474 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 



Now day is to his dreary pillow borne, 



The sun hath sought his occidental bed ; 

 " What time the grey-fly winds his sultry horn, 



And o'er the one half world seems nature dead/' &c. 



With such like maudling dilutions* of the works of the immortal great, do 

 these redoubted personages mess up what they choose to call poetry 

 original poetry ! One of them may, perhaps, bursting with the inward 

 spirit of an uncontrollable genius, rush for once from the trodden path with 

 frantic inspiration, and essay to paint, by way of novelty, a maniac in a fit : 

 here it is, 



Look at him now, in bitter madness grinning, 



A poor old wretch " more sinned against than sinning ;" 



Yet as he shrieks with that appalling cry 



Observe " the laughing devil in his eye," &c. 



We have attempted thus to show the modern mode of tacking together 

 verse, and thus is half the metrical issue of the press a mere hodge-podge of 

 other men's thoughts and imaginings, cooked up, after all, by very indifferent 

 artistes ; a satchel provided with other men's viands, a shabby-genteel toad 

 eating at the muse's table. And, moreover, these lacqueys at the great man's 

 heel, these paraders about in their masters' habiliments, appear to glory in 

 their shame most marvellously, for frequently they are to be seen strutting 

 and promenading abroad after a singularly ridiculous fashion, the appro- 

 priated garment drawn on their servile backs the inside outward, and the 

 ticket bearing their master's name stitched upon the collar, and staring in 

 the face of every passenger. Inverted commas, the shoulder-knots of literary 

 obligation, you shall encounter, thick as rogues in every page, with the same 

 consistency as should be manifested in the common thief who, vending his 

 pilfered prize, should take upon himself to recommend it, with the positive 

 assurance that he had just abstracted it from the pocket of a cathedral 

 doctor, or eloquent M.P. 



With some people these gentlemen pass as high and important characters, 

 on the same ground, we suppose, as black-legs and swindlers obtain a bow 

 from a simple country yeoman " they looks like friends of the great lord as 

 it were." Their book is usually got up well, the print is neat, and it is pret- 

 tily boarded perhaps ; furthermore, the chap has a certain suavity ; he doffs 

 his hat with a deferential smirk in the introduction protests he has been 

 involuntarily pushed forward by his friends, too partial friends implores 

 lenity, and so on, and the indubitable dolt who has allowed himself to be 

 taken in, partly because he reposes unlimited confidence in his own dullness, 

 and thinks it a merit to differ where all the rest of the world agree, and 

 partly for the reason that he knows no more of English literature, its stores, 

 and resources, than a pig of pathology, or an owl of optics, the poor wretch 

 consents to suppose the impostor a great genius, and buttons up his pockets 

 with all the dignity of one conscious of having done his best to revive the 

 poetic taste, and the falling literature of our country. 



One of these numerous troops of bardlings is Mr. Charles Owen Apperly. 

 There is neither vigour nor fancy, in the proper sense of the word in him. 

 His vigour is the effort of a clod-pole tumbling a reel, and as for fancy, he 

 capers about amid the sweet dainties of conceit like a distraught creature in 

 a bed of violets, or a porpoise in rose-water. He may, however, be consi- 

 dered in his own circle, perhaps, a clever and very estimable man, and scrib- 

 ble in alburns to the infinite delight of the little misses in his immediate 

 neighbourhood ; and now and then he may, we think, contend for, and 

 achieve the dignity of an odd corner in a magazine, or an obscure nook in a 

 newspaper. Further than this we admonish him not to attempt, or if he 

 will, we add this still further advice, that in order to save time and trouble, 



