CHAPTER XI.

LONGEVITY OF POLEMICAL AUTHORS-PHILOLOGISTS.

In the list of polemical authors we find the longevity of those of fixed opinions on the subject of religion greater, by a hundred and five years, than that of authors of unsettled sentiments on this important inquiry after truth. The only wonder is, that the ages of the former have not furnished a still larger amount, when the different effects on health and life are taken into account, of certainty of opinion on the most important of all subjects: of tranquillity and peace of mind on the one hand; and on the other, of inquiries that present difficulties, doubts, or disbelief-of mental anxiety, and of the insecurity of the virtue of those whose sole dependance is on worldly honour, whose only guidance is the philosophy of men as fallible as themselves.

The list of the philologists exhibits very little difference from that of the divines in the amount of the united ages of each. Though many of the former have been devoted solely to scholastic

pursuits, these pursuits to a great extent are necessary to qualify the latter for their profession. But seclusion from the world, and sedentary habits, can alone enable the philologist to make his memory the store-house of the erudition of past ages, or furnish the necessary materials for that vast pyramid of classical erudition, which is based on a catacomb of ancient learning, and has its apex in a cloud that sheds no rain on the arid soil beneath it.

The more we contemplate so wonderful a structure, the greater must be our disappointment if we fail to discover its utility, and the larger the surface over which its shadows are projected, the more must be questioned the advantages of the erroneous expenditure of time and labour that was necessary for the erection of such a pile. If Cobbett should ever deign to peruse these volumes, he will pardon our metaphor for the sake of its application; but none can be more sensible of the misfortune of entitling an opinion of the inutility of any branch of learning to the approbation of that gentleman than we are; but, nevertheless, we are inclined to question the advantage of a whole life's devotion to the study of the dead languages.

What good to science, or to society, has accrued from Parr's profound knowledge of the di

alects of Greece? What original works, even on the subject of his own pursuit, have issued from his pen? A few tracts and sermons, and a new edition of "Bellendenus,” are his only title to the remembrance of the next age.

Languages are but the avenues of learning, and he who devotes his attention to the formation of the pebbles that lay along the road, will have little leisure for the consideration of more important objects, whose beauty or utility arrest the attention of the general observer.

We have been carried away from the subject of the effects of sedentary habits to which the pursuits that are carried on in cloisters of ancient learning are apt to lead; but in truth, there remained little to be said on the subject. If such habits appear less injurious to health in this branch of study than might have been expected, it is only because memory and not imagination, industry and not enthusiasm, have to do with the pursuits of the philologist.

CHAPTER XII.

LONGEVITY OF MUSICAL COMPOSERS, SCULPTORS, AND PAINTERS.

FINALLY, we have to observe the extraordinary difference in the longevity of the musical composers, and that of the artists. We find the amount of life in the list of the sculptors and painters larger, by one hundred and twenty-eight years, than in that of the votaries of Euterpe.

Music is to sensibility what language is to poetry, the mode of expressing enthusiastic sentiments, and exciting agreeable sensations. The more imagination the composer is able to put into his music, the more powerfully he appeals to the feelings. Sensibility is the soul of music, and pathos its most powerful attribute.

Pythagoras imagined that music was the soul of life itself, or that harmony was the sum total of the faculties, and the necessary result of the concert of these faculties, and of the bodily functions.

Musical composition, then, demands extraordinary sensibility, an enthusiastic imagination,

LONGEVITY OF MUSICAL COMPOSERS, &c. 101

an instinctive taste rather than deep thought. The same qualities differently directed make the poet. Is it, then, to be wondered at, that we should find the poets and the musical composers considerably shorter lived than the followers of all other learned or scientific pursuits, whose sensibility is not exercised by their studies, whose imaginations are not wearied by excessive application and enthusiasm? The term "genus irritabile" deserves to be transferred from the poetical to the musical tribe; for we take it that an enraged musician is a much more common spectacle than an irritated bard, and infinitely more rabid in his choler.

Generally speaking, musicians are the most intolerant of men to one another, the most captious, the best humoured when flattered, and the worst tempered at all other times. Music, like laudanum, appears to soothe the senses when used in moderation, but the continual employment of either flurries and excites the faculties, and often renders the best natured men in the world, petulant, irritable, and violent.

In the list of artists the sculptors and painters have been placed apart for the purpose of showing the greater longevity of the former. The united ages of both exceed the poet's amount of life by no less than three hundred and thirty-two years-an