deration of the Genius of Schiller. For a proof of the warmth and vigour of style with which this paper is written, I appeal to the following passages:

"Imagery the most vivid and daring, situations singular and impressive, the verbum ardens pushed almost to rashness, a structure of language full of nerve, rich and dignified, mark every page of the writings of Schiller. Like our own Shakspeare, he sometimes delights and affects, even while he violates every rule, and leaves far behind him the decorum of the scene and the strictness of propriety; satisfied to bid the human heart glow with the fire of communicated passion, or the imagination expand to the grandeur of conception.

"The spirit of Schiller is marked and peculiar he is the Æschylus of the German drama. He seems, by a native impulse, to have felt his daring pencil directed to those scenes of horror and affright, from the contemplation of which, minds less energetic have shrunk in dismay. Fiery and unfettered, his genius has delighted to seek the loftier and more inaccessible regions of tragic poetry; to expand, as in its native element, amidst the shock and tempest of the fiercer passions, which convulse the soul and lay desolate the breast of man; descending little to the

lower provinces of dramatic effect, or the minutiæ of the scene. In the hands of Schiller, the strings of the human heart are struck with a boldness approaching to temerity. On the mil der passions, by which, in the scenes of other dramatists, the soul is gently moved, and the bosom taught to vibrate with soft and delicious sorrow, he has disdained to fix his hold. It is not the tear, which in the tender distress, the languishments of disappointed passions, suffuses the melting eye of sensibility, that his poetic fictions are to call forth; but the gust of heartfelt anguish, sympathizing with the last worst strokes of man's misery, shuddering at the view of calamity hopeless and irremediable. It is to astonish, to terrify, to shake the soul, that in the construction of his dramas the grander efforts of his genius are directed. In the agonies of despairing love, in situations where man is bowed to the grave with irretrievable woe, in the dreadful councils of banditti, and the horror of conspiracies and plots, he has sought for scenes alone congenial to the wildness of his fancy."

At the period when these essays were written, our knowledge of the elegant literature of Germany was very partial and confined; and this portion of the Speculator contributed, in no small degree, to turn the attention of the British

literati to the sublime, the beautiful, the terrific fictions of Klopstock, of Wieland, and of Schiller. That incidently much trash has been thrown before the public eye, through the me dium of translations from the German, cannot be denied; but this will soon sink into oblivion, and gratitude alone be felt for a more intimate acquaintance with the awful or the lovely ima gery of the Messias and the Oberon.

39. THE BEE. A paper, consisting of essays, philosophical, philological, and miscellaneous, conducted by James Anderson, LL. D. and published weekly at Edinburgh. The first number appeared on Wednesday, December the 22d, 1790, and was regularly continued until eighteen volumes, small octavo, were completed; when, owing to the difficulties which the Dr. experienced in managing the mechanism of the concern, and in obtaining the subscriptions, it was relinquished.

The numbers of the Bee, each containing forty pages, were, for the accommodation of its different readers, printed on three kinds of paper, coarse, common, and fine, and published at a very low price; the best copies, even when sent to any part of Britain, not exceeding four shillings per volume. Premiums, consisting of gold and silver

medals, were offered for the best Lives, Essays, Poems, and Translations, and every inducement. was held forth by the Editor that might secure the assistance of able and respectable contributors.

The Bee, as might be imagined from the known abilities of its projector, includes a large quantity of very useful and interesting matter, and not unfrequently clothed in an easy and elegant style. Its politics, however, (though, we must observe, inserted contrary to the wishes and even positive injunctions of Dr. Anderson,) were, at one time, so violent and intemperate, as to injure considerably the sale, and to involve the Editor in much trouble and temporary odium.

The first number of the Bee commences with Cursory Hints and Anecdotes of the late Doctor William Cullen, of Edinburgh," written by Dr. Anderson; and which are prefaced by the declaration, that “ a life of Doctor Cullen, with a full account of his writings, was preparing for the press by a masterly hand, on the authenticity of whose information the public may rely;" a work, which, we regret to say, has not hitherto made its appearance.

40. THE GRUMBLER. The essays thus entitled, are the production of the late celebrated antiquary, Francis Grose, Esq. and were origi

nally published in the newspaper called the English Chronicle, during part of the year 1791, the year, indeed, in which the worthy author closed a valuable and useful life. They were almost immediately reprinted, after his decease, in a duodecimo volume; in the preface to which, it is said, "that these essays were addressed to the editor of a periodical paper, his intimate friend. They form only a small part of a work, for which the ingenious author had been collecting and preparing materials for several years; the progress of which was suspended by his entire attention being devoted to pursuits of greater interest and importance, and the completion finally prevented by his death."

Sixteen essays, under the title of the Grumbler, were all that were published in the author's life time, and that were included in the republication just noticed; but in 1793, appeared an octavo volume, ascribed to Mr. Grose, and denominated The Olio, in which six more essays were ́appended to the Grumbler. The Olio was reprinted in 1796, with the essays again amounting to twenty-two.

The Grumbler, as may, indeed, be concluded from the title, is one who has habituated himself to vent his spleen on the vices and follies of the times; and these sketches, for they are little