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others record some affecting story. There is in i all of them an eagerness and cordiality, a happy choice of imagery, and a sportive and genial imaginativeness. I have always refrained from attempting to adapt them to english taste, and the occasions are very few in which I have wandered even from the phraseology of the original.
The language of art and civilization differs little among different nations; nationality must be sought among popular masses. The sublime abstractions of poetry find no chord of sympathy among the people—what the people admire and love must come home to their every-day thoughts and every-day affections. It must at least have the recommendation of simplicity. Its value and power depend on its being the faithful mirror of the pursuits, prejudices, and passions, of common life. It must not be measured by a high intellectual standard; nor be expected to pourtray those more delicate and complex sensibilities which grow out of excessive refinement.
Thus the only poetry which can become national must be suited to the national civilisation. It must be the representative of the affections which
