ALTHOUGH We have assumed English Poetry as our theme, it is not in contradistinction to that of every age and country. For wherever the true "Spirit of Posie" is found, it is the same; and whatever causes its developments to exhibit characteristics. in one country, which they do not in another, must be referred, not to the inherent, immutable principles of Poetry itself, but to those extraneous circumstances arising from peculiarities of manners, characters, and languages. Art and continued practice may enable one poet to clothe the being of his creation in language more splendid, to give it a tinsel-like appearance, more attractive to the eye, or cause it to fall in cadences more musical upon the ear, than another, whose unfettered muse seeks alone the universal language of the imagination and the passions. Yet the one can never be considered a great poet, nor the other a mean one. The former may please the taste of the critic-the latter strikes a sympathetic chord in the heart of the man. We admire the magnificent diction of Pope, and the singular sweetness of his versification; but we love the strong natural feeling and beautiful thoughts of Chaucer, though lurking under the rough concealment of an unformed, unpolished language.

Descending to a later period to establish the truth of our principle, it will be sufficient to refer to Byron, whose towering fame has already began to dwindle before a fast returning love for England's ancient poets. And though there are works of his destined to an existence cöextensive with the proudest monuments of the literature of any country; still, their perpetuity depends not upon their containing within themselves the true spirit of poetry, but upon a kind of admiration for the singu

larity of thought pervading the whole, and an indefinable interest in the man, from whose gigantic, but perverted intellect, they emanated. Ere long they will be regarded with a feeling akin to that with which the pyramids of the Egyptian deserts are viewed, at this remote period of time. Grand, gloomy, and forbidding, they are gazed upon with awe, admired for their architecture, for the grandeur of their design, and for the almost superhuman power necessary for their completion. But here, the feelings are checked and thrown back to wonder from what cause they originated, or for what purpose these vast piles were reared amid the wavy sands of a trackless desert. Like them, the mind of Byron rose vast and gloomy amid the wilderness of a heart, scathed and desolated by the fires of passion; and, like them, his works will endure, stern and isolated, a source of wonder and admiration to a few learned and misanthropic, for whom alone they will possess an interest, in every succeeding age.

Not so with Chaucer. He relied upon nature, and nature only, for the materials with which to lay his foundation for posthumous fame. He strove not to blacken and deform her fair face, by drawing from the vitiated current of his own thoughts, the colors with which he painted her features. He described her as she appeared to him, in all her grandeur and marvelous beauty; as she appears to all, who love her for that beauty and the wholesome lessons she teaches. The following example exhibits the unaffected simplicity of his own heart, and how faithfully were mirrored upon it, the self-same beauties, which, in all time, are wont to appeal, with so much force, to the hearts of all:

"And as I stood and cast aside mine eie,

I was ware of the fairest medlar tree

That ever yet in all my life I sie,

As full of blossomes as it might be,

Therein a goldfinch leaping pretile

Fro bough to bough, and as him list he eet

Here and there of buds and flowers sweet."

This is but one, from a number of stanzas, all equally beautiful and true. Here is no pompousness of words, no apostrophizing, no morbid straining to produce a greater effect upon the reader than the scene itself produced upon the writer. The sentiments are simple, yet grand; beautiful, yet true; welling forth from the pure and unadulterated fountains of the heart; and because they are such, we love them; not only admire, but love them; for they strike upon that secret chord of the heart, which thrills responsive to the touch of beauty, in every human breast.

In the description of such a scene, the poet exhibits the true spirit of his muse. He rouses the passion for beauty, and sets imagination on the wing. The reader unconsciously places himself by his side, sees the same objects, experiences the same feelings, and is struck by the same beauties. In the same shady grove he hears the music of its winged denizens, as they gaily flutter "fro bough to bough," tearing open the unsullied bosoms of the flowers, to draw from thence the honey with which they sweetened their warbling notes, and then singing in " delightful armony," till the whole place resounds with their music-and fully accords with the exclamation of the poet,

"That the uoice to angels was most like."

The description of the stupendous scenery of the Alps, by Manfred, as he stands poised upon a giddy pinnacle of the Jungfrau, is sublime, and nothing more; and this, if we except the noble "Apostrophe to the Ocean," surpasses any thing in the way of natural description to be found in Byron. But who can sympathize with the maniac and misanthrope, in apostrophizing the magnificent objects by which he was surrounded? What chords of the human heart, but those of pity and contempt, vibrate to the language of the atheist and suicide? Not one of the nobler passions is stirred, and the imagination shrinks aghast from the mighty task imposed upon it. All beauty is obliterated by the scorchings of passion, enveloping it in its fiery folds. The true spirit of poetry is absent, when imagination and passion for beauty are crushed beneath the iron heels of selfishness and despair.

The truth of our principle, and the contrast between Chaucer and Byron, will appear equally strong, if reference be had to their delineations of the finer feelings of man's nature, his tenderness and love. It cannot now be determined what Byron might have been, had the star of his nativity been more propitious, or the course of his life less wayward and passionate. This, however, is certain, that he was utterly incapacitated for conceiving of either of the abovementioned feelings, save only as they are calculated to lacerate the heart, or spread dishonor and desolation around. Chaucer took these feelings as they really exist, and as all his readers conceive of them, the purest and noblest of which man's nature is capable. Hence, the following extract enlists all our sympathies, and rouses our warmest feelings; and it were strange indeed, if the author, whose imagination must have been wound up to an intensity almost painful, did not moisten the parchment upon which he penned these lines, with his own gushing tears. Certain it is, that they have called them forth from the eyes of many, whose hearts