Let Isaiah, Ossian, Homer, Dante, be rendered into the prose of all the languages of the earth; still the Poetry remains. So long as the images and similes are preserved, the essence of the Poetry can, by no legerdemain, be dissipated. It is on this ground that we denominate Hervey a Poet; and a Poet of the first class. However, let the reader form his own judgment from the following specimens:

"See! how the day is shortened!-The Sun, detained in fairer climes, or engaged in more agreeable services, rises, like an unwilling visitant, with tardy and reluctant steps. He walks, with a shy indifference, along the edges of the southern sky; casting an oblique glance, he just looks upon our dejected world; and scarcely scatters light, through the thick air. Dim is his appearance, languid are his gleams, while he continues. Or, if he' chance to wear a brighter aspect, and a cloudless brow; yet, like the young and gay in the house of mourning, he seems uneasy till he is gone; is in haste to depart.-And let him depart! Why should we wish for his longer stay; since he can show us nothing but the creation in distress? The flowery families lie dead, and the tuneful tribes are struck dumb. The trees stript of their verdure, and lashed by storms, spread their naked arms to the enraged and relentless heavens. Fragrance no longer floats in the air; but chilling damps hover, or cutting gales blow. Nature, divested of all her beautiful robes, sits, like a forlorn disconsolate widow, in her weeds. While winds, in doleful accents, howl; and rains, in repeated showers, weep."-" Winter Piece."

"How frequently is the face of nature changed! and, by changing, made more agreeable !-The long-continued glitter of the day, renders the soothing shades of the evening doubly welcome. Nor does the morn ever purple the east with so engaging a lustre, as after the gloom of a dark and dismal night.— At present, a calm of tranquillity is spread through the universe, The weary winds have forgot to blow. The gentle gales have fanned themselves asleep. Not so much as a single leaf nods. Even the quivering aspin rests. And not one breath curls o'er the stream. Sometimes, on the contrary, the tempest summons all the forces of the air; and pours itself, with resistless fury, from the angry north. The whole atmosphere is tossed into tumultuous confusion, and the watery world is heaved to the clouds. The astonished mariner, and his straining vessel, now scale the rolling mountain, and hang dreadfully visible on the broken surge: now shoot, with headlong impetuosity, into the yawning gulph; and neither hulk, nor mast is seen. The storm sweeps over the continent: raves along the city-streets: struggles through the forest-boughs; and terrifies the savage nations with a howl, more wildly horrid than their own. The knotty oaks bend before the blast; their iron trunks groan; and their stubborn limbs are dashed to the ground. The lofty dome rocks; and even the solid tower totters on it's basis."-" Contemplations on the Night."

The whole of the "Descant upon the Creation" is in the finest tone of poetic inspiration. Hervey seems to have studied, with attention, Milton,-and Young, his cotemporary; and above all,

to have taken his best illustrations from that most luxuriant and unfathomable treasure of Poetry, THE BIBLE.

Page 9.

"His name is Ossian."

After what has been presented to the world, on the Poems of Ossian, by Macpherson, Dr. Blair, and Mr. Alexander Stewart, nothing more can be necessary. The impression left upon our minds can only be, that, whether written by Ossian the son of Fingal or not, they must be Poems, written, in the country from which they profess to come, at a period long before the existence of the Highland clans, and that the Poems themselves possess such efflorescence, vividness and awfulness of imagery, as can be found no where out of the BIBLE. Homer seems to be his kindred Genius. But what Ossian would have been with Homer's knowledge of men and manners, and the copious and expressive language of Greece at his disposal, is not to be told. At least, it is probable, Homer himself would have been his inferior. Had Ossian possessed a knowledge of REVELATION, how infinitely superior would have been the general character of his writings! And, even, as it is, what magnanimity, tenderness, and moral accomplishment, appear in himself and the venerable Fingal! Ossian never saw, and probably never heard of the Bible, except it might be from an obscure Culdee. Ossian knew nothing of Homer, nor the rules of Aristotle. When Ossian sang, Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton were unborn. The Genius of his Poems may be discovered in the following spe

cimens; which we insert, accompanied with Dr. Blair's accurate

Ossian describes ghosts with all the particularity of one who had seen and conversed with them, and whose imagination was full of the impression they had left upon it. He calls up those awful and tremendous ideas which the

-Simulacra modis pallentia miris

are fitted to raise in the human mind; and which, in Shakspeare's style, "harrow up the soul." Crugal's ghost, in particular, in the beginning of the second book of Fingal, may vie with any appearance of this kind, described by any epic or tragic Poet whatever. Most Poets would have contented themselves with telling us, that he resembled, in every particular, the living Crugal; that his form and dress were the same, only his face more pale and sad; and that he bore the mark of the wound by which he fell. But Ossian sets before our eyes a spirit from the invisible world, distinguished by all those features which a strong astonished imagination would give a ghost. "A dark red stream of fire comes down from the hill. Crugal sat upon the beam; he that lately fell by the hand of Swaran, striving in the battle of heroes. His face is like the beam of the setting moon. His robes are of the clouds of the hill. His eyes are like two decaying flames. Dark is the wound of his breast.—The stars dim-twinkled through his form; and his voice was like the sound of a distant stream." The circumstance of the stars being beheld, "dim-twinkling through his form," is wonderfully picturesque; and conveys the most lively impression of his thin and shadowy substance. The

attitude in which he is afterwards placed, and the speech put into his mouth, are full of that solemn and awful sublimity which suits the subject. "Dim, and in tears, he stood, and stretched his pale hand over the hero. Faintly he raised his feeble voice, like the gale of the reedy Lego.-My ghost, O Connal! is on my native hills; but my corse is on the sands of Ullin. Thou shalt never talk with Crugal, or find his lone steps in the heath. I am light as the blast of Cromla; and I move like the shadow of mist. Connal, son of Colgar! I see the dark cloud of death. It hovers over the plains of Lena. The sons of green Erin shall fall. Remove from the field of ghosts.-Like the darkened moon he retired in the midst of the whistling blast."

Several other appearances of spirits might be pointed out, as among the most sublime passages of Ossian's poetry. The circumstances of them are considerably diversified; and the scenery always suited to the occasion.

"Oscar slowly ascends

the bill. The meteors of night set on the heath before him. A distant torrent faintly roars. Unfrequent blasts rush through the aged oaks. The half-enlightened moon sinks dim and red behind the hill. Feeble voices are heard on the heath. Oscar drew his sword."Nothing can prepare the fancy more happily for the awful scene that is to follow. "Trenmor came from his hill, at the voice of his mighty son. A cloud, like the steed of the stranger, supported his airy limbs. His robe is of the mist of Lano, that brings death to the people. His sword is a green meteor, half-extinguished. His face is without form, and dark. He sighed thrice over the hero; and thrice the winds of the night