with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He skims over a work with ineffable disdain, that has not as much of a dead as a living language in it. His intellect is bedridden;-he knows nothing of the current literature of the day, and you might as soon prove that two and two were five, as rouse him from his lethargy. If you tell him of the publication of a volume full of power and pathos, he will hear you out patiently, and then, with a soft complacent smile, answer, that it is very likely the author in question cannot decline a Latin verb. He draws the curtains of pride and ignorance around him, is invested in his learned garments, becomes indolent and stupid, and in this manner sits, like the immoveable Theseus, unconscious of surrounding things. The really unlearned pedant, is a literary pretender of another stamp. He has a smattering of some of the languages, talks much, and understands a little, of Chemistry, Astronomy, &c. and reverses the maxim, "Drink deep, or touch not the Pierian spring." His pocket-book is filled with Latin sentences, with which he interlards his prose; and he always brings a host of quotations from acknowledged genius, to back his own opinion. He is vanity personified. But the most insufferable of all literary pretenders is, the frothy and intemperate one. This is a creature, who, as Shakspeare says, "speaks an infinite deal of nothing." He puts himself forwards, as much as to say, "admire me first;" and then cries, "he that hath ears to hear, let him hear." He is the only being in the world from whom you get nothing but original nonsense, and in his own estimation he sits "high throned above all height." He is fond of writing long letters, full of "perilous stuff," smiles at the futility of all opposition, and thinks how culpable he should be, to put so much light under a bushel. He struts about with his hands stuck in his pockets, a simper on his lip, and thinks himself a "Hannibal amongst the Alps." Should you dare to contradict him, alas, alas, sooner than meet with his resentment, it were better, far better, in his own opinion, that "The op'ning earth your shame would hide, Or ocean whelm you in its foaming tide." No. 44.-Vol. IV. But after all, he carries the mark upon his forehead, and none will heed his fury but those who are as intemperate as himself. He may rave and thunder, but all the use it can serve will be "To waft a feather, or to drown a fly." He is like the description of Echo in Ovid's Metamorphoses, vox et præterea nihil. In favour of such a creature what can be said?-Nothing"Come then, expressive silence, muse his praise." The Having endeavoured to shew what are the pretensions of some men to literary honours, I shall now conclude by very briefly stating one or two qualifications, which, in my humble apprehension, a writer ought to possess. In the first place, he should be one who can think for himself. The generality are only mere authors, and mere readers; but as "books can never teach the use of books," so reading, solely for the sake of writing, is little more than lost time. man who can only parrot those who have parroted others, is surely the object of either pity or contempt. Secondly, a writer should, for his reading, be able to select well those authors who are men of genius, from those who are merely men of talent, and should attend to the one for the possession of ideas, and to the other for ornamental improvement. Thirdly, he should ascertain as far as he can, for what particular branch of literature his genius is best fitted, and should closely study the writings of those great men who have preceded him in that department. It is of material consequence for a writer to know the temper of his own mind, whether to the grave or gay, since some of our best authors have, in many instances, manifestly mistaken their powers. He should, also, when he has ascertained this, be careful in not pressing his success too far. For my own part, I could never bring myself to read more than once, either Young's Night Thoughts, or Hervey's Meditationsthere is doubtless great power in the former, and some little in the latter; but they appear to me to partake much of the fault just noticed. Lastly, a writer should be one, who can arrange his thoughts to the best advantage, who can discriminate be3 F more instructive, or boast of a greater number of attractions. tween argument, and the appearance | natural history; nor can any study be of it, and who is at all times able to render a reason for his assertions. He should study well that secret of all good writing, the art of condensation; and if he has time, should repeatedly polish his compositions, since the most elegant pieces are usually susceptible of amendment. He should never, if possible, venture upon a commonplace subject, without being able to make some original remarks upon it, or to place the old ones in a better and more imposing manner, for, as Dr. Johnson used to say, the two most engaging powers of an author are, to make new things familiar, and familiar things new. G. M. ORNITHOLOGY.-Hora Subseciva. No. 1. Man, conscious of being unable to attain a competent knowledge of the whole chain of natural objects, spontaneously enters on the study of some one particular branch of natural history;-thus one man makes choice of the enchanting study of botany ;-a second, of the less interesting study of mineralogy ;—a third, of the inexhaustible study of entomology, or that branch of natura! history which treats of insects;-whilst a fourth is lost in the enthusiastic pleasures experienced only by the real ornithologist. In the cool of a fine summer's evening, what can be more delightful than a few hours stolen from busy life, and spent in contemplating the beauties of nature, in observing the many different shades of each individual flower, and in partaking of the sweet and de"L'alouette s'élance dans les airs: la co-licious odours which nature scatters lombe quitte sa retraite pour voler sur la plaine fleurie: le rossignol fait entendre des sons mélodieux et plaintifs; et ses tendres accens remplissent les coteaux, les vallons et les bois." STURM. through every field and garden, grove and forest? The delightful essence of the new-mown hay ;-the exquisite sweetness of the honeysuckle ;-the delicious odours of the rose, violet, rosemary, lily, hyacinth, narcissus, jessamine, lilac, polyanthus, and a thousand other flowers, blended together and scattered in every direction, obtrude upon our senses, and lull us into an exquisite delirium. The gay and sprightly gold-finch, and the familiar robin-red-breast, tune their little throats;-the mimic bull-finch;— the melodious woodlark ;-the inimitable nightingale ;-the lively wren;the shrill sky-lark ;-the simple and inoffensive white-throat ;—and the shy black-bird, join in the concert, and nature teems with pleasure and delight. Does not the melodious and varied sweetness and strength of the nightingale's voice exceed that of every other bird? Is not the favourite chantress of Milton and Thompson, and of Walton and Pliny, far superior in excellence to the canary, or imitative linnet? How sweet are the varied modulations of her voice!-how touching the risings of the little songster's plaintive strain, and the dying murmurs striking on the greedy ear! How little do those men know of the innocent pleasures arising from a contemplation of the infinite beauties of nature, who, actuated by a thirst for wealth, or a mistaken desire of pleasure, spend their whole existence without ever participating of the exquisite sensations felt by her votaries. They may read the best authors on natural history, and spend an occasional hour amidst forests, groves, and woods, and feel delighted with the varied music of the feathered choir; they may take a cursory view of the unnumbered productions of the vegetable world, and admire her inexhaustible variety of forms, odours, tints, and colours ;--they may be pleased with visiting the cataract in the vale of Tempe, situate between the mountains of Ossa and Pelion, in Thessaly; or the beautiful and romantic sublimity of the waterfall at Nant Mill, near the Lake Cwellin; but they will never feel the pleasurable emotions felt by those persons who contemplate nature in her infinity of shapes, who are constantly exposed The motacilla luscinia, or nightinto her influence, whose health suffers gale, derives its name from the word not, and whose consciences are heal-night, and the Saxon word galan, thy. No study contributes more to "to sing." This bird is somewhat the preservation of health, than that of larger than the hedge sparrow, and nearly as plain in plumage, but its body is longer, and finely proportioned. Nightingales make their annual visit in England about the first or second week in April, and leave us again about the latter end of August. They build in close quickset hedges, and the females are said to bear the undivided fatigue of incubation. The exquisite strains of the nightingale are acknowledged to be superior to those of every other bird, by every lover of natural music; and in Aleppo there are people who obtain a livelihood by keeping tame nightingales, and letting them out on hire; and so much are they supposed to conduce to the splendour of any public or private entertainment, that the exquisite notes of these universally admired choristers are seldom dispensed with. It is a fact not less curious than it is true, that all the celebrated poets, with one or two exceptions, have conspired in considering the garrulous nightingale a melancholy bird. Thus, Milton, in his beautiful poem, Il Penseroso, describes it in the following lines of poetic excellence : "Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, Again : The sweet poet of the vernal groves Melts all the night in strains of am'rous woe." ARMSTRONG. Another poet says: "As philomel in poplar shades, alone, For her lost offspring pours a mother's moan, Which some rough ploughman, marking for his prey, From the warm nest, unfledg'd, hath dragg'd awaay; Perch'd on a bough, she all night long complains, And fills the grove with sad repeated strains." I shall now quote a passage from Sir William Jones's Dissertation on the Musical Modes of the Hindus, and then proceed with some furthur observations on European singing birds :— "An intelligent person declared, that he had more than once been present, when a celebrated Lutanist was playing to a large company, in a grove near Schiraz, where he distinctly saw the nightingales trying to vie with the musician; sometimes warbling on the trees, sometimes fluttering from branch to branch, as if they wished to approach the instrument, and, at length, dropping on the ground in a kind of ecstasy, from which they were soon raised by a change of the mood." The wood-lark deservedly stands next to the nightingale in pre-eminence. This beautiful bird, unwilling to yield to the superiority of the nightingale, has frequently been known to sing against her for a whole hour. The canary-bird, brought originally from the Canary Islands, and the fly-bird, from America, are considered by some ornithologists as equal, if not superior, to the nightingale and wood-lark. Next to the nightingale and woodlark, the robin-red-breast, the blackcap, the wood-song-thrush, the linnet, the gold-finch, the chaf-finch, the skylark, the wren, and the tit-lark, are esteemed the best English song-birds. There are some people who assert that the tit-lark has not a good voice; but they should not forget that there are many exceptions, and that the song of some of these little birds is nothing inferior to that of the canary-bird. The motacilla rubecula, or robin-redbreast, is too well known to require any description; and it is the great confidence which these birds place in mankind, that has obtained for them a privileged exemption from the wanton cruelties which children are permitted to inflict upon poor inoffensive animals. If we ask any child why he does not murder these birds, or destroy their nests in common with the other inhabitants of the air, he will immediately reply, "Because the robin and the wren Are God Almighty's cock and hen.” For beauty of plumage, elegance of shape, and melody of voice, the red-start possesses high claims to our indulgence. The starling, red-pole, and green-linnet, do not possess any considerable talent as singing birds. The motacilla atricapilla, or blackcap, has of late attracted the attention of the lovers of nature's music, many of whom do not seem willing to acknowledge the superiority of the nightingale. Who can listen to the familiar and curious note of the cuckoo, and not feel the liveliest emotions of pleasure? There is not a field, a wood, a grove, or a forest, that is not frequented by some of our favourite singing birds : "Every copse Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush Bending, with dewy moisture, o'er the heads The European singing birds will ever be esteemed superior to those of foreign countries by every impartial judge; nor will many of our British birds suffer from comparison with those annually brought from the warmer regions of Asia and of Africa, in regard to brilliancy of plumage, and elegance of shape. The exquisitely beautiful and brilliant plumage of the stately peacock must ever be admired; and I have no doubt that every intelligent reader will feel interested on reading the following beautiful lines of the immortal Young:"How rich the peacock! what bright glories run From plume to plume, and vary in the sun! And slowly moves amid the waving blaze." The radiant and resplendent plumage of the pheasant and king-fisher, the beautiful and different-coloured bars of the jay, the extreme beauty of the gold-finch and red-start, the manycoloured wood-pecker, and the neat and regular plumage of the partridge, sufficiently demonstrate what I have asserted. I might conclude with some brief observations on the admirable and inimitable structure of birds' nests; but this is a subject well worth a more copious consideration than could possibly be admitted. I shall therefore reserve the structure of these little edifices for the subject of some future paper. If it is a duty incumbent on parents to indulge their children's inclination for learning to play on some kind of musical instrument, how highly reprehensible are they, who neglect to instil a love of nature's music and beautiful scenery, into the minds of their beloved progeny. Have we lost a true and long-tried friend, one whose chief happiness consisted in alleviating our griefs, in endeavouring to dispel the gloomy forebodings of precarious fortune, or who would not have hesitated at the risk of his own happiness to save us from impending ruin? Have we lost a mistress whom we passionately loved? Perhaps we are for ever separated from those scenes of which she was enthusiastically fond; yet surrounded by beautiful scenery, the many instances of affection, and proofs of unalterable constancy, which we have received from her, present themselves to the memory, and create the most chaste, tender, and pleasurable emotions. Deprived of every friend, forsaken by those who seemed to admire us, when rolling in affluence; or deceived by the artful blandishments of an adored mistress; we still continue to listen with peculiar satisfaction to a tune loved in our happier youth, till the notes are lost in the ecstasy of hearing. Music is a sort of exquisite pleasure, it speaks a universal language, creates an infinity of agreeable emotions, subdues and fascinates the proud and ungenerous, and renders the human soul excessively susceptible of all that is good and noble. Never do I listen to the exquisite notes of the piano-forte, or to the mellow tone of the German-flute, the warbling shake of which is little inferior to the exquisite strains of the feathered inhabitants of the wood, but I am ready to acknowledge the transcendent beauty of the far-famed lines of T. Moore : "When thro' life, unblest we rove, Losing all that made life dear, Should some notes we us'd to love In days of boyhood, meet our ear; In faded eyes that long have wept." Handsworth Woodhouse, MEMOIRS OF THE LIVING POETS OF GREAT BRITAIN. (BYRON-concluded from col. 759.) Having made a short stay in the Turkish capital, Lord Byron and his friend passed along the Asiatic shore to the Troad, where our poet had the satisfaction of reading Homer, and comparing his descriptions with the existing scenery of that classic region. On the return of our travellers to Athens, they parted, as Mr. Hobhouse had received a call from England; but Lord Byron was determined to remain in Greece some time longer, that he might perfect himself in the language, and observe many objects of antiquity which he had hitherto neglected. During his travels, he lost his mother, whose death he lamented in some pathetic verses; and yet, at a subsequent period, without much regard to consistency or delicacy, he sketched the character of his parent, under the name of Donna Inez, in his licentious epic of "Don Juan," an act of indiscretion which his greatest admirers will in vain labour to excuse. character than he deserves; but then the fault was his own, and having repeated the offence, with the aggravation of making all his heroes monsters of depravity, he had no right to censure those who considered him as taking a delight in sketching his own likeness, though in caricature. But what renders these representations still more disgusting, in a moral point of view, is, the open contempt of religious principle, which pervades them all, with an evident aim to confound the distinction of virtue and vice. This may appear to some of the noble lord's admirers a harsh decision, but let them read seriously that part of the second canto of "Childe Harold," where the author affects to moralize upon a skull, found in the ruins of the Temple of Minerva; after which, if they can acquit him of the charge of daring infidelity, nothing will be too difficult for their ingenuity. Soon after the return of the noble lord to England, in the autumn of 1811, he prepared for the press, the two first cantos of a poem, written in the Spenserean stanza, to which he gave the title of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, a Romaunt." This poetical history of the author's travels in Portugal, Spain, and Greece, was so well received by the public, as to pass through six large editions in the course of a few months. Instead, however, of being stimulated by this success, to complete his design, the author printed soon after, a Turkish tale, with the title of "The Giaour," which was shortly followed by another eastern story, called "The Bride of Abydos," to which succeeded in a little space "The Corsair," a narratory poem, in three cantos, completed in a subsequent piece, entitled "Lara." These performances aboundness, mixed up with the finest descripin splendid beauties, intermingled with tions expressed in a glowing felicity of glaring deformities. numbers. The most striking defect which runs through them all, is, the want of consistency in the characters, and of lucid arrangement in the relation. The former are mere creatures of the imagination, without any semblance to real life; and the circumstances in which they are placed are equally incongruous. But these improprieties are overbalanced by richness of description, and vigour of expression, by depth of colouring, and liveliness of imagery. The idea of the noble lord in giving his own personal history as the narrative of a profligate, such as Childe Harold is represented, betrayed a strange want of judgment; but it was no less strange that the author should complain of an application, which the whole fabric of the poem made obvious to every reader. This identification of himself with the principal personages of his works, has no doubt led many to form a more harsh opinion of the poet's private In the "Giaour," scepticism is carried to its utmost extent, by being made predominant over the mind of a monk in a convent, and on a deathbed. Similar impiety prevails in the "Corsair;" while the "Bride of Abydos," like some of the author's subsequent pieces, exhibits a nauseous combination of sensuality and profane Of this utter want of respect for sacred things, the noble lord gave a notable proof in the address which he wrote, soon after his arrival in England, for the opening of the new theatre in Drury Lane. The destruction of a playhouse by a conflagration, and its revival, might have been celebrated without any remote allusions whatever; but if the poverty of the subject was such as to render some imagery necessary, the scriptural history was the last source from whence it should have been drawn. Byron thought otherwise, and hence the feelings of piety were shocked by a comparison of this seat of amusement, to the miraculous column of fire which conducted the children of Israel through the wilderness. Lord Toland, the infidel, wrote a book, to shew that the guiding pillar, mentioned in the Bible, was nothing more than a light carried by an advanced party, well acquainted with the line of |