Essays do not include political tracts or pamphlets, from which we may easily distinguish them by considering the difference in the ends proposed. The end of an essay is knowledge; the end of a political tract or pamphlet, action. Logic appertains to the former, rhetoric to the latter. The essay-writer has answered his purpose if he presents to us a new and clearer view of the subject which he handles, and leads us to think upon it. The political writer has answered his purpose, if, whatever the view may be which he wishes to enforce, his arguments, whether they be sound or specions, tend to arouse his readers to action in the direction pointed out.

The heterogeneous character of the subjects of essays makes it useless, if not impossible, to classify them. An essay may be written about any thing whatever which an attentive thinker can place in a new light, or form a plausible theory about: there would, therefore, be no end to the division and subdivision. We shall merely notice some of the most remarkable collections of essays in our literature. Bacon's essays, concerning which some particulars were noted at p. 122, are the earliest in the series. As a specimen, we give a passage from the essay "Of Plantations," which must have been one of the latest composed, for it is evident from it that the colony of Virginia (founded in 1605) had then been in existence for several years:

"Plantations are amongst ancient, primitive, and heroical works. When the world was young, it begat more children; but, now it is old, it begets fewer; for I may justly account new plantations to be the children of former kingdoms. I like a plantation in a pure soil; that is, where people are not displanted, to the end to plant in others. For else it is rather an extirpation than a plantation. Planting of countries is like planting of woods; for you must make account to lose almost twenty years' profit, and expect your recompense in the end. For the principal thing that hath been the destruction of most

plantations hath been the base and hasty drawing of profit in the first years. It is true, speedy profit is not to be neglected, as far as may stand with the good of the plantations, but no farther. It is a shameful and unblessed thing, to take the scum of people, and wicked, condemned men, to be the people with whom you plant. And not only so, but it spoileth the plantation; for they will ever live like rogues, and not fall to work, but be lazy, and do mischief, and spend victuals, and be quickly weary, and then certify over to their country, to the discredit of the plantation. . . . Consider, likewise, what commodities the soil, where the plantation is, doth naturally yield, that they may some way help to defray the charge of the plantation; so it be not, as was said, to the untimely prejudice of the main business, as it hath fared with tobacco in Virginia. Wood commonly aboundeth but too much; and therefore timber is fit to be one. If there be iron ore, and streams whereupon to set the mills, iron is a brave commodity where wood aboundeth. . . For government, let it be in the hands of one, assisted with some counsel; and let them have commission to execute martial laws, with some limitation. And, above all, let men make that profit of being in the wilderness, as they have God always, and his service, before their eyes. . . . If you plant where savages are, do not only entertain them with trifles and gingles; but use them justly and graciously, with sufficient guard nevertheless; and do not win their favor by helping them to invade their enemies, but for their defence it is not amiss. And send oft of them over to the country that plants, that they may see a better condition than their own, and commend it when they return."

Feltham's "Resolves," Bishop Hall's "Centuries of Meditations and Vows," and Browne's "Religio Medici," have all the character of essays. Hume's "Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary," published in 1742 and 1752, show a remarkable union of practical shrewdness with power of close and searching thought. In our own age, John Foster's "Essays in a Series of Letters. to a Friend" have obtained a high reputation. They are upon ethical subjects, written in a plain, strong style, and profoundly reasoned. Lord Macaulay's "Essays," most of which were originally contributed to "The Edinburgh Review," would generally fall, according to the terminology that we have adopted, under the head of Criticism; and the same remark applies to Jeffrey's "Essays."

Criticism.

Criticism may be, (1) philosophical, (2) literary, (3) artistic. Of the first kind, Bacon's "Advancement of Learning" is a splendid instance. After having, in the first book, expatiated in that beautiful language, not more thoughtful than it is imaginative, which he could command at pleasure, upon the dignity and utility of learning, he proceeds in the second part to consider what are the principal works or acts of merit which tend to promote learning. These, he decides, are conversant with, (1) the places of learning, (2) the books or instruments of learning, (3) the persons of the learned. He then passes in review the chief defects observable in the existing arrangements for the promotion of learning. One of these is, that "there hath not been, or very rarely been, any public designation of writers or inquirers concerning such parts of knowledge as may appear not to have been already sufficiently labored or undertaken; unto which point it is an inducement to enter into a view and examination, what parts of learning have been prosecuted, and what omitted; for the opinion of plenty is among the causes of want, and the great quantity of books maketh a show rather of superfluity than lack; which surcharge, nevertheless, is not to be remedied by making no more books, but by making more good books, which, as the serpent of Moses, might devour the serpents of the enchanters." The object of the work, therefore, is to institute a critical survey of the entire field of learning, with a view, partly to guide public patronage, partly to stimulate voluntary endeavors to cultivate the waste places indicated. And this survey he proceeds to make, dividing all learning into three branches, history, philosophy, and poetry, and noting what has been done, what overlooked, in each.

2. In the department of literary criticism, some admirable works have to be named. The earliest and one of the best among these is the Sir Philip Sidney's "Defence of Poesie " (mentioned at p. 123), from which we must find room for an extract, describing the invigorating moral effects of poetry :—

'Now, therein, of all sciences (I speak still of human, and according to the human conceit) is our poet the monarch. For he doth not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way as will entice any man to enter into it: nay, he doth, as if your journey should lie through a fair vineyard, at the very first give you a cluster of grapes, that full of that taste you may long to pass further. He beginneth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the margin with interpretations, and load the memory with doubtfulness; but he cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the well-enchanting skill of music; and with a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you,- with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner; and, pretending no more, doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue; even as the child is often brought to take most wholesome things, by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant taste, which, if one should begin to tell them the nature of the aloes or rhubarbarum they should receive, would sooner take their physic at their ears than at their mouth. So is it in men, most of whom are childish in the best things till they be cradled in their graves: glad they will be to hear the tales of Hercules, Achilles, Cyrus, Æneas; and hearing them must needs hear the right description of wisdom, valor, and justice, which if they had been barely (that is to say, philosophically) set out, they would swear they be brought to school again. That imitation whereof poetry is, hath the most conveniency to nature of all other: insomuch that, as Aristotle saith, those things which in themselves are horrible, as cruel battles, unnatural monsters, are made, in political imitation, delightful. Truly I have known men, that even with reading 'Amadis de Gaul,' which, God knoweth, wanteth much of a perfect poesie, have found their hearts moved to the exercise of courtesy, liberality, and especially courage. Who readeth Æneas carrying old Anchises on his back, that wisheth not it were his fortune to perform so excellent an act? Whom do not those words of Turnus move (the tale of Turnus having planted his image in the imagination)? —

'Fugientem hæc terra videbit? Usque adeone mori miserum est?'"

The critical passages which occur in Johnson's "Lives. of the Poets" appear to be in the main just and sound. Shakspearian criticism has given rise to an entire library of its own. Fielding led the way, by the admiring yet discerning notices of the great dramatist which he introduced in his "Tom Jones." The prefaces. and notes of Pope and Johnson followed; at a later date appeared Hazlitt's" Characters," and the critical notices in Coleridge's "Literary Remains.”

But the greatest achievement of literary criticism that we can point to is Hallam's "Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries." This is a book of which the sagacity and the calmness. are well matched with the profound erudition.

tain coldness or dryness of tone is often noticeable, which seems not to be wondered at; for it is not easy to imagine that the man who spent so large a portion of his moral existence in surveying the labors and mastering the thoughts of men of the utmost diversity of aspiration and opinion could have felt a very warm personal interest in any of their systems.

Among works on poetical criticism, we can scarcely err in assigning a high and permanent place to Mr. Thackeray's "Lectures on the English Humorists."

3. In artistic criticism, the same remark might be hazarded as to Mr. Ruskin's "Modern Painters" and "Stones of Venice." Nothing else of much importance can be named, except Horace Walpole's "Anecdotes of Painting," and Sir Joshua Reynolds's "Lectures.

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