sophical or metaphysical oracle, an apopthegmatical couplet; and he takes leave of flesh and blood, to consort with shadowy personifications and embodied abstractions. Of a piece too with his phraseology, is his versification, which is now equable, sonorous, and full; now, harsh, angular, inappropriately jaw-breaking, quaintly twisted, strangely distorted. But with all this he is a noble spirit:-" passion, the all-in-all in poetry, (to repeat an admirable criticism) is everywhere present.-He makes his readers glow, weep, tremble, take any affection which he pleases, be moved by words, or in spite of them, be disgusted, and overcome their disgust." Take for example the last scene of this cutting tragedy, which is indeed struck out with a towering energy. I do not envy the feelings of that critic who can go over it unmoved, nor of "the little judge" who stops to cavil at an odd word, or extraneous syllable.-Something healing is spread over the final paragraph, which reconciles and imperceptibly harmonizes the mind. It is truly stated by Mr. Lamb, that the genius of Chapman

is epic, rather than purely dramatic. Of this, one confirmation is in Hero's sophisticating selfconsolations in the Third Sestyad, which though founded in nature, considered in the abstract, are wanting in characteristic and dramatic propriety. There are several rich pictures in old George's continuation, among which allow me to point out the following. Hero is robing for private sacrifice

"Then put she on all her religious weeds,
A crown of icicles, that sun nor fire
Could ever melt, and figur'd chaste desire.
A golden star shin'd in her naked breast
In honour of the queen-light of the east.
In her right hand she held a silver wand,
On whose bright top Peristera did stand

Who was a nymph but now, transform'd, a dove,-

*

*

*

Her plenteous hair in curled billows swims
On her bright shoulder: her harmonious limbs
Sustain'd no more but a most subtile veil,
That hung on them, as it durst not assail
Their different concord; for the weakest air
Could raise it, swelling, from her beauties fair;
Nor did it cover, but adumbrate only
Her most heart-piercing parts, that a blest eye
Might see, as it did shadow, fearfully

· All that all-love-deserving Paradise :

It was as blue as the most freezing skies,

Near the sea's hue from thence her goddess came :
On it a scarf she wore of wondrous frame;
In midst whereof she wrought a virgin's face,
From whose each cheek a fiery blush did chase
Two crimson flames, that did two ways extend,
Spreading the ample scarf to either end,

Which figured the division of her mind,—

This serv'd her white neck for a purple sphere,
And cast itself at full breadth down her back.”

This is more in costume, and more classical than the rival description at the commencement of the poem, where Marlow has arrayed his "Nun of Venus" in the stiff, rustling silks, and glistering brocades worn by the plump-shouldered yellow-haired Venetian dames of Tizian, or Paris Bordone. "Enough, however, has been already said, and it may appear to some more than was altogether seemly; but there are times when it is difficult for love to restrain every expression of its admiration*."

* See preface to Mr. 's singular, enthusiastic translation of "Sintram and his Companions," by Baron la Motte Fouqué, a sublime, deeply pondered effusion of genius, in the strict sense of the term.

I must now take leave of my honoured wards, of whom I confess that my commendations are sincerer than my censures, which last were made the rather to forestall the nibblings of others, than to enforce objections of my own.—I would fain intreat still once again for a sober and candid examination of my favourites, and I cannot do this better than by calling to the "gentle reader's" memory the valuable sentiment of Horace, as expanded by the vigorous Dryden"True judgment in poetry, like that in painting, takes a view of the whole together, whether it be good or not; and when the beauties are more than the faults, concludes for the poet against the little judge.”

**

***

Nov. 8. 1820.

This Preface has waited above a month, in expectation that the real Editor of the "Select Poets" would have made some apology to his accustomed readers for appointing a journeyman to that work, which would have been most becomingly performed by himself. But the same

more important avocations, which, in the first instance, caused the substitution, have since operated to prevent the explanation; and the writer of the preceding desultory remarks, and of a few trifling notes on the text, is thus left to request for himself the poetical collector's indulgence towards the inevitable errors of an unpractised hand.

For the possessors of this volume, however, the above mentioned delay was lucky: as it has been the means of furnishing them with the following curious minim of information, which occurred the other day in a shrewd little periodical work, entitled, “The British Stage." The article is on Marlowe*, who is well defended by the ingenious writer from the charge of atheism; and, in its turn, the puzzling question of the poet's death and the name of his opponent

The critic says of the " Hero and Leander," that "It is scarcely hazarding too much to assert, that a more exquisite specimen of poetical ideas, clothed in elegant and harmonious language, does not exist. His Lucan and Ovid have little less merit;-"