But what do we know of what is ultimate? If there is a contact of our spirits with the universal Spirit, if there are to us divine communions, influences, how do we know when they begin and end? It _seems_ reverent and circumspect to view poetical inspiration as a human fact only, but we are not sure that it is not even more religious to believe that the unsuspected breath of Deity moves our souls in their higher and happier moments. Be they motions of our own souls, be there inferior influences mingled, those Muses were names for the powers upon this view—for the powers and mingled influences upon another. On the whole, I think that the distinction is here intended generally; and that the heavenly Muse represents the human soul exalted, or its powers ennobled by contact with illuminating and hidden influences—as the prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, have each quite the style of their own humanity in writing under the governance of the Spirit. SEWARD. I consider the free daring with which all Poets of the modern world, at least, have, for the uses of their Art, converted Powers and Agencies into imaginary beings. I consider the respects in which the Poet has need of aid. He wants aid if he is to penetrate into regions inaccessible to mortal foot or eye—if he is to disclose transactions veiled since the foundations of the world; but this aid the Muse cannot afford to the _Christian_ Poet, and we shall presently see that he applies for it to a higher Source. But the Poet who undertakes to sing of Heaven and Earth, of Chaos and of Hell, who comprehends within his unbounded Song all orders of Being, from the Highest and Greatest to the Lowest and Least—all that are Good and all that are Evil, and all that are mixed of Good and Evil—and all transactions from the date, if we may safely so speak, when Time issued from the bosom of Eternity to the still distant date, when Time shall again merge in that Eternity out of which it arose, and be no more:—That Poet, if any, needs implore for a voice equal to his theme, a power of wing measured to the flight which he intends to soar; he needs for the very manner of representation which he is to use—for the very words in which he is to couch stupendous thoughts—for the very music in which his pealing words shall roll—aid, if aid can be had for supplication. NORTH.