, but we could scarcely deduce this with any certainty from his serious poetry. Indeed the term serious, as applied to his verse, is a total misnomer. Byron's poetry has often a sincerity of anguish about it which cannot be mistaken; he howls out, like the blinded Cyclops, his agony to earth and heaven. The verse of Wordsworth and Coleridge is a harmony solemn as that of the pines in the winter blast. Elliott's earnestness is almost terrific. But Moore flits, and flutters, and leaps, and runs, a very Peri, but who shall never be permitted to enter the paradise of highest song, and to whom the seventh heaven of invention is shut for ever. It were needless to dilate upon the beauties which he has scattered around him in this unprofitable career. His fancy is prodigious in quantity and variety, and is as elegant as it is abundant. Images dance down about us like hailstones, illustrations breathlessly run after and outrun illustrations, fine and delicate shades melt into others still finer and more delicate, and often the general effect of his verse is like that of a large tree alive with bees, where a thousand sweet and minute tones are mingled in one hum of harmony. Add to this his free flow of exquisite versification, the riches of his luscious descriptions, the tenderness of many of his pictures, and the sunny glow, as of eastern day, which colours the whole, and you have the leading features of his poetical idiosyncrasy. But it is as a wit and a satirist that Moore must survive. There is no horse play in his raillery.' It is as delicate as it is deadly. He carves his foeman as a 'dish fit for the gods, hot hews him as a carcass meet for hounds.' Such a gay gladiator, such a smiling murderer as he is! How small his weapon-how elegant his flourishes-how light but sinewy his arm-and how soon is the blow given—the deed done-the victim prostrate! His strokes are so keen that ere you have felt them you have found death. He is an aristocratic satirist not only in the objects but in the manner of his attack. Coarse game would not feel that fine tremulous edge by which he dissects his highbred and sensitive foes to the quick. We notice, too, in his sarcastic vein, and this very probably explains its superiority, a much deeper and heartier earnestness. When he means to be serious he trifles, when he trifles it is that he is most sincere. His work is play, his play is work. All his political feeling-all the moral indignation he possesses-all the hatred which as an Irishman and a gentleman he entertains for insincerity, humbug, and selfishness in high places-come out through the veil of his witty and elegant verse. Of a great satirist, only one element seems wanting in Moore, namely, that cool concentrated malignity which inspires Juvenal and Junius. He hates, they loathe. He tickles his opponent to death, they tear him to pieces. His arrows are polished, theirs are poisoned. His malice is that of a man, theirs is that of a demon. His wish is to gain a great end over the bodies of his antagonists, their sole object is to destroy or blacken the persons of their foes. His is a public and gallant rencounter, theirs a sullen and solitary assassination. Moore may be regarded under the four phases of an amatory poet, a narrative poet, a satirical poet, and a prose writer. As an amatory poet he assumed, every one knows, the nom-de-guerre of Tommy Little, and as such do not his merits and demerits live in the verse of Byron and in the prose of Jeffrey? These poems, lively, gay, shallow, meretricious, were the sins of youth; they were not, like Don Juan, the deliberate abominations of guilty and hardened manhood. Their object was to crown vice, but not to deny the existence of virtue. They were unjustifiably warm in their tone and colouring, but they did not seek to pollute the human heart itself. It was reserved for a mightier and darker spirit to make the desperate and infernal attempt, and to include in one' wide waft' of scorn and disbelief-the existence of faithfulness in man and of innocence in woman. Little's lyrics, too, were neutralized by their general feebleness; they were pretty, but wanted body, unity, point, and power. Consequently, while they captivated idle lads and lovesick misses, they did comparatively little injury. It is indeed ludicrous, looking back through the vista of forty years, and thinking of the dire puddle and pother which such tiny transgressions produced among the critics and moralists of the time; they seem actually to have dreamed that the morality of Britain, which had survived the dramatists of Queen Elizabeth's day, the fouler fry of Charles II.'s playwrights, the novels of Fielding and Smollett, the numerous importations of iniquity from the Continent, was to fall before a few madrigals and double-entendres. No, like dew-drops from the lion's mane,' it shook them off, and pursued its way without impediment or pause. Whatever mischief was intended, little we are sure was done. As a narrative poet, Moore aimed at higher things, and, so far as praise and popularity went, with triumphant success. His Lalla Rookh came forth amid a hum of general expectation. It was rumoured that he had written a great epic poem; that Catullus had matured into Homer. These expectations were too sanguine to be realized. It was soon found that Lalla Rookh was no epic-was not a great poem at all-that it was only a short series of Oriental tales, connected by a slight but exquisite framework. Catullus, though stripped of many of his voluptuous graces, and much of his false and florid taste, remained Catullus still. And the greatest admirer of the splendid diction, the airy verse, the melodramatic incident, the lavish fancy of the poem, could not but say, if the comparison came upon his mind at all- Ye critics, say how | poor was this to Homer's style.' The unity, the compactness, the interest growing to a climax, the heroic story, the bare and grand simplicity of style-all the qualities we expect in the epic, were wanting in Lalla Rookh. It was not so much a poem, indeed, as a rhymed romance. Still its popularity was instant and boundless. If it did not become a great still stedfast luminary in the heaven of song, it flashed before the eye of the world brief, beautiful, gorgeous, and frail -A tearless rainbow, such as span the one poem and the two whom we see in the other, waiting with uplifted eyes and clasped hands for the descent of their celestial lovers, like angels for the advent of angels? And what scene in Moore can be named beside the deluge in Byron; with the gloomy silence of suspense which precedes it, the earnest whispers heard among the hills at dead of night, which tell of its coming, the waters rising solemnly to their work of judgment, as if conscious of its justice and grandeur-the cries heard of despair, of fury, of blasphemy, as if the poet himself were drowning in the surge-the milder and softer wail of resignation mingling with the sterner exclamations--the ark in the distance the lost angels clasping their lost loves, and ascending with them from the doom of the waters to what we feel and know must be a direr doom? We have spoken already of Moore's character as a witty poet, and need only now refer to the titles of his principal humorous compositions, such as the Fudge Family in Paris; the Twopenny Post-Bag; Cash, Corn, Currency, and Catholics, &c. They constitute a perfect gallery of fun without ferocity, without indecency, and without more malice than serves to give them poignancy and point. From Moore's Life of Sheridan we might almost fancy that, though he had lisped in numbers, and early obtained a perfect command of the language and versification of poetry, yet that he was only beginuing, or had but recently begun, to write prose. The juvenility, the immaturity, the false glare, the load of useless figure, the ambition and effort of that production, are amazing in such a man at such an age. It contains, of course, much fine and forcible writing; but even Sheridan himself, in his most ornate and adventurous prose, which was invariably his worst, is never more unsuccessful than is sometimes his biographer. Perhaps it was but fitting that the life of such a heartless, faithless, though brilliant charlatan. should be written in a style of elaborate falsetto and fudge. We have a very different opinion indeed of his life of Byron. It is not, we fear, a faithful or an honest record of that miserable and guilty mistake-the life of Byron. We know that Dr MacGinn, by no means a squeamish man, who was at first employed by Murray to write his biography, and had the materials put into his hands, refused, shrinking back disgusted at the masses of falsehood, treachery, heartlessness, malignity, and pollution which they revealed. The same materials were submitted to Moore, and from them he has constructed an image of his hero, bearing, we suspect, as correct a resemblance to his character as the ideal busts which abound do to his face. When will biographers learn that their business, their sole business, is to tell the truth or to be silent? How long will the public continue to be deceived by such And even yet, after the lapse of twenty years, there are many who, admiring the fine moral of Paradise and the Peri, or melted by the delicate pathos of the Fireworship-gilded falsehoods as form the staple of obituaries and pers, own the soft seductions of Lalla Rookh, and in their hearts, if not in their understandings, prefer it to the chaster and more powerful poetry of the age. 6 The Loves of the Angels was a bolder but not a more successful flight. It was a tale of the Arabian heaven,' and there is nothing certainly, in these wondrous 'thousand and one nights,' so rich, beautiful, and dream-like in its imagination and pathos, as in those impassioned stories. But it was only a castle in the clouds after all-one of those brilliant but fading pomps which the eye of the young dreamer sees' for ever flushing round a summer's sky. Its angels were mere winged dolls compared to the celestial ardours' whom Milton has portrayed, or even to those proud and impassioned beings whom Byron has drawn. In fact, the poem was unfortunate in appearing about the same time with Byron's Heaven and Earth, which many besides us consider his finest production as a piece of art. Mere atoms of the rainbow fluttering round were the pinions of Moore's angels compared to the mighty wings of those burning ones who came down over Ararat, drawn by the loadstars which shone in the eyes of the daughters of men,' and for which, without a sigh, they lost eternity.' And what comparison between the female characters in 6 memoirs? It is high time that such were confined to the corners of newspapers and of churchyards. We like Moore's Byron, not for its subject or its moral tone, but solely for its literary execution. It is written throughout in a clear, chaste, dignified, and manly manner; the criticism it contains is eloquent and discriminating, and the friendship it discovers for Byron, if genuine, speaks much for its author's generosity and heart. We must not speak of his other prose productions-bis Epicurean, History of Ireland, &c. The wittiest thing of his in prose we have read is an article in the Edinburgh Review on Boyd's Lives of the Fathers, where, as in Gibbon, jests lurk under loads of learning, double-entendres disguise themselves in Greek, puns mount and crackle upon the backs of huge folios, and where you are at a less whether most to chuckle at the wit, to detest the caimus, or to admire the erudition. We had nearly omitted, which had been unpardonable, all mention of the Irish Melodies-those sweet and luscious strains which have hushed ten thousand drawingrooms and drawn millions of such tears as drawing-rooms shed, but which have seldom won their way to the breasts of simple unsophisticated humanity--which are to the |