at hearing the accents of his native "He seemed as if restored to sight Let of the volcano: the other, in the gen-" tler emotions of the soul; in tender ness, in pity, and in tears; in the smiling of the pastoral landscape, and the smoothness of the summer sea. Nor is this variety, in the temperament of genius, discernible only in the au thors, who appeal chiefly to imagination. It pervades the whole commonLet us turn from fancy to fact. wealth of intellect. Demosthenes, for us traverse the regions of history example, takes the heart by storm 30 and science, and we shall be convinced he overrules our convictions, and tyr that it is the same in all. Scotland rannizes over the judgment with a claims Ossian; and Ireland claims him. England has no shadow of claim to him, and, therefore, does not hesitate to declare, that he never existed. Let us take, for example, the annals of our native country. How fabulous in their commencement! how contradictory in their progress! And to what is this owing, but to the sympathies or antipathies of the narrators. Look to the legends of Blind Harry and Barbour, to the histories of Boethius. and Buchanan; how seemingly plausible they are, and yet how deplorably chimerical and groundless. Lord Hailes puts the whole unconcocted mass into his crucible, and, behold, there are nine parts of baser metal, for one of gold. Like the enchanted castles of romance, the whole pageant vanishes, and a desert wilderness remains. Rinaldo blows the horn of Truth, and the magic structures of Fancy disappear. It was owing to this circumstance that Voltaire remarked, that a historian ought to have no country. That is to say, he must divest himself of every prejudice, consider himself as a citizen of the world, and look on the land that gave him birth, not with the fondness and feelings of a patriot, but as a branch of the general family of mankind. But where shall such a character be found? We may as well set to the task, which it is said the enemy of man prescribed to Michael Scott, and commence our operations in twining cables from the sea sands. There seem to be two great varieties of mind, in which excellency is equally inherent, but in which the developement of genius is extremely dif. ferent. The former is remarkable for strength, and energy, and precision; the latter for softness, harmony, and grace. The one delights in the tempests and tornadoes of passion; in the roaring of the ocean; and the bursting despotic sway; he overpowers us by the strength of his appeals, and, after having silenced the voice of reason it self, rouses us from a trance, and in cites our passions to take a share in the contest. Cicero, on the other handj endeavours to gain the feelings to hisse side; he appeals to our bosoms by every effort of persuasive eloquence. He convinces the understanding; he elevates us into the regions of fancy. He enlists reason in his cause, and shews us, that the arguments he ad duces are accordant with its dictates. In the same opposition of excellence, stand Homer and Virgil; Dante and Spencer; Johnson and Addison; Chalmers and Alison. Not, perhaps, opposed in the exact attributes which we have pointed out in the Grecian and Roman orators, but, in the gene-C ral tone and contexture of their come. positions. In painting, likewise, as an illustration of our position, we may adduce the examples of Salvator Rosa, and Claude Lorraine. In the drama, of Kean and Kemble. There seem to be an order of minds, indeed, in which the whole faculties have exhibited extraordinary develope ment, and which are not more distinguished for inventiveness of ima gination, than for strength of judg ment. Proudly pre-eminent stands Shakspeare, the prince of poets, and supreme sovereign of the human heart. In him, it is utterly impossible to say, where lay his strength, or where lay his weakness. We hear of the man ner of Chaucer, of the manner of Spen cer, of the manner of Pope, of the manner of Cowper, but we never hear of the manner of Shakspeare. His excellencies are of every conceivable kind; he is a giant in all his faculties. Lay his forte in strength, he was more delicate than Fletcher; lay it in tenderness, he was more masculine than Ben Jonson. He draws us to him "with the cords of a man ;" he rouses us into horror, or melts us into tears; he convinces the understanding, or, if it suits his purpose, overthrows reason, and seizes upon the passions. His scene is on earth, or in air. His personages embrace the sum of human society, and are of all ages and nations. "He exhausts worlds, and imagines new." After having explored every creek in the spacious ocean of the human soul," the haunt, and the main region of his song," he turns to the spiritual and superhuman world. Incomparable Shakspeare!" Take him for all in all," the world has never seen his like, and, most probably, shall never see his like again. There are others of the same class, but not in the same rank of excellence. Walter Scott and Goëthe are the only two men we dare mention in the same breath. Leaving the manners of individuals, we may generalize, for every age has its characteristic and specific marks. The tone of English literature, in the age of Elizabeth, was of a far more lofty and majestic character than that of the age that followed. In the writings of Milton, Isaac Barrow, and Jeremy Taylor, there is a capacity and a comprehensiveness, combined with an extent of illustration, which we shall in vain look for in Addison, Pope, Swift, and the other "wits" of Queen Anne's reign. Thirty years ago, the literature of Great Britain was as different from what it is at the present time, as it is possible almost to imagine. About the commencement of the French revolution-but whether connected with it or not, we do not pretend to say-our authors exhibited, in dawning vigour, an originality of thought, a boldness, and a latitude of expression, together with a freshness of observation, of which their more immediate predecessors afford no examples. Perhaps the grand error of our present system is diffuseness; but we have some excellencies which will counterbalance that. No one whose mind is penetrated with a deep sense of beauty will lay aside Scott, Words worth, or Southey, because they sometimes indulge in unnecessary prolixity of detail; while, to the most fastidious, we can safely bring forward Mackenzie, Campbell, and Rogers. The writings of Byron alone, even though we could adduce no more, are of themselves a host, and are sufficient to carry down, to remotest posterity, a powerful impression of the genius of the age that produced them. 1 Moreover, the different lights in which actions and events are viewed, do not refer exclusively to historians; the same principle extends to every branch of philosophy and literature, and not in the substance alone, but in the very words in which the ideas are embodied. Look to the prose style of Addison, to that of Sterne, to that of Goldsmith, to that of Johnson, more especially to the first and last mentioned-the one, plain, elegant, chaste, and perspicuous, classically pure, and beautifully simple; the other, lofty, impetuous, and majestic, conveying the highest aspirations of mind in tones of the most delightful melody and music. The same age has produced "the Pleasures of Hope," of Campbell, and "the Auncient Mariner," of Coleridge. It is the same with the colourings of painters; it is the same with the expression of poets. "The blank verse of Thomson," says Johnson, "is no more the blank verse of Milton, or of any other poet, than the rhymes of Prior are the rhymes of Cowley." Compare the blank verse of Thomson, Cowper, Wordsworth, with that of Milton," says Hazlitt," and it will be found to be little better than lumbering prose." "Lord Byron," says Jeffrey, "has not the variety of Scott, nor the delicacy of Campbell, nor the absolute truth of Crabbe, nor the polished sparkling of Moore; but in power of expression, and in unextinguishable energy of sentiment, he clearly surpasses them all." We need go no farther; let part of the living genius of Britain speak for itself. We shall select a theme, for example, of which several of them treat-pictures of desolation. We must, however, limit ourselves to three specimens. The first is from "the Giaour" of Lord Byron, and completely worthy of his powerful genius. The steed is vanished from the stall, The owl usurps the beacon tower, The wild-dog howls o'er the fountains brim, For the stream hath shrunk from its marble bed, Was woman's wildest funeral wail, That quenched in silence, all is still, Save the lattice that flaps when the wind is shrill, No hand shall close its clasp again. If any thing can surpass this sublime description, it is the following, from "Gertrude of Wyoming." After the funeral of Albert and his daughter, Outalissi, the Indian, thus pours out the fervour and enthusiasm of his spirit to the drooping survivor Waldegrave. To morrow let us do or die! But when the bolt of death is hurl'd, The hand is gone that cross'd its flowers Its echoes, and its empty tread, Would sound like voices from the dead! The next, though in a very different style from either of the preceding, is equally characteristic of its author, and possesses that peculiar tone of simple pathos, which forms one of the great excellencies in the compositions of Wordsworth. Her cottage, then a cheerful object, wore Its customary look, only I thought, The honey-suckle, crowding round the porch, Hung down in heavier tufts; and that bright weed The yellow stone-crop, suffered to take root I return'd, And took my rounds along this road again She knew not that he lived; if he were dead Meantime her house by frost, and thaw, and rain, She loved this wretched spot; and here, my friend, A CHURCH-YARD SCENE How sweet and solemn, all alone, What years of vanished joy are fanned In its white stillness! when the shade Such is the scene around me now: Of Woodburn's summer rill; A place where all things mournful meet, And yet the sweetest of the sweet, The stillest of the still! With what a pensive beauty fall Across the mossy mouldering wall That rose-tree's clustered arches! See The robin-redbreast warily, Bright through the blossoms, leaves his nest: Sweet ingrate! through the winter blest At the firesides of men-but shy Through all the sunny summer-hours, In his own wild festivity. What lulling sound, and shadow cool Hangs half the darkened church-yard o'er, Thou gorgeous sycamore! Oft hath the holy wine and bread Been blest beneath thy murmuring tent, Where many a bright and hoary head vol sile Bowed at that awful sacrament. Now all beneath the turf are laid On which they sat, and sang, and prayed. " WITH steady ray the cold moonshine Beloved girl! my wandering mind When brooding tempests gather o'er I think how happy I could be, When storms are soften'd to repose, With ecstasy I gaze, and turn Blow strong, blow steady, welcome breeze! Until before our wistful eyes The azure hills of Albyn rise- In all its summer-pride I see, The elm-o'ershaded cot, and thee, ELYSIUM.-A SONNET. THE sun is burning in the rosy west, |