"The reputation of this exquisite passage," said he, laying down the book, "is established by the consenting suffrage of all men of taste, though by the critical countenance you are beginning to put on, you look as if you had a mind to attack it." "So far from it," said I, "that I know nothing more splendid in the whole mass of our poetry. And I feel almost guilty of high treason against the majesty of the sublimer Muses, in the remark I am going to hazard, on the celebrated lines which follow. The poet's object, through this and the two following pages, is to establish the infinite superiority of mind over unconscious matter, even in its fairest forms. The idea is as just as the execution is beautiful; so also is his supreme elevation of intellect, over Greatness of bulk, or symmetry of parts. Nothing again can be finer, than his subsequent preference of The powers of genius and design, over even the stupendous range Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres. He proceeds to ransack the stores of the mental and the moral world, as he had done the world of matter, and with a pen dipped in Hippocrene, opposes to the latter, The charms of virtuous friendship, etc. * * * * * The candid blush Of him who strives with fortune to be just. * * * * * All the mild majesty of private life. The graceful tear that streams from others' woes. "Why, Charles," said Sir John, "I am glad to find you the enthusiastic eulogist of the passage of which I suspected you were about to be the saucy censurer." "Censure," replied I, "is perhaps too strong a term for any part especially the most admired part of this fine poem. I need not repeat the lines on which I was going to risk a slight observation; they live in the mind and memory of every lover of the Muses." "I will read the next passage, however," said Sir John, "that I may be better able to controvert your criticism: Look then abroad through nature to the range Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres, Wheeling unshaken through the void immense, And speak, oh man! does the capacious scene With half that kindling majesty dilate Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose Refulgent from the stroke of Caesar's fate Amid the crowd of patriots, and his arm Aloft extending, like eternal Jove When guilt brings down the thunder, call'd aloud On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel, And bade the father of his country hail; For lo! the tyrant prostrate in the dust, And Rome again is free? "What a grand and powerful passage!" said Sir John.