83
These verses appeal so forcibly from every rule of methodized style or thinking, to a new-born, natural, and vigorous artlessness, that it would be both unjust and impertinent to consider them as subjects of criticism. Yet a remark or two, for the purpose of elucidation, will scarcely be censured as superfluous, since the operations and progress of his mind cannot be supposed to lie so much open to the reader of these pages, as they had long done to the close inspection of the writer.
The subject of the opening lines is poetical. The thoughts, as far as this descriptive strain extends, are for the most part clothed in appropriate diction and harmonious numbers. As he proceeds, he glides imperceptibly into a more didactic style. Here, it must be confessed, he often loses sight of the poet; and relapses so nearly into prose, as only now and then to retain any portion of rhythm. Yet even to the last, though wearied and exhausted with so
