clxxvi 
LIFE OF WILSON. 
one is led to conjecture that he was weary of his protracted la- 
hour. We have tale sxid. smile; sent and want; blest past; 
bespread and clad; and many other similar imperfections. 
The conclusion of the poem is a specimen of slovenly and 
inaccurate composition: 
“ And when some short and broken slumbers came 
“ Still round us roaring swept th’ outrageous stream:, 
“ Whelm’d in the deep we sunk engulf ’d, forlorn; 
“ Or down the dreadful rapids helpless borne; 
“ Groaning we start! and, at the loudening war, 
“ Ask our bewilder’d senses where we are.” 
In common with those who are ignorant of naval alFairs, he 
commits a blunder in the use of the technical term main-sheet, 
mistaking it for a sail: 
“ They trim their thundering sail, 
“ The boom and main-sheet bending to the gale.” 
The main-sheet is the rope hy means of which the hoom is 
governed, either eased off, or drawn in, as suits the state of the 
wind. 
In a poem consisting of more than two thousand lines, it 
would he strange if some touches of excellence could not be 
found, some passages which prove that the author not only 
possessed poetical ideas, but also was familiar with the art of 
poetical expression. In his description of the calm, smoky, au- 
tumnal weather, which, in America, is usually denominated the 
Indian Summer, we are presented with a beautiful image, 
which I do not recollect to have seen elsewhere : 
“ Slow sailed the thistle-down along the lawn.” 
The description of the Dutch farmer, and his habitation, would 
not disgrace the author of Rip Van Winkle. 
In the enumeration of the miseries of a country schoolmaster 
there is much truth; and the picture is vividly and feelingly 
drawn from nature. Few had more experience than Wilson of 
the degraded condition of a teacher, when under the control 
