prising all that deserved the name of English poetry, and they were honoured as its fathers. Now the tendency is rather to exclude this whole period down to Cowper, as one great gap in the development of English poetry, and to confine this to the periods preceding and following it. In accordance with this prevailing direction of public taste, our literature of this century is for the most part marked most plainly with the qualities of English thought, while those of French or Classical thought have almost disappeared. So superficial and evanescent is the impression which can be made on national thought by a foreign literature. Nor will this seem strange if we remember how small a portion of our mental life is occupied with literature; and how vast a proportion of the nation maintains the complete originality of its mental habits by seldom or never coming into contact with literature at all. *

* The great persistency of national characters of thought and sentiment is a cardinal fact in scientific history. Such national characters are no doubt due originally to the physical conditions under which they were formed; but in their formation there grew up along with them, confirming them and defining them, habits and institutions, social, civil, and domestic, corresponding to them and these, when they became traditional, formed at least in the intellectual races, a mental world so full and so established, as to preserve the national characters of thought and feeling throughout the migrations of the race, in the midst of physical circumstances quite different from those to which they were originally due. Such national modes of thought and feeling may, of course, be changed by peaceful intercourse with another race which differs in these respects, particularly if such difference is accompanied by a felt superiority. But modifying influences of this kind must penetrate the mass, if they are to produce any

Are there, then, no permanent effects produced by the influence of one literature on another? The works produced under such an influence are permanent literary agencies; and though they may not sensibly change the character of the national thought, they give to it a fuller and more balanced development, by signalizing with literary glory other qualities besides those which principally characterize the national genius. The literature, too, is by their means brought into harmony with other literatures; and the nation trained to appreciate these other literatures, so as to derive from them a still wider and more liberal development of thought, while it stimulates foreign genius by enlarging its audiences. Thus the nations are, by these mutual influences exerted on each other's literature, brought as it were

effect. Where two different races come in contact, and one of them is in so small a body as to be affected by intercourse with the other throughout a large portion of its entire mass, while the great bulk of the other is unaffected by such intercourse, then the larger body is likely to maintain its original character in perfect purity, and to assimilate the smaller to itself. Thus the Celtic tribes which in early times migrated into Germany became, according to Cæsar (Bell. Gall. v1. 24), completely assimilated to the Germans; and thus also the early Norman settlers in Ireland became, in time, more Irish than the Irish themselves. This assimilation of foreign bodies by large masses of a race helps us to understand how the original character may be preserved pure through a lapse of ages. It arises from the same cause as that which accounts for the evanescence of the influence of foreign literature, namely, the existence of a mass which never feels the influence, and which continually reinforces the native against the foreign character, till it has obliterated all traces of the influence of the latter.

into an organized system, in which, while they preserve their characteristic differences, they are fitted to possess, by the instrumentality of each other, a higher life than if they existed separately.

Foreign influences, moreover, give to a literature variety in its successive periods; and this gives vitality. Without new thought literature cannot live; and there is more room for new thought when there are in a literature various styles of recognized excellence which may prevail in succession, so as to give oscillations to its history.

To a nation such as ours this variety is more needful in our literature. There is a Celtic as well as a Germanic element in the kingdom; and it is well for the Celtic element that there has been a period in which a French influence was combined with the classical, so as to mark English literature with features which Celtic genius may recognize as its own, and by which it may be encouraged to aspire to immortality.

ON THE PRINCIPLES AND USES

OF ALLITERATION IN

POETRY.

BY

EVORY KENNEDY, M.D., E. AND T.C. D. (HON.)

FELLOW AND PAST PRESIDENT OF THE KING AND
QUEEN'S COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS IN IRELAND,

VICE-PRES. SOC. D'AFRIQUE, PARIS, HON.

MEM. MED. Soc. HAMBURGH,

ETC. ETC.