had been nothing like it since the era of the reformation. There was an enthusiasm of ardour for the cause of liberty which exalted the mind far above its ordinary level, and gave that sublimity of feeling which those only who entered into it can conceive. In such a temper they spurned at the idea of being dragooned into the renunciation of principles which they believed to be good, and pregnant with happiness to the human race. Hearing the cause of liberty spoken of as evil, and seeing Britain leagued with foreign powers to re-establish despotism in France, they felt themselves impelled to conclude that there was a conspiracy against the liberties of mankind; and that the ministry, by the harsh measures which they pursued, were seeking the destruction of that which was England's glory and its strength.

As the spirit of philanthropy had been imbibed in conjunction with a zeal for liberty, the horrors of the general war in Europe, the rivers of blood which were shed, and the miseries which were extended far and wide through the world, excited unutterable anguish in their breasts, and increased their aversion to the measures which were pursued. Those among the friends of liberty who were Christians, were more deeply affected than the rest with the state of things both at home and abroad, and with the gloomy prospect before them. Their minds took a wider range, and they viewed liberty in its connection with religion, and its influence on the propagation of the Gospel. When, therefore, they looked around, and saw a combination against the cause of liberty, they viewed it with unutterable horror, as a conspiracy against the Lord and his anointed, to spread the triumphs of superstition and priestcraft, to bind the consciences of mankind in adamantine fetters, to prevent the propagation of divine truth, and, in short,-to put the great clock of Europe back five hundred years.p. 200.

They proceed to trace the effects of the French revolution in Great Britain as connected with religious liberty and the cause of dissent.

In this point of view there are two which merit particular notice; they have continued to the present time, they promise to be durable, and they have been attended with benefit.

• One of these effects is the decay, and in many instances the entire removal of the undue influence of titles and office on the mind. Before the French revolution, if a person was decorated with the names and ensigns of nobility, whatever his character and conduct might be, he was looked up to as a being of a superior order. An office of dignity had a similar charm; and however destitute of talents and virtue the man might be who filled it, the splendid robes concealed every defect, and he was supposed to be both wise and upright. Ecclesiastical vestments had a talisman of equal potency wrought into their woof. Though gifts and graces might be sought for under them in vain, the highest honours were given to the wearer because he was a priest.

But the French revolution taught tens of thousands to reason who never reasoned before; and though, in many things, like young begin

ners,

ners, they argued falsely, in others they judged rightly: and one instance of this was in their concluding that unless a man was wise and good, though the order of society required that he should be treated with external respect, he was not entitled to the esteem and veneration of the heart. In consequence of this, stars, garters, and coronets lost considerably of their value. Ermine could no longer conceal from view a defect of talents and virtue, or procure the homage of the soul without them. The clergyman's gown and cassock, the presbyterian minister's Geneva cloak, and the methodist preacher's unpowdered head and lank hair lost more than nine-tenths of their former worth: the episcopal mitre, apron, and lawn sleeves suffered an equal depreciation. But this furnishes no cause for regret; for to seek to procure respect to a defect of excellence, by exterual ornaments, is an imposition on mankind.'-p. 202.

'The other effect of the French revolution on the minds of vast multitudes of the people of England, is the diminution or extinction of bigotry to a sect. In the mass of the population of Europe, the strength of attachment to the established religion of the country was only equalled by the violence of their prejudices against every party which was separated from its communion. Of this spirit, the people of this land could boast almost an equal share with any of their neighbours. The effects of this bigotry were felt by the dissenters and methodists, when they opened a house for worship in a town or village where there had been none before. In many places few comparatively would attend; and of those who did, a part was disposed to excite disturbance and insult the preacher. But the French revolution has performed wonders in this respect. The partialities and prejudices especially of the inferior classes in society have dwindled almost to nothing. It is now a more common idea among them, that it is reasonable every one should judge for himself in matters of religion. Where no prohibition is issued by the nobleman or the squire, they now more readily go to hear a minister of a different denomination from their own; they are sensible of the impropriety of behaving amiss; they hear with greater candour; and if they approve of the preacher and his doctrine, they feel less reluctance to become dissenters or methodists.'-p. 204.

Of all the effects of non-conformity the most baneful is that sort of moral expatriation which it produces. Messrs. Bogue and Bennett deliver it as their opinion that the French revolution has produced good in England, because they think it has lessened the attachment of the people to the civil and religious institutions of their fathers! Their book represents but too well the general temper of those to whom it is addressed; but this is more peculiarly the feeling of the dissenting clergy, and it results from the unfavourable and cheerless circumstances in which they are placed. Had the Dissenters been as liberal as they are opulent, their colleges would have vied with ours; their endowments would have been (comparatively to their numbers) as rich; their education as complete;

their degrees as honourable; the rivalship arising out of such a state of things would have been beneficial to all parties; they would have excited us while they softened themselves. But the spirit of sectarianism is narrow and sullen; it starves its own cause; and the dissenting clergy are now, as they ever have been, soured by their situation, like plants which grow in the shade.

While we make these allowances, and feel this compassion for men thus situated, and thus suffering from the very nature of their situation, it is not in the spirit of ungenerous triumph over them, but in that of humble thankfulness and acknowledgment for the blessings which we ourselves enjoy, that we exclaim-Happy are they who grow up in the institutions of their country, and share like brethren in the feelings of the great body of their countrymen! The village spire is that point amid the landscape to which their eye reverts oftenest and upon which it reposes longest and with most delight. They love the music of the Sabbath bells, and walk in cheerfulness along the church path which their fathers trod before them. They are not soured by the sight of flourishing institutions which they think evil, and therefore wish to overthrow; neither are they tempted to seek in the sullen consolations of spiritual pride a recompense, for the advantages from which their own error excludes them. Their ways are in light and in sunshine, their paths are pleasantness and peace!

ART. VI. Collections from the Greek Anthology, and from the Pastoral, Elegiac, and Dramatic Poets of Greece. By the Rev. R. Bland, and others. 8vo. pp. 525. London, Murray. 1813.

THE greater part of those small poems, which, though often arbitrarily abridged and mutilated by the taste or whim of their editors, have on the whole been transmitted from the hands of Polemo and Meleager to those of Brunck and Jacobs, with tolerable fidelity, seem hitherto to have met with no counterpart in the literature of any country. The word epigram (properly an inscription) has been almost exclusively applied in the Latin, as well as in the living languages, to that species of trifle, generally compressed within the space of a few distichs, the beauty of which consisted in some happy play of words, or conceit of thought. Very different was the epigram of the Greeks without any of the aids by which the greater poets of antiquity embellished their works, with no development of character, no condensation of descriptive images, no agreeable fictions recommended to the imagination by what is at least the most poetical of all the systems of theology, they

have contrived to infuse into their brief compositions a charm at once sober and pleasing. Most of the common-places of poetry may be traced to the anthology, and as the acknowledgment of obligations is rarely punctual, in the world of letters, public estimation has not unfrequently been very disproportioned to the real pretensions of the literary borrower.

Whoever wishes to see the tenderness of real passion expressed forcibly, and in words which, being most natural, come most home to the heart, should seek it among the Greek epigrammatists. They seem to have had the art of the Dervise, who could throw his soul into the body of another man, and at once possess himself of his sentiments, adopt his passions, and assume all the functions and feelings of his situation. We are the more sensible of this excellence, because it has so rarely been our fate to meet with that delicate tenderness which is the highest beauty of amatory poetry. Perhaps Guarini and Metastasio alone, among the moderns, have found this secret path to the heart, and even their appoach is by a rather more dressed and ornamented road, than that adopted by the epigrammatists. We still remember our pleasure at finding, on the first perusal of Pastor Fido, many of those elegant pieces of poetry which had so often delighted us as detached songs; and our gratification was augmented by the associations which the charms of music had connected with them;-of music in the perfection of its best powers, simple, expressive, unaffected. The merit of the similies scattered throughout the scenes of Metastasio, has been justly appreciated, and too much cannot be said in praise of their variety and exactness, or of the fertility of that genius which could furnish endless novelty of ornament to so many dramas so nearly similar in character and situation. At the same time we know not whether the whole range of Italian poetry, so eminently fitted by its polish and softness for the language of love, can furnish anything more beautiful, than the following six words of Theocritus, quoted by the present translators. No passage shews more forcibly the advantage which the Greek language possesses over every other, by its conciseness. Οἱ δε ποθέυντες εν ήματι γηράσκουσιν,

Chi ama, e chi desia, in un giorno s'invecchia,"

as Salvini has accurately, but somewhat diffusely, rendered it. But the chief merit of the Italian writers is, that their embellishments are seldom out of place, their imagery is natural and appropriate; and if this is an excellence, surely the simplicity of the Greek epigrammatists, which rendered them independent of ornamental aids, is a virtue of a much higher order. With the latter the argument is not considered as a mere niche, in which

the

the picture may be conveniently placed, but the image is made an auxiliary, and illustrates the subject; nor need we wonder if the distinct and well arranged thought, the appropriate epithet, and the familiar expression of the Greek epigram, have a more pleasing effect than the florid and melodious delicacy of the Italian canzonet, or the more vivacious trifling of the French madrigal. The virtue of simplicity has never been sufficiently studied by the poets of our own country; and those of the present day, whose pretensions to it are most ostentatious, have given us an imitation which differs as much from the original, as Cowper's languid version from the majesty and spirit of Homer; or the vulgar travesties of the Æneid from the unequalled delicacy of the Mantuan poet.

Conciseness is another pre-eminent beauty of the anthology. The affectation of it which is created by the desire of expressing a common idea with sententious and oracular brevity, is of a very different nature from that nicety of judgment, which prunes away every word that interrupts or encumbers the sentence, yet removes none of the links which formed the original chain of connection in the mind, and suffers every thing to remain distinct, intelligible, and well defined. There is no kind of writing less understood than this: the imitation of Montesquieu has been fatal to many who could not perceive that his genius enabled him to make his way through chaos without being much encumbered or retarded in his progress; or that conciseness can never atone for obscurity, and is only pleasing when it leaves nothing to be misunderstood. It was an aim at conciseness which occasioned so many perplexing inversions of language, and such a want of lucid arrangement in Mr. Campbell's last exquisite poem; and we cannot refrain from once more expressing our regret, that the author should have ever forgotten that his readers were not possessed of the same train of ideas which filled his own mind, and that his conceptions must be distinctly embodied in language, before their character and value could be duly appreciated. Fortunately, however, good sense is of all countries and ages; so that, even in the most tasteless times, it may not be too late to recollect that the homage due to our literary predecessors is paid as properly by avoiding their errors, as by imitating their beauties. Genius is a raw material too precious to be worked up into articles of a slight and perishable nature; and we shall best consult the extension and perpetuity of our own fame, by conforming to acknowledged excellence, and by using the models of antiquity not servilely, but freely, and with discrimination. It must not be overlooked that the conciseness for which we have commended the poets of the anthology, is usually the product of a state which has not yet seen its Augustan age. We are told that the simplicity and purity which the chaste manners of elder