that concerns them on this side of the grave—and therefore, on the other; for genius has so dealt with such themes, that in the light gathering round them, as if from Heaven, have "perished the roses and the palms of kings."

It would be a pleasant office to trace the manifestations of this spirit through our poetry, especially since the dawn of the Reformation. Political causes had little or nothing to do with it, except in as far as they were themselves brought into operation by this spirit. And, at the present time, we believe, in our heart and in our conscience, that its triumph would be more complete, but for the thwarting, and distorting, and corrupting influence of political causes, to which Modern Philosophy would fain attribute an enlightenment which it does not understand, and of a character diametrically opposite to what it thinks the true virtue and happiness of man.

But we must content ourselves with a few hints-and ask

you to think of Cowper. Dr Memes, in his interesting memoir, calls him, rightly, the Poet of the Cross. Had his health of mind and body-frail, and awfully uncertain— suffered him to mingle more with the poor, he had been not their greatest poet in power, but their best in spirit. As it was, all his tenderest, deepest, holiest sympathies were theirs. Of them, and their condition, he was thinking at all those times when he drew his sad but faithful pictures of the imperfection and worthlessness of all human virtue, without the infusion of grace from on high-and hence it is that his poetry, though its subjects lie for the most part somewhat or considerably above what are justly called the lower orders, may be understood and felt by them, and we do not doubt that in good time it will be familiar to the inmates of humble households, as Young's Night Thoughts-for many strong reasons, partly the same and partly different-long were, and we trust still are-and in Scotland Thomson's Seasons. Cowper, in spite of his rueful sorrows-had a large heart to the last for at the last it was not contracted, but crushed— not narrowed, but darkened; and till reason's self was sunk in ineffable horror, he felt, during all his own agonies, for all his sinful brethren of mankind. And that surely was no selfish compassion, though more profoundly pitiful because of his sense of his own unworthiness, and his conviction that, of

all who shared with him the same lot, he was for ever the most utterly lost.

The great French Revolution, many say, made all our great English poets. It did not make Cowper, and it could not make Crabbe. England was at all times able to produce her own great poets by her own plastic power-as she did Shakespeare. Crabbe one day found himself a child on the sea-beach, playing under a boat, that lay high and dry on her gunwale a few fathoms from his father's door. The old familiar faces were to him the faces of seafaring men, or of shore-farers, their brethren; and the lad, from a brat, was a gnostic in nautical characters and concerns, as high up as skippers of merchantmen, and boatswains of men-of-war. His acquaintance with and knowledge of life widened gradually away inland, and for many years he heard but in fancy's ear the hollow sound that was ever with his boyhood and youth; and it was still pleasant to his old age. He had an out-and-out look of a parson, and he was a parson; but he had the heart-the simple heart—and the mind—acute mind -of a tar. From first to last he loved all poor men-but most ardently the men in blue; from them he carried overtransferred his affection to people in other colours-even as far as Quakers, though he was no great admirer of drab; and comprehended in his affection all ranks up to a Duke; but his heart to the last found itself most at home among men of high soul but low degree, who people our stormy shores in crowds. But he heeded not, in his kindliest moods, whether their souls were high or low, provided they had some strength-some character; and whatever that character was, he saw it as if by intuition, and saw, too, how it came to be what it was from circumstances acting on nature, so as to produce infinite varieties of the same class—the classes being numerous of that strange creature-Man. So attentive was he to circumstances, that every tale of his is a picture of a life. No two tales and he has written hundreds-but are as different as may be; and every one of them is at once so true to nature that you believe it all happened, and a novel or romance. We know not what is, if that be not genius. is a mistake to think that he dealt only with the darker passions. He was conversant with passions of all hues; well

It

he loved emotions tender and bright; and of the virtues, none so dearly as fidelity and truth-witness many a maid, and wife, and widow, living and dying for lover's or husband's sake, perfectly resigned with breaking or broken hearts. And we know not what is, if that be not religion. He pitied many sins-but some he abhorred; yet he pursued with his hate the crime, not the criminal,—and him he left to remorse, the executioner who occasionally inflicts capital punishment, but who in most cases uses the rack. And we know not what is, if that be not Moral Philosophy. He knew all kinds of misery with a learned spirit-but not an inhumane; and he has mapped them out in mysterious empiries-in lines of blood and of fire. From the turbulence, and the trouble, and the terror he had so profoundly studied, his own spirit was free, though they must have visited it, passing through without finding any abiding place even in an abyss. So he could calmly, not coldly, sing of desperate and fearful things, a looker-on of the agonies, and a partaker but of the nature out of which they grow. He read few books writ by man— but they were among the best-the works of the great native poets. His library was the Bible and the Book of Nature. We could prove that-but must not now. Moreover, in the art of poetry he is a consummate master. Teniers, Hogarth, Wilkie-each of them in his own art is a great master too; but in conception, in comprehension, and in breadth and depth of colouring, Crabbe was greater than them all three-could you conceive them all three in one ;—and then, what is painting compared with poetry! So much by way of a short imperfect notice of the greatest poet of the Poor.

The admirers of Crabbe used to be the scorners of Wordsworth. Yet the Poets regarded one another with admiration— nor, do we doubt, with reverence. And do we call Wordsworth-the philosophic poet-a poet of the Poor? Ay-but not a poet for the poor. He is their benefactor by beautify

ing their character and their condition as they lie in "the light of common day," tinging that light with colours unborrowed from the sun that shines before our sensuous eyes, and seemingly drawn from some spiritual font flowing from the depth of his own moral being-more tranquil than night. The huts where poor men lie become holier even to our human hearts, because of that wondrous beauty in which, by

now

his meditative genius, they are enveloped. We believe, that what is so harmonious must be true-and we carry away with us in our conscience that belief, even in among all the perplexing and humbling realities with which this world is disturbed and lowered. One short sentence and no moreupon the poetry of Wordsworth. Soaring at his highest, he never separates himself in spirit from the humblest of his brethren of mankind. They cannot follow his flight-to their eyes he is then lost in the empyrean. But he forgets not them when "worshipping at the temple's inner shrine," he hears "the still sad music of humanity!" The mystery of life to him is awful, from his thoughts of God's humblest children—and inviolable in their equality all the rights given by God to immortal spirits. In the Old Beggar going from door to door he sees one of God's ministers. And a low-born man, of highest wisdom, is with the great poet among the sunsets-an instructor and a monitor, who belonged of old to "a virtuous household, though exceeding poor."

England allows that there never was in time a country possessing such a peasantry as, during the life of Burns, belonged to Scotland.

"The ancient spirit was not dead;

Old times, she says, were breathing there;"

and yet a modern spirit was alive too, and new times had a breath of their own. Manners were simple, yet not rude, and had a hallowing hereditary influence; customs of an imaginative kind were not outworn; popular traditions gave poetry to patriotism; superstitious feelings were not extinct, but they were almost all nearly harmless, and some of them even allied themselves with religion, which it had better, if it must be imperfect, be too fearful than too cold; the faith of the people in Christianity was rock-firm; the national character, earnest as well as ardent; the parish schools had widely diffused education; habits were peaceful; morals in principle rigorous -and piety guarded the virtue of domestic life. If all this be true, with such deductions and limitations as must always be made for the frailties and delinquencies of our corrupt and fallen nature, surely no great native poet had ever a nobler field for his genius than Burns. None deny now that his

genius was of a high order. Imagination was not the chief faculty of his mind-but intellect. His sensibility was exquisite-he had a heart of passion, a soul of fire-his love of his native land was one with the love of life-and he gloried in having been born a peasant. No poet perhaps ever was so popular as Burns with the poor. He is endeared to them by their pity for his fate, and their forgiveness of his transgressions, as well as by his own fine, free, bold, gladsome, generous, and independent nature; but his poetry is not only the people's delight, but their pride-for they know that all the nations of the world regard it as picturing the character of the poor of Scotland.

"I am

That we speak of Ebenezer Elliott along with Cowper, and Crabbe, and Wordsworth, and Burns, tells how highly we rate the power of his genius. He is the sole and great poet of his own order, the mechanics and artisans of England. called," says he, proudly and finely, "as I expected to be, an unsuccessful imitator of the pauper poetry of Wordsworth; although, with the exception of his great work, I never read his writings until long after this poem ('The Village Patriarch') was first printed. I might be truly called an unfortunate imitator of Crabbe, that most British of poets, for he has long been bosomed with me; and if he had never lived, it is quite possible that I might never have written pauper poetry. However, my imitation fails, if it fail, not because it is servile, nor because I have failed to stamp my own individuality upon it, but because my pencil wants force, though it be dipped in sadness and familiar with sorrow. The clerical artist works with a wire brush; but he has been unjustly blamed for the stern colours in which he paints the sublimity of British wretchedness." Elliott is an imitator of Crabbe, but not an "unfortunate" one,-of Wordsworth, he is no imitator at all. But what may imitation mean in the case of so original-minded a man as Elliott? Why, no more than that the soul within him was early stirred by the varied pictures "of the sublimity of British wretchedness," painted by him whom Byron calls "Nature's sternest painter, and her best." Crabbe's poetry was felt by him to be truth-" impassioned truth"—of the weal and woe of his own life. Inspired by it, he looked about him, and saw that the character and condition of the men of the workshop were capable of poetry too, because surcharged