In short, the general progress of the country led to an improvement in the department of popular poetry, tending both to soften and melodize the language employed, and to ornament the diction beyond that of the rude minstrels, to whom such topics of composition had been originally abandoned. The monotony of the ancient recitals was, for the same causes, altered and improved upon. The eternal descriptions of battles, and of love dilemmas, which, to satiety, filled the old romances with trivial repetition, were retrenched. If any one wishes to compare the two eras of lyrical poetry, a few verses taken from one of the latest minstrel ballads, and one of the earliest that were written for the press, will afford him, in some degree, the power of doing so. The rude lines from Anthony Now Now, which we have just quoted, may, for example, be compared, as Ritson requests, with the ornamented commencement of the ballad of Fair Rosamond: "When as King Henry ruled this land, The second of the name, Besides his queen be dearly loved A fair and comely dame. "Most peerless was her beauty found, Her favour, and her face; A sweeter creature in the world "Her crisped locks, like threads of gold Appear'd to each man's sight; Her sparkling eyes, like orient pearls, Did cast a heavenly light. "The blood within ber crystal cheeks Did such a colour drive, As if the lily and the rose For mastery did strive." It may be rash to affirm, that those who lived by singing this more refined poetry, were a class of men different from the ancient minstrels; but it appears, that both the name of the professors, and the character of the Minstrel poetry, had sunk in reputation. The facility of versification, and of poetical diction, is decidedly in favour of the moderns, as might reasonably be expected from the improved taste, and enlarged knowledge, of an age which abounded to such a degree in poetry, and of a character so imaginative as was the Elizabethan era. The poetry addressed to the populace, and enjoyed by them alone, was animated by the spirit that was breathed around. We may cite Shakspeare's unquestionable and decisive evidence in this respect. In Twelfth Night he describes a popular ballad, with a beauty and precision which no one but himself could have affixed to its character; and the whole constitutes the strongest appeal in favour of that species of poetry which is written to suit the taste of the public in general, and is most naturally preserved by oral tradition. But the remarkable part of the circumstance is, that when the song is actually sung by Festé the clown, it differs in almost all particulars from what we might have been justified in considering as attributes of a popular ballad of that early period. It is simple, doubtless, both in structure and phraseology, but is rather a love song than a minstrel ballad-a love song, also, which, though its imaginative figures of speech are of a very simple and intelligible character, may nevertheless be compared to any thing rather than the boldness of the preceding age, and resembles nothing less than the ordinary minstrel ballad. The original, though so well known, may be here quoted, for the purpose of showing, what was, in Shak speare's time, regarded as the poetry of "the old age." Almost every one has the passage by heart, yet I must quote it, because there seems a marked difference between the species of poem which is described, and that which is sung: "Mark it, Cæsario; it is old and plain : The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids, that weave their thread with bones, Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth, And dallies with the innocence of love, Like the old age." The song, thus beautifully prefaced, is as follows: Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath; I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew. O prepare it ; My part of death no one so true Did share it. "Not a flower, not a flower sweet, On my black coffin let there be strown; Not a friend, not a friend greet My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown: A thousand, thousand sighs to save, Lay me, 0, where Sad true lover never find my grave, To weep there." On comparing this love elegy, or whatever it may be entitled, with the ordinary, and especially the earlier popular poetry, I cannot help thinking that a great difference will be observed in the structure of the verse, the character of the sentiments, the ornaments and refinement of the language. Neither indeed, as might be expected from the progress of human affairs, was the change in the popular style of poetry achieved without some disadvantages, which counterbalanced, in a certain degree, the superior art and exercise of fancy which had been introduced of late times. The expressions of Sir Philip Sidney, an unquestionable judge of poetry, flourishing in Elizabeth's golden reign, and drawing around him, like a magnet, the most distinguished poets of the age, amongst whom we need only name Shakspeare and Spenser, still show something to regret when he compared the highly wrought and richly ornamented poetry of his own time, with the ruder but more energetic diction of Chevy Chase. His words, often quoted, cannot yet be dispensed with on the present occasion. They are a chapter in the history of ancient poetry. "Certainly," says the brave knight, "I must confess my own barbarousness; I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas, that I found not my heart more moved than with a trumpet. And yet it is sung by some blind crowder, with no rougher voice than rude style, which being so evil apparelled in the dust and cobwebs of that uncivil age, what would it work, trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar?”‣ If we enquire more particularly what were the peculiar charms by which the old minstrel ballad produced an effect like a trumpet-sound upon the bosom of a real son of chivalry, we may not be wrong in ascribing it to the extreme simplicity with which the narrative moves forward, neglecting all the more minute ornaments of speech and diction, to the grand object of enforcing on the hearer a striking and affecting catastrophe. The author seems too serious in his wish to affect the audience, to allow himself to be drawn aside by any thing which can, either by its tenor, or the manner in which it is spoken, have the perverse effect of distracting attention from the catastrophe. 1 Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesy. Such grand and serious beauties, however, occurred but rarely to the old minstrels; and, in order to find them, it became necessary to struggle through long passages of monotony, languor, and inanity. Unfortunately it also happened, that those who, like Sidney, could ascertain, feel, and do full justice to the beauties of the heroic ballad, were few, compared to the numbers who could be sensible of the trite verbiage of a bald passage, or the ludicrous effect of an absurd rhyme. In England, accordingly, the popular ballad fell into contempt during the seventeenth century; and although in remote counties its inspiration was occasionally the source of a few verses, it seems to have become almost entirely obsolete in the capital. Even the Civil Wars, which gave so much occasion for poetry, produced rather song and satire, than the ballad or popular epic. The curious reader may satisfy himself on this point, should he wish to ascertain the truth of the allegation, by looking through D'Urfey's large and curious collection, when he will be aware that the few ballads which it contains are the most ancient productions in the book, and very seldom take their date after the commencement of the seventeenth century. In Scotland, on the contrary, the old minstrel ballad long continued to preserve its popularity. Even the last contests of Jacobitism were recited with great vigour in ballads of the time, the authors of some of which are known and remembered; nor is there a more spirited ballad preserved than that of Mr. Skirving,3 (father of Skirving the artist,) upon the battle of Prestonpans, so late as 1745. But this was owing to circumstances connected with the habits of the people in a remote and rude country, which could not exist in the richer and wealthier provinces of England. On the whole, however, the ancient Heroic ballad, as it was called, seemed to be fast declining among the enlightened and literary part of both countries; and if retained by the lower classes in Scotland, it had in England ceased to exist, or degenerated into doggerel of the last degree of vileness. Subjects the most interesting were abandoned to the poorest rhymers, and one would have thought that, as in an ass-race, the prize had been destined to the slowest of those who competed for the prize. The melancholy fate of Miss Ray, who fell by the hands of a frantic lover, could only inspire the Grub Street muse with such verses as these,—that is, if I remember them correctly: "A Sandwich favourite was this fair, And her be dearly loved; By whom six children had, we hear; "A clergyman, O wicked one, It's hoped He's not forgot her." If it be true, as in other cases, that when things are at the worst they must mend, it was certainly time to expect an amelioration in the department in which such doggerel passed current. Accordingly, previous to this time, a new species of poetry seems to have arisen, which in some cases endeavoured to pass itself as the production of genuine antiquity, and in others, honestly avowed an attempt to emulate the merits and avoid the errors with which the old ballad was encumbered; and in the effort to accomplish this, a species of composition was discovered, which is capable of being subjected to peculiar rules of criticism, and of exhibiting excellences of its own. In writing for the use of the general reader, rather than the poetical antiquary, I shall be readily excused from entering into any enquiry respecting the authors who first shewed the way in this peculiar department of modern poetry, which I may term the imitation of the old ballad, especially that of the latter or Elizabethan era. One of the oldest, according to my recollection, which pretends to engraft modern refinement upon ancient simplicity, is extremely beautiful, both from the words and the simple and affecting melody to which they are usually sung. The title is, “Lord Henry and Fair Catherine." It begins thus: "In ancient days, in Britain's isle, Lord Henry well was known; No knight in all the land more famed, "His thoughts were all on honour bent, Early in the eighteenth century, this peculiar species of composition became popular. We find Tickell, the friend of Addison, who produced the beautiful ballad, 64 Of Leinster famed for maidens fair. Mallet, Goldsmith, Shenstone, Percy, and many others, followed an example which had much to recommend it, especially as it presented considerable facilities to those who wished, at as little exertion or trouble as possible, to attain for themselves a certain degree of literary reputation. Before, however, treating of the professed imitators of Ancient Ballad Poetry, I ought to say a word upon those who have written their imitations with the preconceived purpose of passing them for ancient. There is no small degree of cant in the violent invectives with which impostors of this nature have been assailed. In fact, the case of each is special, and ought to be separately considered according to its own circumstances. If a young, perhaps a female author, chooses to circulate a beautiful poem, we will suppose that of Hardyknute, under the disguise of antiquity, the public is surely more enriched by the contribution than injured by the deception. It is hardly possible, indeed, without a power of poetical genius, and acquaintance with ancient language and manners possessed by very few, to succeed in deceiving those who have made this branch of literature their study. The very desire to unite modern refinement with the verve of the ancient minstrels, will itself betray the masquerade. A minute acquaintance with ancient customs, and with ancient history, is also demanded, to sustain a part which, as it must rest on deception, cannot be altogether an honourable one. Two of the most distinguished authors of this class have, in this manner, been detected; being deficient in the knowledge requisite to support their genius in the disguise they meditated. Hardyknute, for instance, already mentioned, is irreconcilable with all chronology, and a chief with a ↑ A curious and spirited specimen occurs in Cornwall, as late as the trial of the Bishops before the Revolution. The President of the Royal Society of London [ Mr. Davies Gilbert ] has not disdained the trouble of preserving it from oblivion. * [Pills to Purge Melancholy.] 3 [ See Hogg's Jacobite Relics, vol. i.-ED.] 4 [ Miss Ray, the beautiful mistress of the Earl of Sandwich, then First Lord of the Admiralty, was assassinated by Mr. Hackman, "in a fit of frantic jealous love," as Boswell expresses it, in 1779. See Croker's Boswell, vol. iv. p. 254.-ED.] 5 ["Hardyknute was the first poem that I ever learnt the last that I shall forget." MS. note of Sir Walter Scott on a leaf of Allan Ramsay's Teatable Miscellany.]} Norwegian name is strangely Introduced as the first of the nobles brought to resist a Norse invasion, at the battle of Largs: the "needle-work so rare," introduced by the fair authoress, must have been certainly long posterior to the reign of Alexander III. In Chatterton's ballad of "Sir Charles Baudwin," we find an anxious attempt to represent the composition as ancient, and some entries in the public accounts of Bristol were appealed to in corroboration. But neither was this ingenious but most unhappy young man, with all his powers of poetry, and with the antiquarian knowledge which he had collected with indiscriminating but astonishing research, able to impose on that part of the public qualified to judge of the composition, which it had occurred to him to pass off as those of a monk of the 13th century. It was in vain that he in each word doubled the consonants, like the sentinels of an endangered army. The art used to disguise and mis-spell the words only overdid what was intended, and afforded sure evidence that the poems published as antiques had been, in fact, tampered by a modern artist, as the newly forged medals of modern days stand convicted of imposture from the very touches of the file, by which there is an attempt to imitate the cracks and fissures produced by the hammer upon the original.' I have only met, in my researches into these matters, with one poem, which, if it had been produced as ancient, could not have been detected on internal evidence. It is the "War Song upon the victory at Brunnanburg, translated from the Anglo-Saxon into Anglo-Norman," by the Right Honourable John Hookham Freere. See Ellis Specimens of Ancient English Poetry, vol. i. p. 32. The accomplished Editor tell us, that this very singular poem was intended as an imitation of the style and language of the fourteenth century, and was written during the controversy occasioned by the poems attributed to Rowley. Mr. Ellis adds, "the reader will probably hear with some surprise, that this singular instance of critical ingenuity was the composition of an Eton schoolboy." The author may be permitted to speak as an artist on this occasion, (disowning, at the same time, all purpose of imposition,) as having written, at the request of the late Mr. Ritson, one or two things of this kind,-among others, a continuation of the romance of Thomas of Ercildoune, the only one which chances to be preserved, and which the reader will find in a subsequent part of this volume. And he thinks himself entitled to state, that a modern poet engaged in such a task, is much in the situation of an architect of the present day, who, if acquainted with his profession, finds no difficulty in copying the external forms of a Gothic castle or abbey, but when it is completed, can hardly, by any artificial tints or cement, supply the spots, weather-stains, and bues of different kinds, with which time alone had invested the venerable fabric which he desires to imitate. Leaving this branch of the subject, in which the difficulty of passing off what is modern for what is ancient This failure applies to the repairs and rifacimentos of old ballads, as well as to complete imitations. In the beautiful and simple ballad of Gil Morris, some affected person has stuck in one or two factitious verses, which, like vulgar persons in a drawing-room, betray themselves by their over finery. Thus, after the simple and affecting verse which prepares the readers for the coming tragedy, "Gil Morrice sat in good green wood, He whistled and he sang; some such "vicious intromitter" as we have described, (to use a barbarous phrase for a barbarous proceeding,) has inserted the following quintessence of affectation: "His locks were like the threads of gold cannot be matter of regret, we may bestow with advantage some brief consideration on the fair trade of manufacturing modern antiques, not for the purpose of passing them as contraband goods on the skilful antiquary, but in order to obtain the credit due to authors as successful imitators of the ancient simplicity, while their system admits of a considerable infusion of modern refinement. Two classes of imitation may be referred to as belonging to this species of composition. When they approach each other, there may be some difficulty in assigning to individual poems their peculiar character, but in general the difference is distinctly marked. The distinction lies betwixt the authors of ballads or legendary poems, who have attempted to imitate the language, the manners, and the sentiments of the ancient poems which were their prototypes; and those, on the contrary, who, without endeavouring to do so, have struck out a particular path for themselves, which cannot with strict propriety be termed either ancient or modern. In the actual imitation of the ancient ballad, Dr. Percy, whose researches made him well acquainted with that department of poetry, was peculiarly successful. The "Hermit of Warkworth," the "Childe of Elle," and other minstrel tales of his composition, must always be remembered with fondness by those who have perused them in that period of life when the feelings are strong, and the taste for poetry, especially of this simple nature, is keen and poignant. This learned and amiable prelate was also remarkable for his power of restoring the ancient ballad, by throwing in touches of poetry, so adapted to its tone and tenor, as to assimilate with its original structure, and impress every one who considered the subject as being coeval with the rest of the piece. It must be owned that such freedoms, when assumed by a professed antiquary, addressing himself to antiquaries, and for the sake of illustrating literary antiquities, are subject to great and licentious abuse; and herein the severity of Ritson was to a certain extent justified. But when the license is avowed, and practised without the intention to deceive, it cannot be objected to but by scrupulous pedantry. The poet, perhaps, most capable, by verses, lines, even single words, to relieve and heighten the character of ancient poetry, was the Scottish bard Robert Burns. We are not here speaking of the avowed lyrical poems of his own composition, which he communicated to Mr. George Thomson, but of the manner in which he recomposed and repaired the old songs and fragments for the collection of Johnson and others, when, if his memory supplied the theme, or general subject of the song, such as it existed in Scottish lore, his genius contributed that part which was to give life and immortality to the whole. If this praise should be thought extravagant, the reader may compare his splendid lyric, "My heart's in the Highlands," with the tame and scarcely half-intelligible remains of that song as preserved by Mr. Peter Buchan. Or, what is perhaps a still more magnificent example of what we mean, “Mac Drawn from Minerva's loom; "His brow was like the mountain snow, "The boy was clad in robes of green, 2 [See Sir Tristrem, post. ] pherson's Farewell," with all its spirit and grandeur, as repaired by Burns, may be collated with the original poem called "Macpherson's Lament," or sometimes the "Ruffian's Rant." In Burns's brilliant rifacimento, the same strain of wild ideas is expressed as we find in the original; but with an infusion of the savage and impassioned spirit of Highland chivalry, which gives a splendour to the composition, of which we find not a trace in the rudeness of the ancient ditty. I can bear witness to the older verses having been current while I was a child, but I never knew a line of the inspired edition of the Ayrshire bard until the appearance of Johnson's Museum. Besides Percy, Burns, and others, we must not omit to mention Mr. Finlay, whose beautiful song, "There came a knight from the field of the slain," is so happily descriptive of antique manners; or Mickle, whose accurate and interesting imitations of the ancient ballad we have already mentioned with approbation in the former Essay on Ballad Composition. These, with others of modern date, at the head of whom we must place Thomas Moore, have aimed at striking the ancient harp with the same bold and rough note to which it was awakened by the ancient minstrels. Southey, Wordsworth, and other distinguished names of the present century, have, in repeated instances, dignified this branch of literature; but no one more than Coleridge, in the wild and imaginative tale of the "Ancient Mariner," which displays so much beauty with such eccentricity. We should act most unjustly in this department of Scottish ballad poetry, not to mention the names of Leyden, Hogg, and Allan Cunningham. They have all three honoured their country, by arriving at distinction from a humble origin, and there is none of them under whose hand the ancient Scottish harp has not sounded a bold and distinguished tone. Miss Anne Bannerman likewise should not be forgotten, whose "Tales of Superstition and Chivalry" appeared about 1802. They were perhaps too mystical and too abrupt; yet if it be the purpose of this kind of ballad poetry powerfully to excite the imagination, without pretending to satisfy it, few persons have succeeded better than this gifted lady, whose volume is peculiarly fit to be read in a lonely house by a decaying lamp. As we have already hinted, a numerous class of the authors (some of them of the very first class) who condescended to imitate the simplicity of ancient poetry, gave themselves no trouble to observe the costume, style, or manner, either of the old minstrel or ballad-singer, but assumed a structure of a separate and peculiar kind, which could not be correctly termed either ancient or modern, although made the vehicle of beauties which were common to both. The discrepancy between the mark which they avowed their purpose of shooting at, and that at which they really took aim, is best illustrated by a production of one of the most distinguished of their number. Goldsmith describes the young family of his Vicar of Wakefield, as amusing themselves with conversing about poetry. Mr. Burchell observes, that the British poets, who imitated the classics, have especially contributed to introduce a false taste, by loading their lines with epithets, so as to present a combination of luxuriant images, without plot or connexion; a string of epithets that improve the sound, with out carrying on the sense. But when an example of popular If I am right in what must be a very early recollection, I saw Mr. Cartwright (then a student of medicine at the Edinburgh university) at the house of my maternal grandfather, John Rutherford, M. D. poetry is produced as free from the fault which the critic has just censured, it is the well-known and beautiful poem of Edwin and Angelina! which, in felicitous attention to the language, and in fanciful ornament of imagery, is as unlike to a minstrel ballad, as a lady assuming the dress of a Shepherdess for a masquerade, is different from the actual Sisly of Salisbury Plain. Tickell's beautiful ballad is equally formed upon a pastoral, sentimental, and ideal model, not, however, less beautifully executed; and the attention of Addison's friend had been probably directed to the ballad stanza (for the stanza is all which is imitated) by the praise bestowed on Chevy Chase in the Spectator. Upon a later occasion, the subject of Mallet's fine poem, Edwin and Emma, being absolutely rural in itself, and occurring at the hamlet of Bowes, in Yorkshire, might have seduced the poet from the beau idéal, which he had pictured to himself, into something more immediately allied to common life. But Mallet was not a man to neglect what was esteemed fashionable, and poor Hannah Railton and her lover Wrightson were enveloped in the elegant but tinsel frippery appertaining to Edwin and Emma; for the similes, reflections, and suggestions of the poet are, in fact, too intrusive and too well said to suffer the reader to feel the full taste of the tragic tale. The verses are doubtless beautiful, but I must own the simple prose of the Curate's letter, who gives the narrative of the tale as it really happened, has to me a tone of serious veracity more affecting than the ornaments of Mallet's fiction. The same author's ballad, "William and Margaret," has, in some degree, the same fault. A disembodied spirit is not a person before whom the living spectator takes leisure to make remarks of a moral kind, as, "So will the fairest face appear, When youth and years are flown, And such the robe that Kings must wear When death has reft their crown." Upon the whole, the ballad, though the best of Mallet's writing, is certainly inferior to its original, which I presume to be the very fine and even terrific old Scottish tale, beginning, "There came a ghost to Margaret's door." It may be found in Allan Ramsay's "Tea-table Miscellany." We need only stop to mention another very beautiful piece of this fanciful kind, by Dr. Cartwright, called Armin and Elvira, containing some excellent poetry, expressed with unusual felicity. I have a vision of having met this accomplished gentleman in my very early youth, and am the less likely to be mistaken, as he was the first living poet I His poem had the distinguished recollect to have seen. 1 honour to be much admired by our celebrated philosopher, Dugald Stewart, who was wont to quote with much pathos, the picture of resignation in the following stanza : "And while his eye to Heaven he raised, Its silent waters stole away." a After enumerating so many persons of undoubted genius, who have cultivated the Arcadian style of poetry, (for to such it may be compared,) it would be endless to enumerate the various Sir Eldreds of the hills and downs whose stories were woven into legendary tales-which came at length 2 Happily altered by an admiring foreigner, who read "The silent waters stole away." to be the name assigned to this half-ancient half-modern style of composition. In general I may observe, that the supposed facility of this species of composition, the alluring simplicity of which was held sufficient to support it, afforded great attractions for those, whose ambition led them to exercise their untried talents in verse, but who were desirous to do so with the least possible expense of thought. The task seems to present, at least to the inexperienced acolyte of the Muses, the same advantages which an instrument of sweet sound and small compass offers to those who begin their studies in music. In either case, however, it frequently happens that the scholar, getting tired of the palling and monotonous character of the poetry or music which he produces, becomes desirous to strike a more independent note, even at the risk of its being a more difficult one. The same simplicity involves an inconvenience fatal to the continued popularity of any species of poetry, by exposing it in a peculiar degree to ridicule and to parody. Dr. Johnson, whose style of poetry was of a very different and more stately description, could ridicule the ballads of Percy, in such stanzas as these,— "The tender infant, meek and mild, Fell down upon a stone; The nurse took up the squalling child, But still the child squall'd on;" It with various slipshod imitations of the same quality. did not require his talents to pursue this vein of raillery, for it was such as most men could imitate, and all could enjoy. It is, therefore, little wonderful that this sort of composition should be repeatedly laid aside for considerable periods of time, and certainly as little so, that it should have been repeatedly revived, like some forgotten melody, and have again obtained some degree of popularity, until it sunk once more under satire, as well as parody, but, above all, the effects of satiety. During the thirty years that I have paid some attention to literary matters, the taste for the ancient ballad melody, and for the closer or more distant imitation of that strain of poetry, has more than once arisen, and more than once subsided, in consequence, perhaps, of too unlimited indulgence. That this has been the case in other countries, we know; for the Spanish poet, when he found that the beautiful Morisco romances were excluding all other topics, confers upon them a hearty malediction. 2 A period when this particular taste for the popular ballad was in the most extravagant degree of fashion, became the occasion, unexpectedly indeed, of my deserting the profession to which I was educated, and in which I had sufficiently advantageous prospects for a person of limited ambition. I have, in a former publication, undertaken to mention this circumstance; and I will endeavour to do so with becoming brevity, and without more egotism than is positively exacted by the nature of the story. I may, in the first place, remark, that although the assertion has been made, and that by persons who seemed satisfied with their authority, it is a mistake to suppose that my situation in life or place in society were materially altered by such success as I attained in literary attempts. My birth, without giving the least pretension to distinction, was that of a gentleman, and connected me with several respectable families and accomplished persons. My education had been a good one, although I was deprived of its full benefit by indifferent health, just at the period when I ought to have been most sedulous in improving it. The young men with whom I was brought up, and lived most familiarly, were those, who, from opportunities, birth, and talents, might be expected to make the greatest advances in the career for which we were all destined; and I have the pleasure still to preserve my youthful intimacy with no inconsiderable number of them, whom their merit has carried forward to the highest honours of their profession. Neither was I in a situation to be embarrassed by the res angusta domi, which might have otherwise brought painful additional obstructions to a path in which progress is proverbially slow. I enjoyed a moderate degree of business for my standing, and the friendship of more than one person of consideration and influence efficiently disposed to aid my views in life. The private fortune, also, which I might expect, and finally inherited, from my family, did not, indeed, amount to affluence, but placed me considerably beyond all apprehension of want. I mention these particulars merely because they are true. Many better men than myself have owed their rise from indigence and obscurity to their own talents, which were, doubtless, much more adequate to the task of raising them than any which I possess. But although it would be absurd and ungracious in me to deny, that I owe to literature many marks of distinction to which I could not otherwise have aspired, and particularly that of securing the acquaintance, and even the friendship, of many remarkable persons of the age, to whom I could not otherwise have made my way; it would, on the other hand, be ridiculous to affect gratitude to the public favour, either for my general position in society, or the means of supporting it with decency, matters which had been otherwise secured under the usual chances of human affairs. Thus much I have thought it necessary to say upon a subject, which is, after all, of very little consequence to any one but myself. I proceed to detail the circumstances which engaged me in literary pursuits. During the last ten years of the eighteenth century, the art of poetry was at a remarkably low ebb in Britain. Hayley, to whom fashion had some years before ascribed a higher degree of reputation that posterity has confirmed, had now lost his reputation for talent, though he still lived beloved and respected as an amiable and accomplished man. The Bard of Memory slumbered on his laurels, and He of Hope had scarce begun to attract his share of public attention. Cowper, a poet of deep feeling and bright genius, was still alive, indeed; but the hypochondria, which was his mental malady, impeded his popularity. Burns, whose genius our southern neighbours could hardly yet comprehend, had long confined himself to song-writing. Names which are now known and distinguished wherever the English language is spoken, were then only beginning to be mentioned; and, unless among the small number of persons who habitually devote a part of their leisure to literature, even those of Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, were still but little known. The realms of Parnassus, like many a kingdom at the period, seemed to lie open to the first bold invader, whether he should be a daring usurper, or could show a legitimate title of sovereignty. As far back as 1788, a new species of literature began to be introduced into this country. Germany, long known as a powerful branch of the European confederacy, was then, |