-beyond compare. Byron had a vivid and strong, but not a wide, imagination. He saw things as they are, occasionally standing prominently and boldly out from the flat surface of this world; and in general, when his soul was up, he described them with a master's might. We speak of the external world—of nature and of art. Now observe how he dealt with nature. In his early poems he betrayed no passionate love of nature, though we do not doubt that he felt it; and even in the first two cantos of Childe Harold he was an unfrequent and no very devout worshipper at her shrine. We are not blaming his lukewarmness; but simply stating a fact. He had something else to think of, it would appear; and proved himself a poet. But in the third canto, "a change came over the spirit of his dream," and he "babbled o' green fields," floods and mountains. Unfortunately, however, for his originality, that canto is almost a cento-his model being Wordsworth. His merit, whatever it may be, is limited therefore to that of imitation. And observe, the imitation is not merely occasional, or verbal: but all the descriptions are conceived in the spirit of Wordsworth, coloured by it and shaped-from it they live, and breathe, and have their being-and that so entirely, that had the Excursion and Lyrical Ballads never been, neither had any composition at all resembling, either in conception or execution, the third canto of Childe Harold. His soul, however, having been awakened by the inspiration of the Bard of Nature, never afterwards fell asleep, nor got drowsy over her beauties or glories; and much fine description pervades most of his subsequent works. He afterwards made much of what he saw his own-and even described it after his own fashion; but a far mightier master in that domain was his instructor and guide-nor in his noblest efforts did he ever make any close approach to the beauty and sublimity of those inspired passages, which he had manifestly set as models before his imagination. With all the fair and great objects in the world of art, again, Byron dealt like a poet of original genius. They themselves, and not descriptions of them, kindled his soul; and thus "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn," do almost entirely compose the fourth canto, which is worth, ten

times over, all the rest. The impetuosity of his career is astonishing; never for a moment does his wing flag; ever and anon he stoops but to soar again with a more majestic sweep; and you see how he glories in his flight-that he is proud as Lucifer. The two first cantos are frequently cold, cumbrous, stiff, heavy, and dull; and, with the exception of perhaps a dozen stanzas, and these far from being of first-rate excellence, they are found wofully wanting in imagination. Many passages are but the baldest prose. Byron, after all, was right in thinking-at firstbut poorly of these cantos,-and so was the friend, not Mr. Hobhouse, who threw cold water upon them in manuscript. True, they "made a prodigious sensation," but bitter-bad stuff has often done that; while often unheeded or unheard has been an angel's voice. Had they been suffered to stand alone, long ere now had they been pretty well forgotten; and had they been followed by other two cantos no better than themselves, then had the whole four in good time been most certainly damned. But, fortunately, the poet, in his pride, felt himself pledged to proceed; and proceed he did in a superior style; borrowing, stealing, and robbing, with a face of aristocratic assurance that must have amazed the plundered; but intermingling with the spoil riches fairly won by his own genius from the exhaustless treasury of nature, who loved her wayward, her wicked, and her wondrous son. Is Childe Harold, then, a great poem? What! with one half of it a little above mediocrity, one quarter of it not original either in conception or execution, and the remainder glorious? As for his tales-the Giaour, Corsair, Lara, Bride of Abydos, Siege of Corinth, and so forth-they are all spirited, energetic, and passionate performances-sometimes nobly and sometimes meanly versified-but displaying neither originality nor fertility of invention, and assuredly no wide range either of feeling or of thought, though over that range a supreme dominion. Some of his dramas are magnificent-and over many of his smaller poems, pathos and beauty overflow. Don Juan exhibits almost every kind of clevernessand in it the degradation of poetry is perfect. Many of these hints will doubtless appear impertinent and heterodox; but we would not advise any hostile

critic in any periodical work to attempt to prove them so; for if he do, he may count upon the crutch.

There are not a few other praiseworthy poets adorning this age, of whom it would be far from unpleasant to speak; but we appear to have proved our point that the age has not produced a single great poem. It is, however, as we said before, a most poetical age; and were we to gather together all the poetry it has produced, and fling it into one heap, what an Olympus!

Just take a moment's glance at the period that elapsed between Pope and Cowper, and, mercy on us! what a period of drought and sterility! Versification flourished, and all else decayed. Among the crowd, of fancy there was a little of feeling less-and of imagination none -while intellect was so feeble it could hardly crawl. Among the honoured, Collins was a poet, and his name was Fine Ear. But feeling his own weakness, he took refuge in abstractions—and hid himself in the shadowy twilight which they afford. Filmy visions floated before his half-shut eye-and they were beautiful; but unsubstantial all, and owning remotest kindred with the fleshand-blood creatures of this our living world. He loved to dream of superstitions and enchantments; but he was not a sublime seer. His Ode-as it is absurdly called-on the Superstitions of the Highlands, is uninspired by the fears that beset fancy, and but an elegant and eloquent narration of sights and sounds that, had they been seen and heard aright, would have wailed in rueful and ghastly strains, curdling the blood. "The Passions" is an unim. passioned series of Portraits-from which Reynolds or Lawrence might have painted graceful pictures. But he calls no "spirits from the vasty deep." Now passions are spirits, and the human heart is a vasty deep; and therefore Collin's Ode on the Passions is but a poor performance. But he had a soul finely strung to the obscure patheticand it often yields melancholy murmurs by moonlight "when the high woods are still," which spell-like sadden the imagination, making the night pensive. Gray, again, had no pathos. His famous Elegy pleases and elevates the mind, for the feelings and thoughts flow naturally, and the language and versification are elegant in the extreme

-scholarlike without being pedantic-in the best sense classical-and free from flaws, like "a gem of purest ray serene. Then, the subject is of universal and eternal interest. It is therefore, an immortal elegy—and "Its Curfew tolls" will, we fear, continue to be the pest and plague of all rising generations, till the schoolmaster now abroad be dead. As to his Odes-with fine passagesthey are but cold and clumsy concerns. Their day is

over. We ourselves love to read them for the sake of the mere sound, which is rushing and river-like, and sometimes we think we hear the sea-sullen afar off-or near at hand, in a high tide, and dashing rejoicingly among the rocks. He was a skilful artist-but no Pindarthough he describes grandly the Theban eagle. Mason had more poetry in him than Gray-but he threw it away on unhappy, at least unfit subjects, and he always wrought after a model. All his writings-except a few beautiful lines in his English Garden, which one meets with now and then in quotation, without knowing whence they come

are forgotten now by all the world-except by a few old parsons not yet died out; but his name will survive. A sad case! Tom Warton was one of the finest fellows that ever breathed—and the gods had made him poetical, but not a poet. He loved poetry dearly-and he wrote its history well; that book being a mine. He loved nature dearly too; and some beautiful sonnets did he indite about the Isis, and the Charwell, and the rural scenery about Oxford, and Oxford's self-she who is worthy of an immortal song. In short, Collins, Gray, and Warton, were three such men as one will not often meet with on a summer's-day. But had they genius sufficient to glorify an era? No-no-no.

To what era, pray, did Thomson belong-and to what era Cowper? To none. Thomson had no precursorand till Cowper no follower. He effulged all at once sunlike like Scotland's storm-loving, mist-enamoured sun, which till you have seen on a day of thunder, you cannot be said ever to have seen the sun. Cowper followed Thomson merely in time. We should have had the Task, even had we never had the Seasons. These two were "Heralds of a mighty train issuing;" add them, then, to the worthies

of our own age,-and they belong to it,—and all the rest of the poetry of the modern world—to which add that of the ancient-if multiplied by ten in quantity-and by twenty in quality-would not so variously, so vigorously, so magnificently, so beautifully, and so truly image the form and pressure, the life and spirit of the mother of us all-Nature. Are then the Seasons and the Task great poems? Yes. Why? We shall tell you in two separate articles. But we presume you do not need to be told that that poem must be great, which was the first to paint the rolling mystery of the year, and to show that all its seasons were but the varied God? The idea was original and sublime; and the fulfilment thereof so complete, that some six thousand years having elapsed between the creation of the world and of that poem, some sixty thousand, we prophesy, will elapse between the appearance of that poem and the publication of another equally great, on a subject external to the mind, equally magnificent. We farther presume, that you hold sacred the Hearth. Now, in the Task, the Hearth is the heart of the poem, just as it is of a happy house. No other poem is so full of domestic happiness-humble and high; none is so breathed over by the spirit of the Christian religion.

We have not forgotten an order of poets, peculiar, we believe, to our own enlightened land a high order of poets sprung from the lower orders of the people-and not only sprung from them, but bred as well as born in "the huts where poor men lie," and glorifying their condition by the light of song. Such glory belongs-we believe exclusively to this country and to this age. Mr. Southey, who in his own high genius and fame is never insensible to the virtues of his fellow-men, however humble and obscure the sphere in which they may move, has written a volume-and a most interesting one-on the poets of this class in other ages of our literature. Nor shall we presume to gainsay one of his benevolent words. But this we do say, that all the verse-writers of whom he there treats, and all the verse-writers of the same sort of whom he does not treat, that ever existed on the face of the earth, shrink up into a lean and shrivelled bundle of dry leaves or sticks, compared with these five-Burns,