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WE recollect with what wonderful avidity of panegyrick the first speech of Mr. Giles on the embargo laws was extolled by all the democrats in the United States; he was the Goliath of Gath, who undertook singly to fight all the host of Israel upon the subject. He defended it as stoutly as he could. He talked especially of its coercion on foreign nations; he proposed the LAST embargo bill in the Senate, advocated its principles in all its stages, and appeared to all intents and purposes the most active legislator in supporting by sophistry the unconstitutionality of its powers, and the necessity of enforcing the political

dreams of the President. But he has lately offered us a lesson on the sincerity of all this declamation, which will teach us how to respect in future the political integrity of Mr. Giles. On the resolution for raising the embargo and adopting the nonintercourse policy he observes

"I have never relied so much on the coercive effects of the embargo singly, as some gentlemen have done; and I have at all times been of opinion, that preparations for more efficient measures should have been made to come in aid of, or substitute the embargo, whenever it should be ascertained that it had failed of its coercive objects."

This assertion is an absolute falsehood, if we are to believe his former observations; or, if we cannot give credit to them, then he was guilty of shameful untruth in maintaining so ardently such doctrines, as he knew were absolute tyranny, if the embargo was ineffectual abroad.

It seems that Mr. Giles has now found out that the non-intercourse is an admirable measure, and the embargo was good for nothing. He has no compunction for the distress and calamity of the country under its operation for fifteen months.

You can never expect a democrat to argue reasonably. His notions are confined to the immediate result of the experiment without reflecting on the consequences of the undertaking. The experiment of the embargo failed; but the non-intercourse is to bring foreign nations to terms. The British nation, howev er, will enjoy the commerce from which we have excluded ourselves; and we may hug ourselves with satisfaction at the blessed effects of non-intercourse. The reasoning of Mr. Giles is very much like that of a name-sake of his, whom we recollect to have been formerly acquainted with in an epigram:

GILES Jolt, as sleeping in his cart he lay,
Some waggish pilferers stole his team away;

Giles wakes and cries, "What's here! ods dickens, what?
Why, how now, am I Giles, or am I not?
If he, I've lost six geldings to my smart ;
If not, ods buddikins, I've found a cart.”

THE GERMAN SCHOOL OF POETRY.

THE admiration with which the principal writers of the German School are viewed in this country, seems to demand an exposition of the perverted principles of taste, on which such writers compose. The gairish ornament and tinsel decoration, which are necessary to satisfy expectation in American composition, can only result from bad taste. A continual hankering after tropes, metaphors and similes, seems universally to pervade all American notions of good writing: and the neatness of Addison and genuine anglicism of Swift will stand no chance of success, when contesting with the voluputous effusions of Darwin, the multiplied metaphors of Southey, the horrours of Schiller, or the tender morality of Kotzebue. We imagine the following extract from an uncommonly learned and discriminating European work will afford our readers some instruction, upon this very important literary subject.

THE disciples of this school boast much of its originality, and seem to value themselves very highly, for having broken loose from the bondage of the antient authority, and re-asserted the independence of genius. Originality, however, we are persuaded, is rarer than mere alteration; and a man may change a good master for a bad one, without finding himself at all nearer to independence. That our new poets have abandoned the old models, may certainly be admitted; but we have not been able to discover that they have yet created any models of their own; and are very much inclined to call in question the worthiness of those to which they have transferred their admiration. The productions of this school, we conceive, are so far from being entitled to the praise of originality, that they cannot be better characterised, than by an enumeration of the sources from which their materials have been derived. The greatest part of them, we apprehend, will be found to be composed of the following elements 1. The antisocial principles and distempered sensibility of Rousseau-his discontent with the present constitution of society-his paradoxical morality, and his perpetual hankerings after some unattainable state of voluptuous virtue and perfection. 2. The simplicity and energy (borresco referens) of Kotzebue and Schiller. 3. The homeliness and harshness of some of Cowper's language and versification, interchanged occasionally with the innocence of Ambrose Philips, or the quaintness of Quarles and

Dr. Donne. From the diligent study of these few originals, we have no doubt that an entire art of poetry may be collected, by the assistance of which the very gentlest of our readers may soon be qualified to compose a poem as correctly versified as Thalaba, and deal out sentiment and description, with all the sweetness of Lambe, and all the magnificence of Coleridge.

The most distinguished symbol' of the authors of whom we are now speaking, is undoubtedly an affectation of great simplicity and familiarity of language. They disdain to make use of the common poetical phraseology, or to ennoble their diction by a selection of fine or dignified expressions. There would be too much art in this, for that great love of nature with which they are all of them inspired; and their sentiments they are determined shall be indebted, for their effect, to nothing but their intrinsick tenderness or elevation. There is something very noble and conscientious, we will confess, in this plan of composition; but the misfortune is, that there are passages in all poems that can neither be pathetick nor sublime; and that, on these occasions, a neglect of the establishments of the language is very apt to produce absolute meanness and insipidity. The language of passion, indeed, can scarcely be deficient in elevation; and when an author is wanting in that particular, he may commonly be presumed to have failed in the truth, as well as in the dignity of his expression. The case, however, is extremely different from the subordinate parts of a composition; with the narrative and description, that are necessary to preserve its connexion; and the explanation that must frequently prepare us for the great scenes and splendid passages, In these all the requisite ideas may be conveyed, with sufficient clearness, by the meanest and most negligent expressions; and if magnificence or beauty is ever to be observed in them, it must have been introduced from some other motive than that of adapting the style to the subject. It is in such passages accordingly, that we are most frequently offended with low and inelegant expressions; and that the language, which was intended to be simple and natural, is found oftenest to degenerate into mere slovenliness and vulgarity. It is in vain, too, to expect that the meanness of those parts may be redeemed by the excellence of others. A poet, who aims at all at sublimity or pathos, is like an actor in a high tragick character, and must sustain his dignity throughout, or become alto

gether ridiculous. We are apt enough to laugh at the mockmajesty of those whom we know to be but common mortals in private; and cannot permit Hamlet to make use of a single provincial intonation, although it should only be in his conversation with the grave-diggers.

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The followers of simplicity are, at all times, in danger of oc casional degradation; but the simplicity of this new school seems to be intended to ensure it. Their simplicity does not consist, by any means, in the rejection of glaring or superfluous ornament or in that refinement of art which seeks concealment in its own perfection. It consists, on the contrary, in a very great degree, in the positive and bona fide rejection of art altogether, and in the bold use of those rude and negligent expressions, which would be banished by a little discrimination. One of their own authors, indeed, has very ingeniously set forth, (in a kind of manifesto, that preceded one of their most flagrant acts of hostility), that it was their capital object to adapt to the uses of poetry, the ordinary language of conversation among the middling and lower orders of the people.' What advantages are to be gained by the success of this project, we confess ourselves unable to conjecture. The language of the higher and more cultivated orders may fairly be presumed to be better than that of their inferiours ; at any rate, it has all those associations in its favour, by means of which a style can ever appear beautiful or exalted, and is adapted to the purposes of poetry, by having been long consécrated to its use. The language of the vulgar, on the other hand, has all the opposite associations to contend with, and must seem unfit for poetry, (if there were no other reason), merely because it has scarcely ever been employed in it. A great genius may indeed overcome these disadvanta ges; but we scarcely conceive that he should court them. We may excuse a certain homeliness of language in the productions of a ploughman, or a milkwoman; but we cannot bring ourselves to admire it in an author, who has had occasion to indite odes to his college-bell, and inscribe hymns to the Penates.

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