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fied with far other lyrical productions than those of the stamp 

 of " Chevy Chace," or "The History of Eobin Hood and Little 

 John ;" though he did not for a moment wish to question the 

 worth of either of those excellent old ballads ; — in the present 

 day, however, education, though it had yet a wondrous task 

 before it, had so prevailed, that the subtlety of thought and 

 power of imagination, necessary quahties in even a minor poet, 

 were to be found, to a greater or lesser extent, in almost every 

 parish of the kingdom, as the columns of any local print or 

 magazine would abundantly testify. 



He then proceeded to remark that, although the highest 

 order of Poets have generally preferred to perpetuate their 

 memories in long compositions, neglecting those smaller pieces 

 to winch he specially referred, yet there were not a few, and 

 even illustrious exceptions, viz., Campbell, Hogg, Words- 

 worth, Tennyson, and poor Hood, whose " Bridge of Sighs," 

 and " Song of the Shirt," would be known and appreciated 

 wherever and so long as the English language should be 

 spoken or understood ; besides, who could tell but that the 

 divine afflatus, apparent in the production of even a tiny poem, 

 might not be yet swelled out into a grand epic under the cre- 

 ative power of genius, as in the instances of Pope, Thompson, 

 and Cowper, whose poems of " the Eape of the Lock," " the 

 Castle of Indolence," and " the Task," were respectively the 

 immortal issue of circumstances in themselves most trivial. 

 Might he not, too, in the town of Liverpool, where the name 

 and memory of Currie were so much and so justly revered, 

 mention the poet Burns, to whose free and forcible spirit, to 

 whose original and vigorous mind we were mainly indebted 

 for awakening that poetry of the heart which formed so dis- 

 tinguishing a feature of our times; and yet, what poem of 

 any length did Burns compose ? The best American Poets, 

 and Poetesses also, as Mrs. Sigourney, Bryant, Longfellow, 

 and Willis, had not hesitated to avail themselves of the me- 

 dium of lyrical poetry to present to society many pieces, pos- 



