academic ice.

Editorial and of literature may take a certain and deadly aim. The editorial we has often been fatal to rising genius; though all the world knows that it is only a form of speech, very often employed by a single needy blockhead. The academic we would have a far greater and more ruinous influence. Numbers, while they increase the effect, would diminish the shame, of injustice. The advantages of an open and those of an anonymous attack would be combined; and the authority of avowal would be united to the security of concealment. The serpents in Virgil, after they had destroyed Laocoon, found an asylum from the vengeance of the enraged people behind the shield of the statue of Minerva. And, in the same manner, everything that is grovelling and venomous, everything that can hiss and everything that can sting would take sanctuary in the recesses of this new temple of wisdom.

The French Academy was, of all such associations, the most widely and the The French

most justly celebrated. Academy. It was founded by the greatest of ministers: it was patronised by successive kings; it numbered in its lists most of the eminent French writers. Yet, what benefit has literature derived from its labours? What is its history but an uninterrupted record of servile compliances-of paltry artifices of deadly quarrels-of perfidious friendships? Whether governed by the Court, by the Sorbonne, or by the Philosophers, it was always equally powerful for evil, and equally impotent for good. I might speak of the attacks by which it attempted to depress the rising fame of Corneille; I might speak of the reluc

tance with which it gave its tardy con firmation to the applauses which the whole civilized world had bestowed on the genius of Voltaire. I might prove by overwhelming evidence that, to the latest period of its existence, even under the superintendence of the all-accomplished D'Alembert, it continued to be a scene of the fiercest animosities and the basest intrigues. I might cite Piron's epigrams. and Marmontel's memoirs, and Mortesquieu's letters. But I hasten on to another topic.

One of the modes by which our Seckty proposes to encourage merit is the distribution of prizes. The munificence of the King prizes.

Distribution of

has enabled it to offer an annual premium of a hundred guineas for the best essay in prose, and another of fifty guineas for the best poem, which may be transmitted to it. This is very laughable. In the first place the judges may err. Those imperfections of human intellect to which, as the articles of the Church tell us, even general councils are subject, may possibly be found even in the Royal Society of Literature. The French Academy, as I have already said, was the most illustrious assembly of the kind, and numbered among its associates men much more distinguished than ever will assemble at Mr. Hatchard's to rummage the box of the English Society. Yet this famous body gave a poetical prize, for which Voltaire was a candidate, to a fellow who wrote some verses about the frozen and the burning pole.

Yet, granting that the prizes were always awarded to the best composition, that composition I say without Prize composihesitation, will always be tions. bad. A prize poem is like

a prize sheep. The object of the competitor for the agricultural premium is to produce an animal fit, not to be eaten, but to be weighed. Accordingly he pampers his victim into morbid and uncatural fatness; and, when it is in such a state that it would be sent away in disgust from any table, he offers it to the judges. The object of the political candidate, in like manner is to produce, not a good poem, but a poem of that exact degree of frigidity or bombast which may appear to his censors to be correct or sublime. Compositions thus constructed will always be worthless. The few excellences which they may contain will have an exotic aspect and flavour. In general, prize sheep are good for nothing but to make tallow

candles, and prize poems are good for nothing but to light them.

Literary Dartmoor scheme.

The first subject proposed by the Society to the poets of England was Dartmoor. I thought that they intended a covert sarcasm at their own projects. Their institution was a literary Dartmoor scheme;-a plan for forcing into cultivation the waste lands of intellect, for raising poetical produce, by means of bounties, from soil too meagre to have yielded any returns in the natural course of things. The plan for the cultivation of Dartmoor has, I hear, been abandoned. I hope that this may be an omen of the fate of the Society.

In truth, this seems by no means improbable. They have been offering for several years the rewards which the King placed at their disposal, and have not, so far as I can learn, Nothing worth been able to find in their publishing.

box one composition which they have deemed worthy of publication. At least no publication has taken place. The associates may perhaps be astonished at this. But I will attempt to explain it, after the manner of ancient times, by means of an apologue.

About four hundred years after the Deluge, King Gomer Chephoraod reigned in Babylon. He united all An apologue. the characteristics of an excellent sovereign. He made good laws, won great battles, and white-washed long streets. He was, in consequence, idolized by his people, and panegyrized by many poets and orators. A book was then a serious undertaking. Neither paper nor any similar material had been invented. Authors were therefore under the necessity of inscribing their compositions on massive bricks. Some of these Babylonian records are still preserved in European museums; but the language in which they are written has never been deciphered. Gomer Chephoraod was so popular that the clay of all the plains round the Euphrates could scarcely furnish brick-kilns enough for his culogist. It is recorded in particular that Pharonezar, the Assyrian Pindar, published a bridge and four walls in his praise.

Writing on bricks.

One day the king was going in state from his palace to the temple of Belus. During this procession it was lawful for any Babylonian to offer any petition or suggestion to his sovereign. As the

heart cheerful, the eyes bright, the speech ready. Bad wine confuses the head, disorders the stomach, makes us quarrelsome at night and sick the next morning. Now, therefore, let my lord the king take order that thy servants may drink good wine." "And how is this to be done?" said the good-natured prince.

"O King," said his monitor, "this is most easy. Let the King make a decree, and seal it with his royal signet and let it be proclaimed that the King will give us ten she-asses, and ten slaves, and ten changes of raiment, every year, unto the man who shall make

best wine.

ten measures of the best Prize for the wine. And whosoever wishes for the she-asses, and the slaves, and the raiment, let him send the ten measures of wine to thy servants, and we will drink thereof and judge. So shall there be much good wine in Assyria."

The project pleased Gomer Chephoraod. "Be it so," said he. The people shouted. The petitioners prostrated themselves in gratitude. The same night heralds were despatched to bear the intelligence to the remotest districts of Assyria.

After a due interval the wines began to come in; and the examiners assembled to judge the prize. The first vessel was unsealed. Its odour was such that the judges, without tasting it, pronounced unanimous condemnation. The next was opened it had a villainous taste of clay. The third was sour and vapid. They proceeded from one cask of execrable liquor to another, till at length, in absolute nausea, they gave up the investiga tion.

:

The next morning they all assembled at the gate of the King, with pale faces and aching heads. They owned that they could not recommend any competitor worthy of the rewards. They swore that the wine was little better than poison, and entreated permission to resign the office of deciding between such detestable potions.

"In the name of Belus, how can this have happened?" said the King.

Pigeons broiled or roasted.

Merolchazzar, the high-priest, muttered something about the anger of the Gods at the toleration shown to a sect of impious heretics who ate pigeons broiled, "whereas," said he, "our religion commands us to eat them roasted. Now therefore, O King," continued this respectable divine, "give command to thy men of war, and let them smite the disobedient people with the sword, them, and their wives, and their children, and let their houses, and their flocks, and their herds, be given to thy servants the priests. Then shall the land yield its increase, and the fruits of the earth shall be no more blasted by the vengeance of Heaven."

"Nay," said the King, "the ground lies under no general curse from Heaven. The season has been singularly good. The wine which thou didst thyself drink at the banquet a few nights ago, O venerable Merolchazzar, was of this year's vintage. Dost thou not remember how thou didst praise it? It was the same night that thou wast inspired by Belus and did reel too and fro, and discourse sacred mysteries. These things are too hard for me. I compre Bad wine sent hend them not. The only to the judges. wine which is bad is that which is sent to my judges. Who can expound this to us?"

The King scratched his head. Upon which all the courtiers scratched their heads.

He then ordered proclamation to be made that a purple robe and a golden chain should be given to the man who could solve this difficulty.

An old philosopher, who had been ob served to smile rather disdainfully when the prize had first been instituted, came forward and spoke thus,

"Gomer Chephoraod, live for ever! Marvel not at that which has happened. It was no miracle, but a natural event. How could it be otherwise? It is true that much good wine has been made this year. But who could send it in for thy rewards? Thou knowest Ascobarach, who hath the grand vine

baruch and Cohahiroth.

Their wines

yards in the north, and Wines of AscoCohahiroth, who sendeth wine every year from the south over the Persian Gulf. are so delicious that ten measures thereof are sold for an hundred talents of silver. Thinkest thou that they will exchange them for thy slaves and thine asses? What would thy prize profit any who have vineyards in rich soils?"

"Who then," said one of the judges, are the wretches who sent us this poison ?"

"Blame them not," said the sage, “ seeing that you have been the authors of the evil. They are men whose lands are poor, and have never yielded them any returns equal to the prizes which the King proposed. Wherefore, knowing that the lords of the fruitful vineyards would not enter into competition with them, they planted vines, some on rocks, and some in light, sandy soil, and some in deep clay. Hence their wines are bad. For no culture or reward will make barren land bear good vines. Know, therefore, assuredly, that your prizes have increased the quantity of bad but not of good wine."

Vines of barren land.

There was a long silence. At length the King spoke. "Give him the purple robe and the chain of gold. Throw the wines into the Euphrates; and proclaim that the Royal Society of Wines is dissolved."

CAL. If Neptune delights in horses, he does not resemble me. You must ride at the Panathenæa on a horse fit for the great king; four acres of my best vines went for that folly. You must retrench, or you will have nothing to eat. Does not Anaxagoras mention, among his other discoveries, that when a man has nothing to eat he dies?

SPE. You are deceived. My friends

CAL. Oh, yes! your friends will notice you, doubtless, when you are squeezing through the crowd, on a winter's day, to warm yourself at the fire of the baths ;or when you are fighting with beggars and beggars' dogs for the scraps of a sacrifice; or when you Beggary. are glad to earn three wretched obols by listening all day to lying speeches and crying children.

*

SPE. There are other means of support. CAL. What ! I suppose you will wander from house to house, like that wretched buffoon Philippus, † and beg everybody who has asked a supper party to be so kind as to feed you and laugh at you; or you will turn sycophant; you will get a bunch of grapes, or a pair of shoes, now and then, by frightening some rich coward with a mock prosecution. Well, that is a task for which your studies under the sophists may have fitted you.

SPE. You are wide of the mark.

Ancient mode of execution.

CAL. Then what, in the name of Juno, is your scheme? Do you intend to join Orestes,‡ and rob on the highway? Take care; beware of the eleven ; § beware of the hemlock. It may be very pleasant to live at other people's expense; but not very pleasant, I should think, to hear the pestle give its last bang against the mortar, when the cold dose is ready. Pah!

SPE. Hemlock! Orestes! folly !—I aim at nobler objects. What say you to politics, the general assembly?

CAL. You an orator!-oh no! no! Cleon was worth twenty such fools as you. You have succeeded, I grant, to his impudence, for which, if there be justice in Tartarus, he is now soaking up to the eyes in his own tan-pickle. But the Paphlagonian had parts.

The stipend of an Athenian juryman.
Xenophon; Convivium.

A celebrated highwayman of Attica. See Aristophanes; Aves, 711; and in several other passages.

The police officers of Athens.

Orators.

CAL. Nicias, poor honest man, might just as well have sate still; his speaking did but little good. The loss of your oration is, doubtless, an irreparable public calamity. SPE. Why, not so; I intend to introduce it at the next assembly; will suit any subject.

CAL. That is to say, it will suit none. But pray, if it be not too presumptuous a request, indulge me with a specimen.

SPE. Well; suppose the agora crowded; -an important subject under discussion; -an ambassador from Argos, or from the great king;-the tributes from the islands; an impeachment; in short, any. thing you please. The crier makes proclamation-"Any citizen above fifty years old may speak-any citizen not disquali fied may speak." Then I rise:-a great murmur of curiosity while I am mounting the stand.

CAL. Of curiosity! yes, and something else too. You will infallibly be dragged down by main force, like poor Glaucon† last year.

SPE. Never fear. I shall begin in this style:-"When I consider, Athenians, the importance of our city;-when I consider the extent of its power, the wisdom of its laws, the elegance of its decorations ;-when I consider by what names and by what exploits its annals are adorned ;-when I think on Harmodius and Aristogiton, on Themistocles and Miltiades, on Cimon and Pericles ;-when I contemplate our pre-eminence in arts and letters;-when I observe so many flourishing states and islands compelled to own the dominion, and purchase the protection of the City of the Violet Crown -+"

CAL. I shall choke with rage. Oh, all ye gods and goddesses, what sacrilege, what perjury have I ever An angry

father.

committed, that I should be singled out from among all the citizens of Athens to be the father of this fool.

SPE. What now? By Bacchus, old

* See Thucydides, vi. 3.

+ See Xenophon; Memorabilia, iii. ! A favourite ephithet of Athens. See Aris thopanes; Acharn, 637.