Of this Class, the distinguishing mark is, that the Narrator, however liberally his speaking agents be introduced, is himself the source from which everything primarily flows.

Epic Poets, in order that their mode of composition may accord with the elevation of their subject, represent themselves as _singing_ from the inspiration of the Muse, 'Anna virumque _cano_;' but this is a fiction, in modern times, of slight value: the _Iliad_ or the _Paradise Lost_ would gain little in our estimation by being chanted.

The other poets who belong to this class are commonly content to _tell_ their tale;--so that of the whole it may be affirmed that they neither require nor reject the accompaniment of music.
2ndly, The Dramatic,--consisting of Tragedy, Historic Drama, Comedy, and Masque, in which the Poet does not appear at all in his own person, and where the whole action is carried on by speech and dialogue of the agents; music being admitted only incidentally and rarely.

The Opera may be placed here, inasmuch as it proceeds by dialogue; though depending, to the degree that it does, upon music, it has a strong claim to be ranked with the lyrical.

The characteristic and Impassioned Epistle, of which Ovid and Pope have given examples, considered as a species of monodrama, may, without impropriety, be placed in this class.
3rdly, The Lyrical,--containing the Hymn, the Ode, the Elegy, the Song, and the Ballad; in all which, for the production of their _full_ effect, an accompaniment of music is indispensable.
4thly, The Idyllium,--descriptive chiefly either of the processes and appearances of external nature, as the _Seasons_ of Thomson; or of characters, manners, and sentiments, as are Shenstone's _Schoolmistress, The Cotter's Saturday Night_ of Burns, _The Twa Dogs_ of the same Author; or of these in conjunction with the appearances of Nature, as most of the pieces of Theocritus, the _Allegro_ and _Penseroso_ of Milton, Beattie's _Minstrel_, Goldsmith's _Deserted Village_.