35 



was not of a kind adapted for music. Tiie genuine poet will always 

 aim to be true to Nature ; but then he will wish to represent Nature s 

 truths in their most beautiful aspects, just as the painter tries to catch 

 and preserve what Coleridge calls " the sudden charm, which accidents 

 of light and shade, moonlight or sun-set, ditfuse over a familiar laud- 

 scape." Nay, as Wordsworth expresses it, true [loetry does to all 

 thoughts and to aU objects 



" Add the gleam, 

 The hght that never was on sea or land, 

 The consecration, and the poet's dream."' 

 The musical beaiity of language, the measure aud the rhyme which the 

 poet adopts, tends to keep in view the proper essence of his ideal 

 object. 



Poetry may be of various kinds. There is descriptive poetiy, or the 

 poetry which describes whatever is grand or beautiful in external 

 nature, as seen by a poet's eye, enlivened by his fancy and interpreted 

 by his imaginative and sympathising heart. This occurs incidentally 

 in the works of many poets, but abounds most, of course, in those of 

 tlie closest and most loving observers of nature, such as Scott and 

 Wordsworth. There is the poetry which deals in pure creations of 

 faucy, supernatural beings, such as fairies, ghosts, or allegorical 

 monsters, preserving however a certain truth to nature sufficient to 

 enable us to be carried away by the genius of the poet, and to sym- 

 pathise with the characters as real beings. Most exquisite poetry of 

 this kind is to be found in Spenser, Shakspeare. Coleridge, Keats, and 

 Shelly. There is the poetry, sometimes sportive, but oftener grave and 

 often sad, which describes human beings, their characters, lives, 

 actions, experience, affections, joys, and sorrows. This includes, of 

 course, the noble dramatic poetry of Shakspeare, the sweet and truthful 

 songs of Burns, and the pure aud thoughtful poems of Cowper and 

 Wordsworth. Then there is sacred poetry, or that which deals with 

 the solemn subjects of man's religious faith and hope, his sense of 

 duty — his liability to guilty shame — his awful relation to God and 

 Heaven. Tins includes Milton, Young, and the writers of all our best 

 hymns and devotional pieces. Watts, Wesley, Doddridge, Heber, Keble, 

 and many others. It is obvious that poetry, by its very nature, is 

 eminently fitted to adorn and illustrate the great truths of religion, 

 which in turn, are the noblest subjects to which its powers can be 

 applied. In short, as Leigh Hunt says, " the means of poetry are 

 whatever the universe contains, and its ends pleasure and exaltation." 



The diffei'ent and even opposite definitions whicli have been given of 

 Poetry, may, I think, by a little consideration, be reconciled with each 

 other as parliiil and one-sided views. Aristotle calls the art of poetrv 



