S6 Poetry. ■ 



odes of J. B. Rousseau, and of Gicssett, are con- 

 sidered by the critics of tliat country as among 

 the most fmished productions of their kind. To 

 the odes of Rousseau this character is especially- 

 applicable. In the Italian language, the odes of 

 Metastasio * ; in the German, those of Klopstock, 

 Weisse, and Wieland ; and in the Swedish, those 

 of Dahlin, and of Gyllenborg, are all admired 

 among those who understand the languages in 

 wliich they are respectively written. But it is be- 

 liev«d that the best lyric poetry of Great Britain, 

 during this period, exceeds that of any other coun- 

 try in Europe, and of course in the literary world. 

 Under the head of lyric poetry may be placed 

 the species of composition called the Sonnet, with 

 many excellent models of which the eighteenth 

 century has remarkably abounded. This kind of 

 poetry is of Italian origin. Dante, though not the 

 inventor, was the hrst who succeeded in the com- 

 position of it. The hrst successful attempts to 

 present the Sonnet in our language were made 

 by Drummond, and afterward by Milton. The 

 former excelled in delicacy ; the specimens fur- 

 nished by the latter were chiefly distinguished by 

 strength of expression, and sublimity of thought, 

 but were by no means remarkable for smoothness, 

 harmony, or elegance. In these respects, several 

 writers of Sonnets, since the day of that immortal 

 bard, though greatly inferior in genius, have much 

 excelled him , and of course have produced 



* Pietro Metastasio was born at Rome, of poor parents, in 

 1678. His poems procured hita the gift of nobility. He 4i«d 

 sA Vienna in 178^?. 



