fancy of Shakspeare might have glanced upon, and his expression such as Milton would not have disdained. If one could forget whence particular passages are taken, it would be no disparagement either to critical judgment or to classic taste to say"That is surely Shakspeare's"-as, for instance, in the death of the strong man

"How his great heart

Beats thick! his roomy chest by far too scant
To give the lungs full play" *******

"See! how he tugs for life, and lays about him, Mad with his pain!"

The following description again has the freedom and nature of Shakspeare:

"The wind is up: hark! how it howls! methinks Till now I never heard a sound so dreary :

Doors creak, and windows clap, and night's foul bird,

Rooked in the spire, screams loud."

Blair's images are more picturesque than his expressions are felicitous; though there are passages and descriptions of which the language is smooth and even elegant. He has much more power of moral pathos than range of imagination, greater energy of reflection than power of Bardic incantation. He moralizes over the Grave and its precincts with dignity and pathos, but never labours with

the "mighty spell"-never falls upon those words of powerful conjuration which would compel the dead to burst their cearments, and reveal the secrets of their prison-house.

From the general cast of his subject, Blair has often been compared with YoUNG; but whatever accidental resemblance may exist, Dr Anderson has satisfactorily shown that imitation was impossible. If there be any such resemblance, it is decidedly to the advantage of the author of THE GRAVE. His poem, though but a fragment compared with the ponderous and magnificent NIGHT THOUGHTS, is complete in itself. It has unity of design, succession of parts, and a dauntless and natural tone of thought and style, from which the involuted mind of the poet of Philander and Narcissa would have shrunk. Blair has been applauded for his satiric powers. He deserves praise for what is better and more becoming the dignity of the Christian poet. The earnest voice of the prophet, whether uplifted in pathetic entreaty or in solemn warning, is a much nobler instrument than the keen scourge of the worldly-minded satirist.

It would be an easy and a grateful task to multiply quotations from this poem in many varying styles of excellence; but it is before the reader; and the path is too open and too well-defined for any one to wander: the land-marks are elevated and striking.

In the close of the poem, there is to our feeling at least short-coming, if not absolute failure. The

sting of Death, the gloom and horrors of the Grave, have all been nobly and strongly delineated; but the final burst of triumph over the powers of Hell and Death-the rapturous exultation of the true poet-the beatific vision-the hallelujah hailing "the resurrection and the life," are felt to be wanting. The close is in that tone of sober confidence which might have found place in any eloquent ser

mon.

We have perhaps said too much of THE GRAVE merely as a work of genius. It ought to be estimated by those higher qualities which, though not purely poetical, harmonize nobly with the loftiest inspirations of the muse. Blair, it may be perceived, had read Shakspeare with love, and Milton with admiration, and profited by both; but he has made no use of the fictions of Pagan poetry. His oracle was not in Delphi; but we may say of him as has been said of Bunyan_“ His genius, though not dipped in dews of Castalie, was baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire."

THE

GRAVE.

WHILST Some affect the sun, and some the shade,
Some flee the city, some the hermitage,

Their aims as various as the roads they take
In journeying through life ;-the task be mine
To paint the gloomy horrors of the tomb;
Th' appointed place of rendezvous, where all
These travellers meet. Thy succours I implore,
Eternal King! whose potent arm sustains

The keys of hell and death. The Grave, dread thing!

Men shiver when thou'rt named: Nature appall'd Shakes off her wonted firmness. Ah! how dark Thy long-extended realms, and rueful wastes ! Where nought but silence reigns, and night, dark night,

Dark as was chaos, ere the infant sun

Was roll'd together, or had try'd his beams Athwart the gloom profound! The sickly taper By glimm'ring through the low-brow'd misty vaults (Furr'd round with mouldy damps and ropy slime) Lets fall a supernumerary horror,

And only serves to make thy night more irksome.