L. XIV. Continual sneer, continual irony, all excellent, if it were not for the all;'-but a countenance, with a malignant smile in statuary fixure on it, becomes at length an object of aversion, however beautiful the face, and however beautiful the smile. We are relieved, in some measure, from this by frequent just and well expressed moral aphorisms; but then the preceding and following irony gives them the appearance of proceeding from the head, not from the heart. This objection would be less felt, when the Letters were first published at considerable intervals; but Junius wrote for posterity.

L. XXIII. Sneer and irony continued with such gross violation of good sense, as to be perfectly nonsense. The man who can address another on his most detestable vices in a strain of cold continual irony, is himself a wretch.

L. XXXV. To honour them with a determined predilection and confidence in exclusion of your English subjects, who placed your family, and, in spite of treachery and rebellion, have supported it upon the throne, is a mistake too gross even for the unsuspecting generosity of youth.

The words upon the throne,' stand unfortunately for the harmonious effect of the balance of 'placed' and 'supported.'

This address to the king is almost faultless in composition, and has been evidently tormented with the file. But it has fewer beauties than any other long letter of Junius; and it is ut

terly undramatic. style, the transitions, or the sentiments, which represents the passions of a man emboldening himself to address his sovereign personally. Like a Presbyterian's prayer, you may substitute almost every where the third for the second person without injury. The newspaper, his closet, and his own person were alone present to the author's intention and imagination. This makes the composition vapid. It possesses an Isocratic correctness, when it should have had the force and drama of an oration of Demosthenes. From this, however, the paragraph beginning with the words As to the Scotch,' and also the last two paragraphs must be honourably excepted. They are, perhaps, the finest passages in the whole collection.

There is nothing in the

NOTES ON BARCLAY'S ARGENIS. 1803.*

HEAVEN forbid that this work should not exist in its present form and language! Yet I cannot avoid the wish that it had, during the reign of James I., been moulded into an heroic poem in English octave stanza, or epic blank verse ;-which, however, at that time had not been invented, and which, alas! still remains

* Communicated by the Rev. Derwent Coleridge. Ed.

the sole property of the inventor, as if the Muses had given him an unevadible patent for it. Of dramatic blank verse we have many and various specimens ;-for example, Shakspeare's as compared with Massinger's, both excellent in their kind :—of lyric, and of what may be called Orphic, or philosophic, blank verse, perfect models may be found in Wordsworth of colloquial blank verse there are excellent, though not perfect, examples in Cowper;-but of epic blank verse, since Milton, there is not one.

It absolutely distresses me when I reflect that this work, admired as it has been by great men of all ages, and lately, I hear, by the poet Cowper, should be only not unknown to general readers. It has been translated into English two or three times-how, I know not, wretchedly, I doubt not. It affords matter for thought that the last translation (or rather, in all probability, miserable and faithless abridgment of some former one) was given under another name. What a mournful proof of the incelebrity of this great and amazing work among both the public and the people! For as Wordsworth, the greater of the two great men of this age,-(at least, except Davy and him, I have known, read of, heard of, no others) -for as Wordsworth did me the honour of once observing to me, the people and the public are two distinct classes, and, as things go, the former is likely to retain a better taste,

the less it is acted on by the latter. Yet Telemachus is in every mouth, in every schoolboy's and school-girl's hand! It is awful to say of a work, like the Argenis, the style and Latinity of which, judged (not according to classical pedantry, which pronounces every sentence right which can be found in any book prior to Boetius, however vicious the age, or affected the author, and every sentence wrong, however natural and beautiful, which has been of the author's own combination,-but) according to the universal logic of thought as modified by feeling, is equal to that of Tacitus in energy and genuine conciseness, and is as perspicuous as that of Livy, whilst it is free from the affectations, obscurities, and lust to surprise of the former, and seems a sort of antithesis to the slowness and prolixity of the latter;-(this remark does not, however, impeach even the classicality of the language, which, when the freedom and originality, the easy motion and perfect command of the thoughts, are considered, is truly wonderful) :— of such a work it is awful to say, that it would have been well if it had been written in English or Italian verse! Yet the event seems to justify the notion. Alas! it is now too late. What modern work, even of the size of the Paradise Lost-much less of the Faery Queene -would be read in the present day, or even bought or be likely to be bought, unless it were an instructive work, as the phrase is, like

Roscoe's quartos of Leo X., or entertaining like Boswell's three of Dr. Johnson's conversations. It may be fairly objected—what work of surpassing merit has given the proof?—Certainly, none. Yet still there are ominous facts, sufficient, I fear, to afford a certain prophecy of its reception, if such were produced.

NOTE IN CASAUBON'S PERSIUS. 1807.

THERE are six hundred and sixteen pages in this volume, of which twenty-two are text; and five hundred and ninety-four commentary and introductory matter. Yet when I recollect, that I have the whole works of Cicero, Livy, and Quinctilian, with many others,-the whole works of each in a single volume, either thick quarto with thin paper and small yet distinct print, or thick octavo or duodecimo of the same character, and that they cost me in the proportion of a shilling to a guinea for the same quantity of worse matter in modern books, or editions,-I a poor man, yet one whom βιβλίων κτήσεως ἐκ παιδαρίου δεινὸς ἐκράτησε Tóboç, feel the liveliest gratitude for the age, which produced such editions, and for the education, which by enabling me to understand and taste the Greek and Latin writers, has thus put it in my power to collect on my own shelves, for my actual use, almost all the best