the poets of the court and the city. Yet he does not seem to have improved them; for his Pastoral Poetry differs from that of the rest, only in its being chiefly written in the elegiac strain, and in his being himself the hero of his story,' his Delias, Celias, etc., etc., being his own mistresses, real or imagined.

It is marked by the same affected sensibility, the same artificial view of nature, the same vapid and uninteresting tameness. With all this, however, Shenstone is a delightful poet, and never failed to please when he chose to array his thoughts in the chaste language of genuine feeling, as in his 'Village School-mistress,' and his exquisite 'Ode on Rural Elegance.' Nothing can exceed the graceful beauty and unaffected elegance of the latter, from which, though foreign to our subject, we are tempted to make a short extract:

'SEARCH but the garden, or the wood,

Let yon admired carnation own

Not all was made for raiment, or for food,

Not all for needful use alone;

There, while the seeds of future blossoms dwell,

"T is colored for the sight, perfumed to please the smell.

Why knows the nightingale to sing?

Why flows the pine's nectareous juice?

Why shines with paint the linnet's wing?

For sustenance alone? for use?

For preservation? Every sphere

Shall make fair pleasure's rightful claim appear.

And sure there seem, of human-kind,

Some born to shun the solemn strife;

Some for amusive tasks designed,

To soothe the certain ills of life;

Grace its lone vales with many a budding rose,

New founts of bliss disclose,

Call forth refreshing shades, and decorate repose.'

Is not that beautiful, and just, and true? Instances might be multiplied to show the absurdity of the pastoral style, but

'What should you need of more?
Yea, or so many? What need one?'

But there was another species of pastoral poetry, which we must by no means pass over-namely, pastoral songs; the composition, not of real poets, but of that crowd of poetasters who always follow in their wake, and imitate their style, whatever it may be. O! the surpassing insipidity, the inexpressible inanity of those songs, which the fair ladies of the times of George the First and his successor were wont to trill forth, to the accompaniment of the jingling spinet or twanging arch-lute. Here is a fair specimen :

'SAY, have you seen my ARABEL,

The Caledonian maid?

Or heard the youths of Scotia tell
Where ARABEL is strayed?

The damsel is of angel mien,

With sad and downcast eyes;

The shepherds call her Sorrow's Queen,
So pensively she sighs.'

Another of these dulcet ditties treats of a shepherd who retired to a lone vale, and there 'sung his loves, evening and morn :'

'HE sung with so sweet and enchanting a sound,
That sylvans and fairies unseen danced around.'

We could instance others, but by this time the reader is tired, and

so are we.

The sickly glare which had so long lighted the literary world began at length to fade away, and the bright beams of truth and nature once more broke forth with glorious effulgence; and that period commenced, which, for want of a better name, we have styled the Natural; at the head of which stands Cowper, the sweet poet of feeling and religious truth, and Burns, the bard of Nature's own creation. The advent of this era, (which, with a few intermissions, has continued to our own day,). was like the resumption by the human frame of its natural and healthful action, after a long course of powerful and enervating stimulants, to which the vitiated taste and artificial literature of the former ages might not unaptly be compared.

Of the pastoral poetry of the Greeks and Romans we will not presume to speak; with the pastoral poetry of Italy and Germany we are not acquainted; but from the English pastoral poetry of the eighteenth century, O, Apollo! O, Minerva ! O, all ye patrons of good taste and common sense, protect us!

ΠΟΤΑ.

the poets of the court and the city. Yet he does not seem to have improved them; for his Pastoral Poetry differs from that of the rest, only in its being chiefly written in the elegiac strain, and in his being himself the hero of his story,' his Delias, Celias, etc., etc., being his own mistresses, real or imagined.

It is marked by the same affected sensibility, the same artificial view of nature, the same vapid and uninteresting tameness. With all this, however, Shenstone is a delightful poet, and never failed to please when he chose to array his thoughts in the chaste language of genuine feeling, as in his Village School-mistress,' and his exquisite 'Ode on Rural Elegance.' Nothing can exceed the graceful beauty and unaffected elegance of the latter, from which, though foreign to our subject, we are tempted to make a short extract:

'SEARCH but the garden, or the wood,

Let yon admired carnation own

Not all was made for raiment, or for food,

Not all for needful use alone;

There, while the seeds of future blossoms dwell,

"T is colored for the sight, perfumed to please the smell.

Why knows the nightingale to sing?

Why flows the pine's nectareous juice?

Why shines with paint the linnet's wing?

For sustenance alone? for use?

For preservation? Every sphere

Shall make fair pleasure's rightful claim appear.

And sure there seem, of human-kind,

Some born to shun the solemn strife;

Some for amusive tasks designed,

To soothe the certain ills of life;

Grace its lone vales with many a budding rose,

New founts of bliss disclose,

Call forth refreshing shades, and decorate repose.'

Is not that beautiful, and just, and true? Instances might be multiplied to show the absurdity of the pastoral style, but

'What should you need of more?
Yea, or so many? What need one?"

But there was another species of pastoral poetry, which we must by no means pass over-namely, pastoral songs; the composition, not of real poets, but of that crowd of poetasters who always follow in their wake, and imitate their style, whatever it may be. O! the surpassing insipidity, the inexpressible inanity of those songs, which the fair ladies of the times of George the First and his successor were wont to trill forth, to the accompaniment of the jingling spinet or twanging arch-lute. Here is a fair specimen :

'SAY, have you seen my ARABEL,

The Caledonian maid?

Or heard the youths of Scotia tell
Where ARABEL is strayed?

The damsel is of angel mien,

With sad and downcast eyes;

The shepherds call her Sorrow's Queen,

So pensively she sighs.'

Another of these dulcet ditties treats of a shepherd who retired to a lone vale, and there 'sung his loves, evening and morn :'

'HE sung with so sweet and enchanting a sound,
That sylvans and fairies unseen danced around.'

We could instance others, but by this time the reader is tired, and

So are we.

The sickly glare which had so long lighted the literary world began at length to fade away, and the bright beams of truth and nature once more broke forth with glorious effulgence; and that period commenced, which, for want of a better name, we have styled the Natural; at the head of which stands Cowper, the sweet poet of feeling and religious truth, and Burns, the bard of Nature's own creation. The advent of this era, (which, with a few intermissions, has continued to our own day,). was like the resumption by the human frame of its natural and healthful action, after a long course of powerful and enervating stimulants, to which the vitiated taste and artificial literature of the former ages might not unaptly be compared.

Of the pastoral poetry of the Greeks and Romans we will not presume to speak; with the pastoral poetry of Italy and Germany we are not acquainted; but from the English pastoral poetry of the eighteenth century, O, Apollo! O, Minerva! O, all ye patrons of good taste and common sense, protect us!

IOTA.

BIRDS OF PASSAGE.

TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH OF TEGNER: BY H. W. ELLSWORTH, XSQ.

WHEN glares the hot sun on the Nile's parched shore,

And the crisped palm-tree scatters its cool shade no more,

Like an army assembling we hurry us forth,

Seeking out our sweet home-land, the NORTH, the bright NORTH!

II.

Then afar down beneath us lies stretched like a grave
The green smiling earth and the blue crested wave,
Where the storms of each day their wild pastime renew,
As we glide swift above them through Heaven's clear blue.

There lies a bright mead near a high mountain's crest,
Where we halt our tired legion, and build the soft nest;
Where we watch the dear young from white egg bursting forth,
'Neath the mid-summer's sun, that ne'er sets in the North.

IV.

Through the vales there comes peering no rude hunter's glance,
Where the golden-winged Elves meet each Eve in the dance;
Where the green-mantled wood-nymph walks out in the light,
And the mountain Troll hammers his gold through the night.*

V.

But when on the hill-top stands Vindsvale's son,t

And shakes from his cold wing the light snow-flake down,
When the frost-berry, ripened, drops red to the mouth,
And the timid hare whitens, then seek we the SOUTH!

VI.

There find we the green fields, the sun-lighted path,
And the shade that the palm-tree in mid-winter hath;
There rest we awhile, with each weary wing furled,
As we sigh and long after our dear Northern world.

* ALLUDING to ancient Scandinavian traditions.

†The Storm or Winter-bird.

Throughout Sweden this animal begins to change its color late in the Fall, and becomes perfectly white during Winter.