sion the slightest troubles of this kind occasioned him alarm and terror. He was never satiated with praise, although he was continually receiving it; but if he was sensible to fame, he was far removed from vanity.

What Fontenelle observes of Corneille's love of fame is strongly proved by our great poet himself, in an epistle to a friend, in which we find the following remarkable description of himself; an instance that what the world calls vanity, at least interests in a great genius.

Nous nous aimons un peu, c'est notre foible à tous ;
Le prix que nous valons qui le sçait mieux que nous ?
Et puis la mode en est, et la cour l'autorise,
Nous parlons de nous même avec tout franchise,
La fausse humilité ne met plus en credit.

Je sçais ce que je vaux, et crois ce qu'on m'en dit,
Pour me faire admirer je ne fais point de ligue ;
J'ai peu
de voix pour moi, mais je les ai sans brigue;
Et mon ambition, pour faire plus de bruit.
Ne les va point queter de reduit en reduit
Mon travail sans appui monte sur le theatre,
Chacun en liberté l'y blame ou l'idolatre;
Là, sans que mes amis prechent leur sentimens,
J'arrache quelquefois leurs applaudissemens;
Là, content du succes que le merite donne,
Par d'illustres avis je n'eblouis personne;

;

Je satisfais ensemble et peuple et courtisans
Et mes vers en tous lieux sont mes seuls partisans ;
Par leur seule beauté ma plume est estimée;

Je ne dois qu'à moi seul toute ma renommée;

Et pense toutefois n'avoir point de rival,

A qui je fasse tort, en le traitant d'egal.

I give his sentiments in English verse with more faithfulness than elegance. To write with his energetic expression, one must feel oneself in a similar situation, which only one or two living writers can experience.

Self-love prevails too much in every state;

Who, like ourselves, our secret worth can rate?
Since 'tis a fashion authorised at court,
Frankly our merits we ourselves report.
A proud humility will not deceive;

I know my worth; what others say, believe.
To be admired I form no petty league :

Few are my friends, but gain'd without intrigue.
My bold ambition, destitute of grace,

Scorns still to beg their votes from place to place.

On the fair stage my scenic toils I raise,

While each is free to censure or to praise :

And there, unaided by inferior arts,

I snatch the applause that rushes from their hearts.
Content by Merit still to win the crown,
With no illustrious names I cheat the town.

The galleries thunder, and the pit commends ;
My verses, every where, my only friends !
'Tis from their charms alone my praise I claim;
'Tis to myself alone, I owe my fame;

And know no rival whom I fear to meet,

Or injure, when I grant an equal seat.

Voltaire censures Corneille for making his heroes say continually they are great men. But in drawing the character of an hero he draws his own. All his heroes are only so many Corneilles in different situations.

Thomas Corneille attempted the same career as his brother: perhaps his name was unfortunate, for it naturally excited a comparison which could not be favourable to him. Gaçon, the Dennis of his day, wrote the following smart impromptu under his portrait :

Voyant le portrait de Corneille,
Gardez vous de crier merveille!
Et dans vos transports n'allez pas,
Prendre ici Pierre pour Thomas.

POETS.

IN In all ages there has existed an anti-poetical party. This faction consists of those frigid intellects incapable of that glowing expansion so necessary to feel the charms of an art, which only addresses itself to the imagination; or of writers who, having proved unsuccessful in their court to the muses, revenge themselves by reviling them; and also of those religious minds who consider the ardent effusions of poetry as dangerous to the morals and peace of society.

Plato, amongst the ancients, is the model of those moderns who profess themselves to be ANTIPOETICAL. This writer, in his ideal republic, characterises a man who occupies himself with composing verses as a very dangerous member of society, from the inflammatory tendency of his

VOL. II.

R

writings. It is by arguing from its abuse, that he decries this enchanting talent. At the same time it is to be recollected, that no head was more finely organised for the visions of the muse than Plato's: he was a true poet, and had addicted himself in his prime of life to the cultivation of the art, but perceiving that he could not surpass his inimitable original, Homer, he employed this insidious manner of depreciating his works. In the Phædrus he describes the feelings of a genuine Poet. To become such, he says, it will never be sufficient to be guided by the rules of art, unless we also feel the ecstasies of that furor, almost divine, which in this kind of composition is the most palpable and least ambiguous character of a true inspiration. Cold minds, ever tranquil and ever in possession of themselves, are incapable of producing exalted poetry; their verses must always be feeble, diffusive, and leave no impression; the verses of those who are endowed with a strong and lively imagination, and who, like Homer's personification of Discord, have their heads incessantly in the skies, and their feet on the earth, will agitate you, burn in your heart, and drag you along with them; breaking like an impetuous torrent, and swelling your breast with that enthusiasm with which they are themselves possessed.

Such is the character of a poet in a poetical age! The tuneful race have many corporate

bodies of mechanics; Pontipool manufacturers, inlayers, burnishers, gilders, and filers!

Men of taste are sometimes disgusted in turning over the works of the anti-poetical, by meeting with gross railleries and false judgments concerning poetry and poets. Locke has expressed a marked contempt of poets; but we see what ideas he formed of poetry by his warm panegyric of one of Blackmore's epics! and besides he was himself a most unhappy poet! Selden, a scholar of profound erudition, has given us his opinion concerning poets. "It is ridiculous for a lord to print verses; he may make them to please himself. If a man in a private chamber twirls his band-strings, or plays with a rush to please himself, it is well enough; but if he should go into Fleet-street, and sit upon a stall and twirl a band-string, or play with a rush, then all the boys in the street would laugh at him."-As if "the sublime and the beautiful" are to be compared to the twirling of a band-string, or playing with a rush!--A poet, related to an illustrious family, and who did not write unpoetically, entertained a far different notion concerning poets. So persuaded was he that to be a true poet required an elevated mind, that it was a maxim with him, that no writer could be an excellent poet who was not descended from a noble family. This opinion is as absurd as that of Selden's :-but when one party will not grant enough, the other always