high degree of sensibility, which is at once its glory and its disease, renders its operations so perpetually liable to derangement, that it can seldom act with the steady pace of a more calm and sluggish temperament. It shrinks from every rude touch like the sensitive plant: and the most trifling incident, an unkind word, or disagreeable letter, like the spell of the evil necromancer, can, in an instant, turn Elysian gardens, and golden visions, into barren and frowning deserts.

However I may differ from a large portion of our professional censors, I shall never cease to think that the highest products of the mind are formed from the mingled ingredients of the head and the heart. Whoever therefore can properly regulate, without destroying or damping, those finer feelings which give the most beautiful and attractive colours to the effusions of the poet or the moralist, possesses a rare and enviable degree of self-command, capable of the most meritorious efforts!

The desire of recording and communicating the refined, the virtuous, or exalted sentiments, which swell the bosom, is an impulse very generally experienced, and implanted in our natures for the most benevolent purposes. But between the wish and the fulfilment of this impulse, how many difficulties intervene! To what numbers may we apply the enchanting words of Thomson in his inimitable Castle of Indolence.

Tho' "oft the heavenly fire, that lay conceal'd
Beneath the sleeping embers, mounted fast,
And all its native light anew reveal'd;

Oft as he travers'd the cerulean field,

And mark't the clouds that drove before the wind,
Ten thousand glorious systems would he build,
Ten thousand great ideas fill'd his mind;"

Yet "with the clouds they fled, and left no trace
behind!"

To form splendid day-dreams, and to delineate as well as form them, require very different degrees of exertion, and indeed of power! These airy phantasies too often elude the grasp, and vanish in the very act of embracing them, even when we strive to retain them; an effort which is made by very few; and which is too frequently interrupted and dropped, even when, if pursued, it would have terminated in success! If there are many who scribble without the proper talents, how many gems are there buried in the ocean; and how many flowers, whose sweetness has been wasted in the desert air!

They who recollect the various productions of Mr. Lofft for the last thirty years will know how to value those which follow.

"I. ON AKENSIDE.

Quinqain. Lyric.

1.

"O AKENSIDE divine!

Not only to the strain,

Round which Imagination's train

Their brightest wreaths and happiest tones combine,

Shall my enraptur'd ear incline;

But my eye wander o'er thy lyric chain

Perplext to sight profane,

Form'd round the hallow'd few its sacred bands to

twine.

2

Not even Pindar's lay

Winds free harmonious way,

Fraught with diviner tints, sublimer airs;

Nor beams with purer ray,

Nor from the bowers of bliss more heavenly fragrance

Far above sordid cares,

[bears;

And meaner joys, the soul raising to purest day."

C. L. Sept. 4, 1808.

"II. MY FLAGEOLET.

"Lov'd Flageolet, whose tone

Breathes to myself alone,

Nor dare I trust thy voice to other ears,

E'en half asham'd to own

That thy imperfect moan,

Wak'd by my touch unskill'd, thee to my heart

endears!

2.

Though not the force and fire

Of the sonorous lyre,

The tender viol's finely varied sound,

Nor tones, which from the soul-enchanting wire
Of the piano steal, in thee are found,

Light simple instrument-yet bound

Within like slender space the breath did once inspire Of Goldsmith, of Rousseau, the happy groups around. C. L. Sept. 4, 1808.

"III. ON MUSIC.

"CLEMENTI! Power there is in charming sounds
To soothe, exalt, and purify the mind,
When their melodious way graceful they wind,
And harmony the perfect measure bounds.

Not to the ear alone delight redounds:

The heart, the soul, such notes symphonious find;
The brow of Melancholy these unbind,

Whom with her frensied train Despair surrounds.
To Man the universal language speaks;

And breathes of sentiment the angelic voice; Here every good affection feels her tone: Beasts soften'd hear; the tuneful birds rejoice: And, sweet PIANO, since thy touch is known, Not the mild blush of May so lovely breaks !"

C. L. Sept. 9, 1808.

"IV. TO SPAIN,

On her present arduous struggle.

"O generous Nation, to whose noble boast,
Illustrious Spain, the Providence of Heaven
A radiant sky of vivid power hath given,
A land of flowers, of fruits profuse; an host
Of ardent spirits: when deprest the most,

By great enthusiastic impulse driven

To deeds of highest daring! May no leaven,
(If Wisdom, Justice fail thee, thou art lost!)

No treachery, no cruelty disgrace

Thy dawn of Freedom, if a dawn it be!

O think of thy Cervantes! think that now

No palm invites thee of false chivalry;

But one his high-soul'd breast would hail with ardent vow!"

C. L. July 6, 1808.

To the Sea. By the Sea Side, Sept. 29, 1808.

σε Βηδ' ακεών παρα θινα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλασσης.

HOM. IL. I. 33.

"Thou awful Sea! upon this shingly beach
Of Aldborough I pace! My gazing eye
Thy world of waters lost in the dim sky
Admiring, and thy echoing waves; that teach
In voice of thunder more than tongue can preach,
The knell of ages past and passing by:

And claim their ancient empire of the dry
And solid earth, each animating each.

Of towns long sunk, o'er which thy wild waves roar,
Of sea to land, of land to ocean turn'd,

I muse: and mourn, that who could amplest pour Homeric tones on thy resounding shore,

PORSON, is dead!-That sea of Grecian lore

Unbounded, in the abyss of fate inurn'd!”

ART. DCCXLVIII.

C. L.

No. XLIX. Greek Ode on Eton. By Mr. Capel

Lofft.

“Where once my careless childhood stray'd,

A stranger yet to pain."

ΕΤΩΝΗ

ΦΙΛΤΑΤΗ.

ΕΤΩΝΑ, χαίροις. Καλα Ταμησιαις

Κλινθείς επ' όχθαις Κινδεσορης βλεπεις

Ορειβαρη νεφεσσιν Αλκην

Ενθρονον· ἡ θυγα]ρεσσ' Αρηος,