Produced by Brendan OConnor, Jonathan Ingram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Library of Early Journals.) BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. NO. CCCLIV. APRIL, 1845. VOL. LVII. CONTENTS. VIRGIL, TASSO, AND RAPHAEL, 401 PING-KEE'S VIEW OF THE STAGE, 415 THE MIDNIGHT WATCH, 424 VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION, 448 MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART XVI., 461 BETHAM'S ETRURIA CELTICA, 474 SUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS: BEING A SEQUEL TO THE CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER, 489 NORTH'S SPECIMENS OF THE BRITISH CRITICS. NO. III.--DRYDEN, 503 EDINBURGH: WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET; AND 22, PALL-MALL, LONDON. _To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed._ SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH. BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. NO. CCCLIV. APRIL, 1845. VOL. LVII. VIRGIL, TASSO, AND RAPHAEL. Originality of conception and fidelity of observation in general mark the efforts of genius in the earlier ages of society; and it is then, accordingly, that those creative minds appear which stamp their own impress upon the character of a whole people, and communicate to their literature, in the most distant periods, a certain train of thought, a certain class of images, a certain family resemblance. Homer, Phidias, and AEschylus in ancient times--Dante, Michael Angelo, Ariosto, and Shakspeare in modern, belong to this exalted class. Each in his own department has struck out a new range of thought, and created a fresh brood of ideas, which, on "winged words," have taken their flight to distant regions, and to the end of the world will never cease to delight and influence mankind. Subsequent ages may refine their images, expand their sentiments, perhaps improve their expression; but they add little to the stock of their conceptions. The very greatness of their predecessors precludes fresh creations: the furrows of the ancient wheels are so deep that the modern chariot cannot avoid falling into them. So completely in all persons of education are the great works of antiquity incorporated with thought, that they arise involuntarily with every exercise of the faculty of taste, and insensibly recur to the cultivated mind, with all that it admires, and loves, and venerates.