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seeming common-place, which we despise, may be to him the index to pure thoughts and far-reaching desires. In that which to the careless eye may seem but a little humble spring-pure, perhaps, and sparkling, but scarce worthy of a glance-the more attentive observer may perceive a depth which he cannot fathom, and discover that the seeming fount is really the breaking forth of a noble river, winding its consecrated way beneath the soil, which, as it runs, will soon bare its bosom to the heavens, and glide in a cool and fertilizing majesty. And is there not some danger that souls, whose powers of expression are inadequate to make manifest their inward wealth, should be sealed for ever by the hasty sentences of criticism? The name of Lord Byron is rather unfortunately introduced by the celebrated Journal which we have quoted, into its general denunciation against youthful poets. Surely the critics must for the moment have forgotten, that at the outset of the career of that bard, to whose example they now refer, as most illustriously opposed to the mediocrity which they condemn, they themselves poured contempt on his endeavours! Do they now wish that he had taken their counsel? Are they willing to run the hazard, for the sake of putting down a thousand pretenders a few months before their time, of crushing another soul like his for ever? Their very excuse-that, at the time, his verses were all which they adjudged them-is the very proof of the impolicy and the probable evil of such censures. If the object of their scorn has, in this instance, risen above it, how do we know that more delicate minds have not sunk beneath it? Besides, although Lord Byron was not repelled, but rather excited by their judgement, he seems to have sustained from it scarcely less injury. If it stung him into energy, it left its poison in his soul. It first turned his gentleness into gall-taught him that spirit of scorn which debases the noblest faculties and impelled him, in his rage, to attack those who had done him no wrong, to scoff at the sanctities of humanity, and to hate or deride his species!

And, even, if genius is too deep to be suppressed, or too celestial to be perverted, is it nothing that the soul of its possessor should be wrung with the keenest agony? For a while, criticism may throw back poets whom it cannot annihilate, and make them pause in their course of glory and of joy, confounded though immortal." Who can estimate those pangs which on the "purest spirits" are thus made to prey

"as on entrails, joint, and limb,

With answerable pains but more intense?"

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The heart of a young poet is the most sacred thing on earth. How nicely strung are its fibres-how keen its sensibilities

now shrinking the timidity with which it puts forth its gentle conceptions! And shall such a heart receive rude usage from a world which it only desires to improve and to gladden? Shall its trembling nerves be stretched on the rack, or its nice apprehensions turned into the instruments of its torture? Shall its warm energies be met with icy scorn, and its tearful joys made sport for the idle and the unfeeling? All this, and more, has been done towards men of whom "this world was not worthy." Cowper, who, first of modern poets, restored to the general heart the feeling of healthful nature-whose soul was without one particle of malice or of guile-whose susceptible and timorous spirit shrunk tremblingly from the slightest touch of this rough world-was chilled, tortured, and almost maddened, by some nameless critic's scorn. Kirke White-the delicate beauties of whose mind were destined scarcely to unfold themselves on earth-in the beginning of his short career, was cut to the heart by the cold mockery of a stranger. A few sentences, penned, perhaps, in mere carelessness, almost nipped the young blossoms of his genius "like an untimely frost;" palsied for awhile all his faculties-embittered his little span of lifehaunted him almost to the verge of his grave, and heightened his dying agonies! Would the annihilation of all the dullness in the world compensate for one moment's anguish inflicted on hearts like these?

We have been all this time considering not the possible abuses, but the necessary tendencies, of contemporary criticism. All the evils we have pointed out may arise, though no sinister design pervert the Reviewer's judgement-though no prejudice even unconsciously warp him and even though he may decide fairly "from the evidence before him." But it is impossible that this favourable supposition should be often realized in an age like ours. Temper, politics, religion, the interests of rival bards, or rival publishers—a thousand influences, sometimes recognized, and sometimes only felt-decide the sentence on souls the most sensitive, and imaginations the most divine. The very trade of the critic himself—the necessity of his being witty, or brilliant, or sarcastic, for his own sake-is sufficient to disqualify him as a judge. Sad thought! that the most sensitive, and gentle, and profound of human beings, should be dependant on casual caprice, on the passions of a bookseller, or on the turn of a period!

4. It may be perceived, from what we have already written, that we do not greatly esteem criticism as a guide any more than as a censor. The general effect on the public mind is, we fear, to dissipate and weaken. It spoils the freshest charms even of the poetry which it praises. It destroys all reverence for great poets, by making the world think of them as a species

of culprits, who are to plead their genius as an excuse for their intrusion. Time has been when the poet himself-instead of submitting his works to the public as his master-called around him those whom he thought worthy to receive his precepts, and pointed out to them the divine lineaments and celestial touches, which he felt could never perish. They regarded him, with reverence and with wonder, as the holiest and most favored of mortals. They delighted to sit in the seat of the disciple, not in that of the scorner. How much deep enjoyment have the people lost by being exalted into judges! The ascent of literature has been rendered smooth and easy, but its rewards are proportionably lessened in value. With how holy a zeal did the aspirant once gird himself to tread the unworn path; how delectably was he refreshed by each plat of green; how intensely did he enjoy every prospect, from the lone and embowered resting places of his journey! Now, distinctions are levelled; the zest of intellectual pleasures is taken away; and no one hour, like that of Archimedes, ever repays a life of toil. The appetite, satiated with luxuries cheaply acquired, requires new stimulants-even criticism palls-and private slander must be mingled with it to give the necessary relish. Happily, these evils will, at last, work out their own remedy. Scorn, of all human emotions, leaves the frailest monuments behind it. That light which now seems to play around the weapons of periodical criticism, is only like the electrical flame which, to the amazement of the superstitious, wreathes the sword of the Italian soldier on the approach of a storm, vapourish and fleeting. Those mighty poets of our time-who are now overcoming the derision of the critics-will be immortal witnesses of their shame. These will lift their heads, " like mountains when the mists are rolled away," imperishable memorials of the true genius of our time, to the most distant ages.

Hieronymi Osorii, Lusitani, de Gloria, Libri V. ad Joannem tertium Lusitania Regem. Florentiæ, 1552, ap. Laurentium Torrentium, 8vo. p. 295.

"Osorius of Lisbon," says a writer in The Classical Journal," is said to have written a Latin Dissertation on Glory, in so pure a style, and in a manner so much after that of an ancient Roman, that some have not scrupled to assert that this very treatise is the lost work of Cicero."*

* Adversaria Literaria, 39, 204.

Osorius was a celebrated Portuguese bishop, in the time of the renowned Sebastian.-He early cultivated a Latin style; and, from the purity to which he attained in his various compositions in that language, he gained the title of the Cicero of Portugal. The work by which he is best known, is his historical book, de Regibus Lusitanie, which is not uncommon, and has been more than once reprinted. Among other Latin productions, which procured him high reputation, were, his address to our Queen Elizabeth, " on the true faith," and his reply to Haddon, who answered it.-Bacon observed, that " his vein was weak and waterish;"-he probably saw deeper than his contemporaries, who, taken by the charms of a pure and copious Latin style, were content with inoffensive common-places, which do certainly roll on with a majestic flow of language, not unworthy of the great Roman orator himself." Decem annos consumpsi in legendo Cicerone," and Echo answered ""." OVE. Cardinal Pole, it seems, thought better of his brother churchman. This work on Glory so much delighted him, that he requested a noble relation in England to translate it into the vulgar tongue, which was accordingly done.-We are not aware who it is that has been so idle as to accuse the good bishop of suppressing the name of Cicero, and substituting his own; but we think we shall be affording an agreeable entertainment to such scholars as may be sufficiently curious to divert themselves by comparing the Latinity of the Roman and Portuguese moralist, if we make a selection of a few of the most interesting passages from this little volume.

It has no preface; but it opens thus:

"Multa sunt, Rex invictissime, quæ magnam vim habent, ad hominum vitam vel recte constituendam, vel funditus evertendam: tum nihil est, quod in utramque partem tantum valeat, quantum ardens quoddam laudis et famæ desiderium. Primum enim a Deo late patet, ut nullus sit, neque tanta humanitate præditus, neque tam agrestis et inhumanus, neque tantis honoribus insignis, neque tam obscurus et ignotus, neque tot virtutis ornamentis excultus, neque tam multis flagitiis coopertus, qui non flagret infinita quadam gloriæ cupiditate. Deinde ita est id communibus sensibus infixum, ut neque vi rationis evelli, neque lege aut more ullo mutari, neque ullo metu coërceri et comprimi possit. Postremo tam vehemens est, ut animum nullo in loco consistere patiatur, sed semper incensum trahat et rapiat, ad inajora in dies et altiora inflammato studio consectanda. Ex hoc autem animi motu clarissimæ virtutes; ex eodem teterrima vitia nascuntur. Acuit enim industriam, animosque ad res acriter et animose gerendas exsuscitat; ita tamen, ut alios ad jus humanæ societatis tuendum, patriamque beneficiis immortalibus obligandam; alios ad leges nefarie tollendas et remp. delendam solicitet. Ut enim antiquissima commemorem, illi primi urbium conditores qui homines, in silvis bestiarum more dissipa

tos, unum in locum compulerunt, et in civilis vitæ societatem convocarunt, omnes, quod ex historiis constat, ardenti gloriæ cupiditate fuerunt in studium tam præclari muneris incitati. Quid, qui optimis legibus et institutis, civitates suas ad summam amplitudinem perduxere? Quid, qui pro patria caput suum in summum vitæ discrimen intulere ? Quid, qui maximarum artium disciplinis cives suos excoluere ? Num obscurum est, neminem sese sine magna spe laudis, vel ad homines inter se justitiæ munere conciliandos, vel ad remp. virtute et industria defendendam, aut ingenii opibus illustrandam contulisse? Contra vero qui patrias evertere, aut scelere et amentia convellere, omnes fuerunt ad tam tetrum et tam immane facinus gloriæ cupiditate compulsi. Utriusque autem rei civitatis unius varii casus infinita exempla suppeditant. Si enim investigare velimus, per quos fuerit olim Roma fundata, ejusque imperium latissime propagatum, ut a Romulo ordiamur, et seriem illam clarorum hominum usque ad extrema florentis imperii tempora perducamus, intelligemus omnes adeo appetentes laudis et gloriæ fuisse, ut illius parandæ causa, neque laborem ullum fugerint, neque vitæ periculum recusarint. Rursus si naturam spectemus eorum Romanorum, qui Romanum imperium per summum scelus everterunt, aut saltem, de illius pernicie et interitu cogitarunt, omnes reperiemus ad gloriæ cupiditatem incredibiliter exarsisse. Hoc autem, nec in unius tantum civitatis annalibus, nec in una tantum memoria hominum, sed apud omnes nationes, in omni ætate cernere licet, nullum esse scelus immane, nullum facinus impium, nullum sectam pestilentem, nullum reip. turbulentum motum, qui non ab appetitu gloriæ nascatur. Non igitur immerito viri sapientia præstantes, cum animadvertissent ab hoc insito laudis appetitu et bona quamplurima, et infinita mala proficisci, quasi ancipiti sententia in varias partes distracti, modo juventutem ad summæ gloriæ studium cohortandam, modo ab illa quasi a magna virtutis et constantiæ labe deterrendam existimabant. Quid hic sanctarum literarum monimenta commemorem? Explicari enim non potest, quam sæpe, et quanta orationis vi nos ad summum studium immortalis nominis inflamment. Rursus autem, nihil est in illis tam dira pœna sancitum, quam ne quis honores ambiat, ne principatum appetat, ne cupiditate laudis efferatur, usque adeo ut omne Christianæ pietatis fundamentum in contemptione gloriæ consistat. Quid igitur? ut sit vel in casibus humanis, vel in doctorum hominum scriptis tanta dissensio, num id etiam cœlesti discipline tribuendum est, ut illius præceptis imbuti explicare nequeamus, sitne nobis gloria consectanda, an summa potius animi contentione repellenda? Sed nimirum nihil animis nostris impressum et inustum est, in quo non divinum beneficium agnoscere valeamus, nos tamen illis naturæ principiis, quæ nobis ad salutem tributa sunt, perverse utentes, nostra dementia in perniciem incurrimus. Nam ira, cupiditas, spes, metus, dolor, voluptas, et reliqua generis ejusdem, quibus animos vel incendi, vel restingui, vel incitari, vel remitti, vel efferri, vel contrahi, vel alio quovis pacto commoveri, et agitari sentimus, nobis donata sunt, ut noxia repellentes, et salutaria asciscentes, naturæ statum conservemus; nos vero ea plerumque omnia ad flagitium, atque vitæ pestem conferimus. Quo autem sunt illa majora, et ampliora quæ accepimus, eo ex illorum abusu gravioribus malis im

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