Yet does my mind with sweeter transport glow,
As at the root of mossy trunk reclin'd,
In magic Spenser's wildly-warbled song
I see deserted Una wander wide

Thro' wasteful solitudes, and lurid heaths,
Weary, forlorn; than when the fated fair
Upon the bosom bright of silver Thames
Launches in all the lustre of brocade,
Amid the splendours of the laughing sun.
The gay description palls upon the sense,
And coldly strikes the mind with feeble bliss."

:

Joseph Warton, in the Advertisement to his own Odes, 1746, says, "The public has been so much accustomed of late to didactic poetry alone, and essays on moral subjects, that any work, where the imagination is much indulged, will perhaps not be relished, or regarded. The author therefore of these pieces is in some pain, lest certain austere critics should think them too fanciful and descriptive. But as he is convinced that the fashion of moralizing in verse has been carried too far, and as he looks upon imagination and invention to be the chief faculties of a poet, so he will be happy, if the following Odes may be looked upon, as an attempt to bring back poetry into its right channel."*

It may be curious to compare the coincidence of opinion on this subject between Thomas Warton, and a celebrated predecessor, and celebrated successor.

In the preface of Edw. Phillips's "Theatrum Poetarum," supposed to be written by Milton, is the following passage:

"Wit, ingenuity, and learning in verse, even ele

:

gancy itself, though that comes nearest, are one thing: true native poetry is another; in which there is a certain spirit and air, which perhaps the most learned and judicious in other arts do not perfectly compre

hend."

In the preface to Milton's Juvenile Poems, 1785, T. Warton says, "Wit and rhyme, sentiment and satire, polished numbers, sparkling couplets, and pointed periods, having kept undisturbed possession of our poetry, till late in the eighteenth century, would not easily give way to fiction and fancy, to picturesque description, and romantic imagery."

Mr. Southey, in the preface to his Specimens of Later English Poets, just published, says, speaking of the time of Dryden, "The writers of this and the succeeding generation, understood their own character better than it has been understood by their successors; they called themselves wits instead of poets, and wits they were; the difference is not in degree, but in kind, They succeeded in what they aimed at; in satire and in panegyric, in ridiculing an enemy, and in flattering a friend; in turning a song, and in complimenting a lady; in pointing an epigram, and in telling a lewd tale: in these branches of literary art, the Birmingham trade of verse, they have rarely been surpassed. Give them what praise you will, as versifiers, as wits, as reasoners, I wish not to detract a point from it; but versification, and wit, and reason, do not constitute poetry. The time, which is elapsed from the days of Dryden to those of Pope, is the dark age of English poetry."

It now became the fashion to furnish food for the fancy,

fancy, and pile images upon images, without perhaps, at all times, sufficiently attending to the construction of the language, or the harmony of the rhythm. An instance of this occurs in the very opening of Warton's poem on "Melancholy," already cited: for the sentences are involved, and the meaning at first obscured by this defect, though the images are striking and highly picturesque. The following descriptive passage, commencing at the 42d verse, deserves high praise:

" When the world

Is clad in Midnight's raven-colour'd robe,
'Mid hollow charnel let me watch the flame
Of taper dim, shedding a livid glare
O'er the wan heaps; while airy voices talk
Along the glimmering walls; or ghostly shape
At distance seen invites, with beckoning hand,
My lonesome steps thro' the far-winding vaults.
Nor undelightful is the solemn noon
Of night, when haply wakeful from my couch
I start: lol all is motionless around!
Roars not the rushing wind; the sons of men,
And every beast, in mute oblivion lie;
All nature's hush'd in silence and in sleep.
O then how fearful is it to reflect,
That thro' the still globe's awful solitude
No being wakes but me! till stealing sleep
My drooping temples bathes in opiate dews.
Nor then let dreams, of wanton folly born,
My senses lead thro' flowery paths of joy;
But let the sacred genius of the night
Such mystic visions send, as Spenser saw,
When thro' bewild'ring Fancy's magic maze,
To the fell house of Busyrane, he led

Th

Th' unshaken Britomart; or Milton knew
When in abstracted thought he first conceiv'd
All heaven in tumult, and the Seraphim
Came tow'ring, arm'd in adamant and gold."

But if Warton thought less highly of "sentiment and satire, of polished numbers, and sparkling couplets," it was not from inability to excel in that style. His "Newmarket" a satire, published in 1751, is a decisive proof of his talent in that sort of composition, and forms a complete contrast to most of his other poems. The description of the old family seat, a prey gamesters, prostitutes, and grooms," is highly beautiful.

"to

In short, if we consider the genius and learning of Thomas Warton; if we contemplate him as a poet, a scholar, a critic, an antiquary, and a writer of prose, ages may pass away before his equal shall arise.

ART. XV. MRS. CHARLOTTE SMITH.

[SEE P. 84.]

Since I wrote the memoirs of Mrs. Smith, for which I have had the delight of receiving the approbation of those who knew her best, as to the accuracy of the character I ventured, however weakly, to draw of her, a posthumous volume of her poems has appeared, in which she herself has expressed some of the very sentiments, which I supposed her to have experienced; I cannot therefore refrain from extracting these passages. They are from the principal poem, in blank verse, entitled, titled BEACHY HEAD, consisting of 731 lines, but, alas! unfinished.

" I once was happy, when, while yet a child,
I learn'd to love these upland solitudes,
And when, elastic as the mountain air,
To my light spirit care was yet unknown
And evil unforeseen: early it came,
And, childhood scarcely pass'd, I was condemn'd,
A guiltless exile, silently to sigh,
While memory, with faithful pencil, drew
The contrast: and regretting, I compar'd
With the polluted smoky atmosphere
And dark and stifling streets, the southern hills,
That, to the setting sun their graceful heads
Rearing, o'erlook the frith, where Vecta breaks
With her white rocks the strong impetuous tide,
When western winds the vast Atlantic urge
To thunder on the coast. Haunts of my youth!
Scenes of fond day-dreams, I behold ye yet!
Where 'twas so pleasant by thy northern slopes
To climb the winding sheep-path, aided oft
By scatter'd thorns: whose spiny branches bore
Small woolly tufts, spoils of the vagrant lamb.
There seeking shelter from the noon-day sun,
And pleasant seated on the short soft turf,
To look beneath upon the hollow way
While heavily upward mov'd the labouring wain,
And stalking slowly by, the sturdy hind,
To ease his panting team, stopp'd with a stone
The grating wheel.

Advancing higher still

The prospect widens, and the village church
But little, o'er the lowly roofs around

Rears its gray belfry, and its simple vane;

Those