were truly noble and sublime. Whether, therefore, Sternhold wrote all the winds (as asserted by your correspondent, in order to furnish room for objection,) or mighty winds, is of no import. But if this really be a subsequent alteration, I think at least there is no improvement; for when we conceive the winds as assembling from all quarters, at the omnipotent command of the Deity, and bearing him with their united forces from the heavens, we have a more sublime image than when we see him as flying merely on mighty winds, or as driving his team (or troop) of angels on a strong tempest's rapid wing, with most amazing swiftness, as elegantly represented by Brady and Tate.*

I differ from your correspondent's opinion, that these verses, so far from possessing sublimity, attract the reader merely by their rumbling sound: And here it may not be amiss to observe, that the true sublime does not consist of high sounding words, or pompous magnificence; on the contrary, it most frequently appears clad in native dignity and simplicity, without art, and without ornament.

The most elegant critic of antiquity, Longinus, in his Treatise on the Sublime, adduces the following passage from the Book of Genesis, as possessing that quality in an eminent degree:

'God said, Let there be light, and there was light:-Let the earth be, and earth was.' t

From what I have advanced on this subject, I would not have it inferred, that I conceive the version of Sternhold and Hopkins, generally speaking, to be superior to that of Brady and Tate; for, on the contrary, in almost every instance, except that above mentioned, the latter possesses an indubitable right to preeminence. Our language, however, cannot yet boast one version possessing the true spirit of the original; some are beneath contempt, and the best has scarcely attained mediocrity. Your correspondent has quoted some ver

*The chariot of the king of kings,

Which active troops of angels drew,
On a strong tempest's rapid wings,
With most amazing swiftness flew.

†The quotation appears to have been made from memory, and not correctly.

ses from Tate, in triumph, as comparatively excellent; but, in my opinion, they are also instances of our general failure in sacred poetry: they abound in those ambitiosa ornamenta which do well to please women and children, but which disgust the man of taste.

To the imitations already noticed of this passage, permit me to add the following:

'But various Iris, Jove's commands to bear,
Speeds on the wings of winds through liquid air.'
Pope's Iliad, B. 2.

'Miguel cruzando os pelagos do vento.'

Carlos Reduzido, Canto I., by Pedro de Azevedo Tojal, an ancient Portuguese poet of some merit.

REMARKS ON THE ENGLISH POETS.

WARTON.

THE poems of Thomas Warton are replete with a sublimity, and richness of imagery, which seldom fail to enchant every line presents new beauties of idea, aided by all the magic of animated diction. From the inexhaustible stores of figurative language, majesty, and sublimity, which the ancient English poets afford, he has culled some of the richest and the sweetest flowers. But, unfortunately, in thus making use of the beauties of other writers, he has been too unsparing; for the greater number of his ideas and nervous epithets cannot, strictly speaking, be called his own; therefore, however we may be charmed by the grandeur of his images, or the felicity of his expression, we must still bear in our recollection, that we cannot with justice bestow upon him the highest eulogium of genius-that of originality.

It has, with much justice, been observed, that Pope, and his imitators, have introduced a species of refinement into our language, which has banished that nerve and pathos for which Milton had rendered it eminent. Harmonious modulations, and unvarying exactness of measure, totally precluding sublimity and fire, have reduced our fashionable poetry to mere sing-song. But

Thomas Warton, whose taste was unvitiated by the frivolities of the day, immediately saw the intrinsic worth of what the world then slighted. He saw that the ancient poets contained a fund of strength, and beauty of imagery, as well as diction, which, in the hands of genius, would shine forth with redoubled lustre. Entirely rejecting, therefore, modern niceties, he extracted the honied sweets from these beautiful, though neglected flowers. Every grace of sentiment, every poetical term, which a false taste had rendered obsolete, was by him revived and made to grace his own ideas; and though many will condemn him as guilty of plagiarism, yet few will be able to withhold the tribute of their praise.

'

The peculiar forte of Warton seems to have been in the sombre descriptive. The wild airy flights of a Spenser, the chivalrous feats of barons bold,' or the 'cloister'd solitude,' were the favorites of his mind. Of this his bent he informs us in the following lines :—

Through Pope's soft song, though all the graces breathe,

And happiest art adorns his attic page,

Yet does my mind with sweeter transport glow,

As at the root of mossy trunk reclin'd,

In magic Spenser's wildly warbled song,

I see deserted Una wander wide

Through wasteful solitudes and lurid heaths,
Weary, forlorn, than where the fated fair *
Upon the bosom bright of silver Thames,
Launches in all the lustre of brocade,
Amid the splendors of the laughing sun;
The gay description palls upon the sense,
And coldly strikes the mind with feeble bliss.

Pleasures of Melancholy.

Warton's mind was formed for the grand and the sublime. Were his imitations less verbal, and less numerous, I should be led to imagine that the peculiar beauties of his favorite authors had sunk so impressively into his mind, that he had unwittingly appropriated them as his own; but they are in general such as to preclude the idea.

To the metrical and other intrinsic ornaments of style, he appears to have paid due attention. If we meet with an uncouth expression, we immediately perceive that it is peculiarly appropriate, and that no other term could

* Belinda. Vide Pope's Rape of the Lock.

His

have been made use of with so happy an effect. poems abound with alliterative lines. Indeed, this figure seems to have been his favorite; and he studiously seeks every opportunity to introduce it: however, it must be acknowledged, that his 'daisy-dappled dales,' &c. occur too frequently.

The poem on which Warton's fame (as a poet) principally rests, is, the 'Pleasures of Melancholy,' and (not withstanding the perpetual recurrence of ideas which are borrowed from other poets) there are few pieces which I have perused with more exquisite gratification. The gloomy tints with which he overcasts his descriptions; his highly figurative language; and, above all, the antique air which the poem wears, convey the most sublime ideas to the mind.

Of the other pieces of this poet, some are excellent, and they all rise above mediocrity. In his sonnets, he has succeeded wonderfully; that written at Winslade, and the one to the river Lodon, are peculiarly beautiful, and that to Mr. Gray is most elegantly turned. The 'Ode on the Approach of Summer' is replete with genius and poetic fire; and even over the Birth-day Odes, which he wrote as poet laureat, his genius has cast energy and beauty. His humorous pieces and satires abound in wit; and, in short, taking him' altogether, he is an ornament to our country and our language, and it is to be regretted, that the profusion with which he has made use of the beauties of other poets, should have given room for censure.

I should have closed my short, and, I fear, jejune essay on Warton, but that I wished to hint to your truly elegant and acute Stamford correspondent, Octavius Gilchrist, (whose future remarks on Warton's imitations I await with considerable impatience,) that the passage in the Pleasures of Melancholy

which he supposes to be taken from the following in Comus

'Of calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men's names,

is more probably taken from the commencement of Pope's Elegy on an unfortunate Lady

'What beck'ning ghost, along the moonlight shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?'

The original idea was possibly taken from Comus by Pope, from whom Warton, to all appearance, again borrowed it.

Were the similarity of the passage in Gray to that in Warton less striking and verbal, I should be inclined to think it only a remarkable coincidence; for Gray's biographers inform us, that he commenced his elegy in 1742, and that it was completed in 1744, being the year which he particularly devoted to the muses, though he did not 'put the finishing stroke to it' until 1750. The Pleasures of Melancholy were published in 4to. in 1747; therefore Gray might take his third stanza from Warton; but it is rather extraordinary that the third stanza of a poem should be taken from another, published five years after that poem was begun, and three after it was understood. to be completed. One circumstance, however, seems to render the supposition of its being a plagiarism somewhat more probable, which is, that the stanza in question is not essential to the connexion of the succeeding and antecedent verses; therefore it might have been added by Gray, when he put the 'finishing stroke' to his piece in 1750.

CURSORY REMARKS ON TRAGEDY.

THE pleasure which is derived from the representation of an affecting tragedy, has often been the subject of inquiry among philosophical critics, as a singular phenomenon. That the mind should receive gratification from the excitement of those passions which are in themselves painful, is really an extraordinary paradox, and is the more inexplicable, since, when the same means are employed to rouse the more pleasing affections, no adequate effect is produced.

In order to solve this problem, many ingenious hypotheses have been invented. The Abbé Du Bos tells us, that the mind has such a natural antipathy to a state