Those ever-blooming sweets, which from the store

Of Nature fair Imagination culls

To charm the enliven'd soul !"

is another author about whom a great diversity of opinion exists. He is thought to stand at the head of what has been called the Lake School of poetry, in respect to feeling, fancy, and sublimity. His original powers of imagination and expression are considered by some to be among the highest that have been known in the present age; but his undue devotion to metaphysics and German literature has rendered much of his poetry turgid in diction, and incomprehensible to all but those initiated into his abstruse views Many of his numerous prose compositions are equally obscure. What he says himself of one of his poems, will be considered by most intelligent readers as applicable to large portions of not a few of his other writings :

"Your poem must eternal be-
Dear, sir, it can not fail,
For 'tis incomprehensible,

And without head or tail."

Professor Frost seems to have not misrepresented Mr. C. in the sketch that follows:

"The chief fault of Coleridge's poetry lies in the style, which has been justly objected to on account of its obscurity, general turgidness of diction, and a profusion of newcoined double epithets. With regard to its obscurity he says, in the preface to a late edition of his poems, that where he appears unintelligible, 'the deficiency is in the reader.' This is nothing more nor less than to suppose his readers endowed with the powers of divination; for we defy any one who is not in the confidence of the author upon this subject to solve the riddle which is appended as a conclusion to Christabel. He might as well attribute a deficiency of capacity to a beholder of his countenance who should fail, in its workings, to discover the exact emotions of his mind; for Mr. Coleridge has afforded no clearer clew to the generality of his poetical arcana.

The notoriety which Coleridge has attained will justify the author in extending this notice, by quoting from the splendid criticism of Professor Wilson, who seems to have been a great admirer of Coleridge, notwithstanding his obscurities. Indeed, he seems to represent these as not detracting from the glory of his idol :

"The sun, you know, does not always show his orb even in the daytime; and people are often ignorant of his place in the firmament. But he keeps shining away at his leisure, as you would know were he to suffer eclipse. Perhaps he-the sun-is at no other time a more delightful luminary than when he is pleased to dispense his influence through a general haze or mist-softening all the day till meridian is almost like the afternoon, and the grove anticipating gloaming (gloom), bursts into 'dance and minstrelsy' ere the god go down into the sea. Clouds, too, become him wellwhether thin, and fleecy, and braided, or piled up all round about him, castle-wise and cathedral fashion, to say nothing of temples and other metropolitan structures; nor is it reasonable to find fault with him, when, as naked as the hour he was born, 'he flames on the forehead of the morning sky.' The grandeur, too, of his appearance on setting has become quite proverbial. Now in all this he resembles Coleridge. It is easy to talk-not very difficult to speechify-hard to speak; but to 'discourse' is a gift rarely bestowed by Heaven on mortal man. Coleridge has it in perfection. While he is discoursing, the world loses all its commonplaces, and you and your wife imagine yourselves Adam and Eve listening to the affable archangel Raphael in the garden of Eden. You would no more dream of wishing him to be mute for a while, than you would a river that 'imposes silence with a stilly sound.' Whether you understand two consecutive sentences we shall not stop too curiously to inquire; but you do something better, you feel the whole just like any other divine music; and 'tis your own fault if you do not

'A wiser and a better man arise to-morrow's morn.'

"Nor are we now using any exaggeration; for if you will but think how unutterably dull are all the ordinary sayings and doings of this life, spent as it is with ordinary people, you may imagine how, in sweet delirium, you may be robbed of yourself by a seraphic tongue that has fed, since first it

lisped, on 'honey dews,' and by lips that have 'breathed the air of Paradise,' and learned a seraphic language, which, all the while that it is English, is as grand as Greek, and as soft as Italian. We only know this, that Coleridge is the alchemist that in his crucible melts down hours to moments—and lo! diamonds sprinkled on a plate of gold."

"What a world would this be were all its inhabitants to fiddle like Paganini, discourse like Coleridge, and do every thing else in a style of equal perfection? But, pray, how does the man write poetry with a pen upon paper, who thus is perpetually pouring it from his inspired lips? Read the Ancient Mariner, the Nightingale, and Genevieve. In the first, you shudder at the superstition of the sea; in the second, you slumber in the melodies of the woods; in the third, earth is like heaven."

The following EPIGRAMS are not difficult to be understood and appreciated; they display genuine wit "There comes from Avaro's grave

A deadly stench-why, sure, they have
Immured his soul within his grave!"

'Sly Beelzebub took all occasions
To try Job's constancy and patience.
He took his honor, took his health;
He took his children, took his wealth
His servants, oxen, horses, cows,

But cunning Satan did not take his spouse.

"But Heaven, that brings out good from evil,
And loves to disappoint the devil,
Had predetermined to restore

Twofold all he had before;

His servants, horses, oxen, cows

Short-sighted devil, not to take his spouse'

"Last Monday all the papers said,

That Mr.

was dead

Why, then, what said the city?

The tenth part sadly shook their heads,
And shaking, sigh'd, and sighing, said,

'Pity, indeed, 'tis pity!'

"But when the said report was found
A rumor wholly without ground,
Why, then, what said the city?
The other nine parts shook their heads
Repeating what the tenth had said-
'Pity, indeed, 'tis pity!""

SECTION XVII.

ROBERT SOUTHEY (1774-1844)

is another poet of the Lake School, who has acquired a just celebrity-more, in late years, however, for his prose than his poetry. In the opinion of S. C. Hall, "No poet, in the present or past century, has written three such poems as Thaliba, Kehama, and Roderic. Others have more excelled in delineating what they find before them in life; but none have given such proofs of extraordinary power in creating. He has been called diffuse, because there is a spaciousness and amplitude about his poetry-as if concentration was the highest quality of a writer. He excels in unity of design and congruity of character; and never did poet more adequately express heroic fortitude and generous affections. He has not, however, limited his pen to grand paintings of Epic character. Among his shorter productions, are found some light and graceful sketches, full of beauty and feeling, and not the less valuable because they invariably aim at promoting virtue."

Southey, among all our living poets, says Professor Wilson, stands aloof, and "alone in his glory." For he alone of them all has adventured to illustrate, in poems of magnitude, the different characters, customs, and manners of nations. Joan of Arc is an English and French story-Thaliba, an Arabian one-Kehama is Indian-Madoc, Welsh and American-and Roderic, Spanish and Moorish: nor would it be easy to say (setting aside the first, which was a very youthful work) in which of these noble poems Mr. Southey has most successfully performed an achievement entirely beyond the power of any but the highest genius. In Madoc, and especially in Roderic, he has relied on the truth of Nature-as it is seen in the history of great national transactions and events. In Thaliba and Kehama, though in them, too, he has brought to bear an almost boundless lore, he follows the leading of fancy and imagination, and walks in a world of wonders. Seldom, if ever, has one and the same poet exhibited such power in such different kinds of poetry, in truth a master, and in fiction a magician. Of all these poems, the conception and the execution are origin much faulty, and imperfect both, but bearing through

inal;

out the impress of highest genius, and breathing a moral charm, in the midst of the wildest, and sometimes even extravagant imaginings, that shall preserve them forever from oblivion, and embalm them in the spirit of love and of delight.

The following specimens, of this class, are written in a familiar style, and display strong inventive genius, making much out of little-educing useful reflections from objects in themselves worthless :

TO A SPIDER.

Spider! thou need'st not run in fear about
To shun my curious eyes,

I won't humanely crush thy bowels out,
Lest thou shouldst eat the flies,

Nor will I roast thee with a fierce delight
Thy strange instinctive fortitude to see,
For there is one who might

One day roast me.

"Thou'rt welcome to a Rhymer sore perplex'd.
The subject of his verse:

There's many a one who on a better text
Perhaps might comment worse:

Then shrink not, old Free-mason, from my view,
But quietly, like me, spin out the line;

Do thou thy work pursue,

As I will mine.

"Weaver of snares, thou emblemest the ways
Of Satan, sire of lies;

Hell's huge black spider, for mankind he lays
His toils as thou for flies.

When Betty's busy eye runs round the room,
Wo to that nice geometry if seen!
But where is he whose broom

The earth shall clean?

"Spider! of old thy flimsy webs were thought,
And 'twas a likeness true,

To emblem laws in which the weak are caught,
But which the strong break through;

And if a victim in thy toils is ta'en,

Like some poor client is that wretched fly,
I'll warrant thee thou'lt drain

His life-blood dry.

"And is not thy weak work like human schemes

And care on earth employ'd?

Such are young hopes and Love's delightful dreams,
So easily destroy'd"