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sessing, in addition to melodious versification, much purity of 

 sentiment and refined feeling. 



He urged, in continuation, that if genius and talent were as 

 much required for the production of an ode, a sonnet, or even 

 a song, as for the solemnity and dignity of an epic poem ; 

 that, if Horace and Anacreon were as truly and as great poets 

 as Virgil or Homer ; and that the same qualities of mind, 

 though differing in degree, were employed in the composition 

 of the beautiful ode on " the burial of Sir John Moore," or 

 on Grey's " Elegy written in a Country Churchyard," as in 

 the laborious construction of Milton's wondrous " Paradise 

 Lost," or the consumately clever " Hudibras" of Butler ; if 

 this were so, he thought he might crave some respect for a 

 selection from the "Fugitive Poetry" of the day, however 

 obscure its origin, however humble the source from which it 

 flowed : although well aware that too many " swayed about 

 upon a Rocking-horse and called it Pegasus," he contended, 

 nevertheless, that there were beauties of no mean order to be 

 culled even from among those ambiguas voces ; and he con- 

 fidently believed that the writers of some of the illustrations 

 he should lay before the Society would yet achieve greatness 

 in that art, without which, " whether in the rough vigour of 

 " our ancient ballads — in the chivalrous poetry of Scott and 

 " his school — in the forcible and touching strains of Byron — 

 "the contemplative and philosophical inspiration of Words- 

 " worth — or the familiar and yet noble, tender and yet manly, 

 " lyrics of Burns" — we should be poor indeed. 



" Immersed in business," to use the words of an eminent 

 critic, " which, if it sharpen the edge of intellect, leaves the 

 "heart barren; toiling after material wealth or power, or 

 " struggling with fortune for existence ; seeing selfishness re- 

 jected all around us from the hard and glittering surface of 

 " society, as from a cold and polished mirror ; it would go 

 " hard with man in adversity, perhaps still more in prosperity, 

 "if some resource were not afforded, which, under the form 



