ture that has ever been printed in our own, or in any other
mother-tongue."

It is, indeed, an honest Montaigne-like simplicity. Acrimonious and
cynical, he is always sincere, and never dull. Old Anthony to me is an
admirable character-painter, for anger and love are often picturesque.
And among our literary historians he might be compared, for the effect
he produces, to Albert Durer, whose kind of antique rudeness has a
sharp outline, neither beautiful nor flowing; and, without a genius
for the magic of light and shade, he is too close a copier of Nature
to affect us by ideal forms.

The independence of his mind nerved his ample volumes, his fortitude
he displayed in the contest with the University itself, and his
firmness in censuring Lord Clarendon, the head of his own party. Could
such a work, and such an original manner, have proceeded from an
ordinary intellect? Wit may sparkle, and sarcasm may bite; but the
cause of literature is injured when the industry of such a mind is
ranked with that of "the hewers of wood, and drawers of water:"
ponderous compilers of creeping commentators. Such a work as the
"Athenae Oxonienses" involved in its pursuits some of the higher
qualities of the intellect; a voluntary devotion of life, a sacrifice
of personal enjoyments, a noble design combining many views, some
present and some prescient, a clear vigorous spirit equally diffused
over a vast surface. But it is the hard fate of authors of this class
to be levelled with their inferiors!

Let us exhibit one more picture of the calamities of a laborious
author, in the character of JOSHUA BARNES, editor of Homer, Euripides,
and Anacreon, and the writer of a vast number of miscellaneous
compositions in history and poetry. Besides the works he published, he
left behind him nearly fifty unfinished ones; many were epic poems,
all intended to be in twelve books, and some had reached their eighth!
His folio volume of "The History of Edward III." is a labour of
valuable research. He wrote with equal facility in Greek, Latin, and
his own language, and he wrote all his days; and, in a word, having
little or nothing but his Greek professorship, not exceeding forty
pounds a year, Barnes, who had a great memory, a little imagination,
and no judgment, saw the close of a life, devoted to the studies of
humanity, settle around him in gloom and despair. The great idol of
his mind was the edition of his Homer, which seems to have completed
his ru