"In Mason's 'English Garden,'" replied I, "Alcander's precepts would have been cold, had there been no personification. The introduction of character dramatizes what else would have been frigidly didactic. Thomson enriches his landscape with here and there a figure, drawn with more correctness than warmth, with more nature than spirit, and exalts it everywhere by moral allusion and religious reference. The scenery of Cowper is perpetually animated with sketches of character, enlivened with portraits from real life, and the exhibition of human manners and passions. His most exquisite descriptions owe their vividness to moral illustration. Loyalty, liberty, patriotism, charity, piety, benevolence, every generous feeling, every glowing sentiment, every ennobling passion, grows out of his descriptive powers. His matter always bursts into mind. His shrubbery, his forest, his flower-garden, all produce Fruits worthy of Paradise, and lead to immortality." Mr. Stanley said, adverting again to the subject of conversation, it was an amusement to him to observe what impression the first introduction to general society made on a mind conversant with books, but to whom a the world was in a manner new. "I believe," said Sir John, "that an overflowing commerce, and the excessive opulence it has introduced, though favorable to all the splendors of art and mechanic ingenuity, yet have lowered the standard of taste, and debilitated the mental energies. They are advantageous to luxury, but fatal to intellect. It has added to the brilliancy of the drawing-room itself, but deducted from that of the inhabitant. It has given perfection to our mirrors, our candelabras, our gilding, our inlaying, and our sculpture, but it has communicated a torpor to the imagination, and enervated our intellectual vigor." "In one way," said Mr. Stanley, smiling, "luxury has been favorable to literature. From the unparalleled splendor of our printing, paper, engraving, illuminating and binding, luxury has caused more books to be purchased, while from the growth of time-absorbing dissipation, it causes fewer to be read. I believe we were much more familiar with our native poets in their former plain garb than since they have been attired in the gorgeous dress which now decorates our shelves."