to excommunicate him on account of his language about Christ's body was very foolish. Irving's expressions upon this subject are ill judged, inconvenient, in bad taste, and in terms false; nevertheless his apparent meaning, such as it is, is orthodox. Christ's body as mere body, or rather carcass (for body is an associated word), was no more capable of sin or righteousness than mine or yours; that his humanity had a capacity of sin, follows from its own essence. He was of like passions as we, and was tempted. How could he be tempted, if he had no formal capacity of being seduced?

In the Paradise Lost indeed in every one of his poems-it is Milton himself whom you see; his Satan, his Adam, his Raphael,

almost his Eve are all John Milton; and it is a sense of this intense egotism that gives me the greatest pleasure in reading Milton's works. The egotism of such a man is a revelation of spirit.

Claudian deserves more attention than is

generally paid to him. He is the link between the old classic and the modern way of thinking in verse. You will observe in him an oscillation between the objective poetry of the ancients and the subjective mood of the moderns. His power of pleasingly reproducing the same thought in different language is remarkable, as it is in Pope. Read particularly the Phoenix, and see how the single image of renascence is varied. *

* Mr. Coleridge referred to Claudian's first Idyll :"Oceani summo circumfluus æquore lucus Trans Indos Eurumque viret," &c.

See the lines

"Hic neque concepto fetu, nec semine surgit;
Sed pater est prolesque sibi, nulloque creante

I think highly of Sterne- that is, of the first part of Tristram Shandy: for as to the latter part about the widow Wadman, it is stupid and disgusting; and the Sentimental Journey is poor sickly stuff. There is a great deal of affectation in Sterne, to be sure; but still the characters of Trim and the two

Emeritos artus fœcunda morte reformat,
Et petit alternam totidem per funera vitam.

Et cumulum texens pretiosa fronde Sabæum
Componit bustumque sibi partumque futurum.
O senium positure rogo, falsisque sepulcris
Natales habiture vices, qui sæpe renasci
Exitio, proprioque soles pubescere leto,
Accipe principium rursus.

Parturiente rogo

Victuri cineres

Qui fuerat genitor, natus nunc prosilit idem,
Succeditque novus

O felix, hæresque tui ! quo solvimur omnes,
Hoc tibi suppeditat vires; præbetur origo

Per cinerem ; moritur te non pereunte senectus."
-ED.

Shandies* are most individual and delightful. Sterne's morals are bad, but I don't think they can do much harm to any one whom they would not find bad enough before. Besides, the oddity and erudite grimaces under which much of his dirt is hidden, take away the effect for the most part; although, to be sure, the book is scarcely readable by women.

Mr. Coleridge considered the character of the father, the elder Shandy, as by much the finer delineation of the two. I fear his low opinion of the Sentimental Journey will not suit a thorough Sterneist ; but I could never get him to modify his criticism. He said, "The oftener you read Sterne, the more clearly will you perceive the great difference between Tristram Shandy and the Sentimental Journey. There is truth and reality in the one, and little beyond a clever affectation in the other." - ED.

August 20. 1833.

HUMOUR AND GENIUS. GREAT POETS

GOOD MEN. DICTION OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT VERSION.. HEBREW. VOWELS AND CONSONANTS.

MEN of humour are always in some degree men of genius; wits are rarely so, although a man of genius may amongst other gifts possess wit, as Shakspeare.

Genius must have talent as its complement and implement, just as in like manner imagination must have fancy. In short, the higher intellectual powers can only act through a corresponding energy of the lower.

Men of genius are rarely much annoyed by the company of vulgar people, because they have a power of looking at such persons