heart-stricken wife, as she pursues her reprobate husband through the dark windings of his sinful course, wooing him back with her unfailing gentleness to the comforts of his home, watching over him in his unguarded moments, with the balm of Christian consolation ever ready for his hour of need, and supplicating with incessant prayers, that a stronger arm than hers may be stretched out to arrest the progress of his erring steps.

Without this active and living principle, operating upon the various dispositions of mankind, we should never witness those instances of self denial in the cause of virtue, which afford the strongest evidence of the all-sustaining efficacy of religion. How, for instance, would the compassionate maiden find strength to reject her worthless lover, because the stain of guilt was upon his brow, and because his spirit refused to bow down and worship at the altar of her God, if the claims of duty were not paramount to those of affection? And yet such things have been; and warm, young hearts, whose cords of happiness were rent asunder by the fierce and fiery trial, have chosen for themselves a solitary lot, separate and distinct from the sphere of their long cherished enjoyments, and have dwelt in peace and resignation under the guiding influence of the one divine light, by which all others, from whence they had ever derived hope or gladness were extinguished.

Yes; and the man of strong affections, whose downward tendency in the career of worldly occupation, had reduced a tender wife and helpless children to the last extreme of poverty and wretchedness, has been visited with powerful temptation in his hour of weakness, when his perceptions of right and wrong were so confused with bodily and mental suffering, that the limitations of moral good seemed to be yielding to the encroachments of physical evil, when the wants of his starving family were bursting forth

in audible and heart-rending appeals for which he had no answer, when the shadows of despair fell around him, and squalid misery encircled his cold hearth. And he too has stood his ground, strong in the confidence that real good, or lasting happiness, never yet was purchased by the sacrifice of virtuous rectitude.

But if we measure the strength of the principle by the weakness of the agent it inspires, we would point out, above all other instances of its operative power, that in which a child looks boldly in the face of authority, and daring the retributive judgment which must inevitably follow, openly and freely tells the truth. Sometimes a single falsehood, or a mere evasion would save the little culprit from the pain of public ignominy, from the fury of a tyrant master, and from the punishment that, even in anticipation, checks the warm current of his youthful blood, and sends a shivering thrill through every nerve and fibre of his trembling frame. But he has been instructed by parents whose word he cannot doubt, to believe that there is a good and gracious God looking down upon the children of earth, caring for their sufferings, listening to their prayers, teaching them his holy law, and encouraging them to regard the performance of it above all the enjoyments afforded by the world; and knowing that a strict adherence to the truth is one of the essential points of that law, the penitent child, even with the tears of anguish on his cheek, pronounces the decisive word of truth which seals his sentence upon earth-the word which rejoicing angels bear to the courts of heaven, as the richest tribute humanity can lay before the throne of its Creator.

These are but single instances, chosen out from a mass of evidence, clearly proving that religion in its influence upon the affections, in its intimate connexion with those important scenes and circumstances

of life, from which we derive the greatest pain or pleasure, in short, in its supreme dominion over the human heart, is, above all other subjects, that which possesses the highest claim to the regard of the poet; not only as being most productive of intellectual gratification, but most worthy of him who aspires to the right exercise of the loftiest attributes of mind.

A superficial view of religion may lead to the popular and vulgar notion, that its practical duties are incompatible with true refinement of feeling, and elevation of thought; but is not that the most genuine refinement which penetrates into the distant relations of things, and cements, by mental association, the visible and material-the familiar or the gross, with powerful impressions of moral excellence, and beauty, and happiness? Is not that the most elevated range of thought which combines the practical and temporal affairs of men, with the eternal principles upon which the world is established and governed?

We know of nothing that can so fully and so beautifully adorn the ordinary path of life, as religion; because it imparts a spiritual essence to all our customary actions and pursuits, in which the slightest portion of good and evil is involved. We can imagine nothing to exceed in tenderness the merciful dealing of our heavenly Father with his erring and rebellious creatures; and as there is nothing to equal the perfection of the Divine character, so there is no sublimity comparable to that of his nature. Nor is this all. We have said that poetry must come home to our own bosoms in order to be truly felt, and religion teaches us that we have a portion in everlasting life-an inheritance in eternity-that the hopes and the fears which stimulate our actions, the powers and the energies with which we are endowed, are not merely given us for the brief purposes of temporal existence to play their little part upon this sublunary stage to animate frail creatures that must perish

in the tomb, but as links woven in with the great chain of being to be unfolded in a sphere without limitations-in a "world without end."

We would not depreciate the freeness, and the fulness of the benefits of religion, by saying that the poet has a participation in their delights, beyond that enjoyed by others; because we reverently believe the nature of religion to be such as to adapt it to every understanding, render it available in every condition of humanity, and sustaining, and consolatory to every heart. But we have no hesitation in pronouncing it impossible for the poet to reach the same intellectual height, without the aid of religion, as when he soars on angels' wings up to the gates of heaven-to touch the strings of human feeling so powerfully, as when his hand is bathed in the pure fountains of eternal truth.

How for instance would he expatiate upon beauty or excellence, if they had no archetypes in heaven? How would he describe the calamities which tear up the root of domestic peace, and agonize the tortured bosom, if neither prayer nor appeal were wrung out by such wretchedness, and directed to a spiritual power by whom the calamity might be averted? How would he solemnize the vow, or seal the blessing, or ratify the curse, without the sanction of divine authority? or how might his soul aspire to the sublime, without expanding its wings in the regions of eternity?

No; there is nothing which the poet need reject in the religion of the Bible, or the religion of the heart; but rather let him seek its benignant and inspiring influence, as a light to his genius, a stimulus to his imagination, a guide to his taste, a fire to his ardour, an impetus to his power, and a world thrown open to his enjoyment.

131

IMPRESSION.

HITHERTO We have bestowed our attention upon what essentially belongs to poetry, as a medium for receiving and imparting the highest intellectual enjoyment. We now come to the qualifications for composing poetry-the fundamental characteristics of the poet. All persons of cultivated understanding, endowed with an ordinary share of sensibility, are more or less capable of feeling what is poetical; but that all, even amongst those who attempt it, are not equal to writing poetry, is owing to their deficiency in some or all of the following qualifications:-capacity of receiving deep impressions-imagination— power-and taste. These qualifications we shall now consider separately, beginning with the first, which for want of a better term, I have called impression.

We have already seen how poetry derives its existence from the association of ideas, as well as how such associations must arise out of impressions, and it follows as a natural consequence, that if this be necessary to enable a man to feel poetry, it is still more so to qualify him for writing it. Impressions are, in fact, the secret fund from whence the poet derives his most brilliant thoughts-the material with which he works, the colouring in which he dips his pencil when he paints-the inexhaustible fountain to which he applies for the simplicity of nature, and the force of truth.

We have before observed, that it is impossible to trace a great proportion of our associations to their original source, because we cannot recall the impressions made upon our mind in infancy; but we know that in that early stage of life, when we were