rind. Yet surely in these days, when young students turn impatiently from the very fountain-heads of learning, too much stress cannot be laid on the continuity of literature, and on the absolute importance of the classics to those who would intelligently explore the treasure-house of English verse. Moreover, Mr. Collins has aimed a few well-directed shafts against the ingenious system of mutual admiration, by which a little coterie of writers, modern Della Cruscans, help each other into prominence, while an unsuspecting public is made "the willing dupe of puffers." This delicate game, which is now conducted with such well-rewarded skill by a few enterprising players, consists, not so much in open flattery, though there is plenty of that too, as in the minute chronicling of every insignificant circumstance of each other's daily lives, from the hour at which they breakfast to the amount of exercise they find conducive to appetite, and the shape and size of their dining-room tables. We are stifled by the literary gossip which fills the newspapers and periodicals. Nothing is too trivial, nothing too irrelevant, to be told; and when, in the midst of an article on any subject,
