produce a galaxy of genius, unequalled by the whole world." Another writer of the same school,* in supporting the literary glory of Holland, brings forward, triumphantly, Derkinderen, Kooten, Zillesen, Notten, Scholters, Waardenburg, Wassenberg, Derhoer, Shuter, Goudoever, Peter Hoffman, Perlkamp, and a host of other "lights of the world and demigods of fame," who, like the great De Groodt, vulgarly called Grotius, have had their names humanized by a Latin desinence. Indeed, this umbratile race of beings, abstracted from politics and the usual busy scenes of life, inhabited a world completely their own, beyond which their thoughts or reasonings rarely extended. They regarded their own studies as the only important pursuits of man, and looked up to the gifted few excelling in them with that reverential respect accorded by us all, to those who approach our own standard of greatness. Burman in speaking of the death of Grævius-" orbis amor," says Regum monumenta peribunt; Grævius, hac mundi mole cadente, cadet and in the same oration, exclaims in despair-" concurrite populi, concurrite ab ultimis terrarum terminis gentes, moenia non modo communis Athenæi, sed ipsa sapientiæ sacraria corruerunt et subversa sunt: non enim vir supra alios eruditus, non ingenii laude præ reliquis excellens, sed eruditorum princeps, imo ipsa eruditio et literæ cum Grævio efferuntur et sepeliuntur."+ The mild Wyttenbach, relates with approbation two anecdotes of the no less mild Ruhnkenius, which also exemplify, very strikingly, this devotion to their pursuits. Ruhnkenius who was Librarian at Leyden, once chased a German Professor out of the library, who dared, most unblushingly, to assert in his presence, that it would be better in the present day for each nation to write in its own language than in Latin! On another occasion he shewed the library to a learned Swede, and among other things a trunk containing some of the writings of the "Heaven descended" Joseph Scaliger. The Swede, imprudently indulging in some jokes and criticisms at Scaliger's expense, Ruhnkenius indignantly thundered at him-" hence with your stupidity," and frightened off the audacious Goth. Though we may not agree with these critics in their estimation of their own surpassing merit, yet every lover of classical literature must feel grateful to those who have spent their lives Philomath. lib. 3, p. 157. + Burm. Orat. Hag. Com. 1759, p. 85. + Vita Ruhnkenii. § "Mox enim tamquam Cælo missus Josephus Scaliger," &c. Eu. Hemsterh. in removing the stains of time from the monuments of ancient genius, and revealing their beauties more clearly to our contemplation. None have toiled more successfully in this vocation than the Dutch school of the eighteenth century. In Greek literature, especially, Hemsterhusius, Ruhnkenius and Valckenaer, presented a triumvirate unequalled in depth and accuracy of erudition. The founder of this school, Tiberius Hemsterhusius, with strong natural talents, in the period of sixty-two years, during which he held different professorships, acquired a mass of erudition probably unequalled by that of any other individual. Valckenaer* classes him with Salmasius, Casaubon and Scaliger; and Ruhnkeniust unhesitatingly places him above Casaubon or any other Hellenist since the revival of letters. He published little compared with his immense erudition; which is apparent in his MS. notes to Aristophanes, the Attic Orators, Theocritus, Apollonius Rhodius, Harpocration, &c.; Propertius, Manilius, Valerius Flaccus, &c.; from which, scholars even in our day, continue to draw copious stores. Even his theories of language were not committed to writing by himself, but are only to be found in the works of his two pupils Lennep and Valckenaer. Some of his ideas on language were certainly more ingenious than correct, but he has the merit of asserting, long before Horne Tooke, the fundamental principle of the Diversions of Purley. From the school of Hemsterhusius, like that of Isocrates, issued none but chiefs, among the most distinguished of whom were Valckenaer and Ruhnkenius. Of Valkenaer, we have not as minute an account as of Ruhnkenius, but even without the evidence of Lennep,|| Ruhnkenius,¶ aud * Observ. ad Orig. Græc. 3d Edit. 1808. + Eulogium Hemsterhusii. See Aristophanica Porson; Anecdot. Hemster. Ed. Geel. Poet. Min. Gaispordii: Bib. Crit. Nov. &c. Quæ, praeter verba et nomina numerantur partes orationis, ea, vel ad verba, vel ad nomina propiè referenda sunt; nisi sint quædam interjectiones. Lennep. Proleg. ad. Stirp. Ling. Græ. 7. "In lingua Græca, ut in orientalibus lingius ac tionis tantum sunt tres, nomen, verbum, conjunctio. verbum et nomen omnia commode revocari possunt: Græc. 7. reliquis omnibus partes oraImo, si rem rite spectamus ad Valckenaer. Obser. ad Orig. "Ex VIII. partibus quas vulgo statuunt Grammatici, verbum et nomen principem obtinent locum: quum reliquæ omnes facillime ad harum partium allerutram referri possint. Quapropter etiam Aristoteles, aliique de veteribus, revera duas tantum esse partes orationis voluerunt." Lennep, de Analog. Ling. Græc. p. 38. Ed. 1805. In the last cited work the theory is fully explained-still we believe that Tooke was unacquainted with the ideas of the Dutch critics, and honestly thought his theory original-at all events he has the merit of analyzing our language, and placing before us its mechanism more clearly than has been done by any one. The merits of this eminent scholar and patriot will be duly honored in English when the rage of party feeling shall have subsided. Prom. de Ling. Græc. Analog. 19. VOL. I.-NO. 2. Eulog. Hemsterh. 56 Wyttenbach, his publications are sufficient proof of his stupendous diligence and learning. In one respect Ruhnkenius excelled both Hemsterhusius and Valckenaer-the uncommon purity and elegance of his Latin style. Like Hemsterhusius, his life was spent more in studying and writing than in publishing, "Nullus erat," says Wyttenbach, "Græcus, Latinusve, Poeta, Philosophus, Historicus, Orator, Rhetor, Grammaticus, Lexicographus, Scholiastes, Commentator, Platonicus aut Aristotelicus, nullus cujus cumque generis sive editus sive ineditus scriptor, nulla denique docti historicive argumenti inscriptio, nullum omnino eruditæ Antiquitatis monumentum, quin id cognitum, notatum, excerptumque in adversariis teneret.+ immense erudition is not only to be seen in his own publications but in the assistance given to others, viz.-Alberti, Pierson, Lennep, Koen, Gesner, Ernesti, Heynè, Heusinger, Musgrave, Toup, Villoison, Brunck, Schweighaeuser, Morell, Burgess, Porson, Edwards, Wolf, Spalding, &c. With two such instructors as Ruhnkenius and Valckenaer, a strong clear mind, and a long life of enthusiastic study, it is not surprising that Wyttenbach placed himself on a level with the three eminent critics whom we have mentioned above. His ART. VI.-Clio. By JAMES PERCIVAL. No. III. G. & C. Carvil. New-York. 1827. If Mr. Percival is ambitious of outliving the present generation, he must have done dreaming dreams and seeing visions. Not but that a bright vision and a pleasant dream are very good things in their way-but really to publish page after page, and volume after volume of "musings"-of mere musings of such incoherent, undefined and shapeless fantasies, as may be supposed to float about at random in the brain of a poetical opiumeater-is not the best possible way of producing any thing worthy of being anointed with cedar oil, or preserved in a cypress case.‡ The little volume placed at the head of this Biblioth. Crit. &c. No. v. p. 3, 107. Ibid. No. ix. p. 76. + Wyttenbach. Vita Ruhnkenii, p. 736, Opuscul. Wyttenb. 1821. Hor. Ars. Poet. 332. article, is lamentably obnoxious to this censure. It is very much such poetry as we should have expected to see produced, if Mr. Percival had sent his Port Folio to the printer, with instructions to publish its contents without discrimination or correction. It is exceedingly pretty rigmarole-a very brilliant and musical medley of metrical common places-here a little sentiment, and there a little description, and every where a great deal of nambypamby, in the last degree mystical and diffuse, overrunning and almost choking, many truly poetical beauties of thought and expression. Mr. Percival is not, we suppose, the only poet who has ever fallen into such dreaming moods-for the inspired tribe of all men are most given to reverie-but he is, perhaps, the only poet that has published his dreams as they came up, instead of selecting the brightest images, and the happiest conceptions, and combining them with judgment and taste into a perfect work. It is impossible, we think, to read through this little volume without a very laudable exercise of perseverance, and what is still worse, more than ordinary efforts of attention; but it is, at the same time, impossible to do so, without seeing cause to regret that the author should waste his talent-for talent he unquestionably has-upon such loose undisciplined and straggling composition Non avea natura ivi dipinto We know that it is become quite fashionable to extol this mystical and rambling-we had almost said raving-style under the plausible title of the Romantic, and to prefer it greatly to the studied regularity of the classic models. The ancients and those of the moderns who follow them, are decried as tame and prosaical, merely because they are precise and perspicuous. They knew so little about the true sublime, that they thought it consistent with perfect simplicity and clearness, and even when they soared up into the most glorious regions of poetry, they were careful never to lose sight of common sense. Their want of philosophical abstraction and a spiritual religion,* it seems, made them, most unnecessarily, pay the same respect to the understandings of their readers in poetry or in elevated and ambitious prose, as in their humblest didactic works, and their Ars Poetica is nothing but a system of logic-of which, indeed, the principles are more refined, but not a jot less rigorous than those of the "Art of Reasoning," vulgarly so called. They, therefore, See the speculations of Schlegel, Mad. de Staël et tutta quella schiera. make no drafts at all upon the indulgence or facility of their readers. They take upon themselves the whole burthen of proof, and expect no admiration unless they can shew you what to admire, and why you should admire. They never compass themselves about "with the majesty of darkness." They do not expect that what is only vague shall be considered as vast, and that what is unintelligible shall pass for sublime. For example-such a book as Ossian's poems (which we take to be a specimen of the genuine Romantic) would have been regarded at Athens as an instance of absolute monstrosity. A people accustomed to ask for the reason of every thing, would have seen in the vagueness, obscurity, and bombast of this pretended Celtic Epic only the effusions of a melancholy madness. There have been critics, however, in modern times-and those among the most enlightened and best educated men-who thought differently-who, to borrow a few lines from Mr. Percival, considered these poems That is to say, they understood a fury in the words, but not the words. Their minds were prepared by previous impressions and habitual associations to believe and tremble-to receive these Gælic legends in the true spirit of religious humility, with an arcanus terror sanctaque ignorantia. Ghosts wrapped up in the dark rolling mists of the highlands, or "moving in a sunbeam" over their silence and solitude, or howling in the midnight tempest, or heard to sigh in the echoes of the mountain and the roar of the waterfall-how was it possible that what so nearly resembled and so forcibly recalled the horror-breathing tales of the nursery should not be considered as sublime! This we suppose, was all very well-we do not envy; we wonder rather for we profess ourselves of that old fashioned, prosaical school, which absolutely refuses to admire in literature what it is not able to comprehend, and lays it down as its first canon of criticism that a reader has a right to see clearly what his author would be after. However this may be, if what principally distinguishes the modern or romantic poetry from the classical, is, that the former is more concerned about spiritualities than temporalities-about soul than body-about the shadowy abstractions of the mind than the objects of the senses, Mr. Percival is entitled to a very high rank in the school. The volume before us is absolutely haunted. |