The Philosophy of the Table under Charles Ist. An attempt to regulate and rationalize some of the Pleasures and Enjoyments of Human Russia in the Time of Peter the Great The present State of Russia. 1671. Page 142 The State of Russia under the present Czar. 1716. An account of Russia as it was in 1710. 1758. The present State of Russia-The Journal of a Foreign Minister who resided in Russia, Lives of the most eminent Antiquaries, John Leland, Thomas Hearne, and Anthony à Wood Essays and Characters, Ironical and Instructive-Satire in defence of Law and Lawyers. 1615. Historic Memorials of Ancient Paris. 1640 . 209 Historical Events of the Place de la Grève-Comte de St. Pol-Jean Chastel-Ravaillac- The Scourge of Folly-Satyrical Epigramms-Descant on English Proverbs, &c. 1611. Manuel Palæologus-Leo von Rozmital-Arrival of Sigismund-Objects of Journey- The Turks in the Seventeenth Century 249 Voyage to the Levant- Venice-Hungary-Macedonia-Rhodes and Egypt-Condition of Rise, Progress, and present State of the Northern Governments. 1777. Travels into Poland, Sweden, and Denmark. 1785. Past and Present State of Northern Europe. 1796. Travels through Sweden, Finland and Lapland. 1798-99. Denmark and Sweden, by Boisgelin. 1810. Buch's Norway and Lapland. 1806-7-8. Tour in Germany, Sweden, Russia and Poland. 1813-14. Collections of old French popular Literature Réflexions, Sentences, et Maximes morales, 1678. 302 Tales and quicke Answeres, very mery and pleasant to rede-Mery Tales, Wittie Questions, Travels of Sir Thomas Herbert 332 Some Years' Travels into Africa and Asia the Great-Persia-Industant-Orientall Indies, Waterhous and Fox, on the Utility of Learning in the Church English Almanacks under James I. Seventeen Almanacks and Prognostications, by Bretnor, Dave, Friend, Woodhouse, Neue, Memoirs of Psalmanazar 379 Psalmanazar and Dr. Johnson-History of Formosa, &c. The French Drama at the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century 396 Ancien Theatre Françoise-Collection des Ouvrages Dramatiques les plus remarquables— THE RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW. ART. I. Sir William Davenant, Poet Laureat and Dramatist. The Works of Sir William Davenant, Kt., consisting of those which were formerly printed, and those which he designed for the Press; now published out of the author's originall copies. London Printed by T. N. for Henry Herringman, at the sign of the Blew Anchor in the lower walk of the New Exchange, 1673. Folio. :: THAT unfit men should be placed in ostensible posts, involves prior unfitness in those who have such posts at their disposal. Such errors may at first be charged in extenuation upon human infirmity, and it is true that judgment is fallible, and merit hardly appreciable. But it is as true that wisdom is the fruit of experience, and amendment is the only evidence of wisdom. If an office has been uniformly filled by unfit or incapable holders, then the excuse of error or difficulty of choice has been long outworn. And indeed the plea can be allowed very sparingly at best. Even without a chain of precedent and example, it is easy to decide, aye or no, whether a claimant be fit or unfit. If the judge be free from extrinsic prejudice or influence, he will be at pains for good reasons to justify his choice, and will find them. But a uniform course of bad selection debases the estimate of the qualifications required, till success is weighed in different scales from merit, which latter is left to the barren eminence of its own reward. If distinction be conferred on inferiority, claimants will be all the more abundant and clamorous, since each will be fairly encouraged by the other's success to regard himself as within the purview of the dispensers of promotion. Sterling merit will decline the encounter, since the prize has been so disparaged as to confer profit without praise, distinction without dignity. But for the office we are now particularly alluding to, the Laureatship, it is unfair to assign its degeneracy to individuals. The fault is with the taste of the age, and since poets are her teachers, the fault is with poetry herself. If she have deserted the world, no wonder that devotees have deserted her temples. Who can trace and prove II.-5 1 a succession of true poetic fire, how transmitted, and whither gone in its long intervals of absence? If, while we cannot always have poets, we must have laureats, then at times our laureats will be only titularly poets. Yet even when the choice of a laureat is bad, it might be much better, though the claims of no true poet be neglected. It is true more or less of nearly all stations and trusts, that they might be far better filled than they are. But of what other can it be said, that more than once the occupant has been utterly without fitness, with no skill natural or acquired in the craft wherein he is called to be a master and an example, where even the lowest standard of merit is disregarded, and no substitute provided? And suppose an office, too, presenting no extraordinary temptations, not rich enough to feed both its occupant and a proxy to do the work, with no rank to tempt such as prefer distinction to profit; an office, in short, not too good for a laborious man? Thousands of pounds, called remuneration for public service, may、 be lavished out of favour and affection, but is it expecting too much from official virtue and self-denial, to refuse the temptation of jobbing away £100 a year? Poets laureat did not degenerate because their duties had become irksome to men of genius: the incapable were preferred, and then set to task-work. The poetic afflatus may not have visited Jonson and Dryden punctually every royal birthday, but they had excuses if demanded, which could not be allowed to Cibber or Eusden. Queen Elizabeth and her successors had their share of flattery in verse, but it was spontaneous, or it looked so; at least it was not expected like the clock striking. Indeed the age was poetic and chivalrous, an instructed chivalry, as the twelfth century was of the old Gothic untaught chivalry. The poetic is the second stage in the history of letters, after the invention of printing; the first was the inquisitive theological. Elizabeth, James I, and Charles I, were as well read as their most learned subjects. This was the golden age for learning, when if a man knew aught, he was esteemed before those who knew naught. It was the age of mighty and speedy, yet sure progress towards knowledge, as witness the auspicious birth and early vigour of the Royal Society, originated not by the preaching of Bacon or Newton, but by a passion for science infecting all who had leisure for study. But the Georgian era, that is of the first two Georges, was artificially constrained and unnatural, Men had to unlearn their old traditions in politics and creed, since Toryism was disloyalty, |