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 pre-eminence. 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 verses 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."

"Miguel cruzando os pelagos do vento."

POPE'S ILIAD, b. ii.

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 "cloistered 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 reclined,
In magic Spenser's wildly warbled song
I see deserted Una wander wide

Through wasteful solitudes and lurid heaths,
Weary, forlorn; than were 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 have been made use of with so happy an effect. His 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 dale," &c., occur too frequently.

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

The poem on which Warton's fame (as a poet) principally rests, is the "Pleasures of Melancholy," and (notwithstanding 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 Birthday 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"

"Or ghostly shape,

At distance seen, invites, with beckoning hand,

Thy lonesome steps,"

which he supposes to be taken from the following in "Comus,"

"Of calling shapes, and beckoning 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 beckoning 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 biographer informs 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 connection of the preceding 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