conclusions would be drawn from it. But I am called upon to deliver my opinion, and surely it is not in the little censure of Mr. Horne (i.e. Horne Tooke) to deter me from doing signal justice to a man, who, I confess, has grown upon my esteem. As for the common sordid views of avarice, or any purpose of vulgar ambition,' I question whether the applause of Junius would be of service to Lord Chatham. My vote will hardly recommend him to an increase of his pension, or to a seat in the cabinet. But if his ambition be upon a level with his understanding; if he judges of what is truly honourable for himself, with the same superior genius which animates and directs him to eloquence in debate, to wisdom in decision, even the pen of Junius shall contribute to reward him. Recorded honours shall gather round his monument, and thicken over him. It is a solid fabric, and will support the laurels that adorn it. not conversant in the language of panegyric. These praises are extorted from me; but they will wear well, for they have been dearly earned.

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

THE STUDY OF GREAT MODELS.

I am

(FROM A DISCOURSE, DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY IN 1774.)

WHOEVER has so far formed his taste, as to be able to relish and feel the beauties of the great masters, has gone a great way in his study; for merely from a consciousness of this relish of the right,

(1) I.e. as far as the interests or the ambition of Lord Chatham are concerned. The phraseology of the text appears often, as here, intolerably verbose, and so far inefficient. The sentence "But if his ambition " is better, but still overweighted. The rest of the passage, however, though perhaps not perfect, has a stately air befitting the occasion-that of conferring in the presence, as it were, of the assembled world, a testimonial of honour on one who has well earned it.

(2) Reynolds's "Discourses" on Painting are written with much care and elegance. Though formed in the school of Johnson, he has little of the peculiar style of his master. His treatment of his subject is, as it should be, artistic. While apparently sacrificing everything for the attainment of clearness and precision, he wins attention to his precepts by the gracefulness of his manner. The principles laid down in his lectures are really as applicable to literature as to painting. Few books more instructive have ever been written.

Our

the mind swells with an inward pride, and is almost as powerfully affected as if it had itself produced what it admires. hearts, frequently warmed in this manner by the contact of those whom we wish to resemble, will undoubtedly catch something of their way of thinking; and we shall receive into our own bosoms some radiation at least of their fire and splendour. That disposition which is so strong in children, still continues with us, of catching involuntarily the general air and manner of those with whom we are most conversant; with this difference only, that a young mind is naturally pliable and imitative; but in a more advanced state it grows rigid, and must be warmed and softened, before it will receive a deep impression.

From these considerations, which a little of your own reflection will carry a great way further, it appears of what great consequence it is, that our minds should be habituated to the contemplation of excellence; and that far from being contented to make such habits the discipline of our youth only, we should to the last moment of our lives continue a settled intercourse with all the true examples of grandeur. Their inventions are not only the food of our infancy, but the substance which supplies the fullest maturity of our vigour.

The mind is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilised and enriched with foreign matter. When we have had continually before us the great works of art to impregnate our minds with kindred ideas; we are then, and not till then, fit to produce something of the same species. We behold all about us with the eyes of those penetrating observers whose works we contemplate; and our minds, accustomed to think the thoughts of the noblest and brightest intellects, are prepared for the discovery and selection of all that is great and noble in nature. The greatest natural genius cannot subsist on its own stock. He who resolves never to ransack any mind but his own, will be soon reduced from mere barrenness to the poorest of all imitations; he will be obliged to imitate himself, and to repeat what he has before often repeated. When we know the subject designed by such men, it will never be difficult to guess what kind of work is to be produced. It is vain for painters and poets to endeavour to invent without materials on which the mind may work, and from which invention must originate. Nothing can come of nothing.

WILLIAM COWPER.'

1. ON WRITING UPON NOTHING.

(FROM "LETTERS," DATED 1780.)

MY DEAR FRIEND,-You like to hear from me; this is a very good reason why I should write. But I have nothing to say; this seems equally a good reason why I should not. Yet, if you had alighted from your horse at our door this morning, and at this present writing, being five o'clock in the afternoon, had found occasion to say to me," Mr. Cowper, you have not spoken since I came in; have you resolved never to speak again?" it would be but a poor reply, if, in answer to the summons, I should plead inability as my best and only excuse. And this, by the way, suggests to me a seasonable piece of instruction, and reminds me of what I am very apt to forget, when I have any epistolary business in hand, that a letter may be written on anything or nothing, just as anything or nothing happens to occur. A man that has a journey before him, twenty miles in length, which he is to perform on foot, will not hesitate or doubt whether he shall set out or not, because he does not readily conceive how he shall ever reach the end of it; for he knows that by the simple operation of moving one foot first, and then the other, he shall be sure to accomplish it. So it is in the present case, and in every similar case. A letter is written

as a conversation is maintained, or a journey performed; not by preconcerted or premeditated means, a new contrivance, or an invention never heard of before; but merely by maintaining a progress, and resolving as a postilion does, having once set out, never to stop till we reach the appointed end. If a man may talk without thinking, why may he not write upon the same

(1) "Cowper's letters to his friends, not written for publication at all, but thrown off in the carelessness of his hours of leisure and relaxation, have given him as high a place among the prose classics of his country, as he holds among our poets." -Craik's English Literature and Language, ii. 381.

These letters have the rare charm, as indicated above, of improvisation. Pope's letters to his private friends were really written for the public. In Gray's, a "well turned period," as he tells us himself, was always his "principal concern," but Cowper's stand almost alone in being perfectly free and unpremeditated; and we see in the above specimen, when he has "nothing to say" how delightfully he says it, and in saying it discloses and exemplifies the true art of letter writing.

terms? A grave gentleman of the last century, a tie-wig, square toe, Steinkirk (?) figure, would say, "My good sir, a man has no right to do either." But it is to be hoped that the present century has nothing to do with the mouldy opinions of the last, and so, good Sir Launcelot, or Sir Paul, or whatever be your name, step into your picture-frame again, and look as if you thought for another century, and leave us moderns in the meantime to think when we can, and to write whether we can or not, else we might as well be dead, as you are.

When we look back upon our forefathers, we seem to look upon the people of another nation, almost upon creatures of another species. Their vast rambling mansions, spacious halls, and painted casements, the Gothic porch, smothered with honeysuckles, their little gardens and high walls, their box edging, balls of holly, and yew-tree statues, are become so entirely unfashionable now, that we can hardly believe it possible, that a people who resembled us so little in their tastes, should resemble us in anything else. But in everything else, I suppose, they were our counterpart exactly; and time, that has sewed up the slashed sleeve, and reduced the large trunk hose to a neat pair of silk stockings, has left human nature just where it found it. The inside of the man, at least, has undergone no change: his passions, appetites, and aims are just what they were. They wear, perhaps a handsomer disguise than they did in the days of yore; for philosophy and literature will have their effect on the exterior; but in every other respect a modern is only an ancient in a different dress.

2. RURAL SOUNDS.2

(FROM "LETTERS.")

Sept. 18th, 1784.

MY DEAR FRIEND,-Following your good example, I lay before me a sheet of my largest paper. It was this moment fair and unblemished, but I have begun to blot it; and having begun am not likely to cease till I have spoiled it. I have sent you many a sheet that, in my judgment of it, has been very

(1) Trunk hose, "short, wide breeches, reaching a little above, or sometimes below the knees, stuffed with hair and striped."-Nares's Glossary.

(2) With the graceful and unstudied reference to "rural sounds" in this letter, compare a passage from the "Task," on the same subject, given in "Studies in English Poetry," p. 453.

unworthy of your acceptance; but my conscience was in some measure satisfied, by reflecting that, if it were good for nothing, at the same time it cost you nothing, except the trouble of reading it. But the case is altered now. You must pay a solid price for frothy matter, and though I do not absolutely pick your pocket, yet you lose your money, and, as the saying is, are never the wiser; a saying literally fulfilled to the reader of my epistles.

My greenhouse is never so pleasant as when we are just upon the point of being turned out of it. The gentleness of the autumnal suns, and the calmness of this latter season, make it a much more agreeable retreat than we ever find it in summer; when the winds being generally brisk, we cannot cool it by admitting a sufficient quantity of air, without being at the same time incommoded by it. But now I sit with all the windows and the door wide open, and am regaled with the scent of every flower in a garden as full of flowers as I have known how to make it. We keep no bees, but if I lived in a hive I should hardly hear more of their music. All the bees in the neighbourhood resort to a bed of mignionette, opposite to the window, and pay me for the honey they get out of it by a hum, which, though rather monotonous, is as agreeable to my ear as the whistling of my linnets. All the sounds that nature utters are delightful, at least in this country. I should not, perhaps, find the roaring of lions in Africa, or of bears in Russia, very pleasing; but I know no beast in England whose voice ĺ do not account musical, save and except always the braying of an ass. The notes of all our birds and fowls please me without one exception. I should not, indeed, think of keeping a goose in a cage, that I might hang her up in the parlour for the sake of her melody; but a goose upon a common, or in a farm-yard, is no bad performer; and as to insects, if the black beetle, and beetles indeed of all hues, will keep out of my way, I have no objection to any of the rest; on the contrary, in whatever key they sing, from the gnat's fine treble to the bass of the humble bee, I admire them all. Seriously, however, it strikes me as a very observable instance of providential kindness to man, that such an exact accord has been contrived between his ear and the sounds with which, in a rural situation, it is almost every moment visited. All the world is sensible of the uncomfortable effect that certain sounds have upon the nerves, and consequently upon the spirits; and if a sinful world had been filled with such as would have curdled the blood and have made the sense of hearing a perpetual inconvenience, I do not know