LUCRETIUS.

TACITUS.

THE writings of Tacitus display the weakness of a falling empire, and the morals of a degenerate age. -The period in which he lived was favourable to the exercise of writing; and under the auspices of Trajan he was not restrained from painting strongly, what he had ardently conceived. His genius was energetick and penetrating. In the -horrours of the years, which preceded the reign of Vespasian, he finds an ample subject for the .workings of his mind, and in his -reflections on the corruption of -manners, and the state of society, - he discovers the most profound knowledge of our nature. Accordingly his writings by the scholars in Europe have been studied as a regular task. They form the subject of deep meditation for all statesmen, who wish to raise their country to glory; to continue it in power, or preserve it from ruin. Time has destroyed that part of the history which depictured the virtues of Titus, Nerva, and Trajan; but as if to show how vile our nature can be, has left almost untouched the lives of Tiberius and his successors, to the accession of Vespasian. The mutilations have however been almost restored through the patronage of princes, the industry and erudition of successive editors and commentators; so that the world is now presented, as by a wild Salvator

Rosa, with a faithful picture of the miseries and crimes of the Roman empire, from the death of Augustus, to the assassination of Vitellius. Perhaps this series of time was as fertile in crimes as the dark ages. Before these, mankind had become inured to misery. No one knew what was liberty, and very few had even heard of it. Of course their situation was not materially worse, during the centuries that followed.. But previously to the commencement of the empire, even in the days of Marius, and Sylla, and Pompey, and Cæsar, there was some reverence for ancient laws and institutions. Freedom was not entirely forgotten, and where real felicity was wanting, there was a false, alluring, mock-sun glory, which attracted, illuminated, and deceived.. The knowledge of this was in the remembrance of the slaves of Tiberius, and fathers had told it to their children, so that both realised the miseries of the times-rendered more excruciating from the recollection of the tales of the victories of Cæsar, and the splendour of Augustus. The causes, which led to the downfal of this mighty empire, are highly worthy of the consideration of every statesman and scholar; and no where can they be studied with more pleasure and profit than in the writings of Tacitus.

BELLA.

THE tragedy of Isabella is rather of the common kind, except as to the plot, which is good. The incidents are of a very interesting nature, and are certainly well arranged. The distress of Isabella is awful, and her madness is pathetick; but in the language there is no flow of verse; in the sentiment there is no burst of mighty mind; in the morals there is something faulty. Nor do I like the introduction of such comick beings as the nurse. If Southern introduced these in imitation of Shakespeare, he was grossly mistaken; for why should a poet imitate what at least is doubtful as to merit. The world and the criticks are not perfectly reconciled to the fools, the coxcombs, and the Falstaffs of the serious plays of Shakespeare, and shall Southern attempt to make that critically good, in which the all-powerful spirit of the great magician did not perfectly succeed? The tragedy of Isabella has little of the sentiment of Otway, and nothing of the elegance of Rowe. I have seen Southern somewhere called tragick, but in Isabella I can observe nothing tragical, but the horrid combination of heart-rending incidents, which is to be ascribed to the plot, and not to the play. I have never seen Mrs. Siddons in Isabella; but she has been described to me, as being wonderfully great. Her manner is majestick, and her looks are the most expressive; her tones are sometimes soft, like the south wind blowing over the grove, and sometimes deep, like the bursting of revengeful thunder.

CICERO.

CICERO, in the Catalinarian orations, shows himself not less a Vol. IV. No. 7. 2Y

wonderful collocation of words to give richness and effect to his sentence, is remarkable. He loves a full close on the ear, and I should think, delighted like Gibbon to mark the musical pauses and dying conclusion of elaborate sentences. Yet in these orations he is short, vehement, and abrupt. He was master of every style, from the swelling Asiatick luxuriance, to the pithy conciseness of Tacitus, and used them as suited his particular purpose. If he thunders against Cataline, he is short, quick, attentive to his ideas, and sometimes careless of harmony; but if he praises Pompey in the Manilian, or courts Cæsar in Marcellus, his words are long, and his periods remarkably harmonious. The whole language of compliment and courtesy is open to his delicate powers of selection, and the force of the Roman tongue rolls on the ear of the auditor with such amplitude, dignity, and grace, that no one can deny its charms, or resist its application. We regret to see the encomiums lavished on himself in the third oration. For the services Cicero had rendered his country, he had a right to general congratulation and civick honours, but I could have wished he had been less frequent and diffuse on his own merits. He needed not to have proved the day of conservation more illustrious than that of creation, nor have thought himself more deserving of renown, than Romulus the founder of the city. He affects to disdain all honours, all decorations, signs of greatness, and marks of superiority, as inferior to the merits of his achievements, and as insufficient to reward him for the benefits he had rendered his country.

MILTON.

Milton is one of the English authors, who will probably last as long as the English language, not merely on account of his original, unrivalled excellence in the sublime, but because national pride is interested in his preservation. The Greeks boast of their Homer; the Romans of Virgil; the Italians of Tasso; the Portugese of Camoens; the Spaniards of Ercilla; the French of Voltaire; and the English of Milton. Besides this last, the nation does not pretend to boast of any other epick; for whatever may be the merits of Blackmore, Pye, Ogilvie, Glover, or Southey, neither has produced a national epick. Of course the English from honest, honourable pride, will always justly extol their Milton, as equal to any, and superiour to most of the the heroick poets of ancient or modern times. His delight was to sport in the wide regions of possibility; reality was a scene too narrow for his mind. He sent his faculties out upon discovery, into worlds where imagination only can travel, and delighted to form new modes of existence, and furnish sentiment and action to superiour beings; to trace the counsels of hell, or accompany the choirs of heaven.' Milton's character of Satan exhibits wonderful powers of mind. The English poet paints him as the genius of destruction, but gives him form and substance. He is not a metaphysical, abstract being, as the the French poets would have made him, talking about atheism, &c. He is an arch fiend, the enemy of God and man, walking to and fro the earth, seeking whom he may deyour, whose real existence is acknowledged by all christians, for whom Milton wrote his poem. He

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is the the ancient Lucifer, who, according to the language of the prophets, would have ascended to hea ven, and exalted his throne above the stars of God, who has fallen as the stár of the morning, and whose pride precipitated him to hell. This arch rebel overcome, who bears on his front the marks of thunder, does not repent or change, though changed in outward lustre.' In the last degree of abasement and wretchedness, he retains the memory of his ancient glory, and meditates on new vengeance.Some trait of his celestial nature may yet be perceived in his infernal soul. His pride alone triumphs over his remorse. He rallies- his desponding legions, and infuses in to them his audacity and fury. 'Ancient prophets had foretold that man was to be created to take the rank, which he had formerly held. He conspires to defeat this favourite object of Jehovah; he arrives in the midst of dangers at the confines of the universe; he sees a glimpse of that light which he had abandoned, and whose splendour he had attempted to efface;

His

horror and doubt distract troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir

The hell within him.'

It is then that he exhales so naturally all his despair, in that admirable apostrophe to the full blazing sun, which is, or ought to be, well known to our readers. When Paradise Lost was translated into the French language, the judicious Rollin, Louis, Racine, and Despreaux all admired the wonderful genius of the English poet. Voltaire was not less delighted; until his mad zeal against christianity warped all his literary opinions. Thus the same Voltaire who, writing of epick poets, had said,