UNCLE IN ENGLAND. 157 



science, may be elicited by laborious reflection, 

 or plodding perseverance ; but fancy flashes 

 them across the mind of the true poet, and,, by a 

 sort of inspiration, furnishes him with an ex- 

 uberance of materials. But here again, Bertha, 

 he must have recourse to taste and judgment, 

 if he would make an agreeable impression on the 

 minds of others. The ornaments of poetry, you 

 say, are the allusions ; but in order to please, 

 the points of similitude must, on the one hand, 

 be so obvious as to excite the immediate sympa- 

 thy of the reader; and yet, on the other, they 

 must be so disconnected as to display ingenuity 

 by their comparison or contrast, and to surprise 

 with their novelty. 



Hope and fear, alternate, sway'd his breast, 



Like light and shade upon a waving field 

 Coursing each other, when the flying clouds 

 Now hide, and now reveal, the sun. 



" I think the conditions I laid down are both 

 completely satisfied in these beautiful lines from 

 one of Home's tragedies. But if poetical allu- 

 sions were merely employed for ornament, they 

 would cloy the taste and encumber the sense 

 they must therefore help to illustrate and give 

 force to those ideas that would otherwise be ob- 

 scure, or which would be too rapidly passed over 

 by the reader. For this reason they are gene- 

 rally taken from material objects with which 

 our senses are most conversant, and are applied 



p 



