Nothing is more certain, than that our literature is at present highly corrupt. It is an incident to the stage of society,' at which we have arrived; and whoever doubts it, has so far vitiated his taste, as to be insensible to the beauty of simplicity and chaste colouring. Every thing is now got up to use a vulgar and technical phrase), for effect! All is bought; and the publisher pays in proportion as the article is striking, and full of glare! It is boasted, that these Critics lead the public taste: they are its slaves :

and lick the dust

of its heels! They delight to foment its prejudices; and pander to its degrading appetites.

I know not that Criticism has taken so caustic and sophisticated a character in any other part of Europe, as in England. But the popular literature in all tends to the same extravagance and hyperbole. This is exemplified in Mad. de Stael, who was gifted with a very extraordinary force of mind, but whose style and thoughts surely much abound in factitious vehemence and laboured grandeur; and whose invention does not appear to me to have been her primary quality.

nor

What is wise and true, leaves us in a state of calm pleasure, and gentle reflection it neither exhausts, satiates. Oratory ought to chastise itself by the models of the more sedate operations of the closet but the closet now borrows the heat and intemperance of the senate and the forum. Criticism is in the hands of the turbulent agitators of faction, and practical society.

Of any age, the number of Literati whose memories survive them, is small. Many of their names may be inscribed in the voluminous Biographies, which are loaded with the registry of obscure men but there they lie buried and unnoticed.

All those secondary talents, which borrowing the ideas of others, adapt them to the subject that occupies the attention of the hour, and thus obtain a false interest to efforts which possess no original and enduring merit, soon fade from the public observation; and if, when the occasion is past, we recur to these performances, we are astonished that they could ever have excited even a temporary notice,

So long as Literature is open to all these adscititious avenues to Fame, the temple will be filled with false aspirants, who will occupy the places, that ought to be held by Genius and unaffected Learning.

Among the rarest merits of writing is simplicity. It requires a native abundance, or an unfailing native strength, which few have ever possessed. Artifice is used, when the funds of Nature are deficient. As long as the thought prevails over the mind, the dress of language is little considered it is the form in its own naked force, that occupies the mental eye. But penury of conception or sentiment often resorts to the trick of verbiage. I could mention authors, some of whose popular poems are nothing but a pretty dance of words. They convey neither sentiments nor ideas. But never yet was there intrinsic merit in a passage, where an author was not sincere in the sentiments which he expressed.

Though the operations of Genius and of Memory are often confounded, no two powers can be more unlike in their natures and effects. One is cold as the borrowed light of the Moon the other has all the genial and creative warmth of the Sun. One relates an impression from the recollection of its signs the other from its visionary presence.

Useful as the Memory is in bringing forward and arran

ging what exists, it can add nothing to the existing stores. It is by the lamp of Fancy that we penetrate to the altar of the heart; and behold its rites and its movements irradiated before us. It is thus that we illustrate the science of morals; and advance the noblest of all philosophy.

II.

ON THE PREVAILING ENGLISH OPINIONS ON POETRY.

Ir may perhaps be asserted, that there has been little pure, simple, and consistent Criticism on Poetry in England since the death of Addison, more than a century ago. Almost all periodical Criticism, being conducted by those who have worked on it as a task, has been principally under the direction of artificial systems, of one kind or another. It requires so much less native taste, and native acuteness, to discover this technical merit, that this preference is the inevitable result in those who are drawn to the subject by constraint rather than by inclination.

The question regarding the comparative genius of Pope, which Joseph Warton brought before the Public nearly seventy years past, has been again revived and with some advantage in carrying back the inquiry into the first principles of this Art. Pope is altogether an Author, through whom the question may be fairly discussed.

I shall not begin with a definition of Poetry, because,

as Johnson says, definitions are dangerous; and as it would commence with a formality, which on the present occasion I am desirous to avoid.

It is the idea of mystery; the supposition that it involves something distinct in its nature from the truths which are proper for prose, that leads to all the erroneous opinions, and all the corrupt taste on this subject. No rational man can doubt that Pope was a great poet the only question is, whether all his poetry was of an high class; and whether the multitude do not estimate him by his worst rather than his best productions!

Narrowness is the sin of the English taste in Poetry: but not the only one! It loves extravagance, and false glitter; and mistakes distortion for genius! So that it not only excludes a great deal of the best from the character of true poetry; but what it admits is mostly false !

It may not be difficult to account for this, if we look to the manner in which the public mind is led - but it would perhaps be invidious.

That, which surprises me is, that a single age can consider itself to have the fate of the fortunate Beings who for the first time have come to the true light! If it is correct, almost all that has been deemed genius and poetry from the time of the Greeks and Romans, through all the scholars of Italy and the rest of Europe at the Revival of Learning, down almost to the close of the last Century, must be proscribed! We must take the Universal Biography, and erase the names of more than nine tenths, of those who stand recorded there as Poets ! A mind, not of overweening conceit, would hesitate at this! It would pause to enquire, if our predecessors are not as likely to have been right as ourselves; it would doubt, if the principle could be accurate, which should exclude so much pleasure, and so much instruction it would

seek for some broader limits, and some essences of a more enlarged nature!

A small degree of ingenuity would suffice to discover them. Poetry is nothing more confined, than a forcible and harmonious representation of the lively movements of a powerful mind! It is a picture : yet a picture, not of matter; but of the mental impression, whether of matter, or idea or sensation; or all united!

Mere versification does not constitute poetry, because the thought may be trite, or false; and cold and lifeless. But a moral axiom, when conceived with energy, and expressed with force, is poetry, if conveyed in rhythmical language! Some of Shakespeare's finest passage are of this kind and this may be observed also of Spenser, : Milton Cowley, and Dryden! In truth, in the walks of Poetry, no one ever continued the favourite of ages, whose productions did not comprehend the merits of a moral poet! INVENTION is said to be the first quality of Poetry But not the invention, which

Humano capiti cervicem jungit equinam

Undique collatis membris.

2

On what is the species of Invention, which entitles the possessor to a place in the first class of Genius; to what extent it is necessary; from what causes it arises ; and wherein it may be dispensed with; the progress of this Paper will develop my opinions.

The radical mistake in the fashionable mode of thinking upon this subject, is the assumption that that part of the Intellect, distinguished as Understanding, or Reason, is no active or necessary quality in the production of good poetry. The Understanding, without fancy or sensibility, is not sufficient but still it is an indispensible ingredient. Truth is as much the foundation of poetry, as of Philoso