mighty power of intellect that has, and will keep them embalmed, with all their biting sarcasm and pungent satire, to perpetuity. Junius was a profound scholar, an active politician, and a statesman of enlarged views. He was master of the history of all ages, and skilled in the science of every government. He had drawn copiously from the deep springs of antiquity, and was as fearless as intellectual. British history, from the remotest ages, was as familiar to him as household words, and he knew the movements of every administration to the minutest details. The most cautious messenger could not enter the postern door, nor ascend, with the most stealthy pace, the back stairs of the palace, without his knowledge. The birds of the air brought him the sayings and doings of the king and his council, nor did a clerk copy a confidential paper that the contents of it were not familiar to Junius. Office had no secrets of fact or forms that he did not thoroughly understand. Of America he knew more than ministers, for the sources of his information were less clogged by prejudices than theirs. Junius was more perfectly acquainted with his mother tongue than his coadjutors. He had gone deeply into the Saxon language, and his writings are specimens of the purest English that can be found among the ambitious scholars of his age. He was master of every style of composition, and used his great power for his concealment, and for the purposes he labored to effect. In the midst of excited passions he kept the most provoking command of his temper. He laid bare the nerve of feeling with so much skill and science as to give it a fresh susceptibility of torture when it was to be tried anew, and prepared for the rack. No rank of life escaped Junius; he entered the fashionable coterie and chased down the votary of avarice whenever his conduct effected public good. Those who had no enmities to gratify read the productions of this caustic writer for a choice of epithets, for all his words were weighed in the balance and made the just equipoise of the sentences he intended to frame. Every political writer since his time has read his letters to sharpen his wits for the rencontre in the strife of words. His imitators have swarmed in every period since, and most of them have caught his malignity without his mind, and many have secretly copied his phraseology without a shred of his mantle to assist, or cover them. Every young eagle has whet his beak upon the Junian column. before he spread his wing or darted on his prey. Junius has been as much known on this as on the other side of the water; and his works have been a standard among the youths of England and America; nor has this been of any injury to them; for they found that the most distant imitation could not be effected without the utmost care and pains. Labor is written on every. imperishable monument reared by ancient or modern hands. Conjecture has been busy ever since these writings appeared, to discover the author. Some have supposed that they had brought a chain of facts and circumstances that irresistibly went to prove the author, and thousands became converts to his reasoning, but the writer had scarcely laid down his pen when some other enquirer arose who was equally successful in convincing the public that some other man of distinction was the author. But no matter who was the writer of these celebrated letters; the author discovered or not will not change our opinion of them now, as their political character has long since been lost-the literary alone remains. The works of Junius, vituperative as they are, may be read with profit by any one who examines their structure and power, rather than the unforgiving temper which abounds in them. Churchill and Lloyd were satirists of this age. In 1760, Lloyd published the ACTOR, a work of some merit, which was soon followed by the ROSCIAD from Churchill, of still greater talent. Lloyd was mild, good humored, and dealt in general sarcasm; but Churchill became personal, and his lash was felt more keenly than his brother satirist. Both were improvident and profligate, and lost the world because they had not virtue enough to use the good things of it without abusing them; both fell martyrs to dissipation before the gray hair on the head of temperance would have appeared. The writings of Churchill are read by the lovers of genius, although they are too loose for the eye of youth, or for female delicacy. His sentiments were bitter and his sarcasms barbed. He turned his vengeance against the stage. For some reason, perhaps now only conjectured, he fell out with the players, and he laid about him and scattered all the heroes of the buskin and the elite of the sock, and treated them without mercyGarrick alone excepted, and he was the idol of the pack. Churchill more often used the cleaver than the sword, but struck so hard, and aimed his blow so adroitly, that he was dreaded by the aspirants of histrionic fame, and even the veterans of the stage cursed or courted him as they felt or feared his power. These satirists had been initiated by Bonnell Thornton, and Colman, who were the literary bustlers of the day,-men of talents and wit, who were comparatively prudent when mentioned with Lloyd and Churchill. To these we may add John Wilkes. There is not much of his poetry to be found, and his prose does not prove him to have been so shining a man as he passed for in his day. He was a successful demagogue, and gulled the people out of votes and money almost as he pleased. Yet this dictator of the public mind, this propagator of liberal principles, was as vindictive as insinuating, and as profligate as witty. We turn from this field in which grew no salutary plants,—a field where a few splendid flowers were seen with nightshade, hemlock, and other poisonous weeds,— to one of fertility and verdure, on which the fruits of all ages and nations are to be found. The Wartons, Thomas and Joseph, were scholars by profession : Thomas wrote for a long series of years for the benefit of his nation and of mankind. The history of English poetry was a labor of great magnitude. He lived to finish four volumes of it, and left much to be done. He was laureate, and brought up that character when it had been let down by the appointment of Colley Cibber. Whenever the laureate was named a smile was seen on the lips of the man of taste, and the fashionable world laughed outright; but the elegant odes of Warton brought the name of laureate into reputation once more. He was for ten years a professor of poetry at the university of Cambridge, and in this arduous character he was popular with all. His lectures were much attended and were considered both sound and brilliant. His odes are among the first of that class of poetry that have come down to us. The Crusade, the Suicide, the Grave of Arthur, are full of invention, choice of lan guage, and exquisite expression. His brother Joseph was his senior in years but lived to finish some of the professor's works. His genius was not inferior to his brother's, but he spent more of his time in the duties of a theologian, and less in the wanderings of general literature, yet they deserve to go down to posterity hand in hand, as benefactors of mankind, for there is nothing in the writings of either that could offend the most delicate taste, or injure the purest morals. THE SUICIDE. Beneath the beech, whose branches bare, Smit with the light'ning's livid glare, O'erhang the craggy road, And whistle hollow as they wave; Within a solitary grave, A slayer of himself holds his accurs'd abode. Lour'd the grim morn, in murky dies As by the brook that lingering laves I mark'd his desultory pace, His gestures strange, and varying face, The reeking blade, the hand embrued; He fell, and groaning grasp'd in agony the ground. |
