CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. LIBRARIES. THE passion for forming vast collections of books has necessarily existed in all periods of human curiosity; but ✔long it required royal munificence to found a national library. It is only since the art of multiplying the productions of the mind has been discovered, that men of letters have been enabled to rival this imperial and patriotic honour. The taste for books, so rare before the fifteenth century, has gradually become general only within these four hundred years; in that small space of time the public mind of Europe has been created. Of LIBRARIES, the following anecdotes seem most interesting, as they mark either the affection, or the veneration, which civilized men have ever felt for these perennial repositories of their minds. The first national library founded in Egypt seemed to have been placed under the protection of the divinities, for their statues magnificently adorned this temple, dedicated at once to religion and to literature. It was still further embellished by a well known inscription, for ever grateful to the votary of literature; on the front was engraven, The nourishment of the soul, or, according to Diodorus, 'The medicine of the mind.' The Egyptian Ptolemies founded the vast library of Alexandria, which was afterwards the emulative labour of rival monarchs; the founder infused a soul into the vast body he was creating, by his choice of the librarian Demetrius Phalereus, whose skilful industry amassed from all nations their choicest productions. Without such a librarian, a national library would be little more than a literary chaos. His well exercised memory and critical judgment are its best catalogue. One of the Ptolemies refused supplying the famished Athenians with wheat, until they presented him with the original manuscripts of Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; and in returning copies of these originals, he allowed them to retain the fifteen talents which he had pledged with them as a princely security. Even when tyrants, or usurpers, possessed sense as well as courage, they have proved the most ardent patrons of literature; they know it is their interest to turn aside the public mind from political speculations, and to afford their subjects the inexhaustible occupations of curiosity, and the consoling pleasures of the imagination. Thus Pisistratus is said to have been among the earliest of the Greeks, who projected an immense collection of the works of the learned, and is believed to have been the collector of the scattered works, which passed under the name of Homer. The Romans, after six centuries of gradual dominion, must have possessed the vast and diversified collections of the writings of the nations they conquered; among the most valued spoils of their victories, we know that manuscripts were considered as more precious than vases of gold. Paulus Emilius, after the defeat of Perseus, king of Macedon, brought to Rome a great number which he had amassed in Greece, and which he now distributed among his sons, or presented to the Roman people. Sylla followed his example. After the siege of Athens, he discovered an entire library in the temple of Apollo, which having carried to Rome he appears to have been the founder V of the first Roman public library. After the taking of Carthage, the Roman senate rewarded the family of Regulus with the books found in that city. A library was a national gift, and the most honourable they could bestow. From the intercourse of the Romans with the Greeks, the passion for forming libraries rapidly increased, and individuals began to pride themselves on their private collections. Of many illustrious Romans, their magnificent taste in their libraries has been recorded. Asinius Pollio, Crassus, Cæsar, and Cicero, have, among others, been celebrated for their literary splendour. Lucullus, whose incredible opulence exhausted itself on more than imperial luxuries, more honourably distinguished himself by his vast collec tions of books and the happy use he made of them by the liberal access he allowed the learned. It was a library," says Plutarch, whose walks, galleries, and cabinets, were open to all visiters; and the ingenious Greeks, when at leisure, resorted to this abode of the Muses to hold literary conversations, in which Lucullus himself loved to join. This library, enlarged by others, Julius Cæsar once proposed to open for the public, having chosen the erudite Varro for its librarian; but the daggers of Brutus and his party prevented the meditated projects of Cæsar. In this museum, Cicero frequently pursued his studies, during the time his friend Faustus had the charge of it; which he describes to Atticus in his 4th Book, Epist. 9. Amidst his public occupations and his private studies, either of them sufficient to have immortalized one man, we are astonished at the minute attention Cicero paid to the formation of his libraries, and his cabinets of antiquities. The emperors were ambitious at length to give their names to the libraries they founded; they did not consider the purple as their chief ornament. Augustus was himself an author, and in one of those sumptuous buildings called Thermes, ornamented with porticos, galleries, and statues, with shady walks, and refreshing baths, testified his love of literature by adding a magnificent library. One of these libraries he fondly called by the name of his sister Octavia ; and the other, the temple of Apollo, became the haunt of the poets, as Horace, Juvenal, and Persius have commemorated. The successors of Augustus imitated his example, and even Tiberius had an imperial library chiefly consisting of works concerning the empire and the acts of its sovereigns. These Trajan augmented by the Ulpian library, so denominated from the family name of this prince. In a word we have accounts of the rich ornaments the ancients bestowed on their libraries; of their floors paved with marble, their walls covered with glass and ivory, and their shelves and desks of ebony and cedar. The first public library in Italy, says Tiraboschi, was founded by a person of no considerable fortune: his credit, his frugality, and fortitude, were indeed equal to a treasury. This extraordinary man was Nicholas Niccoli, the son of a merchant, and in his youth himself a merchant; but after the death of his father he relinquished the beaten roads of gain, and devoted his soul to study, and his fortune to assist students. At his death he left his library to the public, but his debts being greater than his effects, the princely generosity of Cosmo de Medici realized the intention of its former possessor, and afterwards enriched it, by the addition of an apartment, in which he placed the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldaic, and Indian Mss. The intre pid resolution of Nicholas V, laid the foundations of the Vatican; the affection of Cardinal Bessarion for his country first gave Venice the rudiments of a public library; and to Sir T. Bodley we owe the invaluable one of Oxford. Sir Robert Cotton, Sir H. Sloane, Dr. Birch, Mr Cracherode, and others of this race of lovers of books, have all contributed to form these literary treasures, which our nation owe to the enthusiasm of individuals, who have found such pleasure in consecrating their fortunes and their days to this great public object; or, which in the result produces the same public good, the collections of such men have been frequently purchased on their deaths, by government, and thus have entered whole and entire into the great national collections. Literature, like virtue, is its own reward, and the enthusiasm some experience in the permanent enjoyments of a vast library, have far outweighed the neglect or the calumny of the world, which some of its votaries have received. From the time that Cicero poured forth his feelings in his oration for the poet Archias, innumerable are the testimonies of men of letters of the pleasurable delirium of their researches; that delicious beverage which they have swallowed, so thirstily, from the magical cup of literature. Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, chancellor and high treasurer of England so early as 1341, perhaps raised the first private library in our country. He purchased thirty or forty volumes of the Abbot of St. Albans for fifty pounds weight of silver. He was so enamoured of his large collection, that he expressly composed a treatise on his love of books, under the title of Philobiblion,' an honourable bute paid to literature, in an age not literary. on the continent, about 1440. It is a circumstance worthy observation, that the French sovereign, Charles V, surnamed the Wise, ordered that thirty portable lights, with a silver lamp suspended from the centre, sbould be illuminated at night, that students might not find their pursuits interrupted at any hour. Many among us, at this moment, whose professional avocations admit not of morning studies, find that the resources of a public library are not accessible to them from the omission of the regulation of the zealous Charles V of France. An alarming objection to nightstudies in public libraries is the danger of fire, and in our own British Museum not a light is permitted to be carried about on any pretence whatever. The history of the tri-Bibliotheque du Roi' is a curious incident in literature; and the progress of the human mind and public opinion might be traced by its gradual accessions, noting the changeable qualities of its literary stores chiefly from theology, law and medicine, to philosophy and elegant literature. In 1789 Neckar reckoned the literary treasures to amount to 225,000 printed books, 70,000 manuscripts, and 15,000 collections of prints. By a curious little volume published by M. Le Prince in 1782, it appears that it was first under Louis XIV, that the productions of the art of engraving were collected and arranged; the great minister Colbert purchased the extensive collections of the Abbé de Marolles, who may be ranked among the fathers of our print-collectors. Two hundred and sixty-four ample portfolios laid the foundations, and the catalogues of his collections, printed by Marolles himself, are rare, curious, and high-priced. Our own national print-gallery is yet an infant establishment. To pass much of our time amid such vast resources, that man must indeed be not more animated than a leaden Mercury, who does not aspire to make some small addition to his library, were it only by a critical catalogue! He must be as indolent as that animal called the sloth, who perishes on the tree he climbs, after he has eaten all its leaves. Henry Rantzau, a Danish gentleman, the founder of the great library at Copenhagen, whose days were dissolved in the pleasures of reading, discovers his taste and ardour in the following elegant effusion: Salvete aureoli mei libelli, Et sperare decus perenne scriptis ; IMITATED. Golden volumes! richest treasures! This passion for the acquisition and enjoyment of books, has been the occasion of their lovers embellishing their outsides with costly ornaments; a rage which ostentation may have abused; but when these volumes belong to the real man of letters, the most fanciful bindings are often the emblems of his taste and feelings. The great Thuanus was eager to purchase the finest copies for his library, and his volumes are still eagerly purchased, bearing his autograph on the last page. A celebrated amateur was Grollier, whose library was opulent in these luxuries; the Muses themselves could not more ingeniously have ornamented their favourite works. I have seen several in the libraries of our own curious collectors. He embellished their outside with taste and ingenuity. They are gilded and stamped with peculiar neatness, the compartments on the binding are drawn, and painted, with different inventions of subjects, analogous to the works themselves; and they are further adorned by that amiable inscription, Jo. Grollierii et amicorum! purporting that these literary treasures were collected for himself and for his friends! The family of the Fuggers had long felt an hereditary passion for the accumulation of literary treasures; and their portraits, with others in their picture gallery, form a curious quarto volume of 127 portraits, excessively rare even m Germany, entitled Fuggerorum Pinacotheca.' Wolfius, who daily haunted their celebrated library, pours out his gratitude in some Greek verses, and describes this Bibliotheque as a literary heaven, furnished with as many books as there were stars in the firmament; or as a literary garden, in which he passed entire days in gathering fruit and flowers, delighting and instructing himself by perpetual occupation. Mr Hallam has observed, that in 1440 England had made comparatively but little progress in learning-and Germany was probably still less advanced. However there was in Germany a celebrated collector of books in the person of Trithemius, the celebrated abbot of Spanheim, who died in 1516; he had amassed about two thousand manuscripts, a literary treasure which excited such general attention, that princes and eminent men of that day travelled to visit Trithemius and his library. About this time six or eight hundred volumes formed a royal collection, and their high value in price could only be furnished by a prince. This was indeed a great advancement in libraries, when at the beginning of the fourteenth century the library of Louis IX contained only four classical authors, and that of Oxford, in 1500, consisted of a few tracts kept in chests.' those exercises or recreations of the mind which pass The pleasures of study are classed by Burton among within doors. Looking about this world of books,' he exclaims, I could even live and die with such meditations, and take more delight and true content of mind in them, than in all thy wealth and sport! There is a sweetness, which, as Circe's cup, bewitcheth a student, he cannot leave off, as well may witness those many laborious hours, days and nights, spent in their voluminous treatises. So sweet is the delight of study. The last day is prioris discipulus.' Heinsius was mewed up in the library of Leyden all the year long, and that which to my thinking should have bred a loathing, caused in him a greater liking. I no sooner, saith he, come into the library, but I bolt the door to me, excluding Lust, Ambition, Avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse is Idleness, the mother of Ignorance and Melancholy. In the very lap of eternity, amongst so many divine souls, I take my seat with so lofty a spirit, and sweet content, that I pity all our great ones and rich men, that know not this happiness.' Such is the incense of a votary who scatters it on the altar less for the ceremony than from the devotion. There is, however, an intemperance in study, incompatible often with our social or more active duties. The illustrious Grotius exposed himself to the reproaches of some of his contemporaries for having too warmly pursued his studies, to the detriment of his public station. It was the boast of Cicero, that his philosophical studies had never interfered with the services he owed the republic, and that he had only dedicated to them the hours which others give to their walks, their repasts, and their pleasures. Looking on his voluminous labours, we are sur In 1364 the royal library of France did not exceed twen-prised at this observation: how honourable is it to him, ty volumes. Shortly after Charles V increased it to nine hundred, which by the fate of war, as much at least as that of money, the Duke of Bedford afterwards purchased and transported to London, where libraries were smaller than that his various philosophical works bear the titles of the different villas he possessed; which shows that they were composed in their respective retirements. Cicero must have been an early riser; and practised that magic art of employing his time, as to have multiplied his days. THE BIBLIOMANIA. LITERATURE. The preceding article is honourable to literature, yet impartial truth must show that even a passion for collecting books is not always a passion for literature. The Bibliomania, or the collecting an enormous heap of books without intelligent curiosity, has, since libraries have existed, infected weak minds, who imagine that they themselves acquire knowledge when they keep it on their shelves. Their motley libraries have been called the mad houses of the human mind; and again, the tomb of books, when the possessor will not communicate them, and coffins them up in the cases of his library-and as it was facetiously observed, these collections are not without a Lock on the human Understanding.* The Bibliomania has never raged more violently than in the present day. It is fortunate that literature is in no ways injured by the follies of collectors, since though they preserve the worthless, they necessarily defend the good. Some collectors place all their fame on the view of a splendid library, where volumes arrayed in all the pomp of lettering, silk linings, triple gold bands and tinted leather, are locked up in wire cases, and secured from the vulgar hands of the mere reader, dazzling our eyes like eastern beauties peering through their jealousies! Bruyere has touched on this mania with humour: 'Of such a collector,' says he, as soon as I enter his house, I am ready to faint on the staircase, from a strong smell of Morocco leather: in vain he shows me fine editions, gold leaves, Etruscan bindings, &c., naming them one after another, as if he were showing a gallery of pictures! a gallery by the by which he seldom traverses when alone, for he rarely reads, but me he offers to conduct through it! I thank him for his politeness, and, as little as himself, care to visit the tan-house, which he calls his library.' tion, which never appeared, a literary man argued, that Fortunate are those who only consider a book for the Those students, who, though they know much, still thirst utility and pleasure they may derive from its possession. to know more, may require this vast sea of books; yet in that sea they may suffer many shipwrecks. Great collections of books are subject to certain accidents besides the damp, the worms, and the rats; one not less commcn is that of the borrowers, not to say a word of the purloiners. LITERARY JOURNALS. When writers were not numerous, and readers rare, the Lucian has composed a biting invective against an ignor unsuccessful author fell insensibly into oblivion; he disant possessor of a vast library. Like him, who in the pre- solved away in his own weakness; if he committed the sent day, after turning over the pages of an old book, private folly of printing what no one would purchase, he was not arraigned at the public tribunal-and the awful chiefly admires the date. Lucian compares him to a pilot, terrors of his day of judgment consisted only in the retriAt length, a who was never taught the science of navigation; to a rider butions of his publisher's final accounts. who cannot keep his seat on a spirited horse; to a man taste for literature spread through the body of the people, who not having the use of his feet, wishes to conceal the defect by wearing embroidered shoes; but, alas! he canpire to literary honours. To oppose these forcible entries not stand in them! He ludicrously compares him to Ther- vanity induced the inexperienced and the ignorant to asinto the haunts of the Muses, periodical criticism brandsites wearing the armour of Achilles, tottering at every step; leering with his little eyes under his enormous hel-ished its formidable weapon; and the fall of many, taught met, and his hunch-back raising the cuirass above his shoulders. Why do you buy so many books? he says:you have no hair, and you purchase a comb; you are V blind, and you will have a grand mirror: you are deaf, and you will have fine musical instruments! Your costly bindings are only a source of vexation, and you are continually discharging your librarians for not preserving them from the silent invasion of the worms, and the nibbling triumphs of the rats! Such collectors will contemptuously smile at the collection of the amiable Melancthon. He possessed in his library only four authors, Plato, Pliny, Plutarch, and Ptolemy the geographer. Ancillon was a great collector of curious books, and dexterously defended himself when accused of the Bibliomania. He gave a good reason for buying the most elegant editions; which he did not consider merely as a literary luxury. some of our greatest geniuses to rise. Multifarious writings produced multifarious strictures, and public criticism reached to such perfection, that taste was generally diffused, enlightening those whose occupations had otherwise never permitted them to judge of literary compositions. The invention of Reviews, in the form which they have at length gradually assumed, could not have existed but in the most polished ages of literature; for without a constant supply of authors, and a refined spirit of criticism, they could not excite a perpetual interest among the lovers of literature. These publications are the chronicles of taste and science, and present the existing state of the idle hours, which men of letters do not choose to pass idly. public mind, while they form a ready resource for those Their multiplicity has undoubtedly produced much evil; puerile critics, and venal drudges, manufacture reviews: hence that shameful discordance of opinion, which is the Passions hostile to the scorn and scandal of criticism. He said the less the eyes are fatigued in reading a work, the more liberty the mind feels to judge of peaceful truths of literature have likewise made tremendous inroads in the republic, and every literary virtue has it: and as we perceive more clearly the excellencies and been lost! In Calamities of Authors,' I have given the defects of a printed book than when in MS; so we see them more plainly in good paper and clear type than when history of a literary conspiracy, conducted by a solitary critic Gilbert Stuart, against the historian Henry. the impression and paper are both bad. He always purchased first editions, and never waited for second ones; though it is the opinion of some that a first edition is generally the least valuable, and only to be considered as an imperfect essay, which the author proposes to finish after he has tried the sentiments of the literary world. Those who wait Bayle approves of Ancillon's plan. calmly for a book, says he, till it is reprinted, show plainly that they are resigned to their ignorance, and prefer the saving of a pistole to the acquisition of useful knowledge. With one of these persons, who waited for a second edi • An allusion and pun which occasioned the French translator of the present work an unlucky blunder: puzzled no doubt by my facetiously, he translates mettant comme on l'a tres-judicieusement fait observer, l'entendement humain sous la Clef› The book, and the author alluded to, quite escaped him. These works may disgust by vapid panegyric, or gross invective; weary by uniform dulness, or tantalize by superficial knowledge. Sometimes merely written to catch the public attention, a malignity is indulged against authors, to season the caustic leaves. A reviewer has admired those works in private, which he has condemned in his of ficial capacity. But good sense, good temper, and good taste, will ever form an estimable journalist, who will inspire confidence, and give stability to his decisions. To the lovers of literature these volumes when they have outlived their year, are not unimportant. They constitute a great portion of literary history, and are indeed the annals of the republic. To our own reviews, we must add the old foreign journals, which are perhaps even more valuable to the man of letters. Of these the variety is considerable; and many of their writers are now known. They delight our curiosity by opening new views, and light up in observing minds many projects of works, wanted in our own literature. Giboon feasted on them; and while he turned them over with constant pleasure, derived accurate notions of works, which no student can himself have verified: of many works a notion is sufficient, but this notion is necessary. The origin of so many literary journals was the happy project of Denis de Sallo, a counsellor in the parliament of Paris. In 1665 appeared his Journal des Scavans. He published his essay in the name of the Sieur de Hedouville, his footman! Was this a mere stroke of humour, or designed to insinuate that the freedom of his criticism could only be allowed to his footman? The work, however, met with so favourable a reception, that Sallo had the satisfaction of seeing it, the following year, imitated throughout Europe, and his journal, at the same time, translated into various languages. But as most authors lay themselves open to an acute critic, the animadversions of Sallo were given with such asperity of criticism, and such malignity of wit, that this new journal excited loud murmurs, and the most heart-moving complaints. The learned had their plagiarisms detected, and the wit had his claims disputed. Sarasin called the gazettes of this new Aristarchus, Hebdomadary Flams! Billevezees hebdomadaries! and Menage, having published a law-book, which Sallo had treated with severe raillery, he entered into a long argument to prove, according to Justinian, that a lawyer is not allowed to defame another lawyer, &c. Senatori maledicere non licet, remaledicere jus fasque est. Others loudly declaimed against this new species of imperial tyranny, and this attempt to regulate the public opinion by that of an individual. Sallo, after having published only his third volume, felt the irritated wasps of literature thronging so thick about him, that he very gladly abdicated the throne of criticism. The journal is said to have suffered a short interruption by a remonstrance from the nuncio of the pope, for the energy with which Sallo had defended the liberties of the Gallican church. Intimidated by the fate of Sallo, his successor, Abbé Gallois, flourished in a milder reign. He contented himself with giving the titles of books, accompanied with extracts; and he was more useful than interesting. The public, who had been so much amused by the raillery and severity of the founder of this dynasty of new critics, now murmured at the want of that salt and acidity by which they had relished the fugitive collation. They were not satisfied in having the most beautiful, or the most curious parts of a new work brought together; they wished for the unreasonable entertainment of railing and raillery. At length another objection was conjured up against the review; mathematicians complained they were neglected to make room for experiments in natural philosophy; the historian sickened over the works of natural history; the antiquaries would have nothing but discoveries of Mss, or fragments of Antiquity. Medical works were called for by one party and reprobated by another. In a word, each reader wished only to have accounts of books which were interesting to his profession or his taste. But a review is a work presented to the public at large, and written for more than one country. In spite of all these difficulties, this work was carried to a vast extent. An index to the Journal des Sçavans has been arranged on a critical plan, occupying ten volumes in quarto, which may be considerud as a most useful instrument to obtain the science and literature of the entire century. by Basnage more successfully in his Histoire des Ouvrages des Sçavans. The contemporary and the antagonist of Bayle was Le Clerc. His firm industry has produced three Biblotheques -Universelle et Historique-Choisie and Ancienne et Moderne, forming in all 82 volumes, which, complete, bear a very high price. Inferior to Bayle in the more pleasing talents, he is perhaps superior in erudition, and shows great skill in analysis: but his hand drops no flowers! Apostolo Zeno's Giornale de' Litterati d'Italia, from 1710 to 1733, is valuable. Gibbon resorted to Le Clerc's volumes at his leisure, "as an inexhaustible source of amusement and instruction." Beausobre and L'Enfant, two learned Protestants, wrote a Bibliotheque Germanique, from 1720 to 1740, in 50 vols. ; our own literature is interested by the 'Bibliotheque Britannique; written by some literary Frenchmen, noticed by La Croze in his Voyage Litteraire,' who designates the writers in this most tantalizing manner: 'Les auteurs sont gens de merite et que entendent tous parfaitement l'Anglois; Messrs S. B. le M. D. et le savant Mr D.' Posterity has been partially let into the secret; De Missy was one of the contributors, and Warburton communicated his project of an edition of Gelleius Paterculus. This useful account of only English books begins in 1733, and closes at 1747, Hague, 23 vols.; to this we must add the Journal Britannique, in 18 volumes, by Dr Maty, a foreign physcian residing in London; this journal exhibits a view of the state of English literature from 1750 to 1755. Gibbon bestows a high character on the journalist, who sometimes aspires to the character of a poet and a philosopher; one of the last disciples of the school of Fontenelle.' Maty's son produced here a review known to the curious; his style and decisions often discover haste and heat, with some striking observations: alluding to his father, Maty, in his motto, applies Virgil's description of the young Ascanius, Sequitur patrem non passibus æquis.' He says he only holds a monthly conversation with the public; but criticism demands more maturity of reflection and more terseness of style. In his obstinate resolution of carrying on this review without an associate, he has shown its folly and its danger; for a fatal illness produced a cessation, at once, of his periodical labours and his life. Other reviews, are the Memoires de Trevoux, written by the Jesuits. Their caustic censure and vivacity of style made them redoubtable in their day; they did not even spare their brothers. The Journal Litteraire, printed at the Hague, and chiefly composed by Prosper Marchand, Sallengre, Van Effen, who were then young writers. This list may be augmented by other journals, which sometimes merit preservation in the history of modern literature. Our early English journals notice only a few publications, with but little acumen. Of these, the Memoirs of Literature and the Present State of the Republic of Letters,' are the best. The Monthly Review, the venerable mother of our journals, commenced in 1749. It is impossible to form a literary journal in a manner such as might be wished; it must be the work of many of different tempers and talents. An individual, however, versatile and extensive his genius, would soon be exhaust ed. Such a regular labour occasioned Bayle a dangerous illness, and Maty fell a victim to his review. A prospect always extending as we proceed, the frequent novelty of the matter, the pride of considering one's self as the arbiter of literature, animate a journalist at the commencement The next celebrated reviewer is Bayle, who undertook, of his career; but the literary Hercules becomes fatigued; m 1684, his Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres. He and to supply his craving pages he gives copious extracts, possessed the art, acquired by habit, of reading a book by till the journal becomes tedious, or fails in variety. Abbé his fingers, as it has been happily expressed; and of com- Gallois was frequently diverted from continuing his journal, prising, in concise extracts, a just notion of a book, with- and Fontenelle remarks, that this occupation was too reout the addition of irrevelant matter. He had for his day strictive for a mind so extensive as his; the Abbé could sufficient playfulness to wreathe the rod of criticism with not resist the charms of revelling in a new work, and graroses; and, for the first time, the ladies and all the beautifying any sudden curiosity which seized him; which innonde took an interest in the labours of the critic. Yet even Bayle, who declared himself a reporter and not a judge, Bayle the discreet sceptic, could not long satisfy his To describe the character of a perfect journalist, would readers. His panegyric was thought somewhat prodigal; be only an ideal portrait! There are however some achis fluency of style somewhat too familiar; and others af- quirements which are indispensible. He must be tolerably fected not to relish his gaiety In his latter volumes, to still acquainted with the subjects he treats on; no common the clamour, he assumed the cold sobriety of an historian: acquirement! He must possess the literary history of his and has bequeathed no mean legacy to the literary world, own times! a science which Fontenelle observes, is almost in thirty-six small volumes of criticism, closed in 1687. distinct from any other. It is the result of an active curiThese were continued by Bernard, with inferior skill: and|osity, which leads us to take a lively interest in the tastes terrupted perpetually that regularity the public expects from a journalist. |