of worlds that fills the ocean of infinity is not independent, but successive,-death being but a sleep and a forgetting,'-birth, an awaking with extended power. The great sacrifice which was exhibited, in our own globe two thousand years ago, believe me, was not confined to it. It was a divine immolation for total sin on the great altar of the universe, and its manifestation was simultaneous throughout the whole array of planets; to each there was a darkening of the sun; in each a rending of the veil in an old temple of superstition. Those who have been cast on these shores prior to the revelation of atonement, will learn the healing truth in some future abode of their souls. It would require a mighty argument to convince me, that I have not lived before this; it would, require an almighty one to persuade me, that I shall not live hereafter. Meanwhile, whatever may be our future lot, there are incumbent upon us, here, momentous duties as members of society. Let us, therefore, secure of the developements of future time, lay aside the pursuit of these unprofitable speculations which the contemplation of nature forces on our mind, and girding ourselves to the task before us, actively meet the exigencies of life, and calmly wait the great teacher, Death.'" "I have always consented," said Herand, "to the maxim of the great moral poet, that the proper study of mankind, is man: and I hold that communion with nature is only valuable to freshen and relieve the spirit, and to strengthen the heart to pursue the study. Deeply, as from long acquaintance, I am attached to the solitary haunts where nature reveals herself to her votaries in all her majestic loveliness, and, familiar as I am with the strong charms of those fair spirits who preside over lake and stream and mountain, I must still, in the sobriety of reasoning judgment, confess that those poets, who, like Shelley and Hemans, linger for ever beneath the cope of air, and weave not one valuable moral reflection, not one maxim of prudence, among their verses, are not my most cherished favourites. The light which they dispense may be light from Heaven,' but it is not for Earth: it is all thrown upon the by-paths of romance and the groves of sentiment, not a ray illuminating the high road of human conduct, that path of action which, while we are men, VOI.. I. 5 must be the chief field of our footsteps. They render that the essence, which, in reason, is but the accident of life; they make that the substance of our business, which should, in truth, be but the gilding of our leisure. It is indeed of advantage to retire occasionally from pursuing the reality of virtue to dally with its romance; but these writers make the argument of the volume of what affords but matter for a parenthesis. When the recess of evening brings repose from labour, the reveries of the fireside are in place; but it is worse than idle to linger dreaming in the twilight of the valleys, when midday duties await us on the plain." "You are of course, then," said I, "an admirer of Pope ?" "So much so, that, with the exception of a few of his avowed followers, who have caught something of his spirit, I question whether there has been any true poetry since his days. Ah! my friend, when I see the age about to crown with the title of Immortal, a poet whose greatest productions are Hymns to a Butterfly, and whose most elevated occupation is the sentimental ogling of a tulip,' I fear that we are in the sad condition of the degenerate Israelites, having abandoned the God of our fathers, and gone a-hunting after strange idols. The old Egyptian plague is renewed among us, and grasshoppers and locusts have gotten into the king's chamber. The community of letters has indeed become a republic; all are now equal in insignificance. And the extinction of monarchy in song, like that of the political monarchy of France, is followed by a rabble of daily aspirants, whose fame is as brief as their popularity was vehement." "I am afraid," said I, "that your simile extends its application to your disadvantage. If the judges will not admit Byron into the line of legitimate kings,' the people will crown him by the title of emperor." "I would rather," replied Herand, "subscribe to Byron's opinion of Pope, than the people's opinion of Byron. Of the poets now in vogue you must unman yourself to read one-half, and unchristianise yourself to admire the other. Aristides, being guilty of no other crime than the crime of being just, was banished upon that charge; and Pope, in the dearth of fault, is condemned because he is 'moral.' The ostracists of Pope talk much of the necessity of invention' to constitute a true poet, and descant much on the importance of 'imaginative' topics; but it is yet to be proved that a subject rises in poetical value in proportion as it sinks in every other value. How can it affect the beauty of the structure that its foundations rest upon a rock? Are the garlands of Fancy the less lovely, or is their odour the less fragrant, because they are entwined around the sceptre of Truth? Is the splendid Pharos that sublimely silent gazes o'er the deep, the less picturesque, because its main purpose is utility? Is the architecture of the Doric portico at Athens the less exquisite in its impression, because it was built for a marketplace? Those critics must be arrant poetical Calvinists, who deem so vilely of their own species as to deny it to be a worthy topic of the poet's pen. What subject can be more interesting than the conduct of man? more various than the nature of man? more sublime than the duties of man? I admit then to Byron the title of Poet of the Ocean, to Hemans, of Poet of the Lily; I admit notI demand for Pope the title of the Poet of MAN." "It was the stern sincerity of an honest freedom," said I; "the consciousness that he battled singly for the right —that with a magic transformation made the pen of Pope, as Paulus Jovius said of his own, sometimes a pen of gold and sometimes a pen of iron, and caused his couplets to flow around the land with a might of sarcasm unwithstood. Conservative in all his feelings, he yet hated cant with fierce defiance; anxious to impress his age, he yet conciliated no sect and truckled to no party. Buying no voices and leaguing with no confederates, he stretched forth his hand in the name of Truth, and in that name he wrought his miracles; alone he did it.' Such a man has no need to concern himself about popularity; he creates it, as the sun creates the day." 66 "While Pope, in action, wandered into no enormous vices," said Herand, “he proposed in theory no extravagant standard of virtue: his precepts were guarded, ás Mackintosh finely says of Paley, by a constant reference to convenience and practice.' How opposite to this is the modern school of teachers! Look at Shelley complaining of wrong and tyranny, and eulogising purity and heavenly love, and then marrying two wives and leaving one of them to die of a broken heart. Look at Coleridge,-who together with Wordsworth is essentially of the same tribe,-writing songs that bid the heavens be mute,' and leaving his wife to the charity of Mr. Southey, who is about the only literary man of our time who is not ashamed to do his duty, and is upon the whole the most perfect character of his age. This poetical fanfaronnade about virtue and affection, is disgusting in the mouths of these worthless vagabonds: 'Remember How easier far devout enthusiasm is "Pope," said I, "has certainly done as much to exalt the dignity of humanity by his life, as to improve the behaviour of men by his writings,-an article of commendation which can be extended to but few of his brethren. That tissue of putative meanness which was woven by the unnumbered foes which his genius had created, and which Johnson was not unwilling to extend, Roscoe has blown away like the filmy gossamer of the morning; and presented us instead, with a story as touching to our feelings and as honourable to our common nature as any other with which I am acquainted." "Sir," cried my companion, warming with enthusiasm as his mind dwelt upon the character of his favourite poet, "the hand of Biography does not present us with a finer, or more generous instance of a man giving himself up solely and without reserve, to high literary ambition;with the solemnity of an Hamilcar dedication, consecrating himself at the altar of Fame; bringing to it the tender blossoms of his early boyhood,-to it, the ripened fruitage of his elder years. Withdrawing himself from the world, and nursing in solitude the fire of his heart, that youthful ardour, which in most cases is suffered to play objectless like the ground-fire of the tropics, was by him concentered on a single object. With no vices, with few foibles; free from domestic cares, and safe from all political dis turbance; wasting not a moment on the transitory,―he dwelt apart in his beautiful villa, looking out upon man as from the window of a castle, and sketching his character and his destiny with the calmness and fidelity of a superior nature; in youth creating richly, in manhood, refining slowly; living out his sad and shattered age with no other purpose before him than To better his life and better his lay, To virtue's improvement and vice's decay.' Justly might he have exclaimed, 'quantum alii tribuunt tempestivis conviviis, quantum alex, quantum pilæ; tantum mihi egomet ad hæc studia recolenda sumpsi.' "But might not the individual to whom those words were self-applied, contest the claim of Pope to superior devotion to lofty fame?" "I think not. The part which Cicero took in public life; his military longings; his labours as an advocate and prosecutor; his occupations as quæstor and consul, to all of which he looked for merely temporary distinction, would remove him from the comparison. Besides, you see clearly that to present duties, Cicero gave the preference in his own mind, and the time which he dedicated to labour for immortality was fragmentary, not continuous; snatched, not assigned. It is true that in the midst of popular applause and judicial approbation; amid the tumults of official triumph and the distractions of private luxury-the still small voice of eternal aspiration reached and stung his inmost soul: but it was occasional, like the dim vistas which ever and anon open and close upon the eye of one who wanders through a forest. But Pope stood with his face full-turned upon the future, his eye resting nowhere short of the remotest posterity; knowing well that the incense of Fame is the smoke of sacrifice, and that the diadem of genius is the martyr's crown. His was the sole glorious task to conquer immortality; unambitious to light an earthly lamp which might attract the sidelong glance of the passing traveller, or kindle a transitory fire which might draw together the idle and the vain, but emulous to plant a star in the eternal heavens, which though so distant that the first rays which reached the world might shine upon his grave, yet which, |