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striking contrasts and pleasing allusions. He will not compose from the heart but the head, and will consult his imagination rather than his sensations. This quality is peculiarly termed wit, and a just taste for it is never acquired without a considerable degree of national refinement. Pieces of wit are therefore later in their date than any others.

This brief account of the progress of poetry in general being premised, let us proceed to a nearer inspection of our subject.

In attempting to fix a meaning to the word song, the first idea which strikes us arises from its name, signifying something to be sung. We shall discuss this a little at large.

The union of music with poetry must appear extremely natural. We find it to have taken place universally in the uncultivated state of all nations, and to have continued partially in the most refined. In all languages the words expressing vocal music have been also used indiscri

minately to signify poetry; and though we at present consider such expressions as figurative, there is no doubt but they were originally natural. The sacred name of song was not then prostituted to a succession of unmeaning sounds tortured into music through the odious pipe of an equivocal mutilated animal; it was a general term to express all that the sister Muses of poetry and melody could combine to delight the ear, and ravish the heart. This enchanting union is now in great measure dissolved, yet I will venture to assert that it was not poetry, but her less sentimental companion music who began the separation. The luxury of artificial harmony, taking place of the simple graces of melody, rendered instrumental music chiefly sought after, and the assistance of poetry in consequence unnecessary. The present age is characterised by a languid, sensual indolence, averse even in its pleasures to any thing that requires attention of the mind. The ear, instead of being an avenue to the

heart, expects to be gratified merely as an organ of sense, and the heroine, poetry, must give place to the harlot, music. And when the latter has deigned to borrow the vehicle of words, she has shown by her choice that she has regarded poetry rather as a burden upon her exertions than an assistant.

The term song may therefore be considered in a double sense-if the idea of music prevails, it signifies no more than a set of words calculated for adaptation to a tune if poetry be the principal object, it is a species of poetical composition regulated by peculiar laws, and susceptible of a certain definition; still however retaining so much of the musical idea, as to make it an essential circumstance, that by a regularly returning measure it be capable of being set to a tune.

A song, as a poetical composition, may be defined, a short piece, divided into returning portions of measure, and formed upon a single incident, thought, or sentiment. Under this definition the general

subject from which the particular topic is taken is not restricted; but it has been found that emotions of tenderness and gaiety are peculiarly adapted to songwriting. Custom therefore has almost solely confined the general subject of songs to love and wine, and it must be acknowledged that the nature of the composition, and the assistance of music, contribute to give these subjects a peculiar air of gracefulness and propriety.

A number of distinctions have been formed in modern poetry from trifling particularities in the versification of these pieces, such as the number of lines composing a stanza, the repetition of a line at regular distances, the ordonnance of the rhyme, and the like.

The laborious Baron Bielfield, in his Elements of universal Erudition, has thought it worth while to particularize a great variety of these distinctions in French poetry, such as the Sonnet, the Rondeau, the Vaudeville, &c. I cannot but consider these petty diversities as very unessential

to the poetical character of any composition; this cursory mention is therefore all the notice I shall bestow on them.

If we examine the poetical remains of antiquity, we shall find various examples of pieces which come under the foregoing description of a song. That beautiful relique of Sappho, which is well known to the English reader, by Mr. Phillips's excellent translation,

"Blest as the immortal Gods is he," &c.

is an exact model of song-writing. The poems of the gay and sprightly Anacreon are almost all songs in every respect, except the measure, which instead of being divided into returning stanzas, is uniform. Yet this would not necessarily disqualify it for musical adaptation, and there is no doubt but they were really sung and accompanied with instrumental music. The Odes of Horace contain many beautiful specimens of the song complete in every circumstance. All these pieces are handed down to us under