they will be able to construct their poetry upon the ancient model, is a different question, and must clearly be answered in the nega tive, unless they should completely change their system of prosody.

De Pauw, who depreciates the character of the Greeks with more vehemence than justice, pronounces it a thing impossible, that any human power should emancipate them from the dominion of ignorance, or raise their character to any thing bearing a resemblance to their ancestors. The same opinion is entertained by a later writer, M. Bartholdi, who has excited the just indignation of the contributors to the Literary Mercury. We have a different account from Mr. Douglas, who informs us, that there is at present scarcely a single village, where some person may not be found, who is able to read and converse in the ancient Greek; and that many citizens of the Fanari employ it with as much facility as the x yaão; that a material alteration has taken place in the vernacular phraseology of late years, and that it is by no means improbable, that before half a century shall have elapsed, the language of ancient Greece may again be heard within the walls of Athens. In conformity with this report, Mr. Leake states, that ' at present there is not a Greek community in a tolerable state of opulence, either in Greece Proper, or in the other parts of Turkey, or in the Austrian dominions, or in Russia, that does not support a school for teaching their children the ancient Greek. The principal Hellenic schools are at Kesaría, in the Crimea, at Constantinople, Smyrna, Chios, Joánnina, and Salonika.' At the college in Búkorest, it appears there were in November, 1810, 244 students and 12 masters, who taught experimental philosophy, mathematics theoretical and practical, geography, poetry, history, and modern languages. The worthy Bishop Ignatius, the great patron of the establishment, seems to take an effectual method of encouraging the efforts of genius, for we are informed that at the opening of the Lyceum at Búkorest, the author of some very indifferent verses in praise of the Emperor Alexander and his mother, was rewarded with a piece of gold for each verse; an instance of good fortune which in ancient times befell another indifferent versiher for praising another Alexander. One singularity in this establishment is, that the masters receive prizes as well as the scholars, At the examination which took place on the 15th July, 1811, the prizes were adjudged as follows: to Constantine Vardalachus, the head master, a valuable gold snuff-box, (xvúσnv xai woλÚTIμov Taμraxipav,) to each of the masters a gold watch, and to the ushers silver watches. To the scholars, oval silver medals, having on one side a figure of Apollo, and on the reverse, in the rim, AuxV Βουκορεστίου, in the middle, 'Αρετῆς ἕνεκα καὶ παιδείας.

It will be hard indeed if all the labour and expense which is

bestowed upon the intellectual amelioration of the Greeks should produce no fruits corresponding to it. That the Romaic language is susceptible of very great improvement, without becoming unintelligible to the common people, has been proved by the test of experiment. The dialect which is now commonly used by men of education in Greece, at least in their writings, is so far purified and refined, that any person competently versed in Hellenic, can travel through many pages of it without meeting with any serious obstacle. We suppose that the newspaper called 'Exavminòg Tray pados is intended for general circulation among the Greeks, and the style of that is very respectably free from barbarians. We doubt, however, whether any sensible alteration has yet taken place in the colloquial phraseology of the middle and lower classes of society; for the Aupina of Athanasius Christopulus, which are extremely popular amongst the Greeks of Constantinople, are written in the most barbarous dialect. Mr. Leake has several judicious observations on this subject, which the length of this article prevents us from transcribing; but we entirely coincide with him in thinking, that the only plan by which the Greeks can hope to better their condition, is that upon which they are now acting, the careful education of their youth. An enlightened and active race of men, animated by the pride of ancestry and a desire of political freedom, and possessing great advantages of local situation, cannot long remain the slaves of an ignorant and slothful government. But till some portion of information is diffused through the mass of the people, and the national character is rendered consistent and respectable by national education, no happy result can be expected from any interposition in their favour. The stream of knowledge must flow through the soil, and fertilize it by slow degrees, before it can produce the fruits which are looked for; and it can hardly be expected that any of us should live to see that interesting time when Greece shall be enabled to resume an independent place in the great family of Europe.

ART. XIII. The Works of the English Poets, from__Chaucer to Cowper; including the Series edited, with Prefaces Biogrophical and Critical, by Dr. Samuel Johnson: and the most approved Translations. The additional Lives by Alexander Chalmers, F. S. A. In 21 vols. Royal Octavo. London: Printed for all the Booksellers.

MR.

R. Chalmers tells us in his preface, that the labour of some years has been exerted in forming this collection. That it would be the labour of some years to carry it through the press is

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apparent, and labour enough it must have been to correct the proof sheets with that laudable attention to prevent mistakes of the u for the n, and the e for the e, which has been bestowed upon them; but what other labour can have been exerted in forming such a collection in such a manner we are unable to discover. It required no great pains to strike out from the contents of Dr. Anderson's collection those authors whom Mr. Chalmers thinks proper to expel from the house of poets; nor to put in those whom the said Mr. Chalmers, by a more benignant act of the same sovereign will, has been pleased to admit to a seat.

Mr. Alexander Chalmers is well known to the public, both as an author and an editor, by many useful and laborious works. The present is his greatest undertaking: how he is qualified for it, and in what manner he has performed it, we shall endeavour to show. In this collection, he professes to give a body of the standard English poets. It cannot, however,' he says, 'be unknown to those who have paid any attention to the subject, that the question of too much or too little in these collections, does not depend on the previous consideration of the merit of the poet, so frequently as on the relative rank which he seems destined to hold among his brethren.'~ Alas, we have hardly begun our voyage, and we are aground upon the shallows! There are but two rules,' he proceeds to say, 'by which a collector can be guided: he must either give the best poets, or the most popular; but the question who are the best, involves all the disputed points in poetical criticism, and popularity is a most uncertain and fluctuating criterion;' he therefore conceived it would be proper to be guided by a mixed rule.' If there be any difficulty here, it is of Mr. Chalmers's own making; with the powers which he tells us were given him by the booksellers, the principle upon which he should have proceeded is perfectly clear. A body of the standard English poets ought to contain those writers who are popu lar; those who have been so; those works which are of importance in the history of English poetry, and those which, displaying great and extraordinary powers of mind, are therefore worthy of preservation, though some unhappy misdirection or obliquity of judgment should have excluded the authors from popularity in their own days, and from fame for ever :-all those from which the accomplished scholar, the lover of poetry, the true antiquary, the philosopher or the poet would derive instruction or delight.

'Another embarrassment,' says this editor,' of late origin indeed, but almost invincible, was occasioned by the extreme rarity and high price of many of the works which it would have been desirable to reprint. Even where, as in the present instance, the spirit of the proprietors would not have suffered the high price to keep back what was necessary, it was sometimes found that private sales

and barters among the tribe of collectors had almost entirely removed the articles in question from the public market.' If this be meant as an excuse for the imperfectness of the collection, we must deny its validity. Mr. Chalmers acknowledges the liberal offers of Mr. Hill, Mr. Park, Sir Egerton Brydges, and Mr. Heber,-all whose stores were open to him: is there a single work which, upon his mixed rule, or our principle, ought to be included in a body of the English poets, that was not to be found in one or other of their collections? Would not each and every one of these gentlemen, distinguished as they all are by their liberality, have afforded him every facility for making the collection as complete as possible? and would they not have permitted transcripts for that purpose to have been made from the rarest and choicest volumes? Most certainly they would. On this head therefore there could have been no difficulty, even if the works, which were necessary to render the collection what it professes to be, had been of the utmost rarity; instead of being, as in general they were, easily to be obtained. But the truth is, that Mr. Chalmers is incompetent to the task which he undertook; he has not the requisite knowledge, and is still more lamentably deficient in the requisite judgment; and not being contented to appear in the character of a mere reprinter, in which capacity he might have deserved well of the public, he has ventured to thrust himself forward as a critic also, and to decide upon what he does not understand.

The collection begins with Chaucer, Mr. Chalmers telling us, that though the names of many English rhymers have been recovered, and many more anonymous writers, or rather translators of romances, flourished between the latter end of Henry the Third's reign and his time, they neither invented nor imported any improvements in the art of versification.' He asserts also, that as many of these metrical romances were to be accompanied by music, they were less calculated for reading than recitation.'-The same thing might be said with equal truth, that is to say, with equal senselessness, of every ballad and song that ever was written. There ought to have been a volume anterior to Chaucer, containing Robert of Gloucester, Robert of Brunne, Piers Ploughman, and the best of the metrical romances. A life of Chaucer is given, succinctly relating all that is known concerning him ; but Critic being, as Fielding interprets it, like homo, a word common to all the human race,' Mr. Chalmers could not complete this sketch without displaying his talent in criticism. Of the catelectic verses, and the other technical remarks of the Editor upon metre, we need say nothing; but the oracular decision with which he concludes is worthy of especial notice. After observing it is not probable that Chaucer can ever be restored to popularity, because his language

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must remain an insurmountable obstacle with that numerous class of readers to whom poets must look for universal reputation,-he says poetry is the art of pleasing; but pleasure, as generally understood, admits of very little that deserves the name of study.' The profundity of the remark and the precision of the definition are alike admirable; and admirably must the critic, who thus defines poetry, be qualified to edite a collection of the English poets, and appreciate their merits, and determine what works and what writers shall or shall not be included. The whole of Chaucer's prose writings are given: now though the Tale of Melibeus and the Per sone's Tale could not have been omitted without making the Canterbury Tales incomplete, the other prose works, which occupy a seventh part of the volume, are surely misplaced. With so little thought has Mr. Chalmers executed his task, that Lydgate's Story of Thebes is printed here with a running heading of Poems imputed to Chaucer.' The glossary is abridged from Tyrwhitt'sabridged indeed! and of the references, one of its most essential parts, for no imaginable reason, unless that the fitness of numbering the lines was overlooked. In some places the reference could not be conveniently expunged, and the neglect of numbering them renders it useless.

The second volume contains Gower, Skelton, Surrey, Wyat, Gascoigne, and Tuberville. Gower is properly now, for the first time, introduced into a collection of the English poets. Hoccleve and Minot should have followed; and if it were thought proper (and assuredly it was so) to include any of Lydgate's poems, here they should have been placed in their chronological order. Hawes ought to have been added, the last of those poets who form the second age of English poetry, and may be called the school of Chaucer:-all indeed are wofully inferior to their great master, but all contributed to the improvement of their native tongue, and therefore were benefactors to their country. Chaucer himself was a star of the first magnitude: no man ever did so much with a language in so rude a state, and only Shakspeare has surpassed him in his intuitive knowledge of buman character, and the universality of his genius. Mr. Chalmers indeed, with that comfortable self-satisfaction which he derives from flourishing in the nineteenth century, when the world has the advantage of being enlightened by lectures on poetry, assures us that Chaucer's popularity is gone by: it may be so with those ladies and gentlemen who conceive poetry to be the art of pleasing,' and believe that nothing which requires thought can possibly give pleasure. Chaucer has not written for critics and readers of this nature: they follow their instinct :-the butterfly does not alight upon the elm or the oak-flowers and shrubs are for the insect's pitch, and the dandelion to him is as sweet as the

VOL. XI. NO. XXII.