his reasonings concerning the things of this world, that charges with guilt and folly every attempt to be happy in it. Every circumstance is dwelt upon that can image life as vain and miserable; and lest any gladsome note should cheer the transitory scene, he perpetually sounds in the ears the knell of death. Such a picture of this world, I am sure, is ill calculated to inspire love for its Creator; and I think it as little fitted to foster the mutual charities of life, and put men in good humour with each other. What a contrast to the amiable theology of the Seasons!

I cannot wish therefore that the Night Thoughts should become your favourite that you should ponder over it, and make it your closet companion. Yet, as a work of genius, it is certainly entitled to admiration; and many of its striking sentences concerning the abuse of time, the vanity of frivolous pursuits, the uncertainty of human enjoyments, and the nothingness of temporal existence compared to eternal, are well worthy of being impressed upon the memory. No writer, perhaps, ever equalled Young in the strength and brilliancy which he imparts to those sentiments which are fundamental to his design. He presents them in every possible shape, enforces them by every imaginable argument, sometimes compresses them into a maxim, sometimes expands them into a sentence of rhetoric, sets them off by contrast, and illustrates them by similitude. It has already been observed, in speaking of his satires, how much he abounds in antithesis. This work is quite overrun with them; they often occupy several successive lines; and while some strike with the force of lightning, others idly gleam like a meteor. It is the same with his other figures: some are almost unrivalled in sublimity; many are to be admired for their novelty and ingenuity; many are amusing only by their extravagance. It was the author's aim to say every thing wit

tily; no wonder, therefore, that he has often strayed into the paths of false wit. It is one of his characteristics to run a thought quite out of breath; so that what was striking at the commencement, is rendered flat and tiresome by amplification. Indeed, without this talent of amplifying, he could never have produced a work of the length of the Night Thoughts from so small a stock of fundamental ideas.

I cannot foresee how far the vivacity of his style, and the frequent recurrence of novel and striking conceptions, will lead you on through a performance which, I believe, appears tedious to most readers before they arrive at the termination. Some of the earlier books will afford you a complete specimen of his manner, and furnish you with some of his finest passages. You will, doubtless, not stop short of the third book, entitled "Narcissa," the theme of which he characterises as

'Soft, modest, melancholy, female, fair.”

It will show you the author's powers in the pathetic, where the topic called them forth to the fullest exertion; and you will probably find that he has mingled too much fancy and playfulness with his grief, to render it highly affecting.

The versification of Young is entirely modelled by his style of writing. That being pointed, sententious, and broken into short detached clauses, his lines almost constantly are terminated with a pause in the sense, so as to preclude all the varied and lengthened melody of which blank verse is capable. Taken singly, however, they are general y free from harshness, and sometimes are eminently musical.

YOUNG'S SATIRES.

DR. YOUNG wrote seven satires, called "The Love of Fame, the uni versal passion," in which he illus

of royalty; for Young bestowed adulation as largely as censure, and always with a view to his interest; in which he is disadvantageously distinguished from Pope. Two meaner lines will not easily be found than the following in his praise of queen Caroline :

Her favour is diffused to that degree, Excess of goodness! it has beam'd on

me.

These are at the close of his second satire on women; for his politeness did not prevent him from employing the lash with even peculiar force on the tender sex. I think, however, you will feel yourself little hurt by these attacks; for his ridicule consists in presenting a series of caricatures, drawn rather from fancy than observation; and he does not treat the whole sex with that contempt which is perpetually breaking out in the writings of Pope and Swift.

Before you, for the present, lay down this author, I will desire you to peruse a piece of descriptive poetry, in which he has shown himself master of a very different style. This is his "Paraphrase on Part of the Book of Job," a composition in its original the most sublime of those sacred writings which it accompanies, though, as in all other Hebrew poetry, its grandeur is allied to obscurity, Young has made little addition to the primitive imagery, but has rendered it more clear and precise, while it contains all its force and splendour. The descriptions are not always accurate, and the language sometimes borders upon extravagance; but his object was poetical effect, and this he has produced in an uncommon degree. Thus, after his highly wrought picture of the lion in his nightly ravages, he fixes and and concentrates the impression of terror, by the figure of the flying shepherd, who

―sbudders at the talon in the dust.

This is a stroke of real genius!

PORTRAIT OF ERSKINE.

By Mr. Austin.

ERSKINE, Gibbs, and Garrow, are the three most powerful speakers in the courts of law.

The person of Erskine is slender; his height not exceeding the common size; his complexion sallow; his hair dark; his face oval, and a little emaciated; the lower part of his forehead prominent, yet gradually retreating; his eyebrows full, a little perplexed, seated near his eyes, which are hazel, open and conciliatory; his nose narrow between the eyes, yet perfectly congenial, neither too large nor too small; his mouth gently closed, seeming ready to await the dictates of his tongue, yet not large enough to give his eloquence its just tone; his lips thin, meeting in union, and, when irritated, rather inclining to retreat than project; his chin gently retreating, which, in conjunction with his forehead, bespeaks the man firm, yet modest; positive, yet ingenuous.

His countenance, when in a state of repose, is prepossessing; but, when he speaks, his gestures are rhetoric; his looks, persuasion; his voice, eloquence: in the glow of animation, commanding; but in the moment of passion, when self-convinced, he is pure intelligence: disdaining every by-road to conviction, he strips the cause of all its surrounding circumstances, places it on its own position; true to nature, paints it visibly to the eye, and buries in oblivion every interfering particular. Both judge and jury are prostrate in chains. It is the contention of principle, no matter whose, or what the interest, if heaven were concerned, it is still the contention of principle. Of all causes which could arise, the present seems to involve the deepest consequences: there is no distinc tion now between the great and the little, every thing but the point in question is forgotten; Erskine and is cause are sovereign over all. Now flows the fountain of justice,

now are explored the recesses of iniquity, now are the deep foundations of fraud broken up. His eloquence becomes a torrent which sweeps away every mound which art or subterfuge had raised: no longer has the law a single hard feature; no perplexities, no uncertainties, no idle evasions! Saturnian Jove descends, with his equal scales; Cunning retires in shame; Oppression lets go its victim; and Innocence is seated on the throne of Equity. At length, Erskine himself, by degrees, is forgotten, and forgets himself; he rises to an effort not his own, and sinks under superior feelings, while the judge and jury, convinced even to enthusiasm, are impatient to withhold the verdict.

Erskine will suffer nothing on being examined as a man: his profession has not defaced his original features of greatness. When engaged in a weak or unjust cause, he never sacrifices his hardihood of honour to the views of his client. He says all that ought to be said; yet never commits his own dignity by urging a corrupt principle. You see nothing of the attorney, Erskine is a counsellor: you see no partizan of petty advantages, Erskine is a gentleman.

He is serious, or witty, at pleasure, and, when the occasion offers, and he is disposed to descend, he can, like Roscius, turn off a case in pantomime. Among the thousand actions which are presented him, some appear, on trial, to have originated in mirth, and others in impudence: this Proteus is ready in a moment to throw off the professional buskin, and tread the sock.

I have followed Erskine to the House of Commons, forming to my mind the attitude of a man, treading empires under his feet, and holding in his hands the destinies of the world. If, in a petty court of law, he could move heaven in behalf of a poor orphan, or an oppressed widow, surely, in presence of the British parliament, when the fate of nations is depending, the front of opposition must cower beneath his

frown, or follow in the wake of his triumphant path. But the moment he enters parliament he disappears. He is only one among five hundred. An Arab would never kill Erskine, unless he caught him in his gown, band, and wig*; with these he seems to put off his whole virtue. As a statesman Erskine is nothing. I do not say he is a great man in a little room; but Erskine, addressing twelve men, in a court of law, and in the British parliament, addressing the speaker in behalf of the nation, is not the same man. He commences, indeed, on a broad foundation, but ascends, like a pyramid, and either produces an abortion, or attains to the point, and terminates where he should have begun. In parliament, he discovers nothing of that copious precision, that ascending order, that captivating fluency, that earnest conviction, which, at the bar, stamp him Erskine. In parliament, he labours with a harrow through the impediments of politics; now it catches hold of Pitt, then it interferes with a straggling limb of Hawkesbury, now it tears away the skirts of Addington, presently it is to be lifted over the body of Windham. He concludes, and the impression which he made is already effaced.

PORTRAIT OF GIBBS.

THE person of Gibbs is diminutive, his appearance contemptible; he has not a single strong mark of character, except a sagacious eye. There is nothing engaging in his looks; he rather repels, than attracts; but all his defects are forgotten, the moment he opens his mouth. Gibbs is, doubtless, the greatest lawyer in England. In a common case, he sinks under Erskine and Garrow, but in a cause which involves first principles, where there is no room

The English lawyers are dressed, when in court, in a black gown, band, and tie wig.

for the trappings of eloquence, where passion is vain, where digression weakens, where embellishment is suspicious, he commands admiration, and pens up Erskine in a corner, and not unfrequently makes him stammer.

In addressing a jury, Gibbs is second; but second only to Erskine Garrow. He neither understands human nature so well, nor can he sift character, nor can he insinuate himself, and take advantage of a fortunate moment. He has no conception of the extremes of virtue and vice; he measures every thing with his compasses, but he is sure of his dimensions. You make it merely a case of conscience to agree with him, yet he never lets you go, until he has secured you, though he never thanks you for a verdict, well knowing you would not have given it, had he not compelled you. Sometimes, though rarely, he attains to eloquence not inferior to Erskine's, and then he is sure of his cause, for what can resist the arguments of Gibbs, backed with the eloquence of Erskine? Yet his eloquence is not an expansive eloquence, because it is not the eloquence of the heart, but that of the head. He cannot look all the jury in the face at the same moment; he does not regard the jury as one man, he feels as though he has twelve persons to convince: different from Erskine, who addresses the whole twelve, and persuades each individual that he is solicitous to convince him in particular. With Gibbs, human nature varies in different men; Erskine finds the tie of connection, which governs the whole. While the one is labouring his point, the other has already touched you with his wand. Gibbs, like his countrymen, effects all that he does effect, by main force. Erskine and Garrow are dancing on the top of the fortification, while Gibbs is mining the foundation; and before Gibbs enters the city, it is already sacked. I speak of these great men address ing a jury: in addressing the judges, before whom nothing but law and

argument can avail, or will be heard, before whom the most eloquent might as well speak in the dark, Gibbs rises pre-eminent. He assumes nothing, yet you perceive the very deportment of his body bespeaks a man sure of himself, who has sounded his position, and who stands ready to grasp the whole common law of England. When Gibbs

shows himself before the judges, Garrow is out of court, or sits with his callimanco bag tied up, and Erskine, his antagonist, is as anxious and as busy as a general, fearful of a surprise.

The deeper the case, the more perplexed, the more original, and involved in law learning, the more firm his position; he is secure in himself, and less cautious of his competitor. He rises with a solemnity and moderation, which impress every one. His voice is strong, slow, and well articulated; perfectly suited to a man, who, in pursuit of the light of reason, is willing that every word should be judged by the rules of precision. Without the appearance of arrangement, he has all the elegance of method; luminous, you see his path through the wilderness of the law, while in his rear follows a stream of connexion; thus attaining to all the interest of historical order, he gradually convinces until he challenges all he demanded.

His gestures are moderate, his countenance is never impassioned; he is never, like Erskine, agitated; he uses but one arm, and that never in a waving line; his person is scarcely big enough to wield the weight of his mind. He admits little illustration, but depends on his last argument to illustrate the former. He never condescends to be witty, despises embellishment, would trample on all the flowers of May, discovers no learning foreign to the case, and indulges in no sally, except a strong and overwhelming irony, correspondent with strength of his reasoning. In these moments, Erskine's self retires before him, like the shadow, which

the