poetry; but what more is it than a tissue of beautiful analogies, suggestions, resemblances, associations, or whatever we like to call them? Thus, also, when Keats would speak of a fall of snow, he introduces it into a sonnet as "the new soft-fallen mask of snow upon the mountains and the moors." Wordsworth, when he would describe a landscape in the Far West, speaks of scarlet flowers that "seem to set the hills on fire," and of "many an endless, endless lake, with all its fairy crowds of islands, that together lie as quietly as spots of sky among the evening clouds." What more admired passage of physical phenomena suggesting physical phenomena can be found than that in which Milton makes a "sable cloud turn forth her silver lining on the night"? And yet what is there in this except the suggestion of inanimate objects and actions by other inanimate objects and actions? Byron beholds the midnight moon "weaving her bright chain o'er the deep, whose breast is gently heaving as an infant's asleep." Allan Cunningham, in a sea-song, speaks of the "snoring breeze," and calls the ship a hollow oak, our palace." Campbell, celebrating England's naval greatness, speaks of "the meteor flag of England," and resembles the men-of-war to " leviathans afloat carrying guns with "adamantine lips." The glittering spears of an armed host are with Byron "like stars in the sea when the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Gallilee;" to Milton they suggest standing corn-as when Satan, hemmed in by the angelic squadrons, is described as surrounded" with ported spears, as thick as when a field of Ceres, ripe for harvest, waving, bends her bearded grove of ears."

Female form and features are of course a staple theme, and female dress is often praised. Waller's lines on a girdle are well known; and how does he describe that article?" the pale that held my lovely deer." Herrick calls attention even to a "winning wave deserving note in the tempestuous petticoat." Lodge's ode to Rosaline is

much in point: the lady's hair is "like to the clear in highest sphere;" her eyes are "sapphires set in snowher cheeks are like the blushing cloud" of early morn; "her lips are like two budded roses whom ranks of lilies neighbour nigh-her neck is like a stately tower where Love himself imprisoned lies-her breasts are orbs of heavenly frame," and Love "at her eyes his brand doth light." Carew, on the other hand, warns us against the frailty of bodily charms, reminding us that "he that loves a rosy cheek, or a coral lip admires, or from starlike eyes doth seek fuel to maintain his fires," will see his charms waste away as time advances. Another poet likewise remonstrates "It is not beauty I demand, a crystal brow, the moon's despair, nor the snow's daughter, a white hand, nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair. Tell me not of your starry eyes, your lips that seem on roses fed, or breath that softer music speaks than summer winds a wooing flowers. What are lips? Coral beneath the ocean stream, whose brink when your adventurer slips, full oft he perisheth on them. And what are cheeks but ensigns oft that wave hot youth to fields of blood?-eyes can with baleful ardour burn; poison can breath that erst perfumed; there's many a white hand holds an urn with lovers' hearts to dust consumed."

The foregoing passages may serve to illustrate the first division of poetic labour-the elaboration of analogies in which one physical phenomenon suggests another. This is the simplest mode of beautifying objects, and perhaps the richest department of illustration. The effect too of such similes or metaphors is agreeable; but it is not to be supposed that the above citations are uncomplicated with moral associations; many of them, in fact, contain an admixture of ethics, though that admixture is inferior and subordinate-the most obvious images being purely inanimate. Analogies, to be poetic, must be beautiful. They must embellish the subject or illustrate its parts in an elevating manner. If this be done, there will be poetry

though the passage be written in prose; if this be not done, there will be no poetry though it be written in verse. In the latter case, however, if the analogies are ingenious, there is wit, of which more by and by. Let us now pass to the second division of the psychology of poetry.

2ND CLASS-Physical phenomena suggesting moral phenomena. This division is that in which a physical object, agent, or action, instead of a physical, suggests a moral object, agent, or action. All poetry abounds with these analogies; some of them are very simple, as when Wither speaks of his "chamber of neglect, walled about with disrespect;" others of them are highly complicated; and indeed we seldom read many lines of good poetry together without encountering a moral analogy or passing over an ethical substratum of some sort or another. An example will explain. Suckling in his ballad of "The Wedding" thus describes the feet of the bride while dancing-" Her feet beneath her petticoat, like little mice stole in and out, as if they feared the light." Here the comparison of feet to mice belongs to the first class of analogies-a physical object suggesting another physical object—a foot suggesting a mouse, and the motion of dancing suggesting the motion of a mouse running in and out of a crevice. These analogies of themselves would not constitute an overwhelming compliment to a lady, since the animal to which her foot is compared is one which most persons regard as vermin, and which they generally desire to exterminate. When, however, the analogy is continued until the animal's mind is reached, and the mouse's timidity and nervousness is made an object of comparison, we enter upon completely new ground; for, believing that mice have minds because their conduct resembles our own in certain particulars, we do not stop at brute mentality, but are carried on at once to human feelings, and we think of bashfulness, modesty, refinement, and virtue, as traits of female character; and thus the whole passage is saved from being mere wit, and

is more than redeemed by one touch of a moral with which all can sympathise.

If there be no element of beauty or virtue involved in the allusion, we cannot call the passage poetical, however we may be tickled by the wit. There is poetry in comparing the sun rising to "a bridegroom coming out of his chamber," and rejoicing "as a strong man to run a race," though the passage is in prose. In the following suggestion bestowed upon the dawn,-" Like a lobster boiled, the morn from black to red began to turn,"-there is no poetry though the passage is in verse. There is, however, wit in this last illustration; and herein consists the difference between a witty and a poetic allusion,-that the latter is ingenious and beautiful, while the former is ingenious merely. In wit you will find nothing elevating or ennobling in the sentiment, so that however you may smile at it as ingenious, you cannot admire it as beautiful. Look, on the other hand, at the host of admirable reflections which crowd the mind of Burns on turning up a field-mouse's nest with the plough-" Wee sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, O what a panic's in thy breastie! I'm truly sorry man's dominion has broken nature's social union, and justifies that ill opinion which makes thee startle at me, thy poor earth-born companion and fellowmortal. Thou may thieve. What then, poor beastie? Thou maun live. A daimen icker in a thrave's a sma' request. Thou saw the weary winter comin' fast, and cosie here beneath the blast thou thought to dwell. That wee bit heap o' sticks and stibble has cost thee mony a weary nibble. Now thou's turned out for a' thy trouble, but house or hald, to thole the winter's sleety dribble. But, mousie, thou art no thy lane in proving foresight may be vain: the best-laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft agley. Still thou art blest compared wi' me! the present only toucheth thee; but och! I backward cast my e'e on prospects drear, and forward though I canna see, I guess and fear." All these associations are just and appropriate, and arise

naturally out of the subject in hand. If, however, the suggestions are but remotely connected with the original, or if they have the appearance of being hunted after and compelled to come in, the passage, however lofty in other respects, will not elicit equal admiration. Therefore it is that Burns' "Ode to a Mountain Daisy" has not attained, in the appreciation of the best judges, to equal honour with its companion on the mouse-the episode having somewhat the appearance of being created for the similes rather than the similes for the episode.

We before saw that a petticoat suggested physical phenomena to Herrick; we shall now find that in the same lyric a much humbler article of dress, a shoestring, suggests a moral phenomenon to the same poet-" A careless shoestring, in whose tie I see a wild civility, doth more bewitch me than when art is too precise in every part." It would be difficult to bring together two greater extremes without falling into the category of wit, and, perhaps, absurdity. Shelley is just and poetical when he installs Death as brother to Night, and Night as parent to Sleep; but suppose he had gone a step farther-suppose he had spoken of Death as Sleep's uncle. How grotesque would have been the effect! A really just physical analogy is often heightened by a slight dash of moral colouring. When the author of the sea-song before quoted from compares the vessel to an eagle, he is poetical; but when he adds, "Like the eagle free, away the good ship flies," he superadds the moral element of liberty and free will, and brings the passage under the division we are considering. With Moore, the vessel quits its country slowly and with reluctance, while "her trembling pennant still looked back to that dear isle 'twas leaving; so turn our hearts, as on we rove, to those we've left behind us." To the same poet the stars suggest tearfulness- "At the midhour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly to the lone vale we loved." To Lovelace they suggest a vigilant sentinel-" Like to the sentinel stars I watch all night."