tinguish desert, who will consider that no dictionary of a living tongue can ever be perfect, since, while it is hastening to publication, some words are budding, and some falling away; that a whole life cannot be spent upon syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would not be sufficient; that he whose design includes whatever language can express, must often speak of what he does not understand; that a writer will sometimes be hurried by eagerness to the end, and sometimes faint with weariness under a task which Scaliger compares to the labours of the anvil and of the mine; that what is obvious is not always known, and what is known is not always present; that sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise vigilance, slight avocations will seduce attention, and casual eclipses of the mind will darken learning; and that the writer shall often in vain trace his memory at the moment of need for that which yesterday he knew with intuitive readiness, and which will come uncalled into his thoughts to-morrow.

In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much has been performed; and though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to its author, and the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults which it condemns, yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but amid inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow. It may repress the triumphs of malignant criticism to know, that if our language is not fully displayed, I have only failed in an attempt which no human powers have hitherto completed. If the lexicons of ancient tongues, now immutably fixed, and comprised in a few volumes, be yet after the toils of succeeding ages, inadequate and delusive; if the aggregated knowledge and co-operating diligence of the Italian academicians did not secure them from the censure of Beni; if the embodied critics of France, when fifty years had been tried upon their

work, were obliged to change its economy, and give their second edition another form; I may be surely contented without the praise of perfection, which if I could obtain in this gloom of solitude, what would it avail me? I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds. I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.

EDWARD GIBBON.

EDWARD GIBBON, author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was born A.D. 1737, and died 1794.

NICOLO RIENZI'S FALL.

THE Roman hero was fast declining from the meridian of fame and power; and the people who had gazed with astonishment on the ascending meteor, began to mark the irregularity of its course, and the vicissitudes of light and obscurity. More eloquent than judicious, more enterprising than resolute, the faculties of Rienzi were not balanced by cool and commanding reason; he magnified in a tenfold proportion the objects of hope and fear; and prudence, which could not have erected, did not presume to fortify his throne. In the blaze of prosperity his virtues were insensibly tinctured with the adjacent vices: justice with cruelty, liberality with profusion, and the desire of fame with ostentatious vanity.

He might have learned that the ancient tribunes, so strong and sacred in the public opinion, were not distinguished in style, habit, or appearance, from an ordinary plebeian; and that as often as they visited the city on foot, a single viator or beadle attended the exercise of their office. The Gracchi would have smiled or frowned, could they have read the sonorous titles and epithets of their successor, "Nicolas, severe and merciful; "deliverer

of Rome; defender of Italy; friend of mankind, and of liberty, peace, and justice; tribune august." His theatrical pageants had prepared the revolution; but Rienzi abused in luxury and pride the political maxim of speaking to the eye as well as to the understanding of the multitude. From nature he had received the gift of a handsome person, till it was swelled and disfigured by intemperance; and his propensity to laughter was corrected in the magistrate by the affectation of gravity and sternness. He was clothed on public occasions in a party-coloured robe of velvet or satin, lined with fur and embroidered with gold; the rod of justice, which he carried in his hand, was a sceptre of polished steel, crowned with a globe and cross of gold, and inclosing a small fragment of the true and holy wood.

In his civil and religious processions through the city, he rode on a white steed, the symbol of royalty; the great banner of the republic, a sun with a circle of stars, a dove with an olive branch, was displayed over his head; a shower of gold and silver coin was scattered among the populace; fifty guards with halberds encompassed his person; a troop of horse preceded his march; and their cymbals and trumpets were of massy silver. At his coronation, seven crowns of different leaves or metals were successively placed upon his head, to represent the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost; and he still professed to imitate the example of the ancient tribunes.

These extraordinary spectacles might deceive or flatter the people, and their own vanity was flattered in the vanity of their leader. But in his private life he soon deviated from the strict rule of frugality and abstinence; and the plebeians, who were awed by the splendour of the nobles, were provoked by the luxury of their equal. His wife, his son, his uncle, a barber in name and profession, exposed the contrast of vulgar manners and princely expense; and without acquiring the majesty, Rienzi degenerated into the vices of a king.

In the pride of victory he forfeited what yet remained of his civil virtues, without acquiring the fame of military

prowess. A free and vigorous opposition was found in the city; and when the tribune proposed in council to impose a new tax, and to regulate the government of Perugio, thirty-nine members voted against his measures, repelled the injurious charge of treachery and corruption, and urged him to prove, by their forcible exclusion, that if the populace still adhered to his cause, it was already disclaimed by the most respectable citizens. The pope and the sacred college had never been dazzled by his specious professions; they were justly offended by the insolence of his conduct; a cardinal legate was sent to Italy, and after some fruitless treaty, and two personal interviews, he fulminated a bull of excommunication, in which the tribune was degraded from office, and branded with the guilt of rebellion, sacrilege, and heresy.

The surviving barons of Rome were now humbled to a sense of allegiance; their interest and revenge engaged them in the service of the church; but as the fate of Colonna was before their eyes, they abandoned to a private adventurer the peril and the glory of a revolution. John Pepin, Count of Minorbino in the kingdom of Naples, had been condemned for his crimes, or his riches, to perpetual imprisonment; and Petrarch, by soliciting his release, indirectly contributed to the ruin of his friend. At the head of one hundred and fifty soldiers, the Count introduced himself into Rome; barricaded the quarter of the Colonna; and found the enterprise as easy as it had seemed impossible. From the first alarm the bell of the capital incessantly tolled; but instead of repairing to the well-known sound, the people were silent and inactive; and the pusillanimous Rienzi, deploring their ingratitude with sighs and tears, abdicated the government and the palace of the republic.

K

ADAM SMITH.

ADAM SMITH, born A.D. 1723, was for some years Professor of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow, where he wrote his Theory of Moral Sentiments. He published in 1776 his greatest work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, and soon afterwards received the appointment of one of the Commissioners of Customs, in which office he died in 1790.

DIVISION OF LABOUR.

Ir is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions in a well-governed society that universal opulence which extends even to the lowest ranks of the people: every workman has a greater quantity of his own work to dispose of beyond what he himself has occasion for; and every other workman being exactly in the same situation, he is enabled to exchange a great quantity of his own goods for a great quantity, or what comes to the same thing, for the price of a great quantity of theirs. He supplies them with what they have occasion for, and they accommodate him as amply with what he has occasion for, and a general plenty diffuses itself through all the different ranks of society.

Observe the accommodation of the most common artificer in a civilized and thriving country, and you will perceive that the number of people of whose industry a part, though but a small part, has been employed in procuring him this accommodation, exceeds all computation. The woollen coat, for example, which covers the day labourer, as coarse and rough as it may appear, is the product of the joint labour of a multitude of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of wool, the woolcomber or carder, the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser, with others, must all join their different arts in order to complete even this homely production. How many merchants and carriers besides are employed in transporting the materials from some of these workmen to others who