birds of different kinds were all equally fearless of man; in fact, they attacked the party who landed, some on the wing, and others running after them and pecking at their legs. The discovery of this coral reef and the low island by which it is surrounded, appears to be the only information of importance, in a nautical point of view, which is contained in Captain Lisiansky's voyage. His description of Canton is neither curious nor correct: it is not to be supposed that a short and casual visit to the only trading port open to Europeans, could afford them much insight into the manners, customs, and character of the Chinese; and it would be a waste of time to add one word on the 'passage from Canton to Cronstadt,' the concluding chapter of his book. ART. III. The Works of Thomas Gray, with the Memoirs of his TH HAT Mr. Gray, who never permitted any of his compositions to appear even to his friends before they were finished with the most elaborate exactness-who did not even trust bimself with a sketch of his projected works, but wrought them line by line to the highest degree of perfection, till even his own industry was fatigued with the task-that a critic so fastidious should have committed to his executors a vast mass of indigested memoranda never intended for publication by himself, vel cremanda vel in publicum emittenda, more especially when his will was written in a state of perfect recollection, must be regarded as one of the anomalies of the human mind for which it is vain to seek any solution but in the general inconsistency of our nature. The discretion, however, thus permitted, has been twice exercised, once by Mr. Mason, at the distance of four years from the author's death, and a second time by Mr. Mathias, after another interval of nearly forty, during which Mr. Gray's papers had passed by will from Mr. Mason to Mr. Stonhewer, and from him, by the same title, to Pembroke-hall, in Cambridge, his own and Mr. Gray's college. The taste, the zeal, the congenial spirit of Mr. Mason certainly produced, though with some faults, arising principally from want of erudition, one of the most elegant and classical volumes in the English language. Until the publication of that work Mr. Gray was looked up to with distant admiration as a poet : we were there introduced to him in private life, exhibiting among his intimate friends the mighty powers of his understanding, and the inexhaust t b ible stores of his erudition, playful and at ease, yet without any abatement of his dignity. This is the first impression made by his letters, though they were never intended for publication :-though warm, affectionate, natural, and often volatile, there are about them no marks of haste or negligence. Mr. Gray respected himself too much to be seen en déshabille, even by his most intimate friends. In withholding compositions such as those Mr. Mason would have done an injury to the literature of his country, as well as to the memory of his friend; for, besides that they were essential to his plan, that of making Mr. Gray his own biographer, they were models of epistolary composition: they did equal honour to the writer and to the man. Of the qualifications which pointed out Mr. Mathias as the editor of the present 'Extracts, Philological, Poetical, and Critical,' it is impossible to think or speak otherwise than with sincere respect. His spirit is congenial with that of his author; his admiration, though he professes nunquam vidisse Virgilium,' not inferior to that of personal friendship. The want of personal knowledge was also abundantly supplied by his intimacy with Mr. Norton Nichols, the surviving friend of Gray, an elegant and accomplished man, of whom, immediately after his decease, Mr. Mathias communicated to the public a well written and affectionate memoir. These endowments, however, (at least his zeal and judgment,) should, in our conception, have rather led him either to decline the present publication, or, if he were at liberty to conduct it on a different plan. Neither can we pay a very high compliment to the discretion of the college 'by whose desire this publication was undertaken.' Within a college library Mr. Gray's collections were safe from the rapacity of booksellers; they might have been equally safe, if their guardians had so pleased, from the impertinent curiosity of transcribers; but they were not safe from injudicious though disinterested friends. Had not Mr. Gray's testamentary disposition 'estopped' us, we should really have said that such a publication in his life-time would have given him an apoplexy.' A living artist produces two or three statues, equal to the first productions of antiquity; ransacking his unfinished works, a surviving friend discovers many imperfect remains of the same master, a bust perhaps, a limb, a torso, all of which to an intelligent eye bespeak the genius which designed, and the hand which wrought them. These he judges, and judges rightly, are not to be suppressed. After a long interval, idle curiosity and superstitious veneration take place of manly taste and science, the dust and sweepings of his yard are rummaged, the chippings and chizzlings are carefully selected, and by the help of external evidence, (for internal they are supposed to have none,) together with a certain portion of skill in the trade of arrangement and disposition, these fragments may in due time be exhibited as the remains of Nolekens and Flaxman. But we have other inducements for regarding the second volume with unfeigned regret. In this mass of abstracts and extracts, and unfinished memoranda, we behold that fatal gulf of pertinacious industry in which the fire and genius of Gray were swallowed up. Here we see what it was that robbed the world of a finished Agrippina-what cut short the 'principia cogitandi,' nay, perhaps extinguished in its first conception some great epic work which would have placed the author on the level which he was entitled to ascend-that of Spencer or Tasso. This unhappy (may we be pardoned by the friends of Mr. Gray if we call it this selfish propensity?) was long since regretted by Gibbon. Our regret, however, would have been abated, had the powers of Gray, when diverted into channels so unworthy of them, made any original discoveries, physiological or critical; had these remains, in short, disclosed any results which ordinary diligence and the application of common understandings might not have produced. On the contrary, this volume exhibits abundant and melancholy evidence, that when Mr. Gray condescended to do what any other scholar might have done, he did it little better. Thus employed, his greater faculties were evidently in 'abeyance.'Were the frailties of Gray to be drawn from their dread abode' in order to expose such passages as this, with which two hundred and forty pages of common-place on the works of Plato begin? 'SOCRATES. All which Socrates possessed was not worth three minæ, in which he reckons a house he had in the city. Critobulus often prevailed upon him to accompany him to the comedy. Xantippe his wife, the most ill-tempered of women' (we have heard this whispered before,) he made use of her to exercise his philosophy. He amused himself by dancing, when he was fifty years old: his face remarkably ugly and resembling that of Sileni or satyrs, with large prominent eyes, a short flat nose turned up, wide nostrils, great mouth, &c.-nicknamed & povisns. He rarely went out of the walks of Athens, was never out of Attica, but when he served in time of war, and once to the Isthmian Games. He was seventy years old when he died: he left three sons, the eldest a youth, the two youngest children.—Intrepid and cheerful behaviour at his trial and death.-Compared to a torpedo.-Seldom used to bathe, and commonly went barefooted.-He could bear great quantities of wine without being overpowered by it, but did not choose to drink voluntarily.' Now we seriously call upon the college which in its zeal for the memory of Mr. Gray has prompted and patronized the present edition, to say whether this strain, which is continued through nearly one moiety of a bulky quarto, is not precisely such as one of their undergraduates would have employed in abridging some portion of Grecian history for an examination. Let us however not be mistaken-abridgments like these are -useful to the most accomplished scholars, and it is idle to expect that the most cautious and accurate will bestow upon such loose and extemporaneous memoranda either force of thought or neatness of expression. Mere hints and first thoughts therefore are no objects of criticism, unless where, in contempt of literary prudence and decorum they are made to challenge it-that is by being published. Mr. Gray's consummate knowledge of natural history, and more especially of zoology, has been known to the world, ever since Mr. Mason gave the following character of it. 'In this class of animals, (the mammalia) Mr. Gray has concentrated what the old writers and the diffuse (he might have added eloquent) Buffon have said upon the subject. He has universally adopted the concise language of Linnæus, and has given it an elegance of which the Swede had no idea, but there is little of his own in this class, and it served him only as a common place, but it is such a common-place that few men but Mr. Gray could form.' To the last proposition we cheerfully assent, and are sincerely thankful to the editor for the specimen with which he has favoured us. Still, however, we feel for the honour of that great genius to whom Mr. Gray himself looked up with reverence. He invented not only the classification and arrangement of the science, but a new language in which to describe it—a language so compact and vigorous, so concise and accurate, so full and picturesque, that in reading his descriptions the mind is elevated to a state above minute and verbal criticism. Neither are we quite disposed to acquiesce in the editor's panegyric on his friend as a descriptive zoologist, when he tells us that he has described the properties and characters of various animals with the various and united powers of a poet, a naturalist, and a finished scholar.' The truth is, that Mr. Gray applied himself to this study after a long intermission in the practice of writing Latin, the faculty of which in prose as well as verse, he certainly carried to an high degree of excellence in early life. But to elucidate this affirmation of the editor, the following passage is immediately adduced in order to silence all contradiction, and to remove all doubt on the subject. We must premise, however, that the elephant, like certain whole-reasoning animals, is said to be fond of wine and ardent spirits. This idea, difficult no doubt to be conveyed in the language of a people who were unacquainted with distillation, and therefore with spirits in the modern sense, is thus expressed: - ELEPHAS. In Africa occidentale frequens, sed minor: naturâ gre. garius; nec ferox nisi lacessitus: annos vivit circiter 200. Secreti in sylvis coeunt: captivi non generant; optime natat elephas proboscide erectâ.-Vinum amat spiritusque ardentes :'— an Anglicism which, however tolerable it might have been in an Edinburgh thesis, ought not to have been found in a passage for which the praise of eloquence was expressly challenged. The editor speaks, and not without some reason, of the German Latinity of Linnæus. Let a critic, however, in the language, compare the two following characters of the domestic cat, and say whether the master or the pupil excels in point of style: in vigour and spirit, as well as originality, the advantage is clearly with the former. LINNEUS. Habitat in Europa australis sylvis-moribus congenerum. Tranquilla ore molat, caudam erigit, excitata agilissime scandit: irata fremit odore ambrosiaco: oculi noctu lucent. Pupillâ interdiu perpendiculari, oblongâ noctu tereti, ampliata: unguibus complicatis incedit : parcè bibit-sturcus sepelit, clamando rixandoque miserè amat : in prædam intenta caudam movet: murum leo: pacata in comessantibus, carnes piscesque edit: calida, salsa vegetabilia respuit; os, instante tempestate, manu lavat: dorsum in tenebris electrisat: in altum acta decidit in pedes. Delectatur maro, nepete, valeriano.' GRAY. FELIS. CATUS. Domesticus parum docilis, subdolus, adulatorius : Domino dorsum, latera, caput affricare amat. Junior mire lusibus deditus & jocis: adultus tranquillior.-Bis quotannis fæmina (vere scilicet & autumno) & aliquando sæpius, marem ejulando appellat, mordet, & ad venerem quasi compellat: dies 55 uterum gerit: pullos circiter 6 parit, quos mas sæpe devorat, aliquando & ipsa mater. Mammæ 8.-Penis brevis, glande conicâ retrorsum aculeatâ.-Dentes 30 potius ad lacerandum quam ad rodendum aut masticandum parati.-Colore variat: totus niger: totus albus; cinereus maculis facsiisque nigris; rufus macus lis magis saturate rufis: bicolor albo-niger: tricolor albo, nigro, rufoque varius, &c. tres autem aliæ principales varietates.' 'Principales,' in the sense of the English adjective, principal, may be defended by the authority of the elder Pliny, as one naturalist may be permitted to borrow his phraseology from another, but ardentes spiritus can admit of no such excuse, for if the necessity of the case should justify the use of spirits,' in the sense of distilled liquors, ardentes spiritus must properly be understood of spirits in a blaze. Of the selections however contained in this ponderous volume, though they may seem, on the whole, to have been appended to the former in order to bring nearer to the earth him whom we had hitherto beheld foremost and leaning from his golden cloud,' we are far from speaking with indiscriminate censure. Some juvenile |