or or or "When I lean, politicians mark, "In deep seas it oversets By a fierce hurricane of debts;" "I in no soul consumption wait or the lines Johnson himself used to admire "Though pleased to see the dolphins play, I mind my compass and my way." Or let our readers take his account of Glover, and answer our question, if, whatever they may think of its truth, it does not transcend rhetoric, and approach poetry : "Inspired with sacred art, He sings and rules the varied heart: If Jove's fierce anger he rehearse, We are far from wishing to exalt Green to the topmost summits of Parnassus, but surely the critic who praised Blackmore, and Pitt, and "Rag Smith " might have spared a word and a smile for the many poetical and brilliant thoughts to be found in the "Spleen." Green's chief power, however, lay not in imagination, nor perhaps even in art, so much as in keen, strong sense, which he has the power, too, of shaping into the most condensed couplets and sharp-edged lines. In corroboration of this, we remember that nearly a third of his short poem is floating through literature in such oft-quoted lines as "Witlings, brisk fools, cursed with half-sense, "Such a face Love's mercy-seat, and throne of grace." Which in my doubting mind create I go, pursuant to my plan, "Zeal, when baffled, turns to spleen." "Brown fields their fallow Sabbaths keep," and hundreds besides, equally pointed and significant. Pope, when he read the "Spleen," said "there was a great deal of originality in it." There are, here and there, indeed, traces of resemblance to "Hudibras " and to "Alma," but on the whole, Green has a brain, an eye, and a tongue of his own -a brain piercing if not profound—an eye clear if not comprehensive and an utterance terse and vigorous, if not grand and lyrical. Perhaps his piece entitled "The Grotto" has more of the purely poetical in it than any of the rest. In his verses on Barclay's "Apology for the Quakers," he discovers the sceptical and uncertain state of his religious views. He says to that fine, bold follower of George Fox "Well-natured, happy shade! forgive; Like you I think but cannot live. Thy scheme requires the world's contempt, Not such my lot-not Fortune's brat; I live by pulling off the hat." And then comes the admirable and most poetical couplet66 Eloquent Want, whose reasons sway, And make ten thousand truths give way." Altogether Green's little productions give us the impression that he was a man worthy of greater fame than he has acquired, and of a better age than that in which he was destined to live, and early to die. He had very strong powers of thought and observation, much misdirected honesty of aim, lively wit, and a vein of fancy which implied a very considerable portion of poetical genius. GREEN'S POETICAL WORKS. THE SPLEEN. AN EPISTLE TO MR CUTHBERT JACKSON. THIS motley piece to you I send, The want of method pray excuse, The child is genuine, you may trace School-helps I want, to climb on high, 1 Gildon's Art of Poetry. 10 20 Then where? from whom? what can I steal, 21 Who only with the moderns deal? First know, my friend, I do not mean When by its magic lantern Spleen Showed part was substance, shadow more; 1 A painted vest Prince Vortiger had on, Which from a naked Pict his grandsire won. HOWARD'S British Princes. 30 40 -2 James More Smith, Esq. See Dunciad, B. ii. 1. 50, and the notes, where the circumstances of the transaction here alluded to are very fully explained. 50 With Spleen's dead weight though heavy grown, I always choose the plainest food Thy help love's confessors implore, To thee I fly, by thee dilute Through veins my blood doth quicker shoot, I never sick by drinking grow, Hunting I reckon very good To brace the nerves, and stir the blood: 60 70 |