The language exquisitely framed, yet flows naturally, following thought.

Certainly the most exquisite adaptation possible of language to express perfectly the delicate motions of the mind, is to be found in the poetry of highest cultivation; and if it had no other purpose, this purpose infusing itself through its whole structure, even into the minutest parts, would give it such laws and rights of its own as must effectually separate it from the laws of men's ordinary language, and, even in their highest purposes of discourse, would separate the proper language of poetry from the language of prose.

For what is men's purpose in that discourse to which we give the name of prose ?

Such discourse is used by men in society to transact the purposes of their life,—of that life which they govern by knowledge and experience. The spirit, then, which speaks, is not liberated from knowledge, but under strictest subjection to it. It speaks not by imagination, but by experience. The eloquence of such discourse is not merely delight and transport breathed from one mind to another; but one man stands up in the assembly of his people to persuade them to his own purposes; he sees them agitated with unruly passions, and he rises up to awe, to control, to bind them down ;-or, perhaps, he would inflame their minds; he has purposes of great daring, and he would rouse up their spirit to bear them into execution. But shall he dare to give himself up to the language of his heart? and, when he calls on the council of the nation to resolve with his will, shall he plead to them only by the transports of his passion ? He has the authority of his own character and person

to maintain; he has their judgment to hold in bondage, when the flame of their passion has died away; he calls on men, met in grave deliberation on their own welfare, to use their power, at utmost peril, in obedience to his mind. Will they be moved, or will he dare to move them, by the mere fervour of his own imagination? They govern their actions by their understanding, and it is to their reason he must speak; it is by argument he must sway their minds, and, if there be passions that he can touch, and imagination that he can exalt, he must veil passion and imagination under the disguise of reason.

And thus it appears that, in all those occasions of natural eloquence in which the eloquence of the ordinary language of men was formed, there are laws derived from circumstances belonging to the social life of men, to the occasion, the purpose, the person of the hearer, of the speaker, and, above all, to that spirit of reality under which they are met together. He is speaking by intellect, and not by imagination, and that is the first great distinction lying in the matter of the composition; but, more than that, he is not endeavouring, which, speaking to intellect he might do, to depicture in the most perfect expression the conceptions and workings of his own mind, but these he would often hide, these he will shew only in very secondary degree, under subordination to many considerations, local, personal, and of the purpose of his discourse.

This, then, gives the distinctive characters of the composition of poetry and prose composition as affecting language. One is free, the other under restraint. In one, the highest law is the poet's mind, which is

to subject every thing to it; in the other, the highest law is in the minds of others to which the speaker's mind is subjected. And, expressly as to language, the purpose of the poet is to frame his words to the most vivid and full representation of his conceptions. The speaker must not dare to do so, or he would forfeit his personal estimation with those to whom he speaks: he cannot do so; for, in truth, he bears in his own mind a purpose which is to himself of far greater importance, and which powerfully diverts him from such study of the workings of his own imagination.

The result shews it, that, in reading poetry, the mind feels the fulness of its dilated power; in reading the eloquence of prose, it feels itself subjected to the time and necessity.

SONG OF THE GIPSY KING.

FROM THE GERMAN.

I.

"TIs I am the Gipsy King,

And where is the king like me ?
No trouble my dignities bring;
No other is half so free.

In my kingdom there is but one table,
All my subjects partake in my cheer;
We would all have Champaigne were we able;
As it is, we have plenty of beer;

And 'tis I am the Gipsy King.

II.

A king, and a true one, am I:

No courtiers nor ministers here;

I see every thing with my own eye,

And hear every thing with my own ear.

No conspiracies I apprehend,

Among brothers and equals I rule;
We all help both to gain and to spend,
And get drunk when the treasury's full;
And 'tis I am the Gipsy King.

III.

I confess that I am but a man,

My failings who pleases may know;
I am fond of my girl and my cann,
And jolly companions a-rowe.
My subjects are kind to me,

They don't grudge me the largest glass, Nor yet that I hold on my knee,

At this moment, the prettiest lass;
For 'tis I am the Gipsy King.

IV.

Ne'er a king do I envy, nor keyser,
That sits on a golden throne,
And I'll tell you the reason why, sir,—
Here's a sceptre and ball of my own.
To sit all the night through in a crown,
I've a notion mine ears 'twould freeze;

But I pull my old nightcap down,
And tipple and smoke at my ease;

For 'tis I am the Gipsy King.