self, would each of them give him a verse, which he would instantly repeat, beginning with the last, and so on to the first, to the amount of two hundred. He tells a pleasant story upon this occasion of a certain poet, who having recited a poem in public, a person who was present claimed it for his own, and in proof of its being so, repeated it word for word, which the real author was not capable of doing. Numberless instances might be collected from the ancients to the same purpose; to mention only a few more: it is said of Themistocles, that he made himself master of the Persian language in a year's time; of Mithridates, that he understood as many languages as he commanded nations, that is, no less than twenty-two; of Cyrus, that he retained the name of every single soldier in his army. But the finest compliment that ever was paid to a good memory, is what Tully says of Julius Cæsar in his oration for Ligarius, that "he never forgot any thing but an injury."

KNOWLEDGE OF BOOKS.-Pliny, speaking of the influence which our reading has upon our taste and manners, thinks it improper" to call a man well read, who reads many authors; since he must of necessity have more ill models than good; and be more stuffed with bombast, ill fancy, wry thought, than filled with solid sense and just imagination." [Character v. 1. 142.] When the Goths over-ran Greece, the libraries escaped their destruction, by a notion which some of their leaders industriously propagated among them, that it would be more for their interest to leave those spoils untouched to their enemies, as being proper to enervate their minds, and amuse them with vain and idle speculations. Truth, perhaps, has been less a gainer by this multiplicity of books than error: and it may be a question, whether the excellent models which have been delivered down to us from antiquity, together with those few which modern times have produced, by any means balance the immoderate weight which must be thrown into the opposite scale of writers. The truth is, though we may be learned by other men's reflections, wise we can only be by our own: and the maxim here recommended by Pliny, would well deserve the attention of the studious, though no other inconvenience attended the reading of many books, than that which Sir William Temple apprehends from it; the lessening the force and growth of a man's own genius.

J. S.

WITHIN these few days I have received, by favour of Miss Knapps, your acceptable present of Chapman's translation of the Iliad. I know not whether the book be a rarity, but a curiosity it certainly is. I have as yet seen but little of it, enough however to make me wonder that any man, with so little taste for Homer, or apprehension of his manner, should think it worth while to undertake the laborious task of translating him; the hope of pecuniary advantage may perhaps account for it. His information I fear was not much better than his verse, for I have consulted him in one passage of some difficulty, and find him giving a sense of his own not at all warranted by the words of Homer. Pope sometimes does this, and sometimes omits the difficult part entirely. I can boast of having done neither, though it has cost me infinite pains to exempt myself from the necessity.

I have seen a translation by Hobbes, which I prefer for its greater clumsiness. Many years have passed since I saw it, but it made me laugh immoderately. Poetry that is not good, can only make amends for that deficiency by being ridiculous; and because the translation of Hobbes has at least this recommendation, I shall be obliged to you, should it happen to fall in your way, if you would

* Of Park-street, Grosvenor-square, where Cowper's correspondent had the hap piness of meeting Lady Hesketh, a lady whose accomplishments excited admiration, and whose virtues have secured indelible respect. Toward the author of the Task, her conduct was angelic. She devoted herself, with pious perseverance, to the guar dian office of watching over his darkened hours, during the melancholy visitation he experienced in 1794 and 5, when she was compelled to retreat to Bath, for the relief of an agitated mind and the restoration of a weakened frame. The same trying of fice then devolved on the Rev. Mr. Johnson, who fulfilled its lengthened duties with a similar sanctity of affection.

+ That Mr. Cowper should not have seen Chapman's version of Homer before the publication of his own, may create a momentary surprise in the minds of critical enquirers, especially as our poetical historian had pronounced that Pope was no careless reader of his rude predecessor :' but Cowper had probably resolved that his translation should not stand indebted to any adventitious aid, and this resolution enabled him more faithfully to make Mæonides our own.'

Warton's general opinion of Chapman's obsolete version seems to accord with that of Cowper; yet while the former remarks that Chapman 'frequently retrenches or impoverishes what he could not feel and express,' he admits that the antiquated

be so kind as to procure it for me. The only edition of it I ever saw (and perhaps there never was another) was a very thick 12mo. both print and paper bad, a sort of book that would be sought in vain perhaps any where but on a stall.

When you saw Lady Hesketh, you saw the relation of mine with whom I have been more intimate, even from childhood, than any other. She has seen much of the world, understands it well, and having great natural vivacity, is of course one of the most agreeable companions.

I have now arrived almost at a close of my labours on the Iliad, and have left nothing behind me, I believe, which I shall wish to alter on any future occasion. In about a fortnight or three weeks I shall begin to do the same for the Odyssey, and hope to be able to perform it while the Iliad is in printing. Then Milton will demand all my attention, and when I shall find opportunity either to revise your MSS. or to write a poem of my own which I have in contemplation, I can hardly say. Certainly not till both these tasks are accomplished.

I remain, dear Sir,

With many

thanks for your kind present,
Sincerely yours,

WM. COWPER.

versifier was not always without strength or spirit.' By Anton, in his Philosophical Satires, 1616, he was characterised as

"Greeke-thund'ring Chapman, beaten to the age,

"With a deepe furie and a sollid rage;"

and from the epigrams of Davies and Freeman, who were also contemporaries with Chapman, it appears that he was regarded with veneration by the poets of his day, hot less perhaps on account of his moral than his literary character: for Wood describes him as a person of most reverend aspect, religious and temperate,' and Oldy's records (in his MS. notes on Langbaine) that he was shy of loose and vain associates, and preserved in his own conduct the true dignity of poetry, which he compared to the flower of the sun, that disdains to open its leaves to the eye of a smoaking taper.Had Chapman translated the Iliad in blank verse, says bishop Percy, like his poem on Guiana, it had been one of our chief classic performances.

*In this supposition Mr. Cowper was mistaken. Wood, in his Athenæ, records an edition of the Iliad in 1675, of the Odyssey in 1677, and there was a re-impression of both in 1686; but the poetry of Hobbes, as his biographer observes, "was below criti cism, and has been long exploded." New Biog. Dict.

+ This poem was "The Four Ages," a subject suggested by the Rev. Mr. Buchan an, and intended to include the four distinct periods of life, infancy, youth, manhood, and old age: but a brief fragment only was composed, and is given in Mr. Hayley's depot of Cowper's Parnassian reliques, vol. ii. p 173. Yet Cowper earnestly looked forward to the accomplishment of this favourite scheme, and thus expressed himself concerning it, in a letter dated June 20, 1793, "The utmost that I aspire to, and Heaven knows with how feeble a hope, is to write, at some better opportunity, and when my hands are free, The Four Ages." Ut supra, p. 133.

A FRAGMENT.

-SHE trembled as she met the eye of Lewson-she was confused and embarrassed-she gazed for a minute on his features, with an anxious and eager curiosity, and suddenly exclaiming, "It is! it is!" she dropped down into a chair, and burst into tears. "Good heaven," said Lewson, who had a confused recollection of her person, "What can this mean?"-" What can this mean!" echoes Mordant, "why, to bubble you out of your money. Pish! can't you see through these stale tricks? When the wax is evidently soft, can we wonder that Imposture should endeavour to stamp dupe upon it?"-"Would to heaven," returned Apitus, "that the rude impression of brutality were stamped on nothing more durable !"

"Do you not," said the wretched visitant," remember Miss L****y ?”—“ Is it possible?" exclaimed Lewson, "Miss L****y !” "I was once that favoured child of gaiety and affluence," said she; But oh! what am I now!" Then, after a pause" Oh father! husband! stepdame!" exclaimed she, "and oh! worst of all, my own imprudent heart!"

66

Lewson was pierced to the soul; he felt a kind of mingled perturbation, anxiety, and curiosity, an indescribable sensation, painful indeed, and exquisitely sad, but dearer to the expanded heart than all the joys of grandeur and of sense. Even Mordant listened, with a malignant sneer, while she briefly related her affecting story, My father," said the poor unfortunate, "was, as you know, Sir, an eminent barrister, and, at the time when I had the honour of meeting you at his friend J- -'s, had attained such opulence by his profession, as enabled him to enjoy every species of luxury, Shortly after this he married Lady N--, who, though she seemed to have a disinterested affection for my father, always treated me with the most mortifying cruelty and contempt. O fatal persecution! to which, alas! I owe all my present misery. My father, however, infatuated by the charms and accomplishments of this second wife, and not a little vain of her rank, yielded himself and his family implicitly to her dominion, and seemed to think the sacrifice of his daughter's peace no more than a proper return, to one who had brought to his arms title, elegance, and fashion. Thus persecuted by her who had usurped from me the dominion of my father's house, and neglected by him to whom I owed my wretched existence, the only minutes of tranquillity I enjoyed were those I spent in my own apartments, with my music master.

3 VOL. XVI.

"Young and inexperienced as I was, can it be wondered, that an insinuating youth, with whom I spent my only cheerful hours, and who instructed me in the only art that could charm to sweet forgetfulness the anguish of my mind, should make too tender an impression on a susceptible heart. In short, he professed, and I really felt, the most pure and generous affection; and I consented to elope with the basest, the most inhuman of his sex.

"Though my father had not tenderness enough to protect his daughter from patrician insult at home, he had still pride enough to resent her having sought a plebeian protector abroad. As soon, therefore, as he heard of my marriage, he forbad me the house; and the arts of my cruel stepdame prevailed on him to resolve on seeing me no more-a resolution which he too cruelly kept. But, peace to his soul--for oh! he was still my father. Tax him not, O heaven! with my afflictions, nor remember his transgressions, as he remembered mine. Oh! Mr. Lewson, he is no more. Four years since he died, and left me--cruel! cruel !—a wanton's legacy (30 he termed it)---a shilling. But, alas! the worst is still untold :--My husband! cruel stars!—is there no truth-no generosity-no pity in the heart of man? Must the poor credulous female, who sacrifices all to love, meet in return desertion-treachery-ruin ? But oh! deceitful perjurer !---wherever thou fliest to shun the cries of that want, which, for thy dear-accursed sake, I endure, may the keenest pangs of my misery reach thee, and transfix thy savage heart.

"I will not relate to you, Sir, the gradations of distress by which I was reduced to what you see, nor harrow your soul by recounting the cruel taunts with which my haughty stepdame and inhuman husband answered my unavailing petitions. My education disqualified me from earning a subsistence. I endeavoured to drown my anguish, by appealing to a practice which soon became habitual--intoxication. My soul became as degraded as my condition, and no resources presented themselves but begging or prostitution, to the former of which I sunk by imperceptible gradations." "Thanks to heaven," exclaimed Lewson, 66 you chose not the latter. Thy wants shall be relieved, and the tongue that sued shall supplicate no more; but who shall restore to the soul of venal licentiousness its wonted purity, or bid the modest blush tinge once more the cheek of polluted beauty?”

MELVILLE.