the passions. His diction is characterized by a rough vigour, which compensates, by its perspicuity and force for its want of grace and harmony. His allusions and illustrations are apt and frequent. His descriptions of natural scenery picturesque and impressive, but they are redolent of the dust of the library, rather than of the pure breezes of Heaven. He was throughout the poet of the closet. There was a constraint and an artificiality in all his movements. His life vibrated between Oxford and Winchester, the associations of those two ancient and interesting cities were in unison with his predilections; and while meditating his measured music, his eye wandered from the distant mountain to linger on the old cathedral. When he transferred his impressions to the page, he trusted too little to his own powers of originality. He endeavoured to describe, as he fancied, his favourite Spenser or Milton would have done; and thus, though his genius was too great to allow him to sink into the mere copyist or imitator, he fell short of the position his powers justify us in thinking he might otherwise have attained. Yet his intimate knowledge of the customs of the middle ages, gives at times a variety to his page that looks like life, and we can almost catch the fluttering of that gorgeous mantle which Sir Walter Scott afterwards wore with such natural ease and grace.
To his principal work the "History of English Poetry," it is unnecessary to make further reference. It has found a permanent place in every English library. Its extensive and varied research, its perspicuous style, and the complete mastery of the subject discernible throughout, have rendered it a text-book to the student of our older literature. The labour necessary for such a work must have been long and severe. He had to grope his way through the dark bye-paths of a forgotten land, without any ancillary aid. He had first to discover the quarry, and then hew
