dities in conduct at the same time. On the other hand, by a process of exhaustive analysis, they precipitated (as a chemist would say) the ludicrous points of a subject. Cob bett's wit consisted in calling nicknames with an original air. Satire is a prosaical talent, yet it has been exercised by some of the first poets in the second class of great poets, as Dryden, Swift, Pope, Churchill, Cowper, and Young. It handles topics essentially unpoetical, and in a way that would deprive them of what poetical qualities they might possess. For satire tends to diminish and degrade, whereas true poetry aims to exalt and refine. Satire deals with the vices, the crimes of the worst part of mankind, or the levities and follies of the most insignificant. Much political satire exaggerates both, but that is the original sin and inherent defect of all satire. The value of satire in a practical point of view is great: it is the only curb upon many, and no ineffectual check upon the best. Next to religion, it exerts a happier and a wider influence than anything else, whether law, custom, or policy. Such is forcible and well-directed satire in the worthiest hands. It is a true, manly style of writing, but it admits of wide aberrations from this standard, and may become hurtful and dangerous. It exposes hypocrisy, and encourages an open, frank, fearless spirit; yet this very openness, (in base natures,) will run into recklessness and a contempt of authority, a neglect of propriety, and a rash avowal of lawless and foul doctrines. It may convert liberty into licentiousness. Then, again, satire is often unfair, morally unjust, or historically false. The acute perception of Butler, which, aided by his learned wit and matchless versification, saw with exactness, and has transmitted to us with picturesque fidelity, the mere canting, controversial, corrupt Presbyterians of his day, fail

ed to recognize the sturdy vigor of the Independent, and the sublime fanaticism of even the wildest of the Fifth Monarchy men. Even Scott, though he came much closer to the truth in his pictures, unconsciously distorted and caricatured some of the noblest features of the Puritans. That stern race of robust men has hardly yet met with its true histo

rian.

A too frequent consequence of successful satire, we have left for our last objection to its usefulness. It tends to beget a spirit of indifference. Men, looking on the excesses of either side with an eye of philosophic temperance, are too apt to conclude that there is nothing worth contending for; they become disgusted with what they (in their short-sightedness) esteem fruitless struggles, and give over all desire of victory. They become indifferent spectators of a stirring scene, and might as well, for all good purposes, be altogether removed from it.

XX.

FARRAGO.

nostri farrago libelli.-JUVENAL. Farrago; a Medley.-JOHNSON.

WE have selected the above title for this miscellaneous assemblage of thoughts upon different subjects; for bringing together which, since they are, for the most part, dug up from comparatively unknown mines, we claim nothing but the praise of judicious research. The characters of Labruyere are full of good things, and the vein will bear working, but we shall not do more than indicate where some of the rich ore lies. It has always struck us that occasional lucubrations of this description are not unpleasing, especially in the varied pages of a monthly journal, "studious of change," and intended to hit the diversity of tastes of the best classes of readers. In the first and second topics, we have drawn from Labruyere, an author who is singularly little known. He is a prose Pope, writing before him, and as we are induced to think, giving him some capital hints, which the poet worked up with his accustomed skill. Labruyere has as much wit and judgment combined as Horace, after whom he too sometimes copies He has something of Bishop Earle's humor, and a knowledge of artificial life and manners, equal to Pope, and Horace, and Earle.

Pope, in a few passages we have subjoined, appears to have drawn directly from his master; but the resemblance

may be accidental, and the imitation unconscious. We will not call it plagiarism, but a singular coincidence of thought and expression; such as we often see in common life and in ordinary conversation. Yet we are somewhat staggered by these points. Rowe, the poet, Pope's friend, made or purports to have made (he possibly sold his name) the translation, a capital version, equal, in its way, to Cotton's Translation of Montaigne's Essays. Curll, one of Pope's publishers, brought out the work. But the hardest thing to get over is, the surprising resemblance of the verse to the prose, which certainly preceded it some years. This problem, however, we shall not attempt to solve.

SURPRISING COINCIDENCES.

Affectation attends her even in sickness and pain; she dies in a high head and colored ribbons." Who can forget Pope's lines in the Universal Passion?

"Odious in woollens, 'twould a saint provoke,
(Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke.)
No, let a charming chintz, and Brussels lace,
Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face:
One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead,
And-Betty-give this cheek a little red."

Said to be actually true of Mrs. Oldfield, the celebratedactress. Labruyere has nicely hit off the ignorant bookcollectors, not the "doctor sine libris," but "libri sine doctore." "I visit this gentleman; he receives me at his house, where, at the foot of the stairs, I am struck down with the scent of Russia leather, which all his books are bound with. In vain he encourages me, by telling me they are gilt on the backs and leaves, of the best editions ;

except a few shelves painted so like books, that the fallacy is not to be discerned." Pope sings:

"His study with what authors is it stor'd?
In books, not authors, studious is my lord;
To all their dated backs he turns you round,
These Aldus printed; those De Seuil has bound.
Lo, some are vellum, and the rest as good,

For all his lordship knows, but they are wood!"

Here is a thought in Labruyere (of the fashion) which may be found expressed in almost the same language, in the poet's prose miscellanies. "A certain blue flower, which grows spontaneously in ploughed ground; it checks the corn, spoils the crop, and takes up the room of something better.' Labruyere compares a fashionable man to this flower: Pope illustrates more judiciously, by this simile, the injurious use of conceits in a logical discussion.

But here is a remarkable paralellism, if not plagiarism. "The colors are all prepared, and cloth strained, but how shall I fix this restless, light and inconstant man, who changes himself into a thousand figures?"

"Come then, the colors and the ground prepare!

Dip in the rainbow, trick her off in air:

Choose a fine cloud, before it fall, and in it

Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute."

Here, too, are the original of several trite remarks: "When a man is excellent in his art, and gives it all the perfection of which it is capable, he is then in some sort above it, and is equal to whatever is most exalted and noble.” Sir Joshua Reynolds has the credit of having made this observation. Of the opera, thus writes Labruyere, anticipating Hazlitt (in his rich essay on the same subject.) "I wonder how 'tis possible the opera, with all its exquisite