he endeavours to ridicule. In the first quotation, "silver" is the epithet used by the poet, which, however it may be brought into the operations of art, is certainly "drawn from nature;" and being applied to an appearance of nature, cannot be adduced as an instance of the fallacy of Johnson's rule. With respect to the second instance quoted, although we profess to be ardent "admirers of poetry," we are nevertheless perfectly insensible to "the beauty" of those two lines. The "pillard firmament" really appears to us, to be neither more nor less than downright nonsense, and "base" which simply means foundation, is neither epithet nor metaphor. Our philosophical critick proceeds

thus:

"Johnson's objection to the epithet 'many twinkling,' is equally unfounded. He opines and pronounces, 'we may say many-spotted, but scarcely many-spotting." "The application of 'many' to a present, is surely as defensible, as its application to a past participle, and has this advantage of presenting the idea, with greater vivacity.

"If a surface exhibiting a number of spots, may on that account be properly described as many-spotted; the substance by which it is stained (or as the doctor would probably express himself, maculated,) may surely with equal propriety, be described, as many-spotting:

"If we admit the correctness of this stricture; how comes it, that two lines in Dryden's Ode to St. Cecilia (in which four epithets of this sort occur) have hitherto escaped animadversion?

'Never ending still beginning,

Fighting still and still destroying!"

What, in the name of common sense, have these two lines to do with Johnson's remarks upon many-twinkling' and 'many-spotted? We cannot find a single epithet of this sort, in them; though the critick tells us, there are "four." Surely we may very justly retort upon him, his own quotation from Sterne; for never was there any cant more contemptible, than "the cant of [such] criticism." The sneer at Johnson's language comes with peculiar propriety, from a writer who seems to have ransacked the Dictionaries of every language, for the purpose of collecting all their bombast: which he pours upon the reader in one continued torrent of unintelligible rhapsodies. If the criticisms of Johnson are "blasphemous babbling," and "libellous and malignant cavilling," and "envious cavilling," where shall we find appropriate

"epithets" to bestow upon "such criticism" as this philosopher "opines and pronounces"? But "S. Johnson, will be met again at Phillippi;” in the mean time, let us return, for a moment or two, to the Essay; where we shall find Metaphor "running, as if all Hell were at his heels-jumping the fences like thunder and lightning-and tearing his clothes, as if Heaven and Earth were coming together." After deploring the neglect of "history and biography," and suggesting a remedy for the incurable malady of novel-reading, the author goes on:

"Meanwhile, the narrow and numerous compartments, the slender and narrow shelves of circulating libraries; compartments, into which no mechanical force could compress, no pneumatic skill could condense, the contents of a folio! shelves, which the weight of a solid quarto would shiver into fragments! these shelves and compartments, like the tiny cells of kindred insects, are industriously replenished by a hive of busy, buzzing, ephemeral scribblers, with luscious love-tales, mellifluous sentiment, and the wax-work of auda. cious and mendacious fiction."

The following is another sort of figure, in which the author equally excels. He is speaking, and by the way, in very patriotick strains, of the high destinies of this vast country over which says he, the people "may disperse for a millenium, the successively multiplying millions of their descendants."

"In a situation so auspicious, with prospects so fair; how profound should be the wisdom! how consummate the prudence! how magnanimous the spirit! how pure and elevated the ethics! how generous, how expanded, how aspiring the souls, of so favoured a people!

"How sage, experienced and patriotic, should be the legislators! how awful and incorruptible, the judges! how efficient, how watchful, how venerable the magistrates! how sage, how energetic, how high minded, the instructors of youth! how intelligent, how impartial, how intrepid, the conductors of the press! how diffusive, how rapid, how various, how incessant, the circulation of knowledge! in a political community, commencing its career at an ara, subsequent to the invention and use of the PRESS, the MAGNET and GUN-POWDER, and in a NEW WORLD: a community, 'rising into destinies be yond the reach of mortal eye,' because into destinies, that have no prototype in the records of history: no parallel in the situation or condition, of any other co-existent nation!"

We come now to the "Additional Notes," and here we find the Philippi, at which "S. Johnson is met again." And how is he met, think you, Reader? With garbled extracts from his Lexicographical definitions, from his Lives of the Poets, and from his Preface to Shakspeare; all which are jumbled together, so as

to form a mass of incongruous nonsense. Is this criticism? Or, is it wit? Or, is it "vituperative satire"? Can this philosophical critick, as he calls himself, really believe, that the ebullitions of his amor patria will be received, as the judgments of unbiassed criticism? Let him be assured, that he can acquire no fame, by suffering his resentment against the reviler of Scotland, to blind him to the unequaled merits of the restorer of the English language.

The author has also made a furious attack, in these "additional notes," upon the author of the Letters under the title of the "British Spy;" because, forsooth, he had "the Gothic audacity to tell the publick," that he did not think so much of "Cicero the orator," after he had "arrived at mature years," as he had been taught to think of him "at school"!

If it really be "blasphemy" in "any bearded man, liberally educated; born towards the close of the eighteenth century; a citizen of the only republic existing in the world," to refuse to believe in the divine perfections of Cicero; we also, must be called blasphemers. For, though we are neither "at the "lisping' stage of human existence," nor in our "second childhood;" we do not hesitate to say, and to publish what we say, that, of all men among the ancients, we think Cicero, as a man, the most contemptible-that there is but one of his orations, which is even equal to many of the speeches of Mr. Burke, or Mr. Sheridanthat his work "De Natura Deorum" is almost wholly borrowed from the Philosophers of Greece-and that his Epistles evince nothing but vanity, egotism, weakness, meanness, and fickleness of temper and disposition. "It is (says the author) as if the "Spy" had attempted to exalt female excellence by questioning the chastity of Lucretia." Here again, we are willing to be called blasphemers; for we have no faith in the chastity of that noble Roman Lady. At least it is plain, that she valued her fame, more than she did her chastity, as she might have preserved the latter, at the expense of the former, by disregarding the ingenious trick of Tarquin, to prevent her stabbing herself, before he had accomplished his purpose.

Of the "Supplementary Narrative" we shall say but little. To the personal friends of the author, who can sympathise in all his feelings, it will, doubtless, prove highly interesting; others

will find much entertainment in some of the anecdotes; and others again will be disgusted with the Ciceronean vanity, which characterises every page of it.

We shall detain our readers only a few moments more, while we speak of the style of this author. In doing this, we must acknowledge our obligations to him, for having saved us the trouble of pointing out many faults, by confessing and enumerating them, himself. There are many others, however, which he is either unwilling to confess, or of which he is ignorant. It is true, he expresses a general contempt for "the sickly and hypochondriacal Valetudinarian," who can be so "fastidious" and "squeanish" as to pay attention to the beauties and blemishes of style;" but even this contempt proceeds from an errour of the judgment, which it is our duty to expose. He chooses to consider that "style, in its most enlarged acceptation, (with all its properties, adjuncts and embellishments,) is the atmosphere, not the light; the channel, not the stream of Knowledge." He has not dipped deep enough into philosophy, it seems, to know that we could receive no light from the sun, but for our atmosphere; and that the channel is the most important part of every stream. Of what avail, would be the most important truth that could be re vealed, if it were hid under terms that could not be interpreted, by the common rules of construction? It would be a candle under a bushel, or the sun in eclipse.

The author has himself detected and confessed the following "defects and blemishes:" viz. "tautology, pleonasm, verbosity;" "negligent or singular punctuation; looseness, infelicity, superfluity and inaccuracy of expression, and above all, the profusion of tropes, founded in fanciful resemblance, or faint analogy." To these may be added an overweening fondness for harsh compounds, such as unaccustomedness, unpreparedness, inappropriateness, fact-inverting, consienceless, pride-prized, and a thousand others of the same description: the frequent repetition, and opposite application of particular phrases and figures, such as, "Limbo of unreal and immoral fiction," "Limbo of incredible chimera, and contemptible folly," "Limbo of vanity," "Ink-fry of venality"-"In this quarter of the universe," by which sometimes is meant this world, sometimes this particular country, and sometimes nothing at all-"Junius will be met again at Philippi!”

"Johnson will be met again at Philippi!" "Fashion will be met again at Philippi"-"Our Father who is in Heaven," is quoted not less than a dozen times-and the Magna virum mater, more than twice that number of times-The epicures of elegant wo; the gluttons of fungous fiction"-the rifle of analysis"-"the Congreve rockets of philosophical rhetoric."-The author attempts to defend "the propriety of sentential length, and its indispensable adjunct, parenthetic clauses," and promises hereafter "to explain analytically and in detail, his reasons for entertaining this opinion." Until we see these reasons, however, we must beg leave to differ from the gentleman as to their propriety; and to consider the enormous length of his sentences, and the frequency of his parentheses, as "blemishes" in his style. Perspicuity can never be produced by circumlocution. There is another fault which must not be passed over without notice a fault which we are somewhat astonished to find this writer guilty of, so perfectly sensible, as he appears to be, of its tendency to "impair the vernacular energy of the English language" we mean the "illicit coinage of words, to convey ideas, which may be conveyed, precisely and euphoniously, by words previously sanctioned by good use." We have never before met with so many new words, in any book, as in the one before us. They are so numerous, indeed, that a Glossary would have been no useless addition to the many appendages already attached to the volume. The following list comprises only a small portion of this "illicit coinage:"-Transibility, Auspicate, Illiberalized, Nascent, Recollectedness, Irreality, Esoteric, Impersonate, Insentient, Etherealized, Mendacious, &c. &c.

To conclude: it is our deliberate judgment, and we speak it without fear of the "glistering guardian" with whose vengeance the author threatens all who dare to speak ill of his work, that the "Philosophical Essays, &c." contain less philosophy, less sound sense, less reasoning, and more vanity, and more egotism, than any other volume, of the same number of pages, that ever came from the Press.

K.