The linnet in simplicity,

In tenderness the dove;

But, more than all beside, was he
The nightingale in love.

Oh! had he never stoop'd to shame,
Nor lent a charm to vice,

How had devotion loved to name
That bird of paradise!

Peace to the dead! In Scotia's choir
Of minstrels great and small,

He sprang from his spontaneous fire
The phoenix of them all.

The style of his patriotic poetry may be judged of from the following stanza. It is taken from his "Cot ter's Saturday Night :"

"O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent,

Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil

Be bless'd with health, and peace, and sweet content

And oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From luxury's contagion weak and vile;

Then however crowns and coronets be rent,

A virtuous populace may rise the while,

And stand, a wall of fire, around their much-loved isle." The kindness of his heart may be seen in the foll ing selections:

ON SCARING SOME WATER-FOWL IN LOCH TURIT
Why, ye tenants of the lake,

For me your watery haunt forsake?
Tell me, fellow-creatures, why
At my presence thus you fly?
Why disturb your social joys,
Parent, filial, kindred ties?
Common friend to you and me ;
Nature's gifts to all are free;
Peaceful keep your dimplien wave,
Busy feed, or wanton lave;
Or, beneath the sheltering rock,
Bide the surging billows' shcok.

Conscious, blushing for our race,
Soon, too soon, your fears I trace.
Man, your proud, usurping foe,
Would be lord of all below;
Plumes himself in freedom's pride,
Tyrant stern to all beside.

*

ON SEEING A WOUNDED HARE LIMP BY ME WHICH A FEI
LOW HAD JUST SHOT AT.

Inhuman man! curse on thy barbarous art,
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye!
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,
Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart!

Go live, poor wanderer of the wood and field,
The bitter little that of life remains;

No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains
To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield.

Fain would I say, "Forgive my foul offense !"
Fain promise never more to disobey;
But, should my Author health again dispense,
Again I might desert fair virtue's way;
Again in folly's path might go astray;

Again exalt the brute and sink the man;

Then how should I for heavenly mercies pray

*

?

Who sin so oft have mourn'd, yet to temptation ran?
O thou. great Governor of all below!

If I may dare a lifted eye to thee,

Thy nod can make the tempest cease to biow,
Or still the tumult of the raging sea;

With what controlling power assist e'en me,
Those headlong, furious passions to confine;
For all unfit I feel my powers to be

To rule their torrent in th' allowed line:
O, aid me with thy help, Omnipotence Divine!

SECTION XXVI.

WALTER SCOTT.

In his poetry he imitated the style of the early minstrels of his own land, and of some specimens of German literature. He has revived the manners, cus. toms, incidents, and sentiments of chivalrous times. The "Lay of the Last Minstrel," "Marmion," and Lady of the Lake" are considered the finest of his tales. The opinion has been expressed that if it be possible for either to be forgotten, his poems will outlive his prose, since the latter possesses no valuable quality which is not possessed also by the former; these qualities being a deeply exciting story, true pictures of scenery, fine and accurate portraits

of character, clear and impressive accounts of ancien1 customs, details of battles, satisfying to the fancy, yet capable of enduring the sternest test of truth. In addition to all these, his poems are written in the most harmonious verse, and in a style adapted equally to delight those who possess and those who are without a refined poetical taste.

Here we may commend to the perusal of youth and of others, the two volumes of the "Select Works of British Poets," by Professor Frost and S. C. Hall, who have given also a more extended notice, than the limits of this work allow, of the poets we have named and of others.

SCOTT AND WORDSWORTH.

Mr. Hazlitt presents the following portrait of them. Walter Scott describes that which is most easily and generally understood with more vivacity and effect than any body else. His style is clear, flowing, and transparent : his sentiments, of which his style is an easy and natural medium, are common to him with his readers. He differs from his readers only in a greater range of knowledge and facility of expression. His poetry belongs to the class of improvisatori poetry. It has neither depth, height, no breadth in it; neither uncommon strength nor uncommor. refinement of thought, sentiment, or language. He selects a story that is sure to please, full of incidents, characters. peculiar manners, costume, and scenery; and he tells it in a way that can offend no one. He never wearies or disappoints you. He is communicative, but not his own hero. He never obtrudes himself on your notice to prevent your seeing the subject. He is very inferior to Lord Byron ir intense passion, to Moore in delightful fancy, to Mr. Wordsworth in profound sentiment; but he has more picturesque power than any of them; that is, he places the objects themselves, about which they might feel or think, in a much more striking point of view, with greater variety of dress and attitude, and with more local truth of coloring. Few descriptions have a more complete reality, a more striking appearance of life and motion, than that of the warriors in the Lady of the Lake, who start up at the command of Roderic Dhu, from their concealment under the fern, and disappear again in an instant The Lay of the Last Min

strel and Mannion are the first, and perhaps the best of his works

Mr. Wordsworth is the most original poet now living. He is the reverse of Walter Scott in his defects and excellences. He has nearly all that the other wants, and wants all that the other possesses. His poetry is not external, but internal; it does not depend on tradition, or story, or old song; he furnishes it from his own mind, and is his own subject. He is the poet of mere sentiment. Of many of the lyrical ballads and sonnets, it is not possible to speak in terms of too high praise, for their originality and pathos. The "Hart-Leap Well" is a favorite poem with Mr. Hazlitt. We have not space for its insertion here.

The Lake School of poetry, to which Mr. Wordsworth belongs, had its origin in the French Revolution, about the time of which English poetry had degenerated into the most trite, insipid, and mechanical of all things, in the hands of the followers of Pope and the old French school of poetry. From the impulse of that revolution, poetry rose at once from the most servile imitation and tamest commonplace to the utmost pitch of singularity and paradox. The change in the belles-lettres was as complete, and to many persons as startling, as the change in politics, with which it went hand in hand. According to the prevailing notions, all was to be natural and new. Nothing that was established was to be tolerated. All the commonplace figures of poetry, tropes, allegories, personifications, with the whole heathen mythology, were instantly discarded; a classical allusion was considered as a piece of antiquated foppery; rhyme was looked upon as a relic of the feudal system, and regular metre was abolished along with regular government. singularly affected simplicity prevailed in dress and manA ners, in style and sentiment. Something new and original, no matter whether good, bad, or indifferent, whether mean or lofty, extravagant or childish, was all that was aimed at, or considered as compatible with sound philosophy and an age of reason. The paradox they set out with was, that all things are by nature equally fit subjects for poetry; or that, if there is any preference to be given, those that are the meanest and most unpromising are the best, as they have the greatest scope for the unbounded stores of thought and fancy in the writer's own mind, and for a display of originality and invention.

LADY OF THE LAKE.

XIII.

As the tall ship, whose lofty prow
Shall never stem the billows more,
Deserted by her gallant band,
Amid the breakers lies astrand;
So, on his couch, lies Roderic Dhu'
And oft his fever'd limbs he threw
In toss abrupt, as when her sides
Lie rocking in th' advancing tides,
That shake her frame to ceaseless beat,
Yet can not heave her from her seat;
Oh! how unlike her course at sea!
Or his free step on hill and lea!
Soon as the minstrel he could scan,
-"What of the lady? of my clan?
My mother?-Douglas?-tell me all!
Have they been ruin'd in my fall?
Ah, yes! or wherefore art thou here?
Yet speak-speak boldly-do not fear."
(For Allan, who his mood well knew,
Was choked with grief and terror too.)
"Who fought? who fled?-Old man, be brief:
Some might, for they had lost their chief.
Who basely live ?-who bravely died?"
"O, calm thee, chief!" the minstrel cried,
"Ellen is safe."-"For that, thank Heaven!'
"And hopes are for the Douglas given;
The Lady Margaret too is well,
And, for thy clan-on field or fell,
Has never harp of minstrel told
Of combat fought so true and bold;
Thy stately pine is yet unbent,
Though many a goodly bough is rent."

XIV.

The chieftain rear'd his form on high,
And fever's fire was in his eye;
But ghastly, pale, and livid streaks
Checker'd his swarthy brow and cheeks.
-"Hark, minstrel! I have heard thee pla
With measure bold, on festal day,
In yon lone isle-again where ne'er
Shall harper play, or warrior hear!
That stirring air that peals on high,
O'er Dermid's race our victory.

Strike it! and then (for well thou canst)
Free from thy minstrel spirit glanced,
Fling me the picture of the fight,

When met my clan the Saxon might "