As the occasion of this Poem was real, not fictitious so the method pursued in it was rather imposed by what spontaneously arose in the Author's mind on that occasion, than meditated or designed. Which will appear very probable from the nature of it. For it differs from the common mode of poetry; which is, from long narrations to draw short morals. Here, on the contrary, the narrative is short, and the morality arising from it makes the bulk of the POEM. The reason of it is that the facts mentioned did naturally pour these moral reflections on the thought of the Writer. CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS. -000 THERE are three distinct stages in the developement of the faculties, at which the taste undergoes a perceptible modification, correspondent to the progress of the intellectual character. The first stage is, when the imagination begins to exert its newly awakened perceptions, and the whole scene of mental vision presents a field of discovery and wonder. Then all that is vast, or wild, or distant, or grand, (it matters not how improbable the fiction, or how remote from human feelings and human interest, so that it is decked out in the vivid colours of romance,) is geized, and appropriated by the mind, with emotions kos they are indefinite, and laid up as the elements t ture hopes and day dreams. The passions succeed the imagination in the order of developement: as the child begins to enlarge into incipient manhood, while the delusions of romance fade around him, new instincts, new wants are awakened, any he begins to feel himself alone. The taste participating in this change, demands excitement of a different kind. The softer colouring of rural nature, the gentler accents of tender or of heroic sentime, senes of beauty instead of tales of wonder now have heir turn in pleasing; and emotions of enthusiasm, tinctured perhaps with devotional or melancholic fee ng, swell and agitate the breast. The agitations of assion subside as the objects of life acquire distinct ess, and as the sun of intellect approaching its ze, h, shortens the shadows which they cast. Then, cording to the direction which the character assures, either the affections of the heart undertake the c quest of the imagination, and the taste becomes disciplined to reality, or the selfishness of our nature becomes all exerted in the toil of worldly acquisition; and neither the poetry of fable, nor the poetry of life, can please any longer. The pleasure that is derived from works of imagination, by persons in general at the middle period of life, arises almost entirely from the recollections of 3h being awakened by them, or from the skilful exhuman art. It is the judgment, instead of the i which now must be won into complacency and soothed to delight. Perhaps as life advances, and even our intellectual sensations lose something of their vividness, we may be found to grow less fastidious or severe in our taste; we regain our fondness for the stronger stimulants of imaginative pleasure; we recur to the gaudy visions of the morning landscape; we yield ourselves up by an effort of abstraction to the delusions by which we were once unconsciously beguiled, and make long forgotten things serve for novelties. Then, too, moral reflections on the past, acquire by association with the remembrances of actual experience, an almost picturesque interest; and the gravest lessons of the poet have power to charm the contemplation. No poet has ever acquired an extensive popularity, who has not adapted his subject to the imagination at one of these distinct periods of developement. It is a rare achievement, so to combine all the elements of imaginative pleasure, as to fascinate attention at every period. Our great poet has indeed presented to us in his Paradise Lost, a theme of sublime wonder, and a tale of human passion; a display of all that is elevated in sentiment, daring in invention and exquisite in skill. Next to him, Spenser, the poet of faery land, has power to cast his spells on the fancy even of boyhood, and to retain the mastery of our feelings through the successive phases of our taste. Thomson has the charm of gaudiness for our childhood; the first sense of beauty is awakened by colouring. He pleases still more, as the love of nature and the instincts of passion are awakened within us. He does not, however, continue always to please. When we speak of Young, we always refer to his "NIGHT THOUGHTS." It required no ordinary genius to communicate any poetical interest to a poem on such a plan, and of such a class of subjects. Yet this is one of the few poems on which the broad stamp of popularity has been prominently impressed. Editions have been multiplied from every press in the country. It is to be seen on the shelf of the cottager, with the Family Bible and the Pilgrim's Progress; and it ranks among the first and favourite materials of the poetical library. What is more remarkable, is, that the French are fond of Young, although they cannot understand either Milton or Shakspeare. Young is, in fact, more of the orator than of the poet; but his oratory is still of a character distinct from the eloquence of prose. The NiGHT THOUGHTS please us much in the same manner as we are captivated by the wonders of fiction: only, in this poem, the vastness, the grandeur, the novelty consists,not in strange or romantic incidents, but in the unexpected turns and adventurous sallies, the dazzling pomp of meta (7) phor, the infinite succession of combinations and intersections of thought, the stratagems of expression, which occur throughout this long poetical homily; so that, forbidding as the subject is from its severity, he has contrived to enliven it with all the graces of wit, chastened by the majesty of truth. Add to this, there is a charm in that stern and pensive melancholy which is the character of the NIGHT THOUGHTS; a sentimental charm which hangs about moonlight graves, and whispering night winds, and funeral cypress, in which those persons espcially love to indulge, who have known no deeper wounds of sensibility than those of fictitious griefs, or philosophic pensiveness. The worst fault of the NIGHT THOUGHTS, is, that it is so evidently the work of the closet. There is none of the freshness of the open air, none of the breath of living nature in Young's poetry; his flowers are all dried leaves, which, though gathered in the sunshine, have been laid up till they almost smell of death. Young states, that the facts mentioned in the poem "did naturally pour on the thought of the writer" the moral reflections of which it mainly consists. Cold, grave, midnight reflections of this kind, are, however, very different from those which spring from the kindling feelings of the poet under the impulse of present emotion. Young is too much an egotist to be impassioned; he is all thought, thought undisturbed by the weakness of feeling; he is too sublime to sink for a moment into the triteness of simple nature. It is the wit and the politician who has assumed the cassock, and he indeed supports it admirably well; he is evidently sincere and in earnest; but he cannot quite forget his native character. There is a very remarkable instance of this at the close of the Eighth Night, where, speaking of Lucifer, he surprises and puzzles the modern reader by a sarcasm which has outlived its point: "The world, whose legions cost him slender pay, It was inevitable, that in a poem of this kind, there should be a luxuriance of faults as well as cf beauties. Johnson terms it " a wilderness of thought." The perpetual enigma of the style at length wearies; the antitheses pall upon us: we even grow fatigued with admiration. The faults of Young are, however, the faults of genius, and they are amply redeemed by the splendour which is thrown around them. It is not perhaps peculiar to Young's poetry, that very young and very old persons are the most partial to the NIGHT THOUGHTS -the reason of this may be sought in the circumstances |