it was hewn ! The much-enamoured Psyche had abundant reason to weep for the gratification of a forbidden curiosity. It is said of Sir Joshua Reynolds, that he was extremely jealous of any one coming behind

LECTURE I.

BEFORE We enter upon the business of these Lectures, allow me to draw your attention for a moment to the remarkable circumstances under which we are assembled, to take this transient survey of the genius and labours of one, whom contemporary fame has acknowledged as the brightest literary ornament of the age, and whom posterity will admit to have been its best practical moralist. The reflection is forced upon us by the recent extinction of many of the brightest lights of science, as well as of polite letters. The names of Bentham, Cuvier, Leslie, Goethe, Crabbe, and Scott excite no common emotions, and their places, in the public mind, will not very quickly be reoccupied. That of Cuvier will mark an æra in the progress of natural history. In his hands, a new branch of physical research in the most recondite of the regions of nature has been raised to the dignity of a science; and natural history generally is indebted to him for the reduction to order of many of the scattered fragments of the systems of others, and of the facts and observations that have been, of late years, pouring in so copiously from all quarters.

But a late clever writer has said, that "science alone

B

is hard and mechanical: it exercises the understanding upon things out of ourselves, whilst it leaves the affections unemployed, or engaged with our own immediate narrow interests*."

Without assenting to the extreme of this proposition, we may allow that the acquisition of knowledge is sometimes made at the expense of an imperfect cultivation of the moral feelings, that perfect science is not always perfect wisdom. If to Cuvier, then, and Leslie, and their fellow-labourers in physics, we give our highest admiration, our warmest affections have been engaged, and our keenest regrets must be reserved for the poet, philosopher, and moralist.

The extensive cultivation and rapid progress of the arts and sciences without any great and corresponding improvement in morals, it is to be supposed, have given rise to the erroneous opinion of the incompatibility of these objects, and consequently of no advance in the sum of human happiness. May we not ask if the burst of admiration and regret that followed upon the death of Scott be not sufficient answer to the objection? Is it not a sign of the extension and improvement of the moral feeling, when the public mind responds to the call of a universal friendship, and, for once, at least, the world seems to acknowledge that a prophet has been amongst them?

This enthusiasm has not been confined to the poetic traveller, who has wandered down Gallawater-or stood at the foot of the ancient cross at Melrose-or looked

*Hazlitt.

up from the Teviot on the dismantled towers of Branxholme, on the "Ladye's bower: "

"The bower that was guarded by word and by spell,

Deadly to hear and deadly to tell.

Jesu-Maria, shield us well!"

It has been acknowledged in the humblest recesses of private life-it has been heard in foreign lands-and the remotest parts of the civilized world have responded to the strain.

"The wizard note has not been touch'd in vain."

The death of Scott has probably closed in one of the most brilliant periods of what is called polite literature. Let us take a hasty view of its several æras in English history.

The earliest dawn of polite letters in this country, or the time, at least, in which it assumed anything like form and consistency, has, by general consent, been styled "the age of Chaucer." This was succeeded, after a long interval, by that "of Elizabeth," or "of Shakspeare," and that again by what has been called "the Augustan age of England; " when Swift, Addison, and Pope gave elegance of form and polish (perhaps at the expense of some nerve) to the accumulated materials of antient and modern times. After this succeeded so long and great a decay, that, as far as poetry was concerned, it was supposed that the resources of the human mind were exhausted, that "the force of nature could no farther go,”—that we were "drawing upon the lees; "

but, in our own times, and in the memory of most of us, we have seen such a revival, not only of this, but of every other branch of polite letters, that we are warranted in supposing that there are, in these ebbings and flowings of the tide of the human understanding such indications of a paroxysmal activity and repose as are to be observed in almost all other natural objects.-That, when from indolence, or exhaustion, or the want of strong excitement from external causes, the public mind is in danger of falling into decrepitude, means are provided for its renewal. To repose succeed new incentives for exertion, new views, new habits, and a new "avatar" of the divine spirit of poesy appears upon the earth to revivify the whole.

The task to which I am pledged by the announcement for this evening's Lecture is, to bring to your recollection some of the manifestations of the genius of the northern bard; and to contrast them with the characteristic features of one whom it has always been considered the highest excellence even to approach, and of whom it has been said, with more poetical than logical truth, that

"None but himself could be his parallel."

If any objection be made to the use of the word parallel, (and I grant such an objection does not appear unreasonable,) let it be remembered, that that word does not necessarily imply equality; that in criticism, as in geometry, parallel lines are not always lines of equal breadth and force. It is sufficient for my purpose