by the two parallel tracks; the one upraising us to a loftiness of spirit which partakes of the divine, and the other awaking our sympathies to that golden brotherhood, in which are bound inseparably together the amenities, moralities, and charities of Humanity. In this dual view we may aphoristically declare Poetry to be above Life, and also Life-above Nature, and also Nature. Like unto man it has a soul and a body-the soul for heaven, the body for earth. All imaginative, it can conceive the forms of things unknown: all real, it can touch every spring in our bosoms, and bind us in the blessed bonds of unitý, kin, and love. From the animate and inanimate it draws its precepts of affection and pictures of beauty. Philosophy and science are its handmaids for the produce of utility and food; itself is the purest of luxuries and most grateful of enjoyments. Its shapes of delight are inexhaustible. It is now sublime, now solemn, now graceful, now ethereal, now gravely instructive, now lightly recreating, always tending to the promotion of pleasures which are innocent, or the inculcation of duties which are indispensable. We might dwell on the exhaustless theme, and "gild refined gold, and paint the lily," with wasteful and ridiculous excess; but our immediate work is to introduce, with due graphic honours, a selection of varied excellence from our Native British Minstrelsy. Of its pleasing we entertain no doubt; for notwithstanding the prevalence of important mechanical principles, and dry utilitarian interests, the fountains whence Poesy derives her enchantments will still maintain their perennial flow in the midst of the anxieties of traffic, and cares, and competitions of the material world. We would fain hope, and indeed believe, even with the superficial and partial diffusion of knowledge in our day, that there are not very many, to use the language of Sir P. Sydney, who would deny the violet its odour or its hues, because the quadruped that feeds upon it is insensible to its fragrance and colour. Surely the insensibility questioned in the Arcadia, could not extend to the enlightened era of the nineteenth century. Our Song does not begin with Jove, but yet is of most ancient birth; for of the first accents uttered in our language and our Isle, the earliest of which we can frame an idea are the strains and invocations of Druidical and Bardic verse. Wild and mystic, stirring and heroic, these outbursts of barbarous fanaticism and warlike stimulants wrought their purpose with a cruel priesthood, and rude dominion over a superstitious and enslaved people. Still there was a degree of might in their very savagery and recklessness, the disregard of dangers, the endurance of sufferings, the contempt of death. Still, imbued with heroism and hero worship, though the poetry of religion fell into abeyance, and doctrinal controversies usurped its place, the gallant race of Troubadours, Troveurs, and Minstrels arose, and mingled with happy concord the feats of love with the deeds of war in their enthusiastic eulogies. The effect of these effusions was most beneficial to their epoch of centuries. They spiritualized the brute passions, and softened the manners of the dominant sex, and threw the ingredient of generous chivalry into the conflict, to mitigate the horrors of war. Thus broadly, and at home among ourselves, was paved the way for that Poet with whom our Selection begins; and we are as it were taken by the hand, step by step, up to that eminence on the holy hill where he found and drained the "Well of English undefiled "—the immortal CHAUCER, the great prototype of SHAKSPEARE! From the gleemen and gleewomen of Norman inferiority, from the pseudo-Romanesque, and from the few Saxon and imitative Saxon compositions of later writers, such as Layamon and Piers Plowman (Robert Langland), the upward bound he took to the top of all that was past, and to become a model of all that was to come! What pattern can we seek in poetry which he has not set before us? Original invention, the foundation of greatness-admirable descriptiveness, embracing the grandest objects and the most minute-a fancy equal to the highest flights of imagination—and a fidelity fitted for the most accurate portraiture of life and manners, were the prominent characteristics of his marvellous advance. Gifted with immense stores of knowledge, profound powers of thought, brilliancy and liveliness of fancy, he, at one prodigious stride, moulded the discordant English language into an enduring system, constrained its elements into a form of expressive beauty, and made himself the venerated father of a race of poets, whose splendid and pathetic productions could be but scantily illustrated in five hundred volumes like this, which so briefly touches upon a few salient and diversified examples. Though the Canterbury Tales are the most distinguished of Chaucer's writings, and embody the largest share of his memorable qualities, the Flower and the Leaf is not a less perfect specimen of the manner in which he burst from the Norman corruption and Saxon retrogression, and created the style of that national poetry which has descended to our times. It was for a while maintained by his contemporary, Gower, and by his successors, Occleve and Lydgate, at the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries. But this was a small school to spring from such a mighty master; and the poetry of England might be supposed to have died a natural death, as the effect of so transcendant a life, could we not account for the phenomenon on more tangible grounds. The murderous wars waged under the poetic name of The Roses, put an end to all poetry. Human shambles suggest too much of terror and disgust for the most tragic of the Muses; and England, with its rancours and revenges, its sanguinary fields and blood-stained scaffolds, its desolated lands and ravaged hearths, was no place for Song, beside the shout to havoc and the wail of lamentation. It is so remarkable that we might almost record it as a Poetic Providence whilst the inspirations of Chaucer sank into oblivion on his native country, it kindled into a glorious flame in Scotland, where arose Barbour, and Henrysone, and James the First, and Gavin Douglas, and Dunbar, and Mersar, and Sir David Lindsay, and another king-James the Fifth-of the hapless race of Stuart (consequently of poetic dispositions themselves, and the subjects of masses of charming poetry); who sang while the sister kingdom was dumb, and filled up a period with the chant of nightingales, till the era of Chaucer was restored from the Tweed to the Thames. It is, farther, an extraordinary feature of this epoch, that the earliest of the Scottish bards we have named wrote better English-such English as would be more readily understood now-than the English themselves; and, exactly as Layamon and others had done before, the latest of the Scottish retrograded to the style and language of two centuries earlier, and are at this day as difficult to be understood as Ware's Chronicle and Robert of Gloucester. The Merle and Nightingale of Dunbar is a fine exemplification of one branch of our statement, and, at the same time, of the melody of the language and the richness of the versification, not surpassed by Chaucer himself. He was, in truth, one of the foremost of the choristers "Whane all the birdis sang with voce on hicht, Yet was he not so popular and famous as Blind Harry the Minstrel, or Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, whose national reputations were prodigious; the former from the patriotic poems to Wallace and Bruce, and the latter from his unsparing castigation of the vices and abuses in the Church. As an instance of extraordinary popularity, we may mention that after the lapse of three hundred years, when anything almost incredible is told in Scotland, the proverbial expression of doubt or wonder is often to be heard, "There's na sic a word in a' Davie Lindsay!"— as if Davie Lindsay comprehended everything that could be thought or said. But the more interesting poetical fact is, that these Scottish worthies, including two kings, filled up the vacant space between Chaucer and Spenser,-Sir Thomas Wyatt, the Earl of Surrey, Lord Vaux, Sir Philip Sydney, the Earl of Dorset, Sir Walter Raleigh, and a few more, being only nearly contemporary satellites to that new luminary. In the survey of the gorgeous poetic sphere of this era, it must not be forgotten that Shakspeare-a universe in himself— arose; and that the concentrated glories of the dramatic genius, developed by him and his not unworthy compeers, left little space and opportunity for genius to be displayed in any other poetical form. Let one enormous tree occupy an area for a given time, and all around there will be nothing but smaller wood, and shrubs, and undergrowth. Shakspeare and Spenser grew together; but, Spenser died at an early age, near the time when the first great plays of Shakspeare were produced, and their author was as yet little known to fame. The immediate succession of this "matchless pair" are now, with few exceptions, justly forgotten, though Drayton, Cowley, Denham, Crashaw, Herbert, and others, bring us with grace, fervour, feeling, and dignity, to the imperishable epic of Milton. To attempt panegyric upon Shakspeare would be absurd and presumptuous "iteration," and we shall only observe, that his miscellaneous poetry is near the standard of his gigantic dramatic stature; and, in the language of the kindred immortal, "Let expressive Silence muse his praise." Of the author of the Faery Queen, it is hardly more necessary to speak, nor more easy to invent new terms of eulogy. Exhaustless in fancy, magnificent in description, compelling Allegory to work its stately way by the impersonations of characters vividly painted from actual life, his imagery and his versification roll on like a wonderful panorama, but at the same time peopled by such individual identities, that our astonishment is alike excited by the splendours of the scenery, and the clearly defined attributes of the crowd who animate it. Affluent in knowledge, and rich in attainments, Spenser's exuberance of thoughts overwhelms the mind: they are too large and rapid to be grasped at once, and we must pause upon, and contemplate them, in order to gather the full conception of their beauty and majesty, and, withal, their exquisite fitness, when we have enabled ourselves to see through the vague dimness of outline engendered by our first imperfect vision. The pictorial truth of the Poet has been felt by the Painter throughout three hundred years; and if we can suppose a Rubens, with high moral qualities and chastened taste, we should have a Spenser in the sister art. The extensive popularity of the pious Herbert, with his strangely shaped phantasies of typical wings, hour-glasses, and other figures, to harmonize with his subjects, and add point to their morals, nevertheless shows that his poetical merits had intrinsic value to surmount such quaint and cramping framework. Dancing, as it were, in fetters, he yet exclaims |