detail--they may be said by cynics to have a more enduring vitality. Of course there is at the present day no such bookseller as Curll, living by piratical invasions of established rights, and pandering to the worst passions of ignorant readers; no writer who could be fitly called, like Concanen, A cold, long-winded native of the deep, and fitly sentenced to dive where Fleet Ditch Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames; and most certainly we must deny the present applicability of the note upon 'Magazines' compiled by Pope, or rather by Warburton, for the episcopal bludgeon is perceptible in the prose description. They are not at present 'the eruption of every miserable scribbler, the scum of every dirty newspaper, or fragments of fragments picked up from every dirty dunghill ... equally the disgrace of human wit, morality, decency, and common sense.' But if the translator of the 'Dunciad' into modern phraseology would have some difficulty in finding a head for every cap, there are perhaps some satirical stings which have not quite lost their point. The legitimate drama, so theatrical critics tell us, has not quite shaken off the rivalry of sensational scenery and idiotic burlesque, though possibly we do not produce absurdities equal to that which, as Pope tells us, was actually introduced by Theobald, in which Nile rises, Heaven descends, and dance on earth Gods, imps, and monsters, music, rage, and mirth, A fire, a jig, a battle and a ball, Till one wide conflagration swallows all. There is still facetiousness which reminds us too forcibly that Gentle Dulness ever loves a joke, and even sermons, for which we may apologise on the ground that Dulness is sacred in a sound divine. Here and there, too, if we may trust certain stern reviewers, there are writers who have learnt the principle that Index learning turns no student pale, Yet holds the eel of Science by the tail. And the first four lines, at least, of the great prophecy at the conclusion of the third book is thought by the enemies of muscular Christianity to be possibly approaching its fulfilment: Proceed, great days! till learning fly the shore, Till birch shall blush with noble blood no more, Till Thames see Eton's sons for ever play, Till Westminster's whole year be holiday, Till Isis' elders reel, their pupils sport, And Alma Mater lies dissolved in Port! No! So far as we can see, it is still true that Born a goddess, Dulness never dies.