English poetry, and admire the Spenser that rekindled the lamp when poesy grew dim. We have pleasure in the Sackville that shed the dawn on the Elizabethan era, when arose the glorious suit, Shakspeare, the "man of a thousand souls." With what pleasure do we read the works of those who hold a place in the solar system of poesy around the Bard of Avon, and with what delight do we strive to give our favourites a place in the firmament of literature, to rank them next to Shakspeare. Some take Milton, "whose richly jewelled and majestic prose alone would raise him to a lofty rank among the Raleighs and the Bacons, the Taylors and the Gibbons of our English tongue, and whose song," writes Macaulay, "so sublime and so holy that it would not misbecome the lips of those ethereal Virtues whom he saw with that inner eye, which no calamity could darken, flinging down on the jasper pavement their crowns of amaranth and gold." Some delight in the author of "Hudibras," and place him prince and paramount of English burlesque. Some praise their Dryden, and endorse Samuel Johnson's statement that "Dryden found English poetry brick and left it marble," while they are compelled to throw the dramatic filth that dims his laurels to the dunghill. Others take up Pope, the prince of the artificial school, and claim for him a place of infallibility. We admire the beautiful hymns of Isaac Watts, that have made his name familiar in every family. With pleasure we make mention of Allan Ramsay, whose "Gentle Shepherd" is the finest Scottish Pastoral Drama ever written, nor shall we forget Robert Blair's fine blank verse poem, "The Grave." Some delight in Thomson, the author of "The Seasons," and admire "the fat and lazy poet" who wrote the "The Castle of Indolence," which is considered his finest piece of literary workmanship. Some have a great appreciation of Gray, who is best known by his famous "Elegy," and say, with Cowper, that he is "the only poet since Shakspeare entitled to the character of the Sublime whilst others side with Johnson, and "don't think Gray a first-rate poet." Some delight in the gentle-hearted Goldsmith, and, with Bishop Percy, speak of his "elegant and enchanting style," and say with poor dying Gray, when he heard "The Deserted Village" read at Malvern, "That man is a poet," whilst others call him, as did Warton, "the first of solemn coxcombs," or "an inspired idiot," as did Horace Walpole. We have Shenstone, who has written the finest specimen of the English Pastoral Ballad, and we must make mention of the Wartons, Mark Akenside, Edward Young, Beattie, Churchill, McPherson—the Scottish Chatterton as he is sometimes called—who gave Ossian's Poems to the world, and Thomas Chatterton, "the marvellous boy that perished in his pride." There are those who are enraptured with the muse of Moore, whose crown is a circlet of shining gems, but allowed to have much of the drawing-room sheen about them. While some would claim Scotland's wreath for Scott, the picturesque painter in words, the poet of chivalry and romance, others give the title of
Scotland's National Bard to Robert Burns, the peasant in "hodden
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