Burgess, (afterwards Bishop of Salisbury,) and others, through whom he had been enabled to examine the Codex Townleianus, the Exemplar Bentleii, &c. case of Dr. Parr, it was compared by Mathias. For real use we infinitely prefer the neat but naked editions of Immanuel Bekker, whose services to classical literature cannot be too highly estimated. But Heyne did a good work in his day; and his Iliad was a suitable termination to a long and laborious life. His labors, too, were the main cause of that more comprehensive, accur te and enlightened scholarship, which has recently shed so brilliant a lustre over Germany. 11. In this same Preface we have also a history of the progress of Homeric scholarship, though much on this point must be collected from his Recensio Editionum in the preface to Tom. iii. Heyne also lays down the plan which he had in view in the preparation of this Edition. His design was to make his Homer a complete repertory of all learning necessary for the full appreciation and elucidation of the Iliad-to give a corrected text with a philological criticism on all doubtful or disputed passages-to furnish explanatory notes to assist its interpretation—a se- SANCTI AUGUSTINI CONFESSIONES-THE CONlection of Scholia, &c., for the solution of gram-FESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE. This work can matical niceties—an exposition of all difficulties scarcely be termed a biography, for the notices whether arising from the meaning and use of of his own life are meagre and detached: but it words, the construction of phrases, the obscurity gives a lively picture of the earnest struggles of of historical or mythological allusions, or from a Christian mind in the fourth century, and afany other cause whatever. In a word, it was his object to afford a castigated text with a copious philological, critical, and exegetical apparatus. What he designed he accomplished admirably for the day in which the work was done. He condensed into one vast Homeric encyclo-ishment. In this respect, it is worthy of careful pædia all that was valuable in the labours of former scholars, and added more in real value from his own original stores of learning than he compiled from all other quarters. But his labours, together with the acute and interesting questions raised by Fr: Aug: Wolf, stimulated the Homeric scholarship of the succeeding generation, and the waters have long overpassed the marks within which they were circumscribed by Heyne. fords a clear insight into the nature of those difficulties by which the enlightened Christian's path was beset through the prevailing in fluences of the Alexandrine and Oriental philosophies, and the heresies which thence drew their nour and earnest study, notwithstanding so large a portion of it consists of Benedicites, Magnificats, O laudates and Homilies. There is much in these Confessions which might have been expected only from the Schoolmen, and which if authority could justify intellectual aberrations might almost sanction the mysticism of the irrefragable and seraphic Doctors. It is true we place the rise of scholasticism much We cannot say that we have any great relish too late when we refer it to Anselm or even to for these ponderous editions, where the text is Scotus Erigena and Rabanus Maurus. Even buried beneath the weight of commentary, and under the reign of the Emperor Heraclius, Steoverloaded with the outpourings of common-place phen of Alexandria was known as the Doctor books. The larger portion of the notes have thus Universalis. But leaving this knotty point, what a casual and occasional value only; they may be must be thought of the following address to the useful at times, but the tines are of rare occurrence, Deity. "Do the heavens and earth contain and it is wearisome to be bothered with so much Thee since Thou fillest them? or dost Thou fill pudding to get at so little meat. To hunt in them and yet overflow since they do not contain these vast treasure chambers of refuse scraps of Thee? and whither when the heaven and earth learning is more hopeless than looking for the are filled pourest Thou forth the remainder of needle in a stack of hay. Heyne's Iliad sur- Thyself? But Thou that fillest all things fillest passes the exuberance of Drakenborch's Livy, Thou them with Thy whole self? or since all one of the earliest specimens of this erudite ple- things cannot contain Thee wholly, do they conthora; but is in turn surpassed by the Herodian tain part of Thee? and all at once the same part? of Irmisch, which contrives to dress up some or each its own part, the greater more, the smalseventy or eighty pages of text with five fat octavo volumes of very unwelcome sauce. It is serviceable to have such Editions in the Library for occasional reference; but it is a pity to see fine and acute talents wasted in the drudgery of such compilation: it reminds us too frequently of the education of Gargantua, to which, in the ler less? and is there one part of Thee greater, another less? or art Thou wholly everywhere, while nothing contains Thee wholly ?"-B. 1, §3. There are many other passages of like temper scattered through these Confessions, which it would be waste of paper to cite here. But to counterbalance these, his views of God and life, of phant.” Providence, and Liberty, are generally sound, and and Monteiths of the day, who pretend to have evince not only great acuteness and vigour of opened a royal road to learning, at one time leadmind, but also a most intimate acquaintance ing the student along so easily that he is incogwith human nature and the world. Any one nizant of the way, at another crushing all desire who might take the trouble of making excerpts for real scholarship beneath the cumbrous load from this work as well as from the other writings of explanations, which are either not read, or if of St. Augustine, would find the deepest and read are instantly forgotten. With regard to most accurate reflections upon the principal top-these Professors of short-hand learning may ics of general interest which occur in daily life—justly be employed the language which worthy for example: on learning, on the nature and old Morhofius applies to their prototypes in the powers of the mind; on the affections of the heart; XVII century, Quibus magistris patentissima ad on the tripartite division of the sources of sin, ignorantiam via sternitur; omnis solida doctrina viz. the desire of the eye, the lust of the flesh, evertitur; in cathedras, in forum, cruda studia and the selfishness of ambition. Where will you propelluntur; pro Philosophis jejuni et strigosi find sounder philosophy than this? "God hath terminorum nomenclatores; pro Mercuriis stipetes commanded that every inordinate affection should et trunci ubique in sæculi nostri insaniam triumbe its own punishment." B. 1. § 19. It is true this is merely an application of the doctrine laid The only correct mode of procedure is that indown in the Wisdom of Solomon, c. xi. v. 16, dicated by the London Reviewer. All our learn"Wherewithal a man sinneth, by the same also ing and knowledge must be actually our own acshall he be punished." How far removed from quisition to be valuable, what we learn merely the insensate rigidity of fanaticism is this? Is by rote, what we suck in at the grammar school Justice therefore variable or unstable? No, but or College, must be learnt over again by ourthe times over which it presides flow not evenly, selves, and receive our assent only when conbecause they are times." B. iii. § 13. Altogether, firmed by our own experience or recognition though there is undoubtedly much unmeaning of its truth. The cud of thought must be chewed verbiage and mystical nonsense in the work, its by every one of us, or all that we may have general character bears high testimony to the purity and sincerity of St. Augustine, to the lofty powers of his intellect, the sage moderation of his views, the fervent piety of his faith, and to his accurate appreciation of the demands of his age, while at the same time it reflects its own lustre upon the intellectual character of the Fourth Century, and the fading twilight of ancient civilization. 12. heaped up in our memory remains a mere mass of dead and discordant matter-a burthen to the memory and utterly useless to ourselves. It will be merely a dunghill of erudition instead of a rich soil productive of abundant fruits. Self-education is necessary to every one, and takes place with every one, in a greater or less degree, who rises above the rank of a retailer of other men's thoughts-the beggar who sustains himself out of the alms-basket, instead of working for his maintenance. We improperly confine the term 'self-taught' to the man who has had no assistance from others in collecting his first materials, EDUCATION. LONDON QUARTERLY REVIEW, or directing his mind in the orderly employment AUGUST, 1834. ART. VI. ETON SCHOOL. The of its powers. But every man who is a scholar Reviewer very properly and correctly lays it and not a mere literary jay, is in the main selfdown as the grand regulating principle in all educated. When a man's knowledge has been valuable education, that the curiosity of the at length realized as the result of his own thought learned is to be stimulated and he is thereby to be and study, when it springs from his own inferexcited to make exertions for his own improve-ences drawn from materials which he himself has ment by seeking to gratify the easily created ap-collected, he feels a greater degree of confidence petite for knowledge. This is exactly the the- in his reasoning, a greater firmness and skill in the ory of an old friend, the good and great Judge employment of his logic, a better assurance of F. Excite the curiosity," would he say, the real worth of his data, more honesty in his "gratify it only partially, just far enough to pre-aims, and more candour in acknowledging his vent despondency and to stimulate and give aid errors, than when the views, propositions, theories, to new inquiries, for if further fed it begets pe- and dogmas have been rudely huddled together, dantry, pompousness and self-conceit, and, if not and forced upon his mind in their crude and undiministered to at all, it gradually becomes languid gested state as a sacred deposit, which he is and merges into listlessness and despair." How bound to keep inviolate, but not to examine. different is the wisdom of this procedure from This self instruction is not Yankee, but real eduthe course indicated by the Hamiltons, Anthons, cation. PAST AND PRESENT. Ah, we smile to read again those fairy legends of the Past, cast. BY SUSAN ARCHER TALLEY. But I would not now recall them, and I may not thus repine, Ah, the many haunting memories of the dreamy summer-For I feel a higher pleasure and a keener life is mine. time, Thrilling like the broken snatches of some quaint forgotten rhyme, As we watch the golden hours lapse so languidly along When the whole fair life within us is a world of happy thought, Silver gleams and golden tissues in a fairy fabric wrought. For to me a world is given all unseen by mortal eyes, Where the beauty never waneth-where the music never dies. Where are thoughts like angel-presence, hymning through the Sabbath hours, And a love more high and holy than was given to stars and flowers. Silver cords of real feeling-golden threads by fancy spun, With a faith serene and fearless walk I on that charmed In the loom of thought enwoven, blent and mingled into one. When there comes a blessed respite from all past and present pain, way, Heedless of the Ghouls of evil that would lure my steps astray. And I wander far and freely mid the countless ages flown, And the trusting love of childhood dawneth on the heart Reaping from their scattered treasures harvests that the dead have sown. again. And forgetful of the present, turn our longing spirits back- Musing in the sacred precincts of their Temple's ruined Tracing in the tiny footprints in the grassy little track. Reading o'er life's earlier pages, where existence, newly blown, Seemed a fairy tale whose moral even yet is all unknown. halls; Gleaning Amaranthine flowers from their Babylonian walls. Or when weary of the Present, turning ever, hushed elate, When the flowers and the streamlets were companions in Thrilling with expectant wonder, to the Future's golden our play, Lazily we lay and listened all throughout the summer Far I see the mingled phantoms, slowly, slowly drawing day. Musing, as the airy shadows blent and mingled overhead, bed. nigh, As the evening shadows gather softly o'er the summer sky, And the stars come rolling onward in a fair triumphal throng, Laughing, as the silver ripples dimpled o'er our pearly Thrilling all the boundless spaces with their high eternal feet; Drowsy with a sense of beauty,-idle musings vague and sweet. song. Oh, as thus the twilight shadows gather o'er life's closing day, Or with strange and sudden longings startled to a newer May the soul's immortal music cheer it on its lonel y way life; Stirring of the spirit's power ending in the tempest's strife. Richmond. VOL. XVI-73 LETTERS FROM NEW YORK. NEW-YORK, Aug. 12, 1850. No event has occurred here for a long time that has excited more general sensation, and more heartfelt expressions of sorrow, than the shipwreck on Fire-Island, which destroyed the life of MARGARET FULLER, while within sight of the shores of her native land. This lady for several years past had filled so conspicuous a place before the public eye, and had excited so much both of admiration and of reproach for the bold expression of her opinions, without reference to the course of popular sentiment, that the intelligence of her awful and untimely death could not be heard with indifference even by those who cherished the least sympathy with her peculiar intellectual characteristics. of biting, than the first onslaught. In this way, course, she lost the good opinion of those who saw her in no other aspect, and made enemies for life of many who bore the smart of the wounds that had been inflicted by her hand. They remembered her only as pursuing the defenceless with the intolerable energy of her scorn, or as pouring on their own heads the hail-stones and coals of fire of her Junonian wrath. This, combined with the free expression of opinion on questions involving manifold and complicated interests, accounts for the aversion, in which she was held by many who knew her but superficially, and the suspicion, not to say vindictiveness, with which she was watched by a considerable portion of the public press. With her more intimate friends, in her own family circle, and among those with whom she sustained relations of mutual esteem and reverence, her character presented another phase, and But besides these she left a large circle of friends one of far more beauty and attractiveness. There both in New York and New England, with whom never was a more disinterested and devoted being she had always been an object of proud and af- in all the domestic relations. As a daughter fectionate attachment, and who regarded her and a sister, she displayed a tenderness, a sweetwith more interest for the rare and noble quali-ness, a spirit of self-sacrifice and a womanly wisties of her heart, than for the intellectual gifts dom, which might have been envied by the inwhich formed her chief distinction in the public mates of the most favored household. Thrown eye. Indeed, in the retirement of the domestic by the decease of her father, when scarcely arcircle, in the confiding intimacies of friendship, rived at the age of maturity, from a condition of she presented an aspect strongly contrasted with affluence and luxury, into one that called for that in which she was principally known to the strenuous exertion, she at once showed herself world in general. In mixed society, especially adequate to the emergency, and displayed a when composed of a large proportion of strau- strength and practical energy of character, which gers, with whom she did not feel quite certain of before had scarcely been noticed in the prevailher position, her manner was often combative, ing splendor of her intellectual endowments and defiant, presumptuous, reminding you of an in- promise. The admiration with which her taltellectual Joan of Arc, and sadly destitute of the ents were regarded by the public at large was sweet graces of true femality. Her mental ac- faiut compared with the idolatry which she retivity, as well as her masculine ambition, led her ceived from those to whom the beauty of her to take delight in gladiatorial contests of intel- private life was daily revealed, in a thousand acts lect; whatever the circle, she was fully equipped of devoted and graceful beneficence. for the fight; eager as an assailant, she was mer- In proportion to her power of rejection, in the ciless as a conqueror; and armed with an un-case of inferior and fictitious characters, was the common vigor and point of conversational ex-strength of her attachment to those whom she pression, she would usually remain in possession of the field, even with opponents of acknowledged superiority. honored with her friendship. Among these were several of the most eminent men in the metropolis of New-York and of Massachusetts. Nor Still harder was the fate of the shallow pre- was she destitute, as is so often the case with tence, learned dulness, or literary foppery with highly intellectual women, of warm and enthu which she came in contact. When provoked to siastic friends among her own sex. It may be an encounter with persons remarkable for these mentioned as a singular fact that she had few qualities, she was transformed into a fearful Ne- enemies among women; her power over them mesis, drawing blood with every word. Wo to was wonderful; magnetizing them by the affluthe pedant, the charlatan, the pretender who un- ent stream of her discourse; winning their venewittingly placed himself within the reach of her ration by the masterly power of her intellect; bitter and withering sarcasm. The havoc she subtly interfusing herself into their affections by made of self-love, on such occasions, was per- the spontaneous glow of her sympathy; even fectly marvellous. Every attempt at reply only where she startled many an ancient prejudice, made the matter worse, for her retorts were more or perhaps many a wholesome conviction, by the trenchant boldness of her theories. Her most judge of artistic merit. I do not say that her violent hostilities were with persons of the op- judgment was not sometimes warped by her pre posite sex. When she met them on their own judices. I believe that she was thus led into the arena, it was usually the signal for giving battle. error both of an exaggerated estimate of some, However powerful as a combatant, it was not in and of harsh intolerance of others. But, with that capacity she gained her most brilliant tri- the genuine fairness and kindliness of her nature, umphs. I have been told by those who attended she would have outgrown this fault, and with a her Conversations" with ladies in Boston, that wider range of comprehension, would have atunder the inspiration of a congenial audience, tained to a truer and more universal appreciation and a favorite theme, her eloquence, though often of various forms of excellence. It was the error purpled over with a vague twilight glory, pos- of juvenility and of limited experience. She sessed an enchantment which seemed less like would have been sure to lay it aside with matuthe utterance of a daughter of the Puritans than ring wisdom, had she not been enticed from the of the sunny genius of an Italian improvisatrice. walks of literature to the field of politics. For Her early education, acting upon her native my own part, I cannot but regret that this tastes, prepared her for an eminent rank in the change was ever made. It was not in accordsphere of elegant literature. She was initiated ance with her highest tastes, nor her peculiar into the classics when quite a child, and by a gifts. For many years she kept herself aloof thorough discipline in philology, laid the founda- from the turmoil of controversy; confining hertion for the skill in languages, which was subse-self entirely to the highest spheres of literature; quently one of her leading distinctions. In due and even showing no sympathy with measures course of time, she became familiar with the of political and social reform, in which many of literature of France, Germany and Italy, blend- her more sanguine friends were deeply engaged. ing with her foreign studies a wide acquaintance She might have been called one of the Newwith the great masters of thought and composi- England Transcendentalists, but with the Retion in our own language. Few persons of either formers of that school, she had no communion, sex in this country had gone over a wider range nor scarcely a point in common. Her recent of study in the department of belles-lettres, or political disquisitious have probably been as could claim a greater degree of receptivity for widely read as any of her writings. No one the noblest productions of genius in modern civ- can call in question the intellectual vigor which ilization. She was deeply interested in Italian they display, whatever antagonism of opinion literature, profoundly entering into the spirit of they may excite. I am happy to notice that Dante, and possessing a critical knowledge and since her stormy exit, with scarce a single exappreciation of his sublime poems. But the ception, the presses that were the loudest in her fresh, living, and romantic character of German vituperation, are prompt to do the most delicate literature exercised the strongest charm over her and cordial justice to her memory. intellect, and fully attracted her within its magic With all the prominence which was held by circle. For a long time, Goethe was the hero of Margaret Fuller before the public, it must be adher intellectual worship; his writings were her mitted that she has left nothing on record which favorite study; and among her cherished plans her friends can regard as an adequate expression of literary effort, a complete and critical biogra- of her genius. Every thing that is said about phy of the great bard held a prominent place. her by those to whom she was best known, must I am unable to speak from personal knowledge have an air of exaggeration to those who were on this point, but I am sure that of late years her familiar only with her productions. She did enthusiasm for Goethe must have greatly aba- not live to attain the power of free, rapid, symted-her new-born zeal for political liberty and metrical, pellucid expression with her pen, of her sympathy with struggling nations being in- which she had such a surprising mastery in conconsistent with warm admiration for the impas-versation. Her written style suggested no adesive, imperturbable serenity, the Epicurean in- quate idea of the force, vividness, and propriety difference, and the superhuman, or inhuman, of her thoughts. She needed the excitement of scorn with which he regarded the troubled and blood-stained current of national affairs. living sympathy or opposition, to open the fountains of her eloquence, and to clothe her thickShe herself was thrown by the force of cir- coming faucies, in the beautiful and picturesque cumstances, rather than of inclination, upon the garb, which formed for them both a becoming raging sea of politics. Her natural vocation was ornament and a necessary defence. I know not that of a critic. With her fine, instinctive sense that she would have ever attained the fluent of every manifestation of beauty in literature facility which is commanded by many far inand art, and her acute analytical skill, she had ferior to herself. Still, it is often not until a every intellectual qualification for a consummate late period of mental development, that such |