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.

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 grave:
Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound

CORDELIA.

Still, still far wide.

PHYSICIAN.

He's scarce awake; let him alone awhile.

LEAR.

Where have I been? Where am I? Fair day-light? I am mightily abused. — I should even die with pity, To see another thus. I know not what to say.

I will not swear these are my hands: — let's see,
I feel this pin prick. Would I were assured

Pray, do not mock me;

I am a very foolish, fond old man,

Fourscore and upward; and, to deal plainly,

I fear I am not in my perfect mind.

Methinks I should know you, and know this man;
Yet I am doubtful; for I am mainly ignorant

What place this is; and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night:
:- -Do not laugh at me,
For, as I am a man, I think this lady

To be my child Cordelia !

CORDELIA.

And so I am; I am."

It cannot be doubted that the whole of this scene is poetry of the highest proof; and yet, except in the passage referring to the storm (in which those wonderful lines descriptive of the lightning might have

been struck out by the flash itself), there is scarcely a phrase which could not have been employed in the humblest prose record of this conversation. Try the experiment: break up the rhythm, the only thing that constitutes the lines verse, and mark the issue: the same sentiments will remain, in nearly the same words; yet the latter being differently collocated, and wanting the inimitable cadence of such verse as none but Shakspeare has been able to construct, the charm will be broken, and the pathos subdued, though no mutilation could destroy it. How much the power of poetry depends upon the nice inflections of rhythm alone may be proved, by taking the finest passages of Milton or Shakspeare, and merely putting them into prose, with the least possible variation of the words themselves. The attempt would be like gathering up dewdrops, which appear jewels and pearls on the grass, but run into water in the hand; the essence and the elements remain, but the grace, the sparkle, and the form are gone.

But, independent of the metrical arrangement of syllables, there is an indescribable mannerism which distinguishes poetry from prose. This may be best apprehended from an example, -— it shall be an illustrious one, of the same subject, treated with consummate ability by the same hand, in story and in song. The latter, however, though the poetry is manifest in every clause, is not metrically rendered in the only language through which it can be presented here. I allude to the escape of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and their passage through the Red Sea. The history of this event is given in the

poetry; and verse becomes prosaic without the vigour and elasticity of prose. On either hand it is graceful, and even commendable, for masters in each kind of composition and if duly qualified, they are expressly licensed by the Court of Apollo - to sally out in quest of game into the preserves of each other, expecting and allowing reprisals; but such sportsmen, in the fields of literature, must be content with a day's shooting now and then upon a strange manor, and not make a winter's campaign of a transient diversion; otherwise, at the bar of criticism, they may be made ignominiously amenable for their trespasses.

Though I have not presumed to define poetry in the abstract, some conventional meaning, in which it it will be expedient hereafter to employ the term, is necessary here. Poetry, then, in the sense which I propose to have always in mind, is verse, in contradistinction to prose; and this is the sense (define and dispute as we may respecting the ethereal quality itself) in which every body uses the word. Poetry, to be complete, must be verse; and all the wit of man cannot supply a more convenient definition. Every thing else which may be insisted on as essential to good poetry is not peculiar to it, but may, with due discretion and happy effect, be incorporated in prose. Poetry cannot be separated from verse without becoming prose; nor can prose assume the form of verse without ceasing to be prose altogether. It is true that, according to common parlance, poetry in this sense may be prosaic, that is, it may have the ordinary qualities of prose, though it still retain its peculiar vehicle, ― metre; and prose may be poetical, that is,