56 THE AUTHOR OF ^^ DARTMOOR. '' 



h^d even the honor of two notices by Christopher 

 North, God save the mark ! The first of these was, 

 during Carrington's Ufe time, when Sewell Stokes' 

 " Lay of the Desert" was suffering slaughter under 

 the tomahawk of the veiled editor: Dartmoor was 

 then spoken of as " Carrington's Craze,'' The 

 second notice has appeared since the author's death ; 

 in it the same poem is admired, praised and quoted, 

 and Christopher winds up by setting his seal on 

 Carrington and stamping him a Poet. Had the poet 

 lived to read the latter notice he would probably have 

 held it in the same esteem as he did the first, not set- 

 ting any great value on the candour or infallibility of 

 the criticism that will abuse a man* in one article and 

 praise him in another in the very same number — that 

 will applaud earnestly and condemn vehemently the 

 same writerf as his works are presented in his own 

 name or under a fictitious one — that will season its 

 strictures on the works of public men, by stating, with- 

 out regard to truth or the reverse, that onej has 

 "greasy hair," that another || has a countenance 

 " studded with pimples," that a third§ wears "yellow 

 breeches," that a fourth^f " smells of magnesia," &c. 



It has been already said that Carrington wrote when 

 there were many other poetical aspirants before the 

 public — and not mere aspirants only, a galaxy of brilli- 

 ant talent was then reigning supreme ; it had fascinated 

 the eyes of all by its splendor and ri vetted them on its 

 brightness : Carrington came forth in unadorned beauty 

 and in quiet light like a silvery star, a few gazed upon 

 his softened lustre and drank in his tranquillizing influ- 

 ence, but the many beheld him not. 



That was a period when to excite public attention 

 farther than it had already been raised, a writer must 



* Wordsworth. fLamb. +Haydon. || Ilazlitt. 



§ Leigh Hunt. 5F Keats. It may not' be irrelevant here to 



observe that, during a discussion which ensued after a lecture given 

 by Dr. C. Barham in the Athenaeum of the Plymouth Institution; 

 the Rev. S. Howe spoke in the highest terms of Keats' " Hyperion** 

 and claimed for the author a high rank among British Poets. 



