and I detected in the midst of their natural paleness, that hectic which never betrays its augury. I saw that my days were numbered, and I lay down on my pillow that night with the resolve to prepare for death. The next day when I looked over my scattered papers; when I saw the mighty schemes I had commenced, and recalled the long and earnest absorption of all my faculties, which even that commencement had required,—I was seized with a sort of despair. It was evident that I could now perform nothing great, and as for trifles, ought they to occupy the mind of one whose eye was on the grave?— There was but one answer to this question. I committed my fragments to the flames; and now there came, indeed, upon me a despondency I had not felt before. I saw myself in the condition of one, who, after much travail in the world, has found a retreat, and built a home, and who in the moment he says to his heart, "Now thou shalt have rest!" beholds himself summoned away. I had found an object—it was torn from me my staff was broken, and it was only

In

left to me to creep to the tomb, without easing by any support the labour of the way. I had coveted no petty aim-I had not bowed my desires to the dust and mire of men's common wishes-I had bade my ambition single out a lofty end and pursue it by generous means. the dreams of my spirit, I had bound the joys of my existence to this one aspiring hope, nor had I built that hope on the slender foundations of a young inexperience—I had learned, I had thought, I had toiled, before I ventured in my turn to produce. And now, between myself and the fulfilment of schemes, that I had wrought with travail, and to which I looked for no undue reward-there yawned the Eternal Gulf. It seemed to me as if I was condemned to leave life, at the moment I had given to life an object. There was a bitterness in these thoughts which it was not easy to counteract. In vain, I said to my soul, "Why grieve?-Death itself does not appal thee.-And after all, what can life's proudest objects bring thee better than rest ?". But we learn at last to conquer our destiny, by

surveying it; there is no regret which is not to be vanquished by resolve. And now, when I saw myself declining day by day, I turned to those more elevating and less earthly meditations, which supply us, as it were, with wings, when the feet fail. They have become to me dearer than the dreams which they succeeded, and they whisper to me of a brighter immortality than that of Fame.

L

279

CONVERSATION THE EIGHTH.

's OCCASIONAL RESTLESSNESS AT THE THOUGHT OF DEATHANECDOTE OF THE LAST HOURS OF A MAN UNWILLING TO DIEL- —'S GRATITUDE THAT THE GRADUAL DECAY OF HIS POWERS PREPARES HIM FOR HIS END CRITICISM ON THE THOUGHTS"-SURVEY OF CONTEMPORANEOUS POETRY-REMARK

66

NIGHT

ABLE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE BLANK VERSE AND RHYME OF THE SAME PERIOD THE FORMER MORE ENGLISH-PECULIARITIES OF THE OLD ENGLISH MUSE-ITS QUAINT LOVE OF CLASSICAL ALLUSION-ITS MIXTURE OF THE GRAVE AND GAY-ITS MINUTENESS

IN RURAL DESCRIPTION, &C.-POPE COMPARED WITH THOMSON;

AKENSIDE WITH JOHNSON-YOUNG-HIS TENDENCY TO THE AMBITIOUS THE VIEWS OF LIFE MORE GLOOMY IN THE GREEK THAN THE ROMAN POETS-THE ENGLISH MUSE RATHER ADOPTS THOSE OF THE FORMER-YOUNG EMBUED WITH OUR EARLIER POETRYTHE SUBLIMEST POETS ABOUND WITH THE HOME LIEST IMAGES-AND, IN MODERN LITERATURE, ALSO WITH THE MOST EXAGGERATED CONCEITS-YOUNG THEREFORE JUSTIFIED BY THEIR EXAMPLE IN HIS HOMELINESS AND QUAINTNESS-HIS SUBLIME POWER OF PERSONIFICATION HIS TERSENESS-DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE RANK OF THE POET AND THAT OF THE POEM-THE GRANDEUR OF THE CONCEPTION OF THE NIGHT THOUGHTS AS COMPARED WITH CHILDE

HAROLD AND OTHER DIDACTIC POEMS-THE POET'S CONCEPTION IS SUSTAINED THROUGHOUT - THE WISDOM OF HIS MAXIMS THE BEAUTY OF HIS DICTION-CONCLUDING REMARKS ON YOUNG'S CHARACTER-APOLOGY FOR RETAILING L ́S CRITICISMS.

It is with a melancholy pleasure that I have been made sensible of the interest that these conversations have excited in the gentler and more thoughtful of the tribe of readers.* I have received more anonymous letters than I care to name, complaining of the long silence I have preserved, and urging me to renew Dialogues, already so often repeated, that I might well imagine (knowing how impatient the readers of a periodical generally are of subjects continued in a series) that they had sufficiently exhausted the indulgence of the public. To me individually, there is little that is flattering in any interest these papers may have created. I am but the echo of another; or, to use an old, yet still

*The reader will here remember that these dialogues first appeared in a detached shape in the New Monthly Magazine-there was an interval of several months (from May to November) between the appearance of the last and the following conversation.