A better soldier than a prophet.
SIR H. CLINTON.
Yet,
Scarce does his liberal extolment stretch
Beyond its object's merits; for, were he
Not rooted in his compeers' confidence,
And in his generalship unmatched, this league
Had long since crumbled from within, and o'er
Its sever'd bands our arms had quickly triumph'd.
In all his mighty spirit's ordinant,
The while his warriors, rang'd in council round him,
Listen to plans of learned generalship.
Within the Congress is his voiceless will
Potential as the wisest senator's.
Ever between their reeling cause and us,
Comes his stern brow to awe fell Ruin's spirit.
'Tis a grand game he plays, and, by my soul,
Worthy the game and player is the stake.
A fair broad continent is't for a kingdom:
If he can win't, he's welcome to't.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
ENGLISH POETRY.
CHAP. II.
I have heard it remarked, that the study of our early poets was like a journey through a country of rich groves and pleasant gardens. There surely is something pleasing in the study of old poetry. A ripeness of feeling meets us on the yellow and stained page, which, gradually mingling with the legitimate feelings of our own hearts, "makes us to glow with a rich fervor."
But this pleasure, like all other exquisite pleasures, is rather of the inexpressible kind. To impart it, condensation is necessary: and to condense it, is like bottling fragrance, or gathering foam into a beaker.
The reader may therefore prepare himself for nothing more than a straight forward story—broken in upon at intervals, by such rambling episodes of "remark" as I may think suitable.