ong truths most forcibly expressed.
Cowper sometimes carries simplicity to the verge of being prosaic; but
he is generally graceful, often pathetic, and sometimes approaches to
sublimity. Of both, it was the common object to increase the influence
of genuine Christianity; of both, the perusal has a direct tendency to
make you a better and a more religious man.

Two of our most distinguished living poets--Sir Walter Scott and
Southey--have seen their poetry cast into shade by the popularity of
their own prose. The poems of both will live, and have justice done them
by posterity. "Madoc" was many years ago recommended to me by one of the
most able, and most candid, of our living authors. I read it with much
interest. "The Curse of Kehama" is full of high and wild poetry; and
"Roderick, the last of the Goths" gives a noble picture of deep
penitence and of devoted patriotism. You will hardly read any ten lines
of the longer poems of Sir Walter Scott, without meeting with some
striking beauty of expression or of sentiment.

I am afraid, however, that the English poets, both those of former times
and those of the present day, have been, in great measure, superseded,
among you young Oxonians, by Lord Byron. In almost every
under-graduate's room that I happen to enter, _he_ seems to have taken
possession. Lord Byron, as a poet, has certainly many transcendant
merits,--merits which are peculiarly fascinating to young men. The
interest which I,--which _every one_,--naturally must feel in the moral
and intellectual habits and pursuits of such an important portion of the
community, makes me deeply lament the noble poet's excessive popularity
among you. I am perfectly aware, that by the following remarks I shall
expose myself to the indignation of some men, and, possibly, to the
contempt of others: but I feel that my opinion on this subject is not
taken up on slight grounds; and I _must say my say_.

The publication of Lord Byron's life and correspondence has contributed,
a good deal, to divest him of that mystery, which hung about him, and in
which he himself so much delighted; and has brought him down rather
more to the level of ordinary mortals. They show him to us as a man
possessed of splendid talents, of extensive and various attainments, and
of the _seeds_ of many noble and generous qualities; but as a man
actuated by ungovernable passions, and by an overweening opinion of his
own superiority to all other mortals. _Self_, w