162 
your to read it through; but really to have 
a form of verse before us, and have one’s 
organs of utterance perpetually jarred by a 
prose construction, is like stumbling upon 
a flight of stairs when one thinks one is 
walking on plain ground, or making an 
ascending or descending step when one is 
already on the landing-plaee. 
Sonneis, and other Poems. By D. L. 
RicHARDSON.—We were so much pleased 
with the generality of the poems, at the be- 
ginning of this little volume, that we flat- 
tered ourselves we had at length received 
“News from Parnassus;” a region from 
which we have been long wishing for 
authentic despatches: as we proceeded, 
however, we were obliged to acknowledge 
that, though the intelligence evidently 
comes from the pleasant neighbourhood of 
that region, it is not in reality from the 
high seat of government that it is despatch- 
ed. Instead, therefore, of the ample de- 
tails of an official bulletin, we must confine 
ourselyes, as usual, to a few brief notices. 
The Sonnets, of which there are thirty, are 
all above mediocrity; and some of them 
beautiful; though, considering that several 
of them appear to have been written in 
India, they do not abound in that richness 
of oriental imagery which might have been 
expected. We have another fault to no- 
tice, of somewhat more general applica- 
tion: namely, that they are not always 
legitimate—which, in the politics of Par- 
nassus, we hold to be of no small conse- 
quence. Thus in the vi., xii., xx., xxi, 
xxiii., xxv., Xxvi., xxvii-, xxviii., xxix., and 
xxx-, the rhyme is dropped at every fourth 
line, and the connecting link of the harmony 
(aprime essential in the sonnet, of which the 
perfect oneness is the characteristic beauty) 
is consequently lost. Two stanzas and a 
couplet do not make a sonnet. We ex- 
tract the twenty-fourth, as not only correct, 
but particularly beautiful : 
TO THE SPIRIT OF POESY. 
Fair Ruler of the Visionary Hour, 
Sweet Idol of the Passionate and Wild ! 
Enchantress of the Soul! Lo ! Sorrow’s child 
Still haunts thy shrine, and invocates thy power ! 
Alas! when Fortune and the false World lower, — 
Shall thy sad votary supplicate in vain? 
WIit thou too scorn Affliction’s wither’d bower, 
Nor lend thine ear to Misery and Pain ? 
Spirit unkind !-and yet thy charms control 
Mine idle aspirations—worthless still,— 
And fitful visions, all undreamt at will, 
With ungrasped glory mock the cheated soul ! 
Like beauteous forms of Hope, that glimmer nigh, 
But from Despair’s approach recede and fly! 
The Soldier’s Dream, a blank-verse poera, 
which follows the Sonnets, is in a higher 
strain, and would scarcely have been un- 
worthy the pen of Byron. 
A Final Appeal to the Literary Public, 
relative to Pope, in reply to certain Observa- 
tions of Mr. Roscoe, in his edition of that 
Poet’s Works. To which are added, Some 
Remarks on Lord Byron’s Conversations, as 
Literary and Critical Proémium. 
(Mar. i, 
far as they relate to the same subject, and the 
Author. In Letters to a Literary Friend. By 
the Rev. Wm. L. Bowles, d.M., Prebendary 
of Sarum, Fellow of the Royal Society of Lite« 
rature, &c. 8v0.—-In noticing this valedictory 
appeal upon an almost worn-out subject, 
we must satisfy ourselves with little more 
than stating what appear to be the bases of 
the mere critical part of the controversy. 
Mr. Bowles had laid down the following 
axioms, as the principles upon which he 
rested the secondary estimation of Pope; 
and, though he gave him unequivocal pre- 
eminence over Dryden, refused to rank him 
with poets of the first order—with Shak- 
speare, Spenser and Milton. 
*« «T presume it will be granted, that all images 
drawn from what is sublime or beautiful in nature, 
are more poetical than any images from ert. In like 
manner, the passions of the human heart are more 
adapted to the higher species of poetry, than inciden- 
tal and transient manners.’—Bowles’s Edition of Pope, 
vol. x.” 
These, so far as the general principles of 
criticism are concerned, are the propositions 
the antagonists of Mr. Bowles were called 
upon to controyert: unless, indeed, they had 
chosen to deny that there was any thing in 
them applicable to the case of Mr. Pope; 
and had been prepared to prove that, in his 
poetical works, images drawn from the 
sublime And beautiful of nature, are much 
more abundant than images drawn from art; 
and that he abounds much more in appeals 
to the passions of the human heart, than 
to incidental and transient manners.—Had 
this been the position taken by the advo- 
cates of Pope, an appeal to instances would 
have been all that was requisite; and the 
controversy might have been decided by the 
book of arithmetic. But the statement of 
Mr. B. has been distorted into a prohibition 
of all poetical use of images drawn from ob- 
jects of art and incidental manners ; and the 
principles themselves have been denied. 
It is in reference to these principles, and 
these alone, that the interests of literature 
are concerned in the controversy. Of 
that controversy, on the behalf of Mr. 
Pope [so we still continue to call him, 
without offence to any ear; but what tym- 
panum could endure to be beaten with the 
tattoo of Mr. Shakspeare! Mr. Milton! 
Mr. Spenser !*] the rear is brought up by 
Mr. Roscoe: and he, in his way, thinks 
it necessary to break a lance with Dr. 
Wharton, for having said, that 
«« The largest portion of the works of Pope is of 
the didactic,: moral, and satiric kind; and, conse- 
quently, not of the most poetic specics of poetry.” 
The summary of Mr. Roscoe’s proposi- 
tions is, that 
«« There is, in fact, no poetry in any subject, ex- 
cept what is called forth by the genius of the poet. 
The objects, presented to us, may be magnificent, or 
terrific, 
* Thus, the most glorious of distinctions, after all, 
is to have a name that cannot brook a title! 
