demn all the heroic desires of the soul to a like ostracism. By these men life is regarded as a great field to be ploughed and sown, rather than a garden for the nurture of tender plants. They would drive the share over Collins, and bury the Faëry Queen. Thus learning and intellect, like the Genii of the Arabian Lamp, are only invoked to minister to our luxury and extravagance. Those pilgrimages which the memory was wont to make into ancient lands, are degraded into journeys of barter and commerce. And who can wonder, when we think more of the equipment than of the knight; more of the garment than of the heart that beats under it. The leper, Poverty, is driven out of the city. Our Paganism is more senseless than that of old; for they knelt before a serpent and a block of wood, yet never bowed the knee to money. And as we are told that the philosopher's stone will not be found by one who seeks it unworthily; so we may be certain that the fruits of learning will never be gathered by a low and grovelling student. It will be well for us to reflect how few works, "or worthy of praise or memory, but came out of poor cradles." The Latin Inscription, carved by the finger of the infant Selden, still remains on the lintel of his paternal cottage at Salvington, to mark the lowly home of the illustrious scholar. Well might Livy call Poverty the mother of Virtue. It was a toil-worn hand that rocked to sleep the little cares of Latimer and Taylor. T. M. After all, how much more blest than the purple Conqueror is that Innocence which can lay its head upon a stone and dream of angels! The world, alas! is too much with us; we are of our age, not above it! No literary Avenger returns into his century, to purify and cleanse it from its harlotries and corruptions. We go on, pitiable victims of habit! wooing mental debility with an unblushing forehead; the nerves of our literature are relaxed and powerless, our refinement has drivelled into effeminacy. Poetry, which Milton regarded as the final end of all study, the monument to be cast out of the collected treasures of life, has dwindled into a stream "of rolling tautologies." Our intellect seems to have shrunk with our books. BULWER. a If we transport ourselves into the company of those eminent men who adorn our earlier literature, how amazed we are at their various erudition, their inexhaustible eloquence, their rare sagacity, their invincible perseverance. What considerate diligence, what midnight watchings, what expense of Palladian oil*, are displayed in every page of More, of Donne, and of Taylor! Their divining Wands discovered treasures amid forgotten ruins; from every choked up stream of human knowledge their industry recovered something precious. While the Memory, by night and day, was thus heaping the altar of the Beautiful with costly offerings, and the thoughts, ever busy in their sacred work, brought in gold, and ivory, and cedar; how majestically the Intellectual Temple rose in the religious silence of a serene and contented spirit! It is not one of the least evils attending the diffusion of authorship amongst us, that we read to write, not to think. Our ancestors composed books to fortify and ennoble the mind,with us, these are secondary motives; our object is answered, if they sell. How far is this from the true spirit of learning, which ought to place its best reward in the acquirement of wisdom, and the instruction of man. But why should I attempt to illustrate the ends of knowledge, when the words of one of the greatest characters that ever shed a lustre over science are in the remembrance of all? "Men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for * Milton. ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason to the benefit and use of man, as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit, or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down, with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground for strife or contention; or a shop for profit or sale, —and not a rich storehouse, for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of man's estate*." In the same pure and noble strain, Milton spoke, not of the mercenary crew of false pretenders to learning, but the free and ingenuous sort of such as evidently were born to study, and love learning for itself and not for lucre, or any other end, but the service of God and of truth. T. M. The spirit of the age is a great tyrant, and even the proudest authors must be content to follow at its chariot-wheels. Any attempt to divert the current of the popular taste generally ends in the defeat of the adventurer; we must sail with the tide, or not at all. I have heard that on the ap * Bacon. pearance of Mr. Landor's Imaginary Conversations, only three copies found purchasers. The early poems of Milton obtained no attention from his contemporaries; even Cowley's ear seems to have been closed to their music. Collins sank un A literary law known into a premature grave. giver will never be received with open arms; he ought, therefore, to mail himself for the contest. He who cannot resist detraction, is unfit to struggle in the world. Men are ingenious and enthusiastic in degrading; slow and unwilling to praise*. It is only after repeated attempts to throw their opponent without success, that they submit to acknowledge the conqueror. The goal will often be missed by the fleetest runner,—in life, it is not swiftness, but doubling, that wins the race. BULWER. But let not our own age bear all the obloquy. History furnishes us with a striking instance in the learned Cudworth. In that wonderful work, which will carry his name into remotest time, he launched out, said Warburton, into the immensity of the Intellectual System, and at his first essay penetrated the darkest recesses of antiquity, to strip Atheism of all its disguises, and drag the lurking • Sir Egerton Brydges' Anti-Critic, (Seventy-five copies,) p. 63. |