e true knowledge and
love of him. Our admiration of them does not lessen our relish for him;
but, on the contrary, increases and confirms it.--For such an
extraordinary combination and development of fancy and genius many causes
may be assigned; and we may seek for the chief of them in religion, in
politics, in the circumstances of the time, the recent diffusion of
letters, in local situation, and in the character of the men who adorned
that period, and availed themselves so nobly of the advantages placed
within their reach.

I shall here attempt to give a general sketch of these causes, and of the
manner in which they operated to mould and stamp the poetry of the country
at the period of which I have to treat; independently of incidental and
fortuitous causes, for which there is no accounting, but which, after all,
have often the greatest share in determining the most important results.

The first cause I shall mention, as contributing to this general effect,
was the Reformation, which had just then taken place. This event gave a
mighty impulse and increased activity to thought and inquiry, and agitated
the inert mass of accumulated prejudices throughout Europe. The effect of
the concussion was general; but the shock was greatest in this country. It
toppled down the full-grown, intolerable abuses of centuries at a blow;
heaved the ground from under the feet of bigotted faith and slavish
obedience; and the roar and dashing of opinions, loosened from their
accustomed hold, might be heard like the noise of an angry sea, and has
never yet subsided. Germany first broke the spell of misbegotten fear, and
gave the watch-word; but England joined the shout, and echoed it back with
her island voice, from her thousand cliffs and craggy shores, in a longer
and a louder strain. With that cry, the genius of Great Britain rose, and
threw down the gauntlet to the nations. There was a mighty fermentation:
the waters were out; public opinion was in a state of projection. Liberty
was held out to all to think and speak the truth. Men's brains were busy;
their spirits stirring; their hearts full; and their hands not idle. Their
eyes were opened to expect the greatest things, and their ears burned with
curiosity and zeal to know the truth, that the truth might make them free.
The death-blow which had been struck at scarlet vice and bloated
hypocrisy, loosened their tongues, and made the talismans and love-tokens
of Popish superstition, with