t the
difference between a state of society which aims at the gratification of
pride, and one which contents itself with diffusing comfort and promoting
security.

It would be easy, no doubt, to draw from this sketch of ancient manners
many reflections consoling to our own sense of superior comfort and
discernment. But the subject is susceptible of being viewed under aspects
not so flattering yet more instructive. Who is there gross enough to pride
himself on superior wisdom because Kepler believed that the earth was a
vast animal which breathed and reasoned, or to claim the palm of
comparative merit because Sir Thomas More listened to the babbling of a
pretended prophetess, and Luther waged what he considered no visionary but
actual combats with the powers of darkness. If then we have dwelt on the
defects of an age when civilization was still struggling with the remains
of barbarism, it is to foster no spirit of vain exultation: it is rather
to turn with increased pleasure from those stains which disfigure the
picture, to the contemplation of the more prominent and brilliant figures
which occupy the fore-ground. We remember that upon times thus backward in
many of the refinements of life, and scarcely yet freed from the dregs of
medi-oeval darkness, genius and virtue have thrown a lustre by their
presence, not merely sufficient to retrieve them from our scorn, but to
make them in some respects the object of our admiration and even envy.
Perhaps, if it were submitted to our choice to take our places at will in
any circle which genius and merit have ever dignified and adorned, none
could justly claim our preference over that of Penshurst, at the time when
Sir Philip Sydney sate there in the same group with his lovely sister, the
Countess of Pembroke, and with Edmund Spenser, the poet of 'the Faerie
Queen.' Of the first of these eminent persons, it is enough to say, that
his own age conceded to him the style of 'the Incomparable,' and that
posterity has amply ratified the title. The second is known to us by that
affectionate tribute of her brother's love, which has identified the name
of the Countess of Pembroke with his principal work; nor will the latest
readers of English literature be forgetful of one whose memory Jonson has
embalmed in the sweetest inscription that ever flowed from a poet's pen.
Of Spenser, the last but not least illustrious of the honored group, it is
only necessary to say, that as he shared the hosp