definition feems to exclude a blind man from any share whatever of thofe pleasures, and yet who would deny that the elegant mind of BLACKLOCK was capable of receiving and even of imparting them in no small degree. Our author therefore includes every fource by which, through any of our fenfes or perceptions, we receive notices of the world around us; as well as the reflex pleasures derived from the imitative arts.

With what attractive charms this goodly frame
Of nature touches the consenting hearts
Of mortal men, and what the pleasing stores
Which beauteous imitation thence derives,

To deck the Poet's or the Painter's toil,
My verfe unfolds.

After this clear and concise definition, and a lively and appropriate invocation to the powers of Fancy guided by Truth and Liberty, the Author begins by unfolding the Platonic idea that the universe with all its forms of material beauty was called into

being from its pototype, exifting from all eternity in the divine mind. The different propenfities that human beings are born with to various pursuits, are enumerated in fome very beautiful lines, and those are declared to be the most noble which lead a chofen few to the love and contemplation of the fupreme beauty by the love and contemplation of his works. The Poet thus immediately, and at the very outfet, dignifies his theme, by connecting it with the fublimest feelings the human mind is capable of entertaining, feelings without which the various fcenes of this beautiful universe degenerate into gaudy fhows, fit to catch the eye of children, but uninterefting to the heart and affections; and those laws and properties about which Philosophy bufies herself, into a bewildering mass of unconnected experiments and independent facts. These lines afford more than one example of climax, graceful repetition, and richness of poetic language. The fubject is then branched out into the three grand divifions marked

by ADDISON. the Sublime, the Wonderful, and the Beautiful. Each is exemplified with equal judgment and taste, but the fublime is perhaps expreffed with most energy, as it certainly was most congenial to the mind of our author. The paffage of which the thought is borrowed from LONGINUS, Say why was man fo eminently raifed, is almoft unequalled in grandeur of thought and loftiness of expreffion, yet it has not the appearance, as fome other parts of the Poem have, of being laboured into excellence, but rather of being thrown off at once amidst the fwell and fervency of a kindled imagination. The final cause of each of these propensities is happily infinuated; of the fenfe of the fublime, to lead us to the contemplation of the Supreme Being; of that of novelty to awaken us to conftant activity; of beauty to mark out to us the objects most perfect in their kind. Thus does he make Philofophy and Poetry to go hand in hand. The exemplification of the love of novelty in the audi

ence of the village matron who tells of witching rhymes and evil fpirits, is highly wrought. The author however had doubtlefs in his mind not only the Effays of ADDISON, which were immediately under his eye, but that passage in another paper where he represents the circle at his landlady's clofing their ranks, and crowding round the fire at the conclufion of every ftory of ghosts: Around the beldam all arrect they hang. Congealed with fhivering fighs, very happily expreffes the effects of that kind of terror, which makes a man fhrink into himself, and feel afraid, as it were, to draw a full inspiration. It may be doubted however whether the attraction which is felt towards these kind of sensations when they rise to terror, can be fairly referred to the love of novelty. It seems rather to depend on that charm, afterwards touched upon, which is attached to every thing that ftrongly ftirs and agitates the mind. In his description of Beauty, which is adorned with all the graces of the chafter

VENUS, the author takes occasion to aim a palpable stroke at the Night Thoughts of Dr. YOUNG, which are here characterized by "the ghoftly gloom of graves and hoary vaults and cloistered cells, by walking with spectres through the midnight shade, and attuning the dreadful workings of his heart to the accursed song of the fcreaming owl." The fame allufion is repeated in one of his Odes,

"Nor where the boding raven chaunts,

Nor near the owl's unhallow'd haunts

Will fhe (the Mufe) her cares employ ;
She flies from ruins and from tombs,

From Superftition's horrid glooms,

To day-light and to joy."

This antipathy is not furprising: for never were two Poets more contrafted. Our author had more of taste and judgment, YOUNG more of originality. AKENSIDE maintains throughout an uniform dignity, YOUNG has been characteristically described in late Poem as one in whom