garlic!" But it is my conviction that the guest, on this occasion, was only a slightly-exaggerated specimen of the usual conduct of those who have been taught to conduct themselves wholly by the artificial rules of civilized society, of which, generally speaking, falsehood is the basis.

Benevolence is certainly one of the first of virtues; and its result is an amiable aversion to wound the feelings of others, even in trifles; therefore benevolence and politeness may be considered as the same thing; but WORLDLY POLITENESS is only a copy of benevolence. Benevolence is gold: this politeness, a paper currency, contrived as its substitute; as society, being aware that benevolence is as rare as it is precious, and that few are able to distinguish in any thing the false from the true, resolved, in lieu of benevolence, to receive WORLDLY POLITENESS, with all her train of deceitful welcomes, heartless regrets, false approbations, and treacherous smiles, those alluring seemings, which shine around her brow, and enable her to pass for BENEVOLENCE herself. But how must the religious and the moral dislike the one, though they venerate the other! The kindness of the worldly plite only lives its little hour in one's presence; but that of the benevolent retains its life and sweetness in one's absence. The worldly polite will often make the objects of their greatest flatteries and attentions when present, the butt of their ridicule as soon as they see them no more; while the benevolent hold the characters and qualities of their associates in a sort of holy keeping at all times, and are as indulgent to the absent as they were attentive to the present. The kindness of the worldly polite is the gay and pleasing flower worn in the bosom as the ornament of a few hours, then suffered to fade and thrown by when it is wanted no longer; but that of the really benevolent is like the fresh-springing evergreen, that blooms on through all times and all seasons, unfading in beauty and undiminished in sweetness.

THOMAS NOON TALFOURD, 1795-1854.

SIR THOMAS NOON TALFOURD was the son of a brewer in Reading, who married the daughter of Mr. Thomas Noon, a “dissenting" clergyman: hence the name of our author, who was born January 26, 1795. He studied law, and was called to the bar in 1821. In 1833 he was made sergeant-at-law; and in 1849 a seat on the bench rewarded his talents and his toils. But his love for literature was as early and as ardent as his love for his profession. In 1815 he published a paper, entitled An Estimate of the Poetry of the Age, in which he claims for Wordsworth the honor of being one of the first of modern poets. In succeed

ing years he became a contributor to the Retrospective Review, the Edinburgh Review, the London Magazine, and the New Monthly Magazine, and wrote the History of Greek Literature, in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana. In 1835 appeared his tragedy of Ion, his highest literary effort, after the manner of the Greek drama, and founded upon the old Grecian notion of destiny. This was followed by three other tragedies, The Athenian Captive, Glencoe, and The Cas tilian; and in 1851 he published Vacation Rambles, comprising the recollection of three continental tours. But the work for which Mr. Talfourd will probably be best loved, if not most known, is his edition of The Works of Charles Lamb, with a Memoir, in four volumes, interspersed throughout with the most genial and appreciative criticisms, and with interesting and valuable information upon the authors and events of the time.

Mr. Talfourd died of apoplexy, at Stafford, on the 13th of March, 1854, while delivering his charge to the grand jury. He was speaking of the increase of crime, of the neglect of the rich, the ignorance of the poor, of the want of a closer knowledge and more vital sympathy between class and class, and of the thousand social evils which arise from that unhappy and unnatural estrangement of human interests,-when his face flushed, and he bent forward on his desk. A moment more, and the bystanders saw him swerve, as if he were already senseless. He was dying calmly. In a few seconds he was gone; and all that was mortal of the poet, the scholar, and the jurist, was carried into the judges' chamber, and there laid down in breathless awe.

BUT ONE HOMER.

The hypothesis to which the antagonists of Homer's personality must resort implies something far more wonderful than the theory which they impugn. They profess to cherish the deepest veneration for the genius displayed in the poems. They agree also in the antiquity usually assigned to them; and they make this genius and this antiquity the arguments to prove that one man could not have composed them. They suppose, then, that in a barbarous age, instead of one being marvellously gifted, there were many; a mighty race of bards, such as the world has never since seen, a number of miracles instead of one. All experience is against this opinion. In various periods of the world great men have arisen, under very different circumstances, to astonish and delight it; but that the intuitive power should be so strangely diffused, at any one period, among a great number who should leave no successors behind them, is unworthy of credit. And we are requested to believe this to have occurred in an age which those who maintain the theory regard as unfavorable to the poetic art! The common theory, independent of other proofs, is prima facie the most probable. Since the early existence of the works cannot be doubted, it is easier to believe in one than in twenty Homers.

VARIETIES OF CHARACTER IN THE ILIAD.

Nothing is more surprising in human works than the immense number and variety of the characters which are brought together in the Iliad, without any one clashing with another, or bearing too near a resemblance. Achilles, Ulysses, Nestor, Ajax, Hector, and Diomed, live and move before us. They all talk, as well as act, in character. Of those which have the most similarity, scarcely a speech or an action could be transferred from one to another without taking something from its force, grace, and dramatic propriety. There are nice shades of distinction, and those philosophically accounted for, even in the valor of the chieftains; a quality which would commonly seem to admit of few, and those very broad, diversities. The variety of wounds described by Homer is not greater, and not so extraordinary, as the modes by which each warrior manifests the kind of prowess in which he excels in the midst of the combat. The character of Diomed, in particular, is admirably drawn: fiery, ingenuous, choleric, and yet yielding the most ready and graceful submission to those whom he regards as competent to check or direct him. Hector is the most amiable and virtuous of all the heroes, and is rendered yet more interesting by his premature death. There is great life and spirit in the delineation of Achilles, though his quarrel with the Greeks, and revenge on the body of Hector, are inconsistent with true greatness. He is a simple warrior, openhearted, sincere, and detesting every mean and low vice, but little softened by touches of gentleness and pity. His unhappy Trojan foe is as superior to him in accomplishment and grace as he is in moral worth. There are passages in the Iliad of great pathos, as well as of quiet beauty. The account of the impression made by Helen on the counsellors of Priam, and of the affectionate address of the venerable monarch, in which he tries to soothe her, is no less exquisite in its kind than the most vivid picture of a battle, in which heroes and gods are the combatants. The melancholy journey of Priam to the tent of Achilles is admirably conceived and touchingly described; and the whole scene in the Grecian camp forms an excellent dramatic picture. There is nothing in the poem more pathetic than the lamentation of Helen over the body of Hector, in which she declares, that while others have reviled her as the author of their calamities, he had never given her one unkind word or upbraiding look. It gives a finishing touch to the almost perfect character of the unfortunate hero, and leaves on our minds the kindliest impression respecting him.

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THE EFFECT OF CHRISTIANITY ON POETRY.

The Christian religion was the great cause of the revolution of poetry. It banished the illusions of mythology from the world. For a time, it even caused the mighty fictions of Homer and his countrymen to be deprived of that poetical admiration to which they are entitled. It fixed men's hopes and affections on things unseen. It gave distant glimpses of an eternal world, instead of the sensible images with which the regions beyond the grave had been fantastically adorned, and restored the feeling of One great pervading Cause, which had so long been divided amidst a multitude of material deities. Hence the mingling of the classical with the contemplative class of poetry, which has ever since been blended with the greatest works of imagination. The poets of our own country, and especially Shakspeare and Milton, have thus eminently succeeded. And they have not merely given us, in some passages, clear and distinct images of graceful and elegant forms, and in others referred us to the elements, and to the vast and undefined in nature and in eternity, but they have frequently, by one effort of the imagination, united both the sources of the grand and delightful. While they have pictured forth distinctly sublime and beautiful forms, they have made those forms the representatives of whole classes; they have involved the universal in the individual. They have described to us, with a Grecian precision, the glorious objects of creation, and yet have made these objects the mere foreground of a far-reaching perspective. The most noble and deep feelings, and sentiments, and thoughts, are, in their works, expressed and embodied in the fairest of earthly shapes. Every feature has an expression which no coloring of this world could supply. Creation is covered with an imaginative lustre, a dream-like radiance emanating from the soul. And yet nothing of distinctiveness is lost to the objects which we see through this pure and softening medium.

SYMPATHY.

We keep too much aloof from those beneath us: hence their somewhat natural prejudices are left unmitigated, and we become objects only of their suspicion and dislike. Even towards our domestic servants we are apt to think our whole duty fulfilled when the contract between us is performed,-when we have paid them their wages, and especially if, further, we have curbed our temper and used no violent expressions towards them, but ever treated them with the civility consistent with our habits and feelings. How painful is the thought that there are men and women growing up around us, ministering to our comforts and

necessities, continually inmates of our dwellings, with whose affections and nature we are as much unacquainted as if they were inhabitants of some other sphere! This reserve, peculiar to the English character, greatly tends to prevent that reciprocation of kind words, gracious admonitions, friendly inquiries, and gentle affections, which, more than any book education, culture the heart, while they refine and elevate the character of those to whom they are addressed. If I were to be asked, What is the great want of English society to mingle class with class? I should reply in one word,-sympathy!1

JOHN WILSON, 1788–1854.

JOHN WILSON, the distinguished Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, was born in the year 1788, in the town of Paisley. He was the son of an opulent manufacturer of Paisley, and received his elementary education at Glasgow University, whence, in due time, he was transferred to Magdalene College, Oxford. Here his poetical genius was developed, and he carried off the Newdigate prize from a vast number of competitors for the best English poem of fifty lines. To fine genius and great powers of literary acquisition he added a remarkable taste for gymnastic exercises and athletic sports. After being four years at Oxford, he purchased a small but beautiful estate, named Elleray, on the banks of Lake Windermere, where he went to reside. "He married, built a house and a yacht, enjoyed himself among the magnificent scenery of the lakes, wrote poetry, and cultivated the society of Wordsworth." At this period he published the first of his beautiful poems, The Isle of Palms, a volume that placed him at once by the side of some of our most elegant modern poets. Subsequently he became a member of the Scottish bar, and in a few years received the appointment to that chair which he so long filled with honor. His permanent reputation will rest upon his prose writings. His contributions to Blackwood's Magazine raised the whole tone and character of magazine literature,-for in this he poured forth the riches of his fancy, learning, and taste. The various essays on Spenser and Homer, the Essay on Burns, and those inimitably witty and brilliant conversations, known as Noctes Ambrosianæ,2 afford perhaps the finest specimens of Wilson's prose. The most valuable of these contributions have been published in three volumes, under the title of The Recreations of Christopher North. His poetical works

1 "In these days the rich do not look enough to the poor. We have great exertions for public harities, indeed, but there is a separation in England between the rich and poor, and to me it is a strong indication of decline."-GENERAL SIR CHARLES NAPIER.

A very complete and beautiful edition of this work has been edited, “with Memoirs and Notes, by R. Shelton Mackenzie, D.C.L.," in

five volumes, with portraits and fac-similes. New York: W. J. Widdleton. These papers were so called (Noctes Ambrosiana) because they were supposed to be written by a brotherhood of young scholars and wits, who assem bled at a quiet inn in Edinburgh, kept by one Mr. Ambrose. Professor Wilson wrote most of the numbers; but Wm. Maginn, J. G. Lockhart, and James Hogg wrote a few each.