purpose are your sayings; take your heaven, let them have money,-a base, profane, epicurean, hypocritical rout. For my part, let them pretend what they will, counterfeit religion, blear the world's eyes, bombast themselves, and stuff out their greatness with church spoils, shine like so many peacocks, so cold is my charity, so defective in their behalf, that I shall never think better of them, than that they are rotten at core, their bones are full of epicurean hypocrisy and atheistical

Does not this smack of what Cowper called the Diabolical Dictionary. One fancies that when the author broke into so violent an invective, he must have forgotten to sweeten his rooms with juniper, which he says was in great request at Oxford for that purpose. Let me say a word in praise of this admirable book, which could draw Johnson from his bed two hours before he was willing to rise. The quaintness of his style, sometimes rising into strains of wonderful dignity and eloquence,—the fertility of his invention, the extent of his learning, the multitude of his illustrations,-all contribute to render the Anatomy of Melancholy one of the most entertaining books in the language. The independence of his character, I confess, offers an additional attraction to me.

GRECIAN LOVE-POETRY.

APOLLONIUS RHODIUS, ANACREON; BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

He

A DELICIOUS paper might be written on Grecian Love-poetry. Not to speak of the Homeric Remains, the works of Apollonius Rhodius, Theocritus, and above all, the Anthology, would furnish exquisite specimens. The sixth Idyll of Theocritus contains some touches of tenderness equal to anything in the Faithful Shepherdess. The lover showing his mistress where the sweetest hyacinths were to be gathered, and the invitation to his cavern are of this number. Whence comes it that Apollonius is so little read, even by scholars? seems to me the only poet of ancient times who studied the Picturesque, or who (supposing an adequate acquaintance with the language and manners,) would have admired the Fairy Queen. have said nothing of Anacreon, for he is known and admired by all. His joyousness of heart, his festivity of fancy, his grace and richness of expression, glow with an oriental fervour. His garments breathe of myrrh, as if he had been made glad in ivory palaces. He has no unmeaning expletives to swell out a halting line. Every word, like the

I

flowers of an Eastern love-letter, is a symbol of some tender and romantic sentiment. You will meet with much of this picturesque beauty in those "dainty devices," which abounded in the early part of the seventeenth century. Shakspeare, too, who combined the highest strains of the Muse with the humblest, enjoyed this delightful vein. But the most charming passage with which my memory furnishes me, occurs in the Noble Kinsmen, of Beaumont and Fletcher. The lover is indulging in one of those bursts of enthusiasm to which lovers in all ages have been prone.

And fruit and flowers more blessed, that still blossom
As her bright eyes shine on ye! would I were,
For all the fortune of my life hereafter,
Yon little tree, yon blooming Apricot,

How I would spread, and fling my wanton arms
In at her window. I would bring her fruit,

Fit for the gods to feed on.

Youth and pleasure,

Still as she tasted, should be doubled on her.

LITERATURE AS A PROFESSION.

WHAT a fearful insanity, and alas! becoming every day, I fear, more general, is this devotion of the mind to literature as a profession. It is a species of suicide-a throwing oneself upon the

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very spear of Fortune. Burton said of poets, more than two hundred years ago, "that they are like the grasshoppers; sing they must in the Summer, and pine in the Winter." He might have added, that many never know a Summer at all. Poverty and suffering are the parents of adulation. Read Dryden's Dedications, and understand how quickly this pernicious habit becomes natural; how soon the poison is absorbed into the moral circulation: of that depravity, or weakness of mind, which induces a writer to honour vice and "daub iniquity," contempt too unmitigated cannot be expressed—yet who can refrain from pity at the spectacle of Genius bartering its birth-right for a mess of pottage; like the untutored Indian, who exchanges a bar of gold for a cracked looking-glass.*

WORTHIES OF TRINITY.

SIDNEY, AND HIS FRIEND BROOKE; NEWTON, ETC.

SURELY, if the Religio Loci dwell anywhere, it must be within these courts, every spot of which is hallowed by the feet of Piety and Genius. While passing under the gateway, the form of Newton seemed to rise before me, and I turned round to

* See this subject treated at greater length in the Biographia

Literaria.

look at that window where he so often stood, decomposing the rays of morning. There was something inexpressibly delightful in the fancy. Nor was he absent from my mind, whose life has been so happily described, as poetry put into action. I mean Sir Philip Sidney, who, although he was entered of Christ Church, appears, according to the fashion of the age, to have studied also in this College. Never has one individual united so many suffrages in his favour; never have the Graces bound so many garlands on any other grave. Alike honoured and beloved by statesman and by poet; the contemporary of Shakspeare; the patron and friend of Spenser. It was happily said, in allusion to his political sagacity, that he started into manhood without passing through youth. Spenser, in some very touching and affectionate verses, has recorded-the gentle benignity of his countenancethose lineaments of gospel-books-which formed the correct index of his temper. Nature had showered her blessings upon him. His voice was so sweet and agreeable, that by one of his contemporaries he is styled, nectar-tongued Sidney. Can we be surprised at the enthusiastic admiration of his friends? His tutor at Oxford wished it to be written upon his grave that he had been the instructor of Sir Philip Sidney; and Lord Brooke thought his highest claim to future distinction con