magnificent and imposing effusions continued alone to amuse, to fill, and to animate all classes of readers, until the light of Science and of Letters had dawned upon Europe, and introduced a perception of excellence more congenial with the state and exigencies of the mind in its vigour. The views of the Poet were then weaned from incidents of an accidental or local kind, in the course of human affairs, and directed to things which are constantly operating aud universal in their sphere of action; the condition of man in every age, his pursuits, his associated pleasures, his prejudices, the bias and peculiar colour of his moral sentiments, presented a higher field, and superseded tales of chivalry and the Crusades, which, with one or two splendid and more classical exceptions, soon dwindled into their comparative insignificance.

But although these topics, or things somewhat similar to them, have since occasionally found a partial revival under the pen of an original or a suc cessful writer, there scarcely (as before remarked), in modern times, occurs a single instance of a poem (for such Telemachus has with propriety been termed), which has in its chief characters and incidents been formed upon the basis of the Greek Mythology, and resorted to these preternatural sources for materials which should at once elevate the conduct of its epopée, and diversify the course of human adventures with the imposing machinery of the antient Epic. For the purpose, however, which it is to be presumed the author had in view, the personages and the mythology of antient story offered a proper and a happy medium. If Fenelon was actuated with higher motives for writing than a wish merely to amuse and perpetuate his name, if his more immediate object was the instruction of those whose minds were entrusted to his care, to form the morals, improve the heart, humanize and correct the passions, and elevate and strengthen the patriotic views of the young princes his pupils, the means which he used were on various accounts, well calculated to attain it.

If, as is pretty obvious was not the case, these considerations, on the other hand, formed no share in his motives for writing, the intelligent

reader will find himself somewhat at a loss on all occasions to reconcile these agreeable delineations in their utmost latitude, with the sound talents and learning of a prelate of good sense and pious principles, living in a Christian country, whose views in a literary and philosophical age, if they did not prohibit a licence, which the wildest and most allegorical of the heathen poets had taken, certainly would have imparted to his thoughts, whilst employed in specu lating, a just, manly, and noble standard or complexion, which would feel unwilling even in matters of fiction to delineate sober narratives of things which truth and reasonable analogy must utterly oppose. The fascinating charm of novelty, which his adoption of these elegant and classical, but in the eye of judgment utterly absurd theories, would not alone, without contemplating ulterior ends, sufficiently have apologized for such narratives, exhibiting all the puerilities of Paganism, and incongruities which must immediately strike a mind of the slightest reflection.

To say, therefore, what we have before intimated, that the author of Telemachus has fine imagination, that he often abounds with beautiful images, which are framed with much richness of similitude, to express the copiousness and abundance of his fancy, to expatiate upon the self. controul, filial piety, firmness, and modest humility, which are invariably inculcated in the work under review, would be only to repeat what properly belonged to the Criticks of his own days to discover, and what indeed every reader since that time must have appreciated and admired. But it must also have struck the reader that the necessity, which, from his general plan he seems to have imposed upon himself, of scrupulously conforming his narration to the rules of mythological story, has caused him to treat with considerable appearance of solemnity, of incidents which, to modern understandings, savour strongly of the ridiculous. Oue or two instances of this may, in closing this Essay, without impropriety be here quoted.

The descent of Telemachus iuto Hades, the hell of the antients, or at least that which their poets, with so marvellous

marvellous a fecundity of invention, have described in search of his father Ulysses, whom by the fates, or some other monitor, he is apprised no longer holds a place amidst the abodes of mortals, although borrowed from his great archetype, and embellished and amplied by his own fancy, may be thought of this description. The classical reader may perchance contend that the author has only dressed forth the glooms, which are described as eternally shedding their baleful influence over these sub-terrene receptacles of departed shades, from the poets, and that therefore they strictly harmonize with his subject. The more reflec tive reader, however, though amused with these descriptions, or rather perhaps impressed with the exuberant invention of our ancestors, pauses at length, and reviews the picture which is held forth to him: the conceit of sinking in smoke through a cavern of the earth, the grim ferryman of Styx, the horrible insignia of royalty which marks the sullen pomp of Pluto and Proserpine, the Tartarean abyss, with the apparently gross, though unreal forms of disembodied spirits (though Milton with better success, and a more legitimate title, has attempted scenes somewhat similar, and Dante in a Christian country has preceded him in the same track), presents a marvellous admixture of the idle chimeras of Paganism, and of things connected indeed with the Christian dispensation of future destiny, but over which the most awful mystery must ever hang in relation to mortals.

Amongst various incongruities like. wise, which followed an attempt to delineate and render palpable to the eye of sense things immaterial and unknown, as well as many puerilities connected both with Olympus, and Pluto's dreary domain, that, in the instance of Arcesius the grandfather of Ulysses, strikes the reader with the fallacy and the folly of minutely detailing things which lay altogether without the pale of human experience or possibility of knowledge. This personage is represented in the Elysian fields as bearing about him all the marks of venerable age, and at the same time glowing in all the freshness, vigour, and grace of youth, GENT. MAG. May, 1820.

-qualities which, to our present perceptions and capacities of discernment, are utterly incompatible, and involve a direct contradiction. But Fenelon, it may be added, whilst painting the delights of the Elysian fields, and of the perpetuated existence, aspect, and occupations, of the ghosts which inhabit them, found the same difficulties as opposed themselves to our Milton; and must ever accompany all who attempt to describe at once invisible etherial substances, together with the delights which will constitute our solace and our happiness in the invisible world, by images drawn from the impulses and affections of gross matter. Melsham.

Mr. URBAN,

E. P.

May 4.

S the attention of the Publick

A "The state of Europe during the Middle Ages," I am induced to offer you a few observations, which I made in reading this work. I by no means pretend to have directed my attention particularly to the points in question; but I think you will agree with me that no very profound learning is required to expose the error. I shall proceed, without further preface, to state a few of the passages which have appeared to me as objectionable, and at the same time to prepose the evidence and remarks which suggest themselves at the first hearing.

a good deal directed to

The first of these passages occurs in p. 229 of vol. II.; it relates to the character of Gregory I. "This celebrated person," we are told, "was not distinguished by Learning, which he affected to depreciate, nor by his literary performances, which the best critics consider as below mediocrity." I confess I am rather mortified to bear the great Gregory, who took such an interest in the conversion of our forefathers, spoken of in this style. I had been of opinion that he was not deficient in Learning. Such at least is the inference to be drawn from reading Gibbon. Boyle says expressly that he was" savant," and that "tout bien compté, il merite le sur-nom de grand." He quotes Plalina as an authority to prove that the accounts of his enmity to Learning and the Arts were without foundation. As for the opinion which

"the

"the best critics" have passed upon his literary performances, I was also ignorant of that fact. I have seen somewhere papers quoted from his work which bespoke excellent sense and judgment. His "Pastoral Care" is a book much admired. However, I suppose it will be said that those who admire it are not the best criticks, and this will finish the dispute at once. The book is despised by the best criticks, and they only are the best criticks who despise it. But let us pass from this to something more important. "There are two descriptions of controversialists," says Mr. Hallam," whom the authority of the Fathers must terribly perplex. An Italian Jesuit, maintaining the Pope's infallibility; and an English High Churchman defending the matrimony of the Clergy: not a single lawful precedent, I believe, has ever been produced for the latter, from St. Paul to Luther, except under modification permitted in the Greek Church." Vol. II. p. 249. But, in the first place, in the name of won der, why an English High Churchman? would not a French Calvinist have served the turn? As for the authority of the Fathers, I am much mistaken if it will so terribly perplex either the one or the other. To be sure, St. Chrysostom is very desirous of explaining St. Paul's charge to Timothy (1 Epist. iii.) as stating the marriage of a priest to be a negative act; he is to be blameless, and the husband of one wife, not requiring an example of eminent qualities and a single life. But the least that we can infer from this is, that in the opinion of St. Chrysostom, the marriage of the Clergy was to be tolerated. However, I have a more direct testimony to bring forward, and, I must repeat it, I am not come prepared with information. I would beg the reader of Mr. Hallam's book to look at the 21st chapter of St. Augustin's treatise "De Bono Conjugali," where the Bishop having one wife is represented as a type of Christ and the Church.

In vol. III. p. 464, Mr. Hallam goes out of his way to pass a very severe and sarcastic censure upon a writer of Ecclesiastical History, to whom I must still persist in thinking the literary world, as well as the great body of Christians in this country, are un

der much obligation. The very ho nest statement by this writer, in the note to his third vol. p. 202, which seems to have first suggested the idea of this piece of satire, ought, I conceive, to have repressed it. Mr. Hallam is desirous of proving that the Albigenses were Manicheans. Has he produced a single particle of evidence which has not been known and answered before? Is it philosophical, is it fair or honest to bring forward a string of sentences from writers on one side of the most bigoted description, and to boast of them as conclusive evidence? Petrus Monachus, who wrote a History of the Crusade against the Albigenses; Alanus, who wrote a Treatise against Heretics 3are these writers of a character to justify a verdict according to their evidence? This Alanus, who, we are told, is a more dispassionate writer than the Monk, "seems" (I use Mr. Hallam's words) "to have taken up several vulgar prejudices against the Catheri :" and is this the writer, who has left "conclusive evidence of the Manicheism of the Albigenses?” “Il n'est pas vrai," says Bayle (Dict. art. Manich.), " que les Albigeois aient élé Manichéens." I do not think that any thing which Mr. Hallam has brought forward would have induced Boyle to retract this assertion. But the Paulicians are also to be consigned over to the rank of mad enthusiasts and heretics. "Their tenets," says our author," are not to be collected with absolute certainty from the mouths of their adversaries ;"very true and just, this remark: "and no apology of their own," he proceeds to state, "survives." Who could expect, after this, to find such a passage as the following immediately subjoined: "There seems, however, to be sufficient evidence that the Paulicians, &c. &c. &c. denied the Old Testament, and held out a thousand other errors." My good friend, what you say is very true, and no answer can be given to it; but I must recur to my first position. Let it be a question whether Dr. Milner was or was not learned enough for the task which he undertook; of one thing I am sure, that, upon this parti cular subject, he has decidedly the advantage of his opponent, in point of fairness and judgment.

There are other passages in this

very interesting Work which seem to me of an objectionable nature; but I have neither time nor inclination to trouble you with my opinion respecting them: I shall only add, that in making these observations I am a disinterested party, having no more connexion with the gentleman whom I have last defended, than with Pope Gregory; but the remarks and insinuations of Mr. Hallam seemed to call for some notice, and I have thought that, in addressing myself to you, Sir, I might be of service to many readers of the day, by putting them on their guard. CANTAB.

42.

SPRIN

ANTI

EXPLANATION OF CERTAIN QUATED WORDS. (Concluded from p. 204.) PRINGALDES. As much as to say 66 a young springiog shoot of a plant," says Bayley-a young man, à stripling. Adolescens, says Skinner, a verb, to spring, gerninate, &c. It was of frequent occurrence in old Authors-Ash mentions only Spenser. Take the following from the Bishops' Bible.

"Springaldes without any blemish, but well-favoured." Daniel i. 4. "Wherefore should be see your faces worse lyking than the Springaldes of your age." Daniel i. 10.

"But in the hour of his death he called unto him his son Tobias, and seven young Springaldes, his sonne's children. Tobit 5. 14.

43. SCRALL. I have not found this word used for a collected number, or swarm, any where but in Cranmer's, The Bishops', Tyndall's, and ner's Bibles.

"With Persians proud and surquedous." Book ii. cap. 2.

"Or of surquedy the porayle to do wrong." 45. b.

45. TARRAGE.

"Frute and apples take their Tarrage." "Where they first grew-of the same tre." Lydgate's Bochas.

I am not aware of the derivation of this word. The words taste and flavour are well substituted.

46. Tooт. Skinner doubts whether from the Latin tutus, intuitus, obtuitus, but Johnson conjectures that toot is of Saxon origin, and quotes Spenser for the use of it in the sense of to pry, to peep, to search narrowly, &c. I beg leave to add the quotations following as an additional reason for retaining it if Saxon.

"Good Man! him list not spend his idle meales

"In quinsing plovers, or in wining quailes, "Nor toot in Cheapside baskets earue and

late

"To set the first tooth in some novell cate."

Bp. Hall's Virgi demiarum, B. iv. S. 2. "Whow myght thou in thy brother's eighe a bare mote loken,

"And in thyne owen eighe nought a beme tolen." Pierce Plowman's Crede. "Than turned I agen whan I hadde al ytoted. Ibid.

"Hippocrates himself stand tooting on his urinal." Decker.

"Peeping, tooting, and gasynge at that thynge which the Priest held up in his hands." Cranmer.

47. TREWANDISE.

"And the River shall scral with frogs." Exodus viii.

"The River scrauled with the multitude

of frogs, instead of fishes." Wisdom xix. 44. SURQUEDRY. Skinner, Johnson, and Bailey, all say that this word is derived from two words of old French. I do not like it the better for that; but as Johnson quotes Spenser and Donne; and I find it in Chaucer and in Bochas (as below) it may as well keep its place.

"Here speketh Bochas againste the surquedous pride of them that trust in rychesse." Head of the 17th Chapter. "Lo here the end of surquedy and pride." Example of Saul.

"Which han assailed him to shende "And with ther trowndise to blend."

Chaucer.

The meaning of this word in the two first quotations is evidently 66 weakness, ""cowardice," ," &c. Ash gives "truantdise," as the act of playing truant. Johnson says the verb to truant is from the French word truander, to beg about a country, which is supported by the two latter quotations. It need not now be used in either sense.

*The tradesmen who watch the arrival of visitors at Worthing, to solicit custom, are called Tooters; and their importunity looting. EDIT.

48. TROUNCED,

48. TROUNCED. Skinner, Johnson, Bailey, and Ash, make trouncing a derivative from the French word "tronson" a club, yet give the sense as punishing by some law process. I am willing to believe that the common provincial phrase of "I'll trounce you," meaning to beat or bruise with a stick or fists, is right, and that the word should be used thus in common with the former sense, supported as it is, by its frequent occurrence, and the following passage from Tyndale's and other Bibles, 4 Judges.

"But the Lorde trounsed Sisera and all hys charettes and all hys hoste with the edge of the swerde."

49. UNHYLL.

"No man shall take his father's wife, nor

unhyll hys father's coveringe." Tyndall's and Matthew's Bible. Deut. xxii.

This word is full as proper as the thousand words compounded with "un" given by the different Lexicographers. Ash (from Cole) gives the word" hill" to cover, ergo, &c.

50. VOLUPERS. "Thy chekes are lyke a pece of a pomgranate within thy "volupers."

Ballettes of Solomon, chap. vi. in Cranmer's Bible. Query. Does this mean a covering for the head, or the hair, or tresses of the head? Skinner and Ash say voluper means a kerchief (q. d.) In volucrum)-Chaucer makes it a cap in describing the young wife in the Miller's Tale.

"The tapes of hire white volupere
"Were of the same suit of hire colere."

And a night-cap in the Reve's Tale. "And when she saw a white thing in bire

Mr. URBAN,

THE

OBSERVATOR.

May 5. HE article relating to Thomas Baron Chandos, in your Number for October last (vol. LXXXIX. p. 322) signed "DUNELMENSIS," has not hitherto elicited any information from your Genealogical Correspond ents, notwithstanding the really-curious circumstance it records touching this family. And at first view of the subject it certainly seems one of considerable ambiguity, if we take it for granted that such Thomas Baron Chandos of Sudley, if he ever existed, would assuredly have appeared in the Pedigrees and Cases prepared in support of the claim to that dignity,

made by the late Rev. Edward Tymewell Brydges, who rested his pretensions on a descent from the first Baron Chandos of the name of Brydges.

Although I cannot undertake to elucidate the point at issue, I am induced to offer the present Communication to the notice of "DUNELMENSIS," as it goes far to corroborate the statement embodied in the Epitaph quoted by him. That the Lady in question was a Brydges, seems undeniable, if any reliance can be placed on the inscription, and the armorial achievement annexed to it, where the coat of that family is impaled with the arms of her husband, James Young, esq.

By this marriage there was a daughter, named "James," who became the wife of Sir Charles Wyndham. She survived her husband, and died in 1720, and a monument was erected to her memory, and that of her husband, in the Parish Church of Hursley, in the County of Southampton, with an inscription, of which the following is a copy :

"Here lyeth the body of Sir Charles Wyndham, knt. and Dame James, his wife, late of Cranbury: he was the sou of Sir Edmond Wyndham, knt. Knight Marshal of England. She was the daughter of Major General James Young, and grand-daughter to my Lord Chandos. The

said Sir Charles and his wife had ten sous and seven daughters. He departed this life, July 22, 1706; she departed this life the 31st of May, 1720. This monument was erected by two of their daughters, Frances White, and Beata Hall."

The above, placed on a Memorial of a date thirty-three years subsequent to the former, still repeats the descent from the Family of Brydges; but in styling the Lady Wyndham the Grand-daughter of my Lord Chandos, there is an evident error; for, allow ing the Winchester Inscription to be correct, she must have been his greatgrand daughter. Some further evidence of the fact of the connexion with Brydges is also afforded in another circumstance, namely, that Sir Charles and Lady Wyndham had a son, called " Brydges Wyndham," baptized at Hursley, 8th May, 1679, and buried there 17 May, 1689.

It is extraordinary that this matter should have escaped the research of all Compilers of the Peerages who mention the title of Chandos: and, as it is not undeserving of investiga