Remarks on the Transition Rocks of Werner. 91 
thereby occasioned peculiar characteristics in the poetry of 
different nations. The more detached, unmixed,and steady 
that the society of any country preserves itself, the more 
original and singular will be the characteristics of its 
poetry; and by the same rule, according to the intimacy 
and extent of intercourse which nations cultivate with one 
another, the more various and general will be the points of 
association in their habits of thinking, and their poetry 
consequently approximate to resemblance. The English 
nation more than any other that ever existed has cultivated a 
general intercourse with all parts of the globe ; and accord- 
ingly we find poets in that country whose works, though 
comparatively popular there, are but little understood even 
by the learned of the continent. In the middle of the 
eighteenth century all Europe was surprised by the ap- 
pearance in that country of the poems of Ossian ; works 
which, whatever may be the debate as to their historical 
authenticity, are admitted to be fine specimens of a kind of 
poetry cultuvated by the mountaineers of Scotland, and 
which was felt to be natural, and acknowledged to be ori- 
ginal, even by those who questioned their antiquity. . In 
like manner the conquests of the British in India have added 
to the stores of the British poets; and in England a kind of 
poetry is fast growing into repute, which seems to bear. the 
same sort of resemblance to that of the oriental poets 
which the productions of the muse in the days of Leo X. 
bore to that of the Greek and Roman poets of antiquity. 
Mr. Southey has already brought this style to a high de- 
gree of excellence ; and the specimens by SirWilliam Jones, 
along with the Transactions of the Asiatic Society, present 
to the world a glimpse of what pleasures may be added to 
our enjoyment of knowledge, by a nation which combines 
in its enterprises the glory of victory and the advantages 
of commerce; which carries in the rear of its armies the 
abundance of industry, and which, by its jurisprudence re- 
quiring the military to be subservient to the civil authorities, 
sends to the most distant regions the most enlightened of 
mankind in the capacity of advocates and judges. 
/ [Vo be contihued.] 
XVII. Remarks on the Transition Rocks of Werner. By 
Tuomas Attan, Esq. F.R.S. Edin, 
(Concluded from p. 25.] 
Gnanrre countries usually present a bold and varied oute. 
line ; but to this rule Cornwall is a most decided exception: 
its 
