Nugae literariae: prose and verse

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though you may cali me incredulous and obstinate, do not belloveit. It is an epidemic vertigo, and ali hesds have got Wrongtogetheri Great improbabilities must not alWays obstruct our assentor shake our faith. Such have osten been the odds of batilo. Alarathon, Thermopylae, Granicias, Agincolari, recali to ourminiis contests the most unequat in numbers and in losses. .

What might not the glories of Blenhelm and Ramilies have Warranted England to demand, When froni the hsight of thoso great victorios sile dictaled the peace of Europe Θ Ηard is itfor posterity to belleve that she suspended ali on ilis troaty of Utrecht: one clause of Which Was great, the liberation of tho persecuted Huguenois of France. But is it credibis that an ther clauso fhould be fouiad, securing to Britain a sharo in tho

cin Dominions, an annuat importation of four thousand eighthundred flavos i And somelimes We learn, that where there Wasto the public eye unmiXed atrocity, a redeeming virtve may havo

Thosse improbabilities Will osten require iis to recollect thedissserent position of parties. Ι Will refer to an example, Whichlias long since cea sed to be a question of exciting politics. Threeroyal sepulchres rise belWeen US and that date; and the contending statesmen noW Sleep Si de by fide among the mightydead. In the question of the sirst regency, Who Would not besurprised to find the absolute monarchism, the popular restraint, in the mouilis of those Who Seem eXactly to have changed natures, as Weli as Sides, for that passing turn 8 Certain sopperies, a fantaronnade, of criticism have dono much harm to the cause of historio truth. A gentieman of thisnsighbourhood has done the Worid the amusing kindia ess ofassuring it, that the tWo Worst-trealed personages are Richard tho Third a d Eugene Aram. The fir8t it seems had a son whowas taught the learned languages, and Who, When reduced to be

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os uncies too l Poor Eugene Aram, it is not to bo doni0d, didcommit the murder for Which he was executed; but thon lis laidout the proceeds, as a good botanist should do, in a flowe garden i The Defence may come rather late, but bellor late than neveri The neXt tyrant, according to popular injustice, Whostiali receivs vindication may be Caligula, and as an appropriate

pendent, Ι Would put in a plea for Turpin i Could a mari bo

A too philosophic tone is adopted by some of these authors. It is not disputed, what Tacitus observed, that it is incumbenton the writer to rejudge the actions of men, to the end that thogood and Worthy may meet with the reward due to eminciat Viriue, und that mischievous citigens may be deterred by the condemnation that waiis on ovil deeds, at tho tribunal of posterity. In this consisis the chises part of tho historian, duty. But historios have been composed too much on a theory, UPon a Prejudice,-the course of evenis hys been held bach froni iis natural progress by disquisition, ou were allowed to look at nothing without the troublesome showman baWling into yourears. Coleri ige is suid to have askod Sotithey, hearing that he was engaged on his History of Bragii, Do you write os mannatural us Herodotus, or of man political as Thucydides, or of man technical as Polybius ΘΠ The answer Was smartly happy. Ι mean to Writo tho History of Bragii. 'I know nothing Which Would more tenil to damago the influence, or pervert the investigation, of history, than a blindacquiescenco in Bolingbrohe, Letters on iis Study and iis Use. To his nobio stylo ali Will bear testimony. But his acerbi ty, his vanity, his recklossiiess of remarii, his dis Iain os authority,

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leave him most open to suspicion. Ιf any thing more thanthe rest could disgust the reader, it is his assectation of originality. He triclis VP common-places as per et discoVerieS. Forsooth, he will have no regarii to the methods prescribet

by others. ' And yet is it no very notable novelty, that history is conversant abolit the past, and that by knowing thethings that have been, we become beller able to judge of the

Virtue and vice ure made resulis of eXperience, and are founde lupon no laW. Essentiat differetices bet ween them are exploded.

Μan has nothing at hand, ixed, imperative, to regulate him. Is he can catch his shadow in history, it is weli: is thero bonone, he must shist for himself. This is far vainor, anil more perniciola S, than any doctrine expediency ever broached. It ismost intangibie, most unsusceptibio os application. He it Was,too, Who gave birili to the well-known aphorism : History is

ing by ex ample, We could lime no quarret With the assertion. But it is far mors bald and unqualisled. It is designed to convert history into the only code, and only test of right and wrong. It is froni history We must deduce our philosophy.

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Philosophy will be iis student, that it may be a learner Dom it.

Sho is disciple rather than teacher. And the very materials of history are scarcely fitted for generat instruction. It is not manwho is so much exhibited there, as a particular class of men. It is not modest virtuo whicli there finiis iis stiaded niche, ambition there erecis iis flaunting stage. It is the men os couris and camps, the muster roli os fiercer spirit8, Who engross it. Instruction cannot respect eVenis, but actions. ΗoW generallyare these actions,- the sinuoUS intrigue os ambassadors, thecruel dint of warriors, ut calculated to blunt the morat sense, and sear each generous Deling l It is not a generat school forman. The mass of our race love quiet and caim. Only a fewseeli an element of turbulence. Illius the most convulsingevenis of history leave the many unaffected, as the earlhquake

there re emulate that Whicli, Whether good or evit, historymost commonly and lavishly applauds. Hapless the lesson, undesorved the honour, of such historio instruction, of such historio award l Far happier are they, and only Virtuous, Whoaci ori immediate precepi; far more dignised they, Who troatany history insignificant but the testimony of a good conscience. Our remembrance by POSterity is biit a chance, bravemen lived before Agamemnon,-and there is no certain Verdictin iis applause. Let Our appeat be to Something more authoritativo, let our rule be in something more inflexit,le, let ourroward bo in something more direct, than the caprice of tho historio dicer, or the hagard of the historic die. It is withevenis, and public interesis, that this departinent of letters hasto do, with political causes and combinations of causes,-that province it weli fulsis, but there must be a revolution in morais ere it may be the exponent of morat rute, or the sanctionos morat obligation.

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iis consummation is reserved, Whose hand shali transcribe thosnal scene, and Who shali conclude the eventful, bitter, solemn, though not unrelieved, tale of our earth and of our species, With an epilogue of enduring concord and true glory l

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-- Segnius irritant animos demisSa Per aurem, Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quae Ipse sibi tradit spectator.

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Is arbitrary Characters in Writing be not the abbreviation and disguiso os ruder but more natural signs constituting a Picture-langvage,-is they be a Sudden and perfeci invention, liko the full-armed Μinerva bursting Dom the brain of Jove, is Cadmus could rule osr his Alphabet ut once,-We are, of necessity, carriod bach to a far earlier age in Whicli substances and evenis Woro denoted by graphic resemblances and representations. Such drawings might be more or less skilfully eXecuted, theirusefulness, in the sirst employment made of them, dependedupon the accuracy of the impression they conveyed. As thedaub, When a likeness, is preferred to the masterpiece is a distortion of those me Iove, and Would recali, - so the primitive symbol Was best valued that Was most clearly self-interpretative, and that scribo wroto the best hand which had the least contraction and circumflex to be decyphered. Ιt Was thias, Very Pro-b ly, that transactions were traced on more durabie tableis than sand and waX ; their ouiline Would be attempted in plasterand eum stone. Their religious bulldings Would be regarded asthe fasest depositories of these memorials. The sacred marbies Were thias uncouthly sculptured, and the idea was dotibilessborrowed froni them Whicli expanded and refined itself in many

a Classic composition of architecture and statuary in a future aera,-the Storied column, pediment, and Diege. But in addition to these Symbolf, counters and marks sorthings,-a species of instruction urose commonly denominated

Symbolic Action. This Was accomptished through significant courses of gesture by living individuals ox groups. In suci,

personifications the nationat chronicies Were told, narrative Was

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ON THE TRAGIC GENIUS OF SHAKSPEARE.

dexterous they appear in iis use, and the more susceptibio of iis influence. Behaviour, the extravagance of insipidity in itsol hocame, having this intention, informed With meaning, and cap te of defence. Instances of this kind, the Res Gesta, arenot infrequent in either sacred or secular authors. Ali, in themana gement of it, is advised, sustained, consistent. It is not ax butchering the hords, nor XerXes laining the Waves: nothing is Wanton or idie. It is the excess and exuberance of

salties of scorii and invective against Agamemnon,-ProceedS toanother deed of the fame expressive Atyle. Ηe gwears by his sceptre, Which he patheticatly declares never shali bud more, strippod of iis foliago and iis bark since it abandoned iis Stem on

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ON THE TRAGIC GENIUS OF SHAKSPEARE. J87

appotnted by Jove to be the preservers of the laWs,-and thenflings it, inlaid with goiden Stud8, χρυσεοις κολοιο ι πεπαρμενον, UPonthe ground. Ηe thus formalty asseris that ho brealis froni tho confederacy of the chieti, and WithdraWA Dom ali co operationwith them ; not altogether falling to impress upon the Councit, the loss incurred by the host, and to the cause, in the secessionos that influonce of whicli his sceptre Was the image, the castingdown of whicli marked that his allies had Do more the confidence, and should possesS no more the concert, os Phthia's kingand Peleus' son. Uschylus had offended his countrymen, andespecialty the guardians of religion, by the Deedom of sonis of his compositioiis; for this supposed licen se of impiety he was condemned to death ; When his brother Amyntas liftod up thostianis of a mutilated arin, lost in the batile of Salamis, mado his silent appeat, by this patriotic sacrifice, to the mercy of the

with tho blood of tho chaste Lucretia made Brutus powerfui, and the shambles-knise, plucked hom the bosom of Virginia, could not be waved by her fallier Without the tali of Appius, ascertainly as though it had structi him to the heart. The aWfulceremony by Whicli the Roman heroes devoted thenaseives to the Dii Alanes, in batile, Was most impressive. Livy, in his eighthand tenti, Books, preserves sonae of iis most solemn incidenis. Aluch depended iapon the appearance of the di ess, and the religiolis ritual of the set Limmolation. The heroic victim couered

the VotiVeneSs, the generosity, of the Sacrifice,-the imaginedfavour of the infernal deities, eneralty ratSed the courage of the legions to enthusiasin, and Spread panic among the De. There, ' says the historian, Speaking concerning Decius, hoappeared in the view of both armieS, far more august than human bearing : as is sent froin heaven to appease ali the wrath

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toid his Carthaginians, that he had presented that spectaclethat they might, by discerning their own condition in the fateos those Unhappy captives, more clearly judge What they them-selves 8hould resolve; that, in the combat they had seen, and the prire ossered to the conqueror, there Was displayed a perfectimage of that state into whicli they Were brought by fortune: that they must conquer, or be flain, or sali alive into the power of their enemies.-Artaphernes, brother to Darius, said to the Athenian ambassadors sent by Clisthenes, Send Darius carthand water, and he will accept your alliance, these being the accustomed symbols of homage.-Themistocles is counselled by

the wiso of Admetus to take their child in his hand, and to sit down on the hearth, that rising When the king of the Μollosiansshould enter, he might rise With the child, Mitch Thucydides,

in relating the evenis, describes as the most pathetic fortia ofsupplication. -When the Samians sent to Lacedaemon for succours in distress, their orators spolie a laboured speech. It

common superstition that thus confusion and terror Would over-take the invaders. The nobi e veterans, arrayed in the richestensigiis of their respective conditionS, Ontifices, ConSUIS, generals who had obta ined their triumplis, laced their curulechairs on the Forum, and seated theniselves With the most