t and refinement. On the
contrary, living knowledge is the tomb of the dead, and while light
and worthless materials float on the surface, the solid and sterling
as often sink to the bottom, and are swallowed up for ever in weeds and
quicksands!--A striking instance of the short-lived nature of popular
reputation occurred one evening at the Southampton, when we got into
a dispute, the most learned and recondite that over took place, on the
comparative merits of Lord Byron and Gray. A country gentleman happened
to drop in, and thinking to show off in London company, launched into
a lofty panegyric on _The Bard_ of Gray as the sublimest composition
in the English language. This assertion presently appeared to be an
anachronism, though it was probably the opinion in vogue thirty years
ago, when the gentleman was last in town. After a little floundering,
one of the party volunteered to express a more contemporary sentiment,
by asking in a tone of mingled confidence and doubt--'But you don't
think, sir, that Gray is to be mentioned as a poet in the same day with
my Lord Byron?' The disputants were now at issue: all that resulted was
that Gray was set aside as a poet who would not go down among readers of
the present day, and his patron treated the works of the Noble Bard
as mere ephemeral effusions, and spoke of poets that would be admired
thirty years hence, which was the farthest stretch of his critical
imagination. His antagonist's did not even reach so far. This was the
most romantic digression we over had; and the subject was not afterwards
resumed.--No one here (generally speaking) has the slightest notion of
anything that has happened, that has been said, thought, or done out
of his own recollection. It would be in vain to hearken after those
'wit-skirmishes,' those 'brave sublunary things' which were the
employment and delight of the Beaumonts and Bens of former times: but we
may happily repose on dulness, drift with the tide of nonsense, and gain
an agreeable vertigo by lending an ear to endless controversies. The
confusion, provided you do not mingle in the fray and try to disentangle
it, is amusing and edifying enough. Every species of false wit and
spurious argument may be learnt here by potent examples. Whatever
observations you hear dropt have been picked up in the same place or in
a kindred atmosphere. There is a kind of conversation made up entirely
of scraps and hearsay, as there are a kind of books made up en