troduced by Milton in his 7th Book, where, when the Almighty is entering Chaos in his way to create new worlds, even Discord is immediately hushed at the sound of his voice, and the vast abyss receives him in respectful stillness :

Silence, ye

troubled waves, and thou deep, peace—

Said then th' omnific Word, your discord end!

Nor stay'd-but on the wings of Cherubim
Uplifted, in paternal glory rode

Far into Chaos, and the world unborn;

For Chaos heard his voice."

But by far the most beautiful passage of this kind, is that with which Thomson concludes his Hymn on the Seasons. He first calls on all nature to "sound the stupendous praise" of Nature's God; but when he rises towards him through the beauties of his works, he feels conscious that this mode is inadequate to express the sensations that such a view inspires, and he most sublimely concludes with exclaiming—

"I cannot go

Where universal love not smiles around,

Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns;

From seeming evil still educing good,

And better thence again, and better still,

In infinite progression. But I lose

Myself in him, in light ineffable;

Come then, expressive Silence, muse His praise."

In short, every feeling of the heart, whether joyous or otherwise, which is extreme, defies the

power of language to express it. Thus Shakspeare

says

"Silence is the perfectest herald of joy :

I were but little happy, if I could say how much."

Otway

"Silent as th' extatic bliss

Of souls, that by intelligence converse."

and we all know how common is the being unable to speak when affected with emotions of excessive joy or gratitude.

As to grief, silence may be said to be its proper language; and the "erravit sine voce dolor," ("grief wandered silent") of Lacon, has ever been esteemed a most beautiful and sublime passage. Tacitus, speaking of Agrippina returning with the ashes of Germanicus, says of the multitude that had flocked to meet her on her landing, that they were "morentium turba, et rogitantium inter se, silentione, an voce aliquâ, egredientem exciperent, neque satis constabat, quid pro tempore foret.” "A croud of mourners, who were asking each other, whether they should receive her, on landing, in silence, or with loud expressions of grief, for they were undecided in their opinion which mode was most suitable to the occasion."

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But Sterne, who was a better judge of feeling, does not hesitate a moment,-" My uncle Toby sat down by the bedside of his distressed friend, and

said nothing.." Southey, in his Thalaba, equally shows his intimate acquaintance with the best emotions of the soul. He writes

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Pitying, and silently he heard,—

Not with the busy hand

Of consolation, fretting the sore wound
He could not hope to heal."

Æschylus, whose vivid imagination, and enthusiastic fire, though they frequently forced him (like our own Shakspeare) into great faults, yet, more often obtained for him beauties of the sublimest nature, has a stroke of feeling very similar to the foregoing one. He describes the wretched Niobe sitting disconsolately at the tomb of her children for three days, covered with a veil, and observing a profound silence. Thus, too, Sophocles, when her sons informs Deianira of the mistake by which she has poisoned her husband Hercules, represents at once how unspeakable are her sorrow and despair, by making her retire in silence from the stage. Equally noble and beautiful is a passage in Job, where, when his friends, who come to mourn with him, and to comfort him, see to how miserable a state he is reduced, tormented, destitute, afflicted with disease, bereft of every solace, --of every blessing; and so worn down, so altered by his sorrows, that they scarcely knew him,they are thus represented as offering their condolement :-" They sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none

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spake a word unto him, for they saw that his grief was great." Dr. Warton justly observes on this passage," Were ever sorrow, and misery, and compassion expressed, more forcibly and feelingly?" and adds,-" such silences are more affecting, and more strikingly expressive of passion, than the most artful speeches."

It is now time to conclude: the above instances will suffice to show how exquisitely beautiful this manner of expression may sometimes be. In a word, (as Marmontel observes) true sublimity does not consist in words, but things,-and the only merit of style, is not to weaken these, not to injure the effect they would produce, could souls communicate together without the intervention of speech; and this direct communication is attained by the "eloquence of silence,"-which may, therefore, be considered as the most proper channel of the true sublime.

CURIOUS ERROR OF DR. ASH'S.

SIR,-Allow me to offer, for the amusement of your readers, the following instance of as curious and gross a literary blunder as I think it is possible to meet with; it well deserves a place in that

very entertaining work of D'Israeli's" the Curiosities of Literature," and even there it would not be eclipsed.

As I was lately turning over the leaves of Dr. Ash's Dictionary for some word or other, my eye glanced on "curmudgeon," and curious to see its etymology, I stopped at it, and read as follows: " Curmudgeon, from the French 'cœur,' unknown, and méchant, a correspondent. This naturally surprised me in no small degree; for first, that "cœur," signified unknown, and "méchant" a correspondent, was perfectly new to me! and next, had such been their signification, I was still at a loss to conjecture in what manner the idea of a "curmudgeon," and "an unknown correspondent" could be assimilated.

In this difficulty, I thought it would be best to apply to Dr. Johnson for aid, and accordingly turned over to the word in him, where I at once found a clue to the mystery.

The article in Dr. Johnson ran thus: "Curmudgeon, a vicious manner of pronouncing 'cœurméchant.' (Fr. An unknown correspondent.)"

This was perfectly plain. "Curmudgeon" he asserts to be a corruption of the French words "cœur-méchant," which, as every body knows, mean a bad-hearted person, or a sorry fellow; and for this etymology, he gives, as an authorityan unknown correspondent ;-but Dr. Ash must evidently have taken this authority as a transla