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and the "grey-grown oaks." Thomson's epithets are laboured, and encumber, instead of assisting his descriptions. Shakspeare's, on the contrary, are artless, and seem scarcely sought for; but every word is a picture. Instance his description of the martlet, building his nest outside of Macbeth's castle :

"This guest of Summer,

The temple-haunting Martlet, doth approve,
By his loved mansionry, that the Heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here."

Or his description of the infant sons of Edward the Fourth sleeping in the Tower :

"Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,

That in their Summer beauty kiss'd each other."

Again, the following description, in the "Seasons," of that period of the year when the Winter and the Spring are contending for the mastery, is perfectly true and natural :

"As yet the trembling Year is unconfirm'd,
And Winter oft' at eve resumes the breeze;
Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets
Deform the day delightless; so that scarce
The bittern knows his time, with bill ingulph'd

To shake the sounding marsh, or from the shore
The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath,

And sing their wild notes to the listening waste."

But how are the beauty and fidelity of the picture deformed by such harsh inversions and tumid epithets as" day delightless," and "bill ingulphed."

Cowper has not Thomson's genius, but he has much more taste. His range is neither so wide, nor so lofty, but, as far it extends, it is peculiarly his own. He cannot paint the Plague at Carthagena, or the Snow-storm, or the Earthquake, as Thomson has done; but place him by the banks of the Ouse, or see him taking his "Winter walk at Noon," or accompany him in his rambles through his Flower garden, and where is the Author who can compare with him for a moment? The pictures of domestic life which he has painted are 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

hay-field, the gurgling rill, and the flower-crowned porch, he can place before our eyes with astonishing verisimilitude. 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,
Thy breath congeal'd upon thy lips, thy cheek
Fringed with a beard made white with other snows
Than those of age, thy forehead wrapt in clouds,
A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne
A sliding car, indebted to no wheels,

But urged by storms along it's 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 "Conversation," 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 it's 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. English Narrative blank verse is an Instrument which few know how to touch. It is like wielding the bow of Ulysses. Milton, and Milton only, could draw from it all the ravishing harmony which it contained.

LECTURE THE SIXTH.

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 Ballad-Writers :Modern Odes:-Dryden, Pope, Collins, Gray, Mason, and the Wartons :-Conclusion.

WE have already taken a brief review of English Narrative, Epic, Dramatic, Descriptive, Didactic, Pastoral, and Satirical Poetry. The 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 incalcu.

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