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tain that the age, however retrograde in some respects, has taken sufficient steps in improvement to warrant it's being met with congratulations. Experience, the progress of Education,—the extension of the general feeling respecting the Slave Trade,-the evident futility of Superstition's endeavours to recover herself, the unquestionable addition of freedom obtained by the French, as far as they have approximated to the political privileges of this country,-in short, the encreasing strength of opinion, the universal advance of people towards their governments, and the better knowledge of each other which has followed the shaking together of the whole civilized community, and which must inevitably prevent the return of certain delusions, even in countries like

Spain, all conspire to secure to the world that improvement in it's social atmosphere, which has generally been preceded by storms and convulsions. And as to the rest, if Poetry is still inclined to colour a little overmuch, and to sit smiling out upon forms and visions of happiness which other eyes cannot discern, let us recollect that glorious definition of her office and privileges, which was struck off under her own inspiration by a writer, in whom knowledge appears to have been almost intuitive:

"The use of this feigned history (Poetry) hath been to give some shadow of satisfac tion to the mind of man, in those points, wherein the nature of things doth deny it, the world being, in proportion, inferior to

the soul; by reason whereof there is agreeable to the spirit of man, a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety, than can be found in the nature of things. Therefore, because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, Poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical: because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of actions not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore Poesy feigns them more just in retribution, and more according to revealed providence because true history representeth actions and events more ordinary, and less interchanged, therefore Poesy endueth them with more rareness, and more unexpected and alternative variations; so as it appeareth, that Pob

esy serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality, and to delectation. And therefore it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind by submitting the shews of things to the desires of the mind, whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the nature of things."

BACON.

SOME ACCOUNT

OF THE

ORIGIN & NATURE OF MASKS.

As the species of dramatic production called a Mask has been unknown among us for a long time, the reader may not be unwilling, before he enters upon the following pages, to hear a few words respecting it. Not that the author pretends to instruct every one on the subject who may happen to take up his book; but it is possible for persons well acquainted in general with our elder and nobler poetry to have missed this particular branch of it, which as it was chiefly used for ornament on temporary and private occasions, was

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