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lection of pamphlets written against himself and his writings. "These," said Mr. Pope to my father, "are my favourite reading." I could not help thinking,' said the younger Richardson, were this true, that Mr. Pope had found out a new pleasure.'-Richardsoniana.

Sacred Poems.

The attempt, in sacred subjects, to add to their force and impression by fresh poetical imagery, seems, to common sense, a most hazardous experiment. Boileau, a man more remarkable, perhaps, for his good sense, than his imagination, and so more likely to be right on such a subject, says, in his Art of Poetry, chant iii. v. 193, &c.

De la foi d' un chretien les mysteres terribles
D'ornemens egayés ne sont point susceptibles.
L'Evangile à l'esprit n' offre de tous cotés
Que penitence à faire et tourmens merités;
Et de vos fictions le melange coupable
Même à ses verités donne l'air de la fable.
Et quel object enfin à presenter aux yeux
Que le Diable toujours hurlant contre les cieux,
Qui de votre heros veut rabaisser la gloire,
Et souvent avec Dieu balance la victoire!

Ancient and Modern Patrons of the Fancy. The Roman gladiators bear the same difference to the modern boxers, that gamecocks, armed

with steel or only with their natural spurs, may be supposed to convey to a modern virtuoso in this art. Modern fists do not seem to want the aid of the cestus to make them more formidable, and in some instances more fatal, to their adversaries. Nor did the ancients boast of a more genteel set of spectators, ladies and gentlemen, than our modern heroes can boast. The following lines of a Greek epigram may shew that in ancient times, as well as now, a boxer was a very formidable man on any occasion.

A BAD TENANT (from the Greek of Palladus).

I let my house the other day

To one who dealt in corn and hay:

Next morn I found, ah! woe is me,

A dreadful pugilist is he.

When will you pay my rent, quoth I;

He lifts his fist, and cocks his eye.

I then to Pollux* made my vow,

That tho' on peace my thoughts were now,

That I, before next Quarter-day,

Might learn to box, or run away.

Poets.

These sons of Apollo have never been considered as remarkable for "bearing their faculties so meekly." My Lord Bacont seems to found their pretensions to high thoughts of their art, and by

* Pollux, one of the hero-gods or demi-gods of antiquity, and a great patron of the "fancy."-See Spence's Polymetis.

+ Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning.

an easy transition of themselves on the operation of the art itself. "It (poetry) raises the mind by submitting the shews of things to our desires, instead of bowing the mind to the nature of things." And afterwards, the philosopher almost vindicates the pretensions of poets. "In poesy, a more stately greatness of things, a more perfect order, a more beautiful variety delights the soul, than can be found in nature since the Fall."

Our

greatest Bard has poeticised this same sentiment, in strains equal to the subject.

"The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

"Doth glauce from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; "And gives to airy nothing

"A local habitation and a name,"

A Genteel Man.

This is a person, who, in the common acceptation of the term, dresses well, bows well, and speaks softly. He is, before his superiors, more than bumble, and more than civil: amongst his equals, he very much relaxes from his former habits; and though he cannot "stand upright" before a man of quality, he is considered to exhibit a figure rather too perpendicular among his equals, &c. In short, a genteel man is so lavish of his attentions, Lis air, and his graces, to honour the great, that he has no civility left for the rest of his acquaintance.

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Picturesque Views.

How far the pleasure of viewing the finest prospect is animated by the recollection of the glorious fame of its former inhabitants, is beautifully and sublimely set forth by a modern traveller in Italy. Even the gigantic features of America, its interminable forests, and its mountains that touch the skies, its sea-like lakes, and its volcanos that seem to thunder in another world, may excite wonder, but can awaken little interest, and certainly inspire no enthusiasm. But if a Plato or a Pythagoras had visited their recesses, in pursuit of knowledge; if a Homer or a Virgil had peopled them with ideal tribes, with heroes, or with phantoms; then they would excite and acquire a title to the attention of travellers."

Tunc sylvæ, tunc antra loqui, tunc vivere fontes,
Tunc sacer horror aquis, adytisque effunditur Echo
Clarior, et doctæ spirant præsagia rupes.

Claudian, 6 com. Classical Tour through Italy, in 1802, 3d ed. p. 815.

The Lapidary Style.

The ancients, in their composition of epitaphs, used a species of measured prose. The most accurate account of this style of writing is given by Cicero, in the second book of his "Orator." "Omnium sententiarum gravitate, omnium ver

borum ponderibus est utendum. Accedat oportet, oratio varia, vehemens, plena animi, plena spiritûs, plena veritatis.' Sentiments and expressions of weight should be used in these compositions; to which should be added a style various, full of intellect, and spirit, and vigour, and truth. It will occur to the reader, that Dr. Johnson's epitaph in St. Paul's owes some of its best expressions to this quotation from Cicero.

Lawyers.

That ambi-dexterity with which these persons take both sides of a question, with equal readiness, is well described, and justly censured, by the honest and sensible Quintilian. "I will suppose," says he, "what is repugnant to nature, that a man with the worst heart may have the finest tongue, yet I will deny that such a man is an orator; for every man that has a strong arm cannot be called a man of courage, because courage cannot exist without virtue. And has not the man who pleads for the interest of another occasion for an honesty, that no passion can corrupt, no interest can bias or impair? But shall we bestow the name of an orator upon a traitor, a runagate, and shuffler?" Cicero, who was a practical lawyer, and of the "Academic sect," in many places of his "Chaacter of an Orator," approves of this shuffling, &c.

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