or Churchill could never have poured out the torrent of invective, or pointed the cutting irony, unless a cynical susceptibility of disgust had characterised their minds; and Milton, assuredly, could never have ascended to the sublimities of Paradise Lost, unless his heart had often beat high with the conceptions of the great, the awful, and the magnificent. Fergusson, too, possessed a mental constitution, which made him strongly feel the influence of the circumstances in which he was placed; for the evidences of his genius bear the stamp of a mind which could distinguish and feel when the vulgar gazed with stupid insensibility. He was indeed a true poet: he united exquisite powers of observation with goodness of heart, and a fancy boundless in its range. He surveyed the face of nature, and she stamped her image on his soul. He looked around him on mankind, and his eye penetrated the recesses of the human heart. As a scholar, he drank from the stream of inspiration, in the hallowed source of ancient poesy, and, in this respect, his advantage over Burns was decisive: yet, although his muse often sports with equal sprightliness and vivacity, and sometimes soars with an elevated sweep, she seldom, like the mighty genius of Burns, darts impetuous and sublime. Fergusson's poems, however, it must

be remembered, are now before the world with those imperfections which arise from youth and immaturity of judgment-from the temporary purposes which they were intended to serve, and the irregularity of the life during which they were written. They are to be regarded rather as the marks of genius, than as the models of excellence which it is capable of producing. They are the " glorious dawnings" of a mind which, ere it enlightened the world with its meridian splendour, was obscured, clouded, extinguished-obscured by the accidental humbleness of its social sphere, clouded by the misfortunes which hung around its mortal condition, and extinguished, by the darkness of the tomb, in its flight to eternity.

POEMS.

LYRICAL PIECES.

ODE TO HOPE.

HOPE! lively cheerer of the mind,
In lieu of real bless design'd,
Come from thy ever verdant bow'r
To chase the dull and lingering hour:
O! bring, attending on thy reign,
All thy ideal fairy train,

To animate the lifeless clay,

And bear my sorrows hence away.

Hence, gloomy-featur'd black Despair,
With all thy frantic furies, fly,
Nor rend my breast with gnawing care,
For Hope in lively garb is nigh.

Let pining Discontentment mourn,
Let dull-ey'd Melancholy grieve;
Since pleasing Hope must reign by turn,
And every bitter thought relieve.

O smiling Hope! in adverse hour,
I feel thy influencing pow'r.
Tho' frowning Fortune fix my lot
In some defenceless lonely cot,
Where Poverty, with empty hands,
In pallid meagre aspect stands ;
Thou canst enrobe me 'midst the great,
With all the crimson pomp of state,
Where Luxury invites his guests
To pall them with his lavish feasts.
What cave so dark, what gloom so drear,
So black with horror, dead with fear,
But thou canst dart thy streaming ray,
And change close night to open day?

Health is attendant in thy radiant train ; Round her the whispering zephyrs gently play;

Behold her gladly tripping o'er the plain, Bedeck'd with rural sweets and garlands gay!

When vital spirits are deprest,

And heavy languor clogs the breast,

With more than Esculapian power Endu'd, bless'd Hope! 'tis thine to cure ; For oft thy friendly aid avails,

When all the strength of physic fails.

Nay, ev'n tho' death should aim his dart,
I know he lifts his arm in vain,
Since thou this lesson canst impart,
Mankind but die to live again.

Depriv'd of thee must banners fall:
But where a living Hope is found,
The legions shout at danger's call,
And victors are triumphant crown'd.

Come then, bright Hope! in smiles array'd, Revive us by thy quickening breath ;

Then shall we never be afraid

To walk thro' danger and thro' death,