content to take up with the leavings of our ancestors. We are born in too late an age, and too chilly a climate. It is as if the happiest genius among the Greeks of the age of the Antonines should have had the presumption to think he could pen an Iliad. And, worst of all, we are born in an age of criticism, where the boldest of us dares not let himself loose to be all that he might have been capable of being. We talk to learned ears, and to persons who from their infancy have been schooled in artificial laws. would many ways be better, if we addressed hearers and readers of unstudied feelings, and who would confess themselves pleased, without the slavery and the cowardice of enquiring first whether they ought to be pleased.

It

A part of what I feel on the subject, is aptly expressed in the homely phraseology of Anthony Wood. It is in his article of Chapman, the translator. "Afterwards," says Wood (that is, when he left the university), "he settled in the metropolis, and became much admired by Edmund Spenser, Samuel Daniel, William Shakespear, Christopher Marlow, &c, by all whose writings, as also by those of Sir Philip Sidney, William Warner, and of our author Chapman, the English tongue was exceedingly enriched, and made quite another thing than what it was before.”

The purpose of the following pages is rather to

enable the reader to form a comparison, and to determine for himself in what respects the old English writers excelled, and in what respects they fall short of the moderns, than to deliver any thing authoritatively on the subject.

This will best be effected by producing a series of instances.

We will confine ourselves to prose examples. The licence of poetry, and the fetters of versification, have equally in all ages seduced the poets, in some degree to deviate from the received language of the age in which they wrote.

The following specimens were not originally selected with a friendly eye. But they are not on that account in some respects the less qualified to answer the purpose for which they are produced. A selection of Beauties might be calculated to mislead the judgment. The question might then be, not of style, which is the enquiry here intended, but of the genius or profundity of the author. It is by taking the writers in the middle tone of composition, that we can best judge of the successive fluctuations, and improvement or otherwise, of the language in which they wrote.

SECT. I.

AGE OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY may be considered in some respects as the earliest of those writers, whom An

thony Wood and others have held up as " exceedingly enriching our language, and making it quite another thing than what it was before;" and his high rank and personal accomplishments have contributed no less than the elegance of his taste and the brilliancy of his imagination, to preserve for him the eminent station he has always held among the fathers of our present English tongue. We will therefore begin with an extract from this writSir Philip Sidney died a young man in the year 1586, and his Arcadia made its first appearance from the press in 1590. The passage here given commences in the second page of that work.

er.

"Alas my Strephon (said Claius) what needes this skore to recken vp onely our losses? What doubt is there, but that the sight of this place doth call our thoughtes to appeare at the court of affection, held by that racking steward, Remembrance? As well may sheepe forget to feare when they spie woolues, as we can misse such fancies, when we can see any place made happie by her treading. Who can choose that saw her but thinke where she stayed, where she walkt, where she turned, where she spoke? But what is all this? truely no more, but as this place serued vs to thinke of those things, so those serue as places to call to memorie more excellent matters. No, no, let vs thinke with consideration, and consider with acknowledging, and acknowledge with admiration, and

admire with loue, and loue with ioy in the midst of all woes: let vs in such sorte thinke, I say, that our poore eyes were so enriched as to behold, and our lowe hearts so exalted as to loue, a maide, who is such, that as the greatest thing the world can shewe, is her beautic, so the least thing that may be praysed in her, is her beautie. Certainely as her eye-lids are more pleasant to behold, than two white kiddes climbing vp a faire tree, and browsing on his tendrest branches, and yet are nothing, compared to the day-shining starres contained in them; and as her breath is more sweete than a gentle South-west wind, which comes creeping ouer flowrie fieldes and shadowed waters in the extreame heate of sommer, and yet is nothing, compared to the hony flowing speach that breath doth carrie: no more all that our eyes can see of her (though when they haue seene her, what else they shall euer see is but drie stubble after clouers grasse) is to be matched with the flocke cf vnspeakable vertues laid vp delightfully in that best builded fold."

"Claius was going on with his praises, but Strephon bad him stay, and looke: and so they both perceiued a thinge which floated drawing nearer and nearer to the banke; but rather by the fauourable working of the Sea, then by any self industrie. They doubted a while what it should be;

till it was cast vp euen hard before them: at which time they fully saw that it was a man. Whereupon running for pitie sake vnto him, they found his hands (as it should appeare, constanter freinds to his life than his memorie) fast griping vpon the edge of a square small coffer, which lay all vnder his breast: els in him selfe no shew of life, so as the boord seemed to be but a beere to carrie him a land to his Sepulcher. So drew they vp a yong man of so goodly shape, and well pleasing fauour, that one would thinke death had in him a louely countenance; and, that though he were naked, nakednesse was to him an apparell. That sight increased their compassion, and their compassion called vp their care; so that lifting his feete aboue his head, making a great deale of salt water come out of his mouth, they layd him vpon some of their garments, and fell to rub and chafe him, till they brought him to recouer both breath the seruant, and warmth the companion of liuing. At length opening his eyes, he gaue a great groan, (a doleful note but a pleasaunt dittie) for by that they founde not onely life, but strength of life in him."

Hooker was undoubtedly a writer of superior merit. Whoever shall bestow upon him a diligent perusal, will find himself well rewarded by the venerable simplicity of his disposition, the profound