are they which came out of great tribulation-they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters : and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.' Here the allusion to the sufferings and wants of our mortal nature is continued throughout, forming that natural and necessary contrast with perfect happiness, which is the very essence of poetry. Such expressions as these come home to the heart that has known tribulation, and therefore can conceive the blessedness of eternal repose-which has known the anguish of mortal sorrow, and therefore can appreciate the healing of the heavenly Comforter.

Everything that deeply interests our feelings has some connexion with our own condition, or some accordance with our own tastes. All who experience

a healthy state of mind have a keen relish for happiness; but all are not so free from envy or selfishness as fully to enjoy the happiness of others; and that which falls to our own share is so absorbing in its nature, that we feel little inclination to pour it forth in poctical descriptions, at least while its influence lasts; and when it is over, it can only be alluded to with a certain degree of sadness and regret. It has been justly observed, that it requires a more amiable temper of mind to laugh with those who laugh, than to weep with those who weep; and experience must have taught all who have made the experiment, that it is less difficult to excite interest by detailing our sorrows, than our joys. Our friends weep with us, but for themselves; and perhaps at the bottom of their hearts are not grieved to find that they do not suffer alone. But when we fly to them, full of our own individual hopes and joys, they often unconsciously throw some damp upon our ecstatic emotions, or coldly turn away, deeming us selfish, and inconside

rate to have wholly forgotten their situation in the enjoyment of our own.

Lord Byron, the most melancholy of all our poets, found a home in every heart. The love-lorn maiden fed upon his pages, well pleased to read expressions which described a passion hopeless and irremediable as her own; the disappointed and the dissolute discovered there the language of a sympathy, which they sought in vain of the giddy world around them; but above all, the misanthrope curled his contemptuous lip, and gloried in having found a high and titled bard who scorned mankind as he did. It would be difficult to point out the productions of any light and joyous poet, which have been equally popular, and equally penetrating to the soul of the reader. Some there are which have been great favourites with the public; but such for the most part have been recommended by the force of their satire, and the poignancy of their jests, rather than for the pure stream of rational happiness flowing through their strains.

It is scarcely necessary to repeat, that poetry, in order to meet with a welcome in the world, must address itself to the feelings of mankind as they are, not as they should be. It may be, and unquestionably has been, the means of raising in the soul a high tone of moral feeling of purifying what is gross, and subduing what is harsh; but this can only be effected by establishing a chain of connexion between our low wants and wishes, and that which is high, and pure, and holy. Happiness therefore-happiness without alloy, can never be a suitable theme for the muse, until we enter upon a state of existence where it shall more frequently be our experience. But melancholy, towards which all our feelings have some tendency, either immediate or remote, will add a charm to the language of poetry, so long as it is understood and felt by all. Descriptions of life, without its cares and sorrows, would appear to us

little less wearisome and unnatural than landscapes without shadow; but those which are varied by the sombre colouring borrowed by experience from the hand of grief, exhibit the principles of harmony, and the essential characteristics of truth.

It has been wisely ordered by the Author of our being, that we should be stimulated to action by certain wishes and wants arising within ourselves. Had man, constituted as he now is, been placed in a situation of perfect enjoyment, it must necessarily have been one of supineness and sloth, in which his mental powers would have experienced no exercise, and consequently no improvement. Thus when we look with regret upon the daily wants of mankind, and feel disposed to regard them as a defect in his nature, or an error in his morals, we do not reflect that they are parts of a powerful machine, so constructed and designed as to awaken and stimulate man's highest capabilities, yet so liable to derangement, misapplication, and abuse, as to be frequently converted by his ignorance, or want of care, into the engine of his own destruction. It was the want of some medium of communication which first led to the use of certain sounds as signs of our ideas, and it was the same want which produced such an arrangement of these sounds as to constitute a copious language; it was the want of some sweet influence to soothe the asperities of pain, and labour, and fatigue, which prompted the cultivation of music; it was the want of some visible and substantial personification of their own ideas of beauty and grandeur, which operated upon the genius of the first artists, and produced those massive but sublime attempts at sculpture which arose among the Egyptians, and were afterwards improved upon by the more refined inhabitants of ancient Greece; and it was the want of a higher tone of language, suited to the most elevated conceptions of the human mind, which first diffused the refreshing stream of poetry over the

world, gave the charm of melody to the hymns of Israel's minstrel king, inspired the father of ancient verse with those heroic strains which still delight the world, found a language and a voice for the impassioned soul of Sappho, fired the genius of Euripides, and which still continues, though often unknown and unacknowledged, to tune to harmony the poet's secret thoughts, operating upon the springs of sympathy and love, like the airs that touch unseen the chords of the Eolian harp.

But above all, it is under the influence of sorrow that this want is felt. Joy is sufficient of itself; the soul receives it, and is satisfied. But sorrow is burdensome, and the soul would gladly throw it off; and because it cannot give what no one is willing to receive, would cast it upon the winds, or diffuse it through creation's space. The mind that is under the influence of melancholy, knows no rest. It is wearied

with an incessant craving for something beyond itself. It seeks for sympathy, but never finds enough. It is dissatisfied with present things, and because the beings around it are too gross or too familiar to offer that refined communion for which it ever pines, it pours forth in poetic strains the transcript of its own sorrows, trusting that the world contains other sufferers at least half as wretched as itself, who will read, with a pity too distant to offend, descriptions of a fate more lamentable than their own.

There needs no greater proof that melancholy is poetical, than the effect it produces upon imagination, converting everything into its own bitter food. Under the influence of melancholy, the voice of friendship often sounds reproachful, and always unfeeling when it speaks the truth; the looks of gladness worn by others, are proofs of their want of consideration for ourselves; acts of kindness are instances of pity, and pity, under such circumstances, always appears accompanied with contempt. Love is apt to attack those

who are the victims of melancholy, but it is always in some forbidden shape; and religion, which is, or ought to be, the sovereign balm for all mental maladies, appears to them like a sacred enclosure drawn around a chosen few, from which they are eternally shut out. If they read the Bible, they turn to the lamentations of Jeremiah, Ecclesiastes, or the Book of Job; and seated on a cushion of ease, in the full enjoyment of health, and wealth, and luxury of every kind, they believe themselves to be as severely tried, as miserable, and perhaps as patient, as the heroic sufferer. If they

go forth into the fields, the flowers either look wan and sickly, or mock them with their gorgeous hues; the tree spread around a gloomy shade; the streams murmur, as everything on earth has a right to do; the birds and the insects that flutter in the sunshine, are poor deluded victims of mortality, sporting away their short-lived joy; the clouds which vary the aspect of the landscape, and the calm blue heavens, are emblematical of the "palpable obscure" in which their own fate is involved; and if the sun shines forth in his glory, it is to remind them that no sun will ever more rise to disperse the darkness of their souls. Instead of indulging in those wide and liberal views which embrace the perfection and beauty of the universe, they fix their attention upon objects single and minute, choosing out such as may most easily be connected with gloomy associations. In the gorgeous hues of the autumnal foliage, the eye of melancholy can distinguish nothing but the faded leaves just separated from the bough, and flickering downwards on the reckless wind, with those dizzy and convulsive movements which are wont to precede an irrevocable fall; from amongst the cheerful songsters of the grove, it singles out the bird with wounded wing; it perceives the rifled nest, and knows by the scattered plumage that the spoiler has been there; throughout the flowery wilderness of the fields, or the gorgeous bloom of the