agent of a foolish action. If all our adjectives were to be converted into epithets, it would be necessary that the former should lose all those senses by which they do not specify the existence of the quality they denote in the object with which they are grammatically connected: and then, like the Arabs, we should cease to speak of "a wise "law;" an angry observation;” “a gay scene;" "a cruel deed;" "treacherous counsel;" &c. The Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian languages having no adjectives corresponding to the above, it is needless to insist on the difficulties, frequently unsurmountable, which must embarrass a translation of English into these languages; nor on the value of the resources from which those who write and speak in them are excluded. How much does this single circumstance clip the wings of their imagination! that power by which they have been supposed to soar to an empyrean of their own,' inaccessible to Western writers "in prose or "numerous verse." And for this discovery we shall be chiefly indebted to Dr. Lumsden. My attention was first attracted to this subject by Mr. Irvine, who says, in the letter already spoken of: "The more I know of the languages, characters, "and literature, of the Orientals and Occidentals, "the more I see the futility of the trite observa". tion, that the former excel in imagination, the "latter in judgment. Were we to reverse it we 1 "should be nearer the truth."-"The Orientals "are generally speaking sedate. Far from hav "ing languages rich in metaphor they can scarce, "ly be brought to understand our metaphors, "which, if translated into their tongues would appear no better than nonsense. Prosopopœia " appears nearly unknown to them. Were one "to attempt to translate into Persian Pope's lines, "Love light as air,' &c he would find it imprac "ticable."-" People will soon discover that the "Asiatics have a routine of images, but not sprightly, creative infaginations."—"I have no "intention," says Dr. Lumsden,* "to defend, "broadly, the general purity of Persian meta " phors, many of which are certainly absurd and "remote in the highest degree; &c." It appears then that the Asiatics, instead of being intoxicated with imagination, are rather in the predicament of men who had fed upon the vapours of Trophonius' cave. The ready-made figures which they possess are to those which the spontaneous energy of eloquence throws out, what grimace is to the true expression of gaiety or kindness; they are disagreeable in themselves, and betray a want of that quality for the natural indications of which they are substituted, After all, the fault may be more in the writers. than in their language. What the language is Persian Grammar, Vol. II. P. 497. capable of, we may judge from those sublime passages written in a kindred tongue from the inspiration of that Power which "touched Isaiah's "hallowed lips with fire." But even there, though the figures are exceedingly bold, and the thoughts of the most awful grandeur, we do not discover that endless variety, and boundless capacity, which belong to our own tongue. The more the readers of Shakespeare, Milton, and Burke, examine the stores of other languages, the stronger will be their conviction, that for strength, richness, flexibility, and precision,-for all the purposes of eloquence and of poetry,-the English language surpasses every other, whether dead or living. The reader is requested to excuse a slight want of typographical uniformity. The printing of the two first articles in a smaller type, was owing to particular circumstances which it is not necessary to explain. Page 367, line 26. For Пaidouadeis read Пxidoualns. May 19, 1817. CONTENTS. I. Notes on Politique de tous les Cabinets de L'Europe, pendant les regnes de Louis II. Observations on some passages in Voltaire's Essay on Universal History......... III. Horæ Romanæ. No. I. Observations on A History of the Roman Government, &c. No. II. Observations on An Historical No. III. On the Anomalies in the Roman No. IV. Observations on Considerations V. Synopsis of the British Finances, during twenty years, from 1793 to 1812....... 181 VI. On the Distinction between Productive and VII. On the Nominalism of Berkeley, Hume, |