eulogium of the English language. I believe it is Aaron Hill who has said, "Modern English is the most appropriate language for poetry. Its abundance of monosyllables (to which some persons have had the rashness to object) renders it energetic, expressive, and concise. Its Greek and Latin derivatives have adorned it with a variety of cadences, and intermingled the excess of its energetic consonants with the melody of the liquid sounds of the vowels."

Here the objection arises of itself; and our tongue has the same defect. It is the rarity of the vowels which impairs the harmony of the English poetry. But our author continues: "the English language lends itself to rhyme, and it is adorned by it. It nevertheless treats it in the quality of a subject, instead of obeying it in that of a tyrant. It is grave, solemn, sweet, gentle, airy, or majestic. It exhibits by turns the lingering of complaint or pity, and the transports of more energetic passions. It is an inexhaustible Bazar, augmented by whatever is excellent in other tongues; but all that it seizes is so well adapted, that it may be compared to the bee which gathers honey from the juices of flowers."

I am not inclined to object to any part of this eulogium; on the contrary, I feel prompted to apply to the English language that which Madame de Staël said of all the Teutonic dialects. In quoting the poets whom I shall endeavour to make known, I shall be unfortunately obliged to discolour beautiful verses by translating them. I am

therefore, bound in conscience to apprise my readers of all which they will lose.

"L'esprit general des dialectes teutoniques, c'est l'independence: les ecrivains cherchent avant tout a transmettre ce qu'ils sentent. Ils diraient volontiers a la poesie comme Heloise a son amant :

"S'il y a un mot plus vrai, plus tendre, plus profond encore, pour exprimer ce que je prouye c'est celui que je veux choisir."

"Le souvenir des convenances de societé poursuit en France, le talent jusque dans ses emotions les plus intimes, et la crainte de ridicule est l'épeé de Damocles, qu'aucune fete de l'imagination ne peut faire oublier."*

But relinquishing the mode of employing the sentences of another work, in order to express my own conceptions, I will add, that what I admire in English poetry is its combination of oriental pomp, (natural to a people who constantly read the bible literally translated), with a commercial familiarity which has nothing of a revolting cast in a literary commonwealth, wherein the people have their representatives as well as the society of the drawing-rooms. This pomp, and this familiarity combine equally well with a certain metaphysical turn of thought, which we are somewhat prompted to consider as romantic mysticism, but which does not displease the taste of contemplative minds. I appeal to the admirers of the fine talents of M. de Lamertine. In general the English

* De L'Allemagne. Tome 1.

poets attach themselves more to a picturesque and free style of expression, and to the variety of contrasts rather than to the academic forms of style. Their muse may create words and borrow them from all the languages of the world: and this imparts to her an air of wildness which does not ill associate with her independent attractions. But it is time to investigate the style of each writer, since it would be difficult to fix upon a common standard.

LETTER LXIX.

TO M. COULMANN.

DESIRING to enter into some details respecting the English poets, our contemporaries, I cannot allow myself to do more than cast a rapid coup d'œil on those of the preceding ages. A critical history of English poetry is still a desideratum in France; nor is there any complete one in England. A more interesting study cannot well be imagined for us than that of tracing the progress of the sublimest of the arts among the rivals of our glory. This study is essentially connected with that of history, since the poetry of a people is the faithful mirror of

its manners and traditions.* It is not alone to the caprices of the imagination, and the impassioned feelings that she imparts incorporation; she is also the expression of its religious ideas, and its morals, modified and varied according to the politics and customs of each successive age. I may be here allowed appropriately to introduce some lines of the précis, which I have attempted to draw up on the subject of the history of English architecture, sculpture, and painting. Perhaps these redites will at least exhibit the intimate alliance between the beaux arts and manners, through the vicissitudes of every age.

The Norman minstrels introduced the fiction of romance into England; the classic muse of the Greeks and Romans soon quitted the seclusion of the convent; but she re-appeared in the midst of chivalrous manners and feudal institutions. Gothic rites were combined with her worship. The age of Elizabeth still exhibits that strange alliance of two classes of literature, and two opposite religions. If Shakspeare had appeared fifty years later, his genius might, perhaps, have been entirely subjected to the forms and rules of antiquity. Had he been endowed with an imagination a little less independent and capricious, he would have been no more than a pedantic author.

Dramatic compositions were especially in favour under this reign and that of James I. The other

*The mirror and the fashion of the times.-SHAKSPEARE.
M. de Bonald has translated these words by this celebrated phrase.

branches of the art were not, however, neglected. Drayton, Beaumont, and Fairfax have left tolerably illustrious names in heroic poetry; but Spencer is alone sufficient to create the glory of that epoch. The plan of his allegorical poem is certainly very imperfect; but, like a skilful painter, he causes the faults to pass unnoticed by the richness of his details, the grace of his principal strokes, and the magic of his colouring.

English literature, during this age, gathered the first fruits of the emancipation of thought effected by the reformation. Shakspeare, Bacon, Spencer, Sydney, and shortly after Hooker, Taylor, Barrow, Milton, Cudworth, and Hobbes, were vast, bold, creative, and original spirits. One can sympathize with the enthusiasm of Warton, when he approaches that golden age at which his history so unfortunately terminates. Campbell equally appreciates it with the feeling of a poet. "This was an age of loyalty, adventure, and generous emulation. The chivalrous character was softened by intellectual pursuits, while the genius of chivalry itself still lingered, as if unwilling to depart, and paid his last homage to a warlike and female reign. A degree of romantic fancy remained in the manners and superstitions of the people, and allegory might be said to parade the streets in their public pageants and festivities. Quaint and pedantic as those allegorical exhibitions might often be, they were, nevertheless, more expressive of erudition, ingenuity, and moral meaning, than they had been in former times. The philosophy of the highest