enchanting and unintelligible. As it happens to many frequenters of the Opera, the music always transports, but the words are not always understood." I then desired my friend to gratify us with the first book of the Pleasures of Imagination.

Sir John is a passionate lover of poetry, in which he has a fine taste. He read it with much spirit and feeling, especially these truly classical lines,

Mind, mind alone, (bear witness earth and heaven!) The living fountain in itself contains

:

Of beauteous and sublime here hand in hand
Sit paramount the graces; here enthroned
Celestial Venus with divinest airs
Invites the soul to never-fading joy.

"The reputation of this exquisite passage," said he, laying down the book, "is established by the consenting suffrage of all men of taste, though by the critical countenance you are beginning to put on, you look as if you had a mind to attack it."

"So far from it," said I, "that I know nothing more splendid in the whole mass of our poetry. And I feel almost guilty of high treason against the majesty of the sublimer muses, in the remark I am going to hazard, on the celebrated lines which follow. The poet's object, through this and the two following pages, is to establish the infinite superiority of mind over unconscious matter, even in its fairest forms. The idea is as just as the execution is beautiful: so also is his supreme elevation of intellect, over

Greatness of bulk, or symmetry of parts.

Nothing again can be finer than his subsequent preference of

The powers of genius and design,

over even the stupendous range

Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres.

He proceeds to ransack the stores of the mental and the moral world, as he had done the world of matter, and with a pen dipped in Hippocrene, opposes to the latter,

The charms of virtuous friendship, &c.

*

*

The candid blush

Of him who strives with fortune to be just.

The graceful tear that streams for others' woes."

66 Why, Charles," said Sir John, “I am glad to find you the enthusiastic eulogist of the passage of which I suspected you were about to be the saucy censurer."

"Censure," replied I," is perhaps too strong a term for any part, especially the most admired part of this fine poem. I need not repeat the lines on which I was going to risk a slight observation; they live in the mind and memory of every lover of the Muses."

"I will read the next passage, however," said Sir John," that I may be better able to controvert your criticism :

Look then abroad through nature, to the range
Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres,
Wheeling unshaken through the void immense,
And speak, O man! does this capacious scene
With half that kindling majesty dilate
Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose
Refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar's fate
Amid the crowd of patriots, and his arm
Aloft extending, like eternal Jove

When guilt brings down the thunder, called aloud
On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel,
And bade the father of his country hail;
For lo! the tyrant prostrate on the dust,
And Rome again is free!

"What a grand and powerful passage Sir John.

!" said

"I acknowledge it," said I, "but is it as just as it is grand? Le vrai est le seul beau. Is it a fair and direct opposition between mind and matter? The poet could not have expressed the image more nobly, but might he not, out of the abundant treasures of his opulent mind, have chosen it with more felicity? Is an act of murder, even of a usurper, as happily contrasted with the organization of matter, as the other beautiful instances I named, and which he goes on to select? The superiority of mental beauty is the point he is establishing, and his elaborate preparation leads you to expect all his other instances to be drawn from pure mental excellence. His other exemplifications are general, this is particular. They are a class, this is only a variety. I question if Milton, who was at least as ardent a champion for liberty, and as much of a party-man as Akenside, would have used this illustration. Milton, though he often insinuates a political stroke in his great poem, always, I think, generalizes. Whatever had been his principles, or at whatever period he had written, I question, when he wanted to describe the overthrow of authority by the rebel angels, if he would have illustrated it by Cromwell's seizing the mace, or the decapitation of Charles. Much less, if he would have selected those two instances as the triumph of mind over matter."

"But," said Sir John, "you forget that Akenside professedly adopts the language of Cicero in his second Philippic." He then read the note beginning with, Cæsare interfecto, &c.

"True," said I, "I am not arguing the matter as a point of fact, but as a point of just application. I pass over the comparison of Brutus with Jove, which by the way would have become Tully better than Akenside, but which Tully would have perhaps thought too bold. Cicero adorns his oration with this magnificent description. He relates it as an event, the other uses it as an illustration of that

to which I humbly conceive it does not exactly apply. The orator paints the violent death of a hero; the poet adopts the description of this violent death, or rather of the stroke which caused it, to illustrate the perfection of intellectual grandeur. After all, it is as much a party question as a poetical one. A question on which the critic will be apt to be guided in his decision by his politics rather than by his taste. The splendour of the passage, however, will inevitably dazzle the feeling reader, till it produce the common effect of excessive brightness, that of somewhat blinding the beholder."

CHAP. IX.

WHILE we were thus pleasantly engaged, the servant announced Mrs. Fentham; and a fashionable looking woman, about the middle of life, rather youthfully drest, and not far from handsome, made her appearance. Instead of breaking forth into the usual modish jargon, she politely entered into the subject in which she found us engaged; envied Lady Belfield the happiness, of elegant quiet, which she herself might have been equally enjoying at her own house, and professed herself a warm admirer of poetry. She would probably have professed an equal fondness for metaphysics, geometry, military tactics, or the Arabic language, if she had happened to have found us employed in the study of either.

From poetry the transition to painting was easy and natural. Mrs. Fentham possessed all the phraseology of connoisseurship, and asked me if was fond of pictures. I professed the delight I took in them in strong, that is, in true terms. She politely said, that Mr. Fentham had a very tolerable collection of the best masters, and particularly a Titian, which she would be happy to have the honour of showing me next morning. I bowed

my thankful assent; she appointed the hour, and soon after, looking at her watch, said she was afraid she must leave the delights of such a select and interesting society, for a far less agreeable party.

When she was gone, I expressed my obligations to her politeness, and anticipated the pleasure I should have in seeing her pictures. "She is much more anxious that you should see her Originals," said Lady Belfield, smiling; "the kindness is not quite disinterested; take care of your heart." Sir John, rather gravely, said, "It is with reluctance that I ever say any thing to the prejudice of any body that I receive in my house; but as the son of my valued friend, I think it fair to tell you that this vigilant matron keeps a keen Jook-out after all young men of fortune. This is not the first time that that Titian has been made the bait to catch a promising acquaintance. Indeed it is now grown so stale, that had you not been a new man, she would hardly have risked it. If you had happened not to like painting, some book would have been offered you. The return of a book naturally brings on a visit. But all these devices have not yet answered. The damsels still remain, like Shakspeare's plaintive maid, “in single blessedness." They do not, however, like her, spend gloomy nights

Chanting cold hymns to the pale, lifeless moon, but in singing sprightlier roundelays to livelier auditors."

I punctually attended the invitation, effectually shielded from danger by the friendly intimation, and a still more infallible Egis, the charge of my father never to embark in any engagement till I had made my visit to Mr. Stanley. My veneration for his memory operated as a complete defence.

I saw and admired the pictures. The pictures brought on an invitation to dinner. I found Mrs.