416 
>Twas Hope’s. 
scenes, 
of truth, friendship, and meek affection, lead- 
ing us in peace, poor friend ! to life’s down- 
ward 
slope, and blessing our last hours. Alas! the 
prospect grew dark while she sung; the 
sound of 
the death-bell startled me; chill darkness 
dimm’d 
the gay bowers; and Horror, pointing to a 
breathless corpse, cri’d begone! there’s no 
peace for 
thee. 
We have here the whole of the sense in 
three lines, all but one syllable, less 
than in the verse. In other words, 
there are twenty-nine expletive syl- 
lables in Mr. Bowles’s fourteen lines. Is 
this not “ diluting cream with water ?” 
Let Mr. Jennings use Milton’s rhymes 
so if he can, No: Milton knew that 
the poet’s genuine license is that of 
conveying the sense in fewer syllables 
than prose can compress it into. 
But my heaviest charge against this 
so much lauded sonnet—this chosen 
master-piece of this darling poet 
Bowles—remains yet tobe made. Let 
us turn to the picturesque identifying 
epithet yon—“ Horror pointing to yon 
breathless clay!”? What, then, is the 
actual corpse of his deceased mis- 
tress supposed to be in view during 
the chaunting of this sonnet? Was 
it before the poet when he con- 
ceived it? Was the recollection of it 
present when he wrote it? If not, 
where is the oneness—the congruity of 
the thought ? If it was, how became it 
possible for the poet, or the lover, to 
conjure up all this fantastical and arti- 
ficial machinery ? Can the man of real 
sensibility, with the breathless corpse 
of a beloved object before him, think of 
_ allegories, and breathe in an atmosphere 
of metaphors? Can he see any thing 
but the dear object of his agonized re- 
grets? Is his wit at liberty for the 
picturesque and the comparative ?— 
Can he transfer the sensation of 
horror from his own breast to the 
pictured shape of a notorious non- 
entity. But grant him distract and 
demon-haunted, at the end of his son- 
net—what a struggle must there have 
been at the beginning !—what a trial of 
skill and effort (with the image of his 
deceased mistress full in view, or in 
recollection) between his feelings and 
his fancy, before the latter could so 
have mastered and subdued the former, 
as to be able to summon up and ar- 
range all the prettinesses of that glitter- 
It talk’d of love and social 
Gray on Rail-ways. 
[Dec. 1, 
ing conceit—a dialogue about the gentle, 
sweet, whispering, musical voice, and 
what it could be compared to, and its 
telling pretty deceitful tales! and about 
soft music cheating dark and drooping 
thoughts ! 
And is this what the advocates of 
Mr. Bowles call “ the fulness of ge- 
nuine feeling ?”’ Is this what is to be 
held up to the “ admiration of the 
more refined feclings of our nature ?” 
—the beau ideal of pathetic simplicity ? 
To me, on the contrary, it appears that 
all the pathos is in the subject itself, 
and not in the poetical embellishments 
of Mr. Bowles. Andalthough Ido not 
think myself called upon to give up my 
real name to Mr. Jennings, as it is 
not his literary reputation that I have 
assailed,—nor have I, I trust, in my 
reply, said any thing that can be con- 
sidered as personal to him,—yet I think 
I have said enough to justify me (till 
something better of Mr. Bowiles’s is 
brought before me), without retracting 
one single word about sugared cream 
and water, in signing myself your, and 
Mr. Jennings’s, humble servant, 
3d November, 1825. AVONIAN. 
———— SS 
Gray on a Generat Iron Rait-way. 
(Continued from page 30.) 
N order to form a just estimate of 
the economy of this measure, it 
will be necessary to ascertain the ex- 
pense attending each particular mode 
of conveyance now in use, with the 
relative time required for the perform- 
ance of journeys :— 
1. The expense of the original con- 
struction of turnpike roads, the annual 
repairs, and the annual expense of ve- 
hicles and horses employed thereon : 
2. The construction of canals and 
boats, the annual repairs, also the num- 
ber and expense of men and horses: 
3. The construction of coasting-ves- 
sels, the annual repairs, and the num- 
ber of hands required, together with 
the expense. 
And then compare these three-fold 
capitals with that required for the con- 
struction of a general iron rail-way, 
locomotive steam-engines and carriages 
(for the conveyance of persons and of 
goods of every description), their annual 
repairs, the’ number of hands required, 
together with the expense. It must be 
sufficiently evident to every man of re- 
flection, that the benefit to be derived 
from rail-roads should be of a general 
and national kind ; their partial intro- 
duction into certain districts would not 
merely 
