bound to unhappiness by a kind of self-willed and infatuated attachment. Misery, with this poet, is a passion; the life of his very intellect seems to move in misery. The wild combinations which an imagination, often perverted, is constantly forming, and making to pass before his soul, like the endlessly varied clouds and glimmerings of a rueful sky, present food to his restless and energetic intellect; and he becomes a troubled speculator on the infinite varieties of his own distressful being. At last pleasure, or something at least partaking of the character of gratification or indulgence, grows out of this habit-such a mind would not be tranquil, even if it could; and to it quiet would be like a calm at sea, so wearisome and soul-killing to the mariner who feels himself alive only in gales and in storms. All Mr Lloyd's poetry, even his very earliest compositions, exhibit traits of this disposition of mind; we think we see it "making the food it feeds on," till, at last, it has shewn itself in the poems we have now quoted, in lamentable and pernicious strength, a strength, to be sure, unable to weaken an intellect by nature both powerful and acute, but which, we fear, may have done sad, though, we trust, not irremediable injury to his capacity of untroubled happiness.

It is not for us to say, what may be in the power of men of genius, by nature too liable to the impression of melancholy or despairing thoughts, to do for themselves, or yet, what cheering and healthful impulses may come to them without-from the face of nature, and the bosom of human life. It is certain, that whatever the general tenor of our lives may have been, all men have known seasons of calm and happiness. We have evidence, then, that we ourselves are capable of happiness, and we only want to know how those seasons were brought on, and how they were dispersed. If it be clear, beyond doubt, that they were the effect of circumstances, independent of our will, we can draw from them no favourable conclusions of our future life. It was happiness which we received and departed from us. But if our souls tell us, that some part, at least, of our peaceful enjoyments we owed to ourselves, it is possible that the same influence or controul which we then ex

erted over our life may still be within our power; and by discovering how that controul, or that unintended unconscious influence was exerted, we may exert it again consciously, powerfully, and more durably. Surely, if this poet, and others like him, so much in love with mournful and depressing dreams, were to attempt cultivating happiness with the same passion with which they seem to cleave unto misery, they might almost transform their natures, and see as many more prospects of cheerfulness and joy than ordinary men, as they now see of despondency and grief.

We conceive that few men are more likely to have a certain portion of their happiness in their own power than such a writer as this, if he would but exert that power, for besides the fineness of all his sensibilities, and the vigour of his intellectual faculties, few seem to have had so many selfexperiences. Now, men are not individually governed by common experience. That common belief which we share with all men is scarcely belief at all, in our own case. Our conviction deserts us when we begin to act; the evidence which we beheld clearly, is suffused and clouded over, as soon as action or expectation begin to stir up in our bosoms the motions of passion or of power. The wisdom which we hold in common with others, and the wisdom by which we must regulate ourselves, seem quite different in kind. They are quite distinct at least, in their authority; and in the manner in which they are produced in our minds. Those observations, opinions, judgments, which seem to compose a system of prudence, an entire economy of life, established among men, and which we receive in part of our common inheritance, seem yet to surrender us up unto all the perils, difficulties, and trials of life, as unwise, untaught, and ignorant, as if we could apprehend no knowledge but what we draw from life itself. And yet the wisdom, when it is acquired, seems the same again; and we can but add our experience of life to the experience of all generations. It does seem indeed, then, to be a law of our own minds, that our belief for ourselves must be drawn from our own life-that the truth which we knew for others we do not know for ourselves, till we have studied it with pleasure and pain

that the knowledge we accepted in transmission from others, has no application to our own life, till our life itself has, by reproducing it, made the application-yielding to it evidence, and clothing it with power which it could no otherwise possess.

Poetry of this character, filled with the self-experiences of a pure and high nature, will be cherished as a sacred possession, in every heart that is not afraid to look life in the face. There is not a man breathing, whose faculties and affections have been expanded and tried, that has not images and emotions in the secret chambers of his bosom, dim, threatening, and terrible. Few poets have had the courage, perhaps the power, to grapple with such thoughts, and subject them to the fetters of words-to the power of their art. Mr Lloyd, we have said, has dared to do this-while we peruse his passionate communings with his soul, we are thereby made more distinctly acquainted with our own; yet at times we cannot help feeling regret that such a mind should have known miserable thoughts so well as to be enabled thus agitatingly to paint them-and our hearts leap with delight within us whenever the poet comes before us in his gladness, and shews that, acquainted as he is with grief, he equally well understands the beauty and delight, both of the natural and moral world.

We rejoice, therefore, to conclude our notice of Mr Lloyd's poetry, with some specimens of a milder-a happier character. There is a great deal of happiness in this volume, and much tender and profound enjoyment of human life. We may guess what joy all the best affections of our nature, must yield this most amiable poet, from some of those pious strains, in which he mourns over the passing away from earth of those he had loved and honoured. The sonnets on the death of his mother's mother,-written in youth,—are all of them exceedingly beautiful. No relation between human beings in this life, is more solemn and affecting to a young heart, than that which prompted these effusions. To a young and happy child, there is felt, unknown perhaps to itself, a reverential awe, for the stillness, the purity, and the sanctity of Old Age sitting solemnly before it like a being scarcely belonging to its bright and gladsome

A

world, and yet looking down upon it from morning to night, with a countenance of benignity and love. child feels in the gray hairs, and saintly calm of her whom its own mother reverences, a power that tempers mirth,-deepens happiness, and calms the overflowing of tears. These are feelings which from a good heart will never pass away-and he whose own head may be getting gray, will think on the aged saint long buried in the grave, with all the undiminished reverence that filled his boyish heart, when he knelt in prayer at the feet of the breathing image, or heard from her pale lips the words of eternal life.

drest,

A dim despondence on my spirit prest, As all my pleasant days were come and gone! Strange whispers parted from th' entombing clay,

The thin air murmur'd, each dumb object spake,

Bidding the overwhelmed bosom ache: Oft did I look to Heaven, but could not pray! "How shall I leave thee, quiet scene ?" said I,

"How leave the passing breeze that loves to sweep

"The holy sod where my due footsteps creep?

"The passing breeze? 'Twas She! The Friend pass'd by !"

But the time came; the passing breeze I
left;
"Farewell!" I sigh'd, and seem'd of all
bereft !

SONNET XI.
As o'er the dying embers oft I cower,

When my tir'd spirits rest, and my heart swells

Lull'd by domestic quiet, Mem'ry dwells On that blest tide, when thou the evening

hour

same as in those venerable Establishments.

It is not possible for any person to speak decidedly of the spirit with which such Institutions have hitherto been conducted, with respect to this very important part of their plan-for they are yet all in their infancy. But the very first question which a friend to such Institutions puts to himself is, what ought to be the character of their public lecturers? and then he looks around him, and judges for himself, whether or not that character be realized in the persons elevated-for it is a great elevation-to situations of such high duties, and such sacred trust. On the spirit of those who found and support such Institutions, will depend that of the men whom they bring there to listen to; and if purposes of worth and importance are undertaken without the spirit which is adequate to carry them into effect, the good cause itself will be injured and degraded with the public, and the high objects which they professed will cast some thing of ridicule and scorn upon their failure. Let us consider with ourselves for a little what should be the character, for example, of a Lecturer on poetry and literature at such an Institution. The man who stands up to instruct his countrymen on such subjects-not in books, which are open to all consideration-but by a public appointment as a half-professor, ought especially to be a sound teacher. His hearers are not, at least ought not, to be assembled to hear speculations and fancies however acute and amusingnot to hear him, but to hear truth. He stands there as a sort of literary representative of his lettered countrymen, and ought, therefore, to speak authentic knowledge and belief, that which is held, and avouched, and avowed by literary and intellectual authorities. There is no necessity for his being a mere repeater; he will mark the strength and character of his own mind upon what he says, though he does not assume to make the substance of it, and consents to speak the feelings and thoughts of a thousand minds as wise as his own. The national character of our literature imperiously demands this, a literature comprehending that spirit of thought, feeling, and moral sentiment, which makes it English, and England the better for it. Himself, his language, his opinions, must all be classical Eng

lish. The land is ancient, calm, and good, and that which is of the land, which is old and hereditary, has the deep power of the land breathing in every word. Nothing, we conceive, can be so hurtful to the public mind as an innovating and rebellious temper in literature, not arising from conviction of the intellect meditating on the grand sweep of its past course, but from a diseased love of novelty, or a base and mean love of reputation for originality and genius. Such a spirit of hazarding and propagating paradoxes teaches, to all infected with it, dislike and disregard for antiquitiespresumption and self-confidence to the ignorant, who would fain attempt to think before they know, and to know before they feel-and who, in the midst of their imagined independence of opinion, are in truth the veriest slaves of other men, who impose upon them at will the fetters and the stripes of their own reckless and capricious tyranny. The great feelings and opinions of men are strong by their universality. That is evidence for, not against them. We are not required to be all original inventors of thought. It is no dishonour or condemnation of our opinions, that they are simply those of every body else; nor will any devout and ardent lover of truth, either in literature or morals, start back from principles or feelings, because their universal acknowledgement has deprived them of all air of originality, and because, while he promulgates them once more to young minds, the world can give him credit only for the love, the discernment, and the enunciation of what has been long believed to be important, and will confer on him the praise only of being a wise expositor of wisdom.

But the great and important question is, what kind of instruction can reasonably be expected to be communicated, by even the very best teacher, to such an audience as is gathered together in the lecture-room of a literary institution? It cannot, we should think, be intellectual discipline to the mind on which future important science may be built up. What can be expected from him? That to men whose occupations of life have been different from those of the studious, men of active and intelligent minds, but unstored with philosophic knowledge, or the wealth of literature, he should give-what? The know