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zeal for knowlege, his keen perception of physical and moral beauty. He was no pedant, who pored into the dark recesses of antiquity until his eyes became blinded with its dust; but in him wisdom and learning were united, and enthusiasm was tempered with judgment: with such a guide therefore it would have been delightful to have retraced at greater length scenes of departed grandeur or of present prosperity, to have imbibed instruction from his reflexions on ages past, or from his remarks on the arts, literature, and manners of his own day.

Such loss however must after all be a source only of imaginary regret: we may feel real disappointment that the letters which he actually wrote were not composed in his own language. Excellent as they are, it can scarcely be doubted but that his narrative would have been at once more animated and comprehensive, had he rejected the Latin garb in which he has dressed it. It is impossible for a dead language to give that nice shade and color and effect to description, which genius loves to cast around it. There are many things which it cannot express through a defect of phraseology; and it is always accompanied by a certain labor of compilation which cramps the imagination, and indisposes the mind to the exertion of its faculties. In rejecting therefore his native tongue, Barrow acted like an enchanter, who should cast away his magic wand, when he would invest a scene with beauties not its own. all we may lament the taste which led him to compose Above elegiacs and hexameters, when he might, perhaps in higher and in holier strains, have anticipated that genius who in after ages departed from the same walls, traversed the same realms, and described the same scenes in those splendid stanzas which are his best passport to immortality.

The fault however was more that of the age than of the man. Milton himself fell into it, though he soon saw the propriety of stripping the stiff unpliant drapery of antiquity from off his young and beauteous muse. Admirable as his Latin poems are, who would save them all at the expense even of Lycidas, to say nothing of the inimitable Comus? Barrow however made ample amends for neglecting such poetic strains by the noble prose with which he has enriched our literature.

Having left Venice, he made the tour of Germany and Holland; returning to England, as he proposed, in 1659. The period being now arrived when the fellows of Trinity are obliged by their statutes to take holy orders, or to quit the college,* Barrow procured episcopal ordination from Bishop Brownrigg, and soon after the Restoration, in 1660, he was elected without competition to the Greek professorship, on the resignation of Mr. Widdrington. This appointment was earnestly recommended by Duport, who had greater pleasure in promoting the fortunes of this promising and favorite pupil, than in re-occupying a chair of which he had been unjustly deprived. In the inaugural oration made by the new professor on this occasion, he takes occasion to celebrate the most illustrious among his predecessors; Erasmus, Sir Thomas Smith, Sir John Cheke, Downes, and Creighton; whilst he speaks of Widdrington himself in a manner that may lead us to suppose him not unqualified for the offices to which parliamentary interest alone seemed to have raised him. But in describing his beloved tutor's character, disposition, and accomplishments, Barrow's genius seems to revel with

* Seven years after the degree of A.M.

delight; particularly when he contrasts that amiable person's small stature with his gigantic acquirements, in so playful and ingenious a manner, that I should deservedly incur the learned reader's reproaches if I did not give him an opportunity of perusing it in the margin.*

* Illustre vero agmen claudat haud postremus merito, quin ausim dicere primus, ut qui nemo hanc cathedram aut tenuit tamdiu, aut tantoperè decoravit, mihi perpetuo obsequio colendus, nec vobis minus omni honore suspiciendus, vir optimus, et oculorum licet judicio renuenti, etiam maximus Duportus. Exiguo quippe cortice obvolutus omnigenæ eruditionis nucleus, angusta capsula inclusus ingens thesaurus literarius; volumine parvo comprehensum quotquot sunt linguarum, artium et scientiarum compendium; tot Erasmorum, Budæorum, Stephanorum accurata epitome; cujus in modico corpore immensus animus habitat,giganteum versatur ingenium, omnes Athenæ hospitantur, tota quanta quanta est Græcia diversatur: quia nostra plerorumque ultima memoria Atlantem agens Græcarum literarum Academiæ decus humeris non magnis adeo quam validis sustentavit, et velut stella mole arcta, virtute diffusissima lucidissimis radiis universum mundum circumfulsit; a quo habet Anglia nostra, ne aliis gentibus literarum gloria cedat, nec suos Galliæ Scaligeros, Salmasios, Patavios, suosveBelgio Heinsios, Grotios, Vossios quodinvideat. Quis enim Græcas literas perspexit intimius? quis Latinas extulit purius vel copiosius? quis poëticam facultatem felicius coluit, et cœlestis Musæ diviniores raptus heroici carminis majestate propius adæquavit? quis tot unquam orationes habuit concinnas, lepidas, eruditas? aut dum tot annos, imo tot lustra, juventutem Academicam instituit, adeo grammaticam austeritatem critica varietate condivit, rhetorica venustate expolivit, amoena urbanitate temperavit? Quis denique tam fideli opera, tam indefesso labore, tam assidua diligentia, susceptam provinciam administravit, adeo quidem ut successoribus suis tam insigne exemplar sequi difficile fecerit, assequendi vero spem omnem præciderit, et ademerit potestatem? At quid ego loquacis linguæ insulsa temeritate tantas dotes minuo, tantis virtutibus detero, tanta merita obfusco, quæ (nisi loci hujus et temporisTM ratio silentium damnaret, nisi illius in vos magna merita, in literas

As Barrow began by praising the modern professors of Greek literature, he concludes with an eulogy on the ancient authors of it; commenting also on the obligations due from the Latin writers to that ingenious people, "who took captive the fierce conqueror, and introduced arts into rustic Latium." The only part of his speech derogatory to good taste, is that where he seeks unduly to depreciate his own merits, when justly intitled to that honest pride which is due to high deserts. Yet did we not know the depth and extent of Barrow's acquirements, we might be disposed even to credit his assertions on this head, when we find him soon afterwards complaining in the very same schools, that they had been utterly deserted, and his lectures given to empty benches. "There I sat," says he, "in the professorial chair, like Prometheus affixed to his solitary rock, or muttering Greek sentences to the naked walls, like an Attic owl driven out from the society of all the other birds in the air." "* He next hints at the author

eximia, in meipsum infinita, etiam invito mihi verba extorsissent,) satius erat tacita admiratione fuisse veneratum? Quin vos evolvite scripta, recolite dicta, quæ autores interpretanti, elucidanti, conferenti, quæ prælegenti, et peroranti exciderunt, in memoriam revocate, ut ex profectu vestro magis discatis quam ab elogio meo tantum virum æstimare, cui similem professorem multa vobis non dabunt, parem paucissima invenient, majorem nulla unquam sæcula parient, nulla pepererunt.

* A passage in a letter of Archbishop Sancroft, when master of Emanuel Coll., dated Jan. 17th, 1663, will give us some idea of the low state of the litteræ humaniores about this time. "It would grieve you" (says he) "to hear of our public examinations; the Hebrew and Greek learning being out of fashion every where, and especially in the other colleges, where we are forced to seek our candidates for fellowships."-D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft, vol. i. p. 128.

whom he had selected for explanation by observing, " that he and his Sophocles had acted with an empty orchestra: that the poet could not procure a tritagonistes, nor a chorus; no, not even one of boys: that there was not a single person to accompany the singers, to applaud the dancers, or to interrupt the speakers; that if by chance a straggling freshman, or a shipwrecked soph was driven by wind or tide on those desert shores, he peeped in perhaps, but when he heard three words of tragic sound, he took instantly to his heels and ran away as from the cave of Polyphemus, even as if he were about to be devoured by a barbarous Greek."* This may serve to give the reader some idea of the state of learning at this time in the junior part of the university, as well as of the sarcastic style of this speech, which is called an oratio sarcasmica, and is on many accounts worthy of attentive perusal. In a passage of great beauty, he states the reasons which prompted him to select the tragedies of Sophocles for the subject of his lectures, and dilates on the superior excellence of that dramatic poet, whilst with great energy and severe sarcasm he investigates the causes that could produce so much apathy in a dissolute and degenerate age. The next question is; whom shall he substitute for the forsaken Sophocles? This gives him an opportunity of briefly characterising the most esteemed Greek authors, and of fixing on the great Stagyrite, who then held the literary world in chains, and who was probably at that time necessary for obtaining a degree. Superest, ut in unum Aristotelem spes nostræ, velut in sacram anchoram, reclinent; ut ad Lyceum, ceu ad arcem Sophie munitissimam, portum

* Our language here fails in expressing the words, "barbaro Græculo."