the most exquisite, the melody of the rhythm can scarcely be perceived except by the nicest ear. King Lear, driven to madness by the ingratitude and cruelty of his two elder daughters, is found by the youngest, Cordelia, asleep upon a bed, in a tent in the French camp, after having passed the night in the open air, exposed to the fury of the elements during a tremendous thunder-storm. A physician and attendants are watching over the sufferer. While the dutiful daughter is pouring out her heart in tenderness over him, recounting his wrongs, his afflictions, and the horrors of the storm, the king awakes; but we will take the scene itself. After some enquiries concerning his royal patient, the physician asks: :

"So please your majesty,

That we may wake the king? He hath slept long.

CORDELIA.

Be govern'd by your knowledge, and proceed
I' th' sway of your own will. Is he array'd?

GENTLEMAN.

Ay, madam; in the heaviness of his sleep,
We put fresh garments on him.

PHYSICIAN.

Be by, good madam, when we do awake him;
I doubt not of his temperance.

CORDELIA.

Please you

Very well.

PHYSICIAN.

draw near. Louder the music there!

.CORDELIA.

Oh, my dear Father! Restoration hang

Thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss
Repair those violent harms, that my two sisters
Have in thy reverence made!

KENT.

Kind and dear princess!

CORDELIA.

Had you not been their father, these white flakes
Had challenged pity of them. Was this a face
To be exposed against the warring winds?
To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder?
In the most terrible and nimble stroke

Of quick, cross lightning?

Mine enemy's dog,

Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire. And wast thou fain, poor father,
To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn,
In short and musty straw? Alack! alack!
"Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once

Had not concluded all.. He wakes; speak to him.

PHYSICIAN.

Madam, do you; 'tis fittest.

CORDELIA.

How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?

LEAR.

You do me wrong to take me out o' the
Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire.

You are a spirit, I know; when did you die?

and passionate form. And that verse is not poetry, which does not, in some way or other, and in no inconsiderable degree, excite sentiments, images, and associations, kindred to those which would be awakened in the mind, presented to the eye, or inspired into the soul, by the well-proportioned statue of Minerva on her temple at Athens, by the low sounds of battle, booming from the sea-coast, along the banks of the Thames, when the British and Dutch fleets were engaged within hearing, but out of sight, of the metropolis, by the first view of his native land, and its nearer approach, till he beheld the smoke from his own chimney, to the mariner returning from a long voyage, — by the contemplation of the stars and the heavens, under all the aspects in which we have considered them, by the ineffable forecastings of Hope in the bosom of the lad, who thinks to himself, much oftener than he says it," When I am a man!"— and by the tender but sublime emotions of the man, looking back through the vista of years, and exclaiming, "When I was a child!" remembering only the delights of nutting, bird-nesting, fishing for minnows with a crooked pin, and going home at the holidays- but forgetting the tasks, the control, the self-denial, and the hard fare to which the schoolboy was subjected.

May I add, that "the Pleasures of Memory," and "the Pleasures of Hope," have had poets in our own language, whose strains, worthy of their themes, will not soon cease to animate the aspirations of youth, and hallow the recollection of age,

73

LECTURES ON POETRY.

N° III.

THE FORM OF POETRY.

I HAVE not pretended to define poetry; but if 1 have, in any moderate degree, succeeded in showing what is poetical in the various instances adduced, I cannot entirely have failed in what I designed, namely, to furnish a test whereby poetry itself may be detected wherever it exists in any species of literary composition. For it follows, that every subject which is not purely didactic or scientific, the mathematics, for example, and these only in their principles and processes, is capable of being treated poetically; or placed in such a light, and with such associations, natural or adventitious, as shall divest it of whatever is ordinary, gross, or mere detail, and clothe it with that ideal beauty, which is not the less real because it is only discernible at the nice distance, and in the peculiar point of view, which, by bringing out some latent excellence, or some happy incidence,

E

gives it a new and unexpected character. Hence, in conversation, in eloquence, in history,—indeed, in every kind of discourse, whether oral or written (at proper seasons),—the themes in hand may be poetically treated; that is, they may be exhibited in all their poetical relationships, and under those aspects may excite the corresponding emotions. But it is manifest, that such licence, in the several species of composition alluded to, and in fact in all prose, ought to be rarely employed; because poetical excitement is not required, and must be impertinent, when, instead of the passions being moved or the fancy delighted, the mind is to be instructed in abstract truths, informed of actual events, disciplined by close thinking, or entertained with moral, critical, or miscellaneous speculations. In novels and romances, poetic colouring, grouping, and invention, may be more frequently hazarded; but, even in these, the slightest excess is repulsive to good taste.

Verse and Prose.

In every language, barbarous or polished (I believe), there are two modes of utterance-speaking and singing; and two kinds of cadence in the collocation of syllables, corresponding to speech and song prose and verse. In the former, the rhythm or cadence is allowed to flow on, without interruption, into lengths and subdivisions of period, according to the requirements of the subject-matter; whereas in verse, whatever be the ductility or refractoriness of the thoughts, the strain is limited to cer