fusion of ideas throughout all that part of the essay which we have now glanced at, the latter part of it is really very excellent and conclusive. After observing, that in commercial countries, owing to the separation and multiplication of trades and professions, there must be the greatest diversity of character, and consequently of humour, he says,

"It also merits attention, that the same varieties in character and situation, which furnish the materials of humour and ridicule, dispose mankind to employ them for the purpose of exciting mirth. The standard of dignity and propriety is different according to the character of the man who holds it, and is therefore contrasted with different improprieties and foibles. Every person, though he may not be so conceited as to consider himself in the light of a perfect model, is yet apt to be diverted with the apparent oddity of that behaviour which is very different from his own. Men of robust professions, the smith, the mason, and the carpenter, are apt to break their jests upon the weakness and effeminacy of the barber, the weaver, or the tailor. The poet, or the philosopher in his garret, condemns the patient industry, and the sordid pursuits of the merchant. The silent, mysterious practitioner in physic, is apt to smile at the no less formal but clamorous ostentation of the barrister. The genteel military man, who is hired, at the nod of his superior, to drive his fellow-creatures out of this world, is ready to sneer at the zeal, and starch-deportment of the Divine, whose profession leads him to provide for their condition and enjoyments in the next. The peculiarities of each individual are thus beheld through a mirror, which magnifies their ludicrous features, and by continually exciting that itching to deride," of which all mankind are possessed, affords constant exercise to their humorous talents."

He then applies this principle of the subdivision of professions to the comic compositions of different nations.

"As in the most commercial of the Greek states, almost all the departments of trade and manufactures, and even many of those which in modern times are accounted liberal, were filled with slaves, the uniformity of character so prevalent in that class of men, was, in a great measure, extended to the whole body of the people, and produced a proportional deficiency of those objects which afford the chief materials, as well as the chief excitements of humour and ridicule. This was probably the reason why the Athenians, notwithstanding their eminence in all the other productions of genius, discover so remarkable a deficiency in comic or ludicrous compositions. The comedies of Aristophanes, written at a period when the nation had attained a high pitch of VOL. VI.

civilization, are mere farces, deriving the whole of their pleasantry, not from nicely discriminated and well-supported characters,

but from the droll and extravagant situations in which the persons of the drama are exhibited. It is true, that the style of what is called the new comedy, is said to have been very different; but of this we can form no judgment, unless from the translations or imitations of it by Plautus and Terence; from which the originals, in the article which we are now considering, do not appear in a very favourable light.

The comedies of those two Roman writers are also very deficient in the representation of character. An old avaricious father, a dissolute extravagant son, a flattering parasite, a bragging cowardly soldier, a cunning intriguing rascal of a slave; these, with a few trifling variations, make the dramatis persona in all the different compositions of those authors. But though neither Plautus describing those nice combinations of afnor Terence appear to have much merit in fectation and folly, which may be regarded as the foundation of true comedy, they seem happy in the expression of common feelings, and in exhibiting natural pictures of ordinary life.

imitation of the Greeks, had scarce any "The Romans, independent of their close destruction of the commonwealth, we meet comic writing of their own. After the with few writers in this department; and none of any eminence. The age of elegant literature at Rome was very short: there was no commerce: the number of slaves was immense, as no free citizen would engage in any profession but those of the camp or the bar; and therefore is probable that the Romans were still more deficient than the Greeks, in that variety of original characters which is the great spur to ridi

cule.

"In modern Italy, the rise of mercantile towns was followed by the revival of letters, and by the introduction of ludicrous and somewhat licentious compositions; but the Italians lost their trade, and their literature began to decline, before it had risen to that height at which the improvement of comedy. was to be expected. They displayed, however, in a sort of pantomimic entertainments, a vein of low humour, by grotesque exhibitions, which are supposed to characterize the citizens of different states; and in this inferior species of drama, they are said to possess irresistible powers of exciting laughter.

"In France, the country which after Italy made the first advances in civilization, the state of society has never been very favourable to humorous representation. In that country, fashion has had more influence than in any other part of Europe, to suppress the oddities and eccentricities of individuals. The gentry, by their frequent intercourse, are induced to model their behaviour according to a common standard; 4 M

and the lower orders think it incumbent upon them to imitate the gentry. Thus a great degree of uniformity of character and behaviour is propagated through all ranks, from the highest to the lowest; and a French beggar is a gentleman in rags. Individuals, at this rate, have little tempta tion to laugh at each other; for this would be nearly the same thing as to laugh at themselves. From refinement of manners, at the same time, their attention has been directed to elegant sallies of pleasantry, more than to ludicrous and buffoonish representation; and the nation has at length come to occupy the superior regions of wit, without passing through the thicker and more vulgar medium of humour.

"It may, accordingly, be remarked, that among the numerous and distinguished men of genius whom France has produced, Le Sage, and Moliere, are perhaps the only examples that can be adduced of eminent humorous writers. The high and deserved reputation of the latter as a writer of comedy, is universally admitted; though I think it can hardly be denied, that his characters are commonly overcharged and farcical.

"There is, perhaps, no country in which manufactures and commerce have been so far extended as in England, or consequently in which the inhabitants have displayed such a multiplicity and diversity of characters. What is called a humourist, that is, a person who exhibits particular whims and oddities, not for the sake of producing mirth, but to gratify his own inclination, is less known in any other country. The English are regarded by their neighbours as a nation of humourists; a set of originals, moulded into singular shapes, and as unlike the rest of

mankind as each other.

"Political reasoners have ascribed this

wonderful diversity of character among the English to the form of their government, which imposes few restraints upon their conduct. It is obvious, however, that, though an absolute government may prevent any great singularity of behaviour, a free constitution will not alone produce it. Men do not acquire an odd or whimsical character, because they are at liberty to do so, but because they have propensities which lead them to it. In the republican states of antiquity, which enjoyed more political freedom, and among mere savages, who are almost under no government at all, nothing of this remarkable eccentricity is to be ob

served.

"But whatever be the cause of that endless diversity of characters which prevails in England, it certainly gives encouragement to sarcastic mirth and drollery; and has produced a general disposition to humour and

raillery, which is the more conspicuous from the natural modesty, reserve, and taciturnity of the people. To delineate the most unaccountable and strange appearances of human nature, they require not the aid of fiction; to conceive what is ridiculous, they have only to observe it. Each indi vidual, according to the expression of a famous buffoon, is not only humourous in himself, but the cause of humour in other men. The national genius, as might be expected, has been moulded and directed by these peculiar circumstances, and has produced a greater number of eminent writers, in all the branches of comic and ludicrous composition, than are to be found in any other country. To pass over the extraordinary genius of Shakspeare in this as well as in other departments, with those other comic writers who lived about the commencement of English manufactures, and to mention only a few instances, near our own times; it will be difficult for any country, at one period, to match the severe and pointed irony of Swift; the lighter, but more laughable satire of Arbuthnot; the gentle raillery of Gay; the ludicrous and natural, though coarse, representations of low life, by Fielding; the strong delineations of character, together with the appropriate easy dialogue of Vanbrugh; the rich vein of correct pleasantry, in ridiculing the varieties of studied affectation, displayed by Congreve; and, above all, the universal, equable, and creative humour of Addison.

There is much excellent matter in this long extract, mixed up, (in our opinion at least) with much nonsense; yet it can be valuable only to those who know how to separate truth from error. The comedies of the Athenians he calls "mere farces !!" but the truth is evidently, that the professor never read a line of them but in some miserable translation. He despised classical learning, and therefore remained ignorant of its real spirit.Now, can he, consistently with his own theory, call the Athenians a wonderfully refined people in one sentence, and talk of their enjoyment of

mere farces" in the next? Had Mr Miller ever attended one of Professor Young's lectures on the Wit of Wits,' he would not have talked thus. But the extract contains many more debateable points, that we shall, on a future occasion, take up the discussion of some of the most interesting.

MR CORNWALL, in a dedicatory sonnet to a lady young and beautiful, almost insinuates that these Lays may be his last. This is all very natural, perhaps, in a poet dreaming of past happiness, and consecrating, as it were, his melancholy songs to the spirit that made bright the morn of life: but all such misgivings are transient, and we have little doubt that even now he is busy in preparing another volume for the press.

'Tis fit for Saturn now is hurrying fast, And thou mayest soon be nothing.

Let him write now that he is young and hopeful-while the "world is all before him where to choose," and imagination ever ready to lead him either into the sunshine or the shade. It

is a blessed thing to see the scenery of life stretching far on before us-and to feel that we are but starting on a career. We are strong in the future, and rejoicing in our strength: weakness and despondency come upon us from the past: that which is before seems pregnant with bliss and brightness-that which is behind is the region of melancholy-it may be of despair. That poet is happy, who has just done enough, not to awaken the hopes of his friends only, but to kindle and justify and sustain his own. A breeze seems to breathe upon him with gradually increasing power and borne along upon its wings, he is wafted, as in a dream, onwards and onwards into the expanding bosom of beauty and delight.

We know of no young poet in our day who stands in a more enviable state than Barry Cornwall. He has done nothing—and he has done much, nothing that he may not easily excel, much that not many will easily equal. We must not, therefore, hear him speaking seriously of giving over before he has fairly begun-every body seems to think kindly and hopefully of him-he has smoothed the raven face of periodical criticism till it has smiled he has done more than that, he has acquired the friendship of all true lovers of poetry. We must not be unreasonable-let him write when, what, and how he chooses-but he must remember, that as the gift of

inspiration has been won, so can it be retained and strengthened only by constant, devout, and severe worship.

The Sicilian Story is but a short poem-and might have been written at a few sittings-but it is very delicately and beautifully finished-and full everywhere of the spirit of nature; its merit is also great as a work of art. It is a true Italian Tale, passionate and romantic-Guido and Isabel (can we praise them more lovingly) are almost a Romeo and Juliet. But the joy of this passion is left almost entirely to our imagination we are made to look on its agonies and its despair. Ere sixteen of those ripening summers have past over their heads the lovers have been blestmiserable-dead. Joy and sorrow are crowded into that little span, and had they lived till their bright tresses had become dim, what more could they have known of either-who had wept so many tears of bliss and of wo, and had exhausted all the passions of their hearts? It is the young only who die of grief, for what care the old for the extinction of that light which has been long glimmering, faintlier and faintlier, through the sad mists of time, and shewing nothing but the few wan objects near it, while all that charmed of yore lies buried in the black shadow of forgetfulness. "One night a masque was held within the walls

Of a Sicilian palace: the gayest flowers
Cast life and beauty o'er the marble halls,
And, in remoter spots, fresh waterfalls
That 'rose half hidden by sweet lemon bowers
A low and silver-voiced music made:
And there the frail perfuming woodbine
Winding its slight arms round the cypress
strayed
bough,

And as in female trust seemed there to grow,
Like woman's love 'midst sorrow flourishing:
And every odorous plant and brighter thing
Born of the sunny skies and weeping rain,
That from the bosom of the spring
Starts into life and beauty once again,
Blossom'd; and there in walks of evergreen,
Gay cavaliers and dames high-born and fair,
Wearing that rich and melancholy smile
Than can so well beguile
The human heart from its recess, were seen,
And lovers full of love or studious care
Wasting their rhymes upon the soft night air,

And spirits that never till the morning sleep. And, far away, the mountain Etna flung Eternally its pyramid of flame

High as the heav'ns, while from its heart there came

Hollow and subterranean noises deep,
And all around the constellations hung
Their starry lamps, lighting the midnight
sky,

As to do honour to that revelry."

There is one in this gay shifting crowd, sick at the soul with sorrowfor Isabel can no where find her Italian boy, the dark-haired Guido-and while she is mournfully thinking upon him, her brother Leoni fiercely upbraids her sullen silence, and whispers in her ear her lover's name, with a tone that strikes a nameless and prophetic terror into her heart.

"And to her room Like a pale solitary flash she stole." What a contrast is the dark and despairing night, of this day to the joyfulness of its morn.

"That morn they sat upon the sea-beach green;

For in that land the sward springs fresh and free

Close to the ocean, and no tides are seen
To break the glassy quiet of the sea:
And Guido, with his arm 'round Isabel,
Unclasped the tresses of her chesnut hair,
Which in her white and heaving bosom fell
Like things enamour'd, and then with jealous

And then his dark eyes sparkled, and he wound

The fillets like a coronet around
Her brow, and bade her rise and be a queen.
And oh! 'twas sweet to see her delicate hand
Pressed 'gainst his parted lips, as tho' to check
In mimic anger all those whispers bland
He knew so well to use, and on his neck
Her round arm hung, while half as in com-
mand

And half entreaty did her swimming eye Speak of forbearance, 'till from her pouting lip

He snatched the honey-dews that lover's sip, And then, in crimsoning beauty, playfully She frowned, and wore that self-betraying air That women loved and flattered love to wear. "Oft would he, as on that same spot they lay Beneath the last light of a summer's day, Tell (and would watch the while her sted

fast eye,)

How on the lone Pacific he had been,
When the Sea Lion on his watery way
Went rolling thro' the billows green,
And shook that ocean's dead tranquillity:
And he would tell her of past times, and
where

He rambled in his boyhood far away,
And spoke of other worlds and wonders fair

And mighty and magnificent, for he

Had seen the bright sun worshipp'd like a god

Upon that land where first Columbus trod; And travelled by the deep Saint Lawrence' tide,

And by Niagara's cataracts of foam,
And seen the wild deer roam

Amongst interminable forests, where
The serpent and the savage have their lair
Together. Nature there in wildest guise

Stands undebased and nearer to the skies;
And 'midst her giant trees and waters wide
The bones of things forgotten, buried deep,
Give glimpses of an elder world, espied
By us but in that fine and dreamy sleep,
When Fancy, ever the mother of deep truth,
Breathes her dim oracles on the soul of youth.
This is full of poetry, and also of ori-
ginality, though the same kind of pic-
ture has been drawn by Wordsworth
and Campbell. No one who can read
it, has forgotten the irresistible woo-
ing of Ruth," that infant of the
woods," by the "youth from Geor-
gia's shore," so perilously familiar
with the strange tales of love and fear.
That is indeed a poem that stands
alone in its powerful beauty, nor was
there ever
on earth a mind but
Wordsworth's from which could
have risen into light so wild a crea-
tion. Campbell had doubtless Ruth in
his heart when he conceived of his own
Gertrude and he thought of him,

66

"and

splendid feathers drest," when he a military casque who wore with raised up in the Pennsylvanian solitude, the wanderer of whom he says, well his Spanish plume those lofty looks became." So too in the whole story of that wanderer's adventures, faintly coloured by a light reflected from the picture by Wordsworth, we see one poet creating in the spirit of another. The above vision of Barry Cornwall will bear to be pondered on, even after the kindred visions of those other great dreamers. Indeed, are they not all inspired by Shakspearefor so was wooed and won "The gentle lady married to the Moor." But Isabel is on her midnight couch.

"Her sleep that night was fearful,-0, that night!

If it indeed was sleep: for in her sight
A form (a dim and waving shadow) stood,
And pointed far up the great Etna's side,
Where, from a black ravine, a dreary wood
Peeps out and frowns upon the storms below,
And bounds and braves the wilderness of

snow.

It gazed awhile upon the lonely bride

With melancholy air and glassy eye, And spoke-Awake and search yon dell, for I, Tho' risen above my old mortality, Have left my mangled and unburied limbs "A prey for wolves hard by the waters there, And one lock of my black and curled hair, That one I vowed to thee my beauty, swims 'Like a mere weed upon the mountain river; And those dark eyes you used to love so

well

'(They loved you dearly, my own Isabel,) Are shut and now have lost their light for

ever.

'Go then unto yon far ravine, and save 'Your husband's heart for some more quiet

grave

'Than what the stream and withering winds may lend,

' And 'neath the basil tree we planted, give 'The fond heart burial, so that tree shall live And shed a solace on thy after days:

And thou-but oh! I ask thee not to tend 'The plant on which thy Guido loved to gaze,

For with a spirit's power I see thy heart.' No poets of any other country see such ghosts as do the British. They alone at all times remember, that ghosts are not flesh and blood,-but a voice-a shadow-a something that once was and scarcely is-that moans, glimmers, and melts away.

He said no more, but with the dawning day
Shrunk, as the shadows of the clouds depart
Before the conquering sun-beams, silently.
Then sprung
she from the pillow where she

lay,
To the wild sense of doubtful misery :
And when she 'woke she did obey the dream,
And journey'd onwards to the mountain

stream

Tow'rd which the phantom pointed, and she drew

The thorns aside which there luxuriant grew, And with a beating heart descended where The waters washed, it said, its floating hair. A murdered body never lay in a more fitting place. There is something mean and miserable in an outstretched corpse lying bloody and gashed and mangled on the common earth. Murder ought to be perpetrated in such wild and savages e solitudes as those of Salvator Rosa-places of fear-the haunts of wild beasts-of men more fell than they-of the fierce agencies of nature. That trembling and blanching of the cheek which would denote the fears of our human heart, is not strange to the emotion with which we look on the pictured scene. Fear is an element of that emotion. He whose own courage would rise on such a spot to quell his fear, looks upon the ima

ginary scene with an acknowledg ment of its reference to his common nature; he recognises and allows its meaning to human feelings-he owns in his emotion something of that painful sense which in nature belong to agony, or danger, or death. There is much of this high imagination in the picture which follows; an appeal is there made to those feelings which are derived from our acquaintance with painfrom our fear of violence and death— while we see also touches of wild romantic beauty, lonely grandeur, and a sort of stern and wild magnificence of nature.

"It was a spot like those romancers paint, Or painted when of dusky knights they told Wandering about in forests old,

When the last purple colour was waxing

faint