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easily have rendered popular, but which had merits of no vulgar order for those who could study it. Goldsmith wrote with perfect elegance and beauty, in a style of mellow tenderness and elaborate simplicity. He had the harmony of Pope without his quaintness, and his selectness of diction without his coldness and eternal vivacity. And last of all came Cowper, with a style of complete originality; and, for the first time, made it apparent to readers of all descriptions, that Pope and Addison were no longer to be the models of English poetry.

In philosophy and prose writing in general the case was nearly parallel. The name of Hume is by far the most considerable which occurs in the period to which we have alluded. But, though his thinking was English, his style is entirely French; and being naturally of a cold fancy, there is nothing of that eloquence or richness about him which characterizes the writings of Taylor, and Hooker, and Bacon; and continues, with less weight of matter, to please in those of Cowley and Clarendon. Warburton had great powers,

and wrote with more force and freedom than the wits to whom he succeeded; but his faculties were perverted by a paltry love of paradox, and rendered useless to mankind by an unlucky choice of subjects, and the arrogance and dogmatism of his temper. Adam Smith was nearly the first who made deeper reasonings and more exact knowledge popular among us; and Junius and Johnson the first who again familiarized us with more glowing and sonorous diction; and made us feel the tameness and poorness of the serious style of Addison and Swift.

This brings us down almost to the present times, in which the revolution in our literature has been accelerated and con

firmed by the concurrence of many causes. The agitations of the French Revolution, and the discussions as well as the hopes and terrors to which it gave occasion-the genius of Edmund Burke, and some others of his land of genius—the impression of the new literature of Germany, evidently the original of our lake-school of poetry, and of many innovations in our drama-the rise or revival of a more evangelical spirit in the body of the people—and the vast extension of our political and commercial relations, which have not only familiarized all ranks of people with distant countries and great undertakings, but have brought knowledge and enterprise home, not merely to the imagination but to the actual

experience of almost every individual. All these and several other circumstances have so far improved or excited the character of our nation, as to have created an effectual demand for more profound speculation, and more serious emotion than was dealt in by the writers of the former century, and which, if it has not yet produced a corresponding supply in all branches, has at least had the effect of decrying the commodities that were previously in vogue, as unsuited to the altered condition of the times.-JEFFREY.

CHRISTIANITY IN HISTORY.

The Christian religion, once here, cannot again pass away; in one or other form it will endure through all time; as in Scripture, so also in the heart of man, is written, "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Were the memory of this faith never so obscure, as, indeed, in all times the coarse passions and perceptions do all but obliterate it in the hearts of most; yet in every pure soul, in every poet and wise man, it finds a new missionary, a new martyr, till the great volume of universal history is finally closed, and man's destinies are fulfilled in this earth. It is a height to which the human species were fated and enabled to attain; and 'from which, having once attained it, they can never retrograde.-CARLYLE.

MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS.

EXECUTION OF THE EARL OF ARGYLE.

(The following is from Fox's History of James II. Argyle was the ninth Earl of his line, and the head of the Covenanters. He was executed at Edinburgh in 1685, on a charge of treason, pretended to have been committed in 1681. See p. 281.)

Before Argyle left the castle, he had his dinner at the usual hour, at which he discoursed, not only calmly but even cheerfully, with some of his friends. After dinner he retired, as was his custom, to his bed-chamber, where, it is recorded, he slept quietly for about a quarter of an hour. While he was in bed, one of the members of the council came and intimated to the attendants a desire to speak with him: upon being told that the Earl was asleep, and had left orders not to

be disturbed, the manager disbelieved the account, which he considered as a device to avoid further questionings.

To satisfy him, the door of the bed-chamber was half opened, and he then beheld, enjoying a sweet and tranquil slumber, the man who, by the doom of him and his fellows, was to die within the space of two short hours! Struck with the sight, he hurried out of the room, quitted the castle with the utmost precipitation, and hid himself in the lodgings of an acquaintance who lived near, where he flung himself on the first bed that presented itself, and had every appearance of a man suffering the most excruciating torture. His friend, who had been apprized by the servant of the state he was in, and who naturally concluded that he was ill, offered him some wine. He refused, saying, "No, no! that will not help me: I have been in at Argyle, and saw him sleeping_as pleasantly as ever man did, within an hour of eternity! But as for me ." What a satisfactory spectacle to a philosophical mind, to see the oppressor, in the zenith of his power, envying his victim! What an acknowledgment of the superiority of virtue! What an affecting and forcible testimony to that peace of mind which innocence alone can confer! We know not who this man was; but when we reflect that the guilt which agonized him was probably incurred for the sake of some vain title, or at least of some increase of wealth, which he did not want, and possibly knew not how to enjoy, our disgust is turned into something like compassion for that very foolish class of men whom the world calls "wise in their generation."

On the scaffold Argyle embraced his friends, and gave some tokens of remembrance to his son-in-law, for his daughter and grandchildren; stript himself of part of his apparel, of which he likewise made presents; and laid his head upon the block. Having uttered a short prayer, he gave the signal to the executioner; it was instantly obeyed, and his head severed from his body. Such were the last hours,-such the final close, of this great man's life. May the like happy serenity in such dreadful circumstances, and a death equally glorious, be the lot of all whom tyranny, of whatever denomination or description, shall in any age, or in any country, call to expiate their virtues on the scaffold !-CHARLES JAMES FOX.1

A son of the Holland family, the great Whig leader in opposition to Pitt; he was a member of the coalition ministry with the friends of Lord North in 1783; he died minister in 1806, a few months after the death of Pitt.

WESTMINSTER HALL-TRIAL OF WARREN HASTINGS.

(Warren Hastings was impeached by the House of Commons before the House of Lords, for misgovernment, extortion, and oppression, while he held the office of GovernorGeneral of India. The trial lasted seven years. He was acquitted; but sentenced to pay the costs, which amounted to £71,000, (see p. 310). The extract refers to the opening scene of the trial.)

The preparations for the trial had proceeded rapidly; and on the 13th of February 1788, the sittings of the Court commenced. There have been spectacles more dazzling to the eye, more gorgeous with jewellery and cloth of gold, more attractive to grown-up children, than that which was then exhibited at Westminster; but, perhaps, there never was a spectacle so well calculated to strike a highly cultivated, a reflecting, an imaginative mind. All the various kinds of interest which belong to the near and to the distant, to the present and to the past, were collected on one spot, and in one hour. All the talents and all the accomplishments which are developed by liberty and civilisation were now displayed, with every advantage that could be derived from co-operation and from contrast. Every step in the proceedings carried the mind either backward, through many troubled centuries, to the days when the foundations of the constitution were laid; or far away, over boundless seas and deserts, to dusky nations of India, living under strange stars, worshipping strange gods, and writing strange characters from right to left. The High Court of Parliament was to sit, according to forms handed down from the days of the Plantagenets, on an Englishman accused of exercising tyranny over the lord of the holy city of Benares, and over the ladies of the princely house of Oude.

The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall of William Rufus; the hall which had resounded with acclamations at the inauguration of thirty kings; the hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for a moment awed and melted a victorious party inflamed with just resentment; the hall where the First Charles had confronted the High Court of Justice with the placid courage which has half redeemed his fame. Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting. The avenues were lined with grenadiers. The streets were kept clear by cavalry. The peers, robed in gold and ermine, were marshalled by the heralds under Garter-King-at-Arms. The judges, in their vestments of state, attended to give ad

vice on points of law. Near a hundred and seventy lords, three-fourths of the Upper House, walked in solemn order from their usual place of assembling to the tribunal. The long procession was closed by the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of the realm, by the great dignitaries, and by the brothers and sons of the King. Last of all came the Prince of Wales, conspicuous by his fine person and noble bearing. The grey old walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were crowded by such an audience as has rarely excited the fears or the emulation of an orator. There were gathered together, from all parts of a great, free, and enlightened realm, grace and female loveliness, wit and learning, the representatives of every science and of every art. There were seated round the Queen the fair-haired young daughters of the House of Brunswick. There the Ambassadors of great Kings and Commonwealths gazed with admiration on a spectacle which no other country in the world could present. There Siddons, in the prime of her majestic beauty, looked with emotion on the scene. There the historian of the Roman Empire thought of the days when, before a senate which had still some show of freedom, Cicero and Tacitus thundered against the oppressors of Sicily and Africa. There were seen, side by side, the greatest painter and the greatest scholar of the age-Reynolds and Parr.

The Sergeants made proclamation. Hastings advanced to the bar and bent his knee. The culprit was indeed not unworthy of that great presence. He had ruled an extensive and populous country, had made laws and treaties, had sent forth armies, had set up and pulled down princes. And in his high place he had so borne himself, that all had feared him, most had loved him, and hatred itself could deny him no title to glory, except virtue. He looked like a great man, and not like a bad man. A person small and emaciated, yet deriving dignity from a carriage which, while it indicated deference to the Court, indicated also habitual self-possession and self-respect;—a high and intellectual forehead;—a brow pensive, but not gloomy;-a mouth of inflexible decision ;a face pale and worn, but serene ;-such was the aspect with which the great proconsul presented himself to his judges.

His counsel accompanied him,-men, all of whom were afterwards raised by their talents and learning to the highest posts in their profession.

But neither the culprit nor his advocates attracted so much

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