not less essential; and the talent of describing well what he feels with acuteness, added to the above requisites, goes far to complete the poetic character. Smollett was, even in the ordinary sense which limits the name to those who write verses, a poet of distinction; and in this particular superior to Fielding, who seldom aims at more than a slight translation from the classics."-In a note upon this passage, Mr. Campbell's opinion of Smollett's poems is cited, in which he says "They have a portion of delicacy not to be found in his novels; but they have not, like those prose fictions, the strength of a master's hand." "The truth is (adds Sir Walter Scott), that in these very novels are expended many of the ingredients both of grave and humorous poetry."

ODE S.

TO INDEPENDENCE.

STROPHE.

THY spirit, Independence, let me share,
Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye,
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.
Deep in the frozen regions of the north,
A goddess violated brought thee forth,
Immortal Liberty! whose look sublime

Hath bleach'd the tyrant's cheek in every varying clime.
What time the iron-hearted Gaul,

With frantic superstition for his guide,

Arm'd with the dagger and the pall,
The sons of Woden to the field defied;
The ruthless hag, by Weser's flood,

In Heaven's name urged the infernal blow;
And red the stream began to flow:
The vanquish'd were baptized with blood!'

ANTISTROPHE.

The Saxon prince in horror fled

From altars stained with human gore;
And Liberty his routed legions led,

In safety, to the bleak Norwegian shore.
There in a cave asleep she lay,

Lull'd by the hoarse-resounding main;
When a bold savage pass'd that way,

Impell'd by destiny,-his name Disdain.

1 Charlemagne offered the Saxons the alternative of death or Christianity, and it is said, that after having obliged four thousand Saxon prisoners to embrace the Christian religion, immediately after they were baptized, he ordered their throats to be cut.-Their prince Vitikind fled for shelter to Gotrick, King of Denmark.

Of ample front the portly chief appear'd:
The hunted bear supplied a shaggy vest;
The drifted snow hung on his yellow beard;
And his broad shoulders braved the furious blast.
He stopp'd-he gazed-his bosom glow'd,

And deeply felt the' impression of her charms:
He seized the' advantage Fate allow'd;

And straight compress'd her in his vigorous arms.

STROPHE.

The curlew scream'd, the tritons blew

Their shells to celebrate the ravish'd rite; Old Time exulted as he flew;

And Independence saw the light.

The light he saw in Albion's happy plains,
Where under cover of a flowering thorn,
While Philomel renew'd her warbled strains,

The' auspicious fruit of stolen embrace was horn➡
The mountain dryads seized with joy

The smiling infant to their charge consign'd;
The Doric Muse caress'd the favourite boy;
The hermit Wisdom stored his opening mind.
As rolling years matured his age,

He flourish'd bold and sinewy as his sire;
While the mild passions in his breast assuage
The fiercer flames of his maternal sire.

ANTISTROPHE.

Accomplish'd thus, he wing'd his way,
And zealous roved from pole to pole,
The rolls of right eternal to display,

And warm with patriot thoughts the' aspiring soul.
On desert isles' 'twas he that raised

Those spires that gild the Adriatic wave,

Where Tyranny beheld amazed

Fair Freedom's Temple, where he mark'd her grave.

He steel'd the blunt Batavian's arms

To burst the' Iberian's double chain;

And cities rear'd, and planted farms,

Won from the skirts of Neptune's wide domain.

1 Although Venice was built a considerable time before the era here assigned for the birth of Independence, the republic had not yet attained to any great degree of power and splendour.

2 The Low Countries were not only oppressed by grievous taxations, but likewise threatened with the establishment of the Inquisition, when the Seven Provinces revolted, and shook off the yoke of Spain.

He, with the generous rustics, sate
On Uri's rocks in close divan;'
And wing'd that arrow sure as fate,

Which ascertain'd the sacred rights of man.

STROPHE.

Arabia's scorching sands he cross'd,2
Where blasted Nature pants supine,
Conductor of her tribes adust,

To Freedom's adamantine shrine;
And many a Tartar-horde forlorn, aghast,
He snatch'd from under fell Oppression's wing;
And taught amidst the dreary waste

The' all-cheering hymns of Liberty to sing.
He virtue.finds, like precious ore,

Diffused through every baser mould,
E'en now he stands on Calvi's rocky shore,
And turns the dross of Corsica to gold.*
He, guardian genius, taught my youth
Pomp's tinsel livery to despise:
My lips, by him chastised to truth,

Ne'er paid that homage which the heart denies.

ANTISTROPHE.

Those sculptured halls my feet shall never tread,
Where varnish'd Vice and Vanity combined,
To dazzle and seduce, their banners spread;
And forge vile shackles for the freeborn mind.
Where Insolence his wrinkled front uprears,
And all the flowers of spurious Fancy blow;
And Title his ill-woven chaplet wears,

Full often wreathed around the miscreant's brow;
Where ever dimpling Falsehood, pert and vain,
Presents her cup of stale Profession's froth;
And pale Disease, with all his bloated train,
Torments the sons of Gluttony and Sloth.

1 Alluding to the known story of William Tell and his associates, the fathers and founders of the confederacy of the Swiss Cantons.

2 The Arabs, rather than resign their independency, have often abandoned their habitations, and encountered all the horrors of the desert.

3 From the tyranny of Genghis-Khan, Timur-Bec, and other eastern conquerors, whole tribes of Tartars were used to fly into the remoter wastes of Cathay, where no army could follow them.

4 The noble stand made by Pascal Paoli and his associates against the usurpation of the French must endear them to all the sons of Liberty and Independence.

I