Richard---Macbeth--- Hamlet.

When in the tempest rais'd by Prosper's hand
He waves o'er Nature his commanding wand;
When on the field of Bosworth, Richard lay,
And horrors shudder'd at approaching day,
The ghosts of York hung o'er his trembling bed
And breath'd their vengeance on their murderer's
head;

When Ariel sings and moves amid the air,

When Banquo rises to the vacant chair;

When Hamlet's ghost, the bell then beating one,* Stalks pale and sullen by his warlike son.

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Then gloom and terror throw their mantle round,
And every power lies still in awe profound.

Where Auracauna nurs'd her warlike race,
Wild as the tempest, fleeting in the chace,
Ercilla pour'd his bold and wandering strain,
The pride of Genius and the boast of Spain.
When rest succeeded to the toils of war,
And in the sky appear'd the evening star,

*Horatio....Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
Bernardo....Last night of all,

When yon same star that's westward from the pole,
Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself;

The bell then beating one...

Marcellus....Peace, break thee off, look where it comes again.

HAMLET.

Taste dwells in the Mind only.

Stretch'd on a rock and drench'd with falling dews
He heard the dictates of his epic* muse.

A perfect taste dwells only in the mind,
With manners polish'd, sentiments refin'd;
But Genius rises from the darkest shade,
Where never ploughshare cut the barren glade.

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* About the end of the sixteenth century, the poem here alluded to was produced in Spain. It is celebrated for peculiar beauties, for the singularity of the subject, and is remarkable from the character of its author. His name was Don Alonzo d'Ercilla Y. Cuniga, he commanded some troops in Chili, where he waged war in a little mountainous country, called Auracauna, inhabited by a race of men more robust and ferocious than all the other American nations. In this war he underwent extreme dangers, and performed the most astonishing actions: This occasioned him to conceive the design of immortalizing himself by immortalizing his enemies. He was both a conqueror and a poet, and entitled his poem Auracauna, from the name of the country. His pen was as busily employed amidst those wilds as his sword. He wrote his poem on the scenes of his battles and as night afforded more rest from the toils of war than the day, he often obeyed the dictates of his muse, reclining on the rocks, and aided by the light of the moon. As he could not at all times obtain paper, parts of his work were written upon leather and upon the bark of trees. He has introduced much fire in his battles. His poem is as wild as the nations who are the subject, and discovers great copiousness and strength of imagination.

C

Ossian.

Amidst his native wilds and misty plains,
Sublimest Ossian, pours his wizard strains.
The voice of old revisits his dark dream,
On his sad soul the deeds of warriors beam;
Alone he sits upon the distant hill,
Beneath him falls a melancholy rill;
His harp lies by him on the rustling grass,
The deer before him thro' the thickets pass;
No hunter winds his slow and sullen horn,
No whistling cow-herd meets the breath of morn;
O'er the still heath the meteors dart their light
And round him sweep the mournful blasts of Night.
O voice of Cona, bard of other times,

May thy bold spirit visit these dull climes!
May the brave chieftains of thy rugged plains,
Remember Ossian* and revere his strains!

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* Ossian may be called the most mournful of bards. It is impossible to read his poems without being lulled into a thoughtful melancholy which is more beneficial to the heart than the brightest joy. The regions which a poet inhabits will always give a cast to his strains. Ossian, amidst his isle of mists, caught his gloomy enthusiasm. There was presented to his view, a wild, picturesque, and melancholy country, long tracts of mountainous desert, covered with dark heath. There he wandered through narrow vallies, thinly inhabited and bounded by precipices, which by the light of the moon presented a landscape the most grotesque

Ariosto.

See Ariosto* take his boundless course Thro' fields of air upon his griffin horse;

and ghastly. There he heard on every side the fall of torrents, the mournful dashing of the waves along the friths and lakes, and the hollow sound of the winds through the rocks and the caverns, which he has compared to the voice of a spirit. The admiration which the works of Ossian have excited abroad, is a confirming evidence of their excellence, and should meliorate the criticism of those whose taste is submissive to the prejudice of the great Dr. Johnson. Most of the nations of Europe have listened to the songs of Ossian with delight. The Germans prefer them to the Iliad and the Ænied--and they have received in Spain all the decorations which the printer and painter could afford.

His

*This poet, whom the author of the Pursuits of Literature has classed among the greatest geniuses of the world, had the kindred soul of Shakespeare. His imagination appears from his works to be inexhaustible. His impetuosity bears him above every difficulty. Amid fields of unlimited space he could only stretch his wings. His immense bark could float on no other waves than those of the ocean. mighty arm would wield no sword but that of Orlando, which fell upon the foe like the thunder of heaven. In genius, Ariosto is much superior to his rival Tasso, but he sinks behind him in taste and incorrectness. If we compare their different merits we will at once be struck with the greater originality of Ariosto, and with the greater tenderness of Tasso.---Tasso abounds with some of the most moving beauties of poetry, but he also abounds with glittering tinsel, and the general outlines of his poem are drawn

Burns.

From which he looks upon the world below,

And bids the storms beat on his dauntless brow:
Ten thousand phantoms glimmer in his sight,
And on the winds attend him in his flight.
When knights and war he sings and war's alarms,
He speaks in terror, like the god of arms;
But when Angelica's soft charms he sings,
An angel's pinions sweep his trembling strings. 270
Untaught by science, not refin'd by art,

His sole instructors Nature and the heart;
See lowly Burns* move slowly o'er the lea,
And breathe the song of sweetest harmony.

from Homer's Iliad.--Whereas Ariosto disdained any imitation. He delighted in the sublimity of irregularity. His flight is regulated by no rules. He soars beyond the reach of criticism.

Sour

Burns, to an exquisite sensibility, united a power of description, not inferior to that of the author of the Seasons. His scanty information, however, repressed the exertions of his wild Genius His muse seldom looks beyond the glens of Scotland, its hills and romantic waters. ed by misfortune, and doomed to feel the pains of those, who, in humble life have listened to the trump of Fame, he sought indulgence to his sorrow among those scenes, which, while they soothed his mind, awoke the pathos of his muse. His Cotter's Saturday Night---his Address to a Mountain Daisy---his Lament of Mary Queen of Scots---his Lament on a Friend's Unfortunate Amour---his Lament on the Death