Southey's contributions to the literature of English poetry are not many, but they are so able that it is to be deplored he did not carry out his intention of continuing the History' left so imperfect by Warton. His knowledge of the subject was immense, and he might have produced a narrative full of critical and biographical interest and written in the purest English, which would have formed a text-book for students. His 'Life of Cowper," although in parts a little languid and diffusive, shows how admirably Southey could write about poets and poetry; but in this department of literature, as in others, he appears to have expended much comparatively useless strength. This was partly owing to his singular kindness of heart, which led him again and again to befriend those who needed help and deserved it. Southey, for example, by his friendship for Kirke White while living, and by the publication of his 'Remains' after his decease, produced an interest in that young poet, which, to judge from the poems he left behind him, was far beyond his deserts. The Lives of Uneducated Poets' is another work, written with a benevolent object, which, if looked at apart from the kindly purpose of the writer, must be regarded as waste labour; but while we regret that the claims upon

Southey prevented him oftentimes from accomplishing the work for which he was most fitted, it is pleasant at the same time to remember how ready he ever was to sacrifice personal aims to generous and self-denying labours.

"Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust."

With these actions the life of Southey was crowded and ennobled. He said many a bitter thing in his day, made rash statements, uttered opinions of men and measures which will not bear a moment's examination; but he never knowingly did an unjust act, or shirked an obvious duty. To use a homely saying, his heart was all along in its right place; and if, as a politician and theologian, he sometimes indulged in what may be called feminine passion, the life he lived was one of the manliest, and is even more worthy of a place in the memory of Englishmen than his great literary achievements.

ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY.

MR. PALGRAVE, in the introduction to his delightful volume, the Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics,' observes that he is acquainted with no strict and exhaustive definition of Lyrical Poetry, and he is content to point out a few simple principles which have guided him in his work. We think that Mr. Palgrave is right, and that he has judged wisely in not giving a definition which must have proved at best partial and unsatisfactory. To say what lyrical poetry is not, is an easy task; to express in a brief sentence what it is, so that if the question be put, the answer, like a reply in the Catechism, may be instantly forthcoming, is well-nigh impossible. And the reason is that the lyric blossoms and may be equally beautiful and perfect under a variety of forms. The kind of inspiration that prompts it, is to be found in the Ode and in the Song, in the Elegy and in the Ballad. Its spirit is felt sometimes where it is least expected, its subtle charm is perceived occasionally in almost every kind of poetry save the satirical and

didactic. Like life, like light, like the free air of the mountains, the lyric is enjoyed, as it were, unconsciously. We brush the bloom off fruit when we handle it too roughly, and there is perhaps a danger lest, in attempting to analyze lyrical poetry, the critic, by his precision and careful attention to rules, should destroy some of its beauty. We have learnt, however, of late years what was not so well understood a century ago, that the critic's office is to follow the poet, not to require that the poet should follow him. The poet, indeed, like all artists, must be obedient to law, but his genius is less likely to lead him astray than the critic's book-knowledge; and of the lyric poet especially it may be safely asserted that the lack of conventional restraint, the freedom to sing his own song to his own music, is essential to success. In building the lofty rhyme of the epic, in the long narrative poem, in the drama, in the satire, some of the material must necessarily be of a common-place order. No great poem but has its weak points, its prosaic details, its matter-of-fact lines. The poetartist who designs a vast work knows that it cannot be of sustained excellence throughout. If his eye roll in a fine frenzy at one part, it is certain to grow dim and sleepy at another; he cannot be always sublime; and if he could, his readers would grow

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weary. His imagination must inevitably flag as he pursues a task which requires time as well as genius, and the utmost he can do is to make his coarser workmanship serve as a foil to that which is more delicate. This has been done with consummate art by Milton, whose sense of fitness and congruity is as remarkable as the harmony of his versification.

Lyrical poetry, on the other hand, will not admit of aught that is of inferior quality. Like the Sonnet, it should be perfect throughout—in form, in thought, in the lovely marriage of pure words, in the melody that pervades the whole. The lyric at its best-as in the songs of Shakespeare and some of the old dramatists, in the "Epithalamion" of Spenser, a poem of almost unequalled loveliness, in the pretty love-warblings of Herrick, in the artful music of Collins and of Gray, in the ethereal melody of Shelley, in the impassioned songs of Burns-belongs to the highest order of poetry. It is the noblest inspiration of the poetical mind, its choicest utterance, the expression of its profoundest feeling. With the exception of Shakespeare and Milton, each of whom, be it remembered, in addition to his dramatic or epic genius, is a supreme master of the lyric, the greatest poets of this country belong to the lyrical class. Moreover, the poems which live in the memory and