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M.D.CCC.XXIX.

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ever been done before. The mere laborious student who for ever quarries on the lore of nations and tongues that are extinct, is known by the depreciating titles of the

THE literature of this country has undergone, since the commencement of the present century, one of those peri-pedant and bookworm;—the abstracted reveller among

odical changes, which, in the revolution of years, seem theories which exclude all human sympathies, and reinseparably to connect themselves with all the intellec- late only to the mysterious laws that govern thought and tual pursuits to which the genius and talents of man are mental perceptions, is distinguished by the equivocal directed. It is not to the great ebbs and flows of mind appellation of metaphysician, which, in the lips of many, -to the golden or iron ages, which have alternately il- is meant to imply, that in devoting himself to the invesluminated and darkened the world, that we mean to altigation of an essence he cannot comprehend, he has lude. We refer to changes of a more limited descrip- overlooked the only part of human nature towards the tion; but scarcely less interesting to the philosophical improvement of which his wisdom might have been useinquirer into the nature of mind, and the various phefully expended. Yet, whilst we perceive the errors into nomena attendant on its developement. To such a one which the over-enthusiastic scholar, or the too ardent worit must be apparent, that even when the higher powers shipper of German philosophy, have fallen, it becomes of man's nature seem to be in equal states of activity, the us not to point at them the finger of derision, or to turn leading features of those productions by which that activity away with the self-satisfied conviction of superiority. is made apparent, are widely different at different periods. Without the scholar, the wisdom of the past would have The fluctuation of taste the alteration in the spirit of the been buried under the ruins of fallen empires; and times the commanding influence of one or two bold without the metaphysician, glimpses of a remoter world, and peculiarly constituted minds-are, in general, vague-of a higher origin, and of a far nobler destiny, might ly and unsatisfactorily set down, as the causes why a new order of things should arise in the world of intellect, and all the old canons of criticism, by which the value of mental labour used to be ascertained, rendered unstable or swept away altogether. We enter not at present upon any investigation which might lead to more accurate conclusions upon this subject; we wish only to point out the fact, and to direct attention to the influence it is but too apt imperceptibly to exercise over all our judgments. And most especially ought they to be aware of its power, who take upon themselves the important task of attempting to guide, in any degree, the public

mind.

Whether there be in reality a definable and essential standard of taste-although, like the precious stone sought for by the enthusiasm of early science, it may have hitherto baffled discovery-it is at all events certain, that every age has had its own standard, to which an appeal was made, and by which its decisions were regulated. Different as these standards have commonly been from each other, it is impossible that they can all have been correct; yet, with much error, there may have been much truth in each. That man possesses but a shallow and bigoted discernment who pins his faith upon the predominant mode and fashion, or literary and scientific creed of any one country, or any isolated portion of time. By all reflecting minds this is a truth which is generally admitted; yet in the practice of every day it is but too frequently forgotten. We are all too apt to look only to what is going on around us, and in the pride of our hearts to believe, that what we and our contemporaries are doing is better than what has

to some have never been revealed.

The same observations which apply to different classes of men, may with propriety be extended to different periods in the history of this or any other country. There was a time when knightly daring and deeds of bold emprize went hand in hand with intellectual culture; and he therefore stood the most conspicuous, whose sword was seen to flash in every word, and whose resounding verse seemed but an echo to the trampling of his warsteed; there was a time when theological research and polemical controversy gave the leading tone and colour to the mind, and when its efforts were estimated only in reference to that engrossing subject;-there was a time when the quiet happiness of an agricultural and pastoral state of society took a strong hold of the imagination, and, as in the Arcadia of Greece, or of Sir Philip Sidney, the whole population "babbled of green fields," and limpid rivulets murmured through a thousand eclogues; there was a time when quaint conceits, and strong antithesis, and startling paradox, and all the untrodden paths of thought, however abstract and refined, or however dependent upon the mere play and jingle of conventional sounds, constituted what was denominated wit, when wit meant something more than mere quickness of fancy or readiness of repartee, and when, for the reputation of possessing that wit, all the dictates of a more sober, and perhaps sounder, taste, were willingly sacrificed ;-there was a time when the nation once more reverted to the chaste and classical models of antiquity,-when their productions, if more subdued in tone, were more sustained in executionwhen the feelings were never violently overwrought, nor