him, but was equally baffled. The old
general listened for some time to the discussion, and then asked the
parson if he had read Captain Morris's, or George Stevens's, or
Anacreon Moore's bacchanalian songs? On the other replying in the
negative, "Oh, then," said the general, with a sagacious nod, "if you
want a drinking song, I can furnish you with the latest collection--I
did not know you had a turn for those kind of things; and I can lend
you the Encyclopedia of Wit into the bargain. I never travel without
them; they're excellent reading at an inn."

It would not be easy to describe the odd look of surprise and
perplexity of the parson, at this proposal; or the difficulty the
Squire had in making the general comprehend, that though a jovial song
of the present day was but a foolish sound in the ears of wisdom, and
beneath the notice of a learned man, yet a trowl, written by a tosspot
several hundred years since, was a matter worthy of the gravest
research, and enough to set whole colleges by the ears.

I have since pondered much on this matter, and have figured to myself
what may be the fate of our current literature, when retrieved,
piecemeal, by future antiquaries, from among the rubbish of ages. What
a Magnus Apollo, for instance, will Moore become, among sober divines
and dusty schoolmen! Even his festive and amatory songs, which are now
the mere quickeners of our social moments, or the delights of our
drawing-rooms, will then become matters of laborious research and
painful collation. How many a grave professor will then waste his
midnight oil, or worry his brain through a long morning, endeavouring
to restore the pure text, or illustrate the biographical hints of
"Come, tell me, says Rosa, as kissing and kissed;" and how many an
arid old bookworm, like the worthy little parson, will give up in
despair, after vainly striving to fill up some fatal hiatus in "Fanny
of Timmol"!

Nor is it merely such exquisite authors as Moore that are doomed to
consume the oil of future antiquaries. Many a poor scribbler, who is
now, apparently, sent to oblivion by pastrycooks and cheese-mongers,
will then rise again in fragments, and flourish in learned
immortality.

After all, thought I, time is not such an invariable destroyer as he
is represented. If he pulls down, he likewise builds up; if he
impoverishes one, he enriches another; his very dilapidations furnish
matter for new works of controversy, and his rust is more pr