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effects which it did in former periods, which were more favourable to its development,—that, now-a-days the poet, instead of endeavouring to stamp the character of his mind upon his age, must be content to stamp the mind of his age upon his works.

Crabbe, Mr Hazlitt described as the most literal of poets, as detailing the smallest circumstances of the smallest things; as giving the very costume of meanness the none-essentials of the most trifling incident. His pastoral scenes are pricked on paper in little dotted lines. He describes the interior of a cottage like a person sent there to distrain for rent. You know all the little trifling particulars connected with his heroes, and their affairs, as well as they do themselves. He takes an inventory of the human heart as he does of the furniture of a room—his sentiments have the air of fixtures. His characters bear the same relation to life as the stuffed figures in a glass-case do. After farther remarks to this effect, Mr Hazlitt described Crabbe as the only poet who has attempted and succeeded in the still-life of tragedy; he gives the stagnation of hope; the pain of sympathy, without the interest; and seems to rely for the delight he is to convey to his reader on the accuracy with which he describes what is disagreeable.

Mr Hazlitt here made some general observations on pastoral and descriptive poetry, and concluded the lecture by entering at some length into the nature and causes of the pleasure we derive from the external objects connected with a country life. He denied that any of the reasons hitherto given for this interest were adequate to account for it; and added, in one word, that it arises from its abstractedness—that the interest we feel in humanity is exclusive and confined to the individual, while that we derive from external nature is general, and transferable from one object to all others of the same class. We regret that we have not space to follow Mr H. through the original and ingenious arguments and illustrations by which he accompanied this position.

In this lecture Mr Hazlitt proposed to go back to the age of Queen Anne, and give some account of the poets of that period, and up to the present, of whom he had not yet spoken. He described Prior, Swift, and Gay, as the principal poets of that age, next to Pope. Parnell was passed over, as merely an occasional versifier. In this place Mr Hazlitt introduced some remarks on the prose style of the age of Queen Anne, as distinguished from that of the following and the present age; and then proceeded to speak of Prior and Gay. He was of opinion, that Prior had left no single work equal to Gay's Fables, or the Beggar's Opera; but that in his lyrical and fugitive pieces he has shewn more genius, playfulness, and gayety. That no one had surpassed him in the laughing grace, with which he glances at a subject that will not bear looking into; with which he gently hints what cannot be insisted on; with which he conceals and half draws aside the veil from some of the muses' nicest mysteries. His muse tells more than she ought, and knows more than she tells. She laughs at the tricks she shows us, and blushes, or would be thought to blush, at those which she keeps concealed. Mr H. spoke of Prior's translations from Fontaine and Boileau as excellent, but characterised his serious poetry as dull and heavy. Henry and Emma he described as a paraphrase of the old ballad of the Nut-brown Maid, and not so good as the original; but observed, that in all his sentimental and romantic poetry, Prior thwarted his natural genius, and therefore became affected.

Gay, the lecturer described as sometimes grosser than Prior, but his grossness was not mischievous, because it was not seductive. Gay's Fables he praised for their invention, and the elegance and facility of their execution; and then proceeded to speak of the Beggar's Opera as Gay's capital work. Mr Hazlitt considered this work as a master-piece of wit and genius, not to say morality. Gay chose the most unpromising ground to work upon; but he has adorned it with all the graces—the precision and brilliancy of style. So far from being a vulgar play, it is one of the most refined in the language. The elegance of the composition is in exact proportion to the coarseness of the materials. The author has extracted an essence of refinement from the very dregs of human life. He has converted highway-