have a right to judge of the subject, that too much attainable good is sacrificed, at the English Universities, by adherence to ancient prescriptions. We know not where else in the world so munificent a patronage of learning exists as the endowment of the fellowships at Oxford and Cambridge. It is said that the revenues of the richest fellowships are £800 a year, a salary as high, or higher, than that of the governor or chief justice of Massachusetts. The number of fellowships so rich as this may not be large, but the whole annual amount appropriated in this way to the support of men of learning, at the Universities, is well known to be great; great even with the less frugal English notions of an appointment. And yet the manner in which these livings are attained, and the tenure by which they are held, prevent them, we apprehend, from rendering half the good to the cause of learning, of which under a different administration they might be made productive. Some fellowships indeed are open to all the world, as those of Trinity College, Cambridge; others are limited to certain districts of counties, others to single counties, to single parishes, to single schools. At Oxford, the Magdalen fellowships are said to be the best. Of these, five belong to the diocess of Winchester, seven to the county of Lincoln, four to Oxford, three to Berks, &c. At new college, Oxford, the fellows must be elected from Winchester school; and at King's college, Cambridge, from Eton school. This holds of scholarships, another class of establishments similar in nature, though subordinate in rank, to fellowships, and which should be considered as a part of the system, inasmuch as the fellows, if we are not misinformed, are chosen from among the scholars.

We suppose that when these establishments were originally founded, the literary and clerical profession, for these were then identical, could not support itself; and it was necessary that permanent provision should be made for those, who were to teach and preach, as there is now adays for those who fight. The colleges were founded, to afford such provision for the training and supporting of the clergy. Places of general education, we suppose, they were not; for there was nobody, at the period of the establishment of the more ancient of them, to be educated. It is only an improvement, forced upon them by the progress of society, that other scholars, besides the stipendiaries on the foundations, have been

received at them to be educated. Now that the wealth acquired by the commercial and agricultural classes has built up a middle order of society, unknown in the feudal ages, possessed of the means of pursuing whatever calling inclination may suggest, the original object of the colleges, viz. as indispensable nurseries for literary and clerical men, has become, if not subordinate, at least only collaterally important. There would now be learned men enough and clergymen enough, without so many or so rich fellowships and scholarships; and as England is the only country in the world, where such establishments exist in any considerable degree, so without them England would be able, as well as other countries, to provide for the interests of literature and the church.

There is no doubt but that, in many single cases, the patronage afforded by these establishments is, in the highest degree, seasonable in its application, and happy in its effects. But that the whole system, as existing in all its parts, is valuable in proportion to the costliness of the apparatus, we cannot fully persuade ourselves. A boy makes interest to be put on the foundation at one of the great schools, at Eton, Westminster, Winchester, Merchant-tailors'; or he is put on such a foundation, because he was born in a certain parish, county, or diocess. Once a scholar there, he usually becomes a scholar at some college. He then becomes fellow, and at last succeeds to the first living in the gift of his college, that falls in, which happens on an average at the age of forty or forty-five. The moral effect of this system on the hearts and characters of the aspirants is feelingly and eloquently described, by the ingenious author of Espriella's letters. The literary effect of the whole system is, that from boyhood, the individual secures a provision for life. It may be that he shall all along deserve such provision, and turn it to the account of religion and letters. But in no step of the progress does he enjoy the patronage because he deserves it, but because he had the good fortune to get into the circle, which is moving round, and will bring him his turn in due time. Now we do really think that this must of itself encourage indolence, and bring on an indifference to personal reputation. But the evil goes farther, for so many places in the church, as are thus appended to the fellowships, are so many rewards of exertion and merit removed from the market, so that a less worthy candidate may be promoted, and a more worthy one neglected. Besides New Series, No. 5.

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this patronage in the church thus forestalled, the fellowships themselves present a vast amount of patronage, which might be turned to greater account, by having greater respect to merit in its distribution.

If it be said that the fellows earn their support, by the services they personally render to learning and religion, we are not disposed to deny that they do all that can be expected of men in their place, free from the spur of necessity, not wrought upon by emulation, under the lethargic air which has infested all establishments from the beginning. As instructers at the universities they serve the public; but a portion only of them are wanted in this way; and the circumstance that the fellowship is but a temporary provision, and that as soon as a few years' experience have well qualified an individual as an instructer, he is likely to be called away to a living, makes the fellowships of less use, even in this respect, than might be expected. While at the present day, and in England, learning is really so much honored, and employed, and so well paid, that it cannot be thought that its interests would suffer, were these appropriations for the support of an order of learned men in a state of celibacy (for that is the universal condition of fellowship) thrown into the common stock, to find their way into the hands of the industrious and the deserving.

But it is more than time to turn from these remarks, which we hope are not open to the censure we have ourselves pronounced at the beginning of the article, on impertinent judg ments of foreign institutions which we do not understand. The volume before us contains the lectures delivered by Dr. Copleston, then fellow and now provost or master of Oriel college, in capacity of Professor of Poetry. This professorship was founded by Dr. Birkhead; the professor is elected for a period of five years, and is capable of one re-election. His lectures are delivered but once a term, and in the Latin language. It is sufficient to repeat the list of the predecessors of Dr. Copleston, to show the respectability of the professorship. Their names are Dr. Trap, Thomas Warton, John Whitfield, Bishop Lowth, whose celebrated work on Hebrew poetry was the lectures delivered on this foundation, William Hawkins, Thomas Warton, Dr. Wheeler, Bishop Randolph, Dr. Holmes, and Dr. Hurdis. Of these names, many of them of the first degree of respectability, that of Dr. Lowth alone is enough to confer dignity

on the foundation. To the lectures on Hebrew poetry, is unquestionably to be ascribed the first spring given to the study of the bible, in the enlightened spirit of the modern school of sacred literature. The Latin language, in which they were written, secured them easy access to the German universities and schools, and an edition of them with annotations, and an appendix, was soon published by Michaelis, who stood at that time at the head of the biblical critics of his country; and who, as well as his successors, concedes to Bishop Lowth, the merit of having first penetrated into the spirit of Hebrew antiquity, and set the example of the true mode of studying and enjoying its literary remains.

This affords one of many examples of the utility of a lingua doctorum communis. We suppose there are few scholars, who have had occasion to reflect on the subject, who have not had their doubts whether the disuse of the tongue, once common to scholars, be not upon the whole disadvantageous to the cause of letters. There was certainly something grand in this learned community of language; in this remedy, by no means inconsiderable, of the great catastrophe of Babel, which enabled the scholar, wherever he went, to find his native tongue; and which, so long as it continued to be the depository of science and literature, emancipated him from this slavery of learning a half a dozen languages. Let us consider, too, how much of our modern literature is translation, or the saying over in one language what had been better said in another, and still more that with all our translations a mountain, a river, or an invisible political boundary makes us substantially strangers to the efforts, which the human mind has made and is making, among our fellow men. One great blow to the universality of the Latin as a learned language, was abolishing the practice of lecturing in it, in the German universities. This was first done by Thomasius, a professor at Halle, in the beginning of the last century; and his example has so generally prevailed, that few or no lectures are now delivered in that tongue in Germany. In the Dutch universities, the practice is still kept up, and all the lectures are delivered in Latin, even those on the national Dutch literature. This language too may there oftener than elsewhere, be heard out of the lecture room. We have heard it more pleasantly, we presume, than accurately, said of Ruhnkenius, the last modern scholar, to

whose name the venerable ius is permanently attached, that Latin was the only language, he was able to speak. He was a native of Pomerania, and as such the German was his vernacular tongue. That he had lost in his long residence in Holland, without having had occasion to acquire the Dutch, as the whole business of his calling was discharged in Latin. A little bad French he had picked up for society, but Latin was his mother tongue. We happened to be present in the study of his late lamented successor, the illustrious Wyttenbach, at an interview between natives of America, England, Holland, and Greece, where the conversation was of necessity conducted in Latin, as the only common tongue. The Latin language was perhaps used for the last time, as a vernacular language, by the Hungarian diet. In 1805 it was abolished as the language of this diet, and the native Hungarian substituted. This took place in consequence of the efforts made by the Austrian government from the time of Joseph II. to force the German language upon the Hungarians, with the design of eradicating their own. This of course had the effect of making their own doubly precious in their eyes, and so much has it since been cultivated, that it has quite driven out the German and Latin from the schools and the diet; so that now the Hungarian people enjoy the great privilege of speaking, under the appellation of Magyar, a language wholly unique, associated neither with the Roman, Celtic, Teutonic, or Sclavonian stock, and of course the least likely to be learned, by a foreigner, of any tongue in Europe. Such as it is, they pursue it themselves with singular zeal, and not a national press in Europe is more prolific of original works, as well as translations, than that of Pesth, the Hungarian capital.

It will not be expected of us to go into a minute analysis of the work of Dr. Copleston before us. We shall content ourselves with briefly indicating its character to our readers, and referring them to the lectures themselves. The general subject is poetry, and this surveyed under a fourfold division of topics, viz. imitation, the passions, the imagination, and the judgment:-of which, however, the last is not treated, from the length to which the three first had run. The general strain of criticism is ingenious and sensible; not imbued with the peculiarities of the modern school, but in the most judicious style of that which preceded it. The illustrations are all from the Latin and the Greek poets. Unum, quod in