Cicero she degenerated from her purer strains, into the laboured phrases of affected declamation. Poetry, which is noted for its suppleness, flourished only for a few years; and probably owed its temporary vigour to the mean prostitution of its talents, in flattering the enslaver of his country, and the tyrant of the world.

Greece on the contrary produced a continued series of great and learned men; she was not like Rome, forced to struggle for her liberty and existence against the jealousy of surrounding states. After the decisive battles of Marathon, Platea, and Salamis, her internal dissensions were her only enemies; but even these promoted rather than impeded the powers of her genius. To the Peloponnesian war we owe the history of Thucydides, the funeral orations of Pericles and Plato, and to the treachery of Philip the sublime invectives of Demosthenes; but when the conquering eagle of Rome, under the pretence of protecting, enslaved the country, from that moment her genius withered; and the only writers she afterward produced, Polybius in particular, instead of recording the glories of their native country, celebrated the exploits of Rome. Rome therefore, now the uncontrolled mistress of the world, was expected to excel in arts as well as arms; under Augustus, as before observed, she flourished for a time, but under the succeeding emperors she relapsed into the ignorance, though she possessed not the virtues of the consular state. The feeble efforts which learning afterward made to recover her ancient pre-eminence, seem to confirm the position, that under liberty alone she can acquire a permanent strength.

Under the happy reigns of Vespasian, Trajan, and the better emperors, the short-lived ray of returning freedom awaked her from her lethargy; and Juvenal, the Plinies, and Tacitus, are enrolled

in the last list of Roman worthies.--The works of the two Plinies might have been produced under any reign, however tyrannical.-The studies of the naturalist could never awaken the jealousy of the most capricious tyrant; and the panegyric of the younger Pliny was a piece of complimentary flattery, which must be acceptable to the ears of any prince. Of his letters it has been truly observed, that they are only elegant trifles. In Cicero's collection we find a history of the times, the characters of the greatest men delineated with spirit, and his sentiments delivered with a Roman freedom. Pliny was overawed by the terrors of despotism, and dared not to venture on topics which might rouse the anger of his Sovereign; but that Juvenal and Tacitus adorned this period, must uncontestibly be the effect of at least some degree of liberty; otherwise the unsparing lash of the satirist would not have attacked the most powerful men of Rome; or the bold pen of the historian dared to display the actions of the former emperors with such freedom of censure, so odiously and yet so justly. He would have been contented with a bare relation, and left the reader to make those observations, which though he could not but have felt, he would have been afraid to give vent to; especially when Juvenal, in the reign of Domitian, had been banished for a slight reflection on an insignificant actor.

As in the course of this paper many of the great names of antiquity have been mentioned, I cannot help noticing the assertion of a very learned man, in which his partiality for the ancients seems to have hurried him on beyond due lengths. I refer the reader to the 127th paper, 4th vol. of the Adventurer, from whence the following is extracted, The age will never again return, when a Pericles, after walking with Plato in a portico built by Phidias, and painted by Apelles, might repair to hear a

pleading of Demosthenes, or a tragedy of Sophocles.'

Unless this passage is more accurately considered, it seems to give the decisive turn against the moderns; and presents a formidable list of great names to which we have but few to oppose. But if we examine the chronological order, we shall find, that Pericles, Phidias, and Sophocles, were hardly contemporaries, Pericles dying in the 87th Olympiad ; but Demosthenes, who was contemporary with Apelles, did not pronounce his first Philippic till the 107th, and Plato died in the 108th. The reader who would wish to know the more particular dates, I refer to Tallent's chronology, who has regulated his by Scaliger's tables. From this it will appear, that though a Pericles might have walked in a portico built by Phidias, it could not have been painted by Apelles; and though he might have heard a tragedy of Sophocles, he could not have conversed with Plato, or repaired to a pleading of Demosthenes. I might with equal justice say, the time will never return, when an Alfred, after walking with Bacon in a portico built by Wren, or painted by West, might repair to hear a speech of Chatham's, or a tragedy of Shakspeare's. Surely this is an unfair mode of comparison, and to take a hint from his own motto, Si veteres ita miratur laudatque,

Ut nihil anteferat, nihil illis comparet, errat.
But oft they labour under great mistakes,
As when their ancients lavishly they raise,
Above all modern rivalship and praise.-FRANCIS.

But to return to my subject. From the variety of concurring accidents and combination of circumstances, which are so necessary if not to form, at least to force genius into notice, it is more to be wondered at, that so many great characters have, than that more have not existed. True it is, that there are some, who are by nature endowed with

such powers of mind, that they have risen superior to all surrounding impediments; but the number of these transcendent men are comparatively few with those who have rendered themselves eminent from the fortuitous concurrence of lucky circumstances. To any one who attentively considers the variety of characters which may be met with in a large public school, the following will appear no unimportant circumstance. He cannot but observe the great number of boys, who by their natural abilities and early attainments seem to promise future greatness; and who, provided they had all an equal chance of succeeding in the world, might attain the heights of excellence. Yet how few of them in their maturer years fulfil those expectations, which the earliest periods of their life so justly excited. The reason is evident; when at school they had full and fair scope for the exercise of their talents; they were fired with emulation, animated by the hope of glory. Envy had not as yet tainted the purity of the breast; and every one honestly confessed his admiration of their superior powers. When they enter the larger theatre of the world, the case is widely different; the passions then take a larger range; envy, and all the blacker ones, expand themselves. One man hides himself in the obscurity of what mistaken philosophy calls a life of retirement and ease, that is, of indolence and sloth; another destroys himself in the excesses of licentious pleasure; here distressed merit pines in want and obscurity; there the bent of the soul is mistaken, and the injudicious and arbitrary will of a parent or a guardian forces it into that line, where its lustre is darkened and its powers fail. For the human mind, in spite of the pride of wisdom, and vanity of self-complacency, is confined to a narrow sphere, though some men by the universality of their attainments, and versatility of their powers, seem to contradict this assertion; yet, those

instances are so rare, as scarce to form an exception to the general rule. Newton is great as an astronomer, and Chatham as a statesman, when confined to their own proper paths, their abilities are wonderful, their glory consequently great; but place a Chatham at the astronomical calculation of a Newton, or a Newton at the helm of state, their respective worth is immediately lost, and they both would sink to the level of common mortals. Genius then, if not totally buried, is often perverted, and its powers rendered ineffectual. Pope observed of a certain illustrious character, How sweet an Ovid in

a Murray lost,' and it is not to be doubted, but that the abilities of many have been equally distorted from their natural bent.

I am inclined to think, that the maxim,

That as the twig is bent the tree's inclin❜d,

Rather

is not universally though generally true. like a tree forced from its natural situation, it will, when left to the exercise of its own powers, recoil with the greater violence. We may remember that Addison was made a secretary of state, and Swift, if he had listened to King William, would have been a cornet of horse. How little the talents of the one were adapted to his office is well known; what a figure the author of the Tale of the Tub would have made as a cornet, I leave to my readers to judge. The attic elegance and polished wit of Addison was lost amidst the turbulence of state intrigues; and the keen, sarcastic genius of Swift was by no means fitted for the camp; unless it can be proved, that humour can gain a battle, or satire take a town.-A.