perception, united to sound sense, which we commonly term shrewdness. There is no faculty so readily appreciated as this, when exercised in penetrating the actions and characters of mankind. It is of admirable use in the business concerns of life, but not at all fitted for higher duties. A union of shrewdness and of pathetic power is the mark of a truly great genius; for in this case what would otherwise degenerate into mere cunning, when occupied on themes of deep interest and elevated by an entirely opposite and nobler quality, rises in the scale of intellectual excellence, and the specious rogue becomes a Burke or a Shakspeare.

The majority of authors who have secured for themselves a niche in the Temple of Fame have been masters of the Familiar Philosophy, and in this have evinced the greatest practical wisdom. For, building their works on principles and characters which always exist, they have laid a base, broad and tenable in the feelings and passions of mankind. The abstract philosophers appear to have obtained no more than a purely ephemeral reputation, from the caprice or ignorance of their own age; but have been unable to maintain an equal renown from more equitable posterity.

That the philosophy of men of the world is faulty in reference to a future state, we cannot deny. But that the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light, is expressly declared in holy writ. Their philosophy is wholly for this life, and looks not beyond it. For this purpose, what system better answers its intended aim? The more elevated philosophy allows for the imperfections of human nature. The worldly, or science du monde, proceeds on the principle, that man, in the limits it prescribes, may become perfect. It is complete of itself, and for the present, but utterly deficient in any great views of another state of being.

A very great advantage possessed by the Familiar Philosophy over its scholastic rival, consists in its total freedom from all bickering and controversy-a vile fault in the latter. The confusion of tongues which arose at Babel has not yet ceased, nor will it ever cease till the universal clamor be merged in the archangel's trumpet. A clatter, as from assembled thousands, rises on my ear, as I reflect on the wranglings of polemics and the disputes of the schoolmen. Theological knights-errant and metaphysical disputants are the genuine descendants of the latter loquacious multitude. The theo

logical, cut off as they are by their profession from many innocent pleasures, make amends for these deprivations "by envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness." Into these do their controversies at last descend. They backbite each other in a style which, in the pulpit, and on a far higher authority, is deprecated with the greatest earnestness. They follow with zeal the maxim of Hudibras, to

"Compound for sins they are inclined to,

By damning those they have no mind to."

They add to the sum of their transgressions by continual slander. Their guilt, like the sorites argument, is accumulative. A specimen of this class is by no means so rare as a true friend or an honest man. To this the philosophy gained from a knowledge of the world and of human nature opposes a love for mutual kindness founded on mutual dependence and a dislike to argument merely for its own sake-its maxims being the fruit of observation and experience, and not reached by artificial deductions or false, strained reflections. In fine, it is a philosophy, which, revealing the natural corruption, as well as the innate goodness (not quite extinct) of the human heart, improves every opportunity of bringing the latter into the service of the public and private good, and palliates the former by considerations of human frailty.

XLV.

THE OLD ENGLISH COMEDY:

A STRICTURE ON WYCHERLY AND HIS BRETHREN,

THE sanction of two very admirable writers of the present century has given a station to the comedies of Wycherly and his brother dramatists, Vanburgh, Congreve, Cibber, and Farquhar, very far, as we conceive, above their real merit. Both of these critics, Hazlitt and Lamb, gifted with the most delicate perception of genius of

every order, and possessing intellects through which ran, like a vein of gold amid the sands of Pactolus, a subtle spirit, indiscernible by the coarse vision of a vulgar mind-in one point, at least-the dramatists they idolized. This resemblance lay in their love of conceits, of ingenious sallies, and of the niceties of colloquial discourse, of which these old comedies are full. Similarity of taste has be trayed these writers from the truth into an exaggerated opinion of authors, by no means deficient, in their own peculiar view, but quite wanting in those numerous excellencies with which they fancy rather than the judgment of their partial readers invested them. We will set out with the nature of genuine, unadulterated comedy, then apply the test to these productions, declare in what they are truly excellent, and point out the objections they must incur.

Comedy we apprehend to be the vehicle for polished and caustic satire of the follies and vices of mankind in general. Judicious sentiments on morality and duty must be occasionally introduced, not only to prevent the too frequent warfare of wit, but also to in. fuse a warm and ennobling feeling, better, far better, than the cold philosophy of stoicism. Instead of observing these ends, these comic poets seem to agree with Hazlitt that "to read a good comedy is to keep the best company in the world, where the best things are said and the most amusing happen." These are certainly among the chief requisites; but it is a confined view of the subject to limit its characters, dialogues and incidents to a single class of society. In these plays, the fine gentlemen, the fine lady, and the cuckold, usurp the whole dramatis persona-the others being undistinguished by any personal or individual character whatever. Alas for the "infinite and unstaled variety" of Shakspeare! Hazlitt can decry the true comic muse, and prefer the Confederacy to the Merry Wives of Windsor !

Another quality we look for in comedy is a faithful and exact copy of "the manners living as they rise." In reading these plays, however, we would suppose the world to be composed only of courtiers and gallants, of ladies and their little coteries; that the rest of the nation lived on indifferently, while these feasted upon the sweets of Love: that a continual banquet was served up by Venus and her train, while the Muse, mistress of melody, breathed forth notes of gladness for them to dance and sing. But, there are utterly

wanting any beings on whom the hand of nature has stamped a freshness like the rich bloom on the cheek of childhood, or the pure beauty of a flower enameled with the dew of the morning. They are equally destitute of moral sentiment, the expression of generous sympathy or true compassion.

The wit, though, of these comedies? I fear even that has been greatly misstated. The wit of Congreve has become the standard of jesting repartee. It bristles in his comedy as bayonets in a modern army. Brilliancy, lightness and ease are its chief characteristics; but it is cold, malicious, icy-unfriendly to a high estimate of the best part of human nature. In his pictures of high life, he was a consummate master, but there is not in all his works a single character worthy of our love and admiration. All are ready, quick, sharp and witty talkers; even in this, highly artificial; while the grossness of their language is unpardonable, since the most licentious thoughts and freest allusions may be enveloped in polished and delicate expressions. Their satire delights in disclosing vicesnot in lashing them. Thus they gloat over the description of an intrigue merely as a luscious picture for the imagination!

The general aim and tendency of this comedy is faulty. It is to render man ridiculous; not so much from a laudable desire to represent folly in its meanest forms of degradation and selfishness, to expose foppishness or depress unfounded pretensions, as to indulge in a heartless jeer at everything worthy of respect among men. Virtue is laughed at as a prudish thing, out of date; and conduct pursued on the principles of honor and integrity is thought proper only for priests and placemen out of office. We do not desire that the stage should occupy the place of the pulpit; we only wish to express that a comedy, however gay and lively, should illustrate some universally true and sound maxim. This is not to be thrown into the faces of the audience at every turn, but it is to stamp the play with the air and character of a philosophical lesson.

Charles Lamb endeavors, in one of his delightful essays, by very ingenious sophistry, to prove that what we disapprove of in these comedies are sins purely ideal, and affirms that, when we visit the theatre, it is to escape from the reality of life out of doors, and enjoy the magical scene raised for his pleasure by imagination and art-a scene which has no counterpart in reality, but the perfection of

which consists in its thorough ideality. This is but a fine vagary of a man of genius. The true charm of the drama undoubtedly lies in the very reverse of this. We go to see life as it is. The prince of dramatists is most conclusive, in his inimitable summary of the stage-" "Whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own features, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure." Such was Shakspeare's Comedy; such was not that of our later writers. The dramatic authors who have followed him deserted nature for art: they have left us brilliant conversations, but an entire lack of character, feeling and sentiment— of all that tends to instruct the understanding or purify the tasteto soften the heart or engage the affections of the soul.

XLVI.

THE OLD SONGS AND BALLADS.

"Old songs, the precious music of the heart."-WORDSWORTH.

"They were old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good-I think much better than the strong lines that are now in fashion, in this critical age.”—ISAAC WALTON. THE great contrast between the inspired rapture of the muse in the morning of her charms, and the productions of her ladyship in these later days, must be very apparent to every student of "the gay science." In the early age she was sincere, honest, direct, simple; now she is coquettish, artful, and made up of borrowed beauties. Then she was

"in her prime,

Free from rage and free from crime;"

but she has committed many a petit larceny since, and sometimes an offence which might almost be considered capital. She has made herself quite conspicuous among felons. She is stript and whipt like a common baggage, and her followers are turned out of doors to