ight, and joy, and rapture, and exultation, through the
spirit of an enthusiastic People, and whose name is associated in his
native Land with every thing noble and glorious in the cause of
Patriotism and Liberty. We could easily add to the illustrious list; but
suffice it to say, that our Poets do in general bear their faculties
meekly and manfully, trusting to their conscious powers, and the
susceptibility of generous and enlightened natures, not yet extinct in
Britain, whatever Mr. Coleridge may think; for certain it is, that a
host of worshippers will crowd into the Temple, when the Priest is
inspired, and the flame he kindles is from Heaven.

Such has been the character of great Poets in all countries and in all
times. Fame is dear to them as their vital existence--but they love it
not with the perplexity of fear, but the calmness of certain possession.
They know that the debt which nature owes them must be paid, and they
hold in surety thereof the universal passions of mankind. So Milton felt
and spoke of himself, with an air of grandeur, and the voice as of an
Archangel, distinctly hearing in his soul the music of after
generations, and the thunder of his mighty name rolling through the
darkness of futurity. So divine Shakespeare felt and spoke; he cared not
for the mere acclamations of his subjects; in all the gentleness of his
heavenly spirit he felt himself to be their prophet and their king, and
knew,

When all the breathers of this world are dead,
That he entombed in men's eyes would lie.

Indeed, who that knows any thing of Poetry could for a moment suppose it
otherwise? Whatever made a great Poet but the inspiration of delight and
love in himself, and an empassioned desire to communicate them to the
wide spirit of kindred existence? Poetry, like Religion, must be free
from all grovelling feelings; and above all, from jealousy, envy, and
uncharitableness. And the true Poet, like the Preacher of the true
religion, will seek to win unto himself and his Faith, a belief whose
foundation is in the depths of love, and whose pillars are the noblest
passions of humanity.

It would seem that in truly great souls all feeling of self-importance,
in its narrower sense, must be incompatible with the consciousness of a
mighty achievement. The idea of the mere faculty or power is absorbed as
it were in the idea of the work performed. That work stands out in its
glory from the mind of its Creator; and in the contem