20 On Reading New Books. [JULY, 



curiosity, in the case of Ireland's celebrated Shakspeare forgery. The 

 public there certainly manifested no backwardness nor lukewarmness : the 

 enthusiasm was equal to the folly. But then the spirit exhibited on this 

 invasion was partly critical. and polemical, and i* is a problem whether an 

 actual and undoubted play of Shakspeare's would have excited the same 

 ferment; and, on the other hand, Shakspeare is an essential modern. 

 People read and go to see his real plays, as well as his pretended ones. Tho 

 fuss made about Ossian is another test to refer to. It was its being the 

 supposed revival of an old work (known only by scattered fragments or 

 lingering tradition) which gave it its chief interest, though there was also 

 a good deal of mystery and quackery concerned along with the din and 

 stir of national jealousy and pretension. Who reads Ossian now ? It is 

 one of the reproaches brought against Buonaparte that he was fond of it 

 when young. I cannot for myself see the objection. There is no doubt 

 au antiquarian spirit always at work, and opposed to the spirit of novelty- 

 hunting ; but, though opposed, it is scarcely a match for it in a general and 

 popular point of view. It is not long ago that I happened to be suggesting 

 a new translation of Don Quixote to an enterprising bookseller; and his 

 answer was, " We want new Don Quixotes." I believe I deprived tho 

 same active-minded person of a night's rest, by telling him there was the 

 beginning of another novel by Goldsmith in existence. This, if it could be 

 procured, would satisfy both tastes for the new and the old at once. I fear it 

 is but a fragment, and that we must wait till anew Goldsmith appears. We 

 may observe of late a strong craving after Memoirs and Lives of the Dead. 

 But these, it may be remarked, savour so much of the real and familiar, 

 that the persons described differ from us only in being dead, which is a 

 reflection to our advantage: or, if remote and romantic in their interest 

 and adventures, they require to be bolstered up in some measure by the 

 embellishments of modern style and criticism. The accounts of Petrarch 

 and Laura, of Abelard and Eloise, have a lusciousness and warmth in the 

 subject which contrast quaintly and pointedly with the coldness of the 

 grave; and, after all, we prefer Pope's Eloise and Abelard with the modern 

 dress and flourishes, to the sublime and affecting simplicity of the original 

 Letters. 



In some very just and agreeable reflections on the story of Abelard and 

 Eloise, in a late number of a contemporary publication, there is a quota- 

 tion of some lines from Lucan, which Eloise is said to have repeated in 

 broken accents as she was advancing to the altar to receive the veil : 



" O maxime conjux ! 



O thalamis indigne meisl Hoc juris habebat 

 In tantum fortuna caput ? Cur irapia nupsi, 

 Si miserum facturafui ? Nunc accipe paenas, 

 Sed quas sponte luam." PHARSALIA, lib. 8. 



This speech, quoted by another person, on such an occasion, might seem cold 

 and pedantic; but from the mouth of the passionate and unaffected Eloise 

 it cannot bear that interpretation. What sounding lines ! W T hat a pomp, 

 and yet what a familiar boldness in their application " proud as when 

 blue Iris bends !" The reading this account brought forcibly to mind what 

 has struck me often before the unreasonableness of the complaint we con- 

 stantly hear of the ignorance and barbarism of former ages, arid the folly 

 of restricting all refinement and literary elegance to our own. We are, 

 indeed, indebted to the ages that have gone before us, and could not well 

 do without them. But in all ages there will be found still others that have 



