who will blame them? The discovery of evil naturally leads us to contribute our mite towards the alleviation of the wretchedness it introduces. While we lament vice, we learn to shun it ourselves and to endeavor, if possible, to arrest its progress in those around us; and in the course of these high and lofty speculations, we are insensibly led to think humbly of ourselves, and to lift up our thoughts to Him who is alone the fountain of all perfection and the source of all good. W. MELANCHOLY HOURS. (No. X.) La rime est une esclave, et ne doit qu'obeir. EXPERIMENTS in versification have not often been successful. Sir Philip Sidney, with all his genius, great as it undoubtedly was, could not impart grace to his hexameters, or fluency to his sapphics. Spencer's stanza was new, but his verse was familiar to the ear; and though his rhymes were frequent even to satiety, he seems to have avoided the awkwardness of novelty, and the difficulty of unpractised metres. Donne had not music enough to render his broken rhyming couplets sufferable, and neither his wit nor his pointed satire were sufficient to rescue him from that neglect which his uncouth and rugged versification speedily superinduced. In our time, Mr. Southey has given grace and melody to some of the Latin and Greek measures, and Mr. Bowles has written rhyming heroics, wherein the sense is transmitted from couplet to couplet, and the pauses are varied with all the freedom of blank verse, without exciting any sensation of ruggedness, or offending the nicest ear. But these are minor efforts: the former of these exquisite poets has taken a yet wider range, and in his "Thalaba the Destroyer," has spurned at all the received laws of metre, and framed a fabric of verse altogether his own. An innovation, so bold as that of Mr. Southey, was sure to meet with disapprobation and ridicule. The world naturally looks with suspicion on systems which contradict established principles, and refuse to quadrate with habits which, as they have been used to, men are apt to think cannot be improved upon. The opposition which has been made to the metre of Thalaba, is, therefore, not so much to be imputed to its want of harmony, as to the operation of existing prejudices; and it is fair to conclude, that, as these prejudices are softened by usage, and the strangeness of novelty wears off, the peculiar features of this lyrical frame of verse will be more candidly appreciated, and its merits more unreservedly acknowleged. Whoever is conversant with the writings of this author, will have observed and admired that greatness of mind, and comprehension of intellect, by which he is enabled, on all occasions to throw off the shackles of habit and prepossession. Southey never treads in the beaten track: his thoughts, while they are those of nature, carry that cast of originality which is the stamp and testimony of genius. He views things through a peculiar phasis, and while he has the feelings of a man, they are those of a man almost abstracted from mortality, and reflecting on, and painting the scenes of life, as if he were a mere spectator uninfluenced by his own connection with the objects he surveys. To this faculty of bold discrimination I attribute many of Mr. Southey's peculiarities as a poet. He never seems to inquire how other men would treat a subject, or what may happen to be the usage of the times; but filled with that strong sense of fitness which is the result of bold and unshackled thought, he fearlessly pursues that course which his own sense of propriety points out. It is very evident to me, and I should conceive to all who consider the subject attentively, that the structure of the verse, which Mr. Southey has promulgated in his Thalaba, was neither adopted rashly, nor from any vain emulation of originality. As the poet himself happily observes, "It is the arabesque ornament of an Arabian tale." No one would wish to see the Joan of Arc in such a a garb; but the wild freedom of the versification of Thalaba accords well with the romantic wildness of the story; and I do not hesitate to say, that, had any other known measure been adopted, the poem would have been deprived of half its beauty, and all its propriety. In blank verse it would have been absurd; in rhyme, insipid. The lyrical manner is admirably adapted to the sudden transitions and rapid connections of an Arabian tale, while its variety precludes tædium, and its full, because unschackled, cadence satisfies the ear with legitimate harmony. At first, indeed, the verse may appear uncouth, because it is new to the ear; but I defy any man who has any feeling of melody, to peruse the whole poem, without paying tribute to the sweetness of its flow, and the gracefulness of its modulations. In judging of this extraordinary poem, we should consider it as a genuine lyric production,we should conceive it as recited to the harp, in times when such relations carried nothing incredible with them. Carrying this idea along with us, the admirable art of the poet will strike us with tenfold conviction; the abrupt sublimity of his transitions, the sublime simplicity of his manner and the delicate touches by which he connects the various parts of his narrative, will then be more strongly observable, and we shall, in particular, remark the uncommon felicity with which he has adapted his versification; and, in the midst of the wildest irregularity, left nothing to shock the ear, or offend the judgment. W. MELANCHOLY HOURS. (No. XI.) THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. FEW histories would be more worthy of attention than that of the progress of knowledge, from its first dawn to the time of its meridian splendor, among the ancient Greeks. Unfortunately, however, the precautions which, in this early period, were almost generally taken to confine all knowledge to a particular branch of men, and when the Greeks began to contend for the palm among the learned nations, their backwardness to acknowledge the sources form whence they derived the first principles of their philosophy, have served to wrap this interesting subject in almost impenetrable obscurity. Few vestiges, except the Egyptian hieroglyphics, now remain of the learning of the more ancient world. Of the two millions of verses said to have been written by |