s as a vast collection of ancient and modern
learning, particularly in that sort of knowledge which we usually term
antiquarian and philological. It is not merely a grammatical,
scientific, and technical dictionary, but it is replete with divinity,
law, moral philosophy, critical and historical learning, and abounds
with innumerable miscellaneous curiosities. It would be difficult,
whatever may be the subject of inquiry, to open it, without the
gratification of some knowledge neither obvious nor trivial. I heard a
man of great learning declare, that whenever he could not recollect his
knowledge he opened Hoffman's _Lexicon Universale Historicum_, where he
was sure to find what he had lost. The works are similar; and valuable
as are the German's four folios, the eight of the Frenchman may safely
be recommended as their substitute, or their supplement. As a Dictionary
of the French Language it bears a peculiar feature, which has been
presumptuously dropped in the Dictionnaire de l'Academie; the last
invents phrases to explain words, which therefore have no other
authority than the writer himself! this of Trevoux is furnished, not
only with mere authorities, but also with quotations from the classical
French writers--an improvement which was probably suggested by the
English Dictionary of Johnson. One nation improves by another.

FOOTNOTES:

[154] It was always acknowledged as an independent state by the
French kings from the time of Philip Augustus. It had its own
parliament, and the privilege also of coining its own money.

[155] The house in which the Jesuits resided, having the shield of
arms of their order over its portal, still remains at Trevoux.

QUADRIO'S ACCOUNT OF ENGLISH POETRY.

It is, perhaps, somewhat mortifying in our literary researches to
discover that our own literature has been only known to the other
nations of Europe comparatively within recent times. We have at length
triumphed over our continental rivals in the noble struggles of genius,
and our authors now see their works printed even at foreign presses,
while we are furnishing with our gratuitous labours nearly the whole
literature of a new empire; yet so late as in the reign of Anne, our
poets were only known by the Latin versifiers of the "Musae Anglicanae;"
and when Boileau was told of the public funeral of Dryden, he was
pleased with the national honours bestowed on genius, but he declared
that he never heard of