een thoroughly stricken
(and Heaven knows the course of life must have placed all men, at some
time or other, in that condition) there is never a want of _positive_
strength; but because the adversary of Nature (call that adversary Art
or by what name you will) is _comparatively_ strong. The far-searching
influence of the power, which, for want of a better name, we will
denominate Taste, is in nothing more evinced than in the changeful
character and complexion of that species of composition which we have
been reviewing. Upon a call so urgent, it might be expected that the
affections, the memory, and the imagination would be _constrained_ to
speak their genuine language. Yet, if the few specimens which have been
given in the course of this enquiry, do not demonstrate the fact, the
Reader need only look into any collection of Epitaphs to be convinced,
that the faults predominant in the literature of every age will be as
strongly reflected in the sepulchral inscriptions as any where; nay
perhaps more so, from the anxiety of the Author to do justice to the
occasion: and especially if the composition be in verse; for then it
comes more avowedly in the shape of a work of art; and of course, is
more likely to be coloured by the work of art holden in most esteem at
the time. In a bulky volume of Poetry entitled ELEGANT EXTRACTS IN
VERSE, which must be known to most of my Readers, as it is circulated
everywhere and in fact constitutes at this day the poetical library of
our Schools, I find a number of epitaphs in verse, of the last century;
and there is scarcely one which is not thoroughly tainted by the
artifices which have over-run our writings in metre since the days of
Dryden and Pope. Energy, stillness, grandeur, tenderness, those feelings
which are the pure emanations of Nature, those thoughts which have the
infinitude of truth, and those expressions which are not what the garb
is to the body but what the body is to the soul, themselves a
constituent part and power or function in the thought--all these are
abandoned for their opposites,--as if our countrymen, through successive
generations, had lost the sense of solemnity and pensiveness (not to
speak of deeper emotions) and resorted to the tombs of their forefathers
and contemporaries, only to be tickled and surprised. Would we not
recoil from such gratification, in such a place, if the general
literature of the country had not co-operated with other causes
insidiously to