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Lear.-Pray, do not mock me;

I am a very foolish, fond old man,

Fourscore and upward; and, to deal plainly,

I fear I am not in my perfect mind.

Methinks I should know you, and know this man;
Yet I am doubtful; for I am mainly ignorant
What place this is; and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me,
For, as I am a man, I think this lady

To be my child Cordelia!

Cordelia. And so I am; I am."

It cannot be doubted that the whole of this scene is poetry of the highest proof; and yet, except in the passage referring to the storm (in which those wonderful lines descriptive of the lightning might have been struck out by the flash itself), there is scarcely a phrase which could not have been employed in the humblest prose record of this conversation. Try the experiment: break up the rhythm, the only thing that constitutes the lines verse, and mark the issue: the same sentiments will remain, in nearly the same words; yet the latter being differently collocated, and wanting the inimitable cadence of such verse as none but Shakspeare has been able to construct, the charm will be broken, and the pathos subdued, though no mutilation could destroy it. How much the power of poetry depends upon the nice inflections of rhythm alone may be proved, by taking the finest passages of Milton or Shakspeare, and merely putting them into prose, with the least possible variation of the words themselves. The attempt would be like gathering up dewdrops, which appear jewels and pearls on the grass, but run into water in the hand; the essence and the elements remain, but the grace, the sparkle, and the form are gone.

Lecture Third.

THE PERMANENCE OF WORDS.

An eloquent, but extravagant writer has hazarded the assertion that "words are the only things that last forever." Nor is this merely a splendid saying, or a startling paradox, that may be qualified by explanation into commonplace; but with respect to man, and his works on earth, it is literally true. Temples and palaces, amphitheatres and catacombs-monuments of power, and magnificence, and skill, to perpetuate the memory, and preserve

The late Mr. William Hazlitt.

even the ashes, of those who lived in past ages-must, in the revolutions of mundane events, not only perish themselves by violence or decay, but the very dust in which they perish be so scattered as to leave no trace of their material existence behind. There is no security beyond the passing moment for the most permanent or the most precious of these; they are as much in jeopardy as ever, after having escaped the changes and chances of thousands of years. An earthquake may suddenly engulf the pyramids of Egypt, and leave the sand of the desert as blank as the tide would have left it on the sea-shore. A hammer in the hand of an idiot may break to pieces the Apollo Belvidere, or the Venus de Medici, which are scarcely less worshipped as miracles of art in our day than they were by idolaters of old as representatives of deities.

Looking abroad over the whole world, after the lapse of nearly six thousand years, what have we of the past but the words in which its history is recorded? What, besides a few mouldering and brittle ruins, which time is imperceptibly touching down into dust, what, besides these, remains of the glory, the grandeur, the intelligence, the supremacy of the Grecian republics, or the empire of Rome? Nothing but the words of poets, historians, philosophers, and orators, who, being dead, yet speak, and in their immortal works still maintain their dominion over inferior minds through all posterity. And these intellectual sovereigns not only govern our spirits from the tomb by the power of their thoughts, but their very voices are heard by our living ears in the accents of their mother-tongues. The beauty, the eloquence, and art of these collocations of sounds and syllables, the learned alone can appreciate, and that only (in some cases) after long, intense, and laborious investigation; but, as thought can be made to transmigrate from one body of words into another, even through all the languages of the earth, without losing what may be called its personal identity, the great minds of antiquity continue to hold their ascendency over the opinions, manners, characters, institutions, and events of all ages and nations through which their posthumous compositions have found way, and been made the earliest subjects of study, the highest standards of morals, and the most perfect examples of taste, to the master-minds in every state of civilized society. In this respect, the "words" of inspired prophets and apostles among the Jews, and those of gifted writers among the ancient Gentiles, may truly be said to "last forever."

Retrospect of Literature.

WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES, 1762-1850.

WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES, the son of the Rev. William Thomas Bowles, vicar of King's-Sutton, Northamptonshire, was born at that place on the 25th of September, 1762. In 1776, he was placed on the Wykeham foundation at Winchester,' under Dr. Joseph Warton.2 Naturally a timid, diffident boy, he ever expressed a grateful obligation to the kind encouragement he received from that eminent man, who sympathized very cordially with any manifestation of poetic talents. During his last year at Winchester, he was at the head of the school, and in consequence of this distinction he was elected, in 1781, a scholar of Trinity College, Oxford. In 1783, he gained the chancellor's prize for Latin verse, the subject being Calpe Obsessa, "The Siege of Gibraltar." In 1789, he published twenty of his beautiful sonnets, which were followed in the same year by "Verses to John Howard, on his State of the Prisons and Lazarettos," and in 1790 by "The Grave of Howard." These and other poetical works were collected in 1796, and so well were they received, that repeated editions were published.

In 1797, he was married to Magdalen, daughter of the Rev. Charles Wake, Prebendary of Westminster. She died some years before him, leaving no children. Having entered the ministry, he obtained the vicarage of Bremhill3 in 1804, which was his constant residence for near a quarter of a century. In the latter part of his life he resided at Salisbury, where he died on the 7th of April, 1850.

It would be difficult to enumerate all of Mr. Bowles' publications: but the following are his principal poems. "The Battle of the Nile," published in 1799; "The Sorrows of Switzerland," in 1801; "The Spirit of Discovery, or Conquest of Ocean," in 1805; “The Missionary of the Andes," in 1815; "The Grave of the Last Saxon," in 1822; "St. John in Patmos," in 1832. His last poetical compositions were contained in a volume published in 1837, entitled "Scenes and Shadows of Days Departed, a Narrative; accompanied with Poems of Youth, and some other

Winchester is about sixty-seven miles south-west from London, is one of the oldest cities of England, and became the capital of the country when it was united under the sway of Egbert. Here lie the bones of Alfred the Great; here, in 1002, commenced the horrid massacre of the Danes; here William the Conqueror built a castle and palace; here King John ratified his ignominious submission to the Pope; and here was the scene of the disgraceful trial of Sir Walter Raleigh. Indeed, it is full of the most interesting historic associations. The most interesting building here is Wykeham College, which takes its name from William of Wykeham, originally a poor boy of the neighboring town of Wykeham, and was educated in the old grammar-school of Winchester, on the very spot where the college now stands. This was begun in 1387, and completed in six years. It has a large revenue, and accommodates about one hundred boys.

See his life at p. 17.

A town in Wiltshire, about seventy-seven miles west from London.

Poems of Melancholy and Fancy, in the Journey of Life from Youth to Age." He also printed several editions of a pleasing little volume of simple poetry, entitled "The Village Verse-Book," written to excite in the youthful mind the first feelings of religion and humanity, from familiar rural objects.

In 1807, Mr. Bowles edited "The Works of Alexander Pope, in Verse and Prose," in ten volumes; and in this labor (it would seem not of love) he displayed, as editor, what is rather a singular phenomenon in the literary world, prepossessions adverse to the claims and merits of his author. He laid down this proposition as a universal truth, "that all images drawn from what is beautiful or sublime in the works of nature, are more beautiful and sublime than any images drawn from art; and that they are there. fore, per se, more poetical." The truth of this dogma was of course warmly disputed, and Campbell, Byron, and others entered into the contest in behalf of Pope. The latter, doubtless, had the better of the argument: a pyramid may raise as strong emotions in the breast as the mountain; and, as Byron said, a ship in the wind, with all sail set, is a more poetical object than "a hog in the wind," though the hog is all nature, and the ship all art.

Mr. Bowles is probably more indebted for his fame to his Sonnets than to any of his other writings. Of these, Mr. Hallam, in an address recently delivered at the anniversary of the Royal Society of Literature, thus speaks: "The Sonnets of Bowles may be reckoned among the first fruits of a new era in poetry. They came in an age when a commonplace facility in rhyming on the one hand, and an almost nonsensical affectation in a new school on the other, had lowered the standard so much, that critical judges spoke of English poetry as of something nearly extinct, and disdained to read what they were sure to disapprove. In these sonnets there was observed a grace of expression, a musical versification, and especially an air of melancholy tenderness, so congenial to the poetical temperament, which still, after sixty years of a more propitious period than that which immediately preceded their publication, preserves for their author a highly respectable position among our poets." But it is time to let our readers judge for themselves.

SONNET AT OSTEND.

How sweet the tuneful bells' responsive peal!
As when, at opening morn, the fragrant breeze
Breathes on the trembling sense of wan disease,
So piercing to my heart their force I feel!
And hark! with lessening cadence now they fall,
And now, along the white and level tide,
They fling their melancholy music wide;
Bidding me many a tender thought recall

Of summer-days, and those delightful years
When by my native streams, in life's fair prime,

The mournful magic of their mingling chime

First wak'd my wondering childhood into tears! But seeming now, when all those days are o'er, The sounds of joy once heard, and heard no more.

SONNET ON THE RHINE.

'Twas morn, and beauteous on the mountain's brow
(Hung with the beamy clusters of the vine)
Stream'd the blue light, when on the sparkling Rhine
We bounded, and the white waves round the prow
In murmurs parted: varying as we go,

Lo! the woods open, and the rocks retire,
Some convent's ancient walls, or glistening spire,
'Mid the bright landscape's track, unfolding slow.
Here dark, with furrow'd aspect, like despair,

Frowns the bleak cliff-there on the woodland's side
The shadowy sunshine pours its streaming tide;
Whilst Hope, enchanted with the scene so fair,
Would wish to linger many a summer's day,
Nor heeds how fast the prospect winds away.

SONNET TO TIME.

O Time! who know'st a lenient hand to lay
Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)
The faint pang stealest, unperceived, away;
On thee I rest my only hope at last,

And think when thou hast dried the bitter tear
That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear,
I may look back on every sorrow past,
And meet life's peaceful evening with a smile-
As some lone bird, at day's departing hour,
Sings in the sunbeam of the transient shower,
Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while:
Yet, ah! how much must that poor heart endure
Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure!

SONNET TO SUMMER.

How shall I meet thee, Summer, wont to fill
My heart with gladness, when thy pleasant tide
First came, and on each coomb's romantic side
Was heard the distant cuckoo's hollow bill?

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