It is thus that, by filling up what are mere outlines in the Hebraic poetry, Milton, through the whole course of the Paradise Lost, proves that amplification may be, and yery frequently is, the leading excellence of poetry, and that the poetry of a much later day can do more than approach the acknowledged excellence of the Hebrew bards.

I was beyond measure astonished at the Professor's note, vol. ii. p. 242, upon the sublime exclamation of David, sung in chorus, by the priests and Levites, when the ark had arrived at the top of Mount Sinai :

"Lift up your heads, O ye gates! and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in !"

With a literality most miserably groveling, does this annotator endeavour to extract all the noble enthusiasm from this soul-exalting address-first, by changing the word everlasting to ancient; and then by telling us that the real meaning of the passage is, "The gates, which were mean and narrow before, and unworthy of Jehovah, should be heightened and extended." The plain sense of which intepretation is, "send for the carpenter to widen the door-place, or the ark will never get in."

But if, in general, I do not think Professor

Michaelis, by any means a just or feeling decider upon the constituent excellencies of poetry, I am charmed by his historic and geographic elucidations of several parts of our Bible, particularly with those in the first volume, which commence page 140.

A note of your's entirely does away his conclusion upon the imaginary astronomic ignorance of the Hebrew bards, drawn from their poetry being so little stellar. The stars are certainly too monotonous in their appearance to form a fruitful resource of poetic imagery.

Amongst a number of Mr Henly's admirable notes, I am particularly pleased with the sensible comments upon Virgil's eclogue to Pollio. Most rationally do they account for the similarity of its passages to the prophecies of our Saviour, and for their being applied to the expected, though yet unborn son of Augustus, which, unfortunately for the poet and his prophecy, proved a daughter. The Bishop, however, seems to lean to the strange fancy of some enthusiasts, that Virgil was writing he knew not what, about he knew not whom, which proved an unconscious inspiration from the true God, shadowing forth the birth of the Messiah, and the blessings of his reign.

Your poetic translation of the 42d psalm is eminently beautiful yet I think you will agree with

me, that, in general, our prayer-book translation of those Hebraic hymns, I mean the reading one, unfettered by rhyme and measure, is the best vehicle for the bold, sublime, yet wild ideas, and shadowy, rather than distinct resemblances, of the Jewish lyrists. To have put the whole of Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Job, or their twin spirit in poetry, Ossian, into measure, and especially if rhyme were added, would have been as injudicious as to drape the Pharneze Hercules, or the Apollo Belvidere. The graceful flow of the vestments could not have recompensed the inevitable diminution of strength and elegance, resulting from an injudicious attempt to increase them.

But your version, mentioned above, has acquired heightened beauty by the change, and I often repeat to myself two of its lines,

"Say where is now thy great deliverer fled,
Thy mighty God, deserted wanderer, where?"

The repetition of those harmonious and pathetic lines towards the close, has a sweet effect.

David's lamentation over Saul and Jonathan, makes a fine poem in verse-yet I think it wholly impossible, that it should not, beneath any hand, however masterly, lose much of its grace and spirit, from the restrictions of measure and rhyme.

Over that lamentation I am inclined to echo the Bishop, and say, that it is, as given in our Bible, above all other poetry, pathetic and sublime.

Self-love and gratitude will here intrude their acknowledgements, that my muse never received such distinguishing honour as you have done her in this work, by complimenting the exordium to Cook's Elegy, with a nearer approach to that matchless lamentation, than any thing you have seen in modern composition;—and also by placing the exordium to the Monody on André amongst the selected instances of excellence in the Prosopopeia.

I am delighted with your notes on the 5th lecture, which commence page 106—and which so ably demonstrate the fallacy of that rule by which our periodical critics, with Midas-like decision, condemn beautiful passages in the poets of this day, viz. that metaphoric language is not natural, when the mind is agitated. They persist in this stupidly false assertion, though daily experience might shew them, if they were capable of observation, that the most unlettered ignorance speaks in metaphor when heated by anger, or pierced by affliction. Nothing can be more true than your observation, that" the associating principle is the source of all figurative language, and that the greatest excess of figurative language, the hyber

bole, requires impassioned situations to preserve it from producing coldness in the style by the very attempt to give it warmth."

But if I were to descant upon all the critical notes to this work which are signed T., and which have pleased and instructed me, my letter, already too long, would be voluminous indeed. The path in which I dissent from you has a very limited extent, though its opposition is total.-It is on the subject of Sterne. I throw down my warder, but, if you please, the day of combat shall be a little time hence; till when, repose upon your laurels !

LETTER LXXX.

GEORGE HARDINGE, Esq.

Lichfield, Nov. 21, 1787.

YOUR epigram from Martial is elegant; yet, I confess, the idea seems to me not expressed with sufficient clearness; if indeed it is meant that not duration, but a certain character in friendship proves it genuine.