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reconciling the interests of a Cathotic country with a Protestant Administration, and the disagreement of the two religious creeds, add every day fresh obstacles to a government already sufficiently controlled in its proceedings.

The progress of knowledge, if in reality it has made any progress, 'has had no influence on the morals of the people, and, perhaps, these two things have nothing in common. The morals of the Bernese are what they were before the Revolution, and, it appears, that the Republic, or rather the heads of the government were never at any period very strict in their principles. It does not appear, since the distant period of 1414, that reform has given to the people many virtues in exchange for their former credulity. Incredulity is no rare thing at Berne, and profligacy is no less common. Few strangers have visited this city and not convinced themselves of the truth of these facts, in that quarter of the town which is built upon the borders of the Aar, where the baths are situated. It is very remarkable, that Berne, which is equal in this respect to the most enlightened Capitals of Europe, produced, perhaps, the first atheist. The author here recollects having read in the works of the celebrated historian Muller, that one Loefeer, who, to use Muller's own words, professed that opinion which is called atheism, was burnt in 1375, at the request of the official of the bishop. When he was conducted to the place of execution, with all the ceremouy usual in such cases, "My friend," said he to the executioner, there is not wood enough;" and he died with the same indifference. What more can the philosophers of the nineteenth century do, says the author, than the freethinkers of the fourteenth have already done!

The author terminates his interesting account of Berne, by a description of the fête celebrated on the anniversary of the battle of Laupen, fought on the 25th of June, 1339. On the eve of the day, the people assemble in a large field, and celebrate, with music and patriotic songs, the annual return of this interesting festival. At the break of day, the whole multitude set off, with the sound of instruments and

shouts of public joy. Children, women, and old men, present the affecting union of every age, as well as every wish, with love of liberty and their country. Even the confusion that necessarily prevails in so large a multitude increases the interest of the spectacle:-no bayonets, which intimidate rather than protect the peaceful citizens, are to be seen: they all walk at their ease, with no other order than what nature prescribes to every age. Flowers are in every hand, and songs in every mouth; and in all this long procession there is but one weapon, the sword, which, in the hands of the hero of Laupen, had dispersed the enemies of the State.

Arrived at the sacred field of battle, after having silently indulged those feelings which it must naturally excite, they assemble round the venerable pastor, whose sacred mouth alone is thought worthy to recount the particulars of the glorious victory. His simple harangue produces a profound impression upon his hearers; and when they hear, for the thousandth time, the details which they learned in their infancy, the emotion of every heart is painted on every face. The sword of Rodolph d'Erlach, carried by the chief of this illustrious house, was raised over the field of battle, that all eyes may behold the instrument of public liberty; and the hand of the pastor crowns it with laurels, in the midst of the acclamations of the people, and every one bows before the trophy of Laupen. Why should these scenes give rise to painful as well as tender emotions? History records, with grief, that some time after the battle of Laupen, when the saviour of Berne retired to his fields, like the Roman Consuls, enjoying the respect of his fellow-citizens, he was assassinated by his son-in-law, with that very sword which was hung on the wall of his apartment; but the stain imprinted on the steel is lost in the splendid renown which has for so many ages attended the fame of the hero of Laupen.

"It is by such fêtes," judiciously observes the author, "celebrated in several parts of Switzerland, that these wise Republicans formerly kept alive the sacred fire of patriotism in the bosom of rising generations; it is by endeavouring

more and more to form such institu-
tions, that their successors may pre-
vent the decay of public spirit. and who assistan
Happy the people," says he, with
great sensibility, "who can found,

upon the wrecks of their ancient
customs, the of new liberties,

at their national fêtes to learn how to honor and cherish their country."

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EXTRACTS FROM THE SUICIDES.

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HER blue lips quivered, and her restless eyes
Was fired with desperation; but the beam,
The radiant beam of beauty, lingered there,
Like sun-shine on the desert; o'er her cheeks
The jetty tresses of her flowing hair

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In loose disorder hung, or, lightly thrown
Across the snowy shoulder, careless lay
On that soft bosom's undulating swell,
Concealing not the loveliness it veiled.
With frenzied action and delirious mien,
She pointed to the clouds and thus began:-
"The Spirit of the Tempest stalks abroad,
Frowning destruction o'er the tortured globe,
Whilst Nature groans in sympathetic horror;
My brain is all on fire-before my eyes
Appalling phantoms dance; shadows of hell,
That have no being, till the busy mind
Bodies them forth in colours all its own.
search the gloom around, but they are thereg. lis 2922narod n
I gaze upon the sky, and they are there; and weghdad
I close my eyes, and cannot shut them out,
For darkness is their element; the mass,
The solid mass, teems with the liquid spirits

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That come and go, and will not be dispelled. ww bluew 201
My soul is sick, and low, and languishing;
Waning in early spring,-darkened ere noon;
Exiled from hope,-the captive of despair.
Oh! for the shadows of eternal night,
To shut me out from being, life, and light,
To quench the fever of exhaustless thought,
That burns, but not consumes.”
Annihilation is the Atheist's heaven;

He seeks no joy beyond this dark terrene,
Where all is barren as the mountain's brow,

Topped with eternal snow; in vain for him

The gospel-promise and the gospel-curse
Allure, alarm. Existence is a boon,

To use it at his will, or cast away;
All weal or woe is undirected chance;

His creed, a blasphemy:-his hope, to rot.
He stops not here (the poor deluded wretch!)
He stops not here, drunk with iniquity
His daring mind arraigns Omnipotence;
Calls Inspiration an invented lie,
And, with delirious fury, madly cries,

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"There is no God!" Thought shudders, Mercy weeps;
E'en bold Impiety recoils aghast

At his apostacy. Say, Godless man!

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IN estimating therefore the relative merits of any poet, we must never take into consideration whether he possesses the wit of Swift, the humour of Smollet, the classical correctness of Pope, the occasional strength and energy of Dryden, the sublimity of Milton, the enthusiasm of Homer, the tenderness of Virgil, the courtly refinement of Horace, the judgment of Quintillian, the elegance of Politian, the fire and rapidity of Ariosto, the simplicity of Fontaine, the navietè of Bruyere, the philosophy of Young, or the luxuriance of Rousseau. The question to be considered in estimating his poetic excellence is, not whether he possesses all these qualities in a high degree, but whether he possess es those particular qualities which properly belong to the design and spirit of his undertaking. To what purpose would we ask whether he possessed the wit of Swift, if the nature of his subject would not suffer him to display it. Every writer imbibes a particular turn or character of mind, from the nature of the studies to which he devotes himself in his youth, while the feelings are, as I have already observed, susceptible of every impression. This cast of mind can never be supplanted by any subsequent studies, because his feelings are not afterwards so pliant in yielding to impressions of any kind. If he read tender and pathetic works, they attune his soul to congenial sympathies, and he rejects ever after through life every thing harsh and offensive to the feelings. The sensible plant is not more instantaneously affected by the touch, than such a person is by coarseness and indelicacy; and, therefore, let critics talk what they please about the versality or universality of genius, such a writer would not excel in a subject which required wit and broad humour, had nature endowed him with the collected intelligence of the human race. No genius will

enable a writer to excel in subjects which do not accord with the spirit which he imbibes from his youthful studies, and therefore the pre-eminence of every writer should be estimated by the degree of excellence, which he has attained in the particular style and line of subjects which have exercised his pen,

It may still be maintained, however, that certain subjects or styles of poetry are more congenial to our feelings than others, and that the poets who write on such subjects should rank before all others. What these subjects or styles are, I do not know, but so far as I do know, I have reason to believe that no such styles or subjects are to be found. What pleases one man, will please another, and another, though not all men; and it is evident, that on whatever subject a person writes, it must be pleasing to him, for if it were not, he would have chosen some other subject. Whatever law of our nature has rendered it pleasing to him, will render it equally so to others, and accordingly we find many prefer the wit of Hudibras, to the philosophy of Blackmore. Every style has its own class of admirers, not that they are insensible to the beauties of other styles, but that they do not find them so congenial to their own taste and genius. When one class, however, stands up and maintains that the style and manner which they admire is superior to all others, and should consequently be preferred to all others, they are only exposing their ignorance at the very moment they affect to be enlightening the world. Every style has its own charms for its own admirers: the feelings and emotions which it awakens in the breast, are those which are most congenial to their natural dispositions: other styles excite other feelings in other minds, and the highest merit of any production is, to call into existence those identical sympathies and affections, which the poet intended to create.

What more can be effected by this particular style which is to exclude all others? Will its admirers maintain its superiority because it pleases them most. The admirers of every other style can make use of the same argument, and therefore every style can be proved best and worst at the same moment. Besides if we cultivate only one style of poetry, we shall have neither poetry nor poets in the course of a century. This effect I believe, has not been anticipated by the most sagacious legis tor in any of our modern schools; but without pretending to the spirit of prophecy, I feel confident that this would be the result. Let us suppose the Lake School were to exclude all others, it is obvious that every person who had not a genius for this species of poetry, should desist from writing altogether, and that our poets would consequently be limited to a very small number. The poetic spirit which is at present communicated from mind to mind, that spirit which is purified by communication, and strengthened by expansion, would, in this case, instantly perish. In whatever style a poet writes, he is continually, though often unconsciously, taking his illustrations, associations, images, sentiments, shade and colouring, from the great poetic spirit which is already abroad and diffused through an endless diversity of styles, and peculiarities of manner. But this diversity would be at an end, this spirit would die of itself, if only one style of poetry were once cultivated. It would not, therefore, be cultivated long, because it would soon lose that peculiarity of manner which characterized it at the moment, being only a certain ramification of the great poetic spirit of the age. This spirit may be aptly compared to a great river, which branches into different directions, and supplies each branch with the waters of its parent stream. none of these branches can exist unless supplied from the main river, so can no particular style or school of poetry exist, that attempts to exist by itself, and that does not draw its strength and vigour from that poetic spirit which is diffused, as I have just observed, through an end less diversity of style and manner.

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If this circumstance, however, could not totally extinguish an exclusive style or school of poetry, it would receive its death blow from another quarter. There can be no poets unless there be readers of poetry, for without readers no one would publish. The readers of poetry, however, would now be so comparatively few, being confined to the mere admirers of the Lake School, that the: sale of poetic works would not defray the expenses of publication, and publishers are too wise to publish at a certain loss. Perhaps it may be said, that the Lake poetry is at present confined to its admirers, and still enriches the publisher and the poet. This however is not the fact: for one real and unaffected admirer of the Lake poetry, there are perhaps ten readers, and consequently ten purchasers. One half of these readers at least, are merely pretended admirers of the Lake School, people who, having no judgment of their own, blindly admire whatever they find admired by such of their friends as appear to have wiser heads than themselves. The other two fifths are probably composed of those who read or purchase all the poeti-" cal productions of the day, some through a laudable curiosity of be coming acquainted with whatever is excellent, and others, through a fear of being found ignorant of any new publication. It is obvious, however, that if the Lake School once became an exclusive one, those who read it at present merely to shew their judg ment in preferring it to all others, would immediately fall off, for as there would remain no opportunity of giving it a preference, there would be no pretension consequently to the exercise of a superior judgment, and no one would continue to read the Lake poetry who did not really admire it.

Though no school of poetry has as yet succeeded in putting down the rest, there is a mistaken opinion, which has, more or less, infected all the schools, or, at least, a portion of each, and this opinion is, I believe, peculiar to the present age, that there must be some certain style of poetry, some certain measure, some > certain manner, some certain class of subjects and of images, superior to all others, and that, consequently,

all others should give way to them. We all seem to forget, that neither style, measure, nor manner, constitutes a particle of the essense of poetry, and that the prosaic form is as capable of being poetic as any measure that can be pointed out. Some writers have gone so far, as to place Ossian at the head of all poetic productions; but to judge of poetry by the squabblings of modern critics, it would not be poetry at all. We must seek for the essence of poetry, therefore, in sentiment, pathos, imagery, delineation, invention, sublimity of conception, &c. And the greatest poet is he who excels in these; not the tame and starched advocate of one unvaried style and manner. In the days of Pope, we hear of no disputes relative to measure, style, and manner, because they had sense enough to perceive, that the best style was that which was most accordant to

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the genius of the poet. In comparing a poem written in hexameter verse with one written in the Ottava rima, no critic thought of preferring one to the other, in consequence of the measure. This was not the criterion by which they estimated poetic pre-eminence. The same observation applies to subject, images, &c. It never once occurred to them, that to appreciate the true merit of a poem, they should take into consideration the subject and images. They did not go thus mechanically to work, for they had not, as yet, invented a scale and compass, by which the merit of all poems what ever might be ascertained at once, without the trouble of judging every poem by laws peculiar to itself. It was, then, imagined, that what constituted the excellence of one poem, was not what constituted the excel lence of another; that each required a treatment, a class of images, a disposition of parts, and a fight and shade, peculiar to itself; and they, consequently, judged it necessary to enter into the design and spirit of the poet, before they could venture to determine its comparative worth. At present, an easier road lies open to the critic: he has only to run over a poem, and see whether the subject be of a romantic character; whether the images be scrupulously and studiously selected from natural Eur. Mag. Vol. 82.

objects; whether it be written in Ottava rima, in the stanza of Spenser, &c.; whether the phraseology possess a certain antiquated form and turn of expression, and a certain infantine simplicity and carelessness of manner, which not only leads us to suppose it was written without the least thought or reflec tion, but inclines us to fall in love with the baby innocence of its author. These matters can be ascer tained in a trice; they may be taught to a child at the age of nine, and, consequently, we can now be better critics at nine, than we could formerly at forty, with the additional advantage of being able to decide the merit of any poetical work, in one-fortieth of the time.

It would be an insult to the intellectual character of the present age, to prove, that our modern poetic scales and compasses tend only to the perversion of true taste and sound judgment, and that the critic who would confine a great genius to the stanza of Spenser, or to any other stanza, to subjects, images, styles and measures of a certain character, is actually labouring to complete this perversion. Every school of poetry is, therefore, a nuisance, because they all draw certain lines around them, beyond which the poet must not venture his excursive flight. It is useless, however, to prescribe laws to the poet. Of all men, he pays least obedience to the precept,

hither shalt thou go, and no farther." He wanders wherever imagination solicits his presence: he tramples under foot every obstacle which impedes his career; he wings his majestic flight beyond the niggard empalement within which critical sagacity would confine his flight. Ocean is only a drop, and the earth a speck in the immensity of his creation; and if even space had bounds, he would spurn its empalement, and explore new regions of" untried being." The poet, who exults in the security of his own strength, either laughs at or pities the solemn gravity and affected wisdom of those who write receipts how poems may be made." A mechanical critic, prescribing laws to a poet, is like an apothecary pres scribing medicine to a physician. The apothecary has only one receipt

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