proved by Harvey. The "Syphilis," by him, equals in dread delineation the horrors of the Athenian plague, in the second book of Thucydides and the sixth of Lucretius; and his style is singularly pure, as is that of Vida, whose works appeared at his episcopal seat of Cremona, in 1550, 8vo.; and of Sannazzaro, with various other Italians, not omitting the Jesuit Boscowich, of more recent times. Murphy's representation of his colloquial Latin in the third volume of Boswell, page 292, only betrays his own ignorance; for the Jesuit spoke, as he wrote, the language with peculiar ease and elegance. Of this we have been assured by those who had enjoyed his familiar society. Among the French, distinguished in the same line, we may name, Nicholas Bourbon, (the younger,) whose distich on the Arsenal of Paris, has been considered so apposite to its purpose, at the time of the League against Henry IV.

"Etna hæc Henrico Vulcania tela ministrat,

Tela Gigantæos debellatura furores."

With Muret, Sainteuil, Rapin, Vanière, Polignac, Oudin; and, of other nations, the Pole, Sarbievius, Johannes Secundus, of Holland, independently of some English, and another Scottish poet, Arthur Johnston, whose version of the Psalms, compared with that so justly admired of Buchanan, gave rise to a controversy in 1755, between Ruddiman, (Thomas,) the advocate and editor of Buchanan, and Benson, (George,) the partisan of Johnston. But dimmed, indeed, is the ancient fame of Scotland in that pursuit, however high it has risen in English poetry, the more appropriate sphere of national genius, as a few instances derived from the first class of Scotch writers will prove; for their solecisms in prosody occur too frequently to be screened under an imputation on the press. In the lately published Life of Hume, this great historian's Latin quotations betray either a defective ear, or an imperfect tuition. In vol i. p. 14, we find Virgil's beautiful lines, "At secum quies, &c.," (Georgic, ii. 467,) wholly perverted, though he had just then emerged from school. And his biographer produces other similar instances of prosodial aberrance. Then, we see Mr. Alison in the fifth volume, page 698, of his elaborate history, citing, as from Virgil, (Æneid, ii. 354,) "Una spes victis nullam sperare salutem," where spes, instead of salus, destroys

the metre. Again, Lord Campbell, quoting also Virgil, (vi. 96,) writes, "Tu non cede malis, sed contra audientior ito." "On such scholastic errors, for the most part, not assignable to the press-and we could enumerate many more-Gibbon, (Life, page 47,) indulgently observes, "The private or voluntary student, who possesses the sense and spirit of the classics, may offend by false quantity the scrupulous ear of a well-flogged critic." In Roman history, too, we are surprised to read such an anachronism as that of Sir James Macintosh (Miscellaneous Works, vol. i. p. 412.) “The consulship of Cato the Censor, was only about ninety years prior to Cicero's ;" whereas the interval was not less than 142 years, from U. C. 557, to 689. Sir James reckoned to Cicero's birth in U. C. 647, exactly ninety years, and not, as he says, to the celebrated consulship. Mr. Macaulay, in his article on Sir Walter Raleigh, adopts, we find, old Tom Fuller's blunder, in transferring the striking character of the elder Cato by Livy, (39-40,) to the Censor's great grandson of Utica. And, in his "Lays of Ancient Rome," he mentions Claudius Crassus, the fourth only of the family known in Rome, as the representative of a long line of ancestors;" rather a short pedigree, it must be granted, to sanction such an inherited distinction.

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Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," the last and best of his literary performances, though the labour of his old age, evince certainly none of the seldom avoided infirmities of advanced years, and still continue the theme of unimpaired praise, notwithstanding Campbell's and Wordsworth's expressed disfavour of the work. On it, however, Lord Brougham maintains, that his fame as an author chiefly rests, and his lordship's review of it, displays his powers of critical discrimination in a very advantageous light. The booksellers, we learn from Boswell, had made their original agreement for £200; to which the rapid sale and popular acceptance of the publication, soon procured the addition of £100-a price probably inferior to the onefourth of what such an achievement, ushered in by so high a name, would now be sure to fetch. The Life of Savage is the general favourite, as it was that of the author's predilection; but Lord Brougham prefers, and, we think, justly, those of Cowley, Dryden, and Pope. To Milton, Johnson's marked aversion to the poet's religious and political principles, is usually supposed to have made him

especially unfair; but of this imputation his lordship, on full consideration, and authorisedly in our concurrent belief, acquits him. "No one," observes the learned peer, "can read his criticism on Paradise Lost, without perceiving that he places it next to the Iliad, and in some respects on an equal, if not a higher level." That Johnson was unjust to Swift and Gray, to the former even as a prose writer, cannot be denied; but collectively he presents an impartial, perhaps an over-favourable estimate of each poet's distinctive merits. Viewed in comparison with the analogous publications of continental Europe, the work may not shrink from a parallel with those of La Harpe, Chénier, Ginguéné, Tiraboschi, Feyjio, Andres, Eichorne, Schlegel, and others; nor would the adjudged result be to its disadvantage. The style, too, is seldom chargeable with the defects of unracy or unidiomatic phraseology, commonly objected to Johnson's.

ART. XII.-The Constitutional History of the University of Dublin, with some account of its present Condition and suggestions for Improvement. By DENIS CAULDFIELD HERON, A. B. 8vo. Dublin, Mc Glashan, 1847.

OME years ago a History of the English Universities

appeared, translated from the German of Professor Huber, and elaborately edited by Professor Newman of Manchester New College. This publication was (as we learn from the preface) the undertaking of Mr. James Heywood, of Trinity College, Cambridge, one of the present members for North Lancashire, an enthusiast in the cause of University reform. Strange to say, although Huber had come to an opinion against any change in the constitution of the Universities which would have the effect of admitting Dissenters to degrees, Mr. Heywood had the book published mainly with the design of furthering such a change, and the notes appended by him and Professor Newman are for the most part directed to the overthrow of Huber's conclusions. The volume before us. also owes its birth, we see, to Mr. Heywood, and is published in furtherance of the same cause of University free

dom. With a peculiar propriety it comes from the pen of a Roman Catholic Graduate, and one who has already distinguished himself by a well contested struggle against the present monopoly of the College.

In an early number of this Periodical*

we took a survey of the impediments standing or supposed to stand in the way of Catholics attaining offices of emolument in in the Dublin University. We gave it as our opinion that one at least of these, the sacramental test for scholarship, was illegal, and unwarrantably imposed by the board. We mentioned the case of Mr. Timothy Callaghan, who had actually commenced to try the question, but was stopped by an informality in his legal proceeding. Since then, however, Mr. Heron has fought the same battle with great spirit and perseverance. In the year 1843 he stood as Competitor for Scholarship, and his answering having entitled him to a very high place among the successful candidates, he was rejected solely on the ground of his refusal to take the Sacrament. He lodged an appeal with the visitors, the Protestant Archbishops of Dublin and Armagh, which they refused to entertain. He then applied for, and succeeded in obtaining, a Mandamus from the Court of Queen's Bench, commanding the visitors to hear and adjudicate upon the case. A solemn visitation was accordingly held in December, 1845, in which the question was argued with great ability on both sides.

The whole issue hinged upon the construction of the emancipation Act of 1793, and of the college statute or royal letter of 1794, by which Catholics were enabled “in dictum Collegium admitti atque gradus in dictâ Academiâ obtinere.' Previous to that year no greater difficulty lay in the way of a Catholic becoming a scholar than of his being an ordinary student. The scholar's oath may be taken with a perfectly safe conscience by a Catholic, as we showed in the Article before referred to, which was quoted on the hearing of Mr. Heron's appeal for the purpose of establishing that very point. There was no sacramental test; that was imposed after 1794, with the exact object of excluding Catholics; the only bar consisted in

* Dublin Review, vol. iv. p. 282-307.

+ See McDonnell and Hancock's report of the case of Heron v. the Provost and Senior Fellows. Dublin: Hodges and Smith.

the ordinary religious exercises, common to scholars with the rest of the students. And in point of fact Catholics, although excluded from degrees by the oath of supremacy, did become students as dissenters do at this day in Cambridge, and did obtain scholarship, their non-performance of the religious observances being either winked at, or the difficulty altogether avoided by non-residence within the walls. Then came the Act of 1793, removing the statutable bars to the obtaining of degrees, but expressly excluding Catholics from the office of provost or fellow, while no mention of scholarship was made either way; and the royal letter of 1794, admitting Catholics in the abovequoted words to become students and take degrees, but equally silent as to scholarship. The effect of this letter of course was, to abolish the necessity of attending religious observances, so far as Catholics were concerned. The question at issue was, whether the right to scholarship was such an incident to studentship, that it became naturally open to all to whom the latter was open, unless expressly excluded; or whether the scholars form a class so distinct from the body of the "studiosi," that, not having been expressly included, scholarship still remained according to the constitution of the University, confined to members of the established Church, so as to justify the board, not only in continuing with regard to them the old religious observances, but in imposing a new one, the sacramental test, for the purpose of ascertaining the religion of the candidates. There was one strong analogy in favour of the former view. Sisarship, like scholarship, was not mentioned by name, either in the Act or the letter; it is a situation having pecuniary advantages like scholarship, and duties just as peculiar as those of the scholars, yet no question was even raised as to the capacity of Catholics to become sisars since 1794. Dr. Keatinge, the assessor, decided against the appeal. His main ground was, that Trinity College was an essentially Protestant institution— that the cultivation of the Protestant religion was one of the objects for which it was established, and that the intention of the founders must still be carried out, except so far as a change has been made by express words or necessary implication. As to the intention at the time of the foun

See the argument of the present Chief Baron Pigot in McDonnell and Hancock's report, p. 21.