m which he was expelled by Louis le Debonnaire for
espousing the cause of his son Lothaire; he fled to Italy, but was
restored to his see in 838, dying in 840, when the Church canonized him.
He was a strenuous Churchman, but with enlightened views; and his style
as an author is remarkable alike for its clearness and perfect
simplicity. His works were unknown until discovered in the manner
narrated above, and were published by the discoverer at Paris in 1603,
the originals being bequeathed to the Royal Library at his death. On
examination, several errors were found in this edition, and a new one
was published in 1662, to which another treatise by Agobard was added.]

[Footnote 16: The celebrated minister of Philip II.]

[Footnote 17: One of the most curious modern discoveries was that of the
Fairfax papers and correspondence by the late J. N. Hughes, of
Winchester, who purchased at a sale at Leeds Castle, Kent, a box
apparently filled with old coloured paving-tiles; on removing the upper
layers he found a large mass of manuscripts of the time of the Civil
wars, evidently thus packed for concealment; they have since been
published, and add most valuable information to this interesting period
of English history.]

SKETCHES OF CRITICISM.

It may, perhaps, be some satisfaction to show the young writer, that the
most celebrated ancients have been as rudely subjected to the tyranny of
criticism as the moderns. Detraction has ever poured the "waters of
bitterness."

It was given out, that Homer had stolen from anterior poets whatever was
most remarkable in the Iliad and Odyssey. Naucrates even points out the
source in the library at Memphis in a temple of Vulcan, which according
to him the blind bard completely pillaged. Undoubtedly there were good
poets before Homer; how absurd to conceive that an elaborate poem could
be the first! We have indeed accounts of anterior poets, and apparently
of epics, before Homer; AElian notices Syagrus, who composed a poem on
the Siege of Troy; and Suidas the poem of Corinnus, from which it is
said Homer greatly borrowed. Why did Plato so severely condemn the great
bard, and imitate him?

Sophocles was brought to trial by his children as a lunatic; and some,
who censured the inequalities of this poet, have also condemned the
vanity of Pindar; the rough verses of AEschylus; and Euripides, for the
conduct of his plots.

Socrates, considered as the wisest and the most moral of men,