is the destruction of a new settlement in the valley of Wyoming, in Pennsylvania, by a hostile tribe of Indians in the year 1778. The heroine, Gertrude, and her father, Adalbert, are among the victims of the massacre; while her lover Waldegrave escapes to avenge them. The principal interest of the poem attaches to the character of the noble-hearted Indian Outalissi, who, after vainly endeavouring to save the settlers, abruptly terminates the poem by singing his own death-song. One of Campbell's minor poems, the last Man, may be reckoned among his happiest and most original conceptions.

The peculiar character of Wordsworth's poetry has been described as follows, by an eminent American writer: The grand truth which pervades his poetry is, that the beautiful is not confined to the rare, the new, the distant, to scenery and modes of life open only to the few; but that it is poured forth profusely on the common earth and sky; that it gleams from the loveliest flower, that it lights up the humblest sphere, that the sweetest affections lodge in lowly hearts, that there is a sacredness, dignity and loveliness in lives which few eyes rest on, that even in the absence of all intellectual culture, the domestic relations can quietly nourish that disinterestedness which is the element of all greatness, and without which intellectual power is a splendid deformity.' Such, it must be admitted, is the tendency of everything that Wordsworth has written, whether we may or may not admire the manner in which he gives utterance to these sentiments, and the dress in which he chooses to present

them.

In Wordsworth's earlier productions, the Evening Walk included, we detect a decided imitation of Pope's concise, didactic style; in Guilt and Sorrow he adopts the Spenserian stanza, but makes no attempt to reproduce the language of Spenser. It was not till the Lyrical Ballads appeared, that Wordsworth exhibited anything like originality in style or ideas, and his first experiment was not successful. Disfigured as these ballads were by much commonplace and vulgar language, the public felt puzzled to know if the poet were really serious, or if they were to take the whole thing as a mystification. Byron ridiculed Wordsworth in his English Bards, James Smith satirized him still more unmercifully, and the Edinburgh Review emphatically said: "This won't do.' It has been asserted by Wordsworth's ardent admirers, that all the critical authorities of the day were wrong,

that Wordsworth knew what would please at last, and that he ultimately secured a large circle of readers. It should not, however, be forgotten, that from this moment Wordsworth began to change his style of writing, till in the Excursion, totally abandoning his former puerility, and violating the laws of poetical composition which he had himself laid down, he falls into the very opposite error, and makes the pedlar talk like a philosopher or a professor. In two of his other poems, the Waggoner and Peter Bell, though they take the narrative form, there is nothing that deserves the name of a plot, and the totally insignificant incidents they contain, hardly suffice to arrest the attention of the least pretentious reader. The White Doe of Rylstone, which treats of the downfall of the Norton family during the 'Rising in the North' in the year 1569, possesses more that is calculated to interest, though the remarkable intelligence of the Doe-if we are to take it as a real animal-like that of the ass in Peter Bell, rather staggers our belief. It is to be regretted that Wordsworth introduced incidents into his poems at all-for they are in general at once childish and improbable-and that he did not restrict himself to simple sketches of character, such as Goldsmith has given us in the Deserted Village, or to didactic poetry in the style of Cowper. One of Wordsworth's best poems, though not one of the longest, is Laodamia. The ardent longing of the faithful wife to see again even the shade of her departed lord, and the fulfilment of her prayer, are depicted with a power which Wordsworth has seldom exhibited elsewhere. After he became poet laureate in the year 1843, Wordsworth wrote several birth-day odes and similar minor poems, most of which barely attained mediocrity.

The Quarterly Review repudiates the assumption that Wordsworth effected reform in the language of poetry, and observes, that when he began to write, Cowper was the only popular poet of the day. His (Cowper's) masculine and unadorned English was relished in every cultivated circle in the land, and Wordsworth was the child, and not the father, of a reaction, which, after all, has been greatly exaggerated. Whatever influence Wordsworth may have exercised on poetic style, be it great or small, was by deviating in practice from the principles of composition for which he contended. Both his theory, and the poems which illustrate it, continue to this hour to be all but universally condemned.'

Robert Southey (1774-1843) began his

what he believes to be the wrongful suspicions of Christabel, the poem breaks off abruptly, and it was never finished. The peculiar versification of Christabel, then a novelty though afterwards frequently employed by Scott and Byron, was based on the principle of counting in each line four accentuated syllables, though the number of the unaccentuated ones might vary from seven to twelve. Of Coleridge's remaining productions, the sweet love-poem, Genevieve, and the sublime hymn in the Vale of Chamouni, are the most worthy of admiration. As a Shakespearian critic, or rather as an interpreter of Shakespeare, Coleridge stands unrivalled. He penetrates instinctively into the meaning of the great poet, and dexterously brings to light all the nicer shades of thought. As a talker, Coleridge had no equal since Johnson's days. Comparing Mackintosh and Coleridge, Carlyle says: "To listen to Mackintosh was to inhale perfume; it pleased, but did not satisfy. The effect of an hour with Coleridge was to set you thinking, his words haunted you for a week afterwards, they were spells, bright revelations. In short, it was, if we may venture to draw so bold a line, the whole difference between talent and genius.'

Mrs. Hemans (1793-1835) has written much sweet and melodious poetry. She is pre-eminently the poetess of English domestic life, and her best pieces have either the affections or the love of country for their theme. Since the taste for metaphysical poetry grew up in England, it has become the fashion to speak slightingly of Mrs. Hemans. 'She does not address the intellect,' it is said; as if parental or filial affection, religion and patriotism were subjects unworthy of a poet. On these Mrs. Hemans delighted to dwell; but she is not incapable of taking a higher flight, as is proved by her fine affecting poem, the Spanish Champion, founded on the Spanish legend of Bernardo del Carpio. It is, however, quite true that she does not possess the powers requisite for a long sustained poetic effort; and her attempts at dramatic composition only resulted in failure.

Alfred Tennyson, the present poet laureate (born 1810), produced three volumes of miscellaneous poems between 1830 and 1842. The contents of the first two betrayed many faults, but still gave a promise of future excellence, which was entirely fulfilled by the publication of the third volume, containing the Morte d'Arthur, Godina, Locksley Hall, and other poems. In the first of these, King Arthur, the British

hero, after his final overthrow and the destruction of his army, finds himself alone with Sir Belvidere, and bids him throw his good sword Excalibur, henceforth useless, into a neighbouring lake. The knight, wishing to retain so famous a weapon, pretends to obey the king, but only goes and hides the sword in the sedge on the border of the lake, and then returns. Arthur, however, perceives the deception, and reproaches Sir Belvidere with his untruthfulness and want of fidelity. The latter hastens away again, and this time hurls the sword far out into the water. He returns to the king, but only to find him dying, and he bears him tenderly to a black barge, manned with hooded phantoms, which has mysteriously appeared on the lake, to bear Arthur's body away to the blissful island of Avilion. Godiva is, of course, the old legend of peeping Tom of Coventry. Locksley Hall is one of Tennyson's most characteristic poems. The hero tells how he had loved his cousin Amy, and was loved in return, but when in obedience to her father, she consented to wed a wealthier suitor, he resolved to seek forgetfulness in the bustle and activity of busy life. A healthy tone reigns in this poem, very different from the sickly sentimentality of the lover in many modern poems. The Princess is a strange production, intended to cast ridicule on women who ignore the true destiny and real duties of their sex. Ida, the princess, with two other ladies, found a university, from which the other sex is to be rigorously excluded; but a prince, her lover, and two of his friends, contrive to gain admission in the disguise of women. After several romantic incidents which we have not space to recount, including a combat, in which the Prince is dangerously wounded, the heart of the Princess is sof tened, and she suddenly discovers what is the true vocation of a woman in the world. In Memoriam, a lamentation on the death of Arthur Hallam, his friend and his sister's affianced lover, is full of tenderness, and shows us more of the author's character than any other of his poems. He describes the young lady as 'sitting ranging golden hair,' and taking 'a riband or a rose,' while expecting the guest who was to come no more; and he paints the sad end as

To her, perpetual maidenhood, And unto me no second friend. Maud has been very untenderly handled by the critics. The lover in this poem finding his addresses discountenanced by Maud's family, who have made for her a dif

advantages. It will be readily understood, that bulls are often made purposely by Irish speakers. In the same book the authors make a comparison between the language of the lower classes in Dublin and London, and show, that while the former contains both poetry and wit, the London slang is generally devoid of meaning, and always witless. Even in the speech of the peasantry, in Ireland, they find a savour of poetry. 'Ask an Irish gorsoon (peasant-lad),' they say, 'to go an errand for you, and he'll reply: "I'm off like the flight of night;" do the same thing in England, and see what sort of an answer you'll get.' These writers also incidentally mention the numerous Shakespearian words, such as mazzard, which were brought to Ireland by the English colonists in the time of James I., and still keep their place in Ireland, though now obsolete in England. Mrs. S. C. Hall, who found a large number of these old words still existing in the Barony of the Forth, near Waterford, looks on them as Chaucerisms, because she had found many of them in Chaucer; but we think that if we style them Spenserisms, we shall come nearer the truth.

It was in 1814 that Sir Walter Scott published his first novel, Waverley, anonymously, and from that year till 1831 appeared that brilliant series of works of fiction, generally called the Waverley novels. Their superiority to all preceding works of the same class was immediately acknowledged: the easy yet elegant style, the judicious choice of subjects, the happy combination of romanticism and common-sense, at once secured them the favour of all classes of readers. How widely and rapidly their popularity spread, will be easily seen, if we only consider how many subjects they have furnished for the dramatist and the musical composer. A large number, or rather the majority, of these novels, like Waverley, Old Mortality, Rob Roy, the Legend of Montrose, and the Fair Maid of Perth, are based on Scottish history. In Ivanhoe, Kenilworth, the Fortunes of Nigel, Woodstock, and Peveril of the Peak, the scene lies in England. Quentin Durward transports the reader to France, and the Talisman to Syria. Guy Mannering, the Antiquary, and the Heart of Midlothian, present us with admirable sketches of Scotch life and scenery. And how varied are the characters that Scott places before us!the unhappy Flora MacIvor, Dominie Sampson, the noble-minded Rebecca, the gipsy Meg Merrilies, the eccentric Oldbuck, Edie Ochiltree, Mary Stuart, Jeanie

Deans, the fanatical Burley, Lucy Ashton, Dugald Dalgetty, Amy Robsart, the pedantic James VI. His last great novel was Woodstock; in the Fair Maid of Perth we detect a falling-off; and in Count Robert of Paris and Castle Dangerous we distinctly see the traces of paralysis and apoplexy. Scott was a never-wearying writer, and his History of Scotland, Tales of a Grandfather, Life of Swift, Life of Napoleon, Letters on Demonology, and other prose works, bear testimony to his genius, learning and industry.

Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer (1803-1873) published a volume of poems in 1820, another in 1826; and in 1827 O'Neil or the Rebel, a pretty close imitation of Byron's Corsair. In the same year appeared his first novel, Falkland, in the epistolary style of Richardson, but showing throughout how strongly the author still felt the influence of Byron. The hero of the story is an enthusiast, who goes as a volunteer to aid Riego and the Spanish patriots in their struggle for liberty in 1820, but loses his own life. In the following year appeared Pelham, written in the light, racy, sarcastic style which Theodore Hook had already made fashionable. In the Disowned, he introduces us to the society of George the Second's time, but it pleased the public less than Pelham. Devereux, in which Bolingbroke, Louis XV. and the Regent Orleans figure, has always been considered one of Bulwer's most successful novels. Paul Clifford (1830) and Eugene Aram (1831) have been visited with much undeserved obloquy. The hero of the first is, no doubt, a highwayman, but his character becomes chastened and transformed by the influence of a virtuous attachment; and we confess ourselves unable to see anything particularly dangerous to public morality in the story. As to Eugene Aram, the hero really existed, and was no common cowardly assassin, as has been alleged. When arrested on the charge of having taken part in the murder of Daniel Clarke fourteen years before, he was engaged in compiling a lexicon of the English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Celtic languages, and with the exception of the act for which he suffered death in 1759, his life was without blemish. He seems to have been first led into crime, and then betrayed, by the infamous Houseman; but to the last he solemnly maintained, that he had not become Houseman's accomplice in the hope of gain, but to revenge himself on the seducer of his own wife. Bulwer has used the licence accorded to novelists,