-si d'alloi megaloi: to d'eschaton kory-
phoutai basilensi. Maeketi
paptaine porsion.
Eiae se te touton
upsou chronon patein, eme
te tossade nikaphorois
omilein, prophanton sophian kath' El-
lanas eonta panta.--OLYMP. OD. I.

there was a gradual sinking in the etiquette or allowed style of
pretension.

Poets and Philosophers, rendered diffident by their very number,
addressed themselves to "learned readers;" then aimed to conciliate
the graces of "the candid reader;" till, the critic still rising as
the author sank, the amateurs of literature collectively were erected
into a municipality of judges, and addressed as the Town! And now,
finally, all men being supposed able to read, and all readers able to
judge, the multitudinous Public, shaped into personal unity by the
magic of abstraction, sits nominal despot on the throne of criticism.
But, alas! as in other despotisms, it but echoes the decisions of its
invisible ministers, whose intellectual claims to the guardianship of
the Muses seem, for the greater part, analogous to the physical
qualifications which adapt their oriental brethren for the
superintendence of the Harem. Thus it is said, that St. Nepomuc was
installed the guardian of bridges, because he had fallen over one, and
sunk out of sight; thus too St. Cecilia is said to have been first
propitiated by musicians, because, having failed in her own attempts,
she had taken a dislike to the art and all its successful professors.
But I shall probably have occasion hereafter to deliver my convictions