Poetry is found in various states, sometimes in the invocation of historic names, in allusions, in illustrations, in similes, sometimes in intensity of language, and sometimes in intensity of feeling. Poetry is often found independent of the verse it forms, as gems are found unset. "We would define poetry to be that mode of expression by which intensity of feeling on any subject is conveyed from one mind to another. Of course the more just, the more striking the mode of expression, the more complete and rapid will be the communication; hence, and still more because many persons have not courage to dive beneath a rough surface, it is desirable that the poet should be able to clothe his thoughts in mellifluous language. But words are not poetry. Witness the beautiful idea of Professor Heeren: "Persepolis rising above the deluge of years." This, being a translated passage, is not dependent upon phraseology for its beauty. But who does not feel its exquisiteness, picturing at once the almost miraculous stability of those thread-like columns which the intemperate policy of Alexander failed to overthrow, and the vague, shapeless uncertainty which clouds the period to which their erection is attributed? The whole passage forms a most poetically drawn picture. "Again: "Time sadly overcometh all things, and is now dominant, and sitteth upon a sphinx, and looketh unto Memphis and old Thebes; while his sister, Oblivion, reclineth semi-somnous on a pyramid, gloriously triumphing, making puzzles of Titanian erections, and turning old glories into dreams. History sinketh beneath her cloud. The traveler, as he paceth amazedly through those deserts, asketh of her, Who builded them? and. she mumbleth something, but what it is he knoweth not.' "Is not this poetry? and yet how quaint, almost inharmonious is its structure. Compare it with the famous simile in Pope's Homer, beginning, Thus, when the moon, refulgent lamp of night. Will this passage, replete with the most gorgeous epithets, and clothed in the most harmonious verse, bear a comparison with the strangely appareled poetry of Sir Thomas Browne? It is not our ear which prompts the verdict; it is our innate feeling of truth and beauty. If thus poetic genius can exist independent and despite of phraseology, may we not suppose it to be given (we do not say in a high degree) to multitudes of those whom the world would never accuse of being poets? Our daily experience confirms this. We have heard a servant describe scenery with a beauty of feeling and an imagery which was true poetry; and we hear a child talk poetry to her doll. Facility of illustration is an attribute of poetic genius we have met with in a laborer." "* An instance of the highest form of poetry is Blanco White's great Sonnet to Night, which is perhaps the distinctest addition to human speculation which the genius of the thinker has ever made. It happens, also, to be one of the most accomplished efforts of Elocution to deliver it well. It requires great and varied power, and the last line is remarkable for the distinctness of enunciation required: * "Sharpe's Magazine," No. 25, 1846. Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew And lo! creation widened in man's view. That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind? The previous discovery of Truth is implied by Rhetoric, which is the art of communicating Truth; and of all the forms of the enforcement of Truth, Poetry is the highest. All the powers of language, all the graces of literature, all the resources of genius, and nature, and feeling are employed to illustrate that splendor of expression, that harmony of thought, which, wedded to harmony of time and sound, men call Poesy. NOTES. A.-See page 27. OUR author is quite liable to be misunderstood in this allusion to the theater." Judging from many passages of his book, and indeed from its whole tenor, nothing could have been further from his intention than to present our modern theater as a model for pulpit speaking. At the present day the pulpit, in comparison with the theater, will suffer only in one particular, in its ease or naturalness. Though we can hadly be said to have any modern theater where anything like true eloquence is found, yet its highest excellence is its adaptation of utterance to the thought or sentiment. This quality of speaking, wherever it is acquired, on the stage, at the bar, or in the pulpit, effectually establishes entire freedom from monotone and tone. In this respect we have no doubt the speaking of the stage excels both that of the bar and pulpit. This, too, is doubtless its solitary redeeming quality, as well as the secret of its attraction and power. Nature loves herself, and delights to be portrayed in her own undisguised simplicity, but turns away in disgust whenever she is caricatured. This, it may be, is an important point at which the pulpit fails; it is prosy, monotonous, and is rendered thereby not unfrequently repulsive. To deviate in the least from the beaten track in intonation, accent or emphasis, is thought unclerical, and hence most carefully avoided. Thus our Gospel minister plods on, content with an exact cold logic, reposing in a dead orthodoxy. Here lies the fatal plague-spot on sacred eloquence, the tones of which are sepulchral, and the touch of which is paralyzing to the warm and gushing heart of humanity. These clergymen "are solid men," but emotionless as a frozen ocean! This, doubtless, is what was in our author's mind, though left unamplified. We cannot suppose he would have introduced into the pulpit anything akin to the low buffoonery of mountebanks, which at the present day chiefly gives character to the theater. For it is already noticeable, that with a few who are aiming to be "star preachers," we have a disgusting imitation of the tragedian style in grotesque action and intonations, but so entirely destitute of its naturalness as to make it superlatively ridiculous. Such is the usual result of attempts at copying or adopting the style of others— the defects only will appear. Copyists will invariably fall below the original, which should lead a public speaker to avoid the practice as he would the open grave of his success. Clergymen are supposed to be men of sufficient sense and good taste to discover in the world of literature around them, what is and what is not adapted to their profession. Why not appropriate, then, the former and exclude the latter? B.-See page 34. Hamlet says to his players: "Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounce it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise; I would have such a fellow whipt for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: Pray you, avoid it. "First Player. I warrant your honor. "Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theater of others. O there be players that I have seen play-and heard others praise and that highly-not to speak it profanely, that neither having the accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor man, have so strutted and |