MONTHLY HEVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 



tionary in writing what nobody will read for the future ; let him not, to use 

 one of his own phrases, again give way to " a vulgar and unnatural appetite 

 that is insatiably hankering after the stickjaw and lollipop of mob-applause." 



AN ESSAY ON WOMAN. BY NICHOLAS MICHELL. LONDON. EFFINGIIAM 

 \YILSON. 1833. 



WE thank Mr. Michell, heartily, for this volume. The best method of 

 getting rid of a nuisance is by rendering it so intolerable that it can no longer 

 be endured. The reign of the theme-writers in verse is at an end. It will 

 no longer be borne that a conceited young man shall ring the changes in this 

 fashion with a ready-made poetical phraseology purloined from Pope, Gold- 

 smith, Rogers and Campbell. Not a substantive appears before us but is 

 accompanied by the self-same adjective that has done duty for the last fifty 

 years, through the innumerable volumes written by gentlemen resident in 

 the country, and published at the request of friends, whose names appear in 

 the subscription list. 



The artificial school is fast dying away. The public is becoming sick to 

 death of the wearying sameness and monotony of these generalizing geniuses. 

 To a man accustomed to such inflictions, it were no difficult task, only give 

 him the subject and title of the new poem, and the first word of each para- 

 graph, to state pretty accurately of what the obnoxious volume is composed. 

 Let the reader try his hand, " Woman" " Yes" " Oh, Greece !" 

 " Hark !" " Say," " Lo" and so on to the end of the book, or the distrac- 

 tion of the sufferer. 



But not to condemn Mr. Michell unheard or unseen, let us give a short 

 specimen which will, perhaps, furnish precisely the idea we mean to convey 

 to the reader, of the misery entailed upon the hapless wretch whose fate it is 

 to pass sentence upon, after having waded through, verses of this description. 



" First, dove-eyed Pity ! favourite child of Heaven! 

 Are not thy softening spells to woman given ? 

 Who mourns o'er pain, responds affliction's sigh, 

 And wipes the tear from Misery's haggard eye ? 

 At wintry eve, when oft the heartless boor, 

 Would spurn the fainting traveller from the door, 

 Who in his favour breathes the prayers that win, 

 Piles the warm hearth, and hails the Pilgrim in ?" 



Every successive paragraph stares us in the face with all the familiarity of 

 an old acquaintance, but, alas ! with none of the cordiality of an old friend. 



We say conscientiously we speak it advisedly there is not one new idea 

 in this poem or even a new combination of words. It is made up altoge- 

 ther of reminiscences. It is, however, chiefly parrot work, mere prate and 

 chatter of something the creature has learned by rote. When it ceases to 

 be this, it is the mumbling of a mouse making away with cheese-parings of 

 ideas stolen from the larder of other men's brains. Let an instance or two 

 suffice. 



" Yet these, ye Virtues ! bid you beam more bright, 

 As stars shine fairest in the darkest night." 



Goldsmith was " father to that thought." One more : 



" So the proud pine that lifts its brow to Heaven, 

 When tempests wake, is shattered, crushed and riv'n, 

 While the frail flower that decks the neighbouring rock, 

 Stoops its fair head, and smiles amidst the shock." 

 Give every woman her due (and surely the poet of woman cannot refuse to 



do so) and 'the valuable property of'thes,e lines belongs, to Isabella in 



" Measure for Measure." 



