November 1. 1833.

HOMERIC HEROES IN SHAKSPEARE.

DRYDEN. DR. JOHNSON. SCOTT'S NOVELS. SCOPE OF CHRISTIANITY.

COMPARE Nestor, Ajax, Achilles, &c. in the Troilus and Cressida of Shakspeare with

comparisons, which indicate, on the part of the poet, extreme activity of intellect, and a correspondent hurry of delightful feeling. He retires from the foe into his fortress, where —

a magazine

Of sovereign juice is cellared in ;
Liquor that will the siege maintain

Should Phoebus ne'er return again.

Though myself a water-drinker, I cannot resist the pleasure of transcribing what follows, as an instance still more happy of Fancy employed in the treatment of feeling than, in its preceding passages, the poem supplies of her management of forms.

'Tis that, that gives the Poet rage,
And thaws the gelly'd blood of Age;
Matures the Young, restores the Old,
And makes the fainting coward bold.

their namesakes in the Iliad. The old heroes seem all to have been at school ever since. I

It lays the careful head to rest,
Calms palpitations in the breast,
Renders our lives' misfortune sweet;

Then let the chill Scirocco blow,
And gird us round with hills of snow;
Or else go whistle to the shore,
And make the hollow mountains roar :

Whilst we together jovial sit

Careless, and crowned with mirth and wit;
Where, though bleak winds confine us home,
Our fancies round the world shall roam.

We'll think of all the friends we know,
And drink to all worth drinking to;
When, having drunk all thine and mine,
We rather shall want healths than wine.

But where friends fail us, we'll supply
Our friendships with our charity;
Men that remote in sorrows live
Shall by our lusty brimmers thrive.

We'll drink the wanting into wealth,
And those that languish into health,
Th' afflicted into joy, th' opprest
Into security and rest.

scarcely know a more striking instance of the strength and pregnancy of the Gothic mind.

Dryden's genius was of that sort which catches fire by its own motion; his chariot wheels get hot by driving fast.

Dr. Johnson seems to have been really more powerful in discoursing viva voce in conversation than within his pen in hand. It seems as if the excitement of company called

The worthy in disgrace shall find
Favour return again more kind,
And in restraint who stifled lie
Shall taste the air of liberty.

The brave shall triumph in success,
The lovers shall have mistresses,
Poor unregarded virtue, praise,
And the neglected poet, bays.

Thus shall our healths do others good,
Whilst we ourselves do all we would;
For, freed from envy and from care,
What would we be but what we are?

Preface to the editions of Mr. W's Poems,

in 1815 and 1820.- ED.

something like reality and consecutiveness into his reasonings, which in his writings I cannot see. His antitheses are almost always verbal only; and sentence after sentence in the Rambler may be pointed out, to which you cannot attach any definite meaning whatever. In his political pamphlets there is more truth of expression than in his other works, for the same reason that his conversation is better than his writings in general.

When I am very ill indeed, I can read Scott's novels, and they are almost the only books I can then read. I cannot at such times read the Bible; my mind reflects on it, but I can't bear the open page.

Unless Christianity be viewed and felt in a high and comprehensive way, how large a portion of our intellectual and moral nature does it leave without object and action!

Let a young man separate I from Me as far as he possibly can, and remove Me till it

is almost lost in the remote distance. " I am Me," is as bad a fault in intellectuals and morals as it is in grammar, whilst none but "I am I," or

one God

can say,

"That

I am."

November 9.-1833.

TIMES OF CHARLES I.

How many books are still written and published about Charles the First and his times! Such is the fresh and enduring interest of that grand crisis of morals, religion, and government! But these books are none of them works of any genius or imagination; not one of these authors seems to be able to throw himself back into that age; if they did, there would be less praise and less blame bestowed on both sides.