against his overtaking four horses, starting fresh every ten miles, not to mention their being some hours in advance already. Having declined all Mrs. Herbert's many kind offers, anent food and rest, I took a last lingering look at the beautiful picture, which still held its place in the room lately mine, and hurried from a place so full of recollections; and, notwithstanding the many reasons I had for self-gratulation, every object around and about me filled me with sorrow and regret for hours that had passed-never,

never to return.

It was very late when I reached my old quarters at Kilrush; Mrs. Healy fortunately was in bed asleep-fortunately I say, for had she selected that occasion to vent her indignation for my long absence, I greatly fear that, in my then temper I should have exhibited but little of that Job-like endurance for which I was once esteemed; I entered my little mean-looking parlour, with its three chairs and lame table, and, as I flung myself upon the wretched substitute for a sofa, and thought upon the varied events which a few weeks had brought about; it required the aid of her ladyship's letter, which I opened, before me, to assure me I was not dreaming.

The entire of that night I could not sleep; my destiny seemed upon its balance; and, whether the scale inclined this side or that, good or evil fortune seemed to betide me. How many were my plans and resolutions, and how often abandoned; again to be pondered over, and once more given up. The grey dawn of the morning was

already breaking, and found me still doubting and uncertain. At last the die was thrown; I determined at once to apply for leave to my commanding officer, which he could, if he pleased, give me, without any application to the Horse Guards, set out for Elton, tell Sir Guy my whole adventure, and endeavour, by a more moving lovestory than ever graced even the Minerva press, to induce him to make some settlement on me, and use his influence with Lord Callonby on my behalf; this done, set out for London, and then-and then-what then?then for the Morning Post-" Cadeau des noces"-"happy couple"—" Lord Callonby's seat in Hampshire," &c. &c. "You wished to be called at five, sir," said Stubber.

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Yes; is it five o'clock ?"

No, sir; but I heard you call out something about four horses,' and I thought you might be hurried, so I came in a little earlier."

"Quite right, Stubber; let me have my breakfast as soon as possible, and see that chestnut horse I brought here, last night, fed."

"And now for it," said I, after writing a hurried note to Curzon, requesting him to take command of my party at Kilrush, till he heard from me, and sending my kindest remembrance to my three friends, I despatched the epistle by my servant on Peter, while I hastened to secure a place in the mail for Ennis, on the box seat of which let my kind reader suppose me seated; while, gracefully waving my hat, I make my bow for a brief season, and here say " Au revoir, mes amis."

ASSUREDLY the predictions of the writers of antiquity of their own immortality, have been no vain boasts. Here are we, the descendants of a race of barbarians, of whose existence the Greek was scarce aware, and whom had he known, he would have known but to scorn,-editing, collecting, translating, the invaluable relics spared to us. Libraries are searched, manuscripts read and re-read, excavations made, toil, labour, and expense undergone, to amend a sentence, or discover a couplet. Great as is the demand on the attention of the literary public in the present age, numerous, ay,

numberless, as are the works daily issuing from the press, still with unabated pleasure and unwearied zeal do we turn to the great works of antiquity: still is renewed the endless cycle of contest and discussion, emendation and conjecture. They alone have triumphed over all the changes of fashion, the force of circumstances, the variety of national character: on the banks of the Thames, and the Danube, in the schools of republics and monarchies, by men of all classes, all pursuits, all ages, been admired and loved.

Who can tell with what exultation

we flee from the jarring, and striving, and jostling of busy life, from the turbulence of faction and party clamour, to the calm and tranquillizing studies of our boyhood, to the holy ground which, consecrated by the earliest and the purest associations, recalls the freshness and the glory of that blessed period, when hope tinged all things with its own bright hues, and neither care nor anxiety flung their dark shadows on our path.

Long, in spite of that philosophy of the counting-house, which would estimate every thing by the standard of utility, meaning thereby the quantity of money it will bring that base and degrading spirit, whose chilling and withering influence is alas but too rapidly creeping over all that was great and glorious in the national character-long may these delightful works continue to inspire the youth of England with lofty precepts and noble examples.

"The knowledge of external nature," says Dr. Johnson, in a passage which cannot be too often quoted in this age of pseudo-philosophy, "and the sciences which that knowledge includes or requires, are not the great or the frequent business of the human mind. Whether we wish to provide for action or conversation, whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first requisite is the moral and religious knowledge of right and wrong; the next is an acquaintance with the history of mankind, and with those examples which may be said to embody truth, and prove by events the reasonableness of opinions. Our intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter are voluntary, and at leisure. Those authors, therefore, are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, and most materials for conversation; and these purposes are best served by poets, orators, and historians."

Human life undoubtedly must ever be the most worthy and fitting subject

of speculation for man, and to give just views of our relations to each other should be the first object of education. When compared with these we cannot but believe the knowledge of the motions of the stars or the properties of herbs, as of very secondary importance.* But enough of this for the present.

The subject now under our consideration is mournful in its own nature : it is doubly so, from the losses sustained of some of the most beautiful works in this department of literature. The carelessness of transcribers, the bigotry of cloistered ignorance, and the neglect of a barbarous age, have left us but a few fragments-sed ex pede Herculem-from these, mutilated and deformed as they are, we may form some faint judgment of the majesty, grace, and symmetry of the perfect originals. On the elegiac poets, termed gnomic, it is not our intention to offer more than a few observations. We confess ourselves no great admirers of didactic verses in any language, least of all, of mere epigrammatic couplets, to teach us by rule how to eat, sleep, fall in love, or get comfortably drunk. In spite, however, of the subjects, the grace, neatness, and terseness of phrase of the originals render them not unpleasing; but as we despair of being able to preserve these in any version we could give, we must only recommend, in order to the full enjoyment of the Theognidean Philosophy—

"Those to learn Greek, who never learned before, And those who always learnt, to learn yet more."

It will give them a curious picture of the Grecian nation-it will show its consummate duplicity and profligacy, all guided by the most calculating selfishness. Alcibiades, the hypocrite and the voluptuary, not Aristides, was the representative of the national character. Polybius, himself a Greek, has confessed this, and reluctantly acknowledged how much superior in his

to the support of the public.

His errors

time was the Roman. were on a great scale, the splendida vitia of our nature, bearing in them the elements of greatness and noble daring -no petty meanness, no low servile chicanery-none of that "wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust," of which we do think every page of Grecian history gives evidence. He was often unjust, but his injustice was for his country; in aggrandizing himself, he raised her; for her he plundered provinces and oppressed nations, yet few are the instances of his breaking his word and faith, when pledged in her name. In speaking thus we are to be understood as alluding to the republic before the time of Sylla-after that period, the intermixture of all nations enervated and destroyed the native vigour and independence of spirit.

Of the Elegiac poets, of whose works any portion has reached us, we do not hesitate in giving the first rank to Tyrtæus, Minnermus, and Simonideseach a master in his own style. Tyrtæus in the warlike elegy, Minner

mus in the love elegy, afterwards naturalised among the Romans, and Simonides in those poems of sorrow and tenderness, to which we have restricted in modern times the name. From this last species arose the Epitaph and Inscription, which are in truth nothing but short and pointed elegies.

Of the writers above mentioned Tyrtæus is, we believe, first in chronological order. Every one knows the story of his being sent to command the Spartans by the Athenians, and of the success of his poetry in awakening their courage. Several of his elegies have been preserved, one of which has been admirably translated by Campbell. They are all characterised by nerve, strength, and vigour, befitting warlike poet,-befitting, too, nation of freemen, before whose indignation the Persian myriads were scattered as chaff at Marathon and Platœa. "Give me," says Fletcher of Saltoun, "the ballads of a nation, and let others make the laws." Compare the history of Greece with these her early strains, and judge how true!

a

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2E

a

Of Minnermus we have but one fragment; and it is so consistent with the character given of his writings by the ancient critics, that we are disposed to believe it genuine. It is impressed with the same despair and passion; it emits flashes of nobler feeling than animate the mere lover of sensual gratification, and reveals a mind, which felt its own superiority to the miserable pursuits in which it was engaged. The future is in his creed covered with impenetrable gloom-all is withering and perishing in his grasp; and these reflections united with the bitter conviction of the "vanity and vexation of spirit," embittering every earthly enjoyment, continually press on his mind, and intrude their melancholy presence on his most festive hours. In somewhat of the spirit which animated the Egyptian in placing at his banquet the ghastly and mouldering skeleton,

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does he urge them as motives to the pursuit of pleasure. How different is the light-hearted gaiety of Anacreonhe is as sedulous in removing all such unwelcome visiters from his guests, as the other is in introducing them to their notice, or if for a moment he does turn from his mirth and festivity to bestow a transient thought on the brevity and emptiness of life, no lasting impression is made; the momentary shadows unheeded pass over his mind, and the more congenial images of joy and revelry are again mirrored there. In Minnermus there are traces of deep and powerful emotion, blighted, indeed, and misdirected; but Anacreon seems to have imbibed the very spirit of that philosophy, to which Epicurus afterwards gave his name, to feel nothing, to live only for self, nor allow the heart to take more than a momentary interest in any object.