It was fashionable in the latter days of Darwin, and in the early days of Southey, to speak lightly of the productions of Pope. The criticks found that he had sometimes indulged his resentments in the Dunciad, and doomed several characters to infamy who deserved a better fate. The small fry of authors who wished to hide their feebleness in the extravagancies of sentiment then becoming popular by the influence of the French Revolution, and the influx of German literature, which had not been well examined, nor the chaff separated from the wheat, supported by a few men of genius, who had taken up some erroneous impressions on the canons of poetry, did, for a while, obscure the fame of Pope; and it seemed, for a season, that he would at length be found in his own Dunciad. They attacked him as a writer wanting in variety and genius, and boldly called his morals in question. The clouds which obscured his brightness did not last long, but were soon dispersed, and his genius beamed in its ancient majesty. Byron would yield to no one in his reverence of Pope: and almost all the present poets of England, who are the arbiters of taste, have come into the opinion that Pope was a genius and a poet, such as it is seldom the good fortune of nations to produce.

This may be said to be an age of poetry. There are many living writers whose works have secured them wealth and fame, while they were able to enjoy it. Southey's muse has brought forth epicks as common songs; and Scott, before he commenced the Waverly novels, produced Marmion, the Lay of the Last Minstrel, Rokeby, the Lady of the Lake, and the Vision of Don Roderick, with other pieces, in quick succession. Byron from his boyhood never laid aside his pen until the wrongs of Greece seized his heart. Childe Harold, the Corsair, the Gaiour, the Bride of Abydos, Cain, and Don Juan, followed each other as rapidly as the French legions which crossed the Alps with Napoleon. Montgomery, Coleridge, Crabbe, and Moore, have been busy. The polished Campbell, and the Shakspearian Baillie, have not been idle.

The poets of our own country have had these fine models before them; and they have shown the world that they have profited by being in such a school. There is at present much talent, ambition, and information among our poets, and they are getting rid of the ridiculous impressions which have long been prevalent, that genius is every thing, and information nothing, in making a poet. The prophets of old had to build the altar, and lay on it the wood, before they called the fire from heaven to kindle the flame and burn the offering.

My intention, at first, was to have mentioned many of our living poets; two only have I named, Freneau and Trumbull, and these

patriotick bards are so near, in the course of nature, to the confines of a better world, that I felt no reluctance to speak of them; but on mature reflection, I gave up the thought of bringing forward any more, fearing that it would be premature to discuss their merits in a work like this, as a fair criticism on these would be in a measure making comparisons between them. I have no hesitation in saying, that we abound in good poets, whose writings will remain to make up the literature of a future age; nor would I yield my admiration for their productions to others who are prodigal of praise whenever their works appear; but at this time I am not prepared to say whether Pierpont or Bryant be the greater poet, or whether Percival has higher claims to immortality than his brethren of the " enchanted grounds and holy dreams;" nor whether she of "the banks of the Connecticut," whose strains of poetick thought are as pure and lovely as the adjacent wave touched by the sanctity of a Sabbath's morn, be equal to her tuneful sisters, Hemans and Landor, on the other side of the water, or superiour to her more sprightly rivals on this.

When all classes were busy in building up our national and state governments, the fine arts were neglected; and a few only knew how necessary the cultivation of them was to refine and polish a nation. Even in England, until within half a century, any devotion to them was considered inconsistent with weighty duties. Windham, Talbot, Murray, and Pulteney, "every muse gave o’er," before they entered the temple of justice, and assumed the causes of their clients; and Blackstone dropt a tear at parting with his muse at the vestibule of Westminster Hall. Parsons, of our own country, as great a name as either, who thought that he was made more decidedly for a poet than for any other calling, confined himself to writing a few occasional pieces, generally on some merry-making occurrence, not venturing to trust himself further; while he read with avidity every line that was published on this, or the other side of the Atlantick, in English, French, Italian, or Latin. It is not so now; it is thought quite possible to devote a few hours of relaxation from severe studies to the fine arts, without any fear of being seduced from graver duties. Opinions and taste are changed in many other respects. The good household dames of other days would have turned shuddering from the sight of Cupids, and Venuses, and Graces, which the maiden of the present day, pure as the stainless snow, will sit before whole hours, engaged in her innocent drawing lessons. The mind, properly disciplined, is capable of sustaining much; as the body in full health can support heat and cold. There are no sickly images while there is a sane mind in a sane body.Numerous instances of the facility of passing from severe labour to

sportiveness, are now at hand. Sir Walter Scott wrote all his poetry, and many of his novels, in hours of relaxation from the dull details of a clerkship in a court of justice. Sir William Jones left Hafiz, and all the enchantments of Arabian poetry, to throw new light upon the black letter of the law, and to give a reason for a principle in Coke upon Littleton, when the two great luminaries of the science had only stated a decision. Some of the great dignitaries of the church have awakened their zeal by invoking the muse; and the great statesman of England, who has lately become a tenant of the tomb, found his poetry as effective as his eloquence in scattering and subduing his opposers, and in building up his systems, and supporting his policy. The poetry of the Anti-Jacobin did more than a thousand homilies to defend the cause of old fashioned honesty; and "the Loves of the Triangles," checked the false politicks and the bad taste of the Darwinian school. Like the eagle, Canning passed from watching the fish-hawks along the coast, to soaring and poising sublimely in the heavens, and to gazing with undazzled eye upon the sun.

We have, by the mistake or modesty of our own writers, been ranked among those nations which have lately become literary. But avoiding all further deception on that head, it is to be hoped that we have now arrived at that point in our literary history, when it is proper for us to assume some share of independence. Not only our mother country is pouring in her literature by the bale upon us, as usual, but other countries are also doing the same. The whole European continent is open to our researches, and yields her literary and scientifick treasures to our enterprise; and our missionaries, in conjunction with those of other countries, are throwing open the door to the immense storehouses of oriental learning, where the treasures of unnumbered ages have been lodged. Even a key to the mysteries of Egyptian wisdom has been found, and the veil of Isis is about to be removed. At the same time, all things have become well settled upon true principles among us, and the agitation and bustle of their establishment having passed away, some of the first minds will gratify their ambition by literary distinction; and claim their country's gratitude, by refining our taste, and raising our standard of literary eminence.

Here nature presents her beauties in as delicate forms, and her wonders in as bold relief, as she has in the birth place of the muses. She has laid the foundation of her mountains as broad, and raised their tops as high as in the old world. What are the Tibers and Scamanders, measured by the Missouri and the Amazon? Or what the loveliness of Illyssus or Avon, by the Connecticut or the Potomack? The waters of these American rivers are as pure and

sweet, and their names would be as poetical, were they as familiar to us in song, as the others, which have been immortalized for ages. Whenever a nation wills it, prodigies are born. Admiration and patronage create myriads who struggle for the mastery, and for the olympick crown. Encourage the game, and the victors will come. In the smiles of publick favour, poets will arise, yea, have already arisen, whose rays of mental fire will burn out the foul stain upon our reputation, given at first by irritated and neglected genius, and continued by envy and malice-that this is the land

"Where fancy sickens, and where genius dies."

LECTURE XI.

"The sciences which do honour to the human mind-the arts which embellish human life, and transmit illustrious actions to posterity-should be peculiarly respected in all free governments. All men of genius, all who have obtained a distinguished rank in the republick of letters, wherever they were born, are of my country.

"I invite the learned to assemble, and to propose to me their views, their names, or the assistance they may want, to give new life and existence to the sciences and fine arts. My people set a greater value on the acquisition of a learned mathematician, a painter of reputation, or any distinguished man, whatever may be his profession, than in the possession of the richest and most abundant city."-Buonaparte's letter to the astronomer Oriani.

THE fine arts can only flourish in the bosom of refinement. They are the latest offsprings of the muse. Poetry is her first born, and painting and statuary the youngest of her children; and there has generally been a long interval between the births of the sisters. Poetry may live in sylvan scenes, and with a primitive people; but the arts must be cherished by wealth and taste, and grow in the sunshine of patronage. A poet may chant his verses for his own pleasure, in his own circle; but the painter and sculptor must be stimulated by the gaze and admiration of intelligence and fashion. Poets may make the solitudes vocal with inspired numbers, to charm some woodland nymph; but no one ever patiently laid his colours

on the canvass, or spent long painful years in chiselling the marble, without looking forward to the hour when his labours would be rewarded by a wreath of fame, or a shower of gold.

From the nature of the moral and physical growth of this country, it could not be expected that we should be distinguished in the fine arts, particularly in the early ages of our history; not that our fathers were wanting in taste for the fine arts, but that their situation forbade them from indulging a thought for any thing beyond what was absolutely necessary for a comfortable existence. They brought some pictures with them, but in general, they were nothing more than armorial bearings and family portraits; and, in truth, at that period, in England there was not much attention paid to painting, statuary, architecture, or music. Wren had not then arisen, nor had there been a splendid edifice erected since the gothick ages had passed away; ages in which the solemn piles of religious enthusiasm arose, and with them the massy walls of the feudal castle. The religion of England was changed; the mode of warfare was changed; the monastery was not occupied, and the moat, the drawbridge, and portecullis, were no longer useful for defence; and the Grecian orders, in which reside ease, repose, grace, and beauty, had not then found their way to England; it could not, therefore, be expected that the fine arts, in any of their best forms, could easily have found their way to America, when they were not, at that time, cherished in the mother country. Now and then an Italian painter, or one of the Flemish school, would stray across the Atlantick, and leave some traces of his art here, which have afterwards excited our curiosity, to know from whose hand they came.

The first artist of distinction I can find any record of among us, was Smybert, a painter who came out to this country with Dean Berkley, in 1728. He was at first attached to the family of the good man, and there is now a painting in Yale College, from his pencil. It is a picture of the Dean's family. Smybert was a man of genius, whose talents had attracted the attention of this generous ecclesiastick, and he wished to serve him after he had discovered his merits. Smybert was almost a self-taught artist, having commenced in life as an ornamental chair, clock, or house painter, one grade only above the mechanical part of painting; but feeling the inspiration of a higher ambition, and a capacity for better things, he visited Italy, and returned with much of that knowledge which genius catches by being in the atmosphere of taste and enthusiasm for the arts. On the Dean's leaving this country, Smybert settled in Boston, and commenced in his profession with what was then thought a good patronage, and took quite a respectable rank in society as a citizen. Many of his portraits are in being now, and some of