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you are, as you say, rising seventy-five, but I am
rising (perhaps more properly falling) eighty-and
I leave the excuse with you till you arrive at that
age; perhaps you may then be more sensible of its
validity, and see fit to use it for yourself.

"I must agree with you that the gout is bad, and
that the stone is worse. I am happy in not having
them both together; and I join in your prayer, that
you may live till you die without either. But I doubt
the author of the epitaph you sent me is a little mis-
taken, when, speaking of the world, he says, that
'he ne'er car'd a pin

What they said or may say of the mortal within.'

their way home) whether, now they had seen how much more commodiously the white people lived by the help of the arts, they would not choose to remain among us-their answer was, that they were pleased with having had an opportunity of seeing many fine things, but they chose to live in their own country: which country, by the way, consisted of rock only: for the Moravians were obliged to carry earth in their ship from New York, for the purpose of making there a cabbage garden!"-Vol. üi. pp. 550, 551.

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'You are now seventy-eight, and I am eightytwo. You tread fast upon my heels; but, though you have more strength and spirit, you cannot come up with me till I stop, which must now be soon; for I am grown so old as to have buried most of the friends of my youth; and I now often hear Mr. such a one, to distinguish them from their sons, persons, whom I knew when children, called old now men grown, and in business; so that, by liv ing twelve years beyond David's period, I seem to when I ought to have been abed and asleep. Yet have intruded myself into the company of posterity, had I gone at seventy, it would have cut off twelve of the most active years of my life, employed, too, in matters of the greatest importance: but whether I have been doing good or mischief, is for time to discover. I only know that I intended well, and I hope all will end well.

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"It is so natural to wish to be well spoken of, whether alive or dead, that I imagine he could not be quite exempt from that desire; and that at least he wished to be thought a wit, or he would not have given himself the trouble of writing so good an epitaph to leave behind him."-" You see I have some reason to wish that in a future state I may not only be as well as I was, but a little better. And I hope it: for I, too, with your poet, trust in God. And when I observe, that there is great frugality as well as wisdom in his works, since he has been evidently sparing both of labour and materials; for, by the various wonderful inventions of propagation, he has provided for the continual peopling his world with plants and animals, without being at the trouble of repeated new creations: and by the natural reduction of compound substances to Be so good as to present my affectionate retheir original elements, capable of being employed spects to Dr. Rowley. I am under great obligain new compositions, he has prevented the necestions to him, and shall write to him shortly. It sity of creating new matter; for that the earth, does not grow sensibly worse, and that is a great will be a pleasure to him to hear that my malady water, air, and perhaps fire, which being compound-point; for it has always been so tolerable, as not ed, form wood, do, when the wood is dissolved, return, and again become air, earth, fire and water;I say, that when I see nothing annihilated, and not even a drop of water wasted, I cannot suspect the annihilation of souls; or believe that he will suffer the daily waste of millions of minds ready made that now exist, and put himself to the continual trouble of making new ones. Thus finding myself to exist in the world. I believe I shall in some shape or other always exist. And with all the inconveniences human life is liable to, I shall not object to a new edition of mine; hoping, however, that the errata of the last may be corrected."-Voi. iii. pp. 546-548.

to prevent my enjoying the pleasures of society, and, being cheerful in conversation. I owe this in a great measure to his good counsels.”—Vol. iii. PP. 555, 556.

"Your eyes must continue very good, since you are able to write so small a hand without spectacles. I cannot distinguish a letter even of large print; but am happy in the invention of double spectacles, which, serving for distant objects as well as near ones, make my eyes as useful to me as firmities of old age could be as easily and cheaply ever they were. If all the other defects and inremedied, it would be worth while, my friend, to live a good deal longer. But I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitutions as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning. Adieu, and believe me ever, &c."-Vol. iii. pp. 544, 545.

There is something extremely amiable in old age, when thus exhibited without querulousness, discontent, or impatience, and free, at the same time, from any affected or unbecoming levity. We think there must be many more of Dr. Franklin's letters in existence, than have yet been given to the public; and from the tone and tenor of those which we have seen, we are satisfied that they would be read with general avidity and im

Our constitution seems not to be well understood with you. If the congress were a permanent body, there would be more reason in being jealous of giving it powers. But its members are chosen annually, and cannot be chosen more than three years successively, nor more than three years in seven, and any of them may be recalled at any time, whenever their constituents shall be dissatisfied with their conduct. They are of the people, and return again to mix with the people, having no more durable preeminence than the different grains of sand in an hour-glass. Such an assembly cannot easily become dangerous to liberty. They are the servants of the people, sent together to do the people's business, and promote the public welfare; their powers must be sufficient, or their duties cannot be performed. They have no profitable approvement. pointments, but a mere payment of daily wages, such as are scarcely equivalent to their expenses; His account of his own life, down to the so that, having no chance of great places and enor-year 1730, has been in the hands of the pubnous salaries or pensions, as in some countries, lic since 1790. It is written with great simhere is no intriguing or bribing for elections. Iplicity and liveliness, though it contains too wish Old England were as happy in its govern- many trifling details and anecdotes of obscure ment, but I do not see it. Your people, however, individuals. It affords however a striking ink their constitution the best in the world, and example of the irresistible force with which fect to despise ours. It is comfortable to have a Dod opinion of one's self, and of every thing that talents and industry bear upwards in society; elongs to us; to think one's own religion, king, as well as an impressive illustration of the nd wife, the best of all possible wives, kings, and substantial wisdom and good policy of invarialigions. I remember three Greenlanders, who ble integrity and candour. We should think ad travelled two years in Europe, under the care it a very useful reading for all young persons some Moravian missionaries, and had visited ermany, Denmark, Holland, and England: when of unconfirmed principles, who have their asked them at Philadelphia (when they were in fortunes to make or to mend in the world.

Upon the whole, we look upon the life and | cess; and has only been found deficient in writings of Dr. Franklin as affording a striking those studies which the learned have geneillustration of the incalculable value of a rally turned from in disdain. We would not be sound and well directed understanding; and understood to say any thing in disparagement of the comparative uselessness of learning of scholarship and science; but the value and laborious accomplishments. Without the of these instruments is apt to be over-rated slightest pretensions to the character of a by their possessors; and it is a wholesome scholar or a man of science, he has extended mortification, to show them that the work the bounds of human knowledge on a variety may be done without them. We have long of subjects, which scholars and men of sci- known that their employment does not insure ence had previously investigated without suc-its success.

(September, 1816.)

The Works of JONATHAN SWIFT, D. D., Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin. Containing Additional Letters, Tracts, and Poems not hitherto published. With Notes, and a life of the Author, by WALTER SCOTT, Esq. 19 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh: 1815.

ting.' Neither is it time alone that has wrought this obscuration; for the fame of Shakespeare still shines in undecaying brightness; and that of Bacon has been steadily advancing and gathering new honours during the whole period which has witnessed the rise and decline of his less vigorous successors.

By far the most considerable change which | that they are declined considerably from 'the has taken place in the world of letters, in our high meridian of their glory,' and may fairly days, is that by which the wits of Queen be apprehended to be hastening to their setAnne's time have been gradually brought down from the supremacy which they had enjoyed, without competition, for the best part of a century. When we were at our studies, some twenty-five years ago, we can perfectly remember that every young man was set to read Pope, Swift, and Addison, as regularly as Virgil, Cicero, and Horace. All who had any tincture of letters were familiar with their writings and their history; allusions to them abounded in all popular discourses and all ambitious conversation; and they and their contemporaries were universally acknowledged as our great models of excellence, and placed without challenge at the head of our national literature. New books, even when allowed to have merit, were never thought of as fit to be placed in the same class, but were generally read and forgotten, and passed away like the transitory meteors of a lower sky; while they remained in their brightness, and were supposed to shine with a fixed and unalterable glory.

There are but two possible solutions for phenomena of this sort. Our taste has either degenerated-or its old models have been fairly surpassed; and we have ceased to admire the writers of the last century, only because they are too good for us-or because they are not good enough. Now, we confess we are no believers in the absolute and permanent corruption of national taste; on the contrary, we think that it is, of all faculties, that which is most sure to advance and improve with time and experience; and that, with the exception of those great physical or political disasters which have given a check to civilization itself, there has always been a sensible progress in this particular; and that All this, however, we take it, is now pretty the general taste of every successive generawell altered; and in so far as persons of our tion is better than that of its predecessors. antiquity can judge of the training and habits There are little capricious fluctuations, no of the rising generation, those celebrated doubt, and fits of foolish admiration or fasti writers no longer form the manual of our stu- diousness, which cannot be so easily accountdious youth, or enter necessarily into the in-ed for: but the great movements are all prostitution of a liberal education. Their names, indeed, are still familiar to our ears; but their writings no longer solicit our habitual notice, and their subjects begin already to fade from our recollection. Their high privilieges and proud distinctions, at any rate, have evidently passed into other hands. It is no longer to them that the ambitious look up with envy, of the humble with admiration; nor is it in their pages that the pretenders to wit and eloquence now search for allusions that are sure to captivate, and illustrations that cannot be mistaken. In this decay of their reputation they have few advocates, and no imitators: and from a comparison of many observations, it seems to be clearly ascertained,

gressive: and though the progress consists at one time in withholding toleration from gross faults, and at another in giving their high prerogative to great beauties, this alternation has no tendency to obstruct the general advance; but, on the contrary, is the best and the safest course in which it can be conducted.

We are of opinion, then, that the writers who adorned the beginning of the last century have been eclipsed by those of our own time; and that they have no chance of ever regaining the supremacy in which they have thus been supplanted. There is not, however, in our judgment, any thing very stupendous in this triumph of our contemporaries, and

the greater wonder with us, is, that it was so | beth, it received a copious infusion of classical long delayed, and left for them to achieve. images and ideas: but it was still intrinsically For the truth is, that the writers of the former romantic-serious-and even somewhat lofty age had not a great deal more than their judg- and enthusiastic. Authors were then so few ment and industry to stand on; and were in number, that they were looked upon with always much more remarkable for the few-a sort of veneration, and considered as a kind ness of their faults than the greatness of their of inspired persons; at least they were not beauties. Their laurels were won much more yet so numerous, as to be obliged to abuse by good conduct and discipline, than by en- each other, in order to obtain a share of disterprising boldness or native force;-nor can tinction for themselves;-and they neither it be regarded as any very great merit in those affected a tone of derision in their writings, who had so little of the inspiration of genius, nor wrote in fear of derision from others. to have steered clear of the dangers to which They were filled with their subjects, and dealt that inspiration is liable. Speaking generally with them fearlessly in their own way; and of that generation of authors, it may be said the stamp of originality, force, and freedom, that, as poets, they had no force or greatness is consequently upon almost all their producof fancy-no pathos, and no enthusiasm ;- tions. In the reign of James I., our literature, and, as philosophers, no comprehensiveness, with some few exceptions, touching rather depth, or originality. They are sagacious, no the form than the substance of its merits, apdoubt, neat, clear, and reasonable; but for pears to us to have reached the greatest perthe most part cold, timid, and superficial. fection to which it has yet attained; though They never meddle with the great scenes of it would probably have advanced still farther nature, or the great passions of man; but in the succeeding reign, had not the great nacontent themselves with just and sarcastic tional dissensions which then arose, turned representations of city life, and of the paltry the talent and energy of the people into other passions and meaner vices that are bred in channels-first, to the assertion of their civil that lower element. Their chief care is to rights, and afterwards to the discussion of avoid being ridiculous in the eyes of the their religious interests. The graces of literawitty, and above all to eschew the ridicule ture suffered of course in those fierce contenof excessive sensibility or enthusiasm-to be tions; and a deeper shade of austerity was at once witty and rational themselves, with thrown upon the intellectual character of the as good a grace as possible; but to give their nation. Her genius, however, though less capcountenance to no wisdom, no fancy, and no tivating and adorned than in the happier days morality, which passes the standards current which preceded, was still active, fruitful, and in good company. Their inspiration, accord- commanding; and the period of the civil wars, ingly, is little more than a sprightly sort of besides the mighty minds that guided the good sense; and they have scarcely any in- public councils, and were absorbed in public vention but what is subservient to the pur- cares, produced the giant powers of Taylor, poses of derision and satire. Little gleams and Hobbes, and Barrow-the muse of Milof pleasantry, and sparkles of wit, glitter ton-the learning of Coke-and the ingenuity through their compositions; but no glow of of Cowley. feeling-no blaze of imagination-no flashes The Restoration introduced a French court of genius, ever irradiate their substance. They-under circumstances more favourable for never pass beyond "the visible diurnal the effectual exercise of court influence than sphere," or deal in any thing that can either ever before existed in England: but this of lift us above our vulgar nature, or ennoble its itself would not have been sufficient to acreality. With these accomplishments, they count for the sudden change in our literature may pass well enough for sensible and polite which ensued. It was seconded by causes writers, but scarcely for men of genius; and of far more general operation. The Restorait is certainly far more surprising, that per- tion was undoubtedly a popular act;—and, sons of this description should have maintain- indefensible as the conduct of the army and ed themselves, for near a century, at the head the civil leaders was on that occasion, there of the literature of a country that had pre- can be no question that the severities of Cromviously produced a Shakespeare, a Spenser, a well, and the extravagancies of the sectaries, Bacon, and a Taylor, than that, towards the had made republican professions hateful, and end of that long period, doubts should have religious ardour ridiculous, in the eyes of a arisen as to the legitimacy of the title by great proportion of the people. All the emiwhich they laid claim to that high station. nent writers of the preceding period, however, Both parts of the phenomenon, however, we had inclined to the party that was now overdare say, had causes which better expounders thrown; and their writings had not merely might explain to the satisfaction of all the been accommodated to the character of the world. We see them but imperfectly, and government under which they were produced, have room only for an imperfect sketch of but were deeply imbued with its obnoxious what we see. principles, which were those of their respective authors. When the restraints of authority were taken off, therefore, and it became pro fitable, as well as popular, to discredit the fallen party, it was natural that the leading authors should affect a style of levity and derision, as most opposite to that of their op.

Our first literature consisted of saintly legends, and romances of chivalry,-though Chaucer gave it a more national and popular character, by his original descriptions of external nature, and the familiarity and gaiety of his social humour. In the time of Eliza

ponents, and best calculated for the purposes and to this praise they are justly entitled they had in view. The nation, too, was now This was left for them to do, and they did it for the first time essentially divided in point well. They were invited to it by the circumof character and principle, and a much greater stances of their situation, and do not seem to proportion were capable both of writing in have been possessed of any such bold or vigor. support of their own notions, and of being in- ous spirit, as either to neglect or to outgo the fluenced by what was written. Add to all invitation. Coming into life immediately after this, that there were real and serious defects the consummation of a bloodless revolution, in the style and manner of the former gener- effected much more by the cool sense, than ation; and that the grace, and brevity, and the angry passions of the nation, they seem vivacity of that gayer manner which was now to have felt that they were born in an age of introduced from France, were not only good reason, rather than of feeling or fancy; and and captivating in themselves, but had then that men's minds, though considerably diall the charms of novelty and of contrast; vided and unsettled upon many points, were and it will not be difficult to understand how in a much better temper to relish judicious it came to supplant that which had been es- argument and cutting satire, than the glow tablished of old in the country,--and that so of enthusiastic passion, or the richness of a suddenly, that the same generation, among luxuriant imagination. To those accordingly whom Milton had been formed to the severe they made no pretensions; but, writing with sanctity of wisdom and the noble independ-infinite good sense, and great grace and vi ence of genius, lavished its loudest applauses vacity, and, above all, writing for the first on the obscenity and servility of such writers as Rochester and Wycherly.

This change, however, like all sudden changes, was too fierce and violent to be long maintained at the same pitch; and when the wits and profligates of King Charles had sufficiently insulted the seriousness and virtue of their predecessors, there would probably have been a revulsion towards the accustomed taste of the nation, had not the party of the innovators been reinforced by champions of more temperance and judgment. The result seemed at one time suspended on the will of Dryden-in whose individual person the genius of the English and of the French school of literature may be said to have maintained a protracted struggle. But the evil principle prevailed! Carried by the original bent of his genius, and his familiarity with our older models, to the cultivation of our native style, to which he might have imparted more steadiness and correctness-for in force and in sweetness it was already matchless he was unluckily seduced by the attractions of fashion, and the dazzling of the dear wit and gay rhetoric in which it delighted, to lend his powerful aid to the new corruptions and refinements; and in fact, to prostitute his great gifts to the purposes of party rage or licentious ribaldry.

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 The sobriety of the succeeding reigns al- age of courage or adventure. There never layed this fever of profanity; but no genius was, on the whole, a quieter time than the arose sufficiently powerful to break the spell reigns of the two first Georges, and the greatthat still withheld us from the use of our own er part of that which ensued. There were peculiar gifts and faculties. On the contrary, two little provincial rebellions indeed, and a it was the unfortunate ambition of the next fair proportion of foreign war; but there was generation of authors, to improve and perfect nothing to stir the minds of the people at the new style, rather than to return to the old large, to rouse their passions, or excite their one;-and it cannot be denied that they did imaginations-nothing like the agitations of improve it. They corrected its gross indecen- the Reformation in the sixteenth century. or cy-increased its precision and correctness of the civil wars in the seventeenth. They -made its pleasantry and sarcasm more pol- went on, accordingly, minding their old busiished and elegant-and spread through the ness, and reading their old books, with great whole of its irony, its narration, and its re- patience and stupidity: And certainly there flection, a tone of clear and condensed good never was so remarkable a dearth of original sense, which recommended itself to all who talent-so long an interregnum of native gehad, and all who had not any relish for higher nius-as during about sixty years in the beauties. middle of the last century. The dramatic This is the praise of Queen Anne's wits-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.

which it gave occasion-the genius of Edmund Burke, and some others of his land of genius-the impression of the new literature of Germany, evidently the original of our lake-school of poetry, and many innovations in our drama-the rise or revival of a more evangelical spirit, in the body of the people -and the vast extension of our political and commercial relations, which have not only familiarized all ranks of people with distant countries, and great undertakings, but have brought knowledge and enterprise home, not merely to the imagination, but to the actual experience of almost every individual.—All these, and several other circumstances, have so far improved or excited the character of our nation, as to have created an effectual demand for more profound speculation, and more serious emotion than was dealt in by the writers of the former century, and which, if it has not yet produced a corresponding supply in all branches, has at least had the effect of decrying the commodities that were previously in vogue, as unsuited to the altered condition of the times.

Of those ingenious writers, whose characteristic certainly was not vigour, any more than tenderness or fancy, SWIFT was indis putably the most vigorous-and perhaps the least tender or fanciful. The greater part of his works being occupied with politics and personalities that have long since lost all interest, can now attract but little attention, except as memorials of the manner in which politics and personalities were then conducted. In other parts, however, there is a vein of peculiar humour and strong satire, which will always be agreeable-and a sort of heartiness of abuse and contempt of mankind, In philosophy and prose writing in general, which produces a greater sympathy and anithe case was nearly parallel. The name of mation in the reader than the more elaborate Hume is by far the most considerable which sarcasms that have since come into fashion. occurs in the period to which we have al- Altogether his merits appear to be more unique luded. But, though his thinking was English, and inimitable than those of any of his conhis style is entirely French; and being natu- temporaries; and as his works are connected rally of a cold fancy, there is nothing of that in many parts with historical events which it eloquence or richness about him, which char- must always be of importance to understand, acterizes the writings of Taylor, and Hooker, we conceive that there are none, of which a and Bacon-and continues, with less weight new and careful edition is so likely to be ac of matter, to please in those of Cowley and ceptable to the public, or so worthy to engage Clarendon. Warburton had great powers; the attention of a person qualified for the and wrote with more force and freedom than undertaking. In this respect, the projectors the wits to whom he succeeded-but his of the present publication must be considered faculties were perverted by a paltry love of as eminently fortunate-the celebrated perparadox, and rendered useless to mankind by son who has here condescended to the funcan unlucky choice of subjects, and the arro- tions of an editor, being almost as much gance and dogmatism of his temper. Adam distinguished for the skill and learning re Smith was nearly the first who made deeper quired for that humbler office, as for the reasonings and more exact knowledge popu- creative genius which has given such unexlar among us; and Junius and Johnson the ampled popularity to his original compositions first who again familiarized us with more and uniting to the minute knowledge and glowing and sonorous diction-and made us feel the tameness and poorness of the serious style of Addison and Swift.

This brings us down almost to the present times-in which the revolution in our literature has been accelerated and confirmed by the concurrence of many causes. The agitations of the French revolution, and the discussions as well as the hopes and terrors to

patient research of the Malones and Chalmerses, a vigour of judgment and a vivacity of style to which they had no pretensions. In the exercise of these comparatively humble functions, he has acquitted himself, we think, on the present occasion, with great judgment and ability. The edition, upon the whole, is much better than that of Dryden. It is less loaded with long notes and illustrative quota

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