knowledge and abilities they displayed. The common translation of the Bible, abstracting from the important nature of its contents, deserves great attention: its phraseology is such as evinces no less the powers of the language than the judgment of the translators. The words are in general elegant and expressive, conveying the sublime ideas of the original on the one hand, without coarseness or familiarity, and on the other, without pedantry or affectation. The manly and dignified prose, the rich and sublime poetry of Milton, far from being degraded or fettered, are exalted and adorned by his style; and it was that admirable author's peculiar glory, that with consummate skill and taste, he was able to apply to the majesty of an epic poem, the flowing and unshackled periods of blank verse. The increasing tribute of praise has at all times been paid to the vast stores of his erudition and the flights of his transcendant genius.

In the reign of Charles II. the reader will find, perhaps, no author more deserving of his attention than Barrow, whose periods, so round and exuberant, gives us a very just representation of the eloquence of Cicero; and display to the greatest advantage the energy and fertility of Barrow's intellectual powers, employed npon the most important subjects of morality and religion.

The great Locke, in a plain and severe style, well adapted to the precision of his researches, unravelled the intricacies of the most interesting branch of philosophy, by tracing ideas to their source, and unfolding the faculties of the mind.

The reign of Anne, which for eminent attainments in arts and literature may be compared with the ages of Pericles in Greece, and Augustus in Rome, produced a Swift, who, in clear and familiar diction, unaided by flowery ornaments, expressed the dictates of a strong understanding, and a lively invention.

Addison, the accomplished scholar, the refined critic, the enlightened moralist, like another Socrates, brought philosophy from the schools, and arranged her in the most engaging attire, calling the attention of his countrymen to virtue and to taste, in his elegant and entertaining essays.

The prefaces of Dryden are marked by the ease and the vivacity of a man of transcendant genius; and there is a facility in his rhymes, and a peculiar vigour in his poetry, which justly render him the boast of his country.

Pope composed his prefaces and letters with singular grace and beauty of style; and his poems present the finest specimens of exquisite judgment, adorned by the most harmonious and polished versification.

The works of Melmoth, in particular his letters and translations of Cicero and Pliny, are remarkable for smoothness and elegance of composition. The late Sir Joshua Reynolds has, in his lectures in the Royal Academy, illustrated the principles of his delightful art in a manner not less creditable to him as a fine writer than as an eminent painter, and a skilful connoisseur. The sacred discourses of the amiable Horne recommend the duties of that religion, of which he was so bright an ornament, in a sweet and lively style.

Where can be found compositions uniting the po

liteness of the gentleman with the attainments of the scholar, blended in juster proportions, than in the Polymetis of Spence, the Athenian Letters, the Dialogues of Lord Lyttleton and Bishop Hurd, and the papers of the Adventurer and Observer? These are some of the sources from which may be derived a knowledge of the purity, the strength, the copiousness of the English language; and such are the examples by which the student ought to regulate his style. In these he may remark the idiomatic structure of sentences, and the proper arrangement of their parts; they present specimens of purity without stiffness, and elegance without affectation; they are free equally from vain pomp and vulgarity of diction; and their authors have the happy art of pleasing our taste, while they improve our understanding, and confirm our principles of morality and religion.

In the course of this perusal it will be found, that in proportion as the great controversies in this country, upon religion, politics, and philosophy, began to subside since the revolution, a closer attention has been paid to the niceties of grammar and criticism; and coarse and barbarous phraseology has been gradually polished into propriety and elegance.

WRITERS OF THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE.

Talking of the eminent writers of the reign of Queen Anne, he observed, I think Dr. Arbuthnot the first man among them. He was the most universal genius; being an excellent physician, a man of deep learning, and a man of much humour.

Addison was a great man; his learning was not profound; but his morality, his humour, and his elegance of writing, set him very high. Dr. Johnson.

The English writers who really unlocked the rich sources of the language, are those who flourished from the end of Elizabeth to the end of Queen Anne's reign; who used a good Saxon dialect with ease, correctness, and perspicuity; learned in the ancient classics, but only enriching their mother tongue where the attic could supply its defects, not overlaying it with a profuse pedantic coinage of foreign words; well practised in the old rules of composition, or rather collocation of words which unite natural ease and variety with absolute harmony, and give the authors ideas to develope themselves with the more truth and simplicity when clothed in the more ample folds of inversion, or run from the exuberant to the elliptical, without ever being redundant or obscure.

Another writer says, "Do we not neglect the standard works to hunt after mere novelty? This is not wisdom, but affectation or caprice. Learning becomes by degrees an indigested heap, without pleasure or use. We do not see the absolute necessity why another work should be written or another picture painted till those that we already have are becoming worm-eaten, or mouldering into decay. We can hardly expect a new harvest until the old crop is off the ground. If we insist on absolute originality in living writers, we should begin by destroying the works of their predecessors. We want another Osmyn, to burn and spare not; and then the work of

extermination and the work of regeneration would

go on kindly together. Are we to learn all that is already known, and at the same time to invent more? This would indeed be the large discourse of reason looking before and after.

Who is there that can boast of having read all the books that have been written, and that are worth reading? Is there not many a sterling old author that lies neglected on solitary unexplored shelves, or tottering book-stalls, unknown to, or passed over by the idle and the diligent, the republication of which would be the greatest service that could be performed by the modern man of letters? To master the old English dramatic writers, the most esteemed novelists, the good old comedies and periodical works alone, would occupy the leisure of a life devoted to taste and study. If we look at the rise and progress of the maturity and decay of each of these classes of excellence, we shall find that they were limited in duration, and successive.

The deep rich tragic vein of Shakspeare, Webster, Ford, Dekker, Marlow, Beaumont and Fletcher, was discovered and worked out in the time of Elizabeth and the two first Stuarts.

All that the heart of man could feel, all that the wit of man could express, on the most striking and interesting occasions, had been exhausted by half a dozen great writers, who left little to their successors but pompous turgidity or smooth common-placethe art of swelling trifles into importance, or turning rough boldness into insipidity. But comedy rose as tragedy fell; and in the age of Charles the Second and