too aerial to be detained for investigation, the texture is too flimsy to be adopted for use: that in exact proportion to the wildness of its features, will be the brevity of its duration: that its vehemence will exhaust its energies, and its improvidence preclude the possibility of their renovation: that thus every phantom inevitably cuts short its own existence, and adds to its former enormities that of closing its career by becoming a felo de se.

Yet many worse symptoms may appear in the opening mind of youth, than such as I have here described. Far more dangerous, and far more ill-omened, are those hidden evils which lurk like the adder in the grass; whose bite cannot be avoided, because it is not foreseen : which, as vigilance cannot perceive, nor prudence ward off, so also the time of their approach is ever to be dreaded, and the remedy for their poison always to be sought. On the contrary, these extravagances are the weeds which a generous soil alone can produce: which, while by their native rankness they show its exuberance, by their verdure and their vigour, they bear equally sure testimony to its fertility. Hence it is to be trusted, that the hand of experience may remove them, and plant in their stead shoots of a more worthy origin, and a more benignant growth.

Both my compassion for my already wearied readers, and my own incompetency to give an exact or a minute delineation of my second ally, will certainly induce me to shorten my sketch of his character. Modesty and reserve, much more, I believe, of the former than of the latter, prominent features in his character, alike preclude a lengthened detail.

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As remote as possible from any indulgence in the visionary dreams, or any participation in the undefined notions of Mr. Oliver Quincy, he abhors the name of politics; takes up the Classical Journal with far more interest than the Edinburgh Review, or Blackwood's Magazine-but here my comparison fails, for these latter, I believe, he avoids like the touch of a viper; he would certainly listen with delight to a discussion of the principles of accentuation,* but with impatience to one on those of government. The Utopia of the one is in the land of Freedom, Equality, Higgledum-piggledum," &c. while the other revels in feasts of commentaries, and wanders over whole realms of annotations. His intellectual food might be, Porson for breakfast, Elmsley for dinner, and Bentley for tea: Parr might serve for a mid-day luncheon, and Monk or Gaisford for an occasional snack. Surely it is more glorious to reform an author's text, than-a nation's government: and more creditable to the patriotism and public spirit of an individual to replace an ejected particle in its station, than an ejected monarch on his throne! Obsolete statutes are at best no better than antiquated editions: and if Mr. Huskisson makes laws to regulate the manufacture of silk, why, Professor Porson makes laws to regulate the manufacture of Iambics; and the one lays as many restrictions on British poets, as the other takes off from British traders.

Such, perhaps, or nearly such, may be his method of

* A Sceptical Correspondent impertinently hints, "If there are any❞— If there are any!!

comparison between our Political and Literary Governors and I must do him the justice to say, that if he has not troubled himself much about the allegiance he owes to the former, of the latter, at least, he has been a most active, dutiful, and exemplary subject: both eager in acquiring, and successful in attaining, copious stores of Classical Erudition.

I believe, that Mr. Philip Montague is gifted with an amiable disposition, and a kind heart. He has, assuredly, suavity of manners, and a most entire freedom from all affectation and self-consequence, to recommend him to those with whom he is in intercourse: and high as his estimation of the importance, and his knowledge of the nature, of classical learning is, his esteem is free from affectation, and his knowledge from pedantry. It is both delightful and advantageous to have to do with those, (and few they are,) who have learned to be obliging yet not officious; and who are always as ready to afford, as unwilling to intrude, their valuable services.

Thus having feebly endeavoured to describe my two coadjutors, I will dismiss the subject, in the hope that they will be as acceptable to our readers as they have been useful among ourselves. If in the estimate of their characters I have not sufficiently applauded their abilities, it is because the heart, in my humble opinion, must go before the head: and because it would be presumptuous in me to affect to point out, what he who runs and reads will, I believe, not fail to perceive.

ANCIENT AND MODERN GENIUS COMPARED.

Illi alternantes multâ vi prælia miscent.

On entering into a field so widely extended, and so magnificently variegated, as that which is to be the scene of my present labour, it may be proper, in the commencement, to state the boundaries by which it is confined, and the portions into which it is divided.

It is fit to exclude from such a comparison as this all consideration of the Holy Scriptures. It is not for me to discuss the nature, the limits, and the provinces, of human genius and Divine Inspiration. The sublimity of Job, and the pathos of David; the raptures of the prophet, and the precepts of the sage, are subjects on which I must forbear from expatiating. It might be difficult, it might be impossible, to find parallels for these and for their fellows, even if the footing on which they were to be placed had been clearly ascertained: but these topics, and such as these, if they are to be approached and handled at all, are to be approached with reverence-to be handled at once with delicacy and with power; with more power and more delicacy than it ever has been, or, I fear, it ever will be, my lot to possess.

Beginning with Homer (a venerable name, whether it was used to designate the real and sole author of the Iliad, or not), and the fathers of Grecian literature, the comparison will be drawn, chiefly, between each two of the four great and splendid periods which, divided equally as to number by the intervening ages of darkness and barbarism, have usually been assigned respec

tively to Ancient and to Modern times. Those ages indeed, during which the gloom of the cloister was the only remedy for the violence and barbarism of the world at large, situated as they were between civilization on either side, were like an ocean raging between two fair and fertile continents; where few, indeed, are enabled to pass from the one to the other; where those who would avoid the rage of the winds, and the turbulence of the waters, must be sheltered from the contact of the wrathful elements in a gloom and a confinement, by which alone their force can be defied, and their entrance forbidden.

Against the Grecian and the Augustan will be placed the age of Leo the Tenth, and that which we usually call by the name of Queen Anne; our continental neighbours, by that of Louis the Fourteenth. It would, however, be both unjust and impolitic to exclude from our account those who, on the side of the moderns, will have a material influence in casting the balance, the many brilliant names which frequently before, and constantly since, the period last mentioned, have decorated the annals of this and of other countries. Had each link of their uninterrupted chain been perceived by men unconnected with the splendid series, the time in which it was formed would have derived from it the stamp of superior merit, and the pledge of lasting reputation. We boast, and justly boast, the age of Queen Elizabeth; and we might, too, bring forward that of the Commonwealth and Charles the Second, when we had Massinger,*

* It is, perhaps, hardly fair to introduce Massinger; but the far greater name of Newton might be substituted, as he belongs more to Charles the Second than to Queen Anne.