MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 2*23 



are written at a very early age, when the order and vigour of the 

 youth are as much more likely to lead him into extravagance and 

 bombast than grandeur and sublimity ; that is, if he trade upon his 

 own bottom, and brings into the business some little capital of brains, 

 and a spirit of originality. That brains have not been wanting 

 in some of these fellows, is pretty evident by the owner's names affixed 

 to each poem ; among which we find the present Speaker of the 

 House of Commons, Mr. Stanley, the Earl of Rippon, Mr. Milman, 

 Mr. Bowles, &c. ; to which array we can only reply, that the ink was 

 an acorn, and these exalted personages (we believe this is the phrase, 

 for we are no courtiers) were once young men, and manifested, as far 

 as we can judge, no very wonderful powers in the muse's line. Though 

 we are speaking of such men we cannot lay aside our terrible com- 

 mission ; we cannot doff the cap, and stand submissive, as one in the 

 presence of the great, " with 'bated breath and whispering humble- 

 ness ;" no! we think these prize poems little more than paraphrases, 

 and we say so. We think we could never refer to them as evidences 

 of remarkable poetic excellence and we say so ; we think that they 

 may claim for their authors a thorough acquaintance with the ancient 

 writers, and a great facility in imitating them which we say also; and, 

 lastly, we say, that not one of them gives earnest of that high mental 

 superiority which has procured for all of them a just celebrity, and, 

 for some, the highest offices in the state. 



Let it not be supposed that we entertain disesteem for the scholar- 

 poet. How few poets there are but that have been scholars! Where 

 the scholar so deeply learned, and so profoundly schooled, as your 

 poet ? Was Milton no poet ? Was Milton no scholar ? Was Spen- 

 cer no poet ? Was Spencer no scholar ? Were Ben Johnson, and 

 Beaumont, and Fletcher, no poets ? were they no scholars ? They, 

 however, rendered their learning subordinate to the great end of na- 

 ture. Gray, seated in his classic study, could sit down, and, in beau- 

 tiful simplicity of heart, could write his "Elegy in a Country Church 

 Yard." It would be folly to expect another elegy among the prize 

 poems; nor, to speak candidly as we think, if that itself " clone 

 into latin" had been presented, it would have received the prize; es- 

 pecially if some antagonist had luckily languished into something 

 about Endymion waiting, in anxious expectation, for his mistress the 

 moon, she, imprudent young lady, having made an assignation with 

 the said young gentleman precisely at eight, punctually, at the hill, 

 there to carry on an intrigue. If this, now, had been " dished up," 

 and served cold and it must be cold as a Russian winter to take the 

 doctors we have little doubt that Gray would have been unsuc- 

 cessful. 



But there are other ways to distinction, it appears, than penning 

 poesy, and, undoubtedly, ways more prolific of the good things of this 

 life. Why, the muses' best sons might write themselves blind before 

 they would contrive to secure, tight and fast in the interior of their 

 breeches' pockets, one tithe of the current coin of the realm, which 

 some of these gentlemen-amateurs, who figure in this volume, button 

 up, close and fast, each merry quarter. In sooth, such a sum, glitter- 

 ing and ringing to the ear " the most exquisite music/' would drive 



