sportsman, and sends him in search of birds that perhaps are not within miles of him, but whose notes he exactly imitates. Even birds themselves are frequently imposed on by this admirable mimic, and are decoyed by the fancied calls of their mates; or dive with precipitation into the depths of thickets, at the scream of what they suppose to be the sparrow-hawk.” Female Education and Learning.—STORY. Ir Christianity may be said to have given a permanent elevation to woman, as an intellectual and moral being, it is as true that the present age, above all others, has given play to her genius, and taught us to reverence its influence. It was the fashion of other times to treat the literary acquirements of the sex as starched pedantry, or vain pretension; to stigmatize them as inconsistent with those domestic affections and virtues, which constitute the charm of society. We had abundant homilies read upon their amiable weaknesses and sentimental delicacy, upon their timid gentleness and submissive dependence; as if to taste the fruit of knowledge were a deadly sin, and ignorance were the sole guardian of innocence. Their whole lives were "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," and concealment of intellectual power was often resorted to, to escape the dangerous imputation of masculine strength. In the higher walks of life, the satirist was not without colour for the suggestion, that it was "A youth of folly, an old age of cards;" and that, elsewhere," most women had no character at all," beyond that of purity and devotion to their families. Admirable as are these qualities, it seemed an abuse of the gifts of Providence to deny to mothers the power of instructing their children, to wives the privilege of sharing the intellectual pursuits of their husbands, to sisters and daughters the delight of ministering knowledge in the fireside circle, to youth and beauty the charm of refined sense, to age and infirmity the consolation of studies, which elevate the soul, and gladden the listless hours of despondency. These things have, in a great measure, passed away, The prejudices, which dishonoured the sex, have yielded to the influence of truth. By slow but sure advances, education has extended itself through all ranks of female society. There is no longer any dread, lest the culture of science should foster that masculine boldness or restless independence, which alarms by its sallies, or wounds by its inconsistencies. We have seen that here, as every where else, knowledge is favourable to human virtue and human happiness; that the refinement of literature adds lustre to the devotion of piety; that true learning, like true taste, is modest and unostentatious; that grace of manners receives a higher polish from the discipline of the schools; that cultivated genius sheds a cheering light over domestic duties, and its very sparkles, like those of the diamond, attest at once its power and its purity. There is not a rank of female society, however high, which does not now pay homage to literature, or that would not blush even at the suspicion of that ignorance, which, a half century ago, was neither uncommon nor discreditable. There is not a parent, whose pride may not glow at the thought, that his daughter's happiness is in a great measure within her own command, whether she keeps the cool, sequestered vale of life, or visits the busy walks of fashion. A new path is thus opened for female exertion, to alleviate the pressure of misfortune, without any supposed sacrifice of dignity or modesty. Man no longer aspires to an exclusive dominion in authorship. He has rivals or allies in almost every department of knowledge; and they are to be found among those, whose elegance of manners and blamelessness of life command his respect, as much as their talents excite his admiration. Who is there that does not contemplate with enthusiasm the precious fragments of Elizabeth Smith, the venerable learning of Elizabeth Carter, the elevated piety of Hannah More, the persuasive sense of Mrs. Barbauld, the elegant memoirs of her accomplished niece, the bewitching fiction of Madame D'Arblay, the vivid, picturesque and terrific imagery of Mrs. Radcliffe, the glowing poetry of Mrs. Hemans, the match less wit, the inexhaustible conversations, the fine character painting, the practical instructions of Miss Edgeworth, the great Known, standing in her own department by the side of the great Unknown! Poetical Character of Gray.-BUCKMINSTER. IT has been the fortune of Gray, as well as of other poets of the first order, to suffer by the ignorance and the envy of contemporaries, and at last to obtain from posterity, amid the clamours of discordant criticism, only a divided suffrage. The coldness of his first reception by the public. has, however, been more than compensated by the warmth of his real admirers; for he is one of those few poets, who at every new reading recompenses you double for every encomium, by disclosing some new charm of sentiment or of diction. The many, who have ignorantly or reluctantly praised, may learn, as they study him, that they have nothing to retract; and those, who have delighted to depreciate his excellence, will understand, if they ever learn to admire him, that their former insensibility was pardonable, though they may be tempted to wish, that it had never been known. Gray was not destitute of those anticipations of future fame, which God has sometimes granted to neglected genius, as he gives the testimony of conscience to suffering virtue. His letters to Mason and Hurd show how pleasantly he could talk of those, who could neither admire nor understand his odes. He knew, that it was not of much consequence to be neglected by that public, which suffered Thomson's Winter to remain for years unnoticed, and which had to be told by Addison, at the expi ration of half a century, of the merit of the Paradise Lost Still less could his fame be endangered by Colman's exqu.sitely humorous parody of his odes, especially since it is now known, that Colman has confessed to Warton, that he repented of the attempt; and, at the present day, I know not whether it would add any thing to the final reputation of a lyric poet, to have been praised by that great man, who could pronounce Dryden's cde on Mrs. Killigrew the finest in our language, and who could find nothing in Collins' but "clusters of consonants." If Gray has any claim to the character of a poet, he must hold an elevated rank or none. If he is not excellent, he is supremely ridiculous; if he has not the living spirit of verse, he is only besotted and bewildered with the fumes of a vulgar and stupifying draught, which he found in some stagnant pool at the foot of Parnassus, and which he mistook for the Castalian spring. But if Pindar and Hor ace were poets, so too was Gray. The finest notes of their lyre were elicited by the breath of inspiration breathing on the strings; and he, who cannot enter into the spirit which animates the first Pythian of Pindar, or the “ Quem virum aut heroa" of Horace, must be content to be shown beauties in Gray, which it is not yet granted him to feel, or spontaneously to discern. I am willing to rest the merit of Gray on Horace's definition of a poet,— "Ingenium cui sit, cui mens divinior, atque os, We shall be more ready to admit, that the sole perfection of poetry consists not merely in faithful description, fine sense, or pointed sentiment in polished verse, if we attend to some curious remarks of Burke, in the last part of his Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful. He has there sufficiently shown that many fine passages, which produce the most powerful effect on a sensible mind, present no ideas to the fancy, which can be strictly marked or imbodied. The most thrilling touches of sublimity and beauty are consistent with great indistinctness of images and conceptions. Indeed, it is hardly to be believed, before making the experiment, that we should be so much affected as we are, by passages which convey no definite picture to the mind. To those who are insensible to Gray's curious junction of phrases and hardy personifications, we recommend the study of this chapter of Burke. There they will see, that the effect of poetical expression depends more upon particular and indefinable associations, than upon the precise images which the words convey. Thus, of Gray's poetry, the effect, like that of Milton's finest passages in the Allegro and Penseroso, is to raise a glow, which it is not easy to describe; but the beauty of a passage, when we attempt to analyze it, seems to consist in a certain exquisite felicity of terms, fraught with pictures which it is impossible to transfer with perfect exactness to the canvass. If the perfection of poetry consists in imparting every impression to the mind in the most exquisite degree, and the ode has, by the consent of critics in all ages, been indulged in irregularities which are not pardonable in other kinds of verse, because it is supposed to follow the rapid and unrestrained passage of images through the mind, it is surely enough to satisfy even Aristotle himself, that in Gray's odes the subject is never entirely deserted, and that a continued succession of sublime or beautiful impressions is conveyed to the mind, in language the most grateful to the ear which our English tongue can furnish. For my own part, I take as much delight in contemplating the rich hues that succeed one another without order in a deep cloud in the west, which has no prescribed shape, as in viewing the seven colours of the rainbow disposed in a form exactly semicircular. The truth is, that, after having read any poem once, we recur to it afterwards not as a whole, but for the beauty of particular passages. It would be easy to reply in order to the invidious and contemptible criticisms of Johnson on particular passages in these odes, and to show their captious futility. This, however, has been frequently and successfully attempted. Those faults, which must at last be admitted in Gray's poetry, detract little from his merit. That only two flat lines should be found in a whole volume of poems, is an honour which even Virgil might be permitted to envy. He who can endure to dwell upon these petty blemishes in the full stream of Gray's enthusiasm, must be as insensible to the pomp and grandeur of poetic phrase, as that traveller would be to the sentiment of the sublime in nature, who could sit coolly by the cataract of Niagara, spec |