Every
true reader of poetry partakes a more than ordinary portion of the
poetic nature; and no one can be completely such, who does not love,
or take an interest in, everything that interests the poet, from the
firmament to the daisy,--from the highest heart of man to the most
pitiable of the low. It is a good practice to read with pen in hand,
marking what is liked or doubted. It rivets the attention, realizes
the greatest amount of enjoyment, and facilitates reference. It
enables the reader also, from time to time, to see what progress he
makes with his own mind, and how it grows up towards the stature of
its exalter.

If the same person should ask, What class of poetry is the highest? I
should say, undoubtedly, the Epic; for it includes the drama, with
narration besides; or the speaking and action of the characters, with
the speaking of the poet himself, whose utmost address is taxed to
relate all well for so long a time, particularly in the passages least
sustained by enthusiasm. Whether this class has included the greatest
poet, is another question still under trial; for Shakespeare perplexes
all such verdicts, even when the claimant is Homer; though, if a
judgement may be drawn from his early narratives (_Venus and Adonis_,
and the _Rape of Lucrece_), it is to be doubted whether even
Shakespeare could have told a story like Homer, owing to that
incessant activity and superfoetation of thought, a little less of
which might be occasionally desired even in his plays;--if it were
possible, once possessing anything of his, to wish it away. Next to
Homer and Shakespeare come such narrators as the less universal, but
still intenser Dante; Milton, with his dignified imagination; the
universal, profoundly simple Chaucer; and luxuriant, remote
Spenser--immortal child in poetry's most poetic solitudes: then the
great second-rate dramatists; unless those who are better acquainted
with Greek tragedy than I am, demand a place for them before Chaucer:
then the airy yet robust universality of Ariosto; the hearty,
out-of-door nature of Theocritus, also a universalist; the finest
lyrical poets (who only take short flights, compared with the
narrators); the purely contemplative poets who have more thought than
feeling; the descriptive, satirical, didactic, epigrammatic. It is to
be borne in mind, however, that the first poet of an inferior class
may be superior to followers in the train of a higher one, though the
superiority is