"As the tall ship, whose lofty prore
Shall never stem the billows more,
Deserted by her gallant band,
Amid the breakers lies astrand ;-
So on his couch lay Roderic Dhu!
-And oft his fever'd limbs he threw
In toss abrupt; as when her sides
Lie rocking on the advancing tides,
That strike her frame with ceaseless beat,
Yet cannot heave her from her seat;
Oh! how unlike her course at sea!
Or his free step upon the lea!"

After some discourse with his companions

"The chieftain raised his form on high,
And fever's fire was in his eye;

And ghastly pale and livid streaks
Checker'd his swarthy brow and cheeks."

The minstrel begins his lay; and after having sung long and furiously, the strain abruptly ends :

"The harp escaped the minstrel's hand!—
Oft had he stolen a glance, to spy
How Roderic brook'd his minstrelsy.

"At first the chieftain, to his chime,
With lifted hand, kept feeble time;

That motion ceased-yet feeling strong,
Varied his look as changed the song:

At length no more his deafen'd ear

The minstrel's melody can hear;

His face grows sharp; his hands are clench'd,
As if some pang his heart-strings wrench'd;
Set are his teeth, his fading eye

Is sternly fixed on vacancy:

Thus, motionless, and moanless, drew
His parting breath, stout Roderic Dhu."

Here is a worthy companion-piece to the "Death of Marmion," so much celebrated. To me the silence, the deafness, the terrible tranquillity of dissolution in the Highland chief are more awful and

impressive than the delirious ecstasy and the expiring shout of the English hero :—

"Charge, Chester! charge!-on, Stanley, on!'
Were the last words of Marmion."

I shall particularize only one species more of this versatile art, little used in former times, but which has been carried to extraordinary perfection in our own. The authors of those small volumes, "Original Poems," ," "Rhymes for the Nursery," and "Hymns for Infant Minds," have indeed deserved well of their country, and long will their humble but admirable productions continue to bless its successive genera tions. Though even in these they showed themselves qualified to indite for persons of larger growth, and entitled to claim high poetic honours, yet the fair and modest writers-for they were of the better sex-condescended to gather flowers at the foot of Parnassus to wreathe the brows of infancy, instead of climbing towards the summit to grasp at laurels for their own. I say they condescended to do this, because it is hard for the pride of intellect to forego any advantage which might set off itself before the public. To most poets it would have been no small annoyance to be confined to the nursery and playground, and sing to please little children, when they might command the attention of men; for children, however they may be delighted with the song, pay no tribute of applause to the minstrel: but when they are charmed with a beautiful idea in a book, feel and express the same simple and unmixed pleasure as when they gaze upon a peacock, or listen to the cuckoo. It never enters into their unsophis

ticated minds to attach merit to the. bestowers of such blessings. The sense and the desire of enjoyment are born with them, but gratitude and veneration they must be taught.

Hence, there is little temptation, except the pure impulse to do good, to compose works of any kind for the amusement of those who neither flatter the vanity nor reward the labours of their benefactors. The contributors to the volumes in question willingly sacrificed ambition, and were content to clothe truth in language so clear and pure that it should appear like a robe of light shining from heaven around her, to reveal her beauty and proportions, and thus attract the eye that rolled in darkness, and the feet that wandered in error before. How successfully they have effected their purpose may be shown by three brief stanzas, which also prove what I have been most anxious in these papers to establish, that verse in its diction may be as unadorned and inartificial as prose, yet lose nothing of the elegance and grandeur of poetry. The attribute of Deity called omnipresence is, perhaps, as difficult to express otherwise than by that one emphatic word, as any other object that can be imagined. A thousand illustrations might be more easily given than one distinct idea of it. I may be mistaken, but I do think that the nearest possible approach has been made to it in the last of the following lines. A child speaks :

"If I could find some cave unknown,
Where human feet have never trod,
Even there I could not be alone,
On every side there would be God."

This is a child's thought in a child's words; and yet the longer it is dwelt upon the more impressive it becomes, till we feel ourselves as much in the presence of Deity as within the ring of the horizon,

and under the arch of heaven, wherever we go, and however the scene may be changed.

Eternity is another indefinite and undescribable thing. Hear a child's notion of it, and I am sure the wisest in this assembly will not be displeased with it:

"Days, months, and years must have an end;
Eternity has none;

Twill always have as long to spend
As when it first begun."

The very impotence of language is sometimes the strongest expression of the sentiment to be conveyed. Here, when words break down under the weight of the thought, how natural and touching is the apostrophe in which the infant mind takes refuge from the overwhelming contemplation! Can I be wrong in wishing that he who now utters, and all who hear it, may be able to adopt the prayer ?—

"Great God! an infant cannot tell
How such a thing can be:
-I only pray that I may dwell

That long, long time with Thee."

It would be injustice to forget, in this connexion, Dr. Watts's "Divine Songs for Children." These form so small a portion of his multiform labours, that, were they expunged, the eye could scarcely perceive the bulk of one of the volumes diminished. Yet who can calculate the innocent pleasure and the abiding profit which those few leaves have afforded to myriads of minds through the lapse of a century? And much more, who can estimate the treasure of instruction and delight which would thereby be lost to millions hereafter, through ages untold?

Translated Poetry.

There is not in our language a popular translation

of any classical author, which has been, is still, and will probably continue to be, a favourite with mere English readers, except Pope's versions of the Iliad and Odyssey. In these, with unprecedented originality of imitation, our countryman, affecting to put on Homer, has converted Homer into himselfhewn a Hercules into an Apollo ;-for these gorgeous poems are undoubtedly read more for the beauties which the modern has conferred upon them, than for those which he preserved from the venerable ancient.

On the other hand, Cowper's translation, whatever be its positive defects, is one which no ordinary poetical power could have accomplished. There are many passages in it which leave Pope's brilliant paraphrases of the corresponding lines as far behind them as they themselves may be deemed below the unapproachable Greek. But the general comparison between the two British Homers of the last century is always exceedingly to the advantage of the latter; for this, among other causes, that translations of classic authors (unless on their first appearance) are very little.read, except by youth, and by these often before they have become sufficiently familiar with the originals to enjoy their surpassing excellence. With such readers the first version of a favourite poet, if it have high merit, so fills the imagination, unoccupied before, with the story, characters, and embellishments, all identified with its peculiar phraseology, that even a superior work afterward, embracing the same subjects, cannot rival it. If in two of our seminaries Cowper's Homer were the reading book of the scholars at the one, and Pope's of those at the other, it is probable that the cleverest lads-those who really enjoyed the poetry of the translation-would, to their lives' end, prefer that which had made the first ineffaceable impression upon their minds; and in such a case it