ed upon those circumstances
that tend to make the desired impression, and rejected all others. How
perfect are each of the following descriptions, and how much would their
beauty be marred by the transfer of a single circumstance from one to the
other:

'How often have I paused on every charm,
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm;
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
The decent church that topped the neighb'ring hill;
The hawthorn-bush with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made.

* * * * *

'The dancing pair that simply sought renown,
By holding out to tire each other down;
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,
While secret laughter tittered round the place;
The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love,
The matron's glance, that would those looks reprove.

* * * * *

'No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
But choked with sedges works its weedy way;
Along thy glade, a solitary guest,
The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies,
And tires the echoes with unvaried cries;
Sunk are thy bowers, in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall.'

It is by the selection of such objects as have in themselves no common
bond of union, but which combine to raise a certain emotion, that the
essential distinction is to be found between the descriptions of the poet
and the prose-writer. The latter joins objects together as they are joined
in nature, following a principle of association which is simple and
obvious. His resemblances are usually such as are cognizable by the
senses; a likeness in the sensible qualities of things. The poet's
principle of association is in the effect produced on his imagination.
Things which have not in themselves a single point of similarity, are
connected together, because they produce the same emotions of pleasure, or
pain, or hope, or melancholy. A beautiful illustration of this is found in
the opening stanzas of Gray's Elegy:

'The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant fo