inimitable. It is hard to say whether his sketches of external nature or of indoor life are the best. Cowper does not attempt the same variety of scene as Thomson; but in what he does attempt he always succeeds. The grander features of Nature are beyond his grasp; mountains and cataracts, frowning rocks, and wide-spreading seas, are not subjects for his pencil; but the meadow and the hayfield, the gurgling rill and the flower-crowned porch, he can place before our eyes with astonishing fidelity. Sometimes, too, he takes a flight beyond his ordinary reach; and his personification of Winter is powerful, and even sublime: "Oh Winter! ruler of the inverted year! Thy scatter'd hair, with sleet-like ashes fill'd, But urged by storms along its slippery way." Cowper's minor Poems are full of beauties; and of beauties of the most versatile nature. For pathos and feeling, his lines "On his Mother's Picture" are positively unrivalled. His "Review of Schools," and his piece, entitled "Con versation," display an acute observation of men and manners, and are replete with the keenest, but at the same time the most polished, Satire; while his "John Gilpin" is a masterpiece of quiet and unforced, but, at the same time, strong and racy humour. His versification, like Thomson's, is not his best quality; but its faults are of a totally opposite character. If Thomson fails from too much effort, Cowper fails from too little. If one is bombastic and turgid, the other is tame and prosaic. Like the bow of Ulysses, which could not be bent by common hands, English narrative blank verse is an instrument which few know how to touch. Milton, and Milton only, could draw from it all the ravishing harmony which it contained. LECTURE VI. LYRICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS POETRY. Ancient Minstrels, Troubadours, and Ballad-Writers: Abundance and Beauty of the old English Lyrical Poems:-Sir Thomas Wyatt:-Beaumont and Fletcher: Martin Llewellyn :-Sir Walter Raleigh :-George Herbert:-Translations of the Psalms:-Modern BalladWriters: Modern Odes: - Dryden, Pope, Collins, Gray, Mason, and the Wartons:-Conclusion. The We have already taken a brief review of English Narrative, Epic, Dramatic, Descriptive, Didactic, Pastoral, and Satirical Poetry. subject of these Lectures we shall, therefore, now bring to a close by directing our enquiries to English Lyrical and Miscellaneous Poetry. The value of a Song, is a proverbial saying to express something utterly worthless; and yet it is scarcely too much to assert, that the characters of Nations have been moulded and fixed by their Songs and Ballads, which have not unfrequently been found to be instruments of incalculable power. "Give me," said a great Statesman, "the making of the National Ballads, and I care not who makes the Laws." History presents us with many proofs of the truth and wisdom of this remark. A Minstrel, who accompanied William the Conqueror to the invasion of England, by rushing into the enemy's ranks, chaunting the Song of Rollo, led on his countrymen to the victory of Hastings; the Songs of the Welsh Bards inspired such a spirit of resistance to the authority of the English, that Edward the First caused the whole fraternity to be exterminated, which Hume has justly styled a barbarous, but not absurd policy; the air of the "Ranz des Vaches" has been forbidden to be played in the bands of the Swiss regiments on foreign service, because it brought back the scenes of home to their recollections, and inspired them with a resistless wish to return to their native country; and Lord Wharton's song of "Lillebulero,"-immortal as the favourite of Uncle Toby,-is supposed to have had no slight influence in promoting our English Revolution. To cite instances of a more modern date, the "Hymne Marseillaise" shook the Bourbons from their throne; and Dibdin's unrivalled Naval Songs were instrumental in quelling the Mutiny at the Nore. Songs and Ballads, too, give us a more certain and faithful picture of the state of manners and society at the periods in which they were written, than do the more bulky and ambitious works of the historians and chroniclers; as "a straw thrown up into the air will shew which way the wind blows," while a stone will return to the earth, without giving us any such intelligence. Lyrical Poetry is the parent of all others. Before men learned to construct their verses into artificial and elaborate narratives, or to give them a dramatic form, they were accustomed to express any ardent emotion, such as Affection, Exultation, or Devotion, by short metrical compositions, which were usually sung, and accompanied by some musical instrument. The praises of their gods, the achievements of their warriors, and the beauty of their mistresses, are the favourite topics of the Poets in the earliest and rudest stages of society. Hence arose a class of men, whose peculiar province it was to compose and sing verses upon such subjects; men who united the characters of Poet and Minstrel; who were treated with extraordinary respect and reverence, and who P |