The POET proceeds to illustrate his meaning by some very common instances of metaphorical usage of words; and it is our intention to accompany him with a running commentary, to explain and enforce our own notions, as they have been above set forth; and at the same time shew how easily all his instances will accommodate themselves to those notions. "A parrot," he says, "hangs from the wire of his cage; a monkey from the bough of a tree. Each creature does so literally and actually." In Virgil, the shepherd sees his goats hang from the rock. In Shakespeare, "hangs one who gathers samphire." According to our interpretation, both the latter are in such positions as to seem to require that, or a similar support, from above, which the two former possess, to prevent their fall. Again, in Milton:

"Far off at sea a fleet descried Hangs in the clouds; "

that is, from its distance, we are unable to discern the sustaining waters, upon which, says the POET, "we know and feel it pursues its track; and it seems therefore to require, and from the apparent proximity and substantiality of the clouds, it seems also to possess, a support from above: and it is the imagination, according to our POET, which suggests and supplies it. So far as to impressions of sight. Instances of correspondent nature succeed-of impressions from sound. And then the poet remarks, "Thus far of images independent of each other, and immediately endowed by man with properties that do not inhere in them, upon an incitement from properties and qualities the existence of which is inherent and

obvious."

The manifest effect of this "endowment by man with properties not inherent," is to change the identity of the object in view of the mind; to change its personality.

From the imagination "acting upon an individual image," we are led "to a consideration of the same faculty employed upon images in a conjunction by which they modify each other." And an example is selected, from our author's own poem, entitled, "Resolution and Independence: "

"As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie
Couch'd in the bald top of an eminence ;
So that it seems a thing endued with sense,
Like a sea beast crawled forth, which on a shelf
Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun himself.
Such seem'd this man: not all alive or dead,
Nor all asleep, in this extreme old age."

The stone is here, by comparison, impersonated into the likeness of a sea beast; and that sea beast is supposed in a place and state, having some affinity to that of the stone, to render the likeness more complete; and the old man is supposed in a similar place and state :

"Motionless as a cloud the old man stood,

That heareth not the loud winds when they call,
And moveth altogether when it move at all."

Here the cloud is so far impersonated as to be endowed with "the property not inherent," a sense of hearing.

"Thus far," says the POET," of an endowing or modifying powerbut the imagination also shapes or creates :--"and in no process "does

ing and separating unity into number." And this is illustrated by the fleet descried far off-sailing compact as one person; then the merchants representing this unity separated into number: and then again, the comparison of the flying fiend to the ships re-combined in a body. These are indeed all images brought in juxta position by Imagination.

The POET forbears to consider "the Imagination as it deals with thoughts and sentiments, as it regulates the composition of characters, and determines the course of action:" and in our own observations we have used the same forbearance. He distinguishes enthusiastic and meditative Imagination, or poetical, from human and dramatic; a subdivision of powers capable of subdivisions, to which it would be difficult to prescribe an end. The Scriptures, Milton, and also Spenser, are the storehouses of the former, and Shakespeare of the latter.

Spenser, as at one time incited by the allegorical spirit, "to create persons out of abstractions," i. e. to impersonate; and still impersonating, to give-as in the character of Una-the universality and permanence of abstractions, by means of attributes and emblems that belong to the highest moral truths and purest sensations."

The exclamation of Lear, quoted as an illustration of human or dramatic imagination, is an impersonation of the boldest and yet simplest character:

"I tax not you, ye Elements, with unkindness;

I never gave you kingdoms, called you daughters."

To Mr. Taylor's definition of Fancy, by which it is characterised as the power of evoking and combining, the POET objects, and very justly objects, that it is too general. "To aggregate and to associate, to evoke and to combine, belong as well to the Imagination as to the Fancy." It is the same objection that may be urged against the language in which the two are discriminated by the POET: it is too general, the qualities ascribed are too super-essential, if we may borrow a scholastic term, for use, or even common comprehension. Our POET is indeed himself aware that there are times and occasions when "Fancy ambitiously aims at a rivalship with Imagination, and Imagination stoops to work with the materials of Fancy." It is now time to have done with the Preface, and to proceed to the Poems. And the first thing that strikes us is their titles-brute animals, of earth, air, or sea; inanimate objects, from the towering oak to the lowly daisy, from the mountain to the grain of sand,-have been the common resource of the fabulist, from antient Esop to our own Gay and our author himself, when about to find employment for his fancy, immediately resorts to this exhaustless Treasury. All these small productions it is our intention to pass; and after one short extract from the Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle; in which-though allotted to ImaginationFancy seems to have intruded herself; we shall conclude with some quotations from the longest poem, under the same head of Imagination, in which also Fancy is repeatedly guilty of taking the pen out of the hand of Imagination and guiding it herself.

From Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle:

"He knew the rocks which Angels haunt,

Upon the mountains visitant;

He hath kenn'd them taking wing;
And into caves where Faëries sing
He hath entered; and been told
By voices how men lived of old."

The POET proceeds to illustrate his meaning by some very common instances of metaphorical usage of words; and it is our intention to accompany him with a running commentary, to explain and enforce our own notions, as they have been above set forth; and at the same time shew how easily all his instances will accommodate themselves to those notions. "A parrot," he says, " hangs from the wire of his cage; a monkey from the bough of a tree. Each creature does so literally and actually." Virgil, the shepherd sees his goats hang from the rock. In Shakespeare, "hangs one who gathers samphire." According to our interpretation, both the latter are in such positions as to seem to require that, or a similar support, from above, which the two former possess, to prevent their fall. Again, in Milton:

"Far off at sea a fleet descried Hangs in the clouds ;

In

that is, from its distance, we are unable to discern the sustaining waters, upon which, says the POET, "we know and feel it pursues its track; and it seems therefore to require, and from the apparent proximity and substantiality of the clouds, it seems also to possess, a support from above: and it is the imagination, according to our POET, which suggests and supplies it. So far as to impressions of sight. Instances of correspondent nature succeed-of impressions from sound. And then the poet remarks, "Thus far of images independent of each other, and immediately endowed by man with properties that do not inhere in them, upon an incitement from properties and qualities the existence of which is inherent and obvious."

The manifest effect of this "endowment by man with properties not inherent," is to change the identity of the object in view of the mind; to change its personality.

From the imagination acting upon an individual image," we are led to a consideration of the same faculty employed upon images in a conjunction by which they modify each other." And an example is selected, from our author's own poem, entitled, Resolution and Independence :

"As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie
Couch'd in the bald top of an eminence ;
So that it seems a thing endued with sense,
Like a sea beast crawled forth, which on a shelf
Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun himself.
Such seem'd this man: not all alive or dead,
Nor all asleep, in this extreme old age."

The stone is here, by comparison, impersonated into the likeness of a sea beast; and that sea beast is supposed in a place and state, having some affinity to that of the stone, to render the likeness more complete; and the old man is supposed in a similar place and state:

"Motionless as a cloud the old man stood,

That heareth not the loud winds when they call,
And moveth altogether when it move at all."

Here the cloud is so far impersonated as to be endowed with " the property not inherent," a sense of hearing.

"Thus far," says the POET," of an endowing or modifying powerbut the imagination also shapes or creates :--"and in no process "does

ing and separating unity into number." And this is illustrated by the fleet descried far off-sailing compact as one person; then the merchants representing this unity separated into number: and then again, the comparison of the flying fiend to the ships re-combined in a body. These are indeed all images brought in juxta position by Imagination.

The POET forbears to consider "the Imagination as it deals with thoughts and sentiments, as it regulates the composition of characters, and determines the course of action:" and in our own observations we have used the same forbearance. He distinguishes enthusiastic and meditative Imagination, or poetical, from human and dramatic; a subdivision of powers capable of subdivisions, to which it would be difficult to prescribe an end. The Scriptures, Milton, and also Spenser, are the storehouses of the former, and Shakespeare of the latter.

Spenser, as at one time incited by the allegorical spirit, "to create persons out of abstractions," i. e. to impersonate; and still impersonating, "to give-as in the character of Una-the universality and permanence of abstractions, by means of attributes and emblems that belong to the highest moral truths and purest sensations."

The exclamation of Lear, quoted as an illustration of human or dramatic imagination, is an impersonation of the boldest and yet simplest character: "I tax not you, ye Elements, with unkindness;

I never gave you kingdoms, called you daughters."

To Mr. Taylor's definition of Fancy, by which it is characterised as the power of evoking and combining, the POET objects, and very justly objects, that it is too general. "To aggregate and to associate, to evoke and to combine, belong as well to the Imagination as to the Fancy." It is the same objection that may be urged against the language in which the two are discriminated by the POET: it is too general, the qualities ascribed are too super-essential, if we may borrow a scholastic term, for use, or even common comprehension. Our POET is indeed himself aware that there are times and occasions when "Fancy ambitiously aims at a rivalship with Imagination, and Imagination stoops to work with the materials of Fancy." It is now time to have done with the Preface, and to proceed to the Poems. And the first thing that strikes us is their titles-brute animals, of earth, air, or sea; inanimate objects, from the towering oak to the lowly daisy, from the mountain to the grain of sand,-have been the common resource of the fabulist, from antient Esop to our own Gay and our author himself, when about to find employment for his fancy, immediately resorts to this exhaustless Treasury. All these small productions it is our intention to pass; and after one short extract from the Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle; in which-though allotted to ImaginationFancy seems to have intruded herself; we shall conclude with some quotations from the longest poem, under the same head of Imagination, in which also Fancy is repeatedly guilty of taking the pen out of the hand of Imagination and guiding it herself.

From Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle :

"He knew the rocks which Angels haunt,

Upon the mountains visitant;

He hath kenn'd them taking wing:
And into caves where Faeries sing
He hath entered; and been told
By voices how men lived of old."

:

career in the very first stanza, and appears at intervals boldly sustaining it to the utmost close. The organ of vision is addressed in person; and then a spirit aërial is supposed to exist, who

"Informs the cell of Hearing, dark and blind;
Intricate labyrinth, more dread for thought
To enter than oracular cave:

Strict passage, through which sighs are brought,
And whispers for the heart, their slave;
And shrieks, that revel in abuse

Of shivering flesh; and warbled air,
Whose piercing sweetness can unloose,

The chains of frenzy, or entice a smile
Into the ambush of despair."

In the second stanza, the invisible Spirit is again addressed; and at the close of it we have a new personification—

"Toll from thy loftiest perch, lone bell-bird, toll!

At the still hour to Mercy dear,

Mercy from her twilight throne

List'ning to nuns' faint throb of holy fear,

To sailor's prayer breathed from a darkʼning sea;
Or widow's cottage lullaby."

In the third stanza, again personification!

"Ye Voices, and ye Shadows,

And images of Voice-to hound and horn,
From rocky steep and rock bestudded meadows
Flung back, and in the sky's blue caves reborn!

On with your pastime! 'till the church tower bells
A greeting give of measured glee;

And milder Echoes from their cells

Repeat the bridal symphony."

In the fourth, the blessings of song are described by very lively images of its effects.

The lute of Amphion, the harp of Arion, and the pipe of Pan, with their respective fancied or fabled effects, are also well described, and the Poet tunes his strains, at the call of Imagination, to paint the saddest images of reality:

"Ye, who are longing to be rid

Of fable, though to truth subservient, hear
The little sprinkling of cold earth that fell
Echoed from the coffin lid;

The convict's summons in the steeple's knell.

'The vain distress-gun,' from a leeward shore,

Repeated-heard-and heard no more."

Then are we again thrown into the hands of Fancy, who introduces us to the "wandering utterances" of earth and sky; and who teaches that—

"The towering headlands, crowned with mist,

Their feet among the billows, know

That Ocean is a mighty harmonist;

Thy pinions, universal Air,

Ever waving to and fro,

Are delegates of harmony, and bear

Strains that support the seasons in their round;

Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound."

In the two superb stanzas with which this too short poem concludes, Fancy and Imagination play alternately before us, and leave us at a loss which we should admire most, the manifest beauty and approaching sublimity of the one, or the brilliancy and richness of the other,