pion, William Walworth, Knight, who so manfully | my quest, the picture of the Boar's Head Tavern. clove down the sturdy wight, Wat Tyler, in Smithfield; a hero worthy of honourable blazon, as almost the only Lord Mayor on record famous for deeds of arms; the sovereigns of Cockney being generally renowned as the most pacific of all potentates.* No such painting was to be found in the church of St. Michael's. "Marry and amen!" said I, "here endeth my research!" So I was giving the matter up, with the air of a baffled antiquary, when my friend the sexton, perceiving me to be curious in every thing relative to the old tavern, offered to show me the choice vessels of the vestry, which had been handed down from remote times, when the parish meetings were held at the Boar's Head. These were deposited in the parish club-room, which had been transferred, on the decline of the ancient establishment, to a tavern in the neighbourhood. Adjoining the church, in a small cemetery, immediately under the back windows of what was once the Boar's Head, stands the tombstone of Robert Preston, whilome drawer at the tavern. It is now nearly a century since this trusty drawer of good liquor closed his bustling career, and was thus quietly deposited within call of his customers. As I was clearing away the weeds from his epitaph, the little A few steps brought us to the house, which stands sexton drew me on one side with a mysterious air, No. 12, Mile-lane, bearing the title of The Mason's and informed me, in a low voice, that once upon a Arms, and is kept by Master Edward Honeyball, the time, on a dark wintry night, when the wind was un-"bully-rock" of the establishment. It is one of those ruly, howling and whistling, banging about doors and little taverns, which abound in the heart of the city, windows, and twirling weathercocks, so that the liv- and form the centre of gossip and intelligence of the ing were frightened out of their beds, and even the neighbourhood. We entered the bar-room, which dead could not sleep quietly in their graves, the ghost was narrow and darkling; for in these close lanes but of honest Preston, which happened to be airing itself few rays of reflected light are enabled to struggle in the churchyard, was attracted by the well-known down to the inhabitants, whose broad day is at best call of "waiter," from the Boar's Head, and made but a tolerable twilight. The room was partitioned its sudden appearance in the midst of a roaring club, into boxes, each containing a table spread with a just as the parish clerk was singing a stave from the clean white cloth, ready for dinner. This showed "mirrie garland of Captain Death;" to the discom- that the guests were of the good old stamp, and difiture of sundry train-band captains, and the conver- vided their day equally, for it was but just one o'clock. sion of an infidel attorney, who became a zealous At the lower end of the room was a clear coal fire, Christian on the spot, and was never known to twist before which a breast of lamb was roasting. A row the truth afterwards, except in the way of business. of bright brass candlesticks and pewter mugs glisI beg it may be remembered, that I do not pledge tened along the mantelpiece, and an old-fashioned myself for the authenticity of this anecdote; though clock ticked in one corner. There was something it is well known that the churchyards and bye-corners primitive in this medley of kitchen, parlour, and hall, of this old metropolis are very much infested with that carried me back to earlier times, and pleased perturbed spirits; and every one must have heard me. The place, indeed, was humble, but every thing of the Cock-lane ghost, and the apparition that guards had that look of order and neatness which bespeaks the regalia in the Tower, which has frightened so the superintendence of a notable English housewife. many bold sentinels almost out of their wits. A group of amphibious-looking beings, who might be either fishermen or sailors, were regaling themselves in one of the boxes. As I was a visitor of rather higher pretensions, I was ushered into a little misshapen back room, having at least nine corners. It was lighted by a sky-light, furnished with antiquated leathern chairs, and ornamented with the portrait of a fat pig. It was evidently appropriated to particular customers, and I found a shabby gentleman, in a red nose, and oil-cloth hat, seated in one corner, meditating on a half-empty pot of porter. Be all this as it may, this Robert Preston seems to have been a worthy successor to the nimble-tongued Francis, who attended upon the revels of Prince Hal; to have been equally prompt with his "anon, anon, sir," and to have transcended his predecessor in honesty; for Falstaff, the veracity of whose taste no man will venture to impeach, flatly accuses Francis of putting lime in his sack; whereas, honest Preston's epitaph lauds him for the sobriety of his conduct, the soundness of his wine, and the fairness of his measure. The worthy dignitaries of the church, however, did not appear much captivated by the sober virtues of the tapster: the deputy organist, who had a moist look out of the eye, made some shrewd remark on the abstemiousness of a man brought up among full hogsheads; and the little sexton corroborated his opinion by a significant wink, and a dubious shake of the head. Thus far my researches, though they threw much light on the history of tapsters, fishmongers, and Lord Mayors, yet disappointed me in the great object of The following was the ancient inscription on the monument of this worthy, which, unhappily, was destroyed in the great conflagration. Hereunder lyth a man of fame, And twise Lord Maior, as in books appeare; The Kyng made him knyght incontinent; An error in the foregoing inscription has been corrected by the venerable Stow: "Whereas," saith he, "It hath been far spread abroad by vulgar opinion, that the rebel smitten down so manfully by Sir William Walworth, the then worthy Lord Maior, was named The old sexton had taken the landlady aside, and with an air of profound importance imparted to her my errand. Dame Honeyball was a likely, plump, bustling little woman, and no bad substitute for that paragon of hostesses, Dame Quickly. She seemed delighted with an opportunity to oblige; and hurrying up stairs to the archives of her house, where the precious vessels of the parish club were deposited, she returned, smiling and courtesying with them in her hands. The first she presented me was a japanned iron Jack Straw, and not Wat Tyler, I thought good to reconcile this rash conceived doubt by such testimony as I find in ancient and good records. The principal leaders, or captains, of the commons, were Wat Tyler, as the first man; the second was John, or Jack, Straw, &c., &c.' STOW'S London. + As this inscription is rife with excellent morality, I transcribe it for the admonition of delinquent tapsters. It is, no doubt, the production of some choice spirit, who once frequented the Boar's Head. Bacchus, to give the toping world surprise, tobacco-box, of gigantic size, out of which, I was told, the vestry had smoked at their stated meetings, since time immemorial; and which was never suffered to be profaned by vulgar hands, or used on common occasions. I received it with becoming reverence; but what was my delight, at beholding on its cover the identical painting of which I was in quest! There was displayed the outside of the Boar's Head Tavern, and before the door was to be seen the whole convivial group, at table, in full revel, pictured with that wonderful fidelity and force, with which the portraits of renowned generals and commodores are illustrated on tobacco boxes, for the benefit of posterity. Lest, however, there should be any mistake, the cunning limner had warily inscribed the names of Prince Hal and Falstaff on the bottoms of their chairs. On the inside of the cover was an inscription, nearly obliterated, recording that this box was the gift of Sir Richard Gore, for the use of the vestry meetings at the Boar's Head Tavern, and that it was "repaired and beautified by his successor, Mr. John Packard, 1767." Such is a faithful description of this august and venerable relic, and I question whether the learned Scriblerius contemplated his Roman shield, or the Knights of the Round Table the long-sought sangreal, with more exultation. While I was meditating on it with enraptured gaze, Dame Honeyball, who was highly gratified by the interest it excited, put in my hands a drinking cup or goblet, which also belonged to the vestry, and was descended from the old Boar's Head. It bore the inscription of having been the gift of Francis Wythers, Knight, and was held, she told me, in exceeding great value, being considered very "antyke." This ast opinion was strengthened by the shabby gentleman with the red nose, and oil-cloth hat, and whom I strongly suspected of being a lineal descendant from the valiant Bardolph. He suddenly aroused from his meditation on the pot of porter, and casting a knowing look at the goblet, exclaimed, "Ay, ay, the head don't ache now that made that there article." dresser, whose shop stands on the site of the old Boar's Head, has several dry jokes of Fat Jack's, not laid down in the books, with which he makes his customers ready to die of laughter. I now turned to my friend the sexton to make some farther inquiries, but I found him sunk in pensive meditation. His head had declined a little on one side; a deep sigh heaved from the very bottom of his stomach, and, though I could not see a tear trembling in his eye, yet a moisture was evidently stealing from a corner of his mouth. I followed the direction of his eye through the door which stood open, and found it fixed wistfully on the savoury breast of lamb, roasting in dripping richness before the fire. I now called to mind, that in the eagerness of my recondite investigation, I was keeping the poor man from his dinner. My bowels yearned with sympathy, and putting in his hand a small token of my gratitude and good-will, I departed with a hearty benediction on him, Dame Honeyball, and the parish club of Crooked-lane-not forgetting my shabby, but sententious friend, in the oil-cloth hat and copper nose. Thus have I given a " tedious brief" account of this interesting research; for which, if it prove too short and unsatisfactory, I can only plead my inexperience in this branch of literature, so deservedly popular at the present day. I am aware that a more skilful illustrator of the immortal bard would have swelled the materials I have touched upon, to a good merchantable bulk, comprising the biographies of William Walworth, Jack Straw, and Robert Preston; some notice of the eminent fishmongers of St. Michael's; the history of Eastcheap, great and little; private anecdotes of Dame Honeyball and her pretty daughter, whom I have not even mentioned: to say nothing of a damsel tending the breast of lamb, (and whom, by the way, I remarked to be a comely lass, with a neat foot and ankle;) the whole enlivened by the riots of Wat Tyler, and illuminated by the great fire of London. All this I leave as a rich mine, to be worked by The great importance attached to this memento of future commentators; nor do I despair of seeing the ancient revelry by modern churchwardens, at first tobacco-box, and the "parcel-gilt goblet," which I puzzled me; but there is nothing sharpens the appre- have thus brought to light, the subject of future enhension so much as antiquarian research; for I im-gravings, and almost as fruitful of voluminous dismediately perceived that this could be no other than sertations and disputes as the shield of Achilles, or the identical "parcel-gilt goblet" on which Falstaff the far-famed Portland vase. made his loving, but faithless vow to Dame Quickly; and which would, of course, be treasured up with care among the regalia of her domains, as a testimony of that solemn contract.* Mine hostess, indeed, gave me a long history how THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. I know that all beneath the moon decays, And what by mortals in this world is brought, In time's great periods shall return to nought. I know that all the muses' heavenly layes, With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought, As idle sounds of few or none are sought, That there is nothing lighter than mere praise. DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN. the goblet had been handed down from generation A COLLOQUY IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. to generation. She also entertained me with many particulars concerning the worthy vestrymen who have seated themselves thus quietly on the stools of the ancient roysters of Eastcheap, and, like so many commentators, utter clouds of smoke in honour of Shakspeare. These I forbear to relate, lest my readers should not be as curious in these matters as myself. Suffice it to say, the neighbours, one and all, about Eastcheap, believe that Falstaff and his merry crew actually lived and revelled there. Nay, there are several legendary anecdotes concerning him still extant among the oldest frequenters of the Mason's Arms, which they give as transmitted down from their forefathers and Mr. M'Kash, an Irish hair *Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin Chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, on Wednesday in Whitsun-week, when the Prince broke thy head for likening his father to a singing man of Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady, thy wife. Canst thou deny it?- THERE are certain half-dreaming moods of mind, in which we naturally steal away from noise and glare, and seek some quiet haunt, where we may indulge our reveries, and build our air castles undisturbed. In such a mood, I was loitering about the old gray cloisters of Westminster Abbey, enjoying that luxury of wandering thought which one is apt to dignify with the name of reflection; when suddenly an irruption of madcap boys from Westminster school, playing at foot-ball, broke in upon the monastic stillness of the place, making the vaulted passages and mouldering tombs echo with their merriment. I sought to take refuge from their noise by penetrating still deeper into the solitudes of the pile, and applied to one of the vergers for admission to the library. He conducted me through a portal rich with the crumbling sculpture of former ages, which opened upon a gloomy passage leading to the Chapter-house, and the chamber in which Doomsday Book is deposit an exceedingly fluent conversable little tome. Its ited. Just within the passage is a small door on the left. To this the verger applied a key; it was double locked, and opened with some difficulty, as if seldom used. We now ascended a dark narrow staircase, and passing through a second door, entered the library. I found myself in a lofty antique hall, the roof supported by massive joists of old English oak. It was soberly lighted by a row of Gothic windows at a considerable height from the floor, and which apparently opened upon the roofs of the cloisters. An ancient picture of some reverend dignitary of the church in his robes hung over the fire-place. Around the hall and in a small gallery were the books, arranged in carved oaken cases. They consisted principally of old polemical writers, and were much more worn by time than use. In the centre of the library was a solitary table, with two or three books on it, an inkstand without ink, and a few pens parched by long disuse. The place seemed fitted for quiet study and profound meditation. It was buried deep among the massive walls of the abbey, and shut up from the tumult of the world. I could only hear now and then the shouts of the schoolboys faintly swelling from the cloisters, and the sound of a bell tolling for prayers, that echoed soberly along the roofs of the abbey. By degrees the shouts of merriment grew fainter and fainter, and at length died away. The bell ceased to toll, and a profound silence reigned through the dusky hall. from a deep sleep; then a husky hem, and at length "What a plague do they mean," said the little quarto, which I began to perceive was somewhat choleric, "what a plague do they mean by keeping several thousand volumes of us shut up here, and watched by a set of old vergers, like so many beauties in a harem, merely to be looked at now and then by the Dean? Books were written to give pleasure and to be enjoyed; and I would have a rule passed that the Dean should pay each of us a visit at least once a year; or if he is not equal to the task, let them once in a while turn loose the whole school of Westminster among us, that at any rate we may now and then have an airing." "Softly, my worthy friend," replied I, "you are not aware how much better you are off than most books of your generation. By being stored away in this ancient library, you are like the treasured remains of those saints and monarchs which lie en shrined in the adjoining chapels; while the remains of their cotemporary mortals, left to the ordinary course of nature, have long since returned to dust." I had taken down a little thick quarto, curiously bound in parchment, with brass clasps, and seated myself at the table in a venerable elbow chair. Instead of reading, however, I was beguiled by the solemn monastic air and lifeless quiet of the place, into a train of musing. As I looked around upon the old volumes in their mouldering covers, thus ranged on the shelves, and apparently never disturbed in their repose, I could not but consider the||porary works; but here have I been clasped up for library a kind of literary catacomb, where authors, like mummies, are piously entombed, and left to blacken and moulder in dusty oblivion. How much, thought I, has each of these volumes, now thrust aside with such indifference, cost some aching head-how many weary days! how many sleepless nights! How have their authors buried themselves in the solitude of cells and cloisters; shut themselves up from the face of man, and the still more blessed face of nature; and devoted themselves to painful research and intense reflection ! And all for what? to occupy an inch of dusty shelf -to have the titles of their works read now and then in a future age, by some drowsy churchman, or casual straggler like myself; and in another age to be lost even to remembrance. Such is the amount of this boasted immortality. A mere temporary rumour, a local sound; like the tone of that bell which has just tolled among these towers, filling the ear for a moment- lingering transiently in echo-and then passing away, like a thing that was not! "Sir," said the little tome, ruffling his leaves and looking big, "I was written for all the world, not for the bookworms of an abbey. I was intended to circulate from hand to hand, like other great cotem more than two centuries, and might have silently fallen a prey to these worms that are playing the very vengeance with my intestines, if you had not by chance given me an opportunity of uttering a few last words before I go to pieces." "My good friend," rejoined I, "had you been left to the circulation of which you speak, you would long ere this have been no more. To judge from your physiognomy, you are now well stricken in years; very few of your contemporaries can be at present in existence; and those few owe their longevity to being immured like yourself in old libraries; which, suffer me to add, instead of likening to harems, you might more properly and gratefully have compared to those infirmaries attached to religious establishments, for the benefit of the old and decrepid, and where, by quiet fostering and no employment, they often endure to an amazingly goodfor-nothing old age. You talk of your contemporaries as if in circulation-where do we meet with their works?-what do we hear of Robert Grote ste of Lincoln? No one could have toiled harder than he for immortality. He is said to have written nearly two hundred volumes. He built, as it were, While I sat half-murmuring, half-meditating these unprofitable speculations, with my head resting on my hand, I was thrumming with the other hand a pyramid of books to perpetuate his name: but, upon the quarto, until I accidentally loosened the clasps; when, to my utter astonishment, the little book gave two or three yawns, like one awaking alas! the pyramid has long since fallen, and only a few fragments are scattered in various libraries, where they are scarcely disturbed even by the anti quarian. What do we hear of Giraldus Cambrensis, of the bookworm. And such, he anticipates, will be the historian, antiquary, philosopher, theologian, and the fate of his own work. which, however it may be poet? He declined two bishoprics, that he might admired in its day, and held up as a model of purity, shut himself up and write for posterity; but poster-will, in the course of years, grow antiquated and obity never inquires after his labours. What of Henry solete, until it shall become almost as unintelligible of Huntingdon, who, besides a learned history of in its native land as an Egyptian obelisk, or one of England, wrote a treatise on the contempt of the those Runic inscriptions, said to exist in the deserts world, which the world has revenged by forgetting of Tartary. I declare," added I, with some emotion, him? What is quoted of Joseph of Exeter, styled when I contemplate a modern library, filled with the miracle of his age in classical composition? Of new works in all the bravery of rich gilding and his three great heroic poems, one is lost for ever, ex-binding, I feel disposed to sit down and weep; like cepting a mere fragment; the others are known only the good Xerxes, when he surveyed his army, prankto a few of the curious in literature; and as to his ed out in all the splendour of military array, and relove verses and epigrams, they have entirely disap-flected that in one hundred years not one of them peared. What is in current use of John Wallis, the would be in existence!" Franciscan, who acquired the name of the tree of life?-of William of Malmsbury; of Simeon of Durham; of Benedict of Peterborough; of John Hanvill of St. Albans; of 'Ah," said the little quarto, with a heavy sigh, "1 see how it is; these modern scribblers have superseded all the good old authors. I suppose nothing is read now-a-days but Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, Sackville's stately plays and Mirror for Magistrates, or the fine-spun euphuisms of the 'unparalleld John Lyly.'' "Prithee, friend," cried the quarto in a testy tone, "how old do you think me? You are talking of authors that lived long before my time, and wrote either in Latin or French, so that they in a manner There you are again mistaken," said I; "the expatriated themselves, and deserved to be forgot-writers whom you suppose in vogue, because they ten; but I, sir, was ushered into the world from happened to be so when you were last in circulation, the press of the renowned Wynkyn de Worde. I have long since had their day. Sir Philip Sidney's was written in my own native tongue, at a time Arcadia, the immortality of which was so fondly prewhen the language had become fixed; and, indeed, dicted by his admirers,* and which, in truth, was full I was considered a model of pure and elegant En- of noble thoughts, delicate images, and graceful turns glish." of language, is now scarcely ever mentioned. Sackville has strutted into obscurity; and even Lyly, though his writings were once the delight of a court, and apparently perpetuated by a proverb. is now scarcely known even by name. A whole crowd of authors who wrote and wrangled at the time, have likewise gone down with all their writings and their controversies. Wave after wave of succeeding literature has rolled over them, until they are buried so deep, that it is only now and then that some industrious diver after fragments of antiquity brings up a specimen for the gratification of the curious. [I should observe that these remarks were couched in such intolerably antiquated terms, that I have had infinite difficulty in rendering them into modern phraseology.] "I cry you mercy," said I, "for mistaking your age; but it matters little; almost all the writers of your time have likewise passed into forgetfulness; and De Worde's publications are mere literary rarities among book-collectors. The purity and stability of ianguage, too, on which you found your claims to perpetuity, have been the fallacious dependence of authors of every age, even back to the times of the worthy Robert of Gloucester, who wrote his history in rhymes of mongrel Saxon. Even now, many talk of Spenser's 'well of pure English undefiled,' as if the language ever sprang from a well or fountain-head, and was not rather a mere confluence of various tongues, perpetually subject to changes and intermixtures. It is this which has made English literature so extremely mutable, and the reputation built upon it so fleeting. Unless thought can be committed to something more permanent and unchangeable than such a medium, even thought must share the fate of every thing else, and fall into decay. This should serve as a check upon the vanity and exultation of the most popular writer. He finds the language in which he has embarked his fame gradually altering, and subject to the dilapidations of time and the caprice of fashion. He looks back, and beholds the early authors of his country, once the favourites of their day, supplanted by modern writers: a few short ages have covered them with obscurity, and their merits can only be relished by the quaint taste *In Latin and French hath many soueraine wittes had great delyte to endyte, and have many noble things fulfilde, but certes there ben some that speaken their poisye in French, of which speche the Frenchmen have as good a fantasye as we have in hearing of Frenchmen's Englishe. CHAUCER'S Testament of Love. Holinshed, in his Chronicle, observes, "afterwards, also, by diligent travell of Geffry Chaucer and John Gowrie, in the time of Richard the Second, and after them of John Scogan and John Lydgate, monke of Benie, our said toong was brought to an excellent passe, notwithstanding that it never came unto the type of perfection until the time of Queen Elizabeth, wherein John Jewell, Bishop of Sarum, John Fox, and sundrie learned and excellent writers, have fully accomplished the ornature of the same, to their great praise and immortal commendation." "For my part," I continued, "I consider this mutability of language a wise precaution of Providence for the benefit of the world at large, and of authors in particular. To reason from analogy: we daily behold the varied and beautiful tribes of vegetables springing up, flourishing, adorning the fields for a short time, and then fading into dust, to make way for their successors. Were not this the case, the fecundity of nature would be a grievance instead of a blessing: the earth would groan with rank and excessive vege tation, and its surface become a tangled wilderness. In like manner, the works of genius and learning decline and make way for subsequent productions. Language gradually varies, and with it fade away the writings of authors who have flourished their allotted time; otherwise the creative powers of genius would overstock the world, and the mind would be completely bewildered in the endless mazes of literature. Formerly there were some restraints on this excessive multiplication: works had to be transcribed by hand, which was a slow and laborious operation; they were written either on parchment, which was expensive, so that one work was often erased to make way for another; or on papyrus, which was fragile and extremely perishable. Authorship was a limited and unprofitable craft, pursued "Live ever sweete booke; the simple image of his gentle witt, and the golden pillar of his noble courage; and ever notify unto the world that thy writer was the secretary of eloquence, the breath of the muses, the honey bee of the daintyest flowers of witt and arte, the pith of morale and the intellectual virtues, the are of Bellona in the field, the tongue of Suada in the chamber. the spirite of Practise in esse, and the paragon of excellency print." HARVEY'S Pierce's Supererogation. 86 chiefly by monks in the leisure and solitude of their | chuckle, until at length he broke out into a plethoric cloisters. The accumulation of manuscripts was fit of laughter that had well nigh choked him, by slow and costly, and confined almost entirely to reason of his excessive corpulency. "Mighty well! monasteries. To these circumstances it may, in cried he, as soon as he could recover breath, some measure, be owing that we have not been in- " mighty well! and so you would persuade me that undated by the intellect of antiquity; that the foun- the literature of an age is to be perpetuated by a tains of thought have not been broken up, and vagabond deer-stealer! by a man without learning! modern genius drowned in the deluge. But the in- by a poet! forsooth-a poet!" And here he wheezed ventions of paper and the press have put an end to forth another fit of laughter. all these restraints: they have made every one a I confess that I felt somewhat nettled at this rudewriter, and enabled every mind to pour itself into ness, which, however, I pardoned on account of his print, and diffuse itself over the whole intellectual having flourished in a less polished age. I deterworld. The consequences are alarming. The stream mined, nevertheless, not to give up my point. of literature has swollen into a torrent-augmented 'Yes," resumed I positively, "a poet; for of all into a river-expanded into a sea. A few centuries writers he has the best chance for immortality. since, five or six hundred manuscripts constituted a Others may write from the head, but he writes from great library; but what would you say to libraries, the heart, and the heart will always understand him. such as actually exist, containing three or four hun- He is the faithful portrayer of Nature, whose features dred thousand volumes; legions of authors at the are always the same, and always interesting. Prose same time busy; and a press going on with fearfully writers are voluminous and unwieldy; their pages increasing activity, to double and quadruple the crowded with commonplaces, and their thoughts number? Unless some unforeseen mortality should expanded into tediousness. (But with the true poet break out among the progeny of the Muse, now that every thing is terse, touching, or brilliant.) He gives she has become so prolific, I tremble for posterity. I the choicest thoughts in the choicest language. He tear the mere fluctuation of language will not be suf-illustrates them by every thing that he sees most ficient. Criticism may do much; it increases with striking in nature and art. He enriches them by pictthe increase of literature, and resembles one of those ures of human life, such as it is passing before him. salutary checks on population spoken of by econ- His writings, therefore, contain the spirit, the aroma, omists. All possible encouragement, therefore, should if I may use the phrase, of the age in which he lives. be given to the growth of critics, good or bad. But They are caskets which inclose within a small comI fear all will be in vain; let criticism do what it pass the wealth of the language-its family jewels, may, writers will write, printers will print, and the which are thus transmitted in a portable form to posworld will inevitably be overstocked with good books. terity. The setting may occasionally be antiquated, It will soon be the employment of a lifetime merely and require now and then to be renewed, as in the to learn their names. Many a man of passable in- case of Chaucer; but the brilliancy and intrinsic formation at the present day reads scarcely any value of the gems continue unaltered. Cast a look thing but reviews, and before long a man of erudi- back over the long reach of literary history. What tion will be little better than a mere walking cata-vast valleys of dulness, filled with monkish legends logue." 66 My very good sir," said the little quarto, yawning most drearily in my face, "excuse my interrupting you, but I perceive you are rather given to prose. I would ask the fate of an author who was making some noise just as I left the world. His reputation, however, was considered quite temporary. The learned shook their heads at him, for he was a poor, half-educated varlet, that knew little of Latin, and nothing of Greek, and had been obliged to run the country for deer-stealing. I think his name was Shakspeare. I presume he soon sunk into oblivion." "On the contrary," said I, "it is owing to that very man that the literature of his period has experienced a duration beyond the ordinary term of English literature. There arise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature. They are live gigantic trees that we sometimes see on the banks of a stream, which, by their vast and deep roots, penetrating through the mere surface, and laying hold on the very foundations of the earth, preserve the soil around them from being swept away by the overflowing current, and hold up many a neighbouring plant, and, perhaps, worthless weed, to perpetuity. Such is the case with Shakspeare, whom we behold, defying the encroachments of time, retaining in modern use the language and literature of his day, and giving duration to many an indifferent author merely from having flourished in his vicinity. But even he, I grieve to say, is gradually assuming the tint of age, and his whole form is overrun by a profusion of commentators, who, like clambering vines and creepers, almost bury the noble plant that upholds them.' Here the little quarto began to heave his sides and *.. and academical controversies! What bogs of theo- |