580 Conversation with the Double Sighted Youth. [MAY, 



D. S. Y. Mrs. Hemans had some intention lately of visiting London. 

 O*G. M. I trust that she has not altogether relinquished her project. I long 

 to meet her, for I hear that she is very eloquent. What a contrast to Mary Howitt ! 

 I have a great respect for that lady's talents, but why does she not pay more at- 

 tention to the structure of her versification. Reading her poetry is like walking on 

 loose flag-stones : you are in danger of being tripped up every minute. The home- 

 liness of the subjects generally selected is an apology. Dr. Johnson has observed, 

 in his life of Butler, that to one who conveys common thoughts in careless versifi- 

 cation, but I will not stay to quote Johnson ; the meaning and diction will be- 

 worthy each other, and criticism may safely doom them to perish together. I am 

 actuated by a feeling of good will in making these remarks. It cannot too fre- 

 quently be remembered that diction and harmony are to poetry, what colouring 

 and drawing are to painting. A noble thought, ill expressed, is like a grand con- 

 ception negligently and ineffectively designed. 



D. S. Y. Mary Anne Browne came to see me at the Egyptian Hall the other day. 

 O*G. M. She is one of the most incorrigible poetic sinners of the day. Her verses 

 are like similies strung unto a rosary. It is to be lamented that every young genius 

 who may be blessed with the happy talent of arguing in rhyme, should rush into 

 metre without any preparatory initiation into the mysteries by which it is regulated. 

 No small advantage would be gained by the power of distinguishing a metaphor 

 from a simile, and an apostrophe from an allegory. Some men who were ac- 

 counted, in their day, to be endowed with a considerable share of talent, did not 

 disdain to devote their pens to the elucidation of this subject. Bishop Lowth, of 

 whom Antiquarian Readers have often heard, may be adduced as an example. I 

 say Antiquarian Readers, because, in the present day, no person gifted with a lively 

 fane/ ever humbles himself so far as to peruse the works of his ancestors. It is no 

 small labour now for a popular author to read his own productions I mean in 

 point of numbers. Milton has a passage which may be properly applied to Mary 

 Anne Brown and that School. 



D. S. F. How do you distinguish it ? 



O'G. M. We call it the o-&>-School, in allusion to the multitude of similies 

 employed by the writers of it. It is the idle fancy of some poor brains, says 

 Melton, to run out perpetually into a course of similitudes, confounding their 

 subject by the multitude of likenesses, and making it like so many things that it 

 is like nothing at all. Why do'nt Robert Montgomery marry Mary Anne ? 

 D. S. Y. Because he is engaged to Miss Crumpe. 



O'G.M. The state of our female literature is deserving of patient and dispassion- 

 ate investigation. The old adage, that the Romans governed the world, but the women 

 governed the Romans, remains in full force and admits of almost universal appli- 

 cation. The reign of chivalry introduced the domination of women into this 

 country. But, above all, the influence of women is discoverable in the prevailing 

 taste and fashion of the day, whether it be in literature or in art, in the modelling 

 of a figure, or the composition of a novel. If women (as De Stael observes) have 

 not produced works decidedly superior, they have at least been the instruments of 

 inspiration to those who have : but I think the power of woman very dangerous if 

 not restricted. Louis the 14th revoked the Edict ofNantzatthe instigation of 

 Madame Maintenon. Neither is unbounded liberty always accompanied by the 

 proper propriety of life. The females of the tribe of the Hagaurchs, inhabiting the 

 eastern parts of the Paropamisan mountains, are remarkable for the ascendancy 

 they possess over the minds of their husbands. They manage the house, and 

 divide the property and honours, and are never beaten. Unfortunately, their virtue 

 appears to decrease in exact proportion to the enlargement of their freedom. The 

 husband never presumes to enter the chamber of his wife when he sees a pair 

 of slippers at the door. It is a token not to be mistaken, and too frequently 

 repeated, I should suppose, to permit of his forgetting its intimation. 



D. S. Y. The custom of placing the slippers at the bed-room door might be 

 introduced with advantage into our own country. Nothing can be more painfully 

 annoying to the Prince Schwarzenbergs of the day than the sudden and uncere- 

 monious irruption of an angry husband. It is a breach of the polite forbearance 

 necessary to the well being of society, and ought to be amended. 



