Living, on God and on thyself rely,

For, when thou diest, all shall with thee die..

But the beauty of Spenser can scarce be seen in detached parts. Half the genius of his poetry seems to have fled when the thread of the story is broken. He is so much above the common sentiment, that a few passages do not raise the mind to a sympathy with him. His glories are obscured until one has entered and dwelt in his ideal realms, and contracted by intimacy, a sympathy with the creatures of his imagination. Position is as important to him as attitude is to the sculptor. Everything around him has a meaning that words cannot express. The sweetness that inspires his heart, and the visions that tl rong his mind, are to be inferred rather than read; in the words of Marlowe, he has "Beauty beyond Expression."

If all the pens that ever poet held,

Had fed the feeling of their master's thoughts.
And every sweetness that inspired their hearts,
And minds and muses on admired themes;
If all the heavenly quintessence, they still
From their immortal flowers of poesy,
Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceive
The highest reaches of a human wit;
If these had made one poem's period,
And all combined in beauty's worthiness.
Yet should there hover in their restless heads,
One thought, one grace, one wonder at the best,
Which into words no virtue can digest.

"No one can flatter himself," says an able writer, "that he has mastered the wealth of the English tongue, who has not devoted his days and nights to Spenser," and this is the common sentiment with regard to this great poet. This was the opinion of Mr. Ellis, who says of him, his "glowing fancy, his unbounded command of language, and his astonishing facility and sweetness of versification, have placed him in the very first rank of English poets." He is placed next to Shakspeare and Milton by Sir James. Mackintosh, who, after having finished the reading of the Fairy Queen, says: "I never parted from a long poem with so much regret. He is a poet of a most musical ear-of a tender heart-of a peculiarly soft, rich, fertile, and flowery fancy. His verse always flows with ease and nature, most abundantly and sweetly; his diffusion is not only pardonable but agreeable; grandeur and energy are not his characteristic qualities. He seems to be a most genuine poet, and to be justly placed after Shakspeare and Milton, and above all other English poets."

MARLOWE, DANIEL,

DRAYTON, SIDNEY, RALEIGH, AND SYLVESTER,

These men are associated for the purpose of condensation, rather than for any supposed analogy of their productious. It is not our object to illustrate the different classes of literature, but to collect the most beautiful specimens; to collect the jewels of genius, and extract the honey from the nectar flowers of Parnassus. These writers are of unequal merit, but alike in this, that they belong to a subordinate class of poets. They have all had their admirers; some of whom beheld in them, genius of the highest order; but they are illustrious in Reviews rather than genius, or great works that evince it. Some of them "shook hands with Shakspeare," and Marlowe has been compared with him, but the "mantle of his genius" fell on none of them: all the works of Marlowe, however, and the smaller pieces of the others, contain some gems of the first water.

Marlowe is claimed to be a "born poet," and justly, for the fire and vigor of his genius have been surpassed but by few: the beauty and sublimity which

he occasionally displays in his writings give him an honorable standing in the ranks of genius. He had the spirit and the fine madness of the true poet.

-Marlowe, bathed in the Thespian springs,
Had in him those brave translunar things
That the first poets had; his raptures were
All air and fire, which made his verses clear
For that fine madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.

DRAYTON.

"He perceived things," Mr. Hunt observes, " in their spiritual as well as material relations, and impressed them with a corresponding felicity. Rather he struck them with something sweet and glowing that rushes by;-perfumes from a censer,-glances of love and beauty. And he could accumulate images into as deliberate and lofty grandeur. Chapman said of him, that he stood

Up to the chin in the Pierian flood."

Mr. Campbell seems to think that he would have emulated Shakspeare, had he not been prematurely cut off; "had he lived longer to profit by the example of Shakspeare, it is not straining conjecture to suppose, that the strong misguided energy of Marlowe would have kindled and refined to excellence by the rivalship."

Marlowe and Spenser are independent of their ancestors: they struck out a native vein of genius. Spenser stands alone in his luxuriant imagination,

and his melodious versification: one was too rich and varied, the other too harmonious and stately to be emulated. Marlowe, in the beauty of his words, the sweet ness of his versification, his grace and pathos, prepared the way for his successors. "His imagination, like Spenser's, haunted those purely poetic regions of ancient fabling and modern rapture, of beautiful forms and passionate expressions, which they were the first to render the common property of inspiration, and whence their language drew 'empyreal air.' Marlowe and Spenser are the first of our poets who perceived the beauty of words: not as apart from their signification, nor upon occasion only, as Chancer did, (more marvelous in that than themselves, or than the originals from which he drew) but as a habit of the poetic mood, and as receiving and reflecting beauty through the feeling of the ideas,"

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE.

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hill and valley, grove and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield;
There will we sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals:
There will I make thee beds of roses,
With a thousand fragrant posies:
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle,
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle;
A gown made of the finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull :