visionary Coleridge, who
Did sweep his thoughts as angels do
Their wings, with cadence up the Blue."

"Homer" we are not sure about; we can only hope that there may be people
whom the picture will please. "Shakspeare" is good. "AEschylus" (Miss
Barrett's favourite, too,) is treated very scurvily and very
ungrammatically. What on earth are we to make of the words "the women
swooned to see so awful" &c.? It is well known that no pregnant woman
could look AEschylus in the face when the fit of inspiration was on him,
without having cause to regret her indiscretion. But though delicacy
might have dictated that this fact should be only barely hinted at,
surely grammar need not have miscarried in the statement. The syntax of
the passage will puzzle future commentators as much as some of his own
corrupt choruses. "Euripides" promises well; but the expression, "Right
in the classes," throws our intellect completely on its beam-ends; and
as we cannot right it again, in order to take a second glance at the
poet of Medea, we must pass on to the next. "Sophocles" will be
acceptable to scholars. "Hesiod" is excellent. "Cared most for _gods and
bulls_" is worth any money. "Pindar" and "Sappho" are but so so. The
picture of "Theocritus" is very beautiful. There is nothing particularly
felicitous in the sketch of "Aristophanes." How much more graphic is
what Milton, in one of his prose works, says with respect to the "holy
Chrysostom's" study of the same. Chrysostom, it seems, was a great
student of Aristophanes. Some people might have been, and no doubt were,
scandalized to think that so pious a father of the church should have
made a bosom companion of so profane and virulent a wit: but says
Milton, the holy father was quite right in poring over Aristophanes, for
"_he had the art to cleanse a scurrilous vehemence into the style of a
rousing sermon_." Put that into verse and it would ring well. We thank
Miss Barrett for the graphic touch of Virgil's "brown bees," which
certainly _are_ better than his gods. "Lucretius" is very finely
painted. "Ossian" looms large through the mist, but walk up to him, and
the pyramid is but a cairn. "Spenser" and "Ariosto," with their locks
blended in one, compose a very sweet picture. "Dante" we will not answer
for. "Goethe" is a perfect enigma. What does the word "fell" mean?
[Greek: deinos], we suppose--that is, "not to be trifled with." But
surely it sounds very strange, although it may be tr