Poets who give and follow such advice as this, grow to have a horror of _distinctness_ of thought. They shrink from examining their own ideas, lest these should turn out to be no ideas at all; or perhaps very good and sensible ideas, but shockingly true and commonplace. They leave them, therefore, with the bloom of obscurity upon them, and lapse into the conviction that a certain degree of indistinctness is inseparable from subtlety and refinement of thought. A great mistake. Your subtle and refined thinking, if it be worth anything, if it be really _thinking_, must be distinct to those who have the ability to perceive what is subtle and refined. The thinnest gossamer that floats upon the air, _if it is to be seen_, must have an outline as well defined as if it were part of a ship's cable. But it is in vain to preach this doctrine to such writers--vain to argue that the imagination, in its most ethereal exercise, should still have an alliance with sense--we do not say with _common_ sense, but with some intelligible thought: they have a direct interest in believing the contrary. What! sacrifice this image!--silence all this thunder!--throw away this new word we have just coined to express our else unutterable conceptions!--impossible! If these remarks of ours appear to be of a very elementary character, the fault lies with those who render their repetition necessary. Mr Bailey, in his composition, has contrived to commit all the oldest sins in the newest kind of way. He has not only, by the aid of German metaphysics, become transcendently obscure, but he also emulates Messrs Sternhold and Hopkins, in the baldness and ruggedness of his verse. "It is time that something should be done for the poor." Who would imagine that this was a line of poetry? It is, however; and forms the commencement of a speech of Lucifer's. The whole speech follows in the same style of composition:-- "_Lucifer._--It is time that something should be done for the poor. The sole equality on earth is death; Now, rich and poor are both dissatisfied. I am for judgment: that will settle both. Nothing is to be done without destruction. Death is the universal salt of states; Blood is the base of all things, law and war. I could tame this lion age to follow me. I should like to macadamize the world; The road to Hell wants mending." We give another specimen. It is a lyrical effusion delivered by the _Angel of the Earth_. We must give a lengthy and continuous sample, lest it should be said that it is we who, by omitting some portions, have made nonsense of the rest.