s dedicated to the cause of liberty, and from that good seed
is now springing forth fruit an hundred fold; the progress of
civilization, of knowledge, of virtue, and happiness in the United States,
is, by every recent traveller there, proved to be immense. The example of
her own children is becoming an additional security for right principles
to the mother country; and long may it so continue:

Yes! in that generous cause, for ever strong,
The patriot's virtue and the poet's song,
Still as the tide of ages rolls away,
Shall charm the world, unconscious of decay!

We cannot even contend that the sun has the effect of inflaming the
imaginations of men, and infusing into them either vivacity or a poetic
spirit. The French, Greeks, Egyptians, and Persians are all remarkable
for gaiety; while the Spaniards, Turks, and Chinese, the latitudes of
whose countries vary but little, are noted for a grave and serious
deportment. The land that has given birth to Shakspeare and Milton has no
reason to complain of the want of warmth of imagination. Klopstock and
Goethe,--the latter now allowed to be first of the living poets,--are
instances of the wide range of the spirit of poetry. Shall we, who have
seen Byron writing, as it were, in the midst of us, yield assent to
calling Greece and Italy the countries of imagination, _par excellence_,
because they have produced Homer and Dante? Assuredly not. We cannot even
admit, as a general proposition, that the languages of the south are
always the smoothest and most melodious, and the northern ones harsh, and
not adapted for music. The liquid, smooth, and effeminate language of
modern Italy is totally different from the strong, energetic, and harsh
Latin used by the ancient Romans. The Arabic will be immediately admitted,
by any who has heard a page of it read, to be extremely uncouth and
disagreeable. The Russian, on the contrary, is soft and musical. And to
recur to a more familiar instance, we shall find the Welsh tongue, on
examination, to be in fact very poetic, and peculiarly capable of giving
force and expression--whether of grandeur, of terror, or of melody--to
the idea the words are intended to convey. Let the reader who understands
the Welsh pronunciation, judge whether the following distich is not an
echo to, and as it were a picture of, the sense of the majestic sound of
thunder:--

"Tan a dwr y'n ymwriaw,
Yw'r taranau dreigiau draw."

The roaring thunder,