* 'O ya wWc souk retenlle** to&s tam’d 
To haft distress, or friend untimely fallen \ 
Court not the luxury of tender thought ; 
Nor deem it impious to forget those pain* 
That hurt the living, nought avail the dead. 
Go, soft enthusiast, quit the cypress groves; 
Nor to the rivulet’s lonely moanings tune 
Your sad complaint. Go, seek tire cheerful 
haunts 
Of men, and mingle with the bustling crowd; 
Lay schemes for wealth, or power, or fame — 
the wish 
Of nobler minds, and push them night and 
day ; 
i Or join the caravan, in quest o f scenes 
New to your eves, and shifting every hour, 
| Beyond the Alps, beyond the Appenines.” 
Armstrong. 
“ O winter, ruler of the inverted year. 
Thy scattered hair, with sleet like ashes fill’d, 
Thy breath congeal’d upon thy lips, thy 
cheeks 
Fring’d with a beard made white with other 
snows 
Than those of age, thy forehead wrapt in 
I clouds, 
A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne 
A sliding car indebted to no wheels. 
But urg'd by storms along its slippery way! 
1 love thee, ’all unlovely as thou seem’st, 
And dreaded as thou art. Thou hold’st the 
sun 
A prisoner in the yet undawning east, 
Short’ning his journey between morn and 
noon, 
» And hurrying him, impatient of his stay, 
Down to the rosy west; but kindly still 
Compensating his loss with added hours 
Of social converse, and instructive ease.” 
Cowper. 
The defect of Young’s blank verse is, that 
the sense commonly, closes with the line, and 
that it has too much of the systematical uni- 
formity, without the musical varieties, of 
rhyme*. Whether rhyme or blank verse is 
entitled to pre-eminence, is a question which 
must ultimately be determined by individual 
taste. In the choice of his measure, the: poet 
must obviously be influenced by the nature 
i. of his subject; and rhyme or blank verse will 
: alternately obtain his preference. In all the 
gay and airy excursions of fancy, or the 
lighter touches of feeling, lie will find in 
rhyme an auxiliary equally pleasing and im- 
portant. To such compositions as require a 
measure of spirited and vivacious movement, 
rhyme is an indispensable appendage. To 
satire it adds poignancy, to humour it gives 
elegance ; it imparts renovation to old ideas, 
and lends attraction to trivial sentiments ; it 
renders familiar illustration graceful, and 
plain sense eloquent. In all but the Alpine 
regions of poetry, rhyme is a fence no less 
useful than ornamental, enriching and' en- 
livening every object. In the Allegro and 
Penseroso, even Milton conceived it no dere- 
liction of poetical freedom to have pursued 
the path traced out by bis predecessors : but 
in his Paradise Lost, when “lie soared beyond 
the visible diurnal sphere,” his deviation into 
blank verse was as judicious as fortunate ; be- 
cause his subject was then too sublime, his 
conceptions too gigantic, for the narrow limits 
and demarcations of rhyme. Wherever 
much originality of thought exists, this me- 
trical charm is unnecessary; and where imagi- 
pomf. 
tsalfon feign* \n wild luxuriance, It i* imper- 
tinent, Jo some ©fin* juvenile poem*, Mil- 
ton appears to have been incumbered w ith 
the dignity of his thoughts; and Sliakspeave, 
perplexed by the richness and variety of his 
combinations, is apt to become affected when 
he quits blank verse. Attempts have been 
made to enlarge the limits of blank verse, by 
the introduction of various measures analo- 
gous to those employed in rhyme: but to all 
these efforts the genius of the language dis- 
covers an invincible repugnance; vainly are 
varieties presented to the eye, which are im- 
perceptible to the mind, and untasted by the 
ear. All rhymeless numbers either flow into 
good blank verse, or form lines harsh and 
intractable; a succession of abrupt sounds 
and mutilated sentences, which by no art of 
typography, by no imposition of nomencla- 
ture, can be made to constitute any metre at 
all. 
Poetical classification. 
The primitive sources of modem poetry 
may be traced to the old romance ; whence 
was derived the simple ballad so popular in 
England and Scotland, and under various 
names and forms universally adopted in Eu- 
rope. On the revival of letters, when the 
study and imitation of the classics became the 
passion of all literary men, their nomenclature 
was eagerly assumed ; and volumes of poetry 
were soon composed, which the high-sounding 
names of odes, pastorals, satires, and epic 
poems, have not saved from oblivion; vo- 
lumes of criticism were also compiled, to shew 
how pastorals, odes, and satires, ought to 
have been written. 
Pastoral poetry is, above all other, the 
most limited in its object ; and when formed 
on the model presented to us by Virgil and 
Theocritus, should be a description ot rural 
scenes and natural feelings, enriched with 
elegant language, and adorned by the most 
melodious numbers. 
Few y English pastorals will be recognized 
in this definition ; the scenes they represent 
are artificial, and the sentiments factitious, be- 
cause they are imitated from other poets, the 
natives of a luxuriant region, accustomed to 
the living tints and glowing azure of a cloud- 
less sky. From this censure, however, the 
pastoral drama of Allan Ramsay must be 
excepted, as should Shenstone’s celebrated 
ballad. The ballad is perhaps the happiest 
vehicle of pastoral poetry, and there are in 
our language many ballads of exquisite beau- 
ty. Some of our pastorals are elegiac; such 
is Milton’s monody on Lycidass 
“ Together both, ere the high lawns ap- 
pear’d 
Under the opening eyelid of the Morn, 
We drove afield; and both together heard 
What time the grey fly winds her sultry 
horn, 
Batt’ning our flocks with the fresh dews of 
night, 
Olt till the star that rose at evening bright, 
Towards heaven’s descent had slop’d his 
westering wheel.” 
The conclusion of this poem is in the true 
spirit of elegant pastoral : 
“ Thus sung the uncouth swain to th’ oaks 
and rills. 
When the stillMorn went out in sandals grey; 
3 N 2 
467 
flc touchV! the tender stops of various quiRa# 
With eager thought, warbling his Doric lay; 
And now die sun had stretch’d out all the 
hills, 
And now was dropt into the western bay. 
At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue, 
To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures 
new.” 
r l lie name of Elegy was originally given to 
funereal monody, but was afterwards attached 
to all plaintive strains. In the Latin language 
it was always written in hexameter and pen- 
tameter verse. By the moderns an elegiac 
stanza was invented, assimilating as nearly 
as possible with those slow melodious num- 
bers. Many elegies, and perhaps the best, 
are expressive only of soothing tenderness. 
Such are those of Tibullus, so happily imi- 
tated by Hammond. The Jesse of Shen- 
stone, which has perhaps never been sur- 
passed, is all pathos. The celebrated elegy 
of Gray combines every charm of description 
and sentiment. The elegiac stanza, the mo- 
notony of which soon becomes oppressive to 
the ear, is sometimes happily exchanged for 
a lighter measure, as in (Jowper’s Juan Fer- 
nandez i 
“ Ye winds that have made me your sport. 
Convey to this desolate shore 
borne cordial endearing report 
Of a land I shall visit no more. 
My friends do they now and then send 
A wish or a thought after me ? 
Oh ! tell me I yet have a friend, 
Though a friend l am never to see.” 
The Sonnet represents in an abridged form, 
the antient elegy; the same slow stanza is as- 
signed to each, and the sentiments suitable 
to the one are appropriate to the other. The 
sonnet is derived from the Italian school, and 
was much cultivated in England during the 
seventeenth century. It is always limited to 
fourteen lines, an artificial character which 
should seem to indicate anOriental extraction. 
The following, by Milton, is a fine specimen 
of the English sonnet in the Italian manner : 
“ O nightingale, that on yon leafy spray 
Wast blest at eve, when all the woods are still ! 
Thou with fresh hopes the lover’s heart dost 
/ill. 
When the jolly Hours lead on propitiousMay. 
Thy liquid notes, that close the eye of Day, 
First heard before the shallow cuckoo’s bill. 
Portend success in love. Oh ! if Jove’s will 
Have link’d that amorous power to thy soft 
lay. 
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate 
Foretell my hopeless doom in some grove 
nigh. 
As thou from year to year hast sung too late 
For my . relief, yet hadst no reason why. 
Whether the muse or Lovecall thee his mate, 
Botli them I serve, and of their train am I.” 
In the following sonnet, which is of a mo- 
dem date, the stanza is happily accommodat- 
ed to the English language : 
Written in the church -yard of Middleton, 
Sussex. 
“ Press’d by the moon, mute arbitress of 
tides, 
Whilst the loud equinox its power combines 
The sea no more its swelling surge confines* 
But o’er the shrinking land sublimely rides. ’ 
