lebrate the victors at the Olympic games, and the hymns of Callimachus rife to the praises of the Gods.

FROM these inftances it appears that Lyric poetry does not admit of any diftinguishing characteristic from its fubject, but merely from the circumftance of its accompanyment with mufic: thus Horace briefly defines it "verba focianda chordis." But this circumftance will in fome measure influence the choice of a fubject, as it is evident that long continued narration, the didactic part of any art or science, and fatire, are not suitable topics for a species of poetry which above all others is calculated to please, elevate and furprize.

If we now compare the idea here given of Lyric poetry, with what was before obferved concerning fong-writing, it will plainly appear that the lattter is one branch

of the former; that, to wit, which in its fubject is confined to gaiety and tendernefs, or, to exprefs it claffically, the Sapphic and Anacreontic. The graver and fublimer ftrains of the Lyric Muse are exemplified in the modern ode, a fpecies of compofition which admits of the boldest flights of poetical enthusiasm, and the wildeft creations of the imagination, and requires the affiftance of every figure that can adorn language, and raise it above its ordinary pitch.

CRITICS have very commonly lamented that the moderns fall fhort of the antients more particularly in this species of poetry than in any other; yet, did it belong to my present subject, I fhould not defpair of convincing an impartial reader, that the English names of Dryden, Gray, Akenfide, Mafon, Collins, Warton, are not inferior in real poetical elevation to the most re

nowned

nowned Grecian or Roman which antiquity can produce. The modern ode and the fong are in general distinguishable by their fubject, by the different degree of elevation and ornament in the language, and by a greater length and irregularity in the measure of the former, which is not adapted to vocal mufic. Yet as these distinctions are rather relative than absolute, it is easy to fee that they may approach each others limits fo as to render it dubious under which class they range, which would - be the cafe with many of Horace's odes if converted to English poems.

We are now prepared to make use of the general deduction of the progrefs of the mind through the different stages of poetical compofition, formerly attempted, in forming an arrangement of fongs into a few diftinct claffes.

THE rude original paftoral poetry of our country furnishes the first class in the popular pieces called ballads. Thefe confift of the village tale, the dialogue of ruftic courtship, the defcription of natural objects, and the incidents of a rural life. Their language is the language of nature, fimple and unadorned; their story is not the wild offspring of fancy, but the probable adventure of the cottage; and their fentiments are the unstudied expreffions of paffions and emotions common to all mankind.

NATURE, farther refined, but ftill nature, gives the fecond clafs of pieces containing the fentimental part of the former, abstracted from the tale and rural landfcape, and improved by a more ftudied obfervation of the internal feelings of paffion and their external fymptoms. It is the natural philofophy of the mind, and

the

the description of fenfations. Here love appears in all its various forms of defire, doubt, jealousy, hope, despair; and fuggefts a language, rich, ftrong, and figurative. This is what may ftrictly be called the pathetic in poetry.

THE third clafs is formed upon an artificial turn of thinking, and the operation of the fancy. Here the fentiments arise from cool reflexion and curious fpeculation, rather than from a prefent emotion. They accordingly require enlivening by ingenious comparison, ftriking contraft, unexpected turns, a climax finishing in a point, and all the pleasing refinements of art which give the denomination of ingenious and witty to our conceptions. Some effential diftinctions will appear in this class arifing from the various kinds of wit; but they all agree in the circumstance of springing rather from fancy than paffion, and conB4 fequently