merit. In some of the qualities that denote a great writer he is
superior to Tacitus; nor can anyone, not reading him in his
original form, conceive an adequate notion of how his powers
culminate into true genius,--what a master he is of eloquence, and
how happy in expressing his very beautiful sentiments, which,
sometimes having the nature of a proverb or an epigram, please by
the placing of a word. His general ideas are scarcely retained in
a translation: such a reproduction deprives them of the train of
images and impressions which cluster round them in his language of
poetry and suggestion, giving them spirit and interest, and
imparting to them strength and ornament:--As winter is thrown over
a landscape by the hand of nature, so coldness is thrown over his
page by the hand of a translator: the student who can familiarize
himself with his thoughts as expressed in the tongue in which he
wrote, and reads a translation, is in the position of a man who
can walk in summer along the bank of a majestic river flowing
beautifully calm and stately by meadows pranked with flowers and
woods waving in varied hues of green, yet prefers visiting the
scene in winter when life and freshness are fled, the river being
frozen, the flowers and greenness gone from the fields, and the
leaves fallen from the trees.

The question arises,--Who was this wonderful man? If unknown, can
he not be discovered?

John Leycester Adolphus, famous for his History of George the Third,
discovered the author of the Waverley Novels in Sir Walter Scott,
when the Wizard of the North was styled "The Great Unknown," by
pointing out coincidences in the pieces and poems, known to be
the productions of Scott, in such matters as the correct morals,