human passion and character, unknown in England since the drama of the pre-Restoration period, reasserted itself by a parallel and congenial development. Thus, if we have stated our argument clearly, readers will see that the main points of transition to the poetry of our age have been severally traced, the poetry of Nature to many concurrent sources, that of Incident to the ballads, the passion for antiquity to the researches of Ramsay and Percy, the modern form, diction, and melody to the revived study at once of our own earlier literature and of the Greek. What other qualities in Wordsworth, Scott, and their contemporaries were immediately due to the pressure of political and social life at home and abroad we cannot here notice, except to add that by a true criticism they must be ascribed, not, as often, to the French Revolution, the importance of which, in its bearings on literature, has been greatly overrated, but to the far deeper and wider spirit of which that was but a local exhibition.

Let us return for a moment, in conclusion, to the larger and purer æther' of poetry, as we find it in the works of the sweet singer of Ouse and Olney. How strange is the romance of that pathetic story! The lighthearted friend of Thurlow in the attorney's office-the lunatic at the House of Lords—the rapt visionary-the sternly-judging politician-the devout student of Homer the dupe of the cobbler's revelations,-yet, through all the madness of his despair and superstition, the man who truly, in words of a so-familiar sublimity, 'received the kingdom of Heaven as a little child,'—what a wild series of contrasts does this career present! And we might add deeper colours... the everhaunting youthful love which coloured another's life beside his own, the suicide nearly carried out, the dreams, and ecstasies, and voices which seemed to make that quiet village in Bedfordshire the meeting-point and battle-field between Hell and Heaven. A less romantic sphere of existence than Cowper's could hardly be imagined; yet we have here what truly transcends most romance. And how strange also is the charm which allures us in his poetry! -strange as the revelation must have been to himself, that he, the middle-aged and retired lawyer, was able to move a whole nation to tears and laughter,-to surpass the force of Churchill, and wield more than the influence of Pope,-to reopen the pages of ancient Epic to Englishmen,-to carry the warnings of judgment and the lessons of love to a thousand cottages. There is a tale that Correggio, when young, saw a picture by Raphael, and with a glance of modest self-discovery said, Anch' io son Pittore. With some such feeling must Cowper have awakened to the sense of his own endowments. This knowledge came at a date in his

life when few poets have fully preserved their power: it found a man unversed beyond most in the world's ways, and all but destitute of that experience which his great German contemporary held essential to success in poetry. Yet how many and how various were his successes! It would be untrue to claim for Cowper a place amongst the highest masters of his art, nor could any assumption have been more alien from his exquisite modesty. Much also in his works was of a temporary and a consequently now exhausted interest; but where he is great, it is with the greatness that rests on the deepest and simplest human feelings. Except when that madness intervenes which discoloured his life and settled on his religious opinions, a truly noble manliness of tone marks him everywhere. The love of freedom, and friendship, and Nature,—the scorn of pettiness, vanity, ambition,—the hatred of meanness and of wrong, the tenderness for the poor and feeble,-all these elementary affections of human nature, which so rarely penetrate the character of those who praise them, were to this highhearted man the breath of life. These qualities are not poetry, but they are far more important to the poet than the experience so prized by Goethe. Cowper has embodied them with a noble simplicity of style worthy of the ancients. A severe grace is the most marked characteristic of his writing; such verses as his 'Royal George' are like the creation of a Grecian chisel; but this severity is accompanied and balanced by humour of delightful quality, gay, gamesome, and fearless, yet delicate and tender with more than feminine tenderness. It is interesting to compare him with his Scottish contemporary both struggling in style against the mannerism from which they could not wholly escape; both loving Nature and Human Nature with the enthusiasm of the poet's immortal youthfulness: Burns the more intense, Cowper the wider in his interests: the one richer in colour and melody and spontaneous flow, the other attaining his end by a more gracious touch, and compensating by purity for what he wants in strength. Such parallels are tempting, but must not be eagerly pushed, or we may overlook the essential differences between these two great poets. Yet, unlike as they are in many points, no one will deny that they are amongst the very few who have united in a high degree the gifts of humour and of pathos. We are familiar with the humorous side of both; it is more curious to contrast them in the pathetic. Here, although an undisciplined taste has led him too often to enfeeble his lines with commonplace and carelessness, Burns' greater affluence of nature gives his writing a more glowing tone. Let us quote examples in the luxury of reproducing the household words of all who loɣe poetry :

Vol. 112.-No. 223.

There is a strange fire about this poem; it is the sunset of an overmastering passion. Another and rarer phase of passion, less fervid in its own nature, is that painted by Cowper. There is an awful colourless calm about his stanzas to Mrs. Unwin; an intensity of passionate despair.

Now, a few of the Lines on his mother's portrait :

Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours
When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers,

The violet, the pink, and jessamine,

I pricked them into paper with a pin,

(And thou wast happier than myself the while,
Wouldst softly speak, and stroke my head, and smile)
--Could those few pleasant days again appear,
Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here?
I would not trust my heart-the dear delight
Seems so to be desired, perhaps I might :-

:

There is little of this blended elevation and tenderness in any literature, and words would hardly strengthen the effect of it. Cowper is our highest master in simple pathos.

ART. VI.-1. International Exhibition, 1862. Official Catalogues: Industrial and Fine Arts Departments.-Illustrated Catalogue, Parts 1-6.

2. History of the International Exhibition. By John Hollingshead.

W

HEN Malvolio was generalizing on the various ways in which mankind become acquainted with greatness, he forgot one notable class-those into whose mouths greatness drops, and who contrive to swallow it the wrong way. The Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1862 seem to have appreciated the oversight, and made the trial. The larger and more brilliant Corporation, who had the charge of the World's Fair in 1851, resembled merchant adventurers bound for an unknown and treacherous sea, who brought their vessel safely home again, in spite of many sinister anticipations. In 1850, while the project was under discussion, International Exhibitions were still among the world's unsolved problems, the din of civil strife had hardly died away in the continental capitals, at home a large class was timid and vaporish, every inconvenience and danger which could possibly result from the unwonted throng of foreigners in London was pressed into the service. Colonel Sibthorp, whom hairbrained shrewdness made a very ugly antagonist, vowed eternal enmity to the entire project. The disputes which arose about the site had been appeased by Royal interposition, but at the last moment, when the sod of Hyde Park was to be turned and hours were golden, a huge difficulty glared out in unexpected ugliness. The projectors had promised the show before they had secured a house wherein to lodge their wares. A competition for plans

N 2

had resulted in an elaborate failure, and a project which the officials had cooked up as the quintessence of all the tenders was received by the public with undisguised reprobation. A break down was all but certain, when a gardener dropped in and suggested a big conservatory. Since Cinderella's glass slipper no such success had ever been achieved with that material. The 'Crystal Palace' rose from the turf sparkling and graceful, and the Sibthorp elms budded under the transparent roof. Of course toadies and wonder-mongers were not wanting to make the lucky hit of a clever man ridiculous by fulsome praise; and, as might be expected, the flatterers were not unaccompanied by busy mockers. But, after every abatement, the Exhibition of 1851 was hailed successful in every aspect, financial, artistic, social, and commercial, while popular justice unanimously rendered the praise rightly due to the good Prince Albert for the happy courage with which he undertook and carried through the scheme.

Since 1851 there has been a perfect glut of experience for those who were not too proud to study the management of great exhi bitions, and the architectural problem of how to house them. The modified success of the Dublin imitation, and the failure of the New York speculation, afforded ample warnings. Paris was able, within four years of our great effort, to match its vast display. Meanwhile the Hyde Park Palace had come to life again at Sydenham, and in the various phases of the South Kensington Museum a whole philosophy of popular exhibitionmaking had been developed. Nor must the Fine Arts Exhibition of Manchester in 1857 be forgotten; and one at least of the Commissioners of 1862 would have had no difficulty in contributing to the common stock some valuable warnings, gathered from the experience of that undertaking, as to the unpopularity which assuredly follows upon carelessness and incapacity.

So forewarned and so forearmed, the Society of Arts proclaimed, first for 1861, and then for 1862, the second Great English Exhibition, while they devolved its management upon a new Commission. These gentlemen assumed their responsibilities under august auspices, and the gravity of the loss which fell upon the world in last December, unforeseen and irreparable as it was, pleaded in their favour at the bar of public loyalty.

*The damage so culpably inflicted upon invaluable works of art by the careless manner in which they were repacked, has operated since then as a great discouragement to the formation of similar collections. We have seen a very valuable early Cologne painting on panel, comprising figures executed on the scale and with the finish of miniatures, which was left to a carpenter to screw to the lid of a box. It was not his fault that the holes with which it was disfigured did not destroy any of the faces.