The table and his furniture; and the pure candlestick with all his furniture. Exod. xxxi. 8. The brazen altar, and bis grate of brass. Exod. xxxix. 39. Look not upon the wine, when it giveth his colour in the cup. Prov. xxiii. 31. If the falt hath loft bis favour. Mat. v. 13. Here the pronoun his is used instead of its, which does not occur either in the Old or New Testament; but this mode of expression is now bsolete. 4 II. ON THE EPIC POЕМ. An epic poem is a poetical narrative of some great action, performed by a hero. It is not a regular detail of facts, like a history; but a story, dignified and embellished by marvellous and heroic events, by the introduction of gods and goddeffes, or some other fupernatural agents. The poet however should keep within the bounds of probability; otherwise his work becomes a romance. The action should be one; for two actions would divide the reader's attention. The characters should be diverfified and contrafted; the plot and the unravelling, natural and easy; the moral, obvious and striking; and the style, equal to the grandeur of the subject. At the beginning, the poet invokes a muse, a celestial personage, who is supposed to give him information, concerning every circumstance, which does not come within the sphere of his knowledge; and he immediately launches out into the middle of the subject. Preceding events are usually related by the hero himself. No god or goddess should be introduced in trifling incidents. 4 dents. The episodes, that is, the little fubordinate stories, should be connected with the principal action. The most celebrated epic poems are, the Iliad and Odyffey of Homer-the Æneid of VirgilMilton's Paradise Lost, published in 1669Tasso's Jerufalem, written about the year 1505, and tranflated into English by Mr. Hoole-The Lufiad of Camoëns, a Portuguese poet, who wrote about the year 1505, translated into English by Mr. Mickle *-And the Henriade of Voltaire, which appeared for the first time, in 1723, under the title of the LEAGUE, The London quarto edition, in 1726, altered the title to that, which it has ever since retained, in a multitude of subsequent editions. * Les Luciades sont les Portugais, nommes Luciades, disent | les conteurs de fables, ou de Lusus dix-septieme roi d'Espagne, ou de Lufus fils, ou compagnon de Bacchus, qui conquit les Indos." Baillet, Ingemens de Savans, tom. iv. p. 294. "The Luciad, in the original Os Lufiadas, the Luciads, from Lufitania, the Latin name of Portugal, derived from Lusus or Lysas, the companion of Bacchus, in his travels, who is fabuloufly reported to have planted a colony in that country." Mickle See Plin. iii. c. 1. The subject of the Lufiad is the discovery of the East Indies by the Portuguese, under the conduct of Vafco de Gama. III. ON THE NATURE OF DRAMATIC POETRY. The drama, or dramatic poetry, derives its name from a Greek word, δραω, which signifies to alt; because in this kind of poetry, the action is not related, as it is in the epic poem; but performed on the stage. In the drama there are three kinds of unity; the unity of action, the unity of time, and the unity of place *. But these unities are not much regarded. The language of the drama should be suitable to the persons introduced; their characters should be diverfified; the story interesting; the plot artfully contrived; the unravelling easy, the event natural, but striking and unexpected. * These unities, in the strictest sense imply, that one action should be confined to one place, and one day, or even to the time of representation. In |