chiefly of a superficial kind lying upon the surfaces of
manners; or arising out of a selection and arrangement of incidents, by
which the mind is kept upon the stretch of curiosity and the fancy
amused without the trouble of thought. But in every thing which is to
send the soul into herself, to be admonished of her weakness, or to be
made conscious of her power:--wherever life and Nature are described as
operated upon by the creative or abstracting virtue of the imagination;
wherever the instinctive wisdom of antiquity and her heroic passions
uniting, in the heart of the poet, with the meditative wisdom of later
ages, have produced that accord of sublimated humanity, which is at once
a history of the remote past and a prophetic enunciation of the remotest
future, _there_, the poet must reconcile himself for a season to few and
scattered hearers.--Grand thoughts (and Shakspeare must often have
sighed over this truth), as they are most naturally and most fitly
conceived in solitude, so can they not be brought forth in the midst of
plaudits, without some violation of their sanctity. Go to a silent
exhibition of the productions of the Sister Art, and be convinced that
the qualities which dazzle at first sight, and kindle the admiration of
the multitude, are essentially different from those by which permanent
influence is secured. Let us not shrink from following up these
principles as far as they will carry us, and conclude with
observing--that there never has been a period, and perhaps never will
be, in which vicious poetry, of some kind or other, has not excited more
zealous admiration, and been far more generally read, than good; but
this advantage attends the good, that the _individual_, as well as the
species, survives from age to age; whereas, of the depraved, though the
species be immortal, the individual quickly _perishes_; the object of
present admiration vanishes, being supplanted by some other as easily
produced; which, though no better, brings with it at least the
irritation of novelty,--with adaptation, more or less skilful, to the
changing humours of the majority of those who are most at leisure to
regard poetical works when they first solicit their attention.

Is it the result of the whole, that, in the opinion of the Writer, the
judgment of the People is not to be respected? The thought is most
injurious; and, could the charge be brought against him, he would repel
it with indignation. The People have alread