who were detained: other accounts estimate them at a million and they were the working bees who were thus smoked out. The measure was loudly applauded, as a splendid act of piety; and the patience with which the Moriscoes had submitted, being, it was now said, so able to have resisted, was represented as a miracle. Much of the merit was ascribed to the queen, who, when her husband was slow to perform the Lord's work, like another Zipporah, averted from him the displeasure of heaven by the forwardness of her zeal; and men who seemed to have read the Scriptures only to suck poison from them, found in the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael, a type of what they called this glorious event. The immediate effects were such, that a Dialogue of Consolation was written to comfort the Spaniards upon the wholesome consequences. Spain, it was there said, had been but too rich before, and now there would be no such rattling of coaches in its streets; the nobles must be contented to go on foot again, and once more pass the greater part of the year upon their estates, and eat the produce of the chase killed by their own hands, and the fruit of their own gardens. Eight years after the expulsion, a report was presented upon the state of the kingdom, wherein the depopulation was described as greater than had ever before been seen or heard of in that land; whole villages and towns being deserted, houses in ruins everywhere, and none to rebuild them! Lerma was saved from the punishment which he had deserved in this world by the court of Rome, which showed its gratitude for his services, by making him a cardinal; his brother and one of his near kinsmen holding at the same time the same rank. Whatever influence the consequences of his favourite measure may have had in bringing about his fall, they were too extensive to be concealed from Philip; and if the eyes of that poor king were not opened to the iniquity as well as impolicy of the expulsion, it was because, as in Cromwell's case, spiritual opiates were continually administered to stupify his conscience. The same sincerity to which we are beholden for full details of the Expulsion-in all its blackness, has undrawn the curtains of his death-bed, and exposed to the world a scene as awful as that which Shakspeare imagined for his dying cardinal. From the very commencement of his illness, he feared that it would prove fatal; and when the physicians at length declared that they agreed with his majesty in the opinion which he had conceived of his infirmity, and delivered him over to his confessor, P. Florencia, he exclaimed repeatedly, 'Oh, if it pleased heaven to prolong my life, how differently would I govern!' and he wished that

he

he had been born in no higher station than that of a poor shepherd, that he might have kept sheep, instead of incurring the heavy responsibility of governing a nation. Florencia, by way of consolation, reminded him how strenuously he had supported the holy Roman church, and what armies he had raised for its service; and how he had assisted the Catholics in Ireland; and how he had destroyed the heretics in the Valteline. No mention was made of the Moriscoes; and this is worthy of remark, because it assuredly shows that the confessor dared not touch that wound. Philip replied to all this, that he could call to mind nothing which afforded him the smallest comfort; and he said, in a spirit of true contrition, which it may be hoped was not in vain, that he wished all kings could behold him in his present state, that they might be warned by his example. Cry aloud, father, said he, and proclaim what I now say unto youthat to have been a great monarch serves only, at the hour of death, to torment him that hath been so. Oh! that I had been a monk in the wilderness! Me miserable! I am in danger of hell! and then he besought the crucifix which was held before him, not to let him be condemned to eternal torments, but to deliver him after many ages of purgatory.' Our lady of Atocha was carried in procession, all the counsellors of state attending. The body of St. Isidro the husbandman was brought to his bed-side, and he was advised to make a vow that, if by his intercession, he might be restored to health he would build him a chapel; this vow the poor king made, but with little faith, observing that it was now too late. By help, however, of the priests who surrounded him, of N. Señora de Atocha, of St. Isidro's body, and a host of other relics, particularly some set in a crucifix, to which the Pope had granted special indulgences, and which was the same that his father Philip II. and his grandfather Charles had used in their last moments, by help of these, and of a Tertiary's habit, which the general of the Franciscans provided, he was brought into a calmer state of mind, and this mummery operated as an anodyne in death. Miserable man! he had been the dupe and the instrument of a false and persecuting church; and had been taught to believe that in all the injustice which he decreed, the cruelties which he sanctioned, and the unutterable misery which he caused, he was serving his religion! Such and so great are the evils which that religion can produce!

ART.

ART. II.-De Homoeoteleutis Graecorum et Latinorum Versibus, proludendo scripsit M. Birgerus Thorlacius, Prof. Eloqu. Lat. et Ord. Danebr. Eques. Havniae, 1818, 4to. WITH the literary history of the University of Copenhagen

most of our readers are as little acquainted as they are with the internal economy of the grand mosque at Constantinople. This university however has long been a very respectable seminary of learning, and many of its professors occupy a conspicuous place in the general history of letters. Thomas Bartholinus, Olaus Wormius, Olaus Borrichius, and many others, have acquired a celebrity that is not circumscribed within the narrow limits of Scandinavia; nor must we here omit the name of Ludvig Holberg, a man of original genius, who first imparted a marked and prominent character to the vernacular literature of Denmark. A great proportion of the present professors are men of superior talents or learning: the university can still boast of classical scholars, men of science, lawyers, and physicians, all eminent in their several departments: Oehlenschläger and Rahbek enjoy the highest reputation in Danish literature; Nyerup is unrivalled for his knowledge of the literary history of Scandinavia; Thorkelin and Magnusen have illustrated different branches of northern antiquities and mythology. Dr. Müller, professor of divinity, is a man of general erudition; and to his familiar acquaintance with classical learning, he adds an equal knowledge of the history and literature of the northern nations. His elaborate account of the Islandic sagas is well known in Scandinavia and Germany, and he is the author of several other works of value and interest. Some of these were originally published in Latin, some in German, and the rest in Danish. Erasmus Rask, professor of literary history, whom we have the honour to number among the contributors to this journal, is generally allowed to possess a knowledge of languages to which it would scarcely be possible to find a parallel in any country of Europe. Possessing a mind of invincible ardour, and a diminutive person adapted for loco-motion, and for enduring privations and fatigue, he travelled to many distant regions of the globe in search of philological knowledge: he resided for a considerable time in Island, Sweden, and Britain ; and having eaten the food and lived the life of the Calmuck Tartars, he afterwards wandered among the more remote tribes

*

* Sagabibliothek, med Anmærkninger og indledende Afhandlinger. Af Peter Erasmu Müller, Dr. og Prof. i Theolog. ved Kiöbenhavns Universitet. Kiöbenhavn, 1817-20' 3 Bind. 8vo.

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of the east, and familiarized himself with many dialects which are hardly known to the natives of Europe. He presented his cheerful face at Bombay, where he resided for some time, and became intimately acquainted with Mr. William Erskine, the amiable and accomplished editor of Baber *. In the course of his peregrinations, he collected many oriental manuscripts of great value. Among other works, he has published grammars of the Anglo-Saxon, Islandic, Frisian, and Spanish languages; and one of his latest tracts relates to the Zend language. He is now occupied with an Etymologicon Danicum; which, we have little doubt, will be found the best etymological dictionary that has yet been produced. With his admirable skill in the languages of Europe and of Asia, he unites a very uncommon portion of acuteness and perspicacity; and he seems in fact to possess all the qualifications which could be expected or desired in a person who engages in such an enterprize.

In the University of Copenhagen Dr. Thorlacius is professor of eloquence; and it is a part of his duty to write various prolusions, for certain occasions of academical ceremony. In the German universities we recognize a similar arrangement: as professor of eloquence at Göttingen, Heyne produced many ingenious and erudite lucubrations; and his successor Mitscherlich must periodically tax his invention and his copia verborum in the same manner. Thorlacius is the learned son of a learned father. In the year 1815 he completed the third volume of a collection of his academical tracts †, and a fourth volume may probably be expected. On taking his doctor's degree, he printed an elaborate dissertation on the Sibylline Oracles . Although a doctor of divinity, he is nevertheless a layman; and this mode of graduation, which we should be disposed to consider as very anomalous, sometimes finds a place in the Lutheran universities of Germany. The late Professor Eichhorn, of Göttingen, a layman and a member of the philosophical faculty, was likewise a doctor of divinity.

Thorlacius evidently possesses a very familiar acquaintance with the Latin tongue; but although he writes with ease and fluency, it cannot safely be affirmed that he is always very nice or scrupulous in his diction. The Ciceronians have never established any strong colony on the shores of the Baltic. Where a

*See Rask om Zendsprogets og Zendavestas Elde og Ægthed, S. 5. Kiöbenhavn, 1826, 8vo.

+ Prolusiones et Opuscula Academica, argumenti maxime philologici. Scripsit M. Birgerus Thorlacius, Prof. Lingu. Lat. Ord. in Univers. Havn. Havniae, 1806-15, 3 tom. 8vo. Libri Sibyllistarum veteris Ecclesiae, Crisi, quatenus Monumenta Christiana sunt, subjecti. Havniae, 1815, 8vo. Pp. 172.

professor

professor in the university of Leyden or in the Archiginnasio of Rome would pause and ponder, this learned professor of Copen+ hagen pursues his onward course; nor would he scruple to describe one of his colleagues as "membrum ordinis philosophici." If he has occasion to express in Latin, not the bodily sense, but the mental perception of taste, he finds no difficulty in using the word gustus. "De gustu Gothico absque dubio nostrum aevum aliter quam Lessingius judicat." P. 8.

The work now under our consideration is an academical prolusion, containing not many pages, and consequently embracing no very elaborate discussion of the question. The general result of his inquiries is stated in the following passage: "Id quidem nos effecisse credimus, ut pateat, Graecis Latinisque id rhythmi genus, quod eosdem in versuum vel continuorum vel alternantium fine sonos adoptat, haud ignotum fuisse; sed illos, exactiorem pedum syllabarumque numerum amantes, istam soni paritatem ceu mollem et inanem tinnitum plerumque sprevisse." P. 15. His ancient examples are confined to passages of Theocritus and Persius. The subject has long appeared to us very curious and interesting; and some of our readers may perhaps be gratified by a more ample account of the origin and progress of rhyme, which is generally regarded as so essential an ornament in modern poetry *.

“Rhymes, it will be said, are a remnant of monkish stupidity, an innovation upon the poetry of the ancients. They are but indifferently acquainted with antiquity who make this assertion. Rhymes are probably of older date than either the Greek or Latin dactyl or spondé 1."-This opinion of Goldsmith is not so paradoxical as it may at first sight appear: the most ancient poetry with which we are acquainted occurs in the Old Testament; and the Hebrew poets, as many learned writers aver, employ that recurrence of similar sounds which we denominate rhyme §. The same form of composition seems to have been

With respect to the origin of rhyme, six different theories have been enumerated by Massien, Hist. de la Poësie Françoise, p. 76. Paris, 1739, 12mo.

Gravina is one of those critics who have visited rhyme with the heaviest censure. Among other animadversions he makes the following:-"Tanto l' ignoranza naturale delle nazioni barbare, quanto il giudizio già corrotto delle nazioni Latine convennero all' estinzion del metro antico, ed alla produzion della rima. Vi concorse l'ignoranza della natura, poiche il commercio de' Gotti e de' Vandali stemperò l' orecchio, e sconcertò la pronunzia." (Della Ragion Poetica, p. 144. ed. Napoli, 1716, 8vo.) In consequence of such censures as these, Quadrio thought it necessary to demonstrate "che la rima è cosa pregevole, e che malamente fu da alcuni ripresa." (Storia e Ragion d'ogni Poesia, tom. i. p. 725.)

Goldsmith's Enquiry into the present State of Polite Lond. 1759, 8vo.

Le Clerc, Bibliothèque Universelle, tom. ix. p. 230.

Learning in Europe, p. 151.

Fourmont, Dissertation sur