*But over that tomb let proud triumph arise,

And peal the high anthem of joy to the skies;

For he lived 'mid.corruption, yet cloudless his name;
For he died without wealth-save the wealth of his fame:
With the gem of his genius he brightened the throne,
But held the rich brilliant of Honour his own.
The tongue of the Senate-the life of the Board-
Now Revelry lauded-now Wisdom adored-
Till Sense bowed abashed to the bondage of Soul,
And Reason drank pearls dissolved in the bowl!
Oh! who shall describe him?—the Wit and the Sage→→→
The heart of the People-the glass of the Stage,
The Dramatist-Orator-Bard of the Age!
Oh! who can depict the diversified ray
That illumines the diamond, and heralds the day;
That flings its bright veil o'er the blushes of Even,
And blends in the rainbow the riches of Heaven?
Such alone may describe all his beauties combined,
That fire of his fancy-that blossom of mind,
That union of talents, so rare, so refined,
That Echo grew mute at the spell of his tongue;
That Envy, enchanted, applauded his song;
That Ignorance worshipp'd the path which he trod;
And Heraldry owned the high patent of God!

What does the author mean by such lines as

"Till Sense bowed abashed to the bondage of soul,
And Reason drank pearls dissolved in the bowl;"

unless that after dinner, as usual, the whole party lost their sense and reason.. That echo grew mute at the spell of his tongue" was happy in the poet who first used it, but Mr. Phillips is only about the tenth transmitter of it. To this succeeds the sun-flower, where Sheridan is compared to "the glorious god of parting day." A little further on we have the very novel question from Hamlet "where shall we look on his likeness again ?" The "take him for all in all," was explained in the introduction, where we were told that all in all he was very like Ireland; that Ireland was very like her sons-wild, eloquent, generous, and so forth; and that the author was one of those sons." We pass over what is said of the dramatic talents of Sheridan,

"Whose streams of liquid diamond rolled
Their orient rill o'er sands of gold, &c." ..

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as well as some more praise of "Ocean's pure imperial

gem," meaning Ireland, and proceed to the seventh flower of the garland, which may be likened to one of the roses mentioned by Ariosto, which planted at the side of a still lake, surveyed with delight its beauties reflected on the water; or it may be more aptly called the Narcissus, for the author seems here not a little in love with himself. He has previously asked some imaginary being if it recollects what Sheridan accomplished for India, and what for Ireland, when it was threatened with invasion, which brings the author, very naturally in his own mind, to speak of himself, whom he thus, as we imagine, addresses:

"But chiefly thou-did'st thou forget
The great, incalculable debt
Incurred by thee,

When for thy sake, almost alone,
He made thy doubtful cause his own;
Till robed in light thy errors shone-
The light of his idolatry!
Didst thou forget the fairy hours
When, low in pleasure's wanton bowers,
Devote to Sense you lay;

How, 'neath his mind's creative ray,
O'er every fault there sprung such flowers,
All wrath was charmed away!
Did'st thou forget the hallowed tone
That lent thee wisdom-not thine own→→→
The counsel sage-the soul of fire,
That beamed away each dim desire,

And gave thy darkness, day!

And could'st thou-at his awful end

Forget thine own-thine early friend?" (p. 13-14.)

What were the obligations of Mr. Phillip's to Mr. Sheridan of course we do not precisely know, nor what was "the doubtful cause he made his own:" the two succeeding lines would lead us to fancy that he had formerly converted our author from the Catholic to the Protestant faith; but we' were not aware that he was in the habit of making religious, however successful his eloquence might be in making political proselytes. We did not think also that he had been exactly the person to lead a young man from "pleasure's wanton bower," an uncommon favour it seems he did Mr. Phillips, as well indeed as in "lending him wis dom," "a soul of fire," and "beaming away his darkness.' Having derived so much benefit from him, it would have been indeed ungrateful if Mr. Phillips had forgotten, when

he was dead, to make the return contained in this Garland, After all, Mr. Phillips may not allude to himself; but if he do not, the passage is not very easily explained. The piece is concluded by a joint compliment to Mrs. Sheridan and to Mr. Samuel Rogers, the banker and bard, (to whom the poem is inscribed) and a parting farewell to the spirit of Sheridan.

"Yet, wounded spirit-not unwept, on thee
Shower'd the sharp arrows of adversity.
E'en in its darkest hour, 'twas thine to prove
The rare consistency of woman's love.

Oh love, how rare! that shunning fortune's day,
Reserves for sorrow's night its lunar ray!
Nor did the kindred Bard, to memory' dear,
Refuse the precious balm of friendship's tear:
Celestial tear! to angel guardians given,
Gemm'd in its fall, and carried back to heaven.

Farewell-farewell, bright spirit of the sky!
Star of green Erin's glorious galaxy!
Others may boast the treasures of an age,
When want of crime is want of patronage:
In happier times, if e'er a better fate
Should raise thy country to her ancient state;
When with a throbbing heart she shall survey
The friends and glories of her wintry day;
Genius shall proudly point her patriot's tomb,

And in their blended tears thy laurels bloom." (p. 15.)

The first of these concluding flowers may be termed a creeper, and the last very appropriately a pensey or pansy, with which it was the custom formerly to finish a garland;

"And the last of the wreath shall a pansy be call'd."

We are not unwilling to acknowledge that in the passages above quoted may be found some harmonious and wellturned lines, but they are generally inflated and sprucely affected all is effort-a struggle on the part of the writer to say something fine, not something natural: the grief is not genuine, but appears as artificial as the flowers that compose the Garland, which have none of the morning freshness, and fragrance that ought to belong to them; no dewy tears upon their leaves, but such as the factitious author has taken great pains to sprinkle.

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ART. V.-Sur l' Origine de la Langue Grecque vulgaire, el sur les avantages que l'on peut retirer de son Etude; Discours prononcé à l'ouverture d'un Cours de Grec moderne, à l'Ecole Royale et Spéciale des Langues Orientales vivantes près la Bibliothèque du Roi. Par M. HASE, 1816. THREE

HREE ages are usually distinguished of the Greek tongue: the first terminates with the removal of the seat of the Roman Empire to Constantinople, the second with the capture of the same city by the Turks, and the third is now in progress, if we may not be allowed to close it with the improvements that occurred in the middle of the last cen tury, and which have never since been abandoned. It was surely enough that for three hundred years this powerful and harmonious language should by savage conquerors have been exposed to distortion and abasement, and every friend to literature will hail the time when any attempt was made to rescue it from this vassalage and degradation. At the period we have just named a variety of circumstances concurred to induce the modern Greeks to attend diligently to their native tongue. A part of their territory had been enriched by commerce, elsewhere ease and comparative liberty were enjoyed under the governments of Moldavia and Walachia (the Dacia of the ancients), and these coun tries soon partook of the general impulse given to science and literature in the more western regions of Europe. Before the amelioration we are referring to commenced, the mass of the people was satisfied with exercising the faculty of speech unassisted by the written characters, "and patiently submitted to the mandates of the Turkish po liey which did not allow any of the dependents of the empire to apply themselves to the arts and sciences. Thus situated, very few books had been written in the language, some catechisms and other formulæ excepted, which had been translated into modern Greek by the Latin missionaries; and such had been the condition of things, with a few honourable exceptions, from the final subversion of the Roman government, by the Ottoman power, to the year 1750, when the favourable alteration, to which we have alluded, arose from an endeavour on the part of the learned of the country to restore the resemblance of their native tongue as nearly as possible to the original Greek, and this object was pursued with judgment and assiduity; but in course the success must have been regulated by the degree

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of acquaintance the several writers possessed with the grace, force, and precision of their model.

Before we enter on the work itself it may be proper to observe, that the author, although sub-librarian to the Royal Library, under the government of the Bourbons, passes unnoticed a circumstance which we should have thought he would have assiduously drawn forth for public observation. A school was a few years since established at Hecatonesi for the education of the Greek youth, which the Turks, either guided by more humane principles, or too indolent to interpose, left undisturbed. General Se bastiani, in the course of his military engagements, heard of this establishment, and in the name of his imperial master, ordered that it should be suppressed! Thus were Christians found to be more hostile to the arts than Mahometans; and those who recollect the audacious pretensions of Napoleon to the patronage of the liberal sciences in the capital of his dominions, will, by this interference for their discouragement on the native soil of genius, know how to appreciate his sincerity. To render the illusion more complete in Paris, in 1815, a year after the introduction of the French at Corfu, an institution was formed called the Ionian Academy, respecting which a prospectus was published, dated in the manner of the time-Corcyra, the first year of the 647th Olympiad. Here a Dr. Mavromati was employed to deliver lectures, and prizes in the iron coin of Lacædemon were to be conferred for the best originals, or translations, in the Romaic language.

M. Hase, in his exordium, adverts to the perfection of the original of the modern Greek, and the mortification every scholar must feel at the ruin in which it must now be contemplated. "He seems to wander," says the author,

among the shattered remains of a splendid edifice, the

construction of which once excited the admiration of the world, and he is sensible to all the vexation that results from the view of its present abasement by the operation of time, accelerated by the licentiousness of barbarism." We must all lament the corruption of the most perfect idiom by which human thought was ever exhibited; abounding with that richness of expression, melody of cadence, felicity of arrangement, and facility of inversion, which yield an infinite variety, and a ready adaptation to all the sentiments of the mind, and all the impulses of the passions. The author explains his plan in these terms:

"Si l'on pouvoit suivre pas à pas la dégradation du Grec ancien, CRIT. REV. VOL. IV. Nov. 1816.

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