That novelty should have been the least sought for in that very walk which might be expected to yield it in the greatest abundance, will, doubtless, appear extraordinary. Yet, if it be admitted that the grand and beautiful objects which nature every where profusely throws around us, are the most obvious store of new materials to the poet, it must also be confessed that it is the store which of all others he has the most sparingly touched. That ingenious critic, Mr. Warton, once remarked that 66 every painter of rural beauty since the time of Theocritus (except Thomson) has copied his images from him, without ever looking abroad into the face of nature themselves."* If this be not strictly just, it is at least certain that supineness and servile imitation have prevailed to a greater degree in the description of nature, than in any other part of poetry. The effect of this has been, that descriptive poetry has degenerated into a kind of phraseology, consisting of combinations of words which have been so long coupled together, that, like the hero and his epithet in Homer, they are become inseparable companions. It is amusing, under some of the most common heads of description in a poetical dictionary, to observe the wonderful sameness of thoughts and expressions in passages culled from a dozen different authors. An ordinary versifier seems no more able to conceive of the Morn without rosy fingers and dewy locks, or Spring without flowers and showers, loves and groves, than of any of the heathen deities without their usual attributes. Even in poets of a higher order, the hand of a copyist may be traced much oftener than the strokes of an observer. Has a picturesque circumstance been imagined by some one of an original genius? Every succeeding composer iutroduces it on a similar occasion. He, perhaps, improves, amplifies, and in some respect varies the idea; and in so doing may exhibit considerable taste and ingenuity; but still he contents himself with an inferior degree of merit, while the materials are all before him for attaining the highest; and fails of gratifying that natural shirst after novelty which may be supposed peculiarly to incite the reader of poetry.

The following example of this propensity to imitation, taken from writers of distinguished character will aptly illustrate what has been advanced,

Dedication of Warton and Pitt's Virgil.

Shakspeare, in Macbeth, thus paints the approach of night.

To black Hecate's summons

The shard-born beetle with his drowsy hums
Hath rung night's yawning peal.

The same circumstance is represented in these lines of Milton's Lycidas.

Both together heard

What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night.

Gray's Elegy in a Country Church-yard next offers the beautiful line

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,

Lastly, Collin's in his Ode to Evening, exhibits the same object more minutely,

Or where the beetle winds

His small, but sullen horn,

As oft he r.ses midst the twilight path,

Agairst the pilgrim borne in heedless hum.

Several other instances might be adduced of the introduction of the same circumstance into an evening landscape; but as they are chiefly to be met with in pieces of inferior reputation, it would be superfluous to particularize them. In all the preceding quotations the image is employed with propriety, and represented with elegance; but its successive adoption by so many different writers sufficiently evinces what I meant to deduce from it, a real want of variety in poetical imagery, proceeding from a scarcity of original observations of nature.

The want of variety and novelty is not, however, the only defect of those poets who have occasionally introduced the description of natural objects. It is no less common to find their descriptions faint, obscure, and ill characterized; the properties of things mistaken, and incongruous parts employed in the composition of the same picture. This is owing to a too cursory and general survey of objects, without exploring their minuter distinctions and mutual relations; and is only to be rectified by accurate and attentive observation, conducted upon somewhat of a scientific plan. As the artist who has not studied with anatomical precision, and examined the proportions of every limb, both with respect to its own several parts, and the whole system, cannot produce a just and harmonious representation of the human

§ The cockchafer; the insect meant in all the four passages.

frame; so the descriptive poet, who does not habituate himself to view the several objects of nature minutely, and in comparison with each other, must ever fail in giving his picture the congruity and animation of real life.

As these defects constantly attend every writer of inferior rank, nothing would be easier than to multiply instances of them.

A FADED DOWAGER OF FASHION. THEODORE HOOK, in his Sayings and Doings, remarks-"There is no object in all the study of humanity more striking, more awfully instructive than a faded Dowager of Fashion! Far be it from me to class under this sweeping denomination the many excellent mothers, the admirable women who so brightly adorn their sex and the peerage of our country. The thing I mean is one, who, weak in intellect but strong in vanity, has had the misfortune to be born so beautiful as to believe her mind a secondary object hardly worth the cultivating,-whose peach-bloom cheeks, whose coral lips, and flowing hair, whose graceful form and sylph-like figure, have caught the heart-if heart he have-of some man, her equal in rank, in fortune, and in intellect,-who, as the careless wife, has sparkled and dazzled through her glittering career, and after a married life of thirty years finds herself the widowed mother of a race of girls, her very counparts in mind and person, in trickings and manoeuvrings for whom, she has had just sufficient cunning to succeed. They in their turn marry, and she is left at sixty to her own resources. Where are they? Her ideas of comfort centre not in home; and if they did, what home has she? Her daughters are mixing in the world, which she should make a resolution to leave-Society is with her an assembly of hundreds; her acquaintances are numerous, her friends scant: religion with her, means the pos

session of a well-curtained, well-cushioned, well-carpeted pew in a fashionable chapel; her notions of charity are comprised in an annual donation or two to a lying-in hospital, or a female penitentiary: but without a crowd she dies; and thus, to exist, she risks her life night after night by the disreputable exposure of her aged person, bedizened with the ornaments which graced her figure in its youth, and after feverishly enduring the loudlywhispered satire, and the ill-concealed laughter of the next generation, who stand round about her, she sinks into her crimson velvet coffin, without creating a sensation, except perhaps in the breast of her next heir, who, by her departure from this world for one of which she has never thought, is relieved from the painful necessity of paying her Ladyship a jointure.

ADVICE TO THE FAIR.
THO' outward charms by all admir'd,
A transient pleasure must impart,
Yet brighter beauties are required,
To bind in lasting chains the heart.
As winter's hand each blooming flow'r
Deprives of ev'ry beauteous hue;
So time with never-failing pow'r,
External beauties will subdue.
The ruby lip, the sparkling eye,
The glowing cheek, the bosom white,
With which the rose and lily vie,
Will shortly fail to yield delight.
But calm good-nature, gentle truth,
With sense and sweet discretion join'd,
Will heighten every charm of youth,
And e'en in age affection bind.

Then strive, ye nymphs, with earnest care,
Each mental beauty to attain,

Since those will make you doubly.fair,
And love, and fix'd affection, gain.

A GERMAN Dramatic author published a play, called The Benevolent Cut-throat, in which he had a most felicitous idea,-that of the moon fainting away. This is certainly an improvement on Shakspeare, who had a pretty knack at writing, for he only makes the moon sleep.

STEAM.

IMAGINE the surprise of an Englishman coming to London (from a tour in Terra incognita) in the year 1843! By that time, the adoption of the new plan will be universal, and every description of wheel carriage will be propelled by the aid of steam. What an interesting change will have taken place in the aspect and arrangements of the metropolis! Fuel, not horses, being the medium of impulse, the property of all public vehicles will naturally have changed hands; the Golden Cross, the Bulland-Mouth, and the Cross Keys, will have ceased to exist; and the stage coaches will be found setting off probably from the magazines of our leading coal merchants-from Old Barge House, Broken Wharf, Custom House Quay, and the dark arch under the Adelphi. Then the change in the detail of the road will seem very whimsical at first. Instead of calling, as now, for fresh horses at a post town, we shall have only to call for a fresh scuttle of coals: our coachmen (by the way, must give up white hats) will flourish huge pokers instead of long whips; a very steep hill, which would now require an extra pair of nags, will then be met with the assistance of an extra pair of bellows; and, as no thief would touch a steam coach for fear of burning his fingers, the guard, to prevent accidents, will carry a wet mop rather than a pistol. There would be some difficulties, no doubt, in the infancy of these arrangements. The turnpike acts, for instance, would in most cases be eluded; and the post horse duty would be likely to become unproductive. Impositions, however, as well as improvements would be likely to take place as the system advanced. Any smoke which proceeded from the furnace of the vehicle would, converted into gas light, serve in time to direct its progress. The heat of the fire might, perhaps, be a little inconvenient in summer; but (to outside passengers especially) in winter it would be an advantage. And, with respect to the possibility of an occasional blow up, there can be no doubt, that as soon as the scheme gets into practice, any one of the assurance companies, for a reasonable premium, will guarantee, at per mile, the lives of steam passengers; and such insurance might either be made matter of separate contract by the individual, or it might be done generally by the coach proprietor, and included in the fare.