as much zeal in the literary reputation of his friends, as in every thing else that concerned them. The wits of the time of Henry the Fourth, of Louis the Fourteenth, and of Louis the Fifteenth,-Malherbe, Racan, Corneille, Moliere, Racine, Chaulieu, La Fare, D'Alembert, Voltaire, &c., not excepting Boileau, where he was personally intimate with a brother author-all do honour in this respect to the sociality of their nation. It is the same, we believe, with the German writers; and if the Spanish winced a little under the domination of Lope de Vega, they were chivalrous in giving him perhaps more than his due. Camoens had the admiration of literary friends as poor as himself, if he had nothing else; but this was something. LV. A WORD UPON INDEXES. INDEX-making has been held to be the driest as well as lowest species of writing. We shall not dispute the humbleness of it; but since we have had to make an index ourselves,* we have discovered that the task need not be so very dry. Calling to mind indexes in general, we found them presenting us a variety of pleasant memories and contrasts. We thought of those to the Spectator, which we used to * To the original edition of the Indicator. look at so often at school, for the sake of choosing a paper to abridge. We thought of the index to the Pantheon of Fabulous Histories of the Heathen Gods, which we used to look at oftener. We remember how we imagined we should feel some day, if ever our name should appear in the list of Hs; as thus, Home, Howard, Hume, Huniades, —. The poets would have been better, but then the names, though perhaps less unfitting, were not so flattering; as for instance, Halifax, Hammond, Harte, Hughes, We did not like to come after Hughes. We have just been looking at the indexes to the Tatler and Spectator, and never were more forcibly struck with the feeling we formerly expressed about a man's being better pleased with other writers than with himself. Our index seemed the poorest and most second-hand thing in the world after theirs: but let any one read theirs, and then call an index a dry thing if he can. As there is a soul of goodness in things evil," so there is a soul of humour in things dry, and in things dry by profession. Lawyers know this, as well as index-makers, or they would die of sheer thirst and aridity. But as grapes, ready to burst with wine, issue out of the most stony places, like jolly fellows bringing burgundy out of a cellar; so an Index, like the Tatler's, often gives us a taste of the quintessence of his humour. For instance, "Bickerstaff, Mr. account of his ancestors, 141. How his race was improved, 142. Not in partnership with Lillie, 250. Catched writing nonsense, 47. "Dead men, who are to be so accounted, 247. Sometimes he has a stroke of pathos, as touching in its brevity as the account it refers to; as, "Love-letters between Mr. Bickerstaff and Maria, 184-186. Found in a grave, 289." Sometimes he is simply moral and graceful; as, "Tenderness and humanity inspired by the Muses, 258. No true greatness of mind without it, ibid.” At another he says perhaps more than he intended; as, "Laura, her perfections and excellent character, 19. Despised by her husband, ibid.” The Index to Cotton's Montaigne, probably written by the translator himself, is often pithy and amusing. Thus in Volume 2d, 66 Anger is pleased with, and flatters itself, 618. "Beasts inclined to avarice, 225. ❝ Children abandoned to the care and government of their fathers, 613. 66 66 Drunkenness, to a high and dead degree, 16. Joy, profound, has more severity than gaiety in it. "Monsters, are not so to God, 612. 66 Voluptuousness of the Cynics, 418." Sometimes we meet with graver quaintnesses and curious relations, as in the index to Sandys's Ovid: "Diana, no virgin, scoft at by Lucian, p. 55. "Dwarfes, an Italian Dwarfe carried about in a parrot's cage, p. 113. "Eccho, at Twilleries in Paris, heard to repeat a verse without failing in one syllable, p. 58. 66 Ship of the Tyrrhenians miraculously stuck fast in the sea, p. 63. "A Historie of a Bristol ship stuck fast in the deepe Sea by Witchcraft: for which twentie-five Witches were executed, ibid." LVI. AN OLD SCHOOL-BOOK. THERE is a school-book by the egregious John Amos Comenius, (who fixed the millennium for the year 1672) in which the learned author has lumped together, in a very singular way, all sorts of trades, pursuits, productions, merriments, and disasters. As every thing which is saleable is on a level with booksellers, so every thing which has a Latin word for it, was alike important to the creator of the Orbis Pictus : for so the book is called. He sees with equal eye, as construing all, The Tormenting of Malefactors, Supplicia Malefactorum, is no more in his eyes than the Making of Honey, or Mellificium. Shipwreck, being Naufragium, he holds in no graver light than a Feast, which is Convivium; and the Feast is no merrier than the Shipwreck. He has wood-cuts, with numerals against the figures; to which the letter-press refers. In one of these, his "Deformed and Monstrous People," cut as jaunty a figure as his Adam and Eve, and seem to pique themselves on their titles of Deformes et Monstrosi. In another the Soul of Man is described by a bodily outline, standing against a sheet. He is never moved but by some point of faith. Thus "Godliness," he says, "treads Reason under foot, that barking Dog, No.6."-Oblatrantem Canem, 6. The translation, observe, is worthy of the original. Again : Woe to the mad Wizards and Witches, Voe dementibus who give themselves to the qui Cacodæmoni se dedunt Devil (being enclosed in a Circle, 7. (inclusi Circulo, 7. calling upon him with Charms) they dally with him and fall from God! for they shall receive their re ward with him. eum advocantes incantamentis) cum eo colludunt et a Deo deficiunt! nam cum illo mercedem accipient. But of the Fall of Adam and Eve, he contents him self with this pithy account:— These being tempted when they had eaten of the Hi, seducti a Diabolo sub specie cum comederunt de fructu vetitæ Arboris, 4. ad miseriam et mortem, |