will do that service to scholars which they have almost a right to demand of him. First of all, let the sermons be dismissed, they load the edition, and hang heavily upon its circulation, with no apparent benefit of any kind; none of them have ever been popular, or in the eye of the public, except the Spital Sermons ; and those of course have a special privilege of reprieve. The sermons are liable to the continual suspicion of being in part only of Dr. Parr's composition, from his known practice (which he even avowed) of interweaving auxiliary passages from divines who happened to meet his own views, or, in some instances, of deriving his whole groundwork from others, and simply running variations of his own, many or few, upon his adopted theme. It is possible (but the public are not aware in what degree) that the sermons selected for publication may be free from this particular objection; but at all events, as a body, the readers of sermons are too devout a class to find their own peculiar taste gratified in a collection breathing the Parrian spirit of religion : — - par exemple, one sermon undertakes the defence of hunting, and might very properly have come from one of the brilliant brothers of the Melton Mowbray establishment. This having been preached in the morning, we see no reason why the evening service should not have brought us an apology for steeple-chases — which seem even to have the advantage in this point- that such matches never lose sight of the church. Certain it is, that the sermons, whether otherwise of merit or not, are in this respect faulty, that they do not contemplate any determinate audience; professedly, indeed, they are parish discourses; and yet they deal with topics foreign to the needs and sympathies of a plain rural congregation, sometimes even inaccessible to their understandings. Doubtless all farmers would understand the hunting sermon; but how many would enter in any sense into the question of Christ's descent into Hades? However, we need not discuss the value of the sermons more particularly; good or bad, they are now printed for those who want them; and they are certainly not wanted by the vast majority of scholars - none of whom, in any country, but would put some value on the philological speculations of Dr. Parr and, according to their feeling and taste, all connoisseurs in Latin composition would be glad to possess so brilliant an ywvioua in rhetoric as the Bellenden Preface. Thus,

therefore, let the new edition stand; reprint all Dr. Parr's critical tracts, essays, or fragments, and of course, not omitting (as Dr. Johnstone has done, with no intelligible explanation, vol. i. p. 543), the long investigation of the word sublime (already much abridged by Dugald Stewart), nor the various reviews of classical works contributed to literary journals by Dr. P. when they happen to be of any value.* Even the letters, when they discuss critical questions, should be detached from the main body of miscellaneous correspondence, and united by way of appendix to the rest of the critical matter. Points of criticism, it is true, in the letters, are rarely insulated from other matter, which would become irrelevant in its new situation; but this objection might be met by confining the extracts strictly to those passages which are critical, and printing them as so many separate notices or memoranda - under the title of Adversaria. This would be accumulated in one large volume, which, by means of a separate title-page, might be sold as a distinct work; and, by means of a general one, might also take its place as one section of Dr. Parr's general works. These would perhaps compose two more volumes, each offering the same recommendation to separate purchasers one being made up of the very élite of his essays on political or moral subjects, the other of his rhetorical bravuras.

*We say this, because the review of Combe's Horace, which Dr. Johnstone has published, is chiefly occupied with trifling typographical minutiæ; the obscura diligentia of the corrections is quite unworthy of a scholar's pen, and unprofitable to any class of readers.

SCHLOSSER'S LITERARY HISTORY OF THE

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

In the person of this Mr. Schlosser is exemplified a common abuse, not confined to literature. An artist from the Italian opera of London and Paris, making a professional excursion to our provinces, is received according to the tariff of the metropolis; no one being bold enough to dispute decisions coming down from the courts above. In that particular case there is seldom any reason to complain-since really out of Germany and Italy there is no city, if you except Paris and London, possessing materials, in that field of art, for the composition of an audience large enough to act as a court of revision. It would be presumption in the provincial audience, so slightly trained to good music and dancing, if it should affect to reverse a judgment ratified in the supreme capital. The result, therefore, is practically just, if the original verdict was just; what was right from the first cannot be made wrong by iteration. Yet, even in such a case, there is something not satisfactory to a delicate sense of equity; for the artist returns from the tour as if from some new and independent triumph, whereas, all is but the reverberation of an old one; it seems a new access of sunlight, whereas it is but a reflex illumination from satellites.

When

In literature the corresponding case is worse. An author, passing by means of translation before a foreign people, ought de jure to find himself before a new tribunal; but de facto, he does not. Like the opera artist, but not with the same propriety, he comes before a court that never interferes to disturb a judgment, but only to re-affirm it. And he returns to his native country, quartering in his armorial bearings these new trophies, as though won by new trials, when, in fact they are due to servile ratifications of old ones. Sue, or Balzac, Hugo, or George Sand, comes before an English audience—the opportunity is invariably lost for estimating them at a new angle of sight. All who dislike them lay them aside whilst those only apply themselves seriously to their study, who are predisposed to the particular key of feeling, through which originally these authors had prospered. And thus a new set of judges, that might usefully have modified the narrow views of the old ones, fall by mere inertia into the humble character of echoes and sounding-boards to swell the uproar of the original mob.

In this way is thrown away the opportunity, not only of applying corrections to false national tastes, but oftentimes even to the unfair accidents of luck that befall books. For it is well known to all who watch literature with vigilance, that books and authors have their fortunes, which travel upon a far different scale of proportions from those that measure their merits. Not even the caprice or the folly of the reading public is required to account for this. Very often, indeed, the whole difference between an extensive circulation for one book, and none at all for another of about

equal merit, belongs to no particular blindness in men, but to the simple fact, that the one has, whilst the other has not, been brought effectually under the eyes of the public. By far the greater part of books are lost, not because they are rejected, but because they are never introduced. In any proper sense of the word, very few books are published. Technically they are published; which means, that for six or ten times they are advertised, but they are not made known to attentive ears, or to ears prepared for attention. And amongst the causes which account for this difference in the fortune of books, although there are many, we may reckon, as foremost, personal accidents of position in the authors. For instance, with us in England it will do a bad book no ultimate service, that it is written by a lord, or a bishop, or a privy counsellor, or a member of Parliament — though, undoubtedly, it will do an instant service—it will sell an edition or so. This being the case, it being certain that no rank will reprieve a bad writer from final condemnation, the sycophantic glorifier of the public fancies his idol justified; but not so. A bad book, it is true, will not be saved by advantages of position in the author; but a book moderately good will be extravagantly aided by such advantages. Lectures on Christianity, that happened to be respectably written and delivered, had prodigious success in my young days, because, also, they happened to be lectures of a prelate; three times the ability would not have procured them any attention had they been the lectures of an obscure curate. Yet, on the other hand, it is but justice to say, that, if written with three times less ability, lawn-sleeves would not have given them buoyancy, but, on the contrary,