miscarriages; and that the reader who has been
promised an energetic sentiment, or sublime allusion, must often be
contented with a very miserable substitute. Of the many contrivances
they employ to give the appearance of uncommon force and animation to a
very ordinary conception, the most usual is, to wrap it up in a veil of
mysterious and unintelligible language, which flows past with so much
solemnity, that it is difficult to believe it conveys nothing of any
value. Another device for improving the effect of a cold idea, is, to
embody it in a verse of unusual harshness and asperity. Compound words,
too, of a portentous sound and conformation, are very useful in giving
an air of energy and originality; and a few lines of scripture, written
out into verse from the original prose, have been found to have a very
happy effect upon those readers to whom they have the recommendation of
novelty.

The qualities of style and imagery, however, form but a small part of
the characteristics by which a literary faction is to be distinguished.
The subject and object of their compositions, and the principles and
opinions they are calculated to support, constitute a far more important
criterion, and one to which it is usually altogether as easy to refer.
Some poets are sufficiently described as the flatterers of greatness and
power, and others as the champions of independence. One set of writers
is known by its antipathy to decency and religion; another, by its
methodistical cant and intolerance. Our new school of poetry has a moral
character also; though it may not be possible, perhaps, to delineate it
quite so concisely.

A splenetic and idle discontent with the existing institutions of
society, seems to be at the bottom of all their serious and peculiar
sentiments. Instead of contemplating the wonders and the pleasures which
civilization has created for mankind, they are perpetually brooding over
the disorders by which its progress has been attended. They are filled
with horror and compassion at the sight of poor men spending their blood
in the quarrels of princes, and brutifying their sublime capabilities in
the drudgery of unremitting labour. For all sorts of vice and profligacy
in the lower orders of society, they have the same virtuous horror, and
the same tender compassion. While the existence of these offences
overpowers them with grief and confusion, they never permit themselves
to feel the smallest indignation or dislike