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out many a passage in Mr. Coleridge's prose-w which some noble thought is illuminated by a imaginative illustration, and which would need of metrical arrangement to constitute a sonnet of t order. His son, Hartley Coleridge, who has given that the genius of the family has not been bur the father's grave, might find in such a proc transformation a task affectionate to the memory parent and worthy of his own powers.*

It is irksome, we are aware, to write from other suggestions, and the best efforts of mind are those are purely self-evolved. The mere difficulty of undertaking would be no obstacle to the intellect could conceive a sonnet in all respects so adequate

*If our voice could reach him, we would commend such pa as the following as suitable material for a sonnet: the fine con son in the "Friend," "Human experience, like the stern-light ship at sea, illumines only the path we have passed over: Coleridge's impassioned wish respecting the reception of his wor "Would to Heaven that the verdict to be passed on my la depended on those who least needed them! The water-lily, i midst of the waters, lifts up its broad leaves and expands its p at the first pattering of the shower, and rejoices in the rain w quicker sympathy than the parched shrub in the sandy desert:" his bold conception respecting the design of miracles, in the "St man's Manual:"-" It was only to overthrow the usurpation exer in and through the senses, that the senses were miraculously appe to. Reason and revelation are their own evidence. The natural is, in this respect, a symbol of the spiritual. Ere he is fully ari and while his glories are still under veil, he calls up the breez chase away the usurping vapours of the night-season, and thus c verts the air itself into the minister of its own purification; surely, in proof or elucidation of the light from heaven, but prevent its interception."

high theme as the following from the poems of Hartley

Coleridge :

"TO SHAKSPEARE.

"The soul of man is larger than the sky,-
Deeper than ocean, or abysmal dark

Of the unfathomed centre. Like that ark
Which in its sacred hold uplifted high,
O'er the drowned hills, the human family,
And stock reserved of every living kind,
So, in the compass of the single mind,

The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie

That make all worlds. Great poet! 'twas thy art
To know thyself, and in thyself to be
Whate'er Love, Hate, Ambition, Destiny,
Or the firm fatal Purpose of the Heart,

Can make of Man. Yet thou wert still the same,
Serene of thought, unhurt by thy own flame."

In closing my enumeration of the capabilities of the sonnet, thère is one other purpose to which it was equal. It could express the feelings of Charles Lamb. Why of Charles Lamb more than of any one else? Reader, if you ask that question you have not yet learned the dear mystery of those two monosyllables, "Charles Lamb." But if you have been more fortunate, how much of the spirit of "Elia" will you not recognise in these two brief poems!

"WORK.

"Who first invented Work, and bound the free
And holiday-rejoicing spirit down

To the ever-haunting importunity

Of business in the green fields, and the town,—
To plough, loom, anvil, spade,-and, oh! most sad,
To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood?-

Who but the being unblest, alien from good,-
Sabbathless Satan! he who his unglad

Task ever plies 'mid rotatory burnings,
That round and round incalculably reel-
For wrath divine hath made him like a wheel-
In that red realm from which are no returnings;
Where, toiling and turmoiling, ever and aye,
He and his thoughts keep pensive working-day.

"LEISURE.

"They talk of time, and of time's galling yoke,
That like a millstone on man's mind doth press,
Which only works and business can redress;
Of divine Leisure such foul lies are spoke,
Wounding her fair gifts with calumnious stroke.
But might I, fed with silent meditation,
Assoiled live from that fiend, Occupation,—
Improbus labor, which hath my spirit broke,—
I'd drink of time's rich cup, and never surfeit;
Fling in more days than went to make the gem
That crowned the white top of Methusalem;
Yea, on my weak neck take, and never forfeit,
Like Atlas bearing up the dainty sky,

The heaven-sweet burden of eternity."

I have thus endeavoured, not very systematically, to vindicate a neglected department of English poetry. I never engage in an investigation of the kind, involving a recurrence to the early periods of English literature, without feeling disposed, on closing it, to give way to a thanksgiving that "the lines have fallen to us in such pleasant places; that we have so goodly a heritage." To the student of poetry—we hope a distinction is drawn between such and many of the ordinary readers of poetry -we commend the sonnet as worthy of his regard and as one of the best tests of a cultivated taste.

The public taste for the sonnet is reviving, and it would not be a difficult task to give it a true tone. Let a selection be made from the sonnets of Shakspeare, Milton, Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, and other of the earlier poets, and from those of Warton, Bowles, Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, and others, illustrated with occasional critical notices. A volume might be formed into which none but the best English sonnets should be admitted. Besides its intrinsic merit, such a book would possess much of the charm of novelty, and, what would distinguish it most favourably from all books of selections, each selection would be a complete and perfect poem in itself. I can scarcely imagine a more agreeable volume for the study or for the parlour-table. I recommend the suggestion to some enterprising publisher, as one likely to be successful, and which would certainly render a service to the cause of English letters.

ESSAY II.

Poems of Hartley Coleridge.

We love to meet occasionally with a new name in the annals of literature. For, though there is a sovereign company to whom we never falter in our allegiance, yet, for the honour of time present, and for the satisfaction of knowing that the best portion of the world is not standing still, we rejoice now and then to hail a new author. Under this designation we desire to be distinctly understood as not including that growing class of handicraftsmen who are engaged in the manufacture of what by courtesy are called books. When we speak of authorship, we mean that occupation which gives to a name an abiding-place in the history of letters. It is one of the evils of the accumulation of modern publications, that a man, unless gifted with supernatural reading-powers, is compelled to be somewhat reserved in forming new literary acquaintances. He contents himself with his old friends; he retreats to the shelf of his library that has become endeared to him; he finds his security among the familiar volumes that he could lay his hand upon in the dark; he is shy of new-made gentry. Yet these very feelings probably enhance the pleasure of meeting

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