A LECTURE UPON HEADS AND UNWRITTEN BOOKS. "A creature of a more exalted kind Was wanted yet, and then was man design'd, DRYDEN. WHICH is the most prolific and inexhaustible-which has the greater capacity-the material, or the intellectual world? If any man, fully competent to analyse this question, should give judgment in favour of the former, I would tell him that his decision refutes itself, confirming the mastery of mind by the very act of its exercise even when pronouncing its own inferiority. It is indeed wonderful, stupendous, overpowering, to contemplate the external world, its planetary system, its various elements, and the infinite diversity of their productions, human, animal, vegetable, and mineral: but how much more astonishing that all these wonders should be condensed and epitomized in the narrow limits of a single skull! Within that little focus of miracles the system of the universe performs its sublime evolutions; all the forms, colours, attributes, and combinations of matter, are classified and arranged as in a microscopic museum; and yet there is space enough left within its diminutive verge for another and a vaster universe-for the metaphysical world, the interminable subtleties of reason, and the whole boundless range of the imagination. From the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall, there is an almost innumerable variety of productions in the vegetable kingdom alone, but they require different hemispheres and every variety of soil and climate for their developement; whereas they all grew spontaneously together in the single storehouse of Solomon's head. He knew them all; and yet how small a portion did they form of his general knowledge. The admirable Crichton not only affixed this placard upon the walls of the colleges at Rome" Nos Jacobus Crichtonus Scotus, cuicunque rei proposieæ ex improviso respondebimus,” but in the college of Navarre at Paris publicly offered to argue and contend" upon every thing knowable" in twelve different languages, either in verse or prose, at the discretion of the disputant; and after a contest of a whole day against the literati of a whole city, bore off the prize amid the universal acclamations of the spectators. It is difficult to fix the limit of what may be acquired by the human faculties, for we hardly know the exact boundaries of the faculties themselves. Who shall unriddle the mystery of the American calculating boy, a raw uneducated child, whose intuitive knowledge of arithmetic enabled him by some mental process, inscrutable even to himself, to give an instant solution to questions that would puzzle the most practised calculators" with all appliances and means to boot?" It seems to give us a slight glimpse of omniscience when this knowledge flashes upon us, as, when the lightning cleaves the sky, we appear to catch a momentary revelation of the innermost glories of Heaven. Monsters of intellect may have existed in the olden time, and have become extinct, just as the mammoth and the megatherium have disappeared from the animal world; and probably for the same reason in both instances-because such gigantic powers were incompatible with the safety or existence of the inferior tribes. Heaven defend us from a revival of the four-footed visitations; for we have alarming symptoms of a new race of mental Titans. What is the "Great Unknown" but a literary mam moth, whose Titanian powers and commensurate voracity have enabled him to swallow up and exterminate a whole generation of inferior novelists and romance-writers ? Books seem to come out of his head as Minerva did out of Jupiter's, all ready equipped for the lists; one succeeds to another with inexhaustible fluency, and those who look to any interruption of the stream need be as patient as the worthy rustic who stood by the river-side waiting till its current should have run itself dry. Verily a head like his is in itself an answer to the question with which I commenced. And yet to what base uses do we often apply this most exquisite and mysterious appendage. Some, converting it into a snuff-box, are perpetually thrusting in that nasty compost through the keyhole of the nose; some babble it into a chatter-box, wagging their unfatigued tongues like a cherry-clapper to warn the cautious from their premises; and others degrade it into a strong box to hold nothing but title-deeds, mortgages, reversions, and calculations for making money. With Sir Epicure it is a cave of Cacus, into whose mouth whole droves of dainties are made to enter, but which have "nulla vestigia retrorsum," no good things being ever suffered to escape from that dumb sarcophagus. There are gallants, who, knowing the value of what they carry upon their shoulders, shall, for the fair equivalent of a shilling a day, offer their sconces as targets for bayonets and balls, or as butts for sabres; sometimes this most useful piece of furniture serves as a block for wigs, or a peg whereon to hang a hat; and there are grave and reverend signors, who by merely shaking it affirmatively or negatively with the accompanying monosyllable ay or no, shall not only carry on the affairs of the Nation, but make their own prosper more flourishingly than if the aforesaid excrescence were filled with brains and fraught with eloquence. Meanwhile there are others, neither few in numbers nor mean in talent, who are incessantly devoting that multifarious engine to the gratification of the public, by multiplying literary productions of every dimension, from the epic to the ballad, adapted to every capacity from the prince to the peasant. Living far sequestered from the great Babel of London and its overgorged vomitory the Row, nothing astonishes me so much, when I run my eye down the long newspaper announcements of new publications, as the amazing intellectual activity of England. Winter brings forth its mental crop as regularly, and almost as abundantly, as the earth yields its autumnal harvests. The head must be fed as duly as the stomach, and its voracity is still more insatiable. Booksellers may literally be termed capital cooks, perpetually dishing up new dainties adapted to the public taste; and if Osymandyas the Egyptian king were to live in our days, instead of writing over the door of his library" Medicine for the soul," he might be tempted to inscribe "Victuals for the head." What books, what libraries, what languages, what whole æras of literature have perished since his days, since the period when Job exclaimed-" My desire is that mine adversary had written a book ;" and yet what are the works that have been written and perished, compared to those which have been conceived, projected, dreamt of, decided upon, planned, and never written? Few have pub lished, but how many have imagined books; how many in the perpetual fermentation and ebullition of the intellectual faculty have started ideas which they have resolved to commit to paper and expand, but which have been driven from the memory by new projects, to be left as unrealized as their predecessors. Nothing is to me more interesting than to trace these unembodied outlines, these dim and visionary configurations of uncomposed works, whose "coming events cast their shadows before," sometimes to swell into the subsequent tangability of actual existence, and sometimes to evaporate into airy nothing. Can any one avoid sympathizing with Milton's proud consciousness of power and difficulty of determinate object, when, after promising to undertake something, he yet knows not what, that may be of use and honour to his country, he proceeds: "This is not to be obtained but by devout prayer to the Eternal Spirit that can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases. To this must be added industrious and select reading, steady observation, and insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs; till which in some measure be compassed, I refuse not to sustain this expectation." Well might Johnson add, that from a promise like this, at once fervid, pious, and rational, might be expected "Paradise Lost." In Milton's Latin verses to Manso, Marquis of Villa, whom Tasso in his Jerusalem compliments, "Fra cavalier' magnanimi e cortesi Risplende il Manso," muse. he indicates his intention of selecting the exploits of King Arthur for his Prince Arthur as well as King Arthur fell subsequently into the very different hands of Blackmore; and the blind bard, "long choosing and beginning late," having at length made good advances in his sacred poem, seems to rejoice that he had not sung the exploits of chivalry, not being sedulous by nature "To describe races and games, Or tilting furniture, emblazon'd shields, At joust and tournament; then marshall'd feast While, still preserving his proud confidence in his subject, he adds : "Me of these Nor skill'd, nor studious, higher argument Remains, sufficient of itself to raise That name, unless an age too late, or cold Pope, besides many hints and schemes of intended works, has left behind him the complete plan of an epic poem, to be written in blank verse, on the subject of the Trojan Brutus. Dr. Johnson gave Mr. Langton a catalogue of books which he had projected, amounting to forty-four in prose, and five in poetry. Hayley contemplated a grand national poem about King John's barons and Magna Charta. Mr. Coleridge in our own days is understood to be so voluminous an author of unwritten books as to be obliged to keep a copious catalogue for the purposes of reference to them. "Half of your book is to an Index grown, You give your book's contents, your readers none." "Tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true," that a mind so richly stored as his should impart so little of its intellectual opulence. His overloaded head is like an overfull bottle of nectar, whose particles, in their contention for preference of escape, do mutually "choke their utterance." H. TO RETURN me that salute again, If thou of such a coldness art, I value not the trifle-vain To me, unless with all the heart Thou gavest it, as first indeed I thought,— I would as lieve a marble lip As her's who suffer'd me to sip And could not feel a mutual bliss, Whose soft salute is yielded void of sense, One, lovely fair as thou may'st be, That feels no pleasure, but receives Heedless of him who takes or gives, What can I think that gift is worth That to another means the same, To him who feels or not love's flame!- No, lady, I must have a soul That says, whene'er I snatch a kiss,— To all but thee the sign of bliss ; "To others I may yield a form Given but at custom's silly call; To thee I give affection warm, The virgin's faith, her love, her all; And when thine image brightens in mine eyes, The lifestream quickens, and I breathe in sighs." Then, lady, take my kiss again The alabaster stone May beauty shew in semblance fair, But 'tis in form alone : There is no life, no passion dwelling there, And without these beauty is but a snare. ALASCO, AND THE PLAY-LICENSER. UNTOWARD accidents, which the most wary calculator of future events could never foresee, occasion frequently the revival of discussions which have at least the merit, and it is not a questionable one, of shewing how sternly every encroachment upon the liberty of a people should be resisted at the outset ; and, farther, that uncontrolled power, however moderately exercised for a time, will most assuredly some day or other be flagrantly abused. The illustration of these truths will be found in the recent treatment of Mr. Shee's tragedy of "Alasco," by the Lord Chamberlain and his deputy. Of Mr. Shee personally we know nothing, but his name as an artist and man of taste has long been before us. There is also a higher question involved in this affair than the fate of Mr. Shee's work, namely-whether men of talent shall ever again write for the stage, or the national theatre in future present nothing to the public but the indecencies of such pieces as "The Poachers," or writings of no higher level in literature than those of the deputy-licenser himself. The "insolence of office" was never so unwarrantably exercised as on the present occasion. The licensers of the Bourbons have been outdone in the scrupulous zeal of an over-fawning servility in this country-in England! that so proudly and justly boasts of its generous freedom in other matters; and that, too, at the very moment when the liberal career pursuing by the government on a variety of important questions, is strengthening its own hands, and adding a mass of popular influence to its support. The present may, therefore, be considered the act of a party as forgetful of the spirit that should prompt those holding offices obnoxious to British feeling, as it is deficient in good taste. The best precedent we can find for the conduct of Mr. George Colman the younger, is that of the censor who demurred on the publication of the passage in "Paradise Lost" which speaks of the moon's eclipse," with fear of change perplexing monarchs." The licenser and his deputy seem themselves to have been moon-stricken, or, as the late Marquis of Londonderry would express himself, to have laboured under an "hydrophobia," at the remotest allusion in tragedy to liberty or despotism, to stars, titles, courtiers, or priests. The passages erased have no relation to any state of things existing in this country-they are admitted truisms, and parallel passages have long been current on the boards. The boys at our public schools must now cease to declaim about Brutus and Tarquin, or Brutus and Cæsar, or Cato and Rome, if this is to be law. No hireling of the Spanish Inquisition could display more of the eagerness of ultra-zealous subserviency in office, than has been shown in the present instance; tending to crush noble and generous opinions which have been admitted and applauded in all civilized countries and in all ages, however little they may have been acted upon. The erasures, too, of the licenser are calculated to assimilate the English stage to the most strait-laced of those on the Continent; and even to make it descend below many of them, in the avoidance of every topic that may keep alive the name of freedom and lofty and heroic associations. The deputy-licenser seems to have resolved-openly and impudently resolved-that his ipse dixit shall govern the British drama, even in generalities; and in the wantonness of his "brief authority," and at the expense of his reputation for common sense, has dared to defy the |