the contemplation of such beauty and grandeur, as none of the low passions of this ignorant present time' should ever be permitted to overcloud.

Those who regard Mr Hazlitt as an ordinary writer, have little right to accuse him of suffering antipathies in philosophy or politics to influence his critical decisions. He possesses one noble quality at least for the office which he has chosen, in the intense admiration and love which he feels for the great authors on whose excellences he chiefly dwells. His relish for their beauties is so keen, that while he describes them, the pleasures which they impart become almost palpable to the sense; and we seem, scarcely in a figure, to feast and banquet on their nectar'd sweets.' He introduces us almost corporally into the divine presence of the Great of old time-enables us to hear the living oracles of wisdom drop from their lips-and makes us partakers, not only of those joys which they diffused, but of those which they felt in the inmost recesses of their souls. He draws aside the veil of Time with a hand tremulous with mingled delight and reverence; and descants, with kindling enthusiasm, on all the delicacies of that picture of genius which he discloses. His intense admiration of intellectual beauty seems always to sharpen his critical faculties. He perceives it, by a kind of intuitive power, how deeply soever it may be buried in rubbish; and separates it, in a moment, from all that would encumber or deface it. At the same time, he exhibits to us those hidden sources of beauty, not like an anatomist, but like a lover: He does not coolly dissect the form to show the springs whence the blood flows all eloquent, and the divine expression is kindled; but makes us feel it in the sparkling or softened eye, the wreathed smile, and the tender bloom. In a word, he at once analyzes and describes, so that our enjoyments of loveliness are not chilled, but brightened, by our acquaintance with their inward sources. The knowledge communicated in his Lectures, breaks no sweet enchantment, nor chills one feeling of youthful joy. His Criticisms, while they extend our insight into the causes of poetical excellence, teach us, at the same time, more keenly to enjoy, and more fondly to revere it.

It must seem, at first sight, strange, that powers like these should have failed to excite universal sympathy. Much, doubtless, of the coldness and misrepresentation cast on them has arisen from causes at which we have already hinted-from the apparent readiness of the author to give up to party what was meant for mankind'-and from the occasional breaking in of personal animosities on that deep harmony which should attend the reverent contemplation of genius. But we apprehend that

there are other causes which have diminished the influence of Mr Hazlitt's faculties, originating in his mind itself;—and these we shall endeavour briefly to specify.

The chief of these may, we think, be ascribed primarily to the want of proportion, of arrangement, and of harmony in his powers. His mind resembles the rich stronde' which Spencer has so nobly described, and to which he has himselt likened the age of Elizabeth, where treasures of every description lie, without order, in inexhaustible profusion. Noble masses of exquisite marble are there, which might be fashioned to support a glorious temple; and gems of peerless lustre, which wouki adorn the holiest shrine. He has no lack of the deepest feelings, the profoundest sentiments of humanity, or the loftiest aspirations after ideal good. But there are no great leading principles of taste to give singleness to his aims, nor any central points in his mind, around which his feelings may revolve, and his imaginations cluster. There is no sufficient distinction between his intellectual and his imaginative faculties. He confounds the truths of imagination with those of fact-the processes of argument with those of feeling-the immunities of intellect with those of virtue. Hence the seeming inconsistency of many of his doctrines. Hence the want of all continuity in his style. Hence his failure in producing one single, harmonious, and lasting impression on the hearts of his hearers. He never waits to consider whether a sentiment or an image is in place—so it be in itself striking. That keen sense of pleasure in intellectual beauty which is the best charm of his writings, is also his chief deluder. He cannot resist a powerful image, an exquisite quotation, or a pregnant remark, however it may dissipate or even subvert the general feeling which his theme should inspire. Thus, on one occasion, in the midst of a violent political invective, he represents the objects of his scorn as baving been beguiled, like Miss Clarissa Harlowe, into a house of ill-fame, and, like her, defending themselves to the last; '— as if the reader's whole current of feeling would not be diverted from all political disputes, by the remembrance thus awakened of one of the sublimest scenes of romance ever embodied by human power. He will never be contented to touch that most strange and curious instrument, the human heart, with a steady aim, but throws his hand rapidly over the chords, mingling strange discord with most eloquent music.' Instead of conducting us onward to a given object, he opens so many delicious prospects by the way-side, and suffers us to gaze at them so long, that we forget the end of our journey. He is perpetually dazzled among the sunbeams of his fancy, and plays with them

in elegant fantasy, when he should point them to the spots where they might fall on truth and beauty, and render them visible by a clearer and lovelier radiance than had yet revealed them.

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The work before us is not the best verification of these remarks; for it has more of continuity and less of paradox than any of his previous writings. With the exception of some strong political allusions in the account of the Sejanus of Ben Jonson, it is entirely free from those expressions of party feeling which respect for an audience, consisting of men of all parties, and men of no party, ought always to restrain. There is also none of that personal bitterness towards Messrs Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey, which disfigured his former lectures. His hostility towards these poets, the associates of his early days, has always indeed been mingled with some redeeming feelings which have heightened the regret occasioned by its public disclosure. While he has pursued them with all possible severity of invective, and acuteness of sarcasm, he has tected their intellectual character with a chivalrous zeal. He has spoken as if his only hate had sprung from his only love;' and his thoughts of its objects, deep rooted in old affection, could not lose all traces of their 'primal sympathy.' His bitterest language has had its dash of the early sweets, which no changes of opinion could entirely destroy. Still his audiences and his readers had ample ground of complaint for the intrusion of personal feelings, in inquiries which should be sacred from all discordant emotions. We rejoice to observe, that this blemish is now effaced; and that full and free course is at last given to that deep humanity which has ever held its current in his productions, sometimes in open day, and sometimes beneath the soil which it fertilized, though occasionally dashed and thrown back in its course by the obstacles of prejudice and of passion.

The first of these Lectures consists of a general view of the subject, expressed in terms of the deepest veneration and of the most passionate eulogy. After eloquently censuring the gross prejudice, that genius and beauty are things of modern discovery, or that in old time a few amazing spirits shone forth amidst general darkness, as the harbingers of brighter days, the author proceeds to combat the notion that Shakespeare was a sort of monster of poetical genius, and all his contemporaries of an order far below him.

'He, indeed, overlooks and commands the admiration of posterity; but he does it from the table-land of the age in which he lived. He towered above his fellows " in shape and gesture proudly eminent;' but he was but one of a race of giants,-the tallest, the strongest,

the most graceful and beautiful of them ;—but it was a common and a noble brood. He was not something sacred and aloof from the vulgar herd of men, but shook hands with Nature and the circumstances of the time; and is distinguished from his immediate contemporaries, not in kind, but in degree, and greater variety of excellence He did not form a class or species by himself, but belonged to a class or species. His age was necessary to him; nor could he have been wrenched from his place in the edifice, of which he was so conspicuous a part, without equal injury to himself and it. Mr Wordsworth says of Milton, that "his soul was like a star, and dweit apart." This cannot be said with any propriety of Shakespeare, who certainly moved in a constellation of bright luminaries, and "drew after him the third part of the heavens.' pp. 12, 13.

The author then proceeds to investigate the general causes of that sudden and rich development of poetical feeling which forms his theme. He attributes it chicfy to the mighty impulse given to thought by the Reformation-to the disclosure of all the marvellous stores of sacred antiquity, by the translation of the Scriptures-and to the infinite sweetness, breathing from the divine character of the Messiah, with which he seems to imagine that the people were not familiar in darker ages. We are far from insensible to the exquisite beauty with which this last subject is treated; and fully agree with our author, that there is something in the character of Christ, of more sweetness and majesty, and more likely to work a change in the mind of man, than any to be found in history, whether actual or feigned.' But we cannot think that the gentle influences which that character shed upon the general heart, were weak or partial even before the translation of the Scriptures. The young had received it, not from books, but from the living voice of their parents, made softer in its tones by reverence and love. It had tempered early enthusiasm, and prompted visions of celestial beauty, in the souls even of the most low, before men had been taught to reason on their faith. The instances of the Saviour's compassion-his wondrous and beneficent miracles--his agonies and death, did not lie forgotten during centuries, because the people could not read of them. They were written on the fleshly tables of the heart,' and softened the tenor of humble existence, while superstition, ignorance and priestcraft held sway in high places.

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These old feelings of love, however, tended greatly to sweeten and moderate the first excursions of the intellect, when released from its long thraldom. The new opening of the stores of Classic lore, of Ancient History, of Italian Poetry, and of Spanish Romance, contributed much, doubtless, to the incitement and the perfection of our national genius.

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The discovery of the New World, too, opened fresh fields for the imagination to revel in. Green islands, and golden sands,' says our author, seemed to arise as by enchantment out of the bosom of the watery waste, and invite the cupidity, or wing the imagination of the dreaming speculator. Fairy land was realized in new and unknown worlds. Fortunate fields, and groves, and flowery vales-thrice happy isles,' were found floating like those Hesperian gardens famed of old,' beyond Atlantic seas, as dropped from the zenith. Other manners might be said to enlarge the bounds of knowledge, and new mines of wealth were tumbled at our feet. Ancient superstitions also still lingered among the people. The romance of human life had not then departed. It was more full of traps and pitfalls; of moving accidents by flood and field: more waylaid by sudden and startling evils, it stood on the brink of hope and fear, or stumbled upon fate unawares,-while imagination, close behind it, caught at and clung to the shape of danger, or snatched a wild and fearful joy from its escape.' The martial and heroic spirit was not dead. It was comparatively an age of peace, "Like Strength reposing on his own right arm; the sound of civil combat might still be heard in the distance,the spear glittered to the eye of memory, or the clashing of armour struck on the imagination of the ardent and the young. The people of that day were borderers on the savage state, on the times of war and bigotry,-though themselves in the lap of arts, of luxury, and knowledge. They stood on the shore, and saw the billows rolling after the storm. They heard the tumult, and were still. Another source of imaginative feelings, which Mr Hazlitt quotes from Mr Lamb, is found in the distinctions of dress, and all the external symbols of trade, profession, and degree, by which the surface of society was embossed with hieroglyphics, and poetry existed in act and complement extern. Lastly, our author alludes to the first enjoyment and uncontrolled range of our old poets through Nature, whose fairest flowers were then uncropped,-and to the movements of the soul then laid open to their view, without disguise or control. All those causes Mr Hazlitt regards as directed, and their immediate effects as united by the genius of our country, native, unaffected, sturdy, and unyielding. His lecture concludes with a character, equally beautiful and just, of the Genius of our Poetry, with reference to the Classical models, as having more of Pan than of Apollo:- but Pan is a God, Apollo is no more!'

The five succeeding Lectures contain the opinions of the author on most of the celebrated works produced from the time of