ous melanchimous
Echousan.~
Eurip. Phoeniss. ver. 369.

22 "But staid to sing alone
33 To one distinguish'd throne."

The poet cuts off the prevalence of simplicity among the Romans with the
reign of Augustus; and, indeed, it did not continue much longer, most of
the compositions, after that date, giving into false and artificial
ornament.

"No more, in hall or bower,
The passions own thy power,
Love, only love, her forceless numbers mean."

In these lines the writings of the Provencal poets are principally
alluded to, in which simplicity is generally sacrificed to the
rhapsodies of romantic love.

ODE ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER.

Procul! O! procul este profani!

This ode is so infinitely abstracted and replete with high enthusiasm,
that it will find few readers capable of entering into the spirit of it,
or of relishing its beauties. There is a style of sentiment as utterly
unintelligible to common capacities, as if the subject were treated in
an unknown language; and it is on the same account that abstracted
poetry will never have many admirers.

The authors of such poems must be content with the approbation of those
heaven-favoured geniuses, who, by a similarity of taste and sentiment,
are enabled to penetrate the high mysteries of inspired fancy, and to
pursue the loftiest flights of enthusiastic imagination. Nevertheless,
the praise of the distinguished few is certainly preferable to the
applause of the undiscerning million; for all praise is valuable in
proportion to the judgment of those who confer it.

As the subject of this ode is uncommon, so are the style and expression
highly metaphorical and abstracted: thus the sun is called "the
rich-hair'd youth of morn," the ideas are termed "the shadowy tribes of
mind," &c. We are struck with the propriety of this mode of expression
here, and it affords us new proofs of the analogy that subsists between
language and sentiment.

Nothing can be more loftily imagined than the creation of the cestus of
Fancy in this ode: the allegorical imagery is rich and sublime: and the
observation, that the dangerous passions kept aloof during the
operation, is founded on the strictest philosophical truth: for poetical
fancy can exist only in minds that are perfectly serene, and in some
measure abstracted from the influences of sense.

The scene of Milton's "inspiring hour" is perfectly in character, and
described with a