o our poetical literature, when compared with "The Pleasures of Hope," utterly insignificant. As for Akenside, who reads any other of his productions than "The Pleasures of Imagination?"

The topics which Campbell has selected for illustrating the influence of Hope on the happiness of man, are all well adapted to poetry, although some of them are defective in strict applicability to the subject, and others in philosophical accuracy. Indeed, the extreme popularity of the poem is owing to the charms of its poetry alone; and such is the power of those charms, that no reader of taste and feeling will pause, amidst the admiration they excite, to question the appropri ateness of an illustration, the correctness of a metaphor, or the soundness of an inference. The work commences with, perhaps, the most brilliant opening of any poem extant. This has been said to be injudicious on the part of the poet, as subjecting him to the necessity of maintaining throughout the production an equal strain of elevation and splendour, or of inflicting on the reader the disagreeable sensation of witnessing a falling off from the grandeur of such a commencement. But this censure, however it may impeach the prudence of the poet, has no application to the merits of the poem; and on the poet's behalf, it may be triumphantly asserted, that difficult as was the achievement, the brilliancy of the opening paragraph is well sustained through the whole poem; the inequalities observable in it, being only such as show its beauties in greater relief, and render it a more attractive pro

duction than it would be if it consisted of a uniform and unblemished piece of splendour.

But truly beautiful and popular as this poem is, it has been, by various critics, subjected to much severer charges than the one we have just noticed. Its frequent allusions to Grecian mythology have been stigmatized as the commonplaces of schoolboys in their poetical exercises. Such a charge may be brought, with equal justice, against the productions of the best and greatest of our poets. There are none more obnoxious to it than those of the immortal Milton himself. We do not advocate the overloading of English poetry with images borrowed from either the fictions or the facts of pagan antiquity. But the habit of certain critics in passing indiscriminate censure on all who draw poetical embellishments from the classical and native land of the muses, we think has been carried to an illiberal and overstrained excess. We would not exclude the poet from this, more than from any other source of materials for enriching his song. We would leave him here, as elsewhere, to the exercise of his own free will, so that, like the bee, he might roam at large wherever fancy may lead him, and gather sweets from the flowers of whatever field he may choose to explore. If he exceeds discretion, and cloys his readers with too many sweets of the same character, he becomes censurable, although those sweets may be in themselves as desirable, wholesome, and pleasant as any that could be possibly extracted from other sources.

This poem has also, like "The Pleasures of Memory," been subjected to the charge of being too polished and laboured in its versification. This charge is like blaming a lapidary for being too tasteful in the setting of his gems, or a painter for being too accurate in the laying on of his colours. "The Pleasures of Memory," being a comparatively feeble poem, has had its feebleness ascribed, perhaps not altogether justly, to its extreme polish. But there is no feebleness in "The Pleasures of Hope." It is strong with thought; it is strong with expression. Every sentence strikes the mind with meaning, and every couplet charms the ear with music. Whatever care, therefore, has been expended in polishing and harmonizing the diction of this poem, has not been expended in vain; and no reader, it is believed, will condemn that labour which has been employed so successfully in administering to his pleasure.

It is doubtful, however, whether in the composition of this poem, Campbell employed such extreme care and labour as has been asserted. He published it when he was but twenty-one. He could not, therefore, have kept it nine years under the file, according to the advice of Horace; and it is certain that there are passages of it, which exhibit as much negligence as the warmest admirer of inaccuracy could desire. In the following lines there is not only a mistatement as to the place of the event mentioned, but there is more than one blunder in the language :

"Thus, while Elijah's burning wheels prepare
From Carmel's heights to sweep the fields of air,
The prophet's mantle, ere his flight began,

Dropt on the world—a sacred gift to man."

The Scripture informs us, that it was from the eastern bank of the Jordan opposite Jericho, a distance of more than seventy miles from Mount Carmel, that the translation of Elijah took place. One would naturally suppose that the prophet must have been in the act of ascending, when his mantle “dropt on the world." Yet the poet says, that it dropt ere his flight began, and while the chariot wheels were preparing to ascend.

There are several obscurities in the poem, which could have been obviated by very little care on the part of the author. We select the two following instances because the author seems to have been aware of them himself, having found it necessary to explain each of them in a note. Explanatory notes appended to a serious poem, are, at best, but awkward substitutes for clearness of thought and language.

"With Franklin grasp the lightning's fiery wing,

Or yield the lyre of heaven another string."

The last line of this couplet, it appears by the explanatory note, does not, as the reader would suppose, refer to any of Franklin's electrical discoveries; but to the discovery of the Georgium Sidus, or eighth planet, by Herschel, which discovery is fantastically enough called "yielding the lyre of heaven another string,'

because the seven other planets were, among the Greeks, symbolical of Apollo's harp.

"Shame to the coward thought that e'er betray'd

The noon of manhood to a myrtle shade."

This is very indistinctly explained by quoting a line of Dryden :—

"Sacred to Venus is the myrtle shade.'

From the context, we, indeed, with the aid of this line, gather the meaning to be an imprecation of shame on those who spend the prime of life in the enjoyments of love, instead of devoting it to the nobler pursuits of genius.

Such obscurities are certainly blemishes in the poem; and have arisen manifestly from inattention or indolence in the author. Instead of censuring him, therefore, for too much labour and care in its composition, we wish that he had exerted a little more of both, so that we might at all times have understood his poetry without having recourse to his prose.

There is one instance of false rhyme-or rather no rhyme-which would appear incompatible with the extreme fastidiousness ascribed to the author of this poem :

"Thy darling form shall seem to hover nigh,

And hush the groan of life's last agony."

As was observed in the notice taken of some similar oversights in "The Pleasures of Memory," Eng