s the great assayer of the
sterling ore of talent. At his touch the drossy particles fall off, the
irritable, the personal, the gross, and mingle with the dust--the finer
and more ethereal part mounts with the winged spirit to watch over our
latest memory, and protect our bones from insult. We consign the least
worthy qualities to oblivion, and cherish the nobler and imperishable
nature with double pride and fondness. Nothing could show the real
superiority of genius in a more striking point of view than the idle
contests and the public indifference about the place of Lord Byron's
interment, whether in Westminster Abbey or his own family-vault. A king
must have a coronation--a nobleman a funeral-procession.--The man is
nothing without the pageant. The poet's cemetery is the human mind, in
which he sows the seeds of never-ending thought--his monument is to be
found in his works:

"Nothing can cover his high fame but Heaven;
No pyramids set off his memory,
But the eternal substance of his greatness."

Lord Byron is dead: he also died a martyr to his zeal in the cause of
freedom, for the last, best hopes of man. Let that be his excuse and his
epitaph!

XVI

ON POETRY IN GENERAL

The best general notion which I can give of poetry is, that it is the
natural impression of any object or event, by its vividness exciting an
involuntary movement of imagination and passion, and producing, by
sympathy, a certain modulation of the voice, or sounds, expressing it.

In treating of poetry, I shall speak first of the subject-matter of it,
next of the forms of expression to which it gives birth, and afterwards of
its connection with harmony of sound.

Poetry is the language of the imagination and the passions. It relates to
whatever gives immediate pleasure or pain to the human mind. It comes home
to the bosoms and businesses of men; for nothing but what so comes home to
them in the most general and intelligible shape, can be a subject for
poetry. Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature
and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for
himself, or for any thing else. It is not a mere frivolous accomplishment,
(as some persons have been led to imagine) the trifling amusement of a few
idle readers or leisure hours--it has been the study and delight of
mankind in all ages. Many people suppose that poetry is something to be
found only in books, contained in lines of t