far, or to make such a large demand upon the Reader’s charity.  Some of these pieces are essentially lyrical; and, therefore, cannot have their due force without a supposed musical accompaniment; but, in much the greatest part, as a substitute for the classic lyre or romantic harp, I require nothing more than an animated or impassioned recitation, adapted to the subject.  Poems, however humble in their kind, if they be good in that kind, cannot read themselves; the law of long syllable and short must not be so inflexible,—­the letter of metre must not be so impassive to the spirit of versification,—­as to deprive the Reader of all voluntary power to modulate, in subordination to the sense, the music of the poem;—­in the same manner as his mind is left at liberty, and even summoned, to act upon its thoughts and images.  But, though the accompaniment of a musical instrument be frequently dispensed with, the true Poet does not therefore abandon his privilege distinct from that of the mere Proseman;

  He murmurs near the running brooks
  A music sweeter than their own.

Let us come now to the consideration of the words Fancy and Imagination, as employed in the classification of the following Poems.  ‘A man,’ says an intelligent author, ’has imagination in proportion as he can distinctly copy in idea the impressions of sense:  it is the faculty which images within the mind the phenomena of sensation.  A man has fancy in proportion as he can call up, connect, or associate, at pleasure, those internal images ([Greek:  phantazein] is to cause to appear) so as to complete ideal representations of absent objects.  Imagination is the power of depicting, and fancy of evoking and combining.  The imagination is formed by patient observation; the fancy by a voluntary activity in shifting the scenery of the mind.  The more accurate the imagination, the more safely may a painter, or a poet, undertake a delineation, or a description, without the presence of the objects to be characterized.  The more versatile the fancy, the more original and striking will be the decorations produced.’—­British Synonyms discriminated, by W. Taylor.

Is not this as if a man should undertake to supply an account of a building, and be so intent upon what he had discovered of the foundation, as to conclude his task without once looking up at the superstructure?  Here, as in other instances throughout the volume, the judicious Author’s mind is enthralled by Etymology; he takes up the original word as his guide and escort, and too often does not perceive how soon he becomes its prisoner, without liberty to tread in any path but that to which it confines him.  It is not easy to find out how imagination, thus explained, differs from distinct remembrance of images; or fancy from quick and vivid recollection of them:  each is nothing more than a mode of memory.  If the two words bear the above meaning, and no other, what term is left to designate that faculty of which the