view," should be, upon all occasions, merely "quiet," must necessarily upon many occasions, be simply silly, or stupid; and has no more right to be considered "easy," or "natural," than the Cockney exquisite, or than the sleeping Beauty in the wax-works.. Among the minor poems of Bryant, none has so much impressed me as the one which he entitles June." I quote only a portion of it: There through the long, long summer hours, The golden light should lie, And thick young herbs and groups of flowers The oriole should build and tell Should rest him there, and there be heard And what, if cheerful shouts at noon, Or songs of maids, beneath the moon, I would the lovely scene around I know, I know I should not see The season's glorious show, Soft airs, and song, and light, and bloom Is that his grave is green; And deeply would their hearts rejoice The rhythmical flow, here, is even voluptuous -nothing could be more melodious. The poem has always affected me in a remarkable manner. The intense melancholy which seems to well up, perforce, to the surface of all the poet's cheerful sayings about his grave, we find thrilling us to the soul-while there is the truest poetic elevation in the thrill. The impression left is one of a pleasurable sadness. And if, in the remaining compositions which I shall introduce to you, there be more or less of a similar tone always apparent, let me remind you that (how or why we know not) this certain tint of sadness is inseparably connected with all the higher manifestations of true Beauty. It is, nevertheless, A feeling of sadness and longing As the mist resembles the rain. asked him for the beauties of the work. He replied that he only busied himself about the errors. On hearing this, Apollo, handing him a sack of unwinnowed wheat, bade him pick out all the chaff for his reward. Now this fable answers very well as a hit at the critics-but I am by no means sure that the god was in the right. I am by no means certain that the true limits of the critical duty are not grossly misunderstood. Excellence, in a poem especially, may be considered in the light of an axiom, which need only be properly put, to become self-evident. It is not excellence if it require to be demonstrated as such: -and thus, to point out too particularly the merits of a work of Art, is to admit that they are not merits altogether. Among the Melodies" of Thomas Moore, is one whose distinguished character as a poem proper, seems to have been singularly left out of view. I allude to his lines beginning— "Come, rest in this bosom." The intense energy of their expression is not surpassed by anything in Byron. There are two of the lines in which a sentiment is conveyed that embodies the all in all of the divine passion of love-a sentiment which, perhaps, has found its echo in more, and in more passionate, human hearts than any other single sentiment ever embodied in words: Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer, Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here; Here still is the smile that no cloud can o'ercast, Oh! what was love made for, if 'tis not the same Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame? I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart, I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art. Thou hast called me thy angel in moments of bliss, It has been the fashion, of late days, to deny Moore imagination, while granting him fancy -a distinction originating with Coleridge, than whom no man more fully comprehended the great powers of Moore. The fact is, that the fancy of this poet so far predominates over all his other faculties, and over the fancy of all other men, as to have induced, very naturally, the idea that he is fanciful only. But never was there a greater mistake. Never was a grosser wrong done the fame of a true poet. In the compass of the English language I can call to mind no poem more profoundly-more wierdly imaginative, in the best sense, than the lines commencing "I would I were by that dim lake," which are the composition of Thomas Moore. I regret that I am unable to remember them. One of the noblest-and, speaking of fancy, one of the most singularly fanciful of modern poets, was Thomas Hood. His " Fair Ines" had always, for me, an inexpressible charm. O saw ye not fair Ines? She's gone into the West, To dazzle when the sun is down, And rob the world of rest: She took our daylight with her, The smiles that we love best, With morning blushes on her cheek, And pearls upon her breast. O turn again, fair Ines, Before the fall of night, That walks beneath their light, Would I had been, fair Ines, That gallant cavalier, Who rode so gaily by thy side, And whispered thee so near! Were there no bonny dames at home, Or no true lovers here, That he should cross the seas to win The dearest of the dear? I saw thee, lovely Ines, And banners waved before; It would have been a beauteous dream, Alas, alas, fair Ines, She went away with song, With music waiting on her steps, And shoutings of the throng; But some were sad and felt no mirth, But only Music's wrong, In sounds that sang farewell, farewell, To her you've loved so long. Farewell, farewell, fair Ines; Nor danced so light before,- "The Haunted House," by the same author, is one of the truest poems ever written-one of the truest-one of the most unexceptionableone of the most thoroughly artistic, both in its theme and in its execution. It is, moreover, powerfully ideal-imaginative. I regret that its length renders it unsuitable for the purposes of this Lecture. In place of it, permit me to offer the universally appreciated "Bridge of Sighs." One more Unfortunate, Weary of breath, Take her up tenderly, Lift her with care;Fashioned so slenderly, Young, and so fair! Look at her garments Touch her not scornfully; All that remains of her Now, is pure womanly. Make no deep scrutiny Past all dishonour, Death has left on her Only the beautiful. Still, for all slips of hers, Wipe those poor lips of hers Loop up her tresses Who was her father? Who was her mother? Had she a sister? Had she a brother? Or was there a dearer one Still, and a nearer one Alas! for the rarity Sisterly, brotherly, Where the lamps quiver With many a light From window and casement, From garret to basement, The bleak wind of March Made her tremble and shiver; But not the dark arch, Mad from life's history, In she plunged boldly, Lave in it, drink of it Take her up tenderly, And her eyes, close them, Dreadfully staring Perishing gloomily, Cold inhumanity, Into her rest, Cross her hands humbly, Owning her weakness, Her evil behaviour, And leaving, with meekness, Her sins to her Saviour! The vigour of this poem is no less remarkable than its pathos. The versification, although carrying the fanciful to the very verge of the fantastic, is nevertheless admirably adapted to the wild insanity which is the thesis of the poem. Among the minor poems of Lord Byron, is one which has never received from the critics the praise which it undoubtedly deserves: Though the day of my destiny's over, The faults which so many could find; And the love which my spirit hath painted It never hath found but in thee. Then when nature around me is smiling, I do not believe it beguiling, Because it reminds me of thine; And when winds are at war with the ocean, As the breasts I believed in with me, If their billows excite an emotion, It is that they bear me from thee. Though the rock of my last hope is shivered, There is many a pang to pursue me: Though human, thou didst not deceive me, Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it, I have found that whatever it lost me, From the wreck of the past, which hath perished, It hath taught me that which I most cherished In the desert a fountain is springing, In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee. Although the rhythm, here, is one of the most Dear as remembered kisses after death, Thus, although in a very cursory and imperfect manner, I have endeavoured to convey to you my conception of the Poetic Principle. It has been my purpose to suggest that, while this Principle itself is, strictly and simply, the Human Aspiration for Supernal Beauty, the manifestation of the Principle is always found in an elevating excitement of the Soul-quite independent of that passion which is the intoxication of the Heart-or of that Truth which is the satisfaction of the Reason. For, in regard to Passion, alas! its tendency is to degrade, rather than to elevate the Soul. Love, on the contrary-Love-the true, the divine Erosthe Uranian, as distinguished from the Dionæan Venus-is unquestionably the purest and truest of all poetical themes. And in regard to Truth-if, to be sure, through the attainment of a truth, we are led to perceive a harmony where none was apparent before, we experience, at once, the true poetical effect-but this effect is referable to the harmony alone, and not in the least degree to the truth which merely served to render the harmony mani fest. We shall reach, however, more immediately a distinct conception of what the true Poetry is, by mere reference to a few of the simple From Alfred Tennyson-although in perfect elements which induce in the Poet himself the sincerity I regret him as the noblest poet that true poetical effect. He recognises the ambroever lived-I have left myself time to cite only sia which nourishes his soul, in the bright orbs a very brief specimen. I call him, and think that shine in Heaven-in the volutes of the him the noblest of poets-not because the im-flower-in the clustering of low shrubberies— pressions he produces are, at all times, the in the waving of the grain-fields—in the slantmost profound—not because the poetical excitement which he induces is, at all times, the ing of tall, Eastern trees-in the blue distance most intense-but because it is, at all times, the most ethereal-in other words, the most elevating and the most pure. No poet is so little of the earth, earthy. What I am about to read is from his last long poem, "The Princess:" Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns of mountains-in the grouping of clouds-in the twinkling of half-hidden brooks—in the gleaming of silver rivers-in the repose of sequestered lakes-in the star-mirroring depths of lonely wells. He perceives it in the songs of birds-in the harp of Eolus-in the sighing of the night-wind-in the repining voice of the forest in the surf that complains to the shore -in the fresh breath of the woods-in the scent of the violet-in the voluptuous perfume of the hyacinth-in the suggestive odour that comes to him, at eventide, from far-distant, undiscovered islands, over dim oceans, illimitable and unexplored. He owns it in all noble thoughts-in all unworldly motives-in all holy impulses-in all chivalrous, generous, and self-sacrificing deeds. He feels it in the beauty of woman-in the grace of her stepin the lustre of her eye-in the melody of her voice-in her soft laughter-in her sigh-in the harmony of the rustling of her robes. He deeply feels it in her winning endearments in her burning enthusiasms-in her gentle charities-in her meek and devotional endurances-but above all-ah, far above all-he kneels to it—he worships it in the faith, in the purity, in the strength, in the altogether divine majesty of her love. Let me conclude-by the recitation of yet another brief poem-one very different in character from any that I have before quoted. It is by Motherwell, and is called "The Song of the Cavalier." With our modern and altogether rational ideas of the absurdity and impiety of warfare, we are not precisely in that frame of mind best adapted to sympathize with the sentiments, and thus to appreciate the real excellence of the poem. To do this fully, we must identify ourselves, in fancy, with the soul of the old cavalier. Then mounte! then mounte, brave gallants, all, Us to the field againe. No shrewish teares shall fill our eye DEATH-BED OF SCHILLER. BY SARA H. BROWNE. Ir was a spring. eventide at Weimar. Weimar-the Athens of Germany, the city of Goethe and Wieland and Herder, with many other names of noble interest;-and here, fiveand-forty years ago this blessed May, Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller lay dying! No, no, not dying! the large, deep, earnest heart cannot die, although the tabernacle, in which it has had its abode for a while, crumble helplessly into earth! It lives in its great thoughts, counsels, and devices-it lives in the mighty words it has uttered, in the arduous labours it has achieved. And though in the revolution of the vast cycles of Time, these thoughts, utterances, and works in detail, may disappear or be forgotten, yet have their latent glorysparks enkindled other hearts, and warmed and quickened other generations which, in their turn transmit the vestal fire to gifted natures which still succeed them. Such a mind was that of Moses, aside from the "inspiration of the Almighty which giveth understanding;" such were Luther, and Bunyan, and Milton; such too was the man who was putting off his mortal vesture on a sweet spring eventide at Weimar! Disease had followed Schiller long and sorely; but with the grapple of a Titan, the instinctive energy of Genius had often overmastered infirmity; but this May sunset found the spirit and the flesh no longer at war-that which belonged to earth was now to be relinquished, that which belonged to Heaven, to Time, and to posterity, was to put on its robes of immortality! His great tasks were finished, but Genius stops not there; other and greater were conceived and commenced, and he regrets his | languor and pain because these must be interrupted; and while daily hoping to find healing, he is daily sinking, sinking, sinking! At length the great intellect is clouded, and he moans and raves piteously; then the mist disperses, and a clear, mental sunshine appears again. He talks calmly of Death, he feels it approaching, and yet fears no evil. "Death cannot be an evil," he says, "for evil is not universal, and death is so!" It is but a transition state-a bridge high and dry, but dark enough, over a still darker and gloomier stream, to the fair pasture-land of Heaven. The sweet thoughts he has long ago "married to immortal verse" dwell in his heart and on his lips. "Aloft I see a fair dominion, Through Time and Change, all vernal still; But where the power, or what the pinion, To gain that ever blooming hill? "To suns that shine for ever yonder, O'er fields that fade not, sweet to fleeThe very winds that there may wander, How healing must their breathing be! "But lo! between us rolls a river, O'er which the wrathful tempest raves; But his faith can discern a "rocking boat," and can "trust the breath that swells its sails." It is in the hours of slumber that sometimes the questioning spirit finds strangely satisfactory revealings of the Unseen-the clearest, the highest, the noblest conceptions of the Infinite and Unsearchable. Thus it was with the subject of our sketch in these last lan |