the reader. They are not devoid of poetry, either in the sentiments or the diction; but they are stiff and inanimate, without the enthusiasm of the loftier ode, or the amenity of the lighter. He has tried a great variety of measures; but some displease by their monotony, while others present changes of length and modulation which have no apparent correspondence with the sense, and add nothing to the melody. Several of them are upon amatory topics, but never was a colder worshipper at the shrine of Venus than Dr. Akenside. He is much more at home in his patriotic strains; and if any thing strikes fire from his bosom, it is the idea of liberty. His Odes to the earl of Huntingdon, and the bishop of Winchester, possess much dignity of sentiment with considerable vigour of expression.

Much happier, in my opinion, in his lyrical performances, is a writer greatly inferior to Akenside in poetical renown, and chiefly known in other walks of literature. This is SMOLLETT, the novelist, historian, and

political

political writer, who has left a few specimens of his powers as a poet, sufficient to inspire regret that he did not cultivate them to a greater extent. His "Tears of Scotland," and "Ode to Leven Water," are pieces of great sentimental and descriptive beauty but his "Ode to Independence" rises to the first rank of compositions of that class. It opens with great spirit, and much fancy is displayed in the parentage and education of the personified subject of the piece. The travels of Independence form a series of animated historical sketches; but it would have been more correct to have included Albion in the track of his peregrinations, than to have made it his birth-place. The concluding stanza, in which the poet lays aside fiction, and draws a sober picture of life and character, gives a fine moral termination to the whole. If excellence is to be judged of by effect, I know few pieces that can be compared to this Ode for the force with which it arrests the reader's attention, and the glow of sentiment

which it inspires. Mason's ode on the same subject appears tame and insipid in the parallel.

I could readily direct you to more compositions of the lyric class, which are by no means rare in English poetry; but those already pointed out will suffice for examples of the various styles and manners adopted by the writers who have most excelled.

If you should have become enamoured with what an humorous writer has called "cloud-capt ode," you may indulge your taste at small expense by turning over a set of old Magazines or Annual Registers, in which you will not fail to find two elaborate compositions of the kind every year, by a person dignified with the poetic laurel. The small advantage this official bard has often derived from his prescribed subject, has put him upon exerting all the powers of his invention to bring in collaterally something worthy of the expectations of his illustrious auditors. And as the office, during the present reign, has been in the possession

possession of men of respectable talents, some very extraordinary efforts have been made to elevate these periodical strains above the mediocrity of former times. I do not, however, seriously recommend to you a course of defunct birth-day odes; it would be too severe a trial of your perseveSufficient for the year are the odes

rance.

of the year.

LETTER XVI.

THE writers to whom you have been lately directed must have made you familiar with that figure to which poetry is so much indebted personification. It is this which by embodying abstract ideas, and giving them suitable attributes and action, has peopled the regions of fancy with a swarm of new beings, ready to be employed in any mode that the invention may suggest. The lyric poets have been satisfied with a slight and transient view of these personages. They usually begin with an invocation, follow it with a genealogy. and portrait, and having paraded their nymph or goddess through a few scenes of business, in which she is in continual danof reverting to a mere quality, finally dismiss her.

ger

Others, however, have not chosen so

readily