A. Young.

Q. What are his chief works?

A. His Universal Passion, and Night Thoughts.

Q. What may be said of his Night Thoughts? A. There is in them much energy of expression, many pathetic passages, happy images, and pious reflections; but the sentiments are frequently overstrained, and the style is too obscure to be pleasing.

Q. What French poet has excelled in the didactic?

A. Boileau, who produced many valuable satires and epistles.

Q. What is Descriptive Poetry?

A. Not any particular form of composition, but it enters into every species of poetry, and demands no small attention.

Q. Of what is description the great test? A. Of a poet's imagination; it always distinguishes an original from a second rate genius. Q. How does nature appear to an inferior genius?

A. Exhausted by those who have gone before him in the same tract; his conceptions of it are loose and vague; and his expressions, feeble and general.

Q. How does a true poet present an object?

A. So that we imagine we see it before our eyes; he catches the distinguishing features, and gives it the colours of life and reality.

Q. In what lies the great art of picturesque description?

A. In the selection of circumstances.

Q. What should these be?

A. Such as are new and original; as particularize the object, and mark it strongly.

Q. What should be mixed with inanimate objects to enliven description?

A. Living beings. Scenes of dead and still life are apt to pall upon us.*

Q. On what does much of the beauty of descriptive poetry depend?

A. On a right choice of epithets. Such epithets as barbarous discord, mighty chiefs, hateful envy, swell the language; but impart neither force nor beauty to the poem.

Q. Which is the largest and fullest of all professed descriptive compositions?

A. Thompson's Seasons; a work which possesses very uncommon merit.

Q. Which is the richest and most remarkable?

*The following is a powerful description of the pestilence that destroyed the English fleet at Carthagena : "You, gallant Vernon, saw

The miserable scenes; you pitying saw

To infant weakness, sink the warrior's arms:
Saw the deep racking pang; the ghastly form;
The lip pale quiv'ring; and the beamless eye

No more with ardour bright; you heard the groans
Of agonizing ships from shore to shore;
Heard nightly plung'd, amid the sullen waves,
The frequent corse.".

A. Milton's Allegro and Penseroso.*

Q. What other poets are remarkable for description?

A. Homer and Virgil, Ossian and Shakespeare. They are all simple and concise, and give an idea which a painter or statuary could lay hold of and work after them; which is one of the strongest and most decisive trials of the real merit of description.

POETRY OF THE HEBREWS.

Q. Which of the Sacred Writings are poetical?

*The following from the Penseroso is very pictu

On the dry, smooth shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon,
Riding near her highest noon;
And oft, as if her head she bow'd,
Stooping thro' a fleecy cloud.
Oft on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far off curfew sound,
Over some wide watered shore,
Swinging slow with solemn roar :
Or, if the air will not permit,
Some still removed place will sit,
Where gloomy embers thro' the room,
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom;
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the cricket on the hearth,
Or the bellman's drowsy charm,

To bless the doors from nightly harm."

1;

A. The book of Job; the Psalms of David the Song of Solomon; the Lamentations of Jeremiah; a great part of the Prophetical Writings; and several passages scattered through the historical books.

Q. Were music and poetry early cultivated among the Hebrews?

A. Yes; in the days of the Judges, they prophesied with the psaltery, tabret, and harp before them; but in the days of David, music and poetry were carried to their greatest height.

Q. What were his institutions relating to them?

A. He appointed four thousand Levites, who were divided into twenty-four courses, each course under a leader, whose business it was to sing hymns, and perform on instruments in the public worship.

Q. What is the general construction of the Hebrew Poetry?

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A. It consists in dividing every period into correspondent members which answer to one another both in sense and sound; as Sing unto the Lord a new song-Sing unto the Lord all the earth"- Declare his glory among the heathen-his wonders among all people." Q. How were their sacred bymos sung? A. By choirs who answered alternately to each other. One began, The Lord reigneth-let the earth rejoice." The other responded, "Let the multitudes of the Isles be glad thereof."

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Q. Do we find this method of composition in other poetry, besides that which was designated to be sung?

A. Yes; it pervades the prophetical writings. Thus in Isaiah, "Arise, shine, for thy light is come-and the glory of the Lord is arisen upon thee."

Q. By what else is the sacred poetry of the Hebrews distinguished?

A. By the highest beauties of strong, concise, bold, and figurative expression. It abounds with metaphors, comparisons, allegories, and especially personifications.

Q. Whence were their figures generally taken?

A. From scenery in their own country; from the rites and ceremonies of their religion; and from remarkable incidents in their history.

Q. What are the several kinds of poetical composition, which we find in scripture? A. The didactic, elegiac, pastoral, and lyric. Q. Where do we find the didactic?

A. In the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

Q. Where the elegiac?

A. In the lamentation of David over Saul and Jonathan; in several passages in the prophetical books; in several of David's Psalms; and in the whole of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, which is the most regular and perfect elegiac composition in the world.

Q. Where the pastoral ?

A. In the Song of Solomon, which is a per