affairs of men, with the eternal principles upon which the world is established and governed? We We know of nothing that can so fully and so beautifully adorn the ordinary path of life, as religion; because it imparts a spiritual essence to all our customary actions and pursuits, in which the slightest portion of good and evil is involved. We can imagine nothing to exceed in tenderness the merciful dealing of our heavenly Father with his erring and rebellious creatures; and as there is nothing to equal the perfection of the Divine character, so there is no sublimity comparable to that of his nature. Nor is this all. have said that poetry must come home to our own bosoms in order to be truly felt, and religion teaches us that we have a portion in everlasting life-an inheritance in eternity-that the hopes and the fears which stim. ulate our actions, the powers and the energies with which we are endowed, are not merely given us for the brief purposes of temporal existence-to play their little part upon this sublunary stage-to animate frail creatures that must perish in the tomb, but as links woven in with the great chain of being to be unfolded in a sphere without limitations, in a "world without end." We would not depreciate the freeness, and the fulness of the benefits of religion, by saying that the poet has a participation in their delights, beyond that enjoyed by others; because we reverently believe the nature of religion to be such as to adapt it to every understanding, render it available in every condition of humanity, and sustaining, and consolatory to every heart. But we have no hesitation in pronouncing it impossible for the poet to reach the same intellectual height, without the aid of religion, as when he soars on angels' wings up to the gates of heaven -to touch the strings of human feeling so powerfully, as when his hand is bathed in the pure fountains of eternal truth. How for instance would he expatiate upon beauty or excellence, if they had no archetypes in heaven? How would he describe the calamities which tear up the root of domestic peace, and agonize the tortured bosom, if neither prayer nor appeal were wrung out by such wretchedness, and directed to a spriritual power by whom the calamity might be averted? How would he solemnize the vow, or seal the blessing, or ratify the curse, without the sanction of divine authority? or how might his soul aspire to the sublime, without expanding its wings in the regions of eternity? No; there is nothing which the poet need reject in the religion of the Bible, or the religion of the heart; but rather let him seeki its benignant and inspiring influence, as a light to his genius, a stimulus to his imagination, a guide to his taste, a fire to his ardour, an impetus to his power, and a world thrown open to his enjoyment. IMPRESSION. HITHERTO We have bestowed our attention upon what essentially belongs to poetry, as a medium for receiving and imparting the highest intellectual enjoyment. We now come to the qualifications for composing poetry-the fundamental characteristics of the poet. All persons of cultivated understanding, endowed with an ordinary share of sensibility, are more or less capable of feeling what is poetical; but that all, even amongst those who attempt it, are not equal to writing poetry, is owing to their deficiency in some or all of the following qualifications:-capacity of receiving deep impressions - imagination power and taste. These qualifications we shall now consider separately, beginning with the first, which for want of a better term, I have called impression. - We have already seen how poetry derives its existence from the association of ideas, as well as how such associations must arise out of impressions, and it follows as a natural consequence, that if this be necessary to enable a man to feel poetry, it is still more so to qualify him for writing it. Impressions are, in fact, the secret fund from whence the poet derives his most brilliant thoughts-the material with which he works, the colouring in which he dips his pencil when he paints the inexhaustible fountain to which he applies for the simplicity of nature, and the force of truth. We have before observed, that it is im possible to trace a great proportion of our associations to their original source, because we cannot recall the impressions made upon our mind in infancy; but we know that in that early stage of life. when we were most alive to sensation, all the impressions which we did receive, must have been connected with pain or pleasure, and that hence arise preference and antipathy, hope and fear, love and hatred. We have the authority of Dr. Johnson, as well as that of our own observation for asserting, that children are not naturally grateful, and from the history of man in a barbarous state, we learn that he is not naturally honest. The reason is, that both the infant and the savage have received pleasure from self-indulgence, but not from the exercise of any moral duty; and therefore it is evident that greater maturity of mind is necessary for the formation of those ideas which arise out of impressions made by the social intercourse of mankind. Yet in a very early state of existence we are capable of deriving more simple ideas from impressions whose strength and durability constitute the riches of the poet. Perhaps the first of this description is, the idea of power, naturally arising in the mind of a child, from the bodily force by which its most violent attempts at resistance are easily overcome. But in order to be deeply impressed with this idea, it is necessary that we should have witnessed some manifestation of power beyond the reach of man's utmost capabilities, and this we behold in the tremendous violence of the winds, the rage of the ocean, the cataract, or the volcano. fields-and so on, until at last the idea of number loses all limitation, and the child conceives for the first time, that of infinity. From the contemplation of a widely extended view, we have unquestionably derived our notion of space. Why this idea, arising out of an incalculable number of objects, in themselves ordinary and familiar, should obtain the character of sublime, it is not easy to determine, unless it be that the same expansion of mind is as necessary to receive these two impressions, as to contemplate the nature of unlimited power, which is universally accompanied wh sensations of awe, and sometimes of terror. Duration is generally the last which the mind receives of these impressions, and when extended to eternity, it is the most important. This idea does not arise like that of infinity, from objects of calculation, nor like power, from any connexion with impulse or sensation; but steals quietly upon the mind from deep and earnest meditation, sometimes upon objects which have existed from time immemorial, sometimes upon those which will exist for ages yet to come. We gaze upon the ivied walls of the ruined edifice, whose very structure bears evidence of the different manners, customs and occupations of those who once surrounded the now deserted hearth. We walk into the spacious banqueting-room whose walls once echoed to the songs of festivity or triumph, and there the bat holds nightly converse with the owl. We listen to the rush of the evening breeze amongst the deep dark foliage of the firmly-rooted The idea of number multiplied to infinity trees, which have arisen out of seeds scatcomes next, and this it is reasonable to sup- tered by the wandering winds amongst the pose may originate in the contemplation of desolation of fallen magnificence. Even then the stars. We may not be able to recall to the pile must have been a ruin, and we see our remembrance the time when our own by the broken pillar whose base is buried in minds were first awakened to a conception the earth, what an accumulation of matter of the splendour of the heavens; but we time must have strewn around it, to uise have an opportunity of observing in others the level of the surrounding earth, from its the rapt and astonished gaze with which foundation to its centre. We look through they first regard the stars in reference to the wide yawning aperture that seems to their number, and how the opening mind have been a richly-ornamented window, expands as one after another of these and there, where the gallant knight once nightly suns rises, and dawns upon it-first laid his conquering sword at the feet of seen in separate points of light-then in smiling beauty, where the minstrel tuned his groups-then multitudes-then fields span-lyre, and sung the praise of heroes now forgotgled all over with shining glory-then wider ten, where the snow white hand of the court ly dame was wont to rest as she looked forth upon the sloping lawn, marking the long shadows of the stately trees, of which neither root nor branch remain; now the rude nettle rears his head, the loose bramble waves in the wind that whistles through the broken arch, birds of dark omen, inhabitants of desolation, pass to and fro on dusky wing, and the loathsome toad, and poisonous adder creep in amongst the shattered fragments of sculptured stone and mouldering marble, to find themselves a hiding place and a home. As we contemplate all this, the mind is naturally carried back to the time when these emblems of decay had their beginning. We think that there were ruins then; that ages still more remote had theirs; and thus as we travel through the dim obscurity of pre-existent time, our retrospective view at length fades and is lost in the sublime idea | of uncreated power. Or we look onward from the present time -on-on, to a mysterions futurity, when we and ours shall be forgotten. We cannot build up without reflecting that there is also a time to pull down, and in laying the foundation of an edifice, or in witnessing its erection, it is natural to ask, "Where shall I be when of these stones not one remains upon another?" We plant the sapling oak, and watch it year by year, slowly extending in its circumference and its height, and we think of the time when children now unborn shall play beneath its shade, when we shall have been gathered to the only place of earthly rest, and when the very soil in which that tree is planted, shall have become the property of those who never heard our names. It is by extending such reflections as these ad infinitum, that imagination passes from small to great, from infancy to age, and from time to eternity; and thus we form all the idea that we are capable of conceiving of that which has no beginning, and can never end. There is one other mental conceptionthe idea of a God, intimately connected with those here specified, which mankind have endeavoured by every means, natural and artificial, reasonable and absurd, pleasing and terrible, to introduce into the mind, before the mind is prepared for receiving it; and hence follow the unworthy notions, the irreverent language, and the low attributes, by which the majesty of the Divine Being is too frequently insulted. If we might so speak without presumption, we should say, that God, jealous of his own honour, had chosen in this instance, sometimes to baffle the ingenuity of man, by first throwing open to the human mind, the contemplation of his attributes, and then by his own appointed means, inscrutable to our perceptions, concentrating them all in one sublime and ineffable thought, which flashes through the brain like a quickening fire, and bursts upon the soul with the light of life. I would still be understood to speak poetically. I know that there are modes of reasoning by which men of sound understanding must almost necessarily arrive at a belief in the existence of a God. But rational evidence, and the evidence of sensation, are two different things. We often assent to facts of which we do not feel the truth. And it is this feeling as it gives vitality to belief, that I would call the impression from which we derive the most lasting and distinct idea of a God. Yet at the same time that I speak of such impressions as evidence, which the Divine Being vouchsafes to give us of his own existence, I speak of them only as corroborating evidence following that of reason, and of no sort of value where they directly contradict it. Separate from the mental process by which the idea is first conceived, this evidence refers rather to the state of the mind as a recipient; and such impressions as are here spoken of poetically, may therefore, exist independent of rational conviction. Without such conviction, however, they are liable to lead to the most egregious and fatal errors, but with it they establish truth, and render it indelible. It is of much less importance to the poet, than to the philosopher, whether impressions of this abstract nature, arise out of the immediate operation of divine power, or from a combination of conclusions previously drawn, which the mind is often able to make use of without being aware of their existing in any rational or definite form, and which we can never fully understand, unless the study of the human mind should be reduced to a practical science. The poet may often use expressions which accord with the former notion, just as he would describe the hand of Omnipotence covering the mountains with eternal snow, but let us hope that he is wise enough seriously to entertain the latter; and if sometimes he makes a sudden transition from effects to causes, without regarding the intermediate space, let us do him the justice to believe that it is from the very sublimity of his own genius, which stoops not to take cognizance of means, but rather in searching out the principles of sensation, thought, and action, plunges at once into the fountain of life, and refers immediately to the great first Cause. Thus the full and entire conviction of the being of a God, may come upon us precisely as God pleases, and force itself upon our hearts in the way which he sees meet to appoint. Galen is said to have received this impression from unexpectedly meeting in his solitary walks with a human skeleton; and just as easily may the infidel be reclaimed from his ignorance by any other means adapted to the peculiar tone and temper of his own mind-by the chanting of a hymn, or the peal of rolling thunderby the prayer of an innocent child, or the destruction of a powerful nation-by the gathering of the plenteous harvest or the desolation of the burning desert-by the faded beauty of a falling leaf, or the splendour of the starry heavens-by the secret anguish of the broken spirit, or by accumulated honours and unmerited enjoymentby the blessings of the poor, or the denunciations of the powerful-by the visitations of divine love, or by the terrors of eternal judgment-in short, by the natural sensations of pain or pleasure, arising from any of the causes immediate or remote, by which the attributes of Deity may be forced upon the perceptions of the soul, and concentrated in the idea of one indivisible, and omnipotent Being. Subsequent to the idea of a God, arise distinct perceptions of moral duty-of what we owe to him as the creator and preserver of the world, as well as the founder of the laws by which our lives ought to be regulated. We have before observed that, immediate self-gratification is the earliest motive upon which we act, but we now become sensible that this motive must give place to others of a more remote and abstract nature. With the first impressions of pain and pleasure, we learned to separate evil from good. We now learn that there is a deeper evil to which pleasure is frequently the prelude, and a higher good which can sometimes only be attained by passing through a medium of pain. Our first strong impressions of a moral nature are of beauty and excellence. We should call beauty merely physical, did it not comprehend what belongs to fitness and harmony, as well as to colour and form. In all that is exquisite in art we are struck with the idea of beauty in connexion with others; as, with all that is magnificent in nature we combine with the same idea, those of motion or sound, form or colour, light or shade, splendour or majesty, utility or power; but we are perhaps never more impressed with mere beauty than when contemplating a flower-gorgeous in its colour as the resplendent heavens-pure in its whiteness as the winter's snow. The eye that can gaze without admiration upon a flower, deserves to be prematurely dim; for what is there on earth more intensely beautiful! and yet how frail! so that scarcely does the breath of praise pass over it, than its delicate petals begin to droop, and its stem that once stood proudly in the field or the garden, bends beneath the fading glory which it bears. Yet the same flower, supported by the hand of nature, and sheltered beneath her maternal wing, burst forth in the wilderness, where we are too delicate to tread, opened its gentle eye full underneath the sunbeams from which we turn away, rested on the thorns which startle us at every step, poured forth its odours upon the blast from which we shrink, drank in the dews which chill our coarser natures, endured the darkness of the solitary night from which we fly with terror, and derived its nourishment from the common earth, which we spurn, until we learn to value the latest friend whose arms are open to receive us. Excellence, like beauty, is of kinds so various, and degrees so numerous, that it is only by a combination of impressions that we arrive at the idea of excellence in its abstract nature; but when once formed, it con stitutes the point of reference, and the climax of all that we admire and love; and therefore it is of the utmost importance to the poet, that his standard of excellence should not only be acknowledged as such by the enlightened portion of mankind, but that it should be as high as the human mind can reach, and at the same time so deeply graven upon his own heart, that neither ambition, hope, nor fear, nor any other passion or af fection to which he is liable, can obliterate the impression, or supplant it by another. All our ideas of intellectual as well as moral good are of a complex nature, arising not so much out of impressions made by things themselves, as by their relations, associations, and general fitness or unfitness one to another; hence it follows that the mind must be naturally qualified for receiving decided impressions of simple ideas, so as afterwards to make use of them, in drawing clear deductions, by comparing them one with another, and combining them to gether. How, for instance, would the poet describe the general influence of evening twilight, if he had never really felt its tranquillizing power as it extends over the external world, and reaches even to the heart? or how would he be able to convey a clear idea of the virtue of gratitude, if he had never known the expansion of generous feeling, the ardent hope of imparting happiness, and the disappointment of finding that happiness unappropriated, or received with contempt? That there are men of common perceptions, who "travel from Dan to Beersheba," saying that all is barren, and that there are men of more than ordinary talent, who, deficient neither in imagination, power, nor taste, are yet unable to write poetry, is evidently owing to their want of capability for receiving lively impressions; for wherever such impressions exist, with sufficient imagination to arrange and combine them so as to create fresh images, with power to embody them in forcible words, and taste to render those words appropriate and pure, either poetry itself, or highly poetical prose, must be the natural language of such a mind. We should say that opportunity for receiving agreeable impressions, as well as capacity for receiving them deeply, was essential to the poet, were it possible that any human being, even of moderately cultivated understanding, commanding the use of language, and acquainted with the principles of taste, should have been so entirely excluded from all contemplation of what is admirable, both in the external world and in human nature, as to have conceived no just idea either of physical or moral beauty. It is however of immense importance to the poet that he should have formed an early and intimate acquaintance with subjects regarded as poetical by the unanimous opinion of mankind-that he should have gazed upon the sunset until his very soul was rapt in the blaze of its golden glorythat he should have lived in the quiet smile of the placid moon, and looked up to the stars of night, until he forgot his own identity, and became like a world of light amongst the shining host-that he should have watched the silvery flow of murmuring water, until his anxious thoughts of present things were lulled to rest, and the tide of memory rolled on, pure, and clear, and harmonious, as the woodland stream-that he should have listened to the glad voices of the birds of spring, until his own was mingled with the universal melody of nature, and strains of gratitude and joy burst forth from his overflowing heart-that he should have seen the woods in their summer vesture of varied green, and felt how beautiful is the garment of nature-that he should have found the nest of the timid bird, and observed how tender its maternal love, and how wonderful is the instinct with which the frailest creatures are endowed-that he should have stood by the wave-beaten shore when a galley with full sails swept along the foaming tide, and impressed upon the tablet of his heart a perfect picture of majesty and grace-that he should have witnessed the tear of agony exchanged for the smile of hope, and acknowledged-feelingly acknowledged, how blessed are the tender offices of mercy-that he should have heard the cry of the oppressed, and seen the breaking of their chains, with the inmost chords of his heart's best feelings thrilling at the shout of liberty-that he should have trembled beneath the desolating storm, and hailed the opening in the tempestuous clouds |