tions of art.
Those of modern poets acknowledge no boundary--from the firmament to the
fungus, from Niagara to the nearest puddle, from the cold scalp of Mont
Blanc to the snowball of the schoolboy--all things are free and open to
the step of their genius, which, like the moonbeam, touches and
beautifies every object on which it rests. The temperament of the two
races is as distinct as their sentiment and style; that of the one
seeming somewhat curbed, if not cold, while that of the other is ardent
always, and often enthusiastic and rapturous. Different also their
spirit; the one being confined and sectarian, alike in politics, in
literature, and in religion; the other, in some of their number, being
liberal to latitudinarianism, and genial to a vice.

We are not at present seeking to settle the precedence of these two
schools of poetry. We love and honour much in both, and think the
criticism small and captious which can be blind to the peculiar merits
of either--to the terseness, condensation, force of single lines, vigour
of logical thought, and general correctness of the one; or to the
boldness, brilliant diffusion, breadth, and variety of mood and music,
of subject and of treatment, which distinguish the other. It is more
specially our object at present to show how each sprang naturally and
inevitably out of the different ages when they appeared.

Poetry is an age in flower; and the poetry of the nineteenth century has
been a more gorgeous and more tropical flower, because warmer suns have
shone on it, warmer winds blown on it, and larger rains watered its
roots. Indeed, it is almost a wonder that the first half, at least, and
the middle of the eighteenth century, produced so much and such good
poetry. That age was, on the whole, a stagnant and uninteresting one.
There was nothing very deeply to rouse the passions and imaginations of
men. There was, indeed, the usual amount of political squabbles; but
when a Bolingbroke was the most eloquent and admired of parliamentary
orators, what moral grandeur could be expected? There was a Jacobite
faction, perpetually undermining and sometimes breaking out into open
rebellion; but their enthusiasm, save in Scotland, was mingled with no
poetical elements, although there certainly it produced many exquisite
strains of ballad poetry. Twice or thrice the popular passions broke
forth, and reared up an idol for themselves in the shape of a
private man, exalted for the nonce into