chanted. The other poets who belong to this
class are commonly content to _tell_ their tale;--so that of the
whole it may be affirmed that they neither require nor reject the
accompaniment of music.

2ndly, The Dramatic,--consisting of Tragedy, Historic Drama, Comedy,
and Masque, in which the Poet does not appear at all in his own
person, and where the whole action is carried on by speech and
dialogue of the agents; music being admitted only incidentally and
rarely. The Opera may be placed here, inasmuch as it proceeds by
dialogue; though depending, to the degree that it does, upon music, it
has a strong claim to be ranked with the lyrical. The characteristic
and Impassioned Epistle, of which Ovid and Pope have given examples,
considered as a species of monodrama, may, without impropriety, be
placed in this class.

3rdly, The Lyrical,--containing the Hymn, the Ode, the Elegy, the
Song, and the Ballad; in all which, for the production of their _full_
effect, an accompaniment of music is indispensable.

4thly, The Idyllium,--descriptive chiefly either of the processes and
appearances of external nature, as the _Seasons_ of Thomson; or
of characters, manners, and sentiments, as are Shenstone's
_Schoolmistress, The Cotter's Saturday Night_ of Burns, _The Twa Dogs_
of the same Author; or of these in conjunction with the appearances
of Nature, as most of the pieces of Theocritus, the _Allegro_ and
_Penseroso_ of Milton, Beattie's _Minstrel_, Goldsmith's _Deserted
Village_. The Epitaph, the Inscription, the Sonnet, most of
the epistles of poets writing in their own persons, and all
loco-descriptive poetry, belonging to this class.

5thly, Didactic,--the principal object of which is direct instruction;
as the Poem of Lucretius, the _Georgics_ of Virgil, _The Fleece_ of
Dyer, Mason's _English Garden_, &c.

And, lastly, philosophical Satire, like that of Horace and Juvenal;
personal and occasional Satire rarely comprehending sufficient of the
general in the individual to be dignified with the name of poetry.

Out of the three last has been constructed a composite order, of which
Young's _Night Thoughts_, and Cowper's _Task_, are excellent examples.

It is deducible from the above, that poems apparently miscellaneous,
may with propriety be arranged either with reference to the powers of
mind _predominant_ in the production of them; or to the mould in which
they are cast; or, lastly, to the subjects to which they relate. Fr