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in Music--and very peculiarly, and with a wide field, in the com
position of the Landscape Garden. Our present theme, however, has regard
only to its manifestation in words. And here let me speak briefly on the
topic of rhythm. Contenting myself with the certainty that Music, in
its various modes of metre, rhythm, and rhyme, is of so vast a moment
in Poetry as never to be wisely rejected--is so vitally important an
adjunct, that he is simply silly who declines its assistance, I will not
now pause to maintain its absolute essentiality. It is in Music perhaps
that the soul most nearly attains the great end for which, when inspired
by the Poetic Sentiment, it struggles--the creation of supernal Beauty.
It may be, indeed, that here this sublime end is, now and then,
attained in fact. We are often made to feel, with a shivering delight,
that from an earthly harp are stricken notes which cannot have been
unfamiliar to the angels. And thus there can be little doubt that in
the union of Poetry with Music in its popular sense, we shall find the
widest field for the Poetic development. The old Bards and Minnesingers
had advantages which we do not possess--and Thomas Moore, singing his
own songs, was, in the most legitimate manner, perfecting them as poems.
To recapitulate then:--I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words as
The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty. Its sole arbiter is Taste. With
the Intellect or with the Conscience it has only collateral relations.
Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever either with Duty or with
Truth.
A few words, however, in explanation. That pleasure which is at once
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