- was to have been recommended to . His funeral took place at Tunbridge, your attention by a preacher of con- when the inhabitants of the town and summate ability, whose name stands neighbourhood spontaneously assemhigh in the records of literature, and bled on the occasion in a very nuwhose life was one continued course merous body, in deep mourning, to of ardent benevolence and usefulness pay their last tribute of reverential to his fellow-creatures. The place now regret.-Dr. Knox married the only filled by his unworthy substitute on daughter of Thomas Miller, Esq. forthis occasion, lie had for a consider- merly of Tunbridge ;-a lady not less able time before his departure from distinguished for elegance of manners this life, and while totally uncon- than mental endowments, and who scious of the arrow that tlieth in died in 1809. His family who survive darkuess, consented to occupy. But him, are his sons, Mr. Knox, the Barthat Almighty Providence, to whose rister, and the Rev. Thomas Knox, deerees all things in heaven and earth the present Master of Tunbridge do bow and obey, thougbt proper, School; and two sisters, married to after a brief warning, to remove him John Vade and William Child, Esqrs. from this state of existence to that of London. reward, as we have reason to hope, Such is the brief Biographical which is reserved for those who have Sketch of an individual, who, howwalked humbly and piously with their ever some persons might diller from God, and enjoyed an unwearied de- him in political sentiments, was unilight in advancing the moral and in- versally respected as a most valuable tellectual happiness of their species. member of society; as discharging To him who has been appointed to his professional duties with peculiar supply the place of so eminent a honour to himself and usefulness to pleader in the cause of charity, much the public; as a faithful Minister of indulgence is therefore necessary. bis God, and a firm friend to the best He pretends neither to talent nor interests of the rising generation ; celebrity, and is content with sim- a warm philanthropist upon the purest ply expressing his hope that little principles of Christianity, and an orDeeds be added to induce you to nament of the era in which he lived. assist a cause so truly valuable.” EPISTOLARY TRIFLES, March 12, 1822. apologies for palpable neglect. There is, however, no being angry with you, POST after post arrives, and brings and that's “ the truth on't ;” and the no paquet; even my last exportation treat that you have afforded us, in the of choice Norfolk dainties, with sun- last two or three numbers of your dry letters missive from Ellen, and Magazine, would smooth the wrinkled our friend £. at whose hospitable man- brow of care himself. Had you as sion we are vegetating, and growing many faults as 'the Hydra of old had Justy, all remain unacknowledged. physiognomies, we should look in Were it not, therefore, for the half their faces and forget them all. Why, dozen newspapers, which garnish our our friend E. absolutely voted himself friend's inimitable bams at our noon- goutified to escape from coursing, and tide breakfasts, I should positively get a day to himself, to sob over the kaow little or nothing of your great catastropbe of the “Walpurgis Night;" world, I mean London; por of the and Price,- you recollect Price, who follies, the glories, and the absurdities, used to hoax our old Doctor at Eton, which now form the “ Town Talk" of swore there was no use in bis double the year 1892. Your usual excuses or barrel, for shoulder it with what elopalliatives will, I suppose, be as here- quence he might, he could never make iofore, resorted to ; and therefore ye half so good a shot as you bave done, must admit “ multiplicity of engage in bringing down to his proper level ments,"_" constitutional love of idle- the author of " Cain,” by your point ness,"_" public dinners," --"oflicial blank review of his ponderous traduties,"--and the end of the shooting gedies. By the bye, Alfred, I see that the a wider tract, become, like the moun “ resurrection man" Cobbett bas got tain torrents of Indostan, dangerou abroad again, after bothering the Sus for a season, and diffuse vapours an sex 'squires out of their senses, and gloom over the else genial country getting his health drank by men, who or like the Upas tree of the desart, des in the palmy state of Rome, would tructive and poisonous to all who ap rather have shook hands with death, proach within their influence. I coul than have submitted to such degrada- almost exclaim with Burke, speakin tion. He would have eaten fire, and of the French Revolution, that a grinned through a horse collar, here, “ a Throne cannot be represented b for the amusement of the natives, at a a Prison, so the honour of a Natio recent semi-radical, semi-agricultural cannot be represented by an assembl meeting ; but the characters were which degrades it;" and surely whe already admirably filled by native we do see an assembly where it is,talent, and the non tali auxilio applied hey fellow! well met! between Cob in it's full force, with reference to the bett and the British Peerage, we ma mountebank in question ; for the tem- well exclaim, “ Flesh, flesh, bow ar perate, delicate, and effective per- thou fisbified !" formances of the select company I now Our old acquaintance Sir Rober treat of, could bardly have been sur- Wilson bas been upon his legs again passed by the most distorted exer- I see; but this being a very sensitivi tions of the Jack Pudding himself. sort of story, and the M.P. for South There is an old French proverb, my wark, forgetting Lord Byron's observa dear fellow, that in this instance tions, that “ Self is a subject on whic I should hope has much of truth in it, all men are fluent, and few agreeable, “ A barbe de fal, ou apprend a raire," I waive discussing the unpleasan men learn to shave on the chin of a theme, till we once more fairly set i blockhead,--for on what other ground to talk it over, with the relief of som is it that this man is endured, and his London particular to make it palata tergiversations and cupidity forgot- ble:-Here break we off, then ;-in ten, and his declamations listened deed I must, for our friend Price to, in places and situations where he aforesaid, insists that I send you the should sink abashed before integrity following specimen of his poetica and real talent, however ill conceived, powers, which come pot inaptly int or foolishly exerted? The fact, how- this portion of my letter; he assure ever, I take it, is, that Foote's motto me that they were written on the spu of “ Quack! Quack! Quack !” applies of the occasion to which they refer ten thousand times stronger to all and adds, as well, that to be in you agricultural meetings of the calibre at good books will give him more prid which I have glanced, than to the more and pleasure, than having written th harmless M. D. to whom it was pres- prime verse article in that too shor cribed. He, "good easy man,” could lived, but really respectable, and ever only destroy by units, whilst they, green little blossom of periodicalism scattering their vulgas ambiguas over “ Etonian." BRITAIN'S HEROES. our sons - Strange news has reached us here, eagle crest surmounting them, padded Alfred, which, from the veracious with pillows,and nothing could keep the channel through which it has been two bumper glasses of twice voyaged conveyed, we are bound to opine must Madeira from his lips, because he be troe; though it is none other than insisted on quafling them to the methat, that hard hearted ex officio officer, mory of the oldest and best beloved Mr. Attorney General,- has been, in King England ever knew, and to the our school boy phraseology, playing health and prosperity, and long reign “old gooseberry" with certain Lord of his eldest son. Had you but seen, Lieutenant-dubbed knights over the as I did, with what a preternatural water. In fact, he has found out that fire as it were, the good man's eyes the chief Magistrate of the land of ge- were lighted up, as he exclaimed nerosity and potatoes was totally in ihe “ God bless him!” you would have dark, when he constituted Sydney wondered, as we did, that “ the old Morgan's “ little man" a Knight, et man could have now so much blood in ex uno disce omnes. What will Mrs. him ;' and when, with the voice of Grundy say to this? To be cashiered, other days, he gave out to us as it were, of one's fair proportions, or as my warm hearted, tall uncle M. “ The health, our country! ever may she from paddy's land has it, to advance, The rock of freedom! and may her brave prove as it may be, like a crab, backwards; and to bow down to one's proper and To distant ages emulate our zeal :-" original level, like a forced cabbageplant, before we have either heart or You would have fancied yourself substance, is indeed malapropos, and another Hannibal swearing before the in the words of our housekeeper, Patriarch of your country, to protect * wery orercoming.” N'importe, bow- that country inviolate and free. ever, exclaims her ladyship,-I beg I was just folding up this bagatelle, pardon, she that was Lady Morgan, when E. with a face, any thing but for she of the wake and fair, is now like the man's who drew “ Priam's the lady ascendant,---N'importe, says curtain in the dead of night, to tell Mrs. Sydney Morgan, “what's in a him Troy was burned," slipped the name! a rose by any other name would following “ dapper couplets" into the sinell as sweet," and so it certainly cover. They are from that saucy will, provided it be a rose, but for the sister of mine, Ellen, and she insist's thorn? pshaw! one loses labour in ana- that as you will receive this not abovo lysing sach un-anglicised products of a month after the day of St. Valenour soil, as the lady in question ; who tine, she must, out of gratitude for after all, I suspect, must be content to your kindly notice of her dear relation dole out almost unpitied, the very cha- Templeton, send some sort of acknowracteristic melody, which a certain ledgment to the Magazine. That is, noble admirer of her talents, is ru- she'll write at, if not to you. Girls moured to have transmitted as will be girls, you see, and the snow balsam to heal her sickness." wreaths of December ill assort with But to leave these things of earth. the blossoms of May, so if it be only Did you see the King go to meet his for her gratitude to her more of a Parliament, and spring the old Cham- June cousin, we must forgive. The paigne to his health afterwards? We verses too for a Miss, are not amiss. had a glorious day here; for the old The man, says Johnson, who could buck of fourscore and upwards” make such a pun would—but to the would be amongst us in his ancient verses, and let us not, in this instance, hall and in bis oaken chair, one of it's regard what the crabbed. giant of noblest appendages, with the family literature thought and said about arms carved upon it's back, and the 'punning. ST. VALENTINE. No wreath,- I'm not thy Valentine, Dd a Thee too, Sir RICHARD, croaking chicf! And Ellen claims her Valentine. ere we shake hands 8th instant are this moment arrived, by and part,” may I venture to bope that which I perceive that you have finally if you are not quite suffocated by gas, cut all connection between the name of or lost in the modern deluges which we Asperne and your EUROPEAN ;-my a month since encountered, that you opinions, as well as the public feelings will either come or write.--In short, upon that subject you are well acmay I, in very humbleness, entreat quainted with, and it were quite usethat you will be so well pleased, as less to repeat them. The accession to deign one little specimen of your of literary strength which you allude handy work in acknowledgment of to is indeed most respectable; and you this seven leagued epistle. Ellen has, will doubtless now * command sucas above, spoken for herself; and all cess” as well as “ deserve it.” Your the rest beg me to express their desire Magazine will possess that distinc that you would curricle yourself to tion which it has every right to claim, this life-giving situation, and then they and even Ellen's amour propre will be will in propriis personibus, impart how something more than a female premuch they, one and all,“ Tray, dilection. While I can wield a pen Blanch, and Sweetheart," join with in the good cause, you well know how your old chum in wishing that you confidently you can rely upon my may live a thousand years. In which unwearied exertions, whenever, and hope, I, as the amanuensis of the wherever I can be serviceable. Expect party, subscribe myself, , a longer epistle very speedily; and MY DEAR ALFRED, for the present, once more adieu ! Your's, ever and most truly, A.M.T. ARTHUR M. TEMPLETON, over, Alfred, ALFRED BEAUCHAMP, Esq. Editor, European Magazine Office, London, CRITICAL ESSAYS ON THE GENIUS OF THE ENGLISH POETS. No. II. MILTON. Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn: To make a third, she join'd the former two.” IN this celebrated epigram, Dryden excellence which is placed within the describes the genius of Milton, and expansive range of the poet, or the attempts to distinguish it from that of more unlimited career of universal Homer and Virgil, by conferring upon genius. By loftiness of thought, Dryhim those high intellectual endow- den obviously means, sublimity of ments which characterized the genius thought, but a passage may be beauof his illustrious predecessors. The tiful without being sublime; for all epigram itself has been so universally the writers who have treated on the admired, that every reader imagines sublime and beautiful admit, that he perceives in it, as in a poetic mir- beauty and sublimity, whether they ror, the true and distinctive charac- be considered as attributes of senter of Milton's genius. The critics sible or intellectual being, are always have not ventured to question the distinct qualities, though they acknowaccuracy and fidelity of so imposing a ledge the difficulty of determining portrait; and as it was deemed the what constitutes either. As, then, a most elegant of all the poetic tributes passage may be beautiful without which had ever been paid to the me- being sublime, and as the qualities mory of Milton, it appears under the which go to constitute beauty are exhead of the poet, engraved by R. tremely numerous, as simplicity, tenWhite, and prefixed to the folio edi- derness, harmony, refinement, delication of Paradise Lost, in 1688. Mr. cy, pathos, &c. it follows, that the Todd, in his edition of Milton, has means of attaining to poetic excelbeen led by it's celebrity to suspect, lence, are not confined to loftiness and that it is too good for Dryden, and majesty. There is nothing in Homer, thinks he is indebted for the last sen- Virgil, or Milton, nor indeed in the timent to some of his predecessors. whole compass of the poetical works Mr. Todd, no doubt, thought so, with which we are acquainted, that because many thought so besides can be compared to the two first chaphimself; but the Latin and French ters of Solomon's Canticle of Cantipoets to whom he traces the origin of cles. Here we have the true spirit of this sentiment, have never produced poetry, the heart bounding with joy, any thing that will bear a comparison rapture, and delight, and scarcely with Dryden's Ode to St. Cecilia's able to contain itself. It runs after Day, or many of his shorter poems. the object of it's affections; it seeks If the epigram, therefore, possess that him in all places, and melts in the great excellence which it is supposed softest languishments of love. What to possess, there seems to be no suffi- can be more exquisitely conceived, or cient reason for denying Dryden the where can we find such luxury of merit of originality in composing it. poetic description, as in the following To me, however, this portrait of Mil. sentiments, “ I am black but beautiton's genius appears to have more of ful, 0 ye daughters of Jerusalem, as speciousness and appearance, than of the tents of Cedar, as the curtains of reality and truth. We are told, not Solomon. I am the flower of the only that Milton possessed the lofti- ficld, and the lily of the vallies. As pess of Homer, and the majesty of the lily among thorns, so is my beVirgil, but that loftiness and majesty loved among the daughters of Adam. embrace every species of poetic ex- Stay me up with flowers, compass me cellence to which nature can attain. about with apples, because I languish Loftiness and majesty, however, are with love. The voice of my beloved, far from comprising every species of behold le coineth, leaping upon the |
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