judicious argument and cutting satire, than the glow of enthusiastic passion, or the richness of a luxuriant imagination. To these, accordingly, they made no pretensions; but writing with infinite good sense, and great grace and vivacity, and, above all, writing for the first time in a tone that was peculiar to the upper ranks of society, and upon subjects that were almost exclusively interesting to them, they naturally figured, at least while the manner was new, as the most accomplished, fashionable, and perfect writers which the world had ever seen, and made the wild, luxuriant, and humble sweetness of our earlier authors appear rude and untutored in the comparison. Men grew ashamed of admiring, and afraid of imitating, writers of so little skill and smartness; and the opinion became general, not only that their faults were intolerable, but that even their beauties were puerile and `barbarous, and unworthy the serious regard of a polite and distinguishing age.

These, and similar considerations, will go far to account for the celebrity which those authors acquired in their day; but it is not quite so easy to explain how they should have so long retained their ascendant. One cause, undoubtedly, was the real excellence of their productions, in the style which they had adopted. It was hopeless to think of surpassing them in that style; and, recommended as it was by the felicity of their execution, it required some courage to depart from it, and to recur to another, which seemed to have been so lately abandoned for its sake. The age which succeeded, too, was not the age of courage or adventure. There never was, on the whole, a quieter time than the reigns of the two first Georges, and the greater part of that which ensued. There were two little provincial rebellions, indeed, and a fair proportion of foreign war; but there was nothing to stir the minds of the people at large, to rouse their passions, or excite their imaginations-nothing like the agitations of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, or of the civil wars in the seventeenth. They went on, accordingly, minding their old business, and reading their old books, with great patience and stupidity; and certainly there never was so remarkable a dearth of original talent-so long an interregnum of native genius-as during about sixty years in the middle of the last century. The dramatic art was dead fifty years before, and poetry seemed verging to a similar extinction. The few sparks that appeared, too, showed that the old fire was burnt out, and that the altar must hereafter be heaped with fuel of another quality. Gray, with the talents rather of a critic than a poet, with learning, fastidiousness, and scrupulous delicacy of taste, instead of fire, tenderness, or invention, began and ended a small school, which we could scarcely have wished to become permanent, admirable in many respects as some of its productions are, being far too elaborate and artificial either for grace or for fluency, and fitter to excite the admiration of scholars than the delight of ordinary men. However, he had the merit of not being in any degree French, and of restoring to our poetry the dignity of seriousness, and the tone at least of force and energy.

The Whartons, both as critics and as poets, were of considerable service in discrediting the high pretensions of the former race, and in bringing back to public notice the great stores and treasures of poetry which lay hid in the records of our older literature. Akenside attempted a sort of classical and philosophical rapture, which no elegance of language could easily have rendered popular, but which had merits of no vulgar order for those who could study it. Goldsmith wrote with perfect elegance and beauty, in a style of mellow tenderness and elaborate simplicity. He had the harmony of Pope without his quaintness, and his selectness of diction without his coldness and eternal vivacity. And last of all came Cowper, with a style of complete originality, and, for the first time, made it apparent to readers of all descriptions that Pope and Addison were no longer to be the models of English poetry.

In philosophy and prose writing in general, the case was nearly parallel. The name of Hume is by far the most considerable which occurs in the period to which we have alluded. But, though his thinking was English, his style is entirely French; and, being naturally of a cold fancy, there is nothing of that eloquence or richness about him which characterizes the writings of Taylor, and Hooker, and Bacon, and continues, with less weight of matter, to please in those of Cowley and Clarendon. Warburton had great powers, and wrote with more force and freedom than the wits to whom he succeeded; but his faculties were perverted by a paltry love of paradox, and rendered useless to mankind by an unlucky choice of subjects, and the arrogance and dogmatism of his temper. Adam Smith was nearly the first who made deeper reasonings and more exact knowledge popular among us, and Junius and Johnson the first who again familiarized us with more glowing and sonorous diction, and made us feel the tameness and poorness of the serious style of Addison and Swift.

XIV. SYDNEY SMITH

SYDNEY SMITH was born in 1768, at Woodford, in Essex, and received his classical education at the famous school founded by William of Wykeham, in Winchester. From Winchester he removed to New College, Oxford, where in due course he graduated; and on taking orders he became curate in a small country parish near Amesbury. He soon after accepted the office of tutor to a son of the Member of Parliament for Cirencester, and, in company with his pupil, he resided for nearly five years in Edinburgh. Here he became acquainted with Jeffrey and Brougham, and in conjunction with them founded the "Edinburgh Review," the first few numbers of which were edited by Smith. In 1803 he married, and settling in London, became at once a highly popular preacher; while his brilliant wit and ready conversational powers made him equally popular in society. He delivered

a course of lectures on moral philosophy at the Royal Institution, which were published posthumously; and he laid the Whigs under a deep debt of obligation by his famous "Letters of Peter Plymley," which so effectually aided the cause of Catholic Emancipation. Church preferment was slowly bestowed upon him; but in 1827 he was made a Canon of Bristol Cathedral, and four years afterwards Canon Residentiary of St Paul's. He died in 1845. He has left behind him no work of any magnitude; the longest production of his pen being the famous "Letters of Peter Plymley," the wittiest in the language. He is a powerful arguer,-almost as plain in his language and allusions as Swift. He shows no respect to persons, but overwhelms every opponent with a copious and irresistible stream of ridicule. Though his works were written only to serve an occasion, their wit is ever fresh and pleasing; and their popularity is still maintained, although the circumstances that produced them are well-nigh forgotten. It ought also to be remembered that Sydney Smith was one of the loudest in denouncing the wrongs and hardships to which particular classes of the community were exposed, and that to him we are indebted in a great measure for their removal. Besides the Letters," his works consist of the "Lectures on Moral Philosophy," "Contributions to the Edinburgh Review," 99 66 Sermons," and other miscellaneous productions.

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1. ADVANTAGES OF STUDYING LATIN AND GREEK.

Latin and Greek are useful, as they inure children to intellectual difficulties, and make the life of a young student what it ought to be, a life of considerable labour. We do not, of course, mean to confine this praise exclusively to the study of Latin and Greek, or to suppose that other difficulties might not be found which it would be useful to overcome; but though Latin and Greek have this merit in common with many arts and sciences, still they have it; and, if they do nothing else, they at least secure a solid and vigorous application at a period of life which materially influences all other periods. To go through the grammar of one language thoroughly is of great use for the mastery of every other grammar; because there obtains, through all languages, a certain analogy to each other in their grammatical construction. Latin and Greek have now mixed themselves etymologically with all the languages of Modern Europe, and with none more than our own; so that it is necessary to read these two tongues for other objects than themselves.

The two ancient languages are, as mere inventions-as pieces of mechanism—incomparably more beautiful than any of the modern languages of Europe; their mode of signifying time and case by terminations, instead of auxiliary verbs and particles, would of itself stamp their superiority. Add to this, the copiousness of the Greek language, with the fancy, harmony, and majesty of its compounds; and there are quite sufficient reasons why the classics should be studied for the beauties of language. Compared to them merely

RECOMMENDATION OF BREVITY TO AUTHORS.

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as vehicles of thought and passion, all modern languages are dull, ill-contrived, and barbarous.

That a great part of the Scriptures have come down to us in the Greek language is of itself a reason, if all others were wanting, why education should be planned so as to produce a supply of Greek scholars.

The cultivation of style is very justly made a part of education. Everything which is written is meant either to please or to instruct. The second object it is difficult to effect without attending to the first; and the cultivation of style is the acquisition of those rules and literary habits which sagacity anticipates, or experience shows to be the most effectual means of pleasing. Those works are the best which have longest stood the test of time, and pleased the greatest number of exercised minds. Whatever, therefore, our conjectures may be, we cannot be so sure that the best modern writers can afford us as good models as the ancients; we cannot be certain that they will live through the revolutions of the world, and continue to please in every climate, under every species of government, through every stage of civilisation. The moderns have been well taught by their masters; but the time is hardly yet come when the necessity for such instruction no longer exists. We may still borrow descriptive power from Tacitus; dignified perspicuity from Livy; simplicity from Cæsar; and from Homer some portion of that light and heat which, dispersed into ten thousand channels, has filled the world with bright images and illustrious thoughts. Let the cultivator of modern literature addict himself to the purest models of taste which France, Italy, and England could supply, he might still learn from Virgil to be majestic, and from Tibullus to be tender; he might not yet look upon the face of nature as Theocritus saw it, nor might he reach those springs of pathos with which Euripides softened the hearts of his audience. In short, it appears to us, that there are so many excellent reasons why a certain number of scholars should be kept up in this and in every civilised country, that we should consider every system of education from which classical education was excluded as radically erroneous, and completely absurd.

2. RECOMMENDATION OF BREVITY TO AUTHORS.

There is an event recorded in the Bible, which men who write books should keep constantly in their remembrance. It is there set forth, that many centuries ago the earth was covered with a great flood, by which the whole of the human race, with the exception of one family, were destroyed. It appears, also, that from thence a great alteration was made in the longevity of mankind, who, from a range of seven or eight hundred years, which they enjoyed before the flood, were confined to their present period of seventy or eighty years. This epoch in the history of man gave birth to the twofold division of the antediluvian and the post

diluvian style of writing, the latter of which naturally contracted itself into those inferior limits which were better accommodated to the abridged duration of human life and literary labour. Now-to forget this event, to write without the fear of the deluge before his eyes, and to handle a subject as if mankind could lounge over a pamphlet for ten years, as before their submersion,-is to be guilty of the most grievous error into which a writer can possibly fall. The author of a book should call in the aid of some brilliant pencil, and cause the distressing scenes of the deluge to be portrayed in the most lively colours for his use. He should gaze at Noah and be brief. The ark should constantly remind him of the little time there is left for reading; and he should learn, as they did in the ark, to crowd a great deal of matter into a very little compass.

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3. EXTRACTS FROM THE LETTERS OF PETER PLYMLEY."

I confess, it mortifies me to the very quick to contrast with our matchless stupidity and inimitable folly the conduct of Bonaparte upon the subject of religious persecution. At the moment when we are tearing the crucifixes from the necks of the Catholics, and washing pious mud from the foreheads of the Hindoos, at that moment this man is assembling the very Jews in Paris, and endeavouring to give them stability and importance. I shall never be reconciled to mending shoes in America; but I see it must be my lot, and I will then take a dreadful revenge upon Mr Perceval, if I catch him preaching within ten miles of me. You cannot imagine, you say, that England will ever be ruined and conquered; and for no other reason that I can find, but because it seems so very odd it should be ruined and conquered. Alas! so reasoned, in their time, the Austrian, Russian, and Prussian Plymleys. But the English are brave: so were all these nations. You might get together an hundred thousand men individually brave; but without generals capable of commanding such a machine, it would be as useless as a first-rate man-of-war manned by Oxford clergymen or Parisian shopkeepers. I do not say this to the disparagement of English officers they have had no means of acquiring experience; but I do say it to create alarm; for we do not appear to me to be halfalarmed enough, or to entertain that sense of our danger which leads to the most obvious means of self-defence. As for the spirit of the peasantry, in making a gallant defence behind hedgerows, and through plate-racks and hen-coops, highly as I think of their bravery, I do not know any nation in Europe so likely to be struck with panic as the English; and this from their total unacquaintance with the science of war. Old wheat and beans blazing for twenty miles round; cart-mares shot; sows of Lord Somerville's breed running wild over the country; the minister of the parish sorely wounded; Mrs Plymley in fits,-all these scenes of war an Austrian or a Russian has seen three or four times over; but it is now three