Wordsworth and Coleridge also wrote fine odes of late years, and they followed the same irregularities of composition. Shelley and Keats, however, produced noble pieces of the same kind, as those on "Liberty" and "Melancholy," in which they used a very free measure, but in orderly stanzas. It would be out of place to describe at length the plan of the Pindaric ode—for it had a general plan, though fantastic in details. The wildest forms of it were styled the Dithyrambic; and impassioned grandeur of sentiment and diction were its characteristics. Horace, in his best odes, contented himself with aiming at dignity and justness of thoughts, and pointedness of expression. Dryden and Collins, as well as Coleridge and Shelley, copied and approached the dithyrambic fervour; while Keats sought but after beauty, and left us masterpieces in that kind-" alas, too few!"

With yet a word on the art of Song-Writing, this essay may be closed. It well merits a word, and chiefly because it is an art the most easy in seeming, and the most difficult in reality, in the entire range of literary composition. People might easily discern this truth, if they would but take note how few really Great Song-Writers have ever flourished among men, at any time, or in any country. Without forgetting Ramsay, Hogg, and Cunningham, it may be justly asserted that Scotland has seen but one such bard, Robert Burns. Ireland has likewise produced but one, Thomas Moore. England has given birth to not one song-writer of the same high order! Such is the fact; for to such parties as the Dibdins, Charles Morris, or Haynes Bayly, the rank of great song-writers cannot be assigned. However, it is but fair to admit that Moore should be reckoned as in the main a song-writer of England, his music only, and occasionally his subjects, being Irish.

D

His pieces are wholly in the English tongue, and by the English nation he may so far be claimed. That numberless individuals have written one or two good songs, is unquestionable, but the circumstance only strengthens the present argument. It shows the difficulty of fitly carrying out and sustaining the practice of song-writing.

Notwithstanding these glaring truths, the young, on feeling the first prompting of the muse, fly to this species of composition almost invariably. Now, whether they do or do not possess the requisite poetical powers (which is not the point under consideration here), they certainly take up the said task, almost always, in total ignorance of the rules of construction necessary to be observed in songwriting. These are few, but all-important. After simplicity and concentration of thought and diction—the first elements in such compositions-simplicity of grammatical arrangement stands next in consequence. An inverted expression is most injurious, and a parenthetic clause almost uniformly fatal. All forms of complication are indeed alike hurtful; and even epithets, and adjectives of every kind, can be employed but sparingly, and must be most direct and simple. That mode of poetic diction, which introduces its similitudes by "as the," "so the," and "like the," is ruinous in songs. Scarcely less so are interjections, especially when of some length. Look how sadly even Wordsworth failed, when he thought to improve on the old ballad of Helen of Kirkconnel!

"Fair Ellen Irvine, when she sate

Upon the braes of Kirtle,

Was lovely as a Grecian maid,

Adorned with wreaths of myrtle."

Compare the effect of this stanza with its parenthetic clause and its tale-tagged similitude, to that of the old ballad, so remarkable for its simplicity:

Even on a reading, the effect of these pieces is widely different, and would be felt ten times more were they sung. The best music is ever cast away on involved phraseology; and herein lies, in fact, the main reason for simplicity of construction in songs.

With these hints on the Art of composing Songs, most of the suggestions before given respecting the selection of words of peculiar sounds, may also be kept in mind. Burns forgot them not. Observe his Wandering Willie:— "Rest, ye wild winds, in the caves of your slumbers, How your dread howling a lover alarms."

But let all the most admired songs of Burns, and of Moore also, be examined attentively, and the skilful adaptation of the words to the sentiment, the position, and the purpose, will appear clearly. What language, for example, could be more artistically suited to an exquisitely soft air than the following by Moore?

""Tis the last rose of summer,

Left blooming alone,

All its lovely companions

Are faded and gone."

If these lines were written in a dialect utterly strange to the hearer, he still could not but feel their admirable melodiousness, so appropriate to the melodious music. In the case, therefore, of song-writing generally-whether to known or unknown music-the purpose of the composition

must ever be kept in mind. A song, if not satisfactorily fitted for vocal utterance, and intelligible on the hearing of a moment, neither deserves, nor will receive, popular appreciation and acceptance. Where true poetry is interfused, as in the productions of Burns and Moore, then, indeed, is mastership in the art of song-writing really shown. Of all classes of writers, the song-writer is perhaps the most truly an artist.

OBSERVATIONS EXPLANATORY

OF THE

DICTIONARY OF RHYME S.

THE Rhymes, or Rhyming Words, contained in the present Dictionary, have been arranged in the mode first adopted by Bysshe in his "Art of Poetry"-a very useful publication of the beginning of last century. At the same time, to render the collection complete, use has been ruade of the numerous additional examples to be found in the later work of John Walker, the well-known author of other excellent lexicographical productions. The rhymes, then, will here be found disposed in consecutive sections, each of them containing, respectively, all such as are of the same precise formation, or as accord with one another accurately in Spelling and Sound. Those Rhymes, again, which are of different literal construction, and yet agree in sound completely, or nearly so, with the preceding class, have been ranged immediately after these, in every separate instance. Though rhymes of the first class only may be strictly entitled to such an appellation, yet the name of "Perfect Rhymes" has been bestowed here, as in Walker, on those of the second class, at once to indicate that they are used as perfect by the best poets, and to distinguish them from yet a third class, usually styled "Allowable Rhymes." These appear after the second class, or those termed per