My position being thus satisfactorily established, my readers will pardon me the expression of my surprise and regret, that the public taste should be so grievously vitiated as to prefer the poetical works of the three personages whose names I have mentioned, and of others which might have been added, to the infinitely higher order of poetry which abounds in the nursery.

This anomalous and discreditable state of things shall no longer exist,—if I can help it. I have determined to come forward, as no other person better qualified for the task seems disposed to undertake it, as the champion of those great poetic geniuses who reign paramount in the nursery, though so shamefully neglected by "children of a larger growth." This is an undertaking far more noble than any recorded in the page of modern history. There is nothing so truly worthy in the voluminous annals of chivalry. Were it not that the one related to a future world, and was immediately connected with man's religious interests, and that the other has reference to intellectual merit alone, I

would not shrink from comparing the nobleness of the task I have undertaken with that of the Crusaders of the twelfth century, when they devoutly and heroically marched to the Holy Land, to expel the infidels from the sacred territory.

I regret, and it is a disgrace to the age in which we live, that I should be left to engage single-handed in this glorious enterprize. Had Mr. Canning been alive, I should have found in him an able coadjutor. In his younger years he gave convincing proof of the estimation in which he held Nursery Poetry; and not only showed that he could duly appreciate its transcendant merits, but that he could ably vindicate its claims to the admiration of all possessed of sufficient intellect to discern its excellencies. In the "Microcosm," a periodical work which he conducted when an Eton Boy,' he published

two masterly papers,

admirable alike for the

eloquence of their style and their critical

discernment, on the well-known nursery poem beginning with

"The Queen of Hearts

She made some tarts

All on a summer's day."

That Mr. Canning did not pursue the glorious and useful career which he thus early pointed out for himself, is solely to be ascribed to the circumstance of his comprehensive mind. having been, from that period until the time of his death, occupied with the weightier matters of state. Had he only been spared to accomplish to some extent the objects most dear to his heart: namely, of "calling new worlds into existence," and regenerating the old, there can be no doubt that he would have devoted all the faculties of his mind for the remainder of his life, to the promotion of the praiseworthy purpose I have mentioned.

"Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just." Encouraged by the assurance, that the object I have in view involves, in an eminent degree, not only the abstract principles of justice, but the interests of our national literature, I proceed fearlessly and at once, to the performance of my task.

The only thing about which there can be any doubt or difficulty, is the particular nursery poem I should commence with. The claims of several to the distinction of priority in the specification of their merits are so nicely balanced, that I am at a loss to say to which I ought to give the preference. I am particularly distracted amidst the conflicting claims of three beautiful little well-known poems. The first I refer to is that commencing with

"Who killed cock robin?

I, said the sparrow,

With my bow and arrow,

And I killed cock robin."

The second is "The House that Jack built;" and the third is the popular poem of "Jack and Gill." As the last is the shortest, I shall begin with it.

Though it be very unusual for critics to quote the whole of the poem they are about to criticise, I do not feel myself "obligated," as they say at the police offices, to follow the general example. I am perfectly independent in everything, and in nothing more so than in

matters pertaining to criticism. Here then is the poem to whose matchless excellencies I am about to call the attention of

my readers:-
:-

"Jack and Gill went up the hill

To fetch a pail of water;

Jack fell down and broke his crown,

And Gill came tumbling after!"

It will at once be perceived by the intelligent reader, that this poem has in it all the qualities of a heroic poem. The grand essentials of such a poem are admitted on all hands, from Aristo. tle down to the most modern critic, to be, that it have a hero, a beginning, a middle, and an end. It is undeniable on the face of it, that this poem possesses all these properties. It has certainly a hero and a heroine to the bargain; so much the better. To go into any lengthened or elaborate arguments to prove that the poem has a beginning, a middle, and an end, would be justly deemed an unpardonable insult to the understanding of my readers.

The way in which the poem commences is particularly happy. Had Homer been the author, he would have begun with an invocation to