have read of no female epic of even a respectable rank: those who have written tragedies, have written moral lectures (of an inferior sort) like Hannah More; or anatomies of the passions, direct and formal, like Joanna Baillie; or an historical sketch, as Rienzi. We are apt to suspect that the personal charms of Sappho proved too much for the admirers of her poetic rhapsodies, otherwise Longinus has done her foul injustice; for the fragment he quotes is to be praised and censured solely for its obscurity. This would have been a great merit in Lycophron. In the volume of British Poetesses, edited by Mr. Dyce, it is astonishing to find how little real poetry he has been able to collect out of the writings of near a century of authors, scattered over the surface of five or six centuries. It must be allowed that some of the finest shortest pieces by female writers have appeared since the publication of that selection. In the volume referred to, much sensible verse and some sprightly copies of verses occur; a fair share of pure reflective sentiment, delivered in pleasing language rarely rising above correctness; of high genius there is not a particle,—no pretensions to sublimity or fervor. The best piece and the finest poem, we think, ever composed by woman, is the charming ballad of Auld Robin Gray. That is a genuine bit of true poesy, and perfect in the highest department of the female imagination in the pathos of domestic tragedy. In the present century we have Mrs. Howitt and Mrs. Southey, but chief of all, Miss Barrett.[6] The finest attempts of the most pleasing writer of this class, do not rise so high as the delightful ballad above named. They are sweet, plaintive, moral strains, the melodious notes of a lute, tuned by taper fingers in a romantic bower, not the deep, majestic, awful tones of the great organ, or the spirited and stirring blasts of the trumpet. The ancient bard struck wild and mournful, or hearty and vigorous, notes from his harp—perchance placed “on a rock whose frowning brow,” &c. and striving with the rough symphonies of the tempest; but the sybil of modern days plays elegant and pretty, or soft and tender airs upon her flageolet or accordion, in the boudoir or saloon.