amplitude and beauty of the details. It is in his descriptions of love, and of female loveliness, that there is the strongest resemblance to Lord Byron, at least to the larger poems of that noble author. In the powerful and condensed expression of strong emotion, Mr. Moore seems to us rather to have imitated the tone of some of his lordship's smaller pieces-but imitated them as only an original genius could imitate-as Lord Byron himself may be said, in his later pieces, to have imitated those of an earlier date.— There is less to remind us of Scott than we can very well account for, when we consider the great range and variety of that most fascinating and powerful writer and we must say, that if Mr. Moore could bring the resemblance a little closer, and exchange a portion of his superfluous images and ecstasies for an equivalent share of Mr. Scott's gift of interesting and delighting us with pictures of familiar nature, and of that spirit and energy which never rises to extravagance, we think he would be a gainer by the exchange. To Mr. Crabbe there is no resemblance at all and we only mention his name, to observe, that he and Mr. Moore seem the antipodes of our present poetical sphere, and to occupy the extreme points of refinement and homeliness that can be said to fall within the legitimate dominion of poetry. They could not meet in the middle, we are aware, without changing their nature, and losing their specific character; but each might approach a few degrees, we think, with great mutual advantage. The outposts of all empires are posts of peril-though we do not dispute that there is great honour in maintaining them with success. : ROGERS'S POETRY.* It may seem very doubtful, whether the progress and the vicissitudes of the elegant arts can be referred to the operation of general laws, with the same plausibility as the exertions of the more robust faculties of the human mind, in the severer forms of science and of useful art. The action of fancy and taste seems to be affected by causes too various and minute to be enumerated with sufficient completeness for the purpose of philosophical theory. To explain them, may appear to be as hopeless an attempt, as to account for one summer being more warm and genial than another. The difficulty must be owned to be great. It renders complete explanations impossible; and it would be insurmountable, even in framing the most general outline of theory, if the various forms assumed by imagination, in the fine arts, did not depend on some of the most conspicuous as well as powerful agents in the moral world. They arise from revolutions of popular sentiments. They are connected with the opinions of the age, and with the manners of the refined class, as certainly, though not as much, as with the passions of the multitude. The comedy of a polished monarchy never could be of the same character with that of a bold and tumultuous democracy. Changes of religion and of government, civil or foreign wars, conquests which derive splendour from distance, or extent, or difficulty-long tranquillity-all these, and indeed every conceivable modification of the state of a community, show themselves in the tone of its poetry, and leave long and deep traces on every part of its literature. Geometry is the same, not only at * Poems: by Samuel Rogers: including Fragments of a Poem called the Voyage of Columbus. -Vol. xxii. p. 32. October, 1813. London and Paris, but in the extremes of Athens and Samarcand. But the state of the general feeling in England, at this moment, requires a different poetry from that which delighted our ancestors in the time of Luther or Alfred. It ought to be needless to guard this language from misconception, by an observation, so obviously implied, as that there are some qualities which must be common to all delightful poems of every time and country. During the greater part of the eighteenth century, the connection of the character of English poetry, with the state of the country, was very easily traced. The period which extended from the English to the French Revolution, was the golden age of authentic history. Governments were secure, nations tranquil, improvements rapid, manners mild beyond the example of any former age. The English nation, which possessed the greatest of all human blessings, a wisely constructed popular government, necessarily enjoyed the largest share of every other benefit. The tranquillity of that fortunate period was not disturbed by any of those calamitous, or even extraordinary events, which excite the imagination and inflame the passions. No age was more exempt from the prevalence of any species of popular enthusiasm. Poetry, in this state of things, partook of that calm, argumentative, moral, and directly useful character into which it naturally subsides, when there are no events which call up the higher passions; when every talent is allured into the immediate service of a prosperous and improving society;-and when wit, taste, diffused literature, and fastidious. criticism, combine to deter the young writer from the more arduous enterprises of poetical genius. In such an age every art becomes rational. Reason is the power which presides in a calm: but reason guides, rather than impels; and, though it must regulate every exertion of genius, it never can rouse it to vigorous action. The school of Dryden and Pope, which prevailed till a very late period of the last century, is neither the most poetical nor the most national part of our literary annals. These great poets sometimes indeed ventured into the regions of pure poetry. But their general character is, that "not in fancy's maze they wandered long;" that they rather approached the elegant correctness of our Continental neighbours, than supported the daring flight which, in the former age, had borne English poetry to a sublimer elevation than that of any other modern people of the West. Towards the middle of the eighteenth century, great, though quiet changes, began to manifest themselves in the republic of letters, in every European nation which retained any portion of mental activity. About that time, the exclusive authority of our great rhyming poets began to be weakened; new tastes and fashions began to show themselves in the poetical world. A school of poetry must have prevailed long enough to be probably on the verge of downfall, before its practice be embodied in a correspondent system of criticism. Johnson was the critic of our second poetical school. As far as his prejudices of a political or religious kind did not disqualify him for all criticism, he was admirably fitted by nature to be the critic of this species of poetry. Without more imagination, sensibility, or delicacy than it required, not always with perhaps quite enough for its higher parts, he possessed sagacity, shrewdness, experience, knowledge of mankind, a taste for rational and orderly compositions, and a disposition to accept, instead of poetry, that lofty and vigorous declamation in harmonious verse, of which he himself was capable, and to which his great masters sometimes descended. His spontaneous admiration scarcely soared above Dryden. "Merit of a loftier class he rather saw than felt." Shakspeare has transcendent excellence of every sort, and for every critic, except those who are repelled by the faults which usually attend sublime virtues, character and manners, morality and prudence, as well as imagery and passion. Johnson did indeed perform a vigorous act of reluctant justice towards Milton; but it was a proof, to use his own words, that "At length our mighty Bard's victorious lays Fill the loud voice of universal praise; And baffled Spite, with hopeless anguish dumb, The deformities of the life of Gray ought not to be ascribed to jealousyfor Johnson's mind, though coarse, was not mean - but to the prejudices of his University, his faction, and his poetical sect: and this last bigotry is the more remarkable, because it is exerted against the most skilful and tasteful of innovators, who, in reviving more poctical subjects and a more splendid diction, has employed more care and finish, than those who aimed only at correctness. The interval which elapsed between the death of Goldsmith and the rise of Cowper, is perhaps more barren than any other twelve years in the history of our poetry since the accession of Elizabeth. It seemed as if the fertile soil was at length exhausted. But it had in fact only ceased to exhibit its accustomed produce. The established poetry had worn out either its own resources, or the constancy of its readers. Former attempts to introduce novelty had been either too weak, or too early. Neither the beautiful fancy of Collins, nor the learned and ingenious industry of Warton, nor even the union of sublime genius with consummate art in Gray, had produced a general change in poetical composition. But the fulness of time was approaching; and a revolution has been accomplished, of which the commencement nearly coincides (not as we conceive accidentally) with that of the political revolution which has changed the character as well as the condition of Europe. It has been a thousand times observed, that nations become weary even of excellence, and seek a new way of writing, though it should be a worse. But besides the operation of satiety—the general cause of literary revolutions-several particular circumstances seem to have affected the late changes of our poetical taste; of which, two are more conspicuous than the rest. In the natural progress of society, the songs which are the effusions of the feelings of a rude tribe, are gradually polished into a poetry still retaining the marks of those national opinions, sentiments, and manners, from which it originally sprung. The plants are improved by cultivation; but they are still the native produce of the soil. The only perfect example which we know, of this sort, is Greece. Knowledge and useful art, and perhaps in a great measure religion, the Greeks received from the East. But as they studied no foreign language, it was impossible that any foreign literature should influence the progress of theirs. Not even the name of a Persian, Assyrian, Phenician, or Egyptian poet is alluded to by a Greek writer; the Greek poetry was therefore wholly national. The Pelasgic ballads were insensibly formed into epic, and tragic, and lyric poems: but the heroes, the opinions, the customs, continued as exclusively Grecian, as they had been when the Hellenic minstrels knew little beyond the Adriatic and the Egean. The literature of Rome was a copy from that of Greece. When the classical studies revived amidst the chivalrous manners and feudal institutions of Gothic Europe, the imitation of ancient poets struggled against the power of modern sentiments, with various event, in different times and countries, but every where in such a manner, as to give somewhat of an artificial and exotic character to poetry. Jupiter and the Muses appeared. in the poems of Christian nations. The feelings and principles of democracies were copied by the gentlemen of Teutonic monarchies or aristocracies. The sentiments of the poet in his verse, were not those which actuated him in his conduct. The forms and rules of composition were borrowed from antiquity, instead of spontaneously arising from the manner of thinking of modern communities. In Italy, when letters first revived, the chivalrous principle was too near the period of its full vigour, to be oppressed by the foreign learning. Ancient ornaments were borrowed, but the romantic form was prevalent; and where the forms were classical, the spirit continued to be romantic. The structure of Tasso's poem was that of the Grecian epic; but his heroes were Christian Knights. French poetry having been somewhat unaccountably late in its rise, and slow in its progress, reached its brilliant period, when all Europe had considerably. lost its ancient characteristic principles, and was fully impregnated with classical ideas. Hence it acquired faultless elegance. Hence also it became less natural more timid and more imitative - more like a feeble translation of Roman poetry. The first age of English poetry, in the reign of Elizabeth, displayed a combination, fantastic enough, of chivalrous fancy and feeling, with classical pedantry: but, upon the whole, the native genius was unsubdued; and the poems of that age, with all their faults, and partly perhaps from their faults, are the most national part of our poetry, as they undoubtedly contain its highest beauties. From the accession of James to the Civil War, the glory of Shakspeare turned the whole national genius to the drama; and, after the Restoration, a new and classical school arose, under whom our old and peculiar literature was abandoned, and almost forgotten. But all imported tastes in literature must be in some measure superficial. The poetry which grew in the bosoms of a people, is always capable of being revived by a skilful hand. When the brilliant and poignant lines of Pope began to pall on the public ear, it was natural that we should revert to the cultivation of our indigenous poetry. Nor was this the sole, or perhaps the chief, agent which was working a poetical change. As the condition and character of the former age had produced an argumentative, didactic, sententious, prudential, and satirical poetry; so, the approaches to a new order (or rather at first disorder) in political society, were attended by correspondent movements in the poetical world.-Bolder speculations began to prevail; and we shall soon have a more proper occasion to remark how the feelings, which were the forerunners of civil mutation, called for a sterner and more lofty system of ethics; and to point out the slender but important threads which bound them to the most abstruse researches of metaphysics. A combination of the science and art of the tranquil period, with the hardy enterprises of that which succeeded, gave rise to scientific poems, in which a bold attempt was made, by the mere force of diction, to give a poetical interest and elevation to the coldest parts of knowledge, and to those arts which have been hitherto considered as the meanest. Having been forced above their natural place by the first wonder, they have not yet recovered from the subsequent depression; nor will a similar attempt be successful, without a more temperate use of power over style, until the diffusion of physical knowledge renders it familiar to the popular imagination, and till the prodigies worked by the mechanical arts shall have bestowed on them a character of grandeur. As the agitation of men's minds approached the period of explosion, its effects on literature became more visible. The desire of strong emotion succeeded to the solicitude to avoid disgust. Fictions, both dramatic and narrative, were formed according to the school of Rousseau and Goëthe. The mixture of comic and tragic pictures once more display itself, as in the ancient and national drama. The sublime and energetic feelings of devotion began to be more frequently associated with poetry. The tendency of political speculation concurred in directing the mind of the poet to the intense and undisguised passions of the uneducated, which fastidious politeness had excluded from the subjects of poetical imitation. The history of nations unlike ourselves-the fantastic mythology and ferocious superstition of distant times and countries or the legends of our own antique faith, and the romances of our fabulous and heroic ages, became favourite themes of poetry. Traces of a higher order of feeling appeared in the contemplations in which the poet indulged, and in the events and scenes which he delighted to describe. The fire with which a chivalrous tale was told, made the reader inattentive to negligences in the story or the style. Poetry became more devout, more contemplative, more mystical, more visionary,—more alien from the taste of those whose poetry is only a polished prosaic verse,—more full of antique superstition, and more prone to daring innovation,-painting both coarser realities and purer imaginations, than she had before hazarded,-sometimes buried in the profound quiet required by the dreams of fancy, -sometimes turbulent and martial,seeking "fierce wars and faithful loves" in those times long past, when the frequency of the most dreadful dangers produced heroic energy and the ardour of faithful affection. Even the direction given to the traveller by the accidents of war has not been without its influence. Greece, the mother of freedom and of poetry in the west, which had long employed only the antiquary, the artist, and the philologist, was at length destined, after an interval of many silent and inglorious ages, to awaken the genius of a poet. Full of enthusiasm for those perfect forms of heroism and liberty, which his imagination had placed in the recesses of antiquity, he gave vent to his impatience of the imperfections of living men and real institutions, in an original strain of sublime satire, which clothes moral anger in imagery of an almost horrible grandeur; and which, though it cannot coincide with the estimate of reason, yet could only flow from that worship of perfection, which is the soul of all true poetry. The tendency of poetry to become national, was in more than one case remarkable. While the Scottish middle age inspired the most popular poet perhaps of the eighteenth century, the national genius of Ireland at length found a poetical representative, whose exquisite ear and flexible fancy wantoned in all the varieties of poetical luxury, from the levities to the fondness of love, from polished pleasantry to ardent passion, and from the social joys of private life to a tender and mournful patriotism, taught by the melancholy fortunes of an illustrious country;--with a range adapted to |