414 
little dash of opium, also), I can rea- 
dily believe ; but I must venture (not- 
withstanding the apparent taste of the 
age) to hazard an opinion, that piety is 
not always of necessity poetical, any 
more than genuine poetry is necessarily 
evangelical. 
In one of these sonnets, if I recollect 
rightly (for I have not the volume by 
me, or I would turn to all Mr. Jen- 
nings’s references), Mr. Bowles thus 
laments the loss of the lady of his 
heart : 
“ But it pleas’d God to take thee,—thou 
didst go, 
In youth and beauty go to thy death bed, 
Even while, as yet, my dream of hope I fed. © 
“ Be it so! 
Ere yet I have known sorrow, and even now 
The cold dewscan I wipe from my sad brow.” 
Well then—wipe it, say I. If you are 
so piously resigned, why do you think 
of appealing to my sympathies in puling 
sing-soug? This may be part of a goodly 
sermon, but it is no poetic inspiration. 
It may be good preparation for the 
communion-table, but it is no offering 
for the altar of the muses. In short, poe- 
tically speaking, what is it but sugared 
cream and water? It may be holy 
water, indeed, with which it is diluted ; 
but it willhave no better relish, on that 
account, for any but saintly palates. 
But it is the fashion of this school, as 
you, I think, Mr. Editor, have some- 
where observed, to mingle together 
their poetry, their amours and their de- 
votion; so that they cannot lament a 
lost mistress without talking about pro- 
vidence, or pay a compliment to a bean- 
tiful eyebrow, without seating God 
Almighty upon the arch. This sort of 
melange, to me at least, as far as poetry 
is concerned, appears to be in very bad 
taste; I must be permitted to doubt, 
whether it be not equally ambiguous 
piety. Some of those who have made 
use of it may be, and I dare say are, 
very sincere; but it must be confessed 
that it looks very like the cant of a 
would-be religious hypocrisy. Not 
that I am insensible to the charm of 
religious poesy, when it is at once really 
poetical and devotional. I kindle to 
enthusiasm with the divine Milton— 
I am soothed into interesting placidity 
by the pious and familiar colloquialism 
of Cowper. But then the poet should 
be either one thing or other: he should 
not attempt to mingle contraries, Cupid 
and the, Evangelists make strange com- 
pany, when invited to the same poetical 
party. val ; 
Bovles’s Sonnets. 
. [Dec 1, 
But to return—for Mr. Jennings, and 
you also, I suppose, will say, Sir, that I 
am but a rambling sort of essayist, when 
I get on my critical hobby-horse ;—or, 
to resume my former metaphor,—not 
a bush-fighter only, but perpetually 
changing my bush !—To return to Mr, 
Bowles, and to the identical sonnet 
Mr. Jennings has selected for illustra- 
tion: let us see whether there be not 
here, not only some sugared “ cream and 
water,” but also some adventitious in- 
congruities to boot; and whether the 
ingredients, after all, be well compound- 
ed :—whether they are duly concocted © 
(as the word-mongers might syllable it) 
to a felicitous concatenation of con- 
gruous homogeneity.* The poet thus 
begins : M1996 
“¢ Whose was that gentle voice, that, whis- $ 
pering sweet” — 
A naturalinquiry enough, no doubt, when 
a poet, or any body else, hears a gentle 
voice, whispering sweet, and does not 
know where it comes from. But was 
the inquirer really in the dark upon 
this subject ? 
“‘ Whose was that gentle voice, that whis- 
pering sweet, 
Promis’d methought long days of bliss 
sincere ? 
One would have thought that, without 
much of poetic inspiration, it might 
have been guessed which of the divini- 
ties it was that whispered such pro- 
mises. 
* Soothing, it stole on my deluded ear, 
Most like soft music.’’— 
Wonderful! <A gentle voice that whis- 
pered sweet, was most like soft music! 
“ Most like soft music, that might somelimes 
cheat—”’ 
wonderful again! Soft Music might 
sometimes cheat /—Cheat what ? 
“that might sometimes cheat. ©. » 
Thoughts dark and drooping ?”’ fe 
If dark and drooping ‘thoughts wilt 
suffer themselves to be beguiled by soft 
Music, that of the dice-box, perhaps, 
to the hazard-table, loo, or backgam- 
mon, it can be no additional niarvel 
that they should sometimes be cheated : 
but, without the supposition of some 
such game, it is not very easy to con- 
ceive how the cheatery should take 
place: 
“ Sis. Ir 
* Again, I trust, I shall not be called 
upon to quote the identical word-mongers 
from whom I have borrowed this very sti.” 
entific and Juminous phraseology. ©’ 
¥ 
