EDINBURGH MAGAZINE OR LITERARY MISCELLANY, FOR DECEMBER 1798. With a View of the NEW BARRACKS, and the CASTLE of EDINBURGH, from Burntsfield Links. CONTENTS: Page Regifter of the Weather for Dec. 402, -Defcription of an Entertain Page 441 -Non Existence of a North-Weft I Paffage, 442 445 The Life of Don Francisco de POETRY. 459 Ode addreffed to Robert Anderson, M. D. of Heriot's Green, Edinburgh, by Mr Dyer, 463 Elegy to the Memory of Mr Thomas Smellie, 464 Tranflation of the Soliloquy of Ronan; from the "Gaelic Antiquities," Same Thought, found in a Frag- MONTHLY REGISTER. 465 466 ibid. - 467 ibid. 436 -Conftruction and Principles of Interefting Intelligence from the London Gazettes, 472 the Sachrometer, 476 Extracts from Vancouver's Voyage Deaths, 477 round the World, (continued) 439 Index, 479 Can only recall I you to your own natural feeling of harmony, and obferve, that its emotions are not found in laboured, fantastic, and furprifing compofitions, but you meet them in fome few pieces that are the growth of wild unvitiated tafte; you discover them in the fwelling founds that wrap us in imaginary grandeur; in those plaintive notes that make us in love with woe; in the tones that utter the Lover's fighs, and fluctuate the breaft with gentle pain; in short, in those affecting trains that find their way to the inward receffes of the heart." USHER. THE perufal of Poetry has for a confiderable period of my life, occupied a great part of my hours of relaxation from bufinefs; and while it has been an employment productive of no fmall degree of pleasure and amufement, to compare the fame ideas of different authors, when clothed in varied verfification and dialect, I have often remarked, that the most fimple and unadorned poetry, contains not only the richeft imagery, but alfo the most beautiful fenti ments. The Authors of Elegies, Odes, and Sonnets have been frequently unjustly accufed of plagiarism, because the fame ideas contained in their productions, have been found in thote of an earlier date; but this fpecies of poetry, however much admired it may be, and however often it is attempted, can admit of but fmall variation on account of the penury of materials. This, I shall endeavour, and I truft it will be in my power, to prove, by fhewing that the fentiments of feveral of our most exquifite writers, upon the same subject, bear the moft friking coincidence. The principal degree of merit due to writers of this order, is, when the fentiments are expreffed in fo natural a manner, as to attract the attention of the Reader in a gentle and an almoft imperceptible degree, and to imprefs upon him the very feelings of the Poet; to excite the emotions of pity, indignation, terror, or any other paffion which imagination has depicted, and although he fhould know the Story of Woe to be ideal, yet to agitate his mind in fo forcible › 3 E a manner, as to draw from him the fame regret which would have been indulged, had it been real. There is a ftill fuperior degree of praife due to the perfons, whofe writings not only poffels thefe powers, but who, by following the dictates of their genius, ftrike out a new line of poetry, which may be either purfued at an humble distance by those whose abilities are inferior, or improved and enlarged upon by the poffeffors of fuperior talents and of richer veins of imagery. A Poem of this kind, how ever elegant the diction, and how ever regular the numbers may be, yet if unattended by the graces of fimplicity, and by an eafy and natural harmony, to prove that it flows more from the heart than from the head, will never captivate the Reader with the fame admiration, as the fimple, irregular, but melodious verses of an uncultivated mufe, when painting in native provincial language the feelings of his foul. In the following gleanings I have arranged thofe verfes, which bear a flriking analogy to each other, under the fame heads, and I have marked the names of fuch of the Authors as are familiar to me. The But, COWPER. "What is beauty, but a flower? What if I fay your lips difclofe, ANON. Would Elegiac Epiftle to a Friend," from which this ftanza is extracted, is not the Compofition of Gay. See Dr Anderson's Life of Gay, in the Works of the British Poets vol. 8. p. 261. Editor. |