ration to his kingdom: and the son had sent a considerable fleet to his assistance in the present war: but, in this ruin of his for tunes, what gratitude was there to be expected from a court, governed by eunuchs and mercenary Greeks? all whose politics turned, not on the honor of the king, but the establishment of their own power; which was likely to be eclipsed by the admission of Pompey. How happy had it been for him to have died in that sickness, when all Italy was putting up vows and prayers for his safety! or, if he had fallen by chance of war on the plains of Pharsalia, in the defence of his country's liberty, he had died still glorious, though unfortunate; but, as if he had been reserved for an example of the instability of human greatness, he, who a few days before commanded kings and consuls, and all the noblest of Rome, was sentenced to die by a council of slaves; murdered by a base deserter; cast out naked and headless on the Egyptian strand; and when the whole earth, as Velleius says, had scarce been sufficient for his victories, could not find a spot upon it at last for a grave.

HENRY ST. JOHN, VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE. 1678-1751.

HENRY ST. JOHN, son of Sir Henry St. John, of Battersea, Surrey county, was born October 1, 1678. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, and after spend ing many years of dissipation on the continent, he was, on his return, elected to parliament in 1701, when the Tories were in power. He was elevated to the peerage in 1712, by the title of Viscount Bolingbroke; but soon after the death of Queen Anne, fearing the course which might be taken against him by the new administration, he fled to France. On the 9th of August of the same year, (1718,) he was impeached by Walpole at the bar of the House of Lords of high-treason, and other high crimes and misdemeanors; and as he failed to surrender himself to take his trial, a bill of attainder was passed against him by parliament, on the 10th of September. In the mean time he showed what were his principles, and where his heart was, by entering the service of the Pretender, as secretary. In 1723 he obtained a full pardon, and returned to England: his property was restored to him, but he was excluded from the House of Lords. He then engaged in active opposition to the Whig ministry of Sir Robert Walpole, and published a great number of political tracts..

In 1735 he suddenly withdrew to France, for reasons which have never been explained, and resided there seven years, during which time he pub lished his "Letters on the Study of History," and a ") Letter on the true Use of Retirement," both of which contain many valuable reflections. On the death of his father, 1742, he returned to take possession of the family estate at Battersea, and in 1749 published his "Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism," and the "Idea of a Patriot King." Most of his early friends, both literary and political, of whom were Pope, Swift, Gay, and Atterbury, were now gone, and he himself expired on the 15th of December, 1751. He bequeathed all his manuscripts, "as a legacy for traducing the memory of his own old

friend Alexander Pope," to David Mallet, a Scotchman, who, in 1754, published a complete edition of his lordship's works, in five volumes. Among them were found a series of Essays against revealed religion, which led to the caustic but just remark of Dr. Johnson, that "having loaded a blunderbuss, and pointed it against Christianity, he had not the courage to discharge it himself, but left half-a-crown to a hungry Scotchman to pull the trigger after his death."

In Lord Bolingbroke's character as a man there is, but little to respect, much to condemn. His philosophical writings are now but little read, and for their matter contain little that is worth reading. As a rhetorician, however, he deserves some consideration in this work of ours, designed to mark the progress of English style, and to bring under our notice the best writers. His style was a happy medium between that of the scholar and that of the man of society-or rather it was a happy combination of the best qualities of both, "heightening the ease, freedom, fluency, and liveliness of elegant conversation, with many of the deeper and richer tones of the eloquence of formal orations and books. The example he thus set has probably produced a very considerable effect in moulding the style of popular writing since his time."3

ABSURDITIES OF USELESS LEARNING.

Some histories are to be read, some are to be studied, and some may be neglected entirely, not only without detriment, but with advantage. Some are the proper objects of one man's curiosity, some of another's, and some of all men's; but all history is not an object of curiosity for any man. He who improperly, wantonly, and absurdly makes it so, indulges a sort of canine appetite; the curiosity of one, like the hunger of the other, devours ravenously, and without distinction, whatever falls in its way, but neither of them digests. They heap crudity upon crudity, and nourish and improve nothing but their distemper. Some such characters I have known, though it is not the most common extreme into which men are apt to fall. One of them I knew in this country. He joined to a more than athletic strength of body, a prodigious memory, and to both a prodigious industry. He had

1 There is not room here to go into the details of the controversy that arose from the base act of Mallet in maligning Pope, and the still baser feelings of Bolingbroke in first assenting to it, and afterwards rewarding it. Bolingbroke's pretended ground of offence was, that Pope, into whose hands he had placed his political tract, "The Patriot King," for publication, and distribution among his own (Bolingbroke's) friends, had published more than he ought. But he knew that Pope did it purely from his admiration of the tract, and a desire to have it more generally known. The real cause, therefore, of Bolingbroke's most ungrateful treatment of his old friend was, doubtless, that Pope had bequeathed his property in his printed works to Warburton, rather than to himself. For a more par ticular account of this, see Roscoe's Pope, vol. 1. p. 537.

"When Tully attempted poetry, he became as ridiculous as Bolingbroke when he attempted philosophy and divinity; we look in vain for that genius which produced the Dissertation on Parties, In the tedious philosophical works, of which it is no exaggerated satire to say, that the reasoning of them is sophistical and inconclusive, the style diffuse and verbose, and the learning seemingly con tained in them not drawn from the originals, but picked up and purloined from French critics and translations."-Warton's Pope, i. 119.

3 See also some remarks on his style in the 19th Lecture of Dr. Blair, and in Drake's Essays, vol Iv. p. 234.

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read almost constantly twelve or fourteen hours a day for five-andtwenty or thirty years, and had heaped together as much learning as could be crowded into a head. In the course of my ac quaintance with him, I consulted him once or twice, not oftener; for I found this mass of learning of as little use to me as to the owner. The man was communicative enough; but nothing was distinct in his mind. How could it be otherwise? he had never spared time to think; all was employed in reading. His reason had not the merit of common mechanism. When you press a watch, or pull a clock, they answer your question with precision; for they repeat exactly the hour of the day, and tell you neither more nor less than you desire to know. But when you asked this man a question, he overwhelmed you by pouring forth all that the several terms or words of your question recalled to his memory; and if he omitted any thing, it was that very thing to which the sense of the whole question should have led him or confined him. To ask him a question was to wind up a spring in his memory, that rattled on with vast rapidity and confused noise, till the force of it was spent; and you went away with all the noise in your ears, stunned and uninformed.

He who reads with discernment and choice, will acquire less learning, but more knowledge; and as this knowledge is collected with design, and cultivated with art and method, it will be at all times of immediate and ready use to himself and others.

Thus useful arms in magazines we place,

All ranged in order, and disposed with grace;
Nor thus alone the curious eye to please,

But to be found, when need requires, with ease.

You remember the verses, my lord, in our friend's Essay on Criticism, which was the work of his childhood almost; but is such a monument of good sense and poetry, as no other, that I know, has raised in his riper years.

He who reads without this discernment and choice, and resolves to read all, will not have time, no, nor capacity either, to do any thing else. He will not be able to think, without which it is impertinent to read; nor to act, without which it is impertinent to think. He will assemble materials with much pains, and purchase them at much expense, and have neither leisure nor skill to frame them into proper scantlings, or to prepare them for use. To what purpose should he husband his time, or learn architec ture? he has no design to build. But then to what purpose all these quarries of stone, all these mountains of sand and lime, all these forests of oak and deal?

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THE USE OF HISTORY.

To teach and to inculcate the general principles of virtue, and the general rules of wisdom and good policy which result from such details of actions and characters, comes, for the most part, and always should come, expressly and directly into the design of those who are capable of giving such details: and, therefore, whilst they narrate as historians, they hint often as philosophers; they put into our hands, as it were, on every proper occasion, the end of a clue, that serves to remind us of searching, and to guide us in the search of that truth which the example before us either establishes or illustrates. If a writer neglects this part, we are able, however, to supply his neglect by our own attention and industry and when he gives us a good history of Peruvians or Mexicans, of Chinese or Tartars, of Muscovites or Negroes, we may blame him, but we must blame ourselves much more, if we do not make it a good lesson of philosophy. This being the general use of history, it is not to be neglected. Every one may make it who is able to read, and to reflect on what he reads; and every one who makes it will find, in his degree, the benefit that arises from an early acquaintance contracted in this manner with mankind. We are not only passengers or sojourners in this world, but we are absolute strangers at the first steps we make in it. Our guides are often ignorant, often unfaithful. By this map of the country, which history spreads before us, we may learn, if we please, to guide ourselves. In our journey through it, we are beset on every side. We are besieged sometimes, even in our strongest holds. Terrors and temptations, conducted by the passions of other men, assault us; and our own passions, that correspond with these, betray us. History is a collection of the journals of those who have travelled through the same country, and been exposed to the same accidents: and their good and their ill success are equally instructive. In this pursuit of knowledge an immense field is opened to us: general histories, sacred and profane; the histories of particular countries, particular events, particular orders, particular men; memorials, anecdotes, travels. But we must not ramble in this field without discernment or choice, nor even with these must we ramble too long.

THE WORLD OUR COUNTRY.1

Whatever is best is safest; lies out of the reach of human power; can neither be given nor taken away. Such is this great

1 What a beautiful idea, "the world our country-all mankind our countrymen." When this sentiment shall be practically realized, (and the day seems to be fast drawing near when it will be,) all restrictions upon trade will be everywhere removed; intercourse between nations will be as free 42"

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and beautiful work of nature, the world. Such is the mind of man, which contemplates and admires the world, whereof it makes the noblest part. These are inseparably ours, and as long as we remain in one, we shall enjoy the other. Let us march, there fore, intrepidly wherever we are led by the course of human accidents. Wherever they lead us, on what coast soever we are thrown by them, we shall not find ourselves absolutely strangers. We shall meet with men and women, creatures of the same figure, endowed with the same faculties, and born under the same laws of nature.

We shall see the same virtues and vices, flowing from the same principles, but varied in a thousand different and contrary modes, according to that infinite variety of laws and customs which is established for the same universal end, the preservation of society. We shall feel the same revolution of seasons, and the same sun and moon will guide the course of our year. The same azure vault, bespangled with stars, will be everywhere spread over our heads. There is no part of the world from whence we may not admire those planets which roll, like ours, in different orbits, round the same central sun; from whence we may not discover an object still more stupendous, that army of fixed stars hung up in the immense space of the universe; innumerable suns, whose beams enlighten and cherish the unknown worlds which roll around them and whilst I am ravished by such contemplations as these, whilst my soul is thus raised up to heaven, it imports me little what ground I tread upon.

FORTUNE NOT TO BE TRUSTED.

The sudden invasion of an enemy overthrows such as are not on their guard; but they who foresee the war, and prepare themselves for it before it breaks out, stand without difficulty the first and the fiercest onset. I learned this important lesson long ago, and never trusted to fortune, even while she seemed to be at peace with me. The riches, the honors, the reputation, and all the advantages which her treacherous indulgence poured upon me, placed so, that she might snatch them away without giving me any disturbance. I kept a great interval between me and them. She took them, but she could not tear them from me. No man suffers by bad fortune but he who has been deceived by good. If we grow fond of her gifts, fancy that they belong to us, and are

as between individuals of the same nation; and national governments will be supported as local go vernments now are-by direct taxes according to property-the only equitable mode. I cannot bu. tere quote a fine remark from that valuable book entitled "Guesses at Truth," by the brothers Hare: "A statesman may do much for commerce.-most by leaving it alone. A river never flows so smoothly as when it follows its own course, without either aid or check. Let it make its own bed: it will do so better than you can."

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