the votaries of ambition scatter desolation in their train, and merit the indignant reprobation of every friend to humanity, but had Mr. Southey consulted his own fame and popularity he had chosen a different subject as the vehicle of his sentiments. The versification of this poem is in many parts very beautiful, and would have been altogether so, had the author condescended to bestow more time on its elaboration.✝ In his promised epic on the Discovery of America by Madoc, the ingenious poet, it is hoped, will apply more care and assiduity to the necessary work of perfecting and polishing.

Now, if we may be allowed to place Ossian in opposition to Milton, inferior in sublimity perhaps, though certainly infinitely more pathetic, our epic column will stand firm upon its base, and, rearing its majestic shaft, attract, through distant ages, the eye of genius and of taste.

✝ Since these observations were made Mr. Southey has published a second edition of the Joan of Arc in which many and great alterations, and, for the most part, highly to the advantage of the work, have taken place.

The Drama in the sixteenth, and during a great part of the seventeenth century was written with little attention to the rules of composition, and, except in the hands of Shakspeare, was for the most part either monstrous or abortive. The plays of Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher abound with the wildest incongruities both in matter and form, and though Jonson was infinitely more regular yet he wanted the essential of genius. Succeeding poets have however made nearer approaches to the perfectibility of art, and few tragedies have been produced within the present century without due regard to mechanism of fable, to decorum of scene, and propriety of style. But as attention to the dictates of criticism will not alone constitute a good play, it is necessary to shew that the poets within our prescribed period want not what is otherwise vital and requisite to their art. In tragedy, as was observed before, we must avoid entering the lists with Shakspeare, but with his contemporary bards we can court comparison in triumph. With this exception who can produce a tragedy from the bosom of the sixteenth, or prior half of the seventeenth century, that, in genuine dramatic excellence, shall rank

with the Grecian Daughter or Gamester of Moore, the Douglas of Home, the Elfrida and Caractacus of Mason, or the Mysterious Mother of Walpole. Though the subject of this last piece be singularly horrid and almost disgusting, yet the fable is conducted with such inimitable skill, that it may in this respect be considered as approximating nearer to perfection than any other drama extant, the dipus Tyrannus of Sophocles even not excepted. Some of the scenes in Douglas are of admirable pathos and beauty, and its diction has been justly and generally approved. The classical productions of Mason would have done honour to Athens in her most refined period, and the tragedies of Moore have been bathed with the tears of thousands. If we turn to comedy the superiority of modern genius is decisive, for, I imagine, it will readily be conceded that the Suspicious Husband, the Jealous Wife, the Clandestine Marriage and the School for Scandal are perfectly unrivalled. The comedies of Mr. Cumberland likewise possess very considerable merit, especially his West Indian and Wheel of Fortune. Comedy has in every nation been slow in attaining perfection. Aristophanes, more remarkable for scurrility

In

than for wit and humour, was contemporary with Euripides, and though Shakspeare has many characters of the most genuine humour, he has not furnished us with an instance of legitimate comedy, unless indeed the Merry Wives of Windsor may be termed such. fact before the time of Congreve and Cibber pure and unmixed comedy was nearly unknown, and only acquired its more polished and perfect state when the drama of Colman and Sheridan appeared.

Lyric poetry may be said to have had no existence among us before Dryden composed his celebrated ode, for the Pindarics of Cowley have small pretensions to the title. Mr. Headley therefore could appropriate no part of his table to this sublime province of the art, and which has indeed only attained its highest. excellencies in the productions of Collins and Gray. As I have, in another place, entered largely into the merits of our English lyric poets, nothing more is here necessary than to remark, that the names collected under this department would do honour to any age or country, and would alone be adequate to prove that the spirit and genius of our poetry have

liberally partaken of those energies which, in the present period, have been so powerfully directed through the walks of science and the depths of oriental literature.

The naturalist and the poet are not in frequent combination; an unwearied attention to the features of nature, and, at the same time, a power of selecting the more striking circumstances, and of so vividly impressing them on the mind of the reader that the original shall even seem tame in the comparison, are faculties which have fallen to the lot of few. Lucretius, Virgil and Thomson enjoyed however this happy union of talents, and it is with peculiar pride and pleasure that in our day we can point to the name of a poet who equally excels in these particulars, and to an exquisite felicity of diction superadds the most pathetic morality, and a vein of original and justly applied satire. As long as a taste for simplicity and energy of style, for the charms of Nature, of Virtue and of Religion shall exist, so long will the Task of Cowper continue a favourite with the.. public. Mr. Gisborne's Walks in a Forest, have also a title to particular notice as possessing just claims to original description..