once lost, you forfeit what the mines of Golconda are incompetent to repurchase.

There is (if we may be allowed the expression) a humour of incident, attending, sometimes, strange characters, as if Nature conspired with their own whims, to render them more singular and odd. The following is an instance: a man, whose whole character was a tissue of eccentricity. joined a fishing party, left his fishing-line and his pole in the water, and rambled for his amusement. A wild duck, having seen the bait, caught at it, and was taken by the hook. The eccentric gentleman returning, was asked by his companions if he had caught a fish. No, he replied, but I have a wild duck, and exposed the fluttering captive to their view. This was done with a ponderous gravity of countenance, as if the thing was familiar to, or anticipated by him, without a single feature of pleasure or astonishment. It has become now a common thing to ask him this question: Mr. B. when will you fish for wild ducks? He replies drily, the first leisure moment.

One of the most beautiful quotations, and, at the same time,, the most appropriate, we have ever seen, was made by Mr. Burke, from Milton, in one of his parliamentary philippics against the French constitution of 1788. The reader will bear in memory, that the power of the monarch was at that time so restricted as to make the duties attached to it invidious. Louis was the mere shadow of a monarch.

The other shape,

If shape it might be called, that shadow seemed,
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;
For each seemed either; black it stood as Night,
Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as hell,

And shook a deadly dart; what seemed his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.

As an evidence how well Edmund Burke understood the import of words, the following may be cited. Factious members of a community are often associated for no other purpose than to

pull down the predominant party, and when that object is once attained, they divide and separate again. Burke, enforcing the necessity of a more intimate union among good men, thus expresses himself: When bad men combine, good men must unite.

It is an article of literary curiosity worthy preservation, that Dr. Goldsmith's Retaliation was written directly after Garrick's sarcasm at the club, which ended with this line,

He wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll:

The company dined with sir Joshua Reynolds the succeeding day, when the Dr. produced what the English ministry would denominate his retaliatory measure, whence it found its way direct into the public newspapers.

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The following favourable, flattering, yet highly discriminating and beautiful critique upon Mitford's History of Greece, is so perfectly just, that we copy it with alacrity from a late number of the Edinburgh Review, not without hope some bookseller will reprint the invaluable work in question, which is decidedly the best history of the Grecian commonwealth, considered with respect, not only to the whole series of ancient events which it comprizes, but also to any very prominent portion of that series. Mr. Mitford's history is the best that has appeared since the days of Xenophon. By calling it the best, we mean, that it is the strongest in that quality, which is the cardinal virtue, or rather the four cardinal virtues in one, of historic composition-trustworthiness. Such praise, it will instantly occur to the reader, is seldom bestowed, where it is best due, without a credit account of censure being opened at the same time. The work before us is one which will bear to be commended with discrimination; and its excellencies, if faithfully displayed, may sustain such a contrast of shadow as would perfectly extinguish the farthing brightness of those novels founded on fact; commonly called histories.

The present volume continues the history of Greece, in which is included that of Sicily to the battle of Charonea; and might not unfairly be termed the acts of Dionysius of Syracuse,

and of Philip of Macedon. The originalness of its contents the reader will appreciate, when he is told, that the two characters just mentioned, proverbial as they have been in all ages, the one for atrocious oppression, the other for unprincipled ambition, are here classed among the most exalted and unexceptionable of those, whose commanding virtues have exposed them to the martyrdom of misrepresentation. The indisputable qualifications of Mr. Mitford, for patient, and, at the same time, for bold research, entitle his representations on these subjects to be fairly examined; while the strangeness and novelty of those representations must expose them to somewhat more than suspicion, till they shall have been established by proof.

In the judgment of reason, the matter of a book is perhaps before its manner; but this judgment has been reversed by the consent of all ages; "neither gods, nor men, nor columns" allowing that what is not well written has any title to be well read, or indeed to be read at all. Of the history before us, no critic will deny that its general cast bespeaks the ability of the writer; that he correctly holds the medium between the heavy philosopher and the mere gazetteer, between looking back and going on; that his arrangement is always properly, sometimes delicately, exact; that his episodes have all the character of being appendages, and yet not excrescences; visitors, and yet not foreigners; that, though always copious, he never loses himself in his own copiousness; that, in short, the impression conveyed by his narrative, is a strong sense of its clearness, fulness, comprehensiveness, and variety. Yet the world is never satisfied with any gifts or endowments that are accompanied by affectation; and of this quality Mr. Mitford is charged with having two sorts. He writes in an affected style, and he is eaten up with the affectation of spelling better than any of his neighbours.

These faults, however, belong exclusively to the exterior of this work; and, with so much of solid context before us, it would be wrong to detain the reader on a mere measurement of its superficial extent, or an examination of its colour. In proceeding, before we address ourselves to grapple with any part of Mr. Mitford's matter, we shall offer one word on the sort of authority to which he has resorted for it.

In this particular, we ascribe to our author uncommon merit. We do not allude merely to his management of those materials of intelligence which he has collected; to his skill in winding out a train of events, though obscurely, and uncertainly; or to his dexterity in systematizing loose hints, caught from a variety of quarters. All this he has in a considerable degree; but we mean rather to commend the judgment which he has discovered in his steady pursuit, and, on all occasions, resolute preference of cotemporary authorities. This is one great distinction between this author and his predecessors; and it is one on which he is justly entitled to value himself.

There is this general distinction between cotemporary history and all other history-that the former is a witness, the latter is a judge. The opinions of a cotemporary author, on the events which he records, are only then authority, when the impression made on a bystander, happens to be a material part of the case; nor is this any exception to the maxim, that his business is to testify, not to lecture.

On facts, however, he is paramount evidence; and that, not only in the age immediately succeeding him, but also, which is generally forgotten, to the latest times. The modern historian, who consults original authorities through the medium of some later predecessor, descends from the character of a judge to that of a faithful reporter of decisions.

These observations apply directly to Grecian history. Of the state of Grecian politics in the time of Philip of Macedon, we know, or may know, much from the writings of cotemporary authors. The writers, on the other hand, who, towards the decline of the Roman power, compiled histories of Greece, were not only fár separated from the period in question, but were also deeply tinged with that sophistical spirit, that mania of sacrificing accuracy to hypothesis, which was the pest of the later literature of antiquity. Yet modern authors have implicitly trusted these guides. So far from recollecting that just division of employment, which assigns the province of testimony to the cotemporary historian, and that of judgment to those who come after, they have most preposterously inverted this order. They have borrowed their text from Justin, their commentary from Demos

thenes; and have justified the prejudiced declamation of the demagogue, by an appeal to the libellous anecdotes of the fabulist.

Were we called to name the circumstance, which of all others distinguishes Mr. M's history, we should mention the light which it throws on the state of parties in Greece.

On the whole, we think it our duty to testify, that the story of the Grecian republics has been more justly told by Mr. Mitford, than by any preceding author; and that those who differ from him in his political conclusions, must still acknowledge their obligations to the clearness and fulness of his narrative.

EPIGRAMS.

On a Dutch vessel refusing to take up major Money, who, after ascending in a balloon from Norwich, fell into the sea.

Beneath the sun nothing, no nothing, that's new;
Though Solomon said it, the maxim's not true;
A Dutchman, for instance, was heretofore known
On lucre intent, and on lucre alone;

Mynheer is grown honest-retreats from his prey,
Won't pick up e'en Money, though dropt in his way.

I gave fair Nan a blushing rose,

And told her, beauty, like the flower,

Its transitory empire owes

To youth's short-lived but smiling hour.

I told her that delays were wrong,

Oh name the happy morn, I cried;

She felt the moral of my song,

And was, next morn, my rival's bride.

I'll follow thy fortune, a termagant cries,
Whose extravagance caused all the evil,

That were some consolation, the husband replies,

In a Dublin magazine, we recollect to have once read an essay, in which the writer attempted to prove that his nation were