longer turn away with indifference from the music of the harp or the viol. There is one kind of music, which, above all others, I would make the test of their capabilitythe music of the voices of children. If they remain unmoved by that, the case would be fully proved against them, and there would appear no reason why sentence should not be immediately pronounced by declaring

them

"Fit for treason's stratagems and spoils."

There is no sound that salutes us in our daily and familiar walk, more affecting than the voice of infancy in its happiest moods. It reminds us, with its fairy tones of silvery music, at once of what we are, and what we might have been; of all that we have lost in losing our innocence, of the flowers that still linger upon the path of life, of the sweetness that may yet be extracted from affection and simplicity, from tenderness and truth; and of the cherub choir that sing around the eternal throne.

The poetry of village sounds, when heard by the evening wanderer, scarcely needs description here. The clap of the distant gate, the bark of the faithful watch-dog, the bleat of the folded sheep, the faintly distinguished shout of some victorious winner in the village game, the cry of the child under the evening discipline, and the hum of many voices, telling of the toils of the past, or of the coming day, are all poetical when they come floating upon the dewy air; though each in itself is discordant, and such as we should shun a nearer acquaintance with. Yet such is their intimate and powerful association with the calm of evening's hour, the close of labor, and the refreshment of repose, that heard in the distance they are mellowed into music, and thus become symbolical of happiness and peace.

As if to multiply our sources of enjoyment, and allure the mind onward from sensible to spiritual things, echo seems to have assumed her mysterious place in the great plan of creation. As shadow in the visible world is more productive of poetical associations than objects which possess the qualities of substance, light, and colour, so is echo in the region of sound. It speaks to us in a language so faithful, yet so airy and spiritual in

its tones, that we willingly adopt the fanciful conception of the poet, as the most natural and satisfactory manner of accounting for the existence of a being so sensitive and ethereal, as to be perpetually speaking in the language of the woods and waterfalls, yet never seen, even for a moment, in the depth of the cool forest, listening to the melody of the winds, or stooping over the side of the crystal fountain to catch the silvery fall of its liquid music. How could a being of intelligence be made so faithful, but by love; or so timid, but by suffering? And from these two common circumstances of love and sorrow, the poet has drawn materials for that beautiful and fantastic story, of echo sighing herself away, until her whole existence became embodied in a sound—a sound of such exquisite but mysterious sweetness, wandering like a swift intelligence from hill to hill, from cave to mountain crag, from waterfall to woodland, that he must be destitute indeed of all pretentions to poetic feeling, who can listen to the voice of echo without connecting it in idea with the language of unseen spirits.

As in the material world every visible object has its shadow, and every sound its echo, so in accordance with the great harmonious system of creation, no single idea is presented to the mind without its immediate affinity and connection with others; nor are we capable of any sensation, either painful or pleasurable, that does not owe half its weight and power to sympathy.

Such is the vital character of the principle of poetry, that touch but the simplest flower which blooms in our fields or our meadows, and the life-giving spell widens on every side, including in its charmed circle the dews, and the winds, light, form, and loveliness, the changes of the seasons, and an endless variety of associations, each having its own circle, widening also, and extending for ever without bound or limitation. Strike but a chord of music, and the sound is echoed and re-echoed, bearing the mind along with it, far, far away, into the regions of illimitable space; examine but one atom extracted from the unfathomable abyss of past time, apply it to the torch of poetry, and a flame is kindled which lights up the past, the present, and the future, as with the golden

radiance of an eternal and unextinguishable fire.

To speak of the poetry of one particular thing, is consequently like expatiating upon the sweetness of a single note of music. It is the combination and variety of these notes that charm the ear; just as it is the spirit of poetry pervading the natural world, extracting sweetness, and diffusing beauty, with the rapidity of thought, the power of intelligence, and the energy of truth, which constitutes the poetry of life.

THE POETRY OF LANGUAGE.

LANGUAGE, as the medium of communication, has the same relation to the ear and the mind, as painting has to the mind and the eye. The poetry of language, like that of painting, consists in producing upon the organs of sense such impressions as are most intimately connected with refined and intellectual ideas; and it is to language that we appeal for the most forcible and obvious proofs that all our poetic feelings owe their existence to association.

The great principle therefore to be kept in view by the juvenile poet is the scale (or the tone, as the popular phrase now is) of his associations; and this is of importance not only as regards his subjects, but his words: for let the theme of his muse be the highest which the human mind is capable of conceiving, and the general style of his versification tender, graceful, or sublime, the occasional occurrence of an ill-chosen word may so arrest the interest of the reader, by the sudden intervention of a different and inferior set of associations as entirely to destroy the charm of the whole.

Without noticing words individually, we are scarcely aware how much of their sense is derived from the relative ideas which custom has attached to them. Take for example the word chariot, and supply its place in any poetical passage with a one-horse chaise, or even a coach and six; and the hero who had been followed by the acclamations of a wondering people, immediately descends to the level of a common man, even while he travels more commodiously.

Dean Swift has a treatise on the "art of sinking in poetry," to which curious additions might be made by striking out any appropriate expression from a fine passage, and, without materially altering the sense, supplying its place with some vulgar, familiar, or otherwise ill-chosen word. For example,—

"Come forth, sweet spirit, from thy cloudy cave." Come out, &c.

"But hark! through the tast flashing lightning of war, "What steed of the desert flies frantic afar." What steed of the desert now gallops afar. "We shall hold in the air a communion divine." We shall hold in the air conversation divine. "Around my ivy'd porch shall spring "Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew." Each fragrant flower that sups the dew. "To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care "Her faded form: she bow'd to taste the wave, "And died."

She stoop'd to sip the wave.

"We thought as we hollowed his narrow bed, "And smooth'd down his lonely pillow,

"That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,

"And we far away on the billow."

"We thought as we hollowed his little bed, "And dug out his lonely pillow,

"That the foe and the stranger would walk o'er his head, &c.

"Be strong as the ocean that stems

"A thousand wild waves on the shore."
Nine hundred wild waves on the shore.

"This life is all chequered with pleasures and woes." This life is all dappled, &c.

There can scarcely be a more beautiful and appropriate arrangement of words, than in the following stanza from Childe Harold.

"The sails were fill'd, and fair the light winds blew, "As glad to waft him from his native home; "And fast the white rocks faded from his view, "And soon were lost in circumambient foam. "And then, it may be of his wish to roam "Repented he, but in his bosom slept "The silent thought, nor from his lips did come "One word of wail, whilst others sate and wept, "And to the reckless gales unmanly moaning kept."

Without committing a crime so heinous as that of entirely spoiling this verse, it is easy to alter it so as to bring it down to the level of ordinary composition; and thus we may illustrate the essential difference between poetry and mere versification.

The sails were trimm'd and fair the light winds blew,
As glad to force him from his native home,
And fast the white rocks vunish'd from his view,
And soon were lost amid the circling foam:

And then, perchance, of his fond wish to roam
Repented he, but in his bosom slept

The wish, nor from his silent lips did come
One mournful word, whilst others sat and wept,
And to the heedless breeze their fruitless moaning kept.

It is impossible not to be struck with the harmony of the original words as they are placed in this stanza. The very sound is graceful, as well as musical; like the motion of the winds and waves, blended with the majestic movement of a gallant ship. "The sails were filled" conveys no association with the work of man; but substitute the word trimmed, and you see the busy sailors at once. The word "waft" follows in perfect unison with the whole of the preceding line, and maintains the invisible agency of the "light winds;" while the word "glad" before it, gives an idea of their power as an unseen intelligence. "Fading" is also a happy expression, to denote the gradual obscurity and disappearing of the "white rocks;" but the "circumambient foam" is perhaps the most poetical expression of the whole, and such as could scarcely have proceeded from a low or ordinary mind. It is unnecessary however to prolong this minute examination of particular words. It may be more amusing to the reader to see how a poet, and that of no mean order, can undesignedly murder his own offspring.

SONG FOR TASSO.

"And if I think, my thoughts come fast,
"I mix the present with the past,
"And each seems uglier than the last."
ODE TO NAPLES.

"Naples! thou heart of men, which ever pantest
"Naked, beneath the lidless eye of heaven!"

The same fault, as it applies to imagery rather than to single words, is still more frequently found in poetry, because the ear assists the judgment in its choice of words, but imagery is left entirely to the imagination. The same poet, rich as he is in passages of beauty, must still supply us with examples.

A FRAGMENT.

"Thou art the wine whose drunkenness is all "We can desire, O Love!"

A VISION OF THE SBA.

""Tis the terror of tempest. The rags of the sail "Are flickering in ribbons within the fierce gale; "From the stark night of vapours the dim rain is driven, "And when lightning is loosed, like a deluge from heaven,

"She sees the black trunks of the water-spout spin, "And bend as if heaven was raining in."

THE FUGITIVES.

"In the court of the fortress "Beside the pale portress, "Like a blood-hound well beaten, "The bridegroom stands, eaten

"By shame:"

THE SUNSET.

"For but to see her were to read the tale "Woven by some subtlest bard, to make hard hearts "Dissolve away in wisdom-working grief;"Her eyelashes were worn away with tears."

THE BOAT ON THE SERCHIO.

"Our boat is asleep on the Serchio's stream,
"Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream,
"The elm sways idly, hither and thither;
"Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast,
"And the oar and the sails; but 'tis sleeping fast,
“Like a beast unconscious of its tether.”

A vulgar proverb tells us that "seeing is believing;" and it is quite necessary to see, in order to believe, that the same poet who wrote that exquisite line,

"Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream." should go on to tell us in the language of poetry, that

Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast,"

"And livest thou still. mother earth?

"Thou wert warming thy fingers old

"O'er the embers covered and cold

"Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled."

It is an ungracious task to busy one's fingers in turning over the pages of our best writers, for the purpose of finding out their faults, or rather detecting instances of their forgetfulness; yet if any thing of this kind can assist the young poet in his pursuit of excellence, it ought not to be withheld; especially as it can in no way affect the decided merits of those who have so few flaws in their title to our admiration.

"What behold I now? (says Young,)
"A wilderness of wonders burning round;
"Where larger suns inhabit higher spheres;
"Perhaps the villas of descending Gods.
"Nor halt I here; my toil is but begun;
"Tis but the threshold of the Deity."

The idea of " descending gods" requiring "villas," or half-way houses to halt at, is wholly unworthy of the dignity of the author of "Night Thoughts."

It is remarkable that Milton, whose choice of subjects would have rendered an inferior poet peculiarly liable to such errors, has a few, and but a very few, instances of the same kind.

"And now went forth the moon,
"Such as in highest heaven, arrayed with gold
"Empyreal; from before her vanished night,
"Shot through with orient beams."

Through the whole of the works of this master mind, the passage which describes the combat between Satan and the Arch

angel, is perhaps the most in danger of falling into burlesque, and even this has great sublimity and power: but the subject itself -a fleshly combat in the air, is one which necessarily requires such descriptions and allusions as we find it difficult to reconcile with our notions of ethereal or sublime. For instance, when

"From each hand with speed retired, "Where erst was thickest fight, the angelic throng, "And left large field, unsafe within the wind "Of such commotion.”

And again, when the sword of Michael "shares all the right side of his antagonist" and

"A stream of nectareous humour issuing flowed
"Sanguine, such as celestial spirits may bleed."

This, and the minute description of the process by which the wound is healed, have little connexion with our ideas of the essential attributes of gods. Nor is there much dignity in the allusion made by Adam to his own situation after the fall, compared with that of Eve.

"On me the curse aslope "Glanced on the ground; with labour I must earn "My bread."

But above all, in describing the building of the tower of Babel, our immortal poet seems wholly to have forgotten the necessary difference between the inhabitants of Earth, and those of Heaven.

"Forth with a hideous gabble rises loud "Among the builders; each to other calls "Not understood; till hoarse, and all in rage, "As mocked they storm; great laughter was in heaven "And looking down, to see the hubbub strange, "And hear the din."

It is into such incongruities as these, that young poets and enthusiasts, whether young or old, are most apt to fall: young poets, because they are not so well acquainted with the world, and with the tastes and feelings of mankind in general, as to know what particular associations are most uniformly attached to certain words; and enthusiasts, because their own thoughts are too vivid, and the tide of their own feelings too violent and impetuous, to admit of interruption from a single word, or even a whole sentence; and forgetting the fact that their

The introduction of unpoetical images may however be pardoned on the score of inadvertency, but it is possible for such images to be introduced in a manner which almost insults the feelings of the reader, by the doggrel or burlesque style which obtains favour with a certain class of readers, chiefly such as are incapable of appreciating what is beautiful or sublime. One specimen of this kind will be sufficient. It occurs in a volume of American poetry.

"There's music in the dash of waves

"When the swift bark cleaves the foam;
"There's music heard upon her deck,
"The mariner's song of home.
"When moon and star-beams smiling meet
"At midnight on the sea--
"And there is music once a week
"In Scudder's balcony."

"The moonlight music of the waves "In storms is heard no more, "When the living lightning mocks the wreck "At midnight on the shore;

"And the mariner's song of home has ceased; "His course is on the sea"And there is music when it rains

"In Scudder's balcony."

What could induce the poet to spoil his otherwise pretty verses in this manner, it is difficult to imagine; but as this is by no means a solitary instance of the kind, we are led to suppose that the minds in which such incongruities originate, must be influenced by the popular notion of imitating Lord Byron, in the wild vagaries which even his genius could scarcely render endurable. What his genius might have failed to reconcile to the taste of the public, was however sufficiently effected, by the proofs we find throughout his writings, of the agony of a distorted mind, of that worst and deepest of all maladies, which hides its internal convulsions under the mask of humour, and throws around, in lurid flashes of wit and drollery, the burning ebullitions of a frenzied brain. There is a depth of experience, and bitterness of feeling, in the playful starts of familiar commonplace with which he forcibly arrests the tide of his own tenderness, or "turns to burlesque" his own

at defiance; and might, if properly felt and fully understood, serve as a warning to those who aspire to be poets in the style of Byron, that to imitate his eccentricities without the power of his genius and the pathos of his soul, is as obviously at variance with good taste, natural feeling, and common sense, as to attempt to interest by aping the frolic of the madman, without the deep-seated and burning passions that have overthrown his reason.

Another prevailing fault in poetry, as intimately connected with association as the foregoing, is the introduction of words or passages, in which the ideas connected with them are too numerous, or too remote from common feeling and common observation, for the attention to travel with the same rapidity as the eye. Under such circumstances the mind must either pause and examine for itself, or pass over the expression as an absolute blank; in either of which cases, the chain of interest and intelligence is broken, and the reader is either wearied, or uninformed as to the meaning of the writer.

The same poet who has afforded us so many instances of his own faults, will serve our purpose again.

"the whirl and the splash

"As of some hideous engine, whose brazen teeth smash "The thin winds and soft waves into thunder; the

screams

"And hissings crawl fast o'er the smooth ocean streams, "Each sound like a centipede."

Descriptions such as this, are beyond the power of the most vivid imagination to convert into an ideal scene: all is confusion, because the mind no sooner forms one picture, than other objects, differently coloured, are forced upon it, and consequently the whole is indefinite and obscure.

Again, in the Song of a Spirit

"And as a veil in which I walk through heaven, "I have wrought mountains, seas, and waves, and clouds, "And lastly, light, whose interfusion dawns "In the dark space of interstellar air.”

Milton is by no means free from this fault. Witness his frequent crowding together of appellations, which even the most learned readers must pause before they can properly apply, as well as passages like the following, with which his works abound.