on the subject. Impostors are sure to take advantage of this temper, and, by personating the great man in question, aspire to raise their own fortunes.

The history of most nations affords striking examples of these mysteries. In England, three hundred years were not sufficient to destroy, in vast numbers of minds, the belief that Arthur, their favourite, hero, was still aliye, and that, one day, he would return to his country, and avow himself.

The uncertain fate of Edward the sixth and his brother, gave rise to one famous imposture, or, as some historians believe, to two of them.However, the identity of Perkin Warbeck has always been a topic of no small controversy, and the whole abilitics of many ingenious men have been devoted to the unravelling of that celebrated mystery.

A little library has been written to determine whether Mary of Scotland had any hand in the murder of her husband; and this continues still a favourite subject with many speculative inquirers. Many more centuries must elapse before the interesting obscurity that hangs about the conduct of that celebrated personage, will fail to engage the attention of literary idlers.

Even in our own times, a conside rable stir was made in some parts of Holland and England, by the ap pearance of a person who called himself the dauphin of France. The nature of the case, however, allowed the mystery but a short reign. Literary mysteries have supplied food for learned curiosity and subject of learned occupation in all ages. In our own age, and our own language, the authenticity of Rowley and Ossian has been discussed by the most zealous, erudite, and laborious pens. The controversy about Rowley has been settled, and Rowley, accordingly, is heard of no more. Os sian, his antiquity, and Gaelic parentage, are still controverted points, and the scores of volumes which have been issued from the press al

ready on this subject, will probably be augmented by another score, before the debate is at an end. If the question should ever be decided against the genuineness of Ossian, and that is the most probable decision, this poet, so much read and admired, will speedily sink into oblivion.

A very famous and perpetual mystery is the institution of freemasonry, an institution whose long duration and extensive diffusion are, themselves, as great mysteries as any which their secret conclaves are witness to. Were we to pretend to account for its continuance through so many ages, we should perhaps be obliged to ascribe it solely to the mystery on which it is built. The mystery, when known, would probably would turn out to be trivial or ridiculous, but, as long as it is known only to the initiated, it will always be a stimulus to the curiosity and ambition of those without the pale.

Mysterious fraternities seem to have abounded in all ages. In many cases, this mystery has been prompted by considerations of personal safety; but, in many cases, also, societies have been formed merely for the pleasure of having a secret, and of obtaining that importance in the eyes of others, which the possession of a secret is sure to confer.

The history of mysterious fraternities, if the very attribute does not preclude the possibility of making them the topics of history, would be an interesting and amusing task.Such fraternities have been much more numerous than is commonly imagined. An industrious inquirer would discover hints and traces of their existence, in numerous cases where, at present, they are, generally, unsuspected. The catalogue of religious and political sects, that have hitherto existed, would be greatly enlarged, if the collector were able to add to those which think publicity a duty, those whose fundamental rule has been concealment.

W.

HOMER AND OSSIAN COMPARED.

For the Literary Magazine.

HOMER AND OSSIAN COMPARED.

THE author of the Iliad has described every thing, in which error or inaccuracy might be detected, either by experience or demonstration. The structure of the human body; the effects of wounds; the symptoms of death; the actions and manners of wild beasts; the relative situations of cities and countries; and the influence of winds and tempests upon the waters of the sea, are all described with a precision, which, not only no other poet, but scarcely any technical writer upon the respective subjects of anatomy, hunting, geography, and navigation has ever attained. The hyperboles are all in the actions of his gods and herocs, in which could not be detected: but in every exaggeration object and every circumstance, which it was possible for his audience practically to know, the most scrupulous exactness in every minute particular is religiously observed. There are near twenty descriptions of the various effects of wind upon water-all different, and all without one fictitious or exaggerated circumstance: no fluctus ad sidera tollit; or imo consurgit ad athera fundo, which even Virgil, the most modest of his imitators, has not avoided, but the common occurrences of nature, raised into sublimity by being selected with taste, and expressed with energy.

A judgment enlightened by this remark can easily trace the boundaries of poetical licence even in unpolished nations, and may venture to pronounce that certain poems, published as the productions of a remote age, are modern forgeries.

In the early stages of society, men are as acute and accurate in practi. cal observation, as they are limited and deficient in speculative science; and in proportion as they are ready to give up their imaginations to de lusion, they are jealously tenacious of the evidence of their senses. Macpherson, in the person of his

blind bard, could say with applause, in the eighteenth century," Thus have I seen in Cona, but Cona I bedark hills removed from their place hold no more-thus have I seen two by the strength of the mountain stream. They turn from side to side, and their tall oaks meet one another with all their rocks and trees." on high. Then they fail together had a blind bard, or any other bard, But presumed to utter such a rhapsody of bombast in the hall of shells, amid the savage warriors, to whom Ossiwould have needed all the influence an is supposed to have sung, he of royal birth, attributed to that audience from throwing their shells fabulous personage, to restrain the at his head, and hooting him out of They must have been sufficiently their company as an impudent liar. acquainted with the rivulets of Cona or Glen Coe to know that he had known enough of mountain torrents seen nothing of the kind; and have fects are ever produced by them; in general to know that no such efand would, therefore, have indignantly rejected such a barefaced attempt to impose on their credulity.

For the Literary Magazine.

GOOD NATURE AND GOOD HU-
MOUR DISTINGUISHED.

THOSE persons who are most prone to laughter, and most ready santry or ridicule, without reflecting to enjoy every kind of social pleacommonly called good natured; at whose expence it is indulged, are while those, on the contrary, who show no such disposition, but who chill with grave looks, or check with which a gay circle is deriving from moral observations, the mirth, foibles of a person, whom they, pera ludicrous display of the follies and haps, all reverence and esteem, are ill natured fellows. as commonly styled morose, sour, But, in this which are extremely different, good case, we confound two qualities,

nature and good humour. Good nature is that benevolent sensibility of mind, which disposes us to feel both the happiness and misery of others, and to endeavour to promote the one, and prevent or mitigate the other: but as this is often impossible, and as spectacles of misery are more frequent and obtrusive than those of bliss; the good natured man often finds his imagination so haunted with unpleasant images, and his memory so loaded with dismal recollections, that his whole mind be comes tinged with melancholy; which frequently shows itself in unseasonable gravity, and even austerity of countenance and deportment; and in a gloomy roughness of behaviour, which is easily mistaken for the sour morosity of the worst species of malignant temper. Good humour, on the contrary, is that prompt susceptibility of every kind of social or festive gratification, which a mind void of suffering or sorrow in itself, and incapable, through want of thought or sensibility, of feeling the sufferings or sorrows of others, ever enjoys. A certain degree of vanity, or light pride, is absolutely necessary to feed and support it; and, though it is never allied to dark envy or atroci ous malignity, it is never, I believe, entirely free from a certain share of sordid selfishness; for, as the perpetual smile of gaiety can only flow from the heart which is perpetually at ease, it can only flow from that which carries the ingredients of perpetual ease always within itself; and these are affections, which never diverge far from its own

centre.

For the Literary Magazine.

DUTY OF PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS.

By Dr. Drake.

AS the cultivation of letters and science is mostly confined to a few professional individuals, it should be the aim of the periodical writer to

introduce and diffuse a taste for useful and ornamental learning, in the engaging form of short and popular essays, which may be perused without much effort of intellect, and without encroaching on the engagements of the higher or stated employments of the middle classes of society. There are virtues, too, and vices, which lie without the sphere of legal influence, and to which the solemn eloquence of the pulpit is too often directed in vain, but which may be successfully enforced or reprobated in the compass of a few pages of classical humour or playful satire.

To introduce and support a taste for elegant literature; to paint Virtue in her most alluring form; to inculcate attention to the decencies, proprieties, and minuter graces of domestic life, and to dissipate by well-turned ridicule and humour those fashionable foilies and lighter shades of vice, which, though apparently trivial, undermine the foundations of our happiness, form the legitimate objects of a periodical paper. That these, however, may produce their full effect, no common-rate ability is demanded on the part of the author. To beauty, accuracy, and vivacity of composition, must be added strength of imagination and versatility of style. The tale, the allegory, the vision, should relieve or clothe the dryness of didactic precept; and the pages animated by the glow of sentiment, or the brilliancy of description, should be succeeded by the smile of satire, and the pleasantrics of comic painting.

Something more than scholarship is requisite to succeed in this department of public instruction and amusement: the periodical writer must mingle in the world, and note with a penetrating eye the different classes and individuals of mankind, and he must select with discrimination the proper objects of censure and of praise. Even in the present age, when literature is more generally cultivated, and when refinement almost borders on fastidiousness, many petty faults and striking foibles remain to be corrected; our manners

still betray peculiarities of character; Foe's Reviews is no longer in exa and a taste for cadence of period and istence. harmony of style, for the luxuries of fiction and the elegancies of critical discussion, now so widely disseminated, presents an ample field for variety and grace.