adapted to paint fury than sadness, because sentiments which arise from deep reflection demand more metaphysical expressions, whilst the desire of vengeance animates the imagination to the exclusion of grief.  Cesarotti has produced the best and most elegant translation of Ossian extant; but it seems in reading it that the words possess in themselves an air of festivity that forms a contrast with the sombre ideas of the poem.  We cannot help being charmed with our sweet expressions,—­the limpid stream, the smiling plain, the cooling shade, the same as with the murmur of the waves, and variety of colours.  What more do you expect from poetry?  Why would you ask of the nightingale, the meaning of her song?  She can only answer you by resuming the strain, and you cannot comprehend it without yielding to the impression which it produces.  The measure of verse, harmonious rhymes, and those rapid terminations composed of two short syllables whose sounds glide in the manner that their name (Sdruccioli) indicates, sometimes imitate the light steps of a dance; at others, more sombre tones recall the fury of the tempest and the clangour of arms.  In fact, our poetry is a wonder of the imagination—­we must only seek it in the various pleasures which it affords.”

“It must be allowed,” replied Lord Nelville, “that you explain very clearly the beauties and defects of your poetry; but how will you defend your prose, in which those defects are to be found unaccompanied by the beauties?  That which is only loose and indefinite in poetry will become emptiness in prose; and the crowd of common ideas which your poets embellish with their melody and their images, are in prose, cold and dry, while their vivacity of style renders them more fatiguing.  The language of the greater part of the prose-writers of the present day is so declamatory, so diffuse, and so abundant in superlatives, that their work seems written to order, in hackneyed phraseology, and for conventional natures; it does not once enter into their heads that to write well is to express one’s thoughts and character.  Their style is an artificial web, a kind of literary mosaic, every thing in fact that is foreign to their soul, and is made with the pen as any other mechanical work is with the fingers.  They possess in the highest degree the secret of developing, commenting, inflating an idea, and, if I may use the expression, of working a sentiment into a ferment.  So much do they excel in this, that one would be tempted to ask these writers, what the African woman asked a French lady, who wore a large pannier under a long dress:—­’Madam, is all that a part of yourself?’ In short, what real existence is there in all this pomp of words which one true expression would dissipate like a vain prestige.”