After these, the modern sonnet sounds somewhat tame: Soul-cheering warmth-a spicy air serene— In general gladness hail the blessed light— If these be joys-such joys the Morn is ever bringing. ANON. EVENING has formed the subject of one of Collins' most finished If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, May hope, O pensive Eve, to soothe thine ear Like thy own modest springs, Thy springs, and dying gales; O nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun With brede ethereal wove, O'erhang his wavy bed: Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat, His small but sullen horn, As oft he rises midst the twilight path, To breathe some softened strain, Whose numbers stealing through thy darkening vale As musing slow I hail Thy genial loved return! For when thy folding star arising shows Who slept in buds the day, And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, The pensive pleasures sweet, Prepare thy shadowy ear. Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene, By thy religious gleams. Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain, Views wilds and swelling floods, And hamlets brown, and dim discovered spires, The gradual dusky veil. While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves; And rudely rends thy robes; So long, regardful of thy quiet rule, Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace, Thy gentlest influence own, And love thy favourite name. Byron sings the evening of Italian skies: The Moon is up, and yet it is not night- COLLINS. Of glory streams along the alpine height While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest A single star is at her side, and reigns Which streams upon her stream, and glassed within it glows, Filled with the face of heaven, which from afar Comes down upon the waters; all its hues, From the rich sunset to the rising star, Their magical variety diffuse : And now they change; a paler shadow strews imbues The last still loveliest, till-'tis gone-and all is grey. BYRON. Brilliant as. these stanzas are, the older poets have a more natural charm-to our tastes: VOL. I. Look, the world's comforter, with weary gait, Shepherds all, and maidens fair, SHAKSPERE. P P 'Gins to thicken, and the sun Of these pastures, where they come And let your dogs lie loose without, Of our great God. Sweetest slumbers, FLETCHER. 89.-WHAT IS POETRY? LEIGH HUNT. [WE could not close this first Volume of Half-Hours with the Best Authors' at all satisfactorily, if we did not give an extract from the writings of one of the most original and fascinating of English prose writers-one, also, who has won an enduring station amongst English poets. Leigh Hunt, the son of a West Indian who came to England and took orders in the Church, was born in 1784. He was educated at Christ's Hospital. As early as 1805 he was a writer of theatrical criticism in his brother's paper, 'The News;'-in 1808 the brothers established the Examiner'-a weekly paper which surpassed all its then contemporaries in ability and taste. In those days it was almost impossible for a public writer to speak out; and Leigh Hunt had to expiate a sarcasm upon the Prince Regent by two years' imprisonment. Mr. Hunt's subsequent connection with Lord Byron was not a fortunate one; and we are inclined to think that in future literary history most honest sympathies will be with the plebeian asserting his independence as a brother in letters, instead of with the patrician,— heartless and insolent,-a declaimer for liberty but in practice a tyrant. Mr. Hunt, who has borne much adversity with a cheerfulness beyond all praise, writes as freshly and brilliantly as ever. Long may those unfailing spirits which are the delight of his social and family circle be the sunshine of his old age. The following extract is from a delightful volume, published in 1847, entitled, Selections from the English Poets-Imagination and Fancy.' 6 If a young reader should ask, after all, What is the best way of knowing bad poets from good, the best poets from the next best, and so on? the answer is, the only and twofold way; first, the perusal of the best poets with the greatest attention; and second, the cultivation of that love of truth and beauty which made them what they are. Every true reader of poetry partakes a more than ordinary portion of the poetic nature; and no one can be completely such, who does not love, or take an interest in every thing that interests the poet, from the firmament to the daisy-from the highest heart of man, to the most pitiable of the low. It is a good practice to read with pen in hand, marking what is liked or doubted. It rivets the attention, realizes the greatest amount of enjoyment, and facilitates reference. It |