7 
 
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LETTERS 
 
 TO 
 
 LORD BYRON 
 
 ON A QUESTION OF 
 
 poetical eritfcfcm* 
 
 Third Edition, with Corrections. 
 
 " He that plays at BOWLS, must expect RUBBERS." Old Proverb. 
 
 " NATURE must give way to ART." Song by a Person of Quality, tee Pope'* Works. 
 
 TO WHICH ARE NOW FIRST ADDED, 
 THE 
 
 LETTER TO MR. CAMPBELL, 
 
 AS FAR AS REGARDS POETICAL CRITICISM; 
 AND THE 
 
 ANSWER TO THE WRITER IN THE 
 QUARTERLY REVIEW, 
 
 AS FAR AS THEY RELATE TO THE SAME SUBJECT. 
 
 Second Editions. 
 TOGETHER WITH 
 
 AN ANSWER TO SOME OBJECTIONS, AND FURTHER 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 BY THE REV. WM. L. BOWIES. 
 
 LONDON: 
 HURST, ROBINSON, AND CO, CHEAPSIDE. 
 
 1822. 
 
BATH : 
 
 PRINTED BY RICHARD CRUTTWELL, ST. JAMESES-STREET. 
 
A DVERTTSEMENT. 
 
 I Trust Lord BY RON will excuse 
 me for having made somewhat free with the singular 
 Motto to his book. It is, " I will play at BoWLS with 
 "the SUN and the MOON." Old Song! 
 
 A " certain Family" had been spoken of, in the Quar- 
 terly Review, as "ringing changes on NATURE for two 
 " thousand years !" The Critic who professed such 
 ignorance and disdain of external nature, was doubtless 
 sincere ! 
 
 By a somewhat ludicrous coincidence, it happens that 
 the " arms 1 ' of this "family" spoken of with such con- 
 tempt, are, literally, a " sun and moon" a Sun, OR, 
 and Moon, ARGENT, secundum ARTEM. 
 
 It is, therefore, with this SUN and MOON in Heraldry 
 that Lord BY RON, I have no doubt, play sat " BOWLS !" 
 Not with the SUN and MOON in Nature! ! 
 
 In return, I have only ventured to take, as an inscrip- 
 tion to my shield, his Lordship's motto, with a trifling 
 alteration : 
 
 He that plays at " BOWLS" (with the " SUN and MOON") 
 must expect " RUBBERS ;" 
 
 380186 
 
Which is only an old " proverb," for part of an OLD 
 SONG ! As for any alteration in his heraldic motto, I 
 should not dare to say, NE CREDE BYRON ; but, I 
 think, in this game, I shall take from his Lordship's 
 arms the" SUPPORTERS;" though I do not wish to touch 
 afeather of the GRACEFUL and GLITTERING CREST 
 
 OP HIS HIGH POETICAL CHARACTER. 
 
 With respect to the other motto I have adopted, 
 " NATURE must give way td ART ! !" 
 
 it is taken, as most readers must know, from a certain 
 Song by POPE, which has been generally conceived to 
 have been written by POPE in banter and ridicule of 
 the person whose name it bears, a Person of Quality ! 
 It is now, I think, put beyond a doubt, that GILBERT 
 WAKE FIELD was right, and the song was written by 
 POPE seriously ! The first stanza, therefore, I shall 
 give the reader : 
 
 Song, by a PERSON' OF QUALITY. 
 
 " Fluttering spread your purple pinions, 
 
 "Gentle CUPID, o'er my heart; 
 " I, a slave in thy dominions ! 
 
 v 
 
 " NATURE MUST give way to ART P 7 
 
 . 
 
It would be important for the reader to keep in mind 
 one plain distinction, in reading what is here offered. 
 Whatever is picturesque is so for poetical; but all 
 that is " poetical" does not require to be " pictu- 
 " resque." Lord BYRON would never have said, 
 " \Vhat painter does not break the sea with a boat," 
 &c. if he had remembered this distinction. 
 

DEFINITIONS. 
 
 THOUGH I have too much respect for my 
 readers to think any definitions of common expres- 
 sions necessary, yet I have been induced to premise 
 some, to obviate, as far as possible, the cavils and 
 quibbles that would confound words when they 
 cannot answer arguments. 
 
 " What is sublime and beautiful in nature." 
 
 Those objects in the visible world, which we im- 
 mediately refer to the ALMIGHTY Maker, and 
 which give an idea of his power ; as the sea, &c. 
 
 Objects in themselves magnificent or beautiful, as 
 the sun, theTTghts of evening or morning, the 
 rainbow, &c. &c. 
 
 " Images: 9 
 
 The representation of these objects in the co^- 
 lours of poetry. These, indeed, may be represented 
 by a wretched artist ; but if I speak of a picturesque 
 
spot, I do not think of a picture or representation 
 of it by a dauber, but consider it as it would ap- 
 pear from the pencil of a GAINSBOROUGH. 
 
 " Poetical" 
 
 That which has the same reference to poetry, as 
 that which is called picturesque has to painting. 
 That which is adapted to the higher kinds of 
 poetry, as human passions, emotions, sympathies; 
 all that elevates and ennobles the sentiments ; all 
 that affects the heart, or enchants the fancy ; as 
 Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, Tempest, Mid* 
 summer Night's Dream. 
 
 The subjects of the different kinds of poetry, 
 as of epic, dramatic, of the ode, the elegy, or of 
 r-descriptive, didactic, or satirical poems. That 
 j subject the highest, as MILTON'S Paradise Lost, 
 I which unfolds the greatest and most awful events ; 
 [ sets before us the most powerful agents ; which is 
 most stupendous in the conception, and arduous 
 in management, as a poem. 
 
 " Execution: 9 
 
 The successful management through all its parts, 
 to the utmost finish, of that, whatsoever it be, 
 which is the subject of poetry, whether the subject 
 relate to imagination, passions of nature, or man* 
 ners of life. 
 
" Works of Art." 
 
 Those visible objects, which we do not refer im- 
 mediately to the Great Maker of all things, but 
 which are secondary, as invented or fashioned by 
 man^jrom the lowest mechanical arts to the highest 
 imitation of the great prototypes from the hand of 
 the ALMIGHTY, in painting, statuary, &c. For 
 though it may be true, strictly speaking, that 
 every thing may be called nature, as even a house 
 for instance, because the lime, the stones, and the 
 hands that put them together, are from nature ; 
 yet, in common parlance, the difference is suffi- 
 ciently obvious, 
 
 By manners, I mean those modes of life which "] 
 are more adapted to satire, wit, and comedy / 
 which leave the more impassioned province of th 
 Muse, to 
 
 " Shoot folly as it flies, 
 " And catch the Cynthia of the minute." 
 
 " Poetry." 
 
 Not merely metre or measure, I need not 
 adduce the disjecti membra poetce of HORACE - 9 
 but I certainly do not mean any where by poetry, 
 PROSE, such as certain criticisms and metaphysical 
 quibbles, which these definitions alone will go a 
 great way to nullify. 
 

[ xi ] 
 
 Prefatory Address to the Reader. 
 
 IN this third edition of the Letters to 
 Lord BYRON I have thought it right to include the 
 original Letter to Mr. CAMTBELL, to which so 
 many allusions have been made in the course of 
 this discussion, and also the answer to the Quar- 
 terly Review, that the reader may see, placed to- 
 gether, and in one view, the whole of what has 
 been advanced on this subject of poetical criticism, 
 and be better enabled to judge of the whole ques- 
 tion ; which, rejecting extraneous and some per- 
 sonal matter, I have confined, as far as possible, to 
 fair argumentation. 
 
 I need not, perhaps, say, that the question 
 arose respecting the highest rank to be assigned to 
 POPE among the greatest poets. 
 
 If my positions were true, that images drawn 
 from the sublime and beautiful in nature were more 
 poetical, that is, (to avoid cavil,) rnorv-adftpted to 
 
C *u ] 
 
 the highest order of poetry than any works of art 5 
 and further, if it were true that passions, including 
 all that is sublime in sentiment, or affecting in 
 pathos, were more poetical than manners of life j 
 provided always, that in estimating the rank of the 
 respective poets, regard should be had to the subject 
 and execution. Then the poet who had conceived 
 and executed an epic like Paradise Lost, or dramas, 
 like Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Tempest, Midsum- 
 mer Night's Dream, As You Like It, would be 
 placed higher in the rank of his art than he 
 could be who had written any satires, moral epistles, 
 one the most pathetic and beautiful in this style 
 of poetry, one heroi-comical poem, unrivalled in the 
 world, with whatever consummate felicity of ex- 
 ecution all or any of these poems might be finished. 
 This, to the best of my understanding is a fair 
 and impartial state of the question. 
 
 In order to ascertain this more decidedly, I laid 
 down two propositions ; the first, indeed, only in- 
 troductory to the second. 
 
 The first proposition, which I took for granted 
 would be admitted, was this, -that IMAGES drawn 
 from what is sublime or beautiful in nature were 
 more adapted to POETRY than any images drawn 
 from art. 
 
 If this were so; in like manner, PASSIONS were 
 more adapted to POETRY than artificial manners ; 
 the one being inherent in NATURE through all ages. 
 
the other that of the day. But I took especial care,* 
 in framing these propositions, to make one obvious 
 distinction, that is, if a poem of the nature of Pa- 
 radise Lost were not executed with talents equal to 
 the suhject, that then a more perfect execution of 
 an inferior suhject would entitle the successful poet 
 of the humbler province in his art to a far higher 
 rank than could be given to him, who, like BLACK- 
 MORE, undertook a great subject without adequate 
 powers of execution. This is the whole question. 
 Mr. CAMPBELL omitted any mention of the main 
 proposition, and considered me as confining my 
 ideas of poetry to minute painting from external 
 nature ; whereas the whole gist of my argument 
 was laid on PASSIONS* This was doing me injustice, 
 on the part of Mr. CAMPBELL, from inadvertence: 
 I would not hear his enemies say otherwise. But 
 he says, " he has not misrepresented me ;" and 
 therefore, having stated the fact, I shall say no 
 more till I hear his reply ; but with deference to 
 him, the point seems to resolve itself into yes or 
 no. Did he, or did he not, speak of me as con- 
 fining my ideas of poetry to inanimate descriptions? 
 The reader will see with what justice, when he reads 
 my second and main proposition, that passions are 
 more poetical than manners : And I should think 
 there could not he a doubt, by any one who reads 
 the propositions, that I consider passions far more 
 essential to poetry than mere description ; which, 
 
r *v i 
 
 indeed, through every part of my edition of POPE, I 
 placed as the least and lowest department in poetry. 
 
 Mr. CAMPBELL, confining himself to the first 
 proposition, instanced, as it was natural he should, 
 the effect of a ship first launched on the ocean, to 
 prove that works of art are not less adapted to 
 poetry than what is beautiful and magnificent in 
 nature. This example is discussed in the letter first 
 addressed to him ; and his objection, that I con- 
 fined my ideas of poetry to external nature, is, I 
 think, satisfactorily answered ; at least I shall think 
 so, till I hear more satisfactory answers than Lord 
 BYRON has yet produced. 
 
 With respect to a misrepresentation, suppose 
 I had published an account of his own excellent 
 and eloquent Lectures on Poetry, and stated, that 
 he had confined all his ideas to descriptions of ex- 
 ternal nature, and introduced nothing concerning 
 passions ; suppose I had written an essay to prove 
 that SHAKESPEARE and SOPHOCLES, according to 
 his ideas, must have been excluded ; if I had done 
 so from inadvertence, should I not have instantly 
 acknowledged it ? should I have said I had not 
 misrepresented him ? Mr. CAMPBELL, of course, 
 must judge for himself. I have never spoken a 
 disrespectful word of him, though I felt it my 
 duty, in justice to myself, when his triumph over 
 me had been proclaimed in almost all the periodical 
 publications, to shew, at least, that I could not have 
 
been so very stupid, as in my definition of poetry 
 to confine it to inanimate representations of exter- 
 nal nature. If I had not answered myself, should 
 I have put forward as arguments, what I must in 
 my heart have disdained, the petty chicanery against 
 verbal inaccuracies ; or adopted what I must known 
 to have been gross falsifications of statements ? 
 Should I have lauded such absurdities, such nefa- 
 riousness? In my opinion, such conduct, more 
 than any thing else, proves the utter imbecility of 
 his cause. 
 
 A writer in the Quarterly Review, since known 
 to be Mr. DISRAELI, in an elaborate, but very 
 indiscriminating article, with flippancies that nei- 
 ther were becoming him, nor the publication in 
 which they appeared, nor, I hope, applicable to 
 my general character, attempted to shew, that 
 habits and manners of life, being exquisitely de- 
 scribed as they are by POPE, ought to entitle him 
 to the same rank in poetry with SHAKESPEARE 
 and MILTON! 
 
 It was really difficult to cope. with those whose 
 true " no meaning puzzles more than wit." The 
 very sarcastic tone in which this writer indulged, 
 towards a person who had never given him offence ; 
 who had stated his opinions fairly, and certainly 
 not contemptuously towards any one; and who 
 was not conscious of an attempt (he would be the 
 first to scorn himself, if he had done so) to depre* 
 
date POPE'S character as a poet or a man; I 
 trust, will excuse the " retribution" which needless 
 provocation has excited. A criticism on the poetry 
 of the Critic will be found subjoined to the reply 
 to the Quarterly. As I had no other motive than 
 to shew that aggressive criticism may be fairly met 
 by defensive criticism, whenever he is convinced he 
 first went beyond the fair line of critical discussion, 
 I shall be ready to hold out the hand of entire 
 forgetfulness. 
 
 I will not pay such disrespect to my readers as 
 to suppose that they could have been for a moment 
 convinced by Mr. D' ISRAELI'S argumentations, that 
 manners were as poetical as passions, and POPE of 
 equal rank with MILTON. The insults / only 
 could have felt ; and feeling them as undeserved, 
 I mention these as an excuse for my criticisms on 
 him in return. 
 
 Lord BYRON, resolved, according to what he says 
 in his letter, that, his name being introduced, the 
 " fray should not be without him," comes forward 
 next, for I pass over a disgraceful creature of mere 
 vulgarity and scurrility. 
 
 Lord BYRON comes next, and with imposing 
 brilliancy supports the paradox, that works of art 
 selecting of course the most perfect in the world, 
 are equal, if not superior, to any works of nature ; 
 making this mistake in limine, that I had spoken 
 of bare un-selected nature, which I never did. 
 
[ xvii ] 
 
 He has adduced his arguments, and I have an^ 
 swered. I had no " occasion to gnaw my pen," 
 for the answer was written in three days, currente 
 calamo t and for this reason, because I well knew 
 if the answer had not come out by the end of the 
 month, the whole periodical press would have 
 echoed my defeat* 
 
 The arguments that have been offered in answer 
 to Lord BYRON'S shewy and rhetorical paradoxes 
 are before the reader. But behold my friend, the 
 Quarterly, again! sed quantum mutatus ab illo 
 Hectare! from that D' ISRAELI, at whose " hec- 
 "toring" I felt, indeed, indignant. The language 
 now is at least that of courtesy, of gentlemanly 
 courtesy, towards me, however bitter against my 
 disinterested but then unknown supporter. 
 
 To shew " how LITTLE ENMITY" the Quarterly 
 has for me, they will not quote what was said in my 
 favour ! ! And not to be outdone in generous 
 contention, as they will not quote what is said, I 
 will, coute qu'il coute / 
 
 Extracts from a Kit- Cat. 
 
 " Against the Quarterly Review and Mr. GILCHRIST, 
 however, Mr. BOWLES would have more serious causes 
 of complaint. By this latter person he has been at- 
 tacked in terms of such indecent scurrility, as is hardly 
 ever met with in the annals of criticism," &c.&c. 
 
f 
 
 [ xviii ] 
 
 " We will venture to assert, notwithstanding all the 
 virulent invective and elaborate abuse, Mr. BOWLES 
 has still the best of the argument/' 
 
 " His reply to his noble opponent has settled the 
 question beyond the possibility of a rejoinder,"* &c. 
 Life of Addison. 
 
 " Mr. B. has been accused ef wantonly vilifying 
 POPE on all occasions. Lord BYRON, it would seem, 
 first found out this; then came Mr. CAMPBELL; and 
 subsequently the whole bevy of magging scribblers 
 joined in the cry ! The reply to Mr. CAMPBELL has, 
 however, put the question at rest, save with those 
 learned Thebans, of whom it may be said, 
 
 " That e'en though vanquish'd they can argue still." 
 
 Kit-Kat. 
 
 It is said, that they have the " vanity" to think 
 differently respecting the controversy between Lord 
 BYRON and myself ! I am, therefore, to suppose 
 they could, if they would, do what I am persuaded 
 neither Lord BYRON nor Mr. CAMPBELL can do, 
 prove, by fair and manly argumentation, without 
 petty cavils, that art is generally more poetical, 
 more adapted to the higher orders of poetry, than 
 nature ; manners and habits of a given period in 
 
 * Those who have followed after Lord BYRON and Mr. CAMP- 
 BELL, GILCHRIST, M'DERMOT, et hoc genus omne, put me 
 in mind of SWIFT'S fable of the pippins swimming in an inun- 
 dation; 
 
 " A new-fall'n ball of horse's dunj?, 
 
 "Mingling with apples in the throng, 
 
 " Said to a pippin, plump and prim, 
 
 " SEE, BROTHER, HO>V WE APPJ.ES SWIM!!" 
 
society more poetical than passions ; and tliat POPE, 
 therefore, must be "in the same file with SHAKE- 
 ' SPEARE and MILTON. Can they do this ? If 
 Lord BYRON could not, and whether he could 
 is left to the judgment of the public, I doubt 
 whether the most chosen of the phalanx could. 
 
 Let us first give a very brief summary of what 
 Lord BYRON has done. Passing over the long 
 story of the sea, ship, &c. he took me to the coast 
 of Attica; he pointed to Athens, and the Acropolis, 
 and said, "there are works of art ! what would the 
 " mountains be without them ?" I answered, That 
 was no argument against a general position ; he 
 took particular works, whose remains were poetical, 
 not as works of art merely, but as affecting the pas- 
 sions by a thousand associations ; and he compared 
 these, the sublimest wrecks of ancient glory, with 
 the identical spot where they stood. That was no 
 comparison : divest them of associations, and bring 
 them to the Cordelleiras. 
 
 He pointed to the Tempk of Theseus. I an- 
 swered, Take the TEMPLE OF NATURE, and I have 
 no doubt which will be thought the more poetical. 
 
 He took the spear of ACHILLES, and said, " what 
 a poetical spear !" I answered, It was one of the 
 least poetical spears in HOMER for a great warrior ; 
 and asked, which he thought more poetical, the 
 spear, or the spear's owner ? 
 
C xx ] 
 
 He took up " Mrs. UNWIN'S needle," and said, 
 What a needle ! how poetical ! COWPER'S trees 
 are all twaddle ; but this needle is a needle indeed, 
 connected with darning of stockings ! images of 
 " in- door NATURE!!'* I answered, No one, in 
 feeling an interest on account of this humble relic 
 of the old lady, ever thought of the " darning 
 " stockings," but of the desolate, heart of him, 
 who, looking on this relic, remembered with a 
 tear the general character of its departed owner. 
 I asked him, if the recollection of darning stock- 
 ings rendered it poetical, whether the following 
 stanza would not have been most poetical ? 
 
 " My small-clothes, oh ! departed friend, 
 
 " My shirt, which 1 so oft did rend, 
 
 " My stockings thou no more shalt mend, 
 
 "My MARY!" 
 
 He took me to the deserts of Egypt, and asked, 
 Why was not Salisbury Plain as poetical as the 
 deserts of Egypt ? I answered, Solitude, extent, 
 and associations of the deepest interest, made the 
 vast plains of Egypt poetical ; but Salisbury Plain 
 was crossed by a hundred turnpikes ; in every road 
 were post-chaises, mail-coaches, footmen in gilt 
 buttons, &c. objects in artificial life ! 
 
 He pointed to the Tower on the Thames for 
 making Patent Shot, and said it would be as poetical 
 as Westminster Abbey, if it had the same archi- 
 
tecture ! I answered, it would not, let the archi- 
 tecture be what it might ; and defied him to make 
 it as poetical in description^ to say nothing of the 
 associations, unless he kept out of sight all its uses ! 
 I instanced the ode in CHATTERTON : 
 
 " Fiery o'er the MINSTER glare!" 
 
 and asked him, whether it would have been as po- 
 etical, if the poet had said, 
 
 " And fiery o'er the GLASS-HOUSE glare ! f> 
 
 supposing a glass-house was the same in architec- 
 ture. 
 
 He then shewed his Heathen Gods, Apollo, c. 
 I said, The Jupiter in VIRGIL, nimhorwn in 
 node, would scatter them to atoms! Then he 
 took up ANTING us' head, and cried, here is a 
 " supernatural, super-artificial head !" I said 
 " that was TWADDLE!" requested him to describe 
 the said head, as he had spoken of Venus, in Childe 
 Harold, " raining kisses/' and then we shall see 
 how much in his description was from nature, and 
 how much from art ! 
 
 I need not go on ; but to prevent the mere ver- 
 bal cavils of pragmatical stupidity, I ask, whether 
 any of these images from art, adduced by Lord 
 BYRON, are equally " adapted to poetry?" I ask, 
 whether my answers are answers or not? If they 
 are not answers, let him or any one answer them 
 again, meeting them, one and all, as fairly as I 
 have stated them ! 
 
[ xxii J 
 
 Now, can the Quarterly Reviewer give a fair and 
 complete rejoinder? One obscure man, with an 
 odd name, has attempted it ; and Mr. CAMPBELL 
 has publicly, in his capacity as editor of a public 
 journal, pretended to advocate arguments and a 
 mode of reasoning, that I believe he in his heart 
 disdains. If these are the best arguments, I 
 have the worse opinion of his cause, and not the 
 better of his own understanding and manliness of 
 character. I have exposed some of the arguments, 
 because Mr. CAMPBELL, not myself, has thought 
 them worth notice. 
 
 But I would fain see what a more powerful, and 
 I hope, among acknowledged scholars and gen- 
 tlemen, a more candid opponent could do. I would 
 fain see whether Mr. CAMPBELL'S own ship could 
 be defended ; and who could so well defend it as 
 he who has been called forth to stretch on the bed 
 of critical torture my disinterested advocate ! 
 
 CAMPBELL is " angry" without reason; Lord 
 BYRON is lofty ; D'!SRAELI is unequal ; and GIL- 
 CHRIST beneath notice. 
 
 I should not fear to meet this new and not un- 
 known opponent, well knowing his power, but not 
 unconscious of the goodness of my cause. What 
 could I do, if the person appointed to defend Mr. 
 CAMPBELL'S ship in the Quarterly Review hap* 
 pened to be a Secretary of his Majesty's Admi- 
 ralty? When I saw him bearing down with full 
 
[ xxiii ] 
 
 sail upon me, I might, perhaps, exclaim, in the 
 words of MILTON, 
 
 " But who is this, what THING of LAND or SEA, 
 
 " That so bedeck'd, ornate, and gay, 
 " Comes this way sailing, 
 " Like a stately SHIP 
 " Of Tarsus, bound for the isles 
 
 " Of Java, or Garadi, 
 " With all her bravery on, and tackle trim, 
 " Sails fill'd, and streamers waving, 
 " Courted by all the winds that hold them play I" 
 
 What could I do against such a ship of war, com- 
 manded by such a personage ? Perhaps he was 
 willing to shew the world, that as some " SECUE- 
 " TARIES" of late have been described as having 
 nothing to do, except mending a pen, and looking 
 out of window into the Park, he could not only, 
 in these piping times of peace, mend a pen, but 
 most effectually employ it ! to preserve the meta* 
 phor, defend CAMPBELL'S ship, and sink and de- 
 stroy mine ! Though his arguments might appear 
 mountains, they would, I have little doubt, at the 
 first approach of truth and fair investigation, vanish, 
 not like Lord BYRON'S shewy rhetoric, that, ondis- 
 cussion, vanished like Aladdin's palace ; but like 
 certain impregnable mountains that were sailed over 
 by Captain PARRY, when the Croker Mountains in 
 a moment became what they are likely to remain, as 
 long as ships and seas endure, the Barrow Straits. 
 Whether it be so or not, I hope what is now said 
 will be taken in good part, as a proof I have as 
 
[ xxiv ] 
 
 little <c enmity" with any writer in the Quarterly, as 
 he can have with me ; and hoping, moreover, that 
 we may drop the weapons of contention, as he most 
 ardently wishes, whose object has been, (though, 
 vexatus toties, he has replied,) 
 
 " Along the cool sequester'd path of life, 
 " To keep the noiseless tenor of his waj," 
 
 Bremhitt, 
 
 
LETTER I. 
 
 MY LORD, 
 
 HORNE TOOKE, if I remember right, 
 began his well-known letter to JUNIUS in these 
 words : " Tragedy, Comedy, and Farce, JUNIUS, 
 " WILKES, and FOOTE, against one poor parson, 
 " are fearful odds. 5 * So I might say, Lord BYRON, 
 and my two late assailants, APOLLO, MIDAS,* 
 and PUNCH, are indeed fearful odds against a 
 country clerk and provincial editor. 
 
 But to be more courtly : in approaching your 
 Lordship as a controversialist upon any point, I 
 am well aware of the great talents opposed to me. 
 I have read, very attentively, your Remarks on my 
 Life of POPE, on the Jirst part of my Vindication 
 in the Pamphleteer, and on my PRINCIPLES of 
 
 A writer in the Quarterly Review, who has reversed every 
 principle of acknowledged criticism. If he be right, Horace is 
 wrong ! 
 
 " Who shall decide, when DOCTORS disagree?" 
 

 Poetical Criticism, which I had called (foolishly, 
 in your Lordship's opinion) INVARIABLE. 
 
 I thank you, my Lord, for this opportunity of 
 stating the grounds of my sentiments more expli- 
 citly, (which I know you would not intentionally 
 pervert); and more particularly for the honour- 
 able and open manner in which you have met the 
 questions on which we are at issue. 
 
 The late contest in which I have been involved, 
 with those of a character so opposite, has tended to 
 make this contrast of urbanity and honourable oppo- 
 sition more gratifying ; but from you, my Lord, 
 I was certain I should not meet coarse and insulting 
 abuse, the foul ribaldry of opprobrious contumely, 
 nor the petty chicanery that purposely* keeps out 
 of sight one part of an argument, and wilfully 
 misrepresents another. 
 
 Your opposition exhibits none of these little arts 
 of literary warfare. Your letter is at once argumen- 
 tative, manly, good-humoured, and eloquent. 
 
 I am afraid, however, that if those whom I have 
 lately encountered might have thought that " your 
 " Lordship would decide the contest at once," in 
 short, " hit the nail in the head, and BOWLES 
 " in the head also," they will be somewhat dis- 
 appointed. 
 
 * This mode of attack has been constantly pursued ; and the 
 same mode is still resorted to by those who think their argu- 
 ments best supported by these means, or by verbal quibbles, or, 
 what is worse, direct FALsiricATior, 
 
C 5 ] 
 
 I must oppose your Lordship, Marte meo, and 
 am not much afraid of the result; for, magna est 
 veritas, et prevalent. 
 
 Your observations, in answer to what I said of 
 parts of POPE'S moral character, may be comprised 
 in few words. It was far from my heart to charge 
 him with a " libertine sort of love," on account of 
 the errors or frailties of youth. I disdained, in 
 the Life of POPE, to make any allusion to GIBBER'S 
 well-known anecdote. It would have been fanatic 
 or hypocritical in me to have done so. When I 
 spoke of his " libertine kind of love," I alluded to 
 the general tone of his language to Lady MARY, 
 and many of those with whom he corresponded 
 from youth to age. I suppressed, with indigna- 
 tion, the Imitation of HORACE, which I believe 
 he wrote the most obscene and daring piece of 
 profligacy that ever issued from the press, since the 
 days of CHARLES the Second. I deduced no trait 
 of his character from it, though it was not written 
 when youth and gaiety might, in some measure, 
 have palliated the offence, but when he was forty- 
 two years of age. But though I had no tincture, 
 I hope, in my feelings, of hypocrisy, or fanaticism, 
 I thought it a duty to society to touch on one pro- 
 minent feature in his character, which shews itself 
 in his correspondence. 
 
 As to the omission of the fact of his benevolence 
 to SAVAGE, it was inadvertence, culpable, I con- 
 
C * 3 
 
 fess ; but if I have spoken of his " general benevo- 
 " lence," I may be pardoned, I hope, for an omis- 
 sion, which, at all events, was not intentional ; but 
 your Lordship's animadversion on which I own to 
 be just. 
 
 " Should some more sober critic come abroad, 
 '* If wrong, I smile ; if right, I kiss the rod.'* 
 
 Having touched on these points, I advance to 
 meet your Lordship on the ground of those prin- 
 ciples of poetical criticism, by which I adventured 
 to estimate POPE'S rank and station in his art. 
 
 If I cannot prove those principles invulnerable, 
 even when your Lordship assails them ; if I cannot 
 answer all your arguments as plainly and as dis- 
 tinctly as you have adduced them ; the term 
 " invariable'' I shall instantly discard. 
 
 On the contrary, if, noticing any arguments 
 fairly, I turn them against you ; if, without avoid- 
 ing the full force of any, I rebut them satisfactorily; 
 I shall have more reason than ever to think those 
 principles INVARIABLE, which even Lord BYRON 
 cannot overturn. 
 
 I shall first place before your Lordship, and the 
 public, my sentiments, as they stand recorded in the 
 tenth volume of POPE'S Works. They are these : 
 I have often quoted them in part, but I find it ne- 
 cessary, in consequence of so many gross falsifica- 
 tions, to transcribe the greater part, that what I 
 
C s ] 
 
 have said may be seen in connection, and under 
 one view. 
 
 r " I presume it will readily be granted, that ' all 
 | ' images drawn from what is beautiful or sublime in the 
 | ' works of NATURE, are MORE beautiful and sublime 
 I ' than any images drawn from ART ;' and that they are 
 therefore, per se, more poetical.* 
 
 " In like manner, those PASSIONS of the human heart, 
 which belong to Nature in general, are, per se, MORE 
 ADAPTED to the HIGHER SPECIES of Poetry, than 
 those which are derivedf from incidental and transient 
 
 , 
 
 By " poetical," I mean, passim, " adapted to the higher spc 
 " cies of poetry," as it is expressed in the second proposition. 
 
 The most contemptible of my opponents, always excepting one, 
 has built up a laborious piece of ostentatious nonsense " to 
 " prove" that " no object is poetical" in art or nature, per se. 
 The definition here given will nullify one half of his book at 
 once; but I do not care one jot whether he has " proved" this, as he 
 manfully asserts, or not. I said, " I trusted it would be granted*" 
 but if it be not, I then appeal to those who have so pourtrayed cer- 
 tain objects, and whose descriptions of such objects are more 
 sublime or beautiful than they could make them, with all their 
 genius, from any objects of art. SHAKESPEARE could not de- 
 scribe a canal, and by his description make it half so poetical as 
 he has made the wild and wandering river, in the Two Gentle- 
 men of Verona; nor could he make the Two Gentlemen of 
 Verona so poetical as Macbeth. Why ? because the subject 
 would not admit of it. And yet Mr. CAMPBELL advances, as 
 an argument, such despicable nonsense. 
 
 t It should be, " than incidental and transient manners." Mr. 
 CAMPBELL, in the New Monthly, thinks it an argument to attack 
 this verbal inadvertence ; thinking his ship defended by the shift 
 of such a side-wind! 
 
L 6 3 
 
 M AN N ERS. A description of a Forest is more poetical* 
 than a description of a cultivated Garden; and the 
 Passions which are pourtrayed in the Epistle of an 
 Eloisa, render such a poemf more poetical, (whatever 
 might fre the difference of merit in point of execution,) 
 intrinsically more poetical, than a poem founded on the 
 characters, incidents, and modes of artificial life ; for 
 instance, the Rape of the Lock. 
 
 " If this be admitted, the rule by which we would 
 estimate POPE'S general poetical character would 
 be obvious. 
 
 " Let me not, however, be considered as thinking 
 that the subject alone constitutes poetical excellency. 
 The execution is to be taken into consideration at the 
 same time; for, with Lord HARVEY, we might fall 
 asleep over the " Creation' of BLACK MORE,J but be 
 alive to the touches of animation and satire in BoiLEAU. 
 The subject, and the execution, therefore, are equally 
 to be considered ; the one respecting the Poetry, 
 the other, the art and powers of the Poet. The poetical 
 
 * Supposing the description equally faithful, 
 t As to subject, of which only I am here speaking. 
 
 I Would the reader think it possible, after what has been so 
 repeatedly said, that one obscure writer, who has lately come 
 into the arena, has absolutely quoted the first part of this sen- 
 tence, and left off before he came to ihefull stop, because BLACK- 
 MORE stared him in the face, and told him what deliberate 
 falsehood it was to represent me as making the subject alone a 
 proof of excellence MORE than the genius of the poet ? To what 
 miserable shifts is such aperverter reduced ! Triumphant must 
 my arguments be, or it would not be necessary to falsify them, 
 in the very face of the sentence that stood before him, and 
 upbraided his wilful fraud! 
 
[ 7 ] 
 
 subject, and the ar and talents of the Poet, should 
 always be kept in mind ; and I imagine it is for want 
 of observing this rule, that so much has been said, and 
 so little understood, of the real ground of POPE'S cha- 
 racter as a Poet. 
 
 " If you say he is not one of the first Poets that 
 England, and the polished literature of a polished aera 
 can boast, 
 
 Recte necne crocos floresque perambulat Atti 
 Fabula si dubitcm, clamant perlsse pudorem 
 Cuncti pene patres. 
 
 " If you say that he stands poetically pre-eminent, in 
 the highest sense, you must deny the principles of cri- 
 ticism, which I imagine will be acknowledged by all. 
 
 " In speaking of the poetical subject, and the powers 
 of execution ; with regard to ikejirst, POPE cannot be 
 classed among the highest order of poets ;* with regard 
 to the second, none ever was his superior. It is futile 
 to judge of one composition by the rules of another. 
 To say that Pope, in this sense, is not a poet, is to say 
 that a didactic Poem is not a Tragedy, and that a. Satire 
 is not an Ode. POPE must be judged according to 
 the rank in which he stands, among those whose deli- 
 neations are taken more from manners than from 
 NATURE. When I say that this is his predominant 
 character, I must be insensible to every thing exquisite 
 
 Lin poetry, if I did not except, instanter, the Epistle of 
 Eloisa : but this can only be considered according to 
 its class ; and if I say that it seems to me superior to 
 
 * That is, not with the poets who have conceived and exe- 
 cuted, created and embellished, an epic like Paradise Lost, of 
 a tragedy like Macbeth or Othello 
 
t 8 ] 
 
 any other of the kind, to which it might fairly be com- 
 pared, such as the Epistles of Ovid, Propertius, Tibul- 
 lus, (I will not mention Drayton, and POPE'S numerous 
 subsequent Imitations ;) but when this transcendent 
 poem is compared with those which will bear the 
 comparison t I shall not be deemed as giving reluctant 
 praise, when I declare my conviction of its being 
 infinitely superior to every thing of the kind, ancient 
 or modern. 
 
 " In this poem, therefore, POPE appears on the high 
 ground of the Poet of Nature ; but this certainly is not 
 his general character. In the particular instance of 
 this poem, how distinguished and superior does he stand ! 
 It is sufficient that nothing of the kind* has ever been 
 produced equal to it, for pathos, painting, and melody." 
 
 Before I proceed, it will save myself and your 
 Lordship some trouble, if I request you to re- 
 member, in casting your eye on this portion of 
 the estimate of POPE'S poetical character, four 
 material points. 
 
 1st. I speak not of NATURE GENERALLY, but of 
 images SUBLIME or BEAUTIFUL in Nature jt and if 
 
 * Of the kind. I beg these words may be remembered. 
 
 t But I am told that there being no one image in art or nature 
 more sublime or beautiful, poetically, than another* a consum- 
 mate poet, like POPE, in execution, could make a " hog in a high 
 " wind," grunting, probably, and with his tail erect, as sublime 
 and beautiful in poetry, as the horses of ACHILLES in HOMER. 
 1 will only observe, that neither HOMER himself, nor his trans- 
 lator, could make a " silk purse of a sow's ear!" 
 
[ 9 1 
 
 your lordship had only kept this circumstance in 
 recollection, you would have seen, that your plea- 
 sant pictures of " the Hog in the high wind," the 
 footman's livery, the Paddington Canal, and the 
 pigsties, the horse-pond, the slop-basin, or ANY 
 OTHER vessel, can avail you little in your position ; 
 for natural as these images might be, they are 
 neither " sublime or beautiful ;" and, notwith- 
 standing the pleasantry and wit with which they 
 are associated in your Lordship's imagination, 
 
 " It grieves me much, the clerk might say again, 
 
 " Who WRITES SO WELL, should CYCF WHITE IN VAIN." 
 
 2d. You will observe, that I mean by images 
 taken from what is sublime and beautiful in nature, 
 those not confined to the manners of any one 
 period, but extended to Nature in general, and 
 the passions in all ages. 
 
 3dly. You will observe, that, in speaking of the 
 subject and execution of a poem, I do not pass 
 over the execution; for otherwise, BLACKMORE 
 would be a greater poet than POPE : and if your 
 Lordship had remembered this point, you would 
 not have supposed I could ever consider FENTON, 
 or any other tragedian of the kind, as great a poet 
 as POPE, though FENTON wrote a middling tra- 
 gedy, and POPE satires, &c. 
 
 And, 4thly. You will observe, that in execu- 
 tion I think no poet was ever superior to POPE ; 
 
[ 10 J 
 
 though your Lordship thinks the execution all, and 
 I do not, for reasons which will be given. 
 
 I now beg to place before you what follows, 
 requesting you to observe that I most freely admit 
 POPE'S unquestioned rank in the pathetic part of 
 poetry, concerning which my concluding remark* 
 was, " In the particular instance of this poem, 
 " how distinguished and SUPERIOR does he stand. 
 " It is sufficient that nothing of the kind ever 
 " has been produced EQUAL TO\ IT for PATHOS, 
 
 " PAINTING, and MELODY !" 
 
 To the first part I called Mr. CAMPBELL'S par- 
 ticular attention before ; but I am certain many 
 mistakes would be prevented, if any opposer of 
 another's opinion would only take the trouble to 
 do him the justice of impartially examining what 
 those opinions are. I therefore think it necessary, 
 before I meet Lord BYRON, to shew where his most 
 effective strokes seem to hit the hardest, and where 
 they are wasted, not on my theory, but on the 
 winds. I must hope, therefore, the reader will a 
 little farther follow me. 
 
 * But this poem, unquestionably so unique and exquisite, can 
 only entitle the author to the highest place among those who have 
 written poems of the same kind above OVID, TIBULLUS, PRO- 
 TERTIUS, &c. ; but surely not above, or in the same file, with the 
 Poet of PARADISE LOST, or Shakespeare. I have ranked 
 POPE before Dryden, so far from ever saying or thinking him 
 no great Poet. 
 
r " ] 
 
 After the word <* melody" my observations on 
 POPE'S poetical character proceed as follow : 
 
 " From this exquisite performance, which seems to 
 stand as the boundary between the poetry derived from 
 the great and primary feelings of Nature, and that 
 r derived from Art, to Satire, whose subject wholly con- 
 > secerns existing manners, the transition is easy.* Never- 
 theless, as POPE has chosen to write Satires and 
 Epistles, they must be compared, not as WARTON has, 
 I think, injudiciously done with pieces of higher poetry, 
 but only with things of the same kind. To say that the 
 beginning of one of POPE'S Satires is not poetical; to 
 say that you cannot find in it, if the words are trans- 
 posed, the " disjecti membra poetce," is not criticism. 
 The province of Satire is totally wide ; its career is in 
 artffiiaT?ifel;~~ViiiL&~i\ierefore to say that satire is not 
 poetry, is to say an epigram is not an elegy. POPE 
 has written satires ; that is, confined himself chiefly, as 
 a poet, to those subjects with which, as it has been 
 seen, he was most conversant ; subjects taken from 
 ^ <; f living man, from habits and manners, more than from 
 L imagination and passions. 
 
 " The career, therefore, which he opened to himself 
 was in^r-scettfid-order in- poetry ; but it was a line 
 pursued by HORACE, Ju VENAL, DRY DEN, BOILEAU; 
 and if in that line he stand the highest, upon these 
 grounds we might fairly say, with JOHNSON, 'it is 
 ' superfluous to ask whether POPE were a poet.' 
 
 " From the poetry, which, while it deals in local 
 manners, exhibits also, as far as the subject would 
 
 * I have taken the liberty, having no other opportunity, of 
 correcting a few passages. 
 
[ 12 ] 
 
 admit, the most exquisite embellishment? qf fancy, such 
 as the machinery* of the Rape of the Lock, we may 
 proceed to those subjects which are didactic, 
 
 " The abstract philosophical view is first presented, 
 as in the Essay on Man. Thej^round of such a poem 
 is philosophy, not poetry : the poetry is only the colour- 
 ing, if I may say so ; and to the colouring the eye is 
 chiefly attentive. "We hardly think of the philosophy, 
 whether it be good or bad ; whether it be profound or 
 specious ; whether it evince deep thinking or exhibit 
 only in new and pompous array the ' babble of the 
 ' Nurse.' Scarcely any one, till a controversy was 
 raised, thought of the doctrines; but a thousand must 
 have been warmed by the pictures, the addresses, the 
 sublime interspersions of description, and the nice and 
 harmonious precision of every word, and of almost every 
 line. Whether, as a system of philosophy, it inculcated 
 fate or not, who would pause to inquire? but every eye 
 read a thousand times, and every lip, perhaps, repeated, 
 
 " Lo the poor Indian !" &c. 
 " The Lamb thy riot/' &c. 
 " Oh Happiness/* &c. 
 
 and many other passages. 
 
 " All these illustrative and secondary images are 
 painted from the source of genuine poetry from 
 NATURE, not from ART. They therefore, independent 
 of powers displayed in the versification, raise the Essay 
 on Man, considered in the abstract, into genuine 
 poetry, although the poetical part is subservient to the 
 philosophical. 
 
 * In a note to this poem, the reason is given why POPE'S airy 
 spirits are inferior to SHAKESPEARE'S in poetical beauty. 
 
[ 13 ] 
 
 " The Moral Essays depart much farther from poetry 
 so defined, as they exhibit particular casts and charac- 
 ters of man, according to different habits of existing 
 society ; that is, of artificial life. 
 
 " POPE was not less capable of pourtraying* the 
 passions, as we have seen in the Epistle to Abelard, 
 &c. by vividness of expression and colours, than 
 others ; but we must estimate what he has done, not 
 what he might have done. Many, perhaps, may regret 
 with me, that if he disdained 
 
 ' . , in Fancy's fields to wander long, 
 
 ' But stoop'd to Truth> and moraliz'd the song ;' 
 
 that he had not at least wandered somewhat longer 
 among scenes that were congenial to the feelings of 
 every heart ; and that he should leave them for the 
 thorns and briars of ineffectual satire and bitterness ; 
 quitting for these such scenes as 
 
 4 The Paraclete's white walls and silver springs;' 
 
 like his great predecessor in poetry, MILTON, who left 
 the ' Pastures of Peneus, and the Pines of JEtna,' to 
 write * Tetrachordon/ and to mingle in the malignant 
 puritanical turbulence of the times.f 
 
 " When we speak of the poetical character, derived 
 from passions of general Nature, two obvious distinc- 
 tions must occur, without regard to Aristotle ; those 
 which, derived from the passions, may be called pa- 
 thetic, and those which, derived from the same source, 
 may be called sublime. 
 
 * I have omitted some unimportant points, 
 t WARTON. 
 
C w ] 
 
 " Of the pathetic, no one (considering the Epistle of 
 Eloisa alone) has touched the chords so tenderly, so 
 pathetically, and so melodiously. As far as this goes, 
 POPE, therefore, in poetical and musical expression, 
 Las no competitor. 
 
 " We will now proceed to consider those passions 
 which are equally the subject of genuine poetry, and 
 on which are founded (I do not say Epic or Tragic ex- 
 cellence, for these POPE declined, but) that species of 
 poetic sublimity, which gives life and animation to 
 the Ode. 
 
 . j r " In this respect, I believe, no one who ever thought 
 \ of ALEXANDER'S Feast, or the Bard of GRAY, could 
 | for a moment imagine PrjVti pre-eminent. Before these 
 he sinks, as much as any other writer, whose subject 
 was pathetic, sinks before him. His Odes for the 
 Duke of BUCKINGHAM, though elegant, are wholly 
 unworthy to be classed as the compositions of a supe- 
 rior Lyric Poet. 
 
 " In what has been said, I have avoided the intro- 
 duction of picturesque description ; that is, accurate 
 representations from external objects of Nature : but if 
 the premises laid down in the commencement of these 
 reflections be true, no one can stand pre-eminent as a 
 great descriptive poet, unless he has, not only a heart 
 susceptible of the most pathetic or exalted feelings of 
 nature, but, an eye attentive to, and familiar with, 
 every external appearance that she may exhibit, in 
 every change of season, every variation of light and 
 shade.* He who has not an eye to observe these, and 
 
 * I beg it to be here observed, and I particularly request Mr. 
 CAMPBELL, if he condescend to read this, to remember, that even 
 
C 15 3 
 
 who cannot with a glance distinguish every diversity 
 of every hue in her variety of beauties, must so far be 
 deficient in one of the essential qualities of a poet. 
 r " Here POPE, from infirmities, and from physical 
 j causes, was particularly deficient. When he left his 
 own laurel circus at Twickenham, he was lifted into his 
 chariot or his barge; and with v/eak eyes, and tottering 
 strength, it is physically impossible he could be a de- 
 scriptive Bard of the most eminent kind. Where 
 description has been introduced among his poems, as 
 far as his observation could go, he excelled ; more 
 could not be expected. In the descriptions of the 
 cloister, the scenes surrounding the melancholy convent, 
 as far as could be gained by books, or suggested by 
 imagination, he was eminently successful; but even 
 here, perhaps, he only proved that he could not go 
 far: and 
 
 ' The streams that shine between the hills, 
 ' The grots that echo to the tinkling rills/ 
 
 were possibly transcripts of what he could most easily 
 transcribe, liis own views and scenery. 
 
 in descriptive poetry, so far from confining my ideas of ex- 
 cellence in this case to mere representations of external nature, 
 I require, even here, before I should call a "poet pre-eminent, a 
 heart susceptible of pathetic and exalted feelings. I confess 
 the fault, of he " leaves/' &c. ; but in the notes to POPE, so far . 
 from thinking it always right to particularize even in description, \ 
 I have said, " one of the great arts of a true poet is to know \|/ 
 " when to be specific, and when general" Nwer* totxus* is 
 SUBLIME; yet would not be so, if the image were made were 
 specific. The moonlight scene is particular ; and would lose 
 almost all its beauty, if it were less in detail. 
 
 * The first book of the Iliad ; the translation of which bj POPE has been 
 o often qnoted, " As when the mon," &c. 
 
[ 16 j 
 
 But how different, how minute is his description, 
 he describes what he is master of: for instance, 
 the game of Ombre, in die Rape of the Lock? This 
 is from artificial life ; and with artificial life, from his 
 infirmities, he must have been chiefly conversant. But 
 if he had been gifted with the same powers of observ- 
 ing outward Nature, I have no doubt he would have 
 evinced as much accuracy in describing the appropriate 
 and peculiar beauties, such as nature exhibits in the 
 Forest* where he lived, as he was able to describe, in a 
 manner so novel, and with colours so vivid, a game 
 of cards, t 
 
 " It is for this reason that his Windsor Forest, and 
 his Pastorals, must ever appear so defective to a lover 
 of Nature. 
 
 " POPE, therefore, wisely left this part of his art, 
 which THOMSON, and many other poets since his 
 time, have cultivated with so much more success, and 
 turned to what he calls the ' Moral' of the Song.J 
 
 " I need not go regularly over his works ; but I 
 think they may be generally divided under the heads 
 I have mentioned ; Pathetic, Sublime, Descriptive, 
 Moral, and Satirical. ^fljrvJ^ 
 
 " In the pathetic, poetically considered, he stands 
 highest; in the sublime, he is deficient ; in descriptions 
 from Nature, for reasons given, still more so. He 
 therefore pursued that path in poetry which was more 
 congenial to his powers, and in which he has shone 
 without a rivaL 
 
 * Windsor Forest. 
 
 f See Rape of the Lock, description of Ombre. 
 t ' But turn'd to truth, and moraliz'd the song.' 
 
[ 17 ] 
 
 " We regret that we have little more truly pathetic, 
 from his pen, than the Epistle of Etoisa ; the Elegy to 
 -the unfortunate Lady; and let me not forget one of 
 the sweetest and most melodious of his pathetic effu- 
 sions, the Address to Lord OXFORD : 
 
 * Such vrere the notes thy once-lov'd Poet sung.*' 
 
 " With the exception of these, and the Prologue to 
 Cato, there are few things in POPE of the order I 
 have mentioned, to which the recollection recurs witli 
 particular tenderness and delight. 
 
 " When he left these regions, to unite the most ex- 
 quisite machinery of fancy with the descriptions of 
 artificial life, the Rape of the Lock will, first and last, 
 present itself; a composition, as JOHNSON justly ob- 
 serves> the ' most elegant, the most airy/ of all his 
 works ; a composition, to which it will be in vain to 
 compare any thing of the kind. He stands alone, un- 
 rivalled, and possibly never to be rivalled. All POPE'S 
 successful labour of correct and musical versification, 
 all his talents of accurate description, though in an 
 inferior province of poetry, are here consummately dis- 
 played ; and as far as artificial life, that is, manners, 
 not passions, are capable of being rendered poetical, 
 they are here rendered so, by the fancy, the propriety, 
 the elegance, and the poetic beauty of the Sylphic 
 machinery. 
 
 " This ' delightful* poem, as I have said, appears to 
 stand conspicuous and beautiful, in that middle state, 
 where poetry begins to leave Nature, and approximates 
 to local manners. The Muse has, indeed, no longer her 
 great characteristic attributes, pathos or sublimity; but 
 
 c 
 
[ 18 ] 
 
 she appears so interesting, that we almost doubt whether 
 the garb of elegant refinement is not as captivating, as 
 the most beautiful appearances of Nature." 
 
 I have placed before the public, in one point of 
 view, the greater part of what I advanced as the 
 ground-work of my judgment on POPE'S rank in 
 poetry; and I can ask whether they observe any 
 symptoms of detraction or depreciation ? I have 
 spoken of the sublime, the pathetic, the moral, the 
 satirical, and the descriptive, in poetry; putting the 
 descriptive province last. 
 
 Now in your letter, my Lord, you have said 
 nothing of the SUBLIME of poetry, as distinguishing 
 the great Poet, whose eminence in his art has led to 
 this discussion ; but I affirm, that in the pathetic, 
 as he yields (and the distance is great) to SHAKE- 
 SPEARE, the variety of pathos in SHAKESPEARE 
 being considered; yet, if we view POPE'S poems 
 together, and remark his consummate EXECUTION 
 of all he performed, though he is INFERIOR to 
 MILTON, and must be so, from the SUPERIOR 
 GRANDEUR of MILTON'S subject, the greater ex- 
 ertion of talents required, " according to the uni* 
 " versal consent of the critics" and the EQUAL 
 execution ; yet in one particular branch of his art, 
 sublimity, POPE yields to DRYDEN, as well as to 
 these great poets; and in another particular branch 
 of his art, the accurate representation of pictu- 
 
C 19 ] 
 
 resque imagery from external nature, he yields t 
 THOMSON and COWPER. 
 
 As to sublimity, you will see I have spoken of his 
 Ode, compared with one of DRYDEN'S. Will you 
 venture to say, the Ode for Music by POPE is equal 
 to the Ode for Music by DRYDEN, Alexander's 
 Feast, or that Ode spoken of so enthusiastically by 
 Dr. JOHNSON? I think you will hardly do this ; 
 and if you do, I believe, my Lord, no critic in 
 England, or Europe, will agree with you. 
 
 I must here make one observation on DRYDEN'S 
 Ode on the death of Mrs. KILLEGREW. JOHNSON 
 speaks of the first stanza as full of enthusiasm, but 
 his criticism is very unappropriate. I will venture 
 to point out one cause of its sublimity. Addressing 
 the departed spirit, the poet exclaims, 
 
 " Whether adopted to some neighbouring star, 
 " Thou ROLL'ST ABOVE us in thy WAND'RING race; 
 " Or, in procession fix'd and regular, 
 
 " MOVEST WITH THE HEAV'NS' MAJESTIC PACE." 
 
 These are the images from the sublime of nature, 
 I which give this ode its exalted character. I shall 
 quote the first lines. 
 
 " Thou youngest virgin daughter of the skies, 
 
 " Made in the last promotion of the blest; 
 
 " Whose palms, new-pluck'd from Paradise, 
 
 " In spreading branches more sublimely rise, 
 
 " Rich with immortal green above the rest: 
 
 " Whether adopted to some neighbouring star, 
 
 " Thou roli'st above us in thy wand'ring race j 
 
 " Or, in prooessioa fix'd and regular, 
 
 *' Movest with the heav'ns' majestic pace; 
 
 c i2 
 
' Or, call'd to more superior bliss, 
 
 ** Thou tread'st with seraphims the vast abyss; 
 
 " Whatever happy region is thy place, 
 
 " Cease thy celestial song a little space." 
 
 Now take the stanza of a quite opposite 
 
 " The sylvan scenes of herds and flocks, 
 " And fruitful plains, and barren rocks ; 
 " Of shallow brooks that flow'd so clear, 
 " The bottom did the top appear ; 
 " Of deeper, too, and ampler floods, 
 
 Which as in mirrors shew'd the woods ; 
 
 Of lofty trees, with sacred shades, 
 
 And perspectives of pleasant glades, 
 
 Where nymphs of brightest form appear, 
 * And shaggy satyrs standing near, 
 1 Which them at once admire and fear. 
 " The ruins too of some majestic place, 
 " Boasting the pow'r of ancient Rome or Greece, 
 " Whose statues, friezes, columns, broken lie', 
 " And, though defac'd, the wonder of the eye ; 
 " What NATURE, ART, bold fiction ere durst frame, 
 " Her forming hand gave feature to the name/' 
 
 The commencement is lofty and majestic, and the 1 
 execution goes on pari passu with the subject 5 
 and the subject is from the most glorious objects of 
 contemplation in Nature. In the other stanza 
 quoted, observe that the lady's art in painting as 
 well as poetry is set before us, and this is done by 
 making the subject of her pictures appear as in the 
 living landscapes of NATURE i 
 
 " The shallow brooks that floVd so clear, &c. 
 
 " Of deeper, too, and ampler floods, 
 
 " Which as in mirrors shew'd tlte woods; 
 
 " The perspectives of pleasant glades, 
 
 " Where nymphs of brightest form appear, 
 
 " And shaggy satyrs* &c," 
 
C 91 .] 
 Then the picturesque ruins are presented. 
 
 " The ruins too of some majestic place, 
 
 " Boasting the pow'r of ancient Rome or Greece, 
 
 ' Whose statues, friezes, columns, broken lie, &c." 
 
 Dr. JOHNSON says, " the other stanzas are very 
 "inferior,- inferior indeed:" and why are these 
 superior? for this reason, because the highest views 
 of human contemplation are opened in the first 
 stanza, picturesque beauty in the last, and both 
 according to NATURE. 
 
 The conclusion of this ode is in the high strain 
 of the beginning ; and yet, as objects of artificial 
 life are less poetical than passions which belong to 
 general nature, the mind hardly admits the idea 
 of " the last promotion/' in the first stanza, or the 
 word " assizes," relating to the great day of 
 judgment, in the last ; because with the expression 
 " assizes' 1 are associated the ideas of artificial life, 
 the "judge's coach," and the javelin men. 
 
 I will now only request your Lordship to keep in 
 mind what has been laid down : that art is poetical, 
 but nature, in her sublime or beautiful features, 
 with all their kindred associations, more so ; that 
 art, in its combined appearances, is most poetical 
 when connected with associations or views O/NA- 
 TURE, and always, and under all circumstances, 
 POETICAL, (unless the image be vulgar,) when AS- 
 
SOCIATED with EMOTIONS and PASSIONS of the 
 
 .HUMAN HEART. 
 
 These are my premises : and having laid them 
 down so as they cannot but be inferred from my 
 original observations,* unless garbled, I come to meet 
 your Lordship on the fair ground of controversy. 
 / On the subject of POPE'S poetical character WE 
 p agree. You say he is inferior to MILTON and 
 /I SHAKESPEARE. This is all I asked. But the sub- 
 ject of our present discussion is, I think, at all 
 events interesting. 
 
 The first question is, " whether images drawn 
 " from what is sublime or beautiful in art or na- 
 " ture," be, per se, the more poetical. 
 
 Upon this first point we join issue, and stand 
 opposed. You have taken this first axiom, which 
 I thought, if well considered, would not be con- 
 tended, and have, without periphrasis, promptly 
 and powerfully opposed it. But remark, this is 
 only the first part of a general proposition, as will 
 be seen by referring to what I have said. The 
 other part will be, perhaps, more clearly explained, 
 as we proceed. But first of the first. 
 
 * I beg these may be remembered. 
 
t S3 J 
 
 LAUNCH OF SHIP. 
 
 IT must here be observed, that in 
 answer to the first part of my proposition, Mr. 
 CAMPBELL instanced the launch of a ship, as a 
 WORK OF ART, beautifully poetical. My answer, 
 taking his own description, was, that the ship so 
 beautifully described by him was more indebted to 
 nature than art. It was indebted to nature for the 
 winds, that filled the sails ; for the sunshine, that 
 touched them with light ; for the waves, on which 
 it so triumphantly rode ; for the associated ideas of 
 the distant regions of the earth it was to visit, the 
 tempests it was to encounter, and for being, as it 
 were, endued with existence, " a thing of life." 
 
 I think what was said was an answer to Mr. 
 CAMPBELL, and I think so still. What other ar- 
 guments he might advance I know not. His ship, 
 as described by himself, in my opinion totally 
 
[ * ] 
 
 failed ; and I believe that the new-launched ship, 
 even if it had braved, for a thousand years, 
 
 " The BATTLE and the BREEZE," 
 
 must have surrendered on this account, because, by 
 his own description, NATURE, NOT ART, gave it its 
 most essential poetical beauties. (See the descrip- 
 tion itself, in the Letter to Mr. CAMPBELL, printed 
 in this volume. J 
 
 Mr. CAMPBELL, however, has declined further 
 contest ; whether because he would not, or because 
 he thought he could not, is of no consequence. 
 Your Lordship implies that he would not ; I am 
 bold to say he could not ; and I am bolder to say, 
 I think even your Lordship, cannot. 
 
 The substance of your arguments, detached from 
 the jokes, I conceive to be as follows. 
 
 The ship gives as much beauty to the waters as 
 it receives from them. If the SUN were taken 
 away, what then ? The ship,, if I understand your 
 Lordship, would not be seen. If Mr. BOWLES'S 
 pamphlet was not read by the light of the sun, it 
 must be read by candle-light ! ! 
 
 2d. Thousands of people went to see the launch 
 of the ship, who would not look upon the sea, par- 
 ticularly as it was calm, and calm water might be 
 &een in the London Dock, Paddington Canal, <t 
 horss-pond, a slop-basin, or in any other vessel! 
 
3d. The wind that filled the sails of the ship, 
 might be heard through the chinks of a PIGSTY; 
 and the sun might shine on a BRASS WARMING-PAN j 
 
 This, I conceive, my Lord, is the substance of 
 your argument ; which, if it had come from any 
 one but yourself, I should have thought scarcely 
 worth answering : as an argument, the bare state- 
 ment almost confutes it. The least fair discussion 
 will shatter it to rags, reduce it to the blue bunting 
 of which the streamer of the ship is composed, and I 
 had almost said, make it fit to be consigned to that 
 ' other vessel," whatever it be, which has so face- 
 tiously entered your Lordship's high poetical ima- 
 gination. Allow me first to shew you what you 
 have not done, before I examine what you have 
 done, by way of argument. 
 
 You have not answered, nor attempted to answer, 
 all the arguments which have been already brought 
 forward on this occasion. 
 
 Mr. CAMPBELL, in his description of the 
 ship, spoke not only of the effect of the sun, the 
 seas, and the wind, but added other ideas; its 
 visiting the remote parts of the earth, the tempests 
 it might encounter, and described it, in his poetical 
 vision, " a thing of life."* I said, " the ideas of 
 " its visiting distant regions were ideas from nature, 
 " which conspire to make this sight more interest- 
 There is no laboured chemical analysis jn this, it is obvious. 
 
; 
 
 L J 
 
 " ing to the poet's thoughts, and therefore more 
 " poetical." 
 
 These you have not touched ; and I am sure, 
 if you had, and could bring no arguments but from 
 Paddington Canal, &c. my " fortress" would not 
 have much to fear from your Lordship's somewhat 
 grotesque battery. Whatever motive Mr. CAMP- 
 BELL had for not defending his own Seventy-four, 
 I think your Lorship, in argument at least, has 
 not succeeded, however interesting your publication 
 may be in other respects. 
 
 And now, my Lord, to point our guns, to open 
 our fire, and endeavour to blow your PIG-STIES, 
 
 " BRASS WARMING-PANS, and THAT OTHER VES- 
 
 " SEL," into shatters. 
 
 But, let me be fair ; let the reader compare what 
 you advance with the substance I have given. 
 
 Mr. BOWLES asserts, that CAMPBELL'S "Ship of 
 the line" derives all its poetry not from "ar," but from 
 " nature'' " Take away the waves, the winds, the sun, 
 &c. &c. one will become a stripe of blue bunting; and 
 the other a piece of coarse canvass on three tall poles." 
 Very true; take away the "waves," the "winds," and 
 there will be no ship at all, not only for poetical, but for 
 any other purpose ; and take away " the sun," and we 
 must read Mr. BOWLES'S pamphlet by candle-light. 
 But the ' poetry" of the " Ship" does not depend on 
 " the waves," &c.: on the contrary, the '* Ship of the 
 " Line" confers its own poetry upon the waters, and 
 
[ 27 ] 
 
 heigh teus theirs. I do not deny that the " waves and 
 " winds," and above all " the sun/' are highly poetical ; 
 we know it to our cost, by the many descriptions of 
 them in verse : but if the waves bore only the foam upon 
 their bosoms, if the winds wafted only the sea- weed to 
 the shore, if the sun shone neither upon pyramids, nor 
 fleets, nor fortresses, would its beams be equally poetical ? 
 I think not : the poetry is at least reciprocal. Take 
 away " the Ship of the Line" " swing-ing round" the 
 " calm water," and the calm water becomes a some- 
 what monotonous thing to look at, particularly if not 
 transparently clear ; witness the thousands who pass by 
 without looking on it at all. What was it attracted the 
 thousands to the launch? they might have seen the 
 poetical "calm water" at Wapping, or in the " London 
 Dock, or in the Paddington Canal, or in a horse- 
 pond, or in a slop-basin, or in any other vase. They 
 might have heard the poetical winds howling through 
 the chinks of a pigsty, or the garret window ; they might 
 have seen the sun shining on a footman's livery, or on a 
 brass warming-pan; but could the " calm water," or the 
 " wind," or the " sun," make all or any of these 
 " poetical ?" I think not. Mr. BOWLES admits " the 
 Ship" to be poetical, but only from those accessaries : 
 uow if they confer poetry so as to make one thing poeti- 
 cal, they would make other things poetical ; the more 
 so, as Mr. BOWLES calls a "ship of the line" without 
 them, that is to say, its "masts and sails and streamers," 
 " blue bunting," and " coarse canvass," and " tall 
 poles." So they are; and porcelain is clay, and man 
 is dust, and flesh is grass, and yet the two latter at least 
 are the subjects of much poesy." 
 
[ 28 ] 
 
 The commencement, my Lord, is ominous, 
 Mr. BOWLES never said, nor is it consistent 
 with the principles he has adopted to say, Mr. 
 CAMPBELL'S ship derives ALL its poetry from 
 nature. If this misstatement, in principle, was 
 intentional, I need not have appealed to you for 
 my character of candour, 
 
 Mr. BOWLES said, and says, " that poetical beauty 
 " in a ship depends not on art but nature."* ALL 
 its poetry, he instantly admits, it does not derive 
 from nature ; but its poetical beauty depends upon 
 nature ; for the sails would not swell, the streamers 
 would not flow, the motion would cease its LIFE, 
 which Mr. CAMPBELL speaks of, would be extinct, 
 
 3ut you say the poetry of the ship does not 
 depend on the waves, &c. I think it does ; for this 
 reason, that all this beauty, motion, and life, would 
 be at once lost and extinct. True, nor can I for a 
 moment think otherwise ; thus seen, and thus asso. 
 ciated, " the ship confers its own poetry upon the 
 "waters, and heightens theirs," but NOT BEFORE 
 the elements of nature have ENABLED IT TO DQ 
 so ; and, therefore, its primary poetical beauty 
 depends on nature, not ait, 
 
 The least attention may shew there is not here any contrar 
 diction. A ship on the stocks gives the idea of the power of the 
 human mind, strength, &c. and then is adapted to poetry, as 
 CRABBE has proved ; therefore it does not derive all its poetry 
 from nature, but for its greatest poetical beauty (and let Mr. 
 CAMPBELL describe it) it depends on the accessaries OF NATURE. 
 
t 29 1 
 
 You say, take aw,iy the WINDS and waves, and 
 there will be NO SHIP at all ! And " take away the 
 " sun, and you must read Mr. BOWLES'S pamphlet 
 " by candle-light." Read it how or when you will, 
 the sun will be more poetical than a candle ; and 
 the seas, that " speak in the EAST and the WEST AT 
 " ONCE," will not depend on the ship for poetical 
 sublimity, (but the ship will on them,) any more 
 than the sun will depend upon Lord BYRON'S 
 poetry. And then I ask you, my Lord, this question, 
 (begging you to remember 4 my principles only re- 
 quire that the works of nature, which are beautiful 
 and sublime, are more poetical, abstractedly, than 
 any works of art,) whether the sun, the waves, and 
 winds, are, per se, more poetical without the ship 
 or the ship, per se, without the waves, &c. &c. ? 
 The poetry, therefore, is not reciprocal ; for the 
 ship can give no beauty till the elements of nature, 
 on which its beauty depends, enable it to do so. 
 Then it gives and receives. But, my Lord, you 
 must remember, that when I answered Mr. CAMP- 
 BELL, (and I do not think either he or your Lord- 
 ship can make my good ship surrender,) he made no 
 distinction at all, but coloured his rich descriptions 
 with all the hues of nature, and then advanced to 
 shew the poetical beauties of ART. 
 
 But the water is calm, and its monotony requires 
 to be broken ; and this " calmness," which is one 
 feature of this mighty element; may be contem- 
 
plated at Wapping, in the London Dock, Padding- 
 ton Canal, a horse-pond, or any other vessel! 
 
 No: for though the water at Wapping, the Lon- 
 don Dock, in the Paddington Canal, a HORSE-POND, 
 or any OTHER vessel, be calm, it is not poetical. 
 But your argument is this. " The sea is calm ; the 
 " water in a horse -pond, or any other vessel, 
 " is calm ; therefore the calm water in a horse- 
 " pond is as poetical as the sea! 5 ' No, my Lord : 
 for the sea cannot be made unpoetical,* and your 
 great powers cannot make the water in a horse- 
 pond, or ANY OTHER VESSEL, poetical : and I will 
 conclude with COWPER'S description of the calm 
 sea, whom, however, you call NO POET, and whom 
 I think an original, pathetic, and great poet. 
 
 " OCEAN exhibits, fathomless and broad, 
 
 " Much of the power and majesty of God! 
 
 " He swathes about the swelling of the deep, 
 
 " That shines and rests, as infants smile and sleep. 
 
 " Vast as it is, it answers, as it flows, 
 
 " The breathings of the lightest air that blows. 
 
 " Curling and whitening over all the waste, 
 
 " The rising waves obey the increasing blast." 
 
 But we must stop before the storm comes on, 
 for I wish only to shew how this " monotonous" 
 
 Unless described as BLACKMORE has done it; and this dis- 
 tinction I beg to be remembered here. A bad poet may make 
 the most sublime image contemptible ; but a good poet cannot 
 make a contemptible image, as a mouse-trap, for instance, 
 sublime. 
 
t 31 ] 
 
 object can, in its calmest state, and without a single 
 ship, or any accompaniments, be rendered poetical. 
 
 In fact, it does not seem to me, that your Lord- 
 ship makes distinction between the SEA in painting, 
 and the SEA in poetry. 
 
 " The sun is poetical," by your Lordship's ad- 
 mission; and to our cost, you say, by the many 
 descriptions of it in verse. But to follow your 
 argument. 
 
 " If the waves bore only foam upon their bosoms; 
 "if the winds wafted only sea-weed to the shore; 
 " if the sun shone neither upon pyramids, nor 
 " fleets, nor fortresses, would its beams be equally 
 " poetical ?" Answer : 
 
 If the waves bore only foam upon their bosoms, 
 the ocean would be equally sublime, far from 
 every track of vessel, every intrusion of man. 
 
 The ocean, I affirm, wants not the accessaries of 
 any thing human to make it SUBLIME, and there- 
 fore poeticaL It is poetical, though not equally pic- 
 turesque or beautiful, with or without them. The 
 ideas it excites of Almighty power are those of 
 sublimity, the highest poetical sublimity, which 
 proudly rejects any associations or accessaries of 
 human art, or of human kind, to make it more 
 so. " The deep uttereth his voice" is one of the 
 \ f most sublime of the many sublime passages, relating 
 to it in the scriptures. We have no occasion to 
 make it more poetical to say, " there go the 
 
t 3* - 
 
 " ships ;" but the ship, moving beautiful ttf 
 the sight, and seeming, as it were, a creature 1 
 of the vast element, and made doubly interest' 
 ing, as an object of beauty, by those accessaries 
 of nature, without which it is nothing; a ship 
 so seen adds to the picture of poetical beauty, 
 but not to the more awful ideas of SUBLIMITY, 
 which are far more poetical. In sunshine, in 
 calm, in tempest, by night, by day, in its deepest 
 solitudes, it wants nothing of art to make it sub- 
 lime, as speaking every where, " in the east and 
 " in the west," in the north and the south, 
 with one everlasting voice, ' Infinitude and Power.' 
 What can be more sublime than this verse of the 
 Psalmist? " If I take the wings of the morning, 
 " and dwell in the UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE SEA, 
 " even there shall thy hand lead me." 
 
 To return : " if the waves bore only foam upou 
 " their bosoms ;" " if the winds wafted only sea- 
 "weed to the shore;" "if the sun had neither 
 < pyramids, nor fleets, nor fortresses, to shine 
 " upon ;" if it shone upon none of the emmets of 
 earth j* it would be equally a stupendous object, 
 in the visible creation, per se y and equally SUBLIME ; 
 and it would be poetical, equally poetical, whether 
 it shone on pyramids or posts, fortresses or " pig- 
 " sties," a " brass warming-pan, or a footman's 
 
 * Suppose man not upon earth, might not GOD have placed 
 there other intelligent beings, to whom the sun would be sublime 1 
 
C S3 ] 
 
 " livery," though neither pigsties, or posts, could 
 be sublime or beautiful, with or without it.* 
 
 Pyramids, I repeat, are most poetical from asso- 
 ciations ; and fortresses also : but brass warming- 
 pans are images of in-door nature, and footmen's 
 liveries are images of " artificial 9 ' life ; and to say, 
 that, because the sun can make one object poetical, 
 it must necessarily make ANOTHER so, is not an 
 argument worthy of Lord BYRON. 
 
 But how much genuine poetry is condensed in 
 one line, where a ship is spoken of, 
 
 " SAILING IN SUNSHINE, FAR AWAY!" 
 
 As for the sun on Mr. CAMPBELL'S ship, if the 
 ship did not want the sun, to give it more poetical 
 interest, why did Mr. CAMPBELL think it necessary 
 to introduce the sun at all? " But the ship gives, 
 " as well as it receives :" so seen, it gives beauty, 
 animating beauty, to the seas, not to the sun. It 
 gives back, indeed, and amply repays what it re- 
 ceives ; but does a brass warming-pan give back 
 any poetical beauty ? 
 
 * I suppose, in all these instances, an adequate describer. 
 COWLEY says, 
 
 " Uprose the Sun - - - - and Saul/ 
 
 The sun is not made little, but Saul is. If, in description, the 
 sun is painted in conjunction with a pigsty, the littleness will 
 fall on the pigsty, not on the sun. Therefore, though the idea 
 of the sun, abstractedly, cannot be made mean, a description in 
 which it is introduced may be made very mean by other circum~ 
 stances. 
 
 D 
 
"f ^uu^ C S * ] 
 
 " The sun shines white upon the rocks !" 
 The sun shines white upon the warming-pan : 
 
 and so the sun shines on Dr. SYNTAX'S wig ; but 
 try the effect, 
 
 " Pale on the lone tower falls the evening beam." 
 .,y Pale on my grey wig falls the evening beam. 
 
 Therefore Mr. CAMPBELL introduced the sun 
 needlessly, if it did not make the ship more poetical j 
 but though the ship (being itself especially so 
 adorned, as if it came and went NATURE'S chief 
 favourite and delight among the works of art) gives, 
 as well as it receives, beauty j a footman's livery 
 does not do so, my Lord, any more than an old 
 wig, upon which the sun equally shines, as on the 
 Hellespont, or the crest of Hector. 
 
 As to seas without a ship, or with a ship upon 
 the STOCKS, I appeal to our friend CRAB BE. I 
 shall quote a description from a poem of his, as it 
 bears on the point; and your Lordship does not, 
 I believe, reckon him among those whom you are 
 pleased to call " naturals." He shall give us the 
 sea without a ship ; and, what is more to the pur- 
 pose, a ship ON THE STOCKS ! 
 
 " The sea without a ship." 
 
 " With ceaseless motion comes and goes the tide, 
 " FLOWING it fills the channel VAST and WIDE ; 
 " Then back to sea with strong majestic sweep 
 " IT ROLLS, in ebb, yet terrible and deep!"* 
 
[ 35 ] 
 
 I need not point out to your Lordship the effect of 
 the metre, and the imagery : 
 
 " Then BACK to SEA with strong majestic sweep 
 " IT ROLLS/'* 
 
 Next we have a little of ART. 
 
 " Here samphire banks, and salt-wort bound the flood, 
 " HeresTAKE8,"&c. 
 
 I will leave CRABBE a moment ; and as your 
 Lordship seems to think, that the sea is more 
 poetical with ships than without them, I will take 
 a beautiful picture, which you may possibly 
 recognize. 
 
 " He that has sailed upon the dark-blue sea, 
 " Has view'd at times, I ween, a full fair sight ; 
 " When the fresh breeze is fair as breeze may be, 
 " The white sail set, the gallant frigate tight ; 
 " Masts, spires, and strand retiring to the right, 
 " The glorious main expanding o'er the bow, 
 " The convoy spread like wild swans in their flight, 
 " The dullest sailer wearing bravely now, 
 " So gaily curl the waves before each dashing prow." 
 
 Childe Harold. 
 
 A vivid and delightful picture is here added, 
 the sea by this moving and beautiful spectacle is 
 made more picturesque, and so far, more poetical / 
 but, it is more sublime in poetry without them. 
 
 * This is the returning tide up the channel, but " no ship" is 
 in it : that is all I say. It is highly poetical, though near land, 
 without ship accompaniments. Those who object to this in- 
 stance, very consistently shut their eyes to what I said of the 
 sublimity of ocean from scripture. 
 
 D 2 
 
t 36 ] 
 
 I fear your Lordship with your ships will have 
 the preference ; but I would take another picture 
 from DYER. " Now/' &c. 
 
 " Glide the tall fleet into the widening main, 
 " A floating forest : ev'ry sail unfurl'd 
 " Swells to the wind" &c. 
 
 " Meantime in pleasing course the pilot steers, 
 
 " STEADY, with eye intent upon the steel, 
 
 "STEADY before the winds the pilot steers, 
 
 " While gaily o'er the waves the mountain prows 
 
 " Dance, like a SHOAL of DOLPHINS, and begin 
 
 " To streak with various paths the hoary deep. 
 
 " Yet steady o'er the waves they steer, and now 
 
 "The fluctuating WORLD of WATERS WIDE, 
 
 " In BOUNDLESS MAGNITUDE, around them swell, 
 
 " O'er whose imaginary brim, nor TOWNS, 
 
 " Nor WOODS, nor mountain tops, nor ought appears, 
 
 " But Phcebus orb, refulgent lamp of light, 
 
 " MILLIONS OF LEAGUES ALOFT." 
 
 Do you not think the latter part of this descrip- 
 tion more sublime, as here represented, and, there- 
 fore, of a higher order in poetry, with the bound- 
 less seas, and the sun's sole orb, than it would be, 
 if accompanied with the gondolas of Venice, or if 
 the ships were entirely omitted, though not so 
 BEAUTIFULLY picturesque ? 
 
 To shew some of the infinitude of this said SEA'S 
 poetical beauties without ships, I will take another 
 passage from CRABBE. 
 
 " Turn to the watery world ! but who to thee 
 " (A wonder yet unview'd) shall paint the Sea ? 
 " Various and vast, sublime in all its forms, 
 " When lull'd by zephyrs, or when rous'd by storms, 
 
r 37 ] 
 
 " Its colours changing, when from clouds and sun, 
 
 " Shades after shades upon the surface run ; 
 
 " Embrown'd and horrid now, and now serene, 
 
 " In limpid blue, and evanescent green ; 
 
 *' And oft the foggy banks on ocean lie, 
 
 " Lift the far sail, and cheat the experienc'd eye. 
 
 " Then the broad bosom of the ocean keeps 
 
 " An equal motion, swelling as it sleeps ; 
 
 " Then slowly sinking, curling to the strand, 
 
 " Faint, lazy waves o'ercreep the ridgy sand, 
 
 " Or tap the tarry boat with gentle blow, 
 
 " And back return in silence, smooth and slow. 
 
 " Ships in the calm seem anchored, for they glide 
 
 " On the still sea, urg'd solely by the tide : 
 
 " Art thou not present, this calm scene before, 
 
 *' Where all beside is pebbly length of shore, 
 
 " And far as eye can reach, it can discern no more." 
 
 I 
 
 This, to be sure, is not entirely an ocean view, 
 without boats or ships ; but can you, or CRABBE, 
 make Paddington Canal as beautiful? And now ? 
 for the vessel on the stocks. 
 
 " Near these a crew amphibious in the docks 
 " Rear, for the sea, those castles on the stocks : 
 " See! the long keel, which soon the waves must hide; 
 " See ! the strong ribs which form the roomy side; 
 " Bolts yielding slowly to the sturdiest stroke, 
 "And planks which curve and crackle in the smoke; 
 " Around the whole rise cloudy wreaths, and far 
 " Bear the warm pungence of o'er-boiling tar." 
 
 Paint your ship on the stocks how you will, 
 which of these pictures, the ships on the water, 
 with accompaniments from nature, or the ship on 
 the stocks, can be made most sublime or beautiful ? 
 
 In fact, there is not a sight so awful, so sublime, 
 or so terrible, as the ocean. And, therefore, in 
 
[ 38 1 
 
 its infinite shades and appearances, it exhibits 
 in ally 
 
 " MUCH OF THE POWER and majesty of GOD." 
 
 It is by itself more sublime, and therefore more 
 highly poetical, than a ship with it or without it, 
 which is my proposition. But I need not go far 
 for a more appropriate example, and therefore 
 will set BYRON against BYRON. 
 
 I know nothing in poetry more beautifully pic- 
 turesque than what has already been quoted from 
 him, 
 
 " He that has sailed/' &c. 
 
 Now take another passage, if CRABBE'S passage 
 be objected to as not having sufficient sea-room : 
 Look at the sea in its suUimest SOLITUDE. 
 
 " Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's Form 
 "Glasses itself in tempests ; in all time 
 " Calm or convuls'd, in breeze, or gale, or storm, 
 " Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 
 "Dark-heaving; BOUNDLESS, ENDLESS, and SUBLIME, 
 
 "The IMAGE OF ETERNITY the THRONE 
 
 " Of the INVISIBLE ; e'en from out thy slime 
 " The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone 
 " Obeys thee: thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone !*'* 
 
 Now I will only ask, of these two pictures, each 
 so finely painted, which of them would Lord 
 BYRON call the most poetically SUBLIME? what 
 are all the ships in the world compared with one 
 idea excited of power and eternity ? would a fleet 
 
 * See the whole of the magnificent description of the ocean, 
 in Childe Harold, canto iv. 
 
C 39 ] 
 
 make the sea more sublime? No : the fleet would 
 destroy its sublimity, which arises from the con- 
 templation that it is boundless, endless, " the image 
 " of eternity," " the throne of the Invisible ;" 
 because it goes forth, 
 
 " Dread, fathomless, ALONE !" 
 
 Having placed these passages from the same 
 poet, side by side, it will be admitted, I think, by 
 every one of a commonly discriminating mind, that 
 if one passage is the more picturesque and beau- 
 tiful, the other is by far, for causes I have men- 
 tioned, the more, per se, sublime. 
 
 I cannot lay down the poem, without asking, 
 furthei*, of any poetical reader, whether this pas- 
 sage, from Lord BYRON, magnificent as it is, is not 
 DEGRADED in the beginning ? I would ask, if a 
 reader of any poetical taste does not almost invo- 
 luntarily turn from the heterogeneous and artificial 
 imagery with which it is introduced, passing over 
 the apparent profaneness of the allusions. The 
 form of the ALMIGHTY seen in what ? a " glorious 
 "mirror" and this mirror "glassed!!" a meta- 
 phor obviously from artificial life, utterly be- 
 neath, and glaringly disgracing, the awful sublimity 
 of the rest. 
 
 Having set BYRON against BYRON, the sublimest 
 passage in Childe Harold against the most beau- 
 tiful respect ig the Seas, one word or two about 
 
" THE WIND." " The thousands that came to see 
 " the ship launched, the sails streaming in the 
 " wind, might have heard the wind through the 
 " chinks of a pigsty !" HUDIBRAS observes, 
 
 "As pigs are said to SEE the WIND." 
 Did this thought occur, when your Lordship 
 associated the " wind'' and the " pigsty" so inge- 
 niously and sublimely? True ; the thousands who 
 were attracted to see "the launch" might have 
 heard the "winds through a pigsty;" and they 
 certainly did not go to hear the wind, or to see the 
 sea, which, as you justly observe, " thousands pass, 
 " without looking on it at all." Is it less sublime 
 for that ? less adapted to poetry ? Of all the thou. 
 sands who saw the beautiful sight of this ship-launch, 
 who among them saw it with the eye, and heart, 
 and feelings of Mr. CAMPBELL ? He has painted 
 it, and in painting it, shewn the eye and heart 
 of a poet ; but the thousands who went to see the 
 sight, would probably have gone to see KATTER- 
 FELTO perform some of his wonders, 
 
 " Wond'ring for his bread," 
 
 as readily as the launch of this ship, so far as 
 poetical interest excited them. But whether they 
 came or staid at home, whether the ship was 
 launched or not, the ocean was not less sublime, 
 though beauty was added to the particular scene. 
 
 As to the winds, independent of their effect on 
 the sails of a ship, they are often poetical or not> as 
 
[ 41 ] 
 
 their sound is associated in the poet's fancy. When 
 poor TOM sings, 
 
 " Hark ! through the hawthorn blows the cold wind ;" 
 
 Let us try the effect of a different association, 
 according to your Lordship's ideas, and for the 
 hawthorn add an image from " artificial life," 
 
 "Hark! through the "pigsty" blows the cold wind." 
 Is the passage equally poetical ? In fact, my pro- 
 position is proved, if I may say so, to the right and 
 the left; and before some little "logic," your 
 " pig stv " Y lir " garret window," your " footman's 
 " livery," your " brass warming-pan, " are all blown 
 away to the winds. 
 
 Upon the whole, it will be found, I think, that 
 these conclusions, from the foregoing reasons, will 
 follow : 
 
 First, That ships, on the sea, derive the greatest 
 part of their poetical beauty from nature; and the 
 description of a genuine poet will prove this. 
 
 ; Second, That moral associations and sympathies have 
 a great effect in creating a poetical interest, as the sun, 
 seas, and winds, have added poetical beauty : for, with 
 a ship in a storm, you sympathise with the men, nc^ 
 the boards. 
 
 Third, That, abstractedly, the sea is more poetically 
 beautiful or sublime, than any ship, abstractedly. 
 
 Fourth, That, granting ships at sea make the picture 
 more poetically beautiful, the sea, in the associated 
 ideas of solitude and vastncss, and Almighty Power, is 
 
more adapted to poetical sublimity, without any ships, 
 than with them. 
 
 Let me see fair extracts from my arguments, 
 which no periodical journal has done, and let 
 these four points be answered by any of my oppo- 
 nents, if they can. 
 
 My Lord, I think you must have produced 
 such arguments without reflection ; if you meant 
 ME, in any part of that quotation, wherein you 
 pleasantly apply the words, 
 
 " Quoth he, there was a SHIP ; 
 
 "NOW let megO, thOUGREY-HAIR'D LOON,] 
 
 " Or MY STAFF shall make thee SKIP :" 
 
 I answer, though my " hairs, alas ! are grey,'* your 
 staff has not made me SKIP AN INCH. What, if I 
 should almost begin to think, I might make even 
 him who swam over the Hellespont " skip !" But 
 I fear, if I may be thought to have the least advan- 
 tage, it is because your Lordship has not looked at 
 the question on all sides; or remembered the plain 
 words of my proposition ; otherwise you would not 
 have amused your admirers at my expense with 
 such a hodge-podge of suns, winds, seas, Wapping, 
 London Docks, Paddington Canals, pigsties, garret 
 windows, horse-ponds, slop-basins, and OTHER 
 VESSELS, " footmen's livery," and " brass warming- 
 " pans." 
 
 I will now accompany your Lordship to the 
 
COAST OF ATTICA TEMPLE OF 
 THESEUS, Sp. 
 
 " The beautiful but barren HYMETTUS, the 
 " whole coast of Attica, her HILLS, and mountains, 
 " Pentelicus, Anchesmus, Philopappus, &c. are in 
 " themselves poetical, and would be so, if the name" 
 " of Athens, of Athenians, and HER VERY RUINS 
 " were swept from the earth." Lord Byron. 
 
 " But am I to be told, (you proceed) that the " nature" 
 of Attica would be more poetical without the ART of 
 the Acropolis ? of the Temple of Theseus ? of the still 
 all great and glorious monuments of exquisitely artificial 
 skill ? Ask the traveller, which strikes him most as poe- 
 tical, the Parthenon, or the hill on which it stands ? The 
 columns of Lake Colonna, or the lake itself; the rocks 
 at the foot of it, or the recollection that Falconer's ship 
 was bulged upon them ? There are a thousand rocks 
 and capes more picturesque than those of the Acropolis 
 and Cape Sunium in themselves ; what are they to a 
 thousand scenes in the wilder parts of Greece, of Asia 
 
t 44 ] 
 
 Minor, Switzerland, or even Cintra in Portugal, or to 
 many scenes of Italy, and the Sierras of Spain ? 
 
 " But it is the art, the columns, the temples, the 
 wrecked vessel, which give them their antique and their 
 modern poetry, and not the spots themselves; without 
 them, the spots of earth would be unnoticed and un- 
 known ; buried, like Babylon and Nineveh, in indistinct 
 confusion, without poetry, as without existence ; but to 
 whatever spot of earth these ruins were transported, if 
 they were capable of transportation, like the Obelisk, 
 and the Sphinx, and the Memnon's Head, there they 
 would still exist in the perfection of their beauty, and 
 in the pride of their poetry." 
 
 I here set before the reader the whole of this 
 passage, because it is itself so beautiful. It is 
 worthy Lord BYRON, and it is as forcible as it is 
 eloquent, and picturesque as it is argumentative. 
 I need not enter into an analysis to shew that I 
 understand it, for I understand it in its full force ; 
 and though I have not seen these places but in Lord 
 BYJRON'S descriptions, and even remarking this 
 splendid assemblage, I hope I am not so insensible 
 (such a "natural") as not to feel how poetical and 
 affecting are those scattered columns, those temples, 
 in those spots, where, nescio quomodo movemur, 
 &c. ; I can at least say, though I have not seen 
 them, animum pictura pascit inani. I might add, 
 non obtusa adeo geslamus pectora / and what I 
 feel cannot better be described than in the vivid 
 
t 45 J 
 
 painting of kindred scenes by a poet whom I have 
 quoted. 
 
 " Behold the pride of pomp, 
 " The throne of nations fall'n ; obscur'd in dust, 
 " E'en yet inajestical : the solemn scene 
 "ELATES THE SOUL, while now the RISING SUN 
 " Flames on the ruins, in the purer AIR 
 " Tow'ring aloft, upon the glitt'ring plain, 
 " Like broken rocks, a vast circumference, 
 " Rent PALACES, crush'd COLUMNS, rifted moles, 
 " Fanes rolled on fanes, and tombs on buried tombs. 
 " Deep lies in dust the Thebaii Obelisk 
 " Immense along the waste ; minuter art, 
 " Gleconian forms, or Phidian, subtly fair 
 ' Overwhelming ; as the immense Leviathan, 
 ' Outstretch'd, unwieldy, his island length uprears 
 
 Above the foamy flood 
 
 Grey mould'ring temples swell, and wide o'ercast 
 The solitary landscape, hills, and woods, 
 1 And boundless wilds, &c." 
 
 Dyer's Ruins of Rome. 
 
 With such thoughts, and affected by such images 
 so distinctly set before us, where nature and art 
 contend in what is most striking and affecting in 
 the imagery of either, I admit that the " nature" 
 of Attica would not be more poetical without the 
 " art" of the Acropolis, or the Temple of Theseus, 
 or the still great and glorious monuments of her 
 exquisitely artificial genius. I admit this also ; 
 but I deny, that, abstractedly, as works of art, 
 these works are as sublime, or therefore as poeti- 
 cal, as the sublimest images from nature. Of 
 the rocks on which they stand, I know nothing : 
 in sublimity or beauty they may bear as little compa* 
 
[ 46 ] 
 
 rison, as a piece of Pentelican marble, such as it is 
 in nature, and Pentelican marble formed into an 
 august temple or statue. No one can deny this : 
 but if you take the highest works of art, with all 
 their poetical associations, and compare them with 
 the "spots'* of earth, where Babylon and Nineveh 
 are buried ; the spots, as spots, and the ruins, as 
 ruins, cannot be compared ; but compare the most 
 sublime of the objects of art, either abstractedly, 
 that is, without any poetical associations, or with 
 associations, and I deny the major part of your ar- 
 guments in toto ; or that the sublimest works of 
 art, be they where or what they may, are more 
 sublime than the most sublime of the works of 
 nature. And I again affirm, that what is sublime 
 or beautiful, per se, in the works of nature, com- 
 paratis comparandis, is more sublime or beautiful 
 than any works of art, and also in their associations, 
 one leading the thought to GOD, and the other to 
 man : and I answer, if you adduce the Temple of 
 Theseus, give me the Temple of the Universe, 
 not made with hands, and your temple will be 
 as insignificant as the dust of the marble that 
 composes it. 
 
 But, without going so far at present, I will ask 
 your Lordship (and no one is a better judge), whom 
 you think the most sublime of all poets, living or 
 dead, the most sublime, without exception? 
 "Whom would POPE call so? One of those mighty 
 
[ 47 J 
 
 spirits, which has given these poetical scenes, with 
 their temples and columns, half their poetical in- 
 terest. Shall I say HOMER ? will you admit this ? 
 
 Then I ask, if so, how comes it to pass, that the 
 greatest poet the world has produced, wrote before 
 the existence of any ARTS, at least in such perfec- 
 tion ? Of rapidity and greatness of events, variety 
 of character, wonderful invention, command of 
 passions, and affecting incidents, we are not here 
 speaking. And I must beg you, my Lord, to 
 remember this, lest I might be told, that I assert 
 that descriptions of external Nature are those 
 which give the chief sublimity to the poems of 
 HOMER. 
 
 Further, I say that all the illustrious images you 
 have called up from the august remains of ancient 
 art, are connected with poetical passions ; ad 
 these passions are the emotions of Nature, from a 
 thousand affecting connections: and I contend, 
 setting aside the passions, that, in description of 
 external Nature, and of the gods themselves, with- 
 out being indebted to any temples or statues of 
 them, HOMER stands, with the exception of MIL- 
 TON, the sole and mightiest master of his art (of 
 which external nature makes a great part) in the 
 world. Let the temples of art, and the statues of 
 gods, be as beautiful or sublime as they may, how 
 came HOMER, in his descriptions, (not of what is 
 natural, his Jack- Ass and Boar similies,) but in the 
 
most beautiful and sublime objects in Nature, the 
 d^fftos 'TToXutpXogQoio SocXacrvys the beautiful piece 
 by moon-light, the sublimity of Jupiter or Nep- 
 tune, to be the most poetical painter in the 
 world ? especially of the god whose statue has 
 given immortality to the name of PHIDIAS ? I 
 need not inform your Lordship, that the Jupiter 
 of HOMER was the original of the Jupiter of 
 PHIDIAS. 
 
 What are all the gods of HOMER,* in the de- 
 scription of whom he has so wonderfully excelled, 
 from the Supreme Deity to the Lord of the Ocean, 
 and to the inferior deities of the sea or skies ? what 
 are these but personifications of some of the ele- 
 ments or appearances of nature? From Pluto, 
 starting at the light, and crying out in his gloomy 
 dominions, to Neptune in his car, wheeling so 
 rapidly, that the axle is dry, from the struggling 
 dusky dawn of morning to the 
 
 The first light touching, as it were, the extreme 
 fingers of Aurora.t But we may have more to 
 say of this hereafter. To follow the argument. 
 
 VThe Arms, &c. will be considered, when we speak of the 
 spear of Achilles. 
 
 f If in this animated picture the introduction of the car be 
 adduced as a work of art, I ask which is more poetical, Neptune, 
 the Tritons, the sounding Conch, &c. or the car ? 
 
[ 49 ] 
 
 Secondly* I would observe " of your richest as- 
 " semblage of works of art," as more poetical than 
 the spots where they are, this may be true. But let 
 us leave these " spots," as they are called. Let us 
 leave Greece, or even the wild Sierras of Spain, 
 and pass to America. Mark the vast Mississippi 
 or Missouri, pouring their ocean-like waters, from 
 interior sources, through regions " dark with shades 
 " of eternal forests !" Hear the astounding fall 
 and torrent-roar of the stupendous Niagara! Call 
 up your PHIDIAS, let him form a god there ! Call 
 up him who placed Memnon's Head in the desert, 
 and left his name unknown for ever! Call up the 
 builders of those temples and columns, the descrip- 
 tion of which gives your pictures such interest ; 
 will their works add to the magnificence of Nature, 
 or make it more poetical, where the character of the 
 scenery is already on the highest scale of rnagni-^ ^ 
 licence ? "Manifestations of mind!" What'.* ^ 
 are the manifestations of the human mind in St./, 
 Peter's, the Coliseum, the Pantheon, in the Venus/\\ * ^ 
 to the manifestations of the power and the majesty 
 of the Godhead in all his works? 
 
 Thirdly, The "ruins" you say, are as poetical 
 in Piccadilly, as they are in the Parthenon. " Its 
 " rocks are less so without them." Of that I have 
 no doubt j but the rock is not the sublimest of 
 rocks, though the ruins are the sublimest remains 
 of the works of art ; and this is scarcely, as I have 
 
 E 
 
t 50 ] 
 
 said, a fair way of stating the comparison : add, 
 that the ruins themselves are more poetical from 
 associations, than from their intrinsic sublimity ; 
 they indeed stand " alone in the world/' as ROGERS, 
 speaking of the " Torso," has finely said. Besides, 
 are not these ruins, independent of their being the 
 highest specimens of human art, connected with a 
 thousand associations, and all connected with the 
 feelings of Nature ? I must have the most sublime 
 and beautiful of objects to meet them in the visible 
 creation ; and if these will not do, (but I think 
 the sun and the seas quite sufficient,) I might rise, 
 as I have remarked, 
 
 "From NATURE up to NATURE'S GOD !" 
 
 to the far more sublime, and therefore more po- 
 etical, ideas of ALMIGHTY power, and the IMMEN- 
 SITY of HIS WORKS, who " walketh upon the wings 
 " of the wind." 
 
 " THESE ARE THY GLORIOUS WORKS, PARENT OF GOOD, 
 
 " ALMIGHTY, THINE THIS UNIVERSAL FRAME, 
 
 " THUS WONDROUS FAIR ; THYSELF HOW WONDROUS THEN ! 
 
 " UNSPEAKABLE, WHO SITST ABOVE THESE HEAV'NS 
 
 "To US INVISIBLE, OR DIMLY SEEN 
 
 " IN THESE THY LOWEST WORKS ; YET THESE DECLARE 
 
 THY GOODNESS BEYOND THOUGHT, AND POWER DIVINE." 
 
 MII.TON". 
 
VENICE, 
 
 I Have followed you with delight, my Lord, 
 over the course you have taken since we left the 
 pigsties ; but I have to offer some reflections that 
 prevent my coming to your conclusions. 
 
 We are now at the gay and glittering Venice. 
 " And the CHILDE stood upon the BRIDGE OF SIGHS ;" 
 
 Lord BYRON asks, " Does its poetical beauty de- 
 "pend upon the sea and canals?" Answer. 
 Take the sea away, let it be of what colour it 
 may, and even Venice would be less poetical. 
 But why canals? These are dug by labour. Take 
 away the sea, and will not Venice, in its aspect, be 
 less poetical ? " Is it the canal which makes it 
 "poetical?" Certainly not. For I can conceive 
 nothing in the visible world, notwithstanding its 
 water, so unpoetical as an artificial canal; to add 
 to its interest, creeping, in a straight line, between 
 a row of houses, with a palace on one side, and a 
 prison on the other. The CANAL, or the Bridge 
 
[ 52 ] 
 
 of Sighs! Oh ! the Bridge of Sighs against all the 
 world. The very name is poetical, and that of 
 canal is quite the contrary. A bridge alone is 
 beautiful and picturesque, and so far poetical ; but 
 the clearness of the water, the moving objects, the 
 verdure, or trees, or, if you plea e, the boats near 
 it, and, perhaps, a solitary fisherman, make it 
 more poetical ; especially if, like London Bridge, 
 it were an appendage to a great commercial city, 
 and if the flags and ships from all parts of the globe 
 entered the moral associations connected with it. 
 
 I never saw Venice but in a " picture," though 
 I assure you I have seen the sea. 
 
 But the " Canal Grande" gives me only the idea 
 of that least poetical of American rivers, called 
 by the romantic name of the " Big Muddy." 
 
 At Venice, your Lordship is apparently at home j 
 and I have never seen that singular and beautiful 
 city, except as it appears in the paintings of CANA- 
 LETTI. There, I think, nothing ever appeared so 
 unpicturesque and unpoetical. How little do these 
 paintings resemble in beauty the works of CLAUDE, 
 where the admixture of buildings, trees, cattle, &c. 
 is so poetical! It must also be remembered, in the 
 peculiar situation of this unique city, every thing 
 appears on the side of ART, and scarce any thing 
 on the side of NATURE ; one is exalted, and the 
 other depressed. The sea, instead of rolling and 
 rocking in splendour, becon;cs a great ditch, 
 
C 53 ] 
 
 divided into other ditches, and the eye is, per 
 force, carried away from the insipidities of nature 
 in this spot to the decorations of ART ; and if art 
 ever obtained a transient triumph over NATURE, on 
 the side of the sea, it must have been in this corner 
 of the Adriatic. 
 
 If I had seen it, I might paint its gondolas, 
 sparkling in the sun, as they pass and repass each 
 other; the oar, dipped in unison to the distant 
 song, that rose over the waves ; the sea, kissing, 
 as in homage, the feet of his mistress, and putting 
 off, as in humility, all his richest and proudest 
 attire of beauty. 
 
 But I could not paint it as Lord BYRON has 
 done ; and something ought to be allowed to his 
 glowing and partial pencil. 
 
 Having requested the reader to bear in mind 
 these material observations, I confess, if Lord 
 BYRON'S picture be faithful, as far as we might 
 judge from this particular spot, and under these 
 particular circumstances, ART might have a tran- 
 sient triumph. Lord BYRON, however, must be 
 heard. 
 
 " There can be nothing more poetical in its aspect 
 than the city of Venice : does this depend upon the sea, 
 or tlie canals? 
 
 ' The dirt and sea-weed whence proud Venice rose?" 
 
 Is it the canal which runs between the palace and the 
 prison, or the ' Bridge of Sighs/ which connects them, 
 
that render it poetical ? Is it the ' Canal Grande,' or 
 the Rialto which arches it, the churches which tower 
 over it, the palaces which line, and the gondolas which 
 glide over, the waters, that render the city more poetical 
 than Rome itself? Mr. BOWLES will say, perhaps, that 
 the Rialto is but marble, the palaces and churches only 
 stone, and the gondolas a ' coarse' black cloth, thrown 
 over some planks of carved wood, with a shining bit of 
 fantastically formed iron at the prow, ' without* the 
 water. And I tell him, that without these the water 
 would be nothing but a clay-coloured ditch ; and who- 
 ever says the contrary, deserves to be at the bottom of 
 that, where POPE'S heroes are embraced by the mud 
 nymphs. There would be nothing to make the canal 
 of Venice more poetical than that of Paddington, were 
 it not for the artificial adjuncts above-mentioned; 
 although it is a perfectly natural canal, formed by the 
 sea, and the innumerable islands which constitute the 
 site of this extraordinary city. 
 
 But if this be so in one particular spot, and 
 under peculiar circumstances of depression on one 
 side, and exaltation, and a colouring, perhaps, 
 somewhat partial, on the other, the general prin- 
 ciple is not affected, that u what is sublime or beau- 
 " tiful in works of nature, is more poetical than 
 " any works of art!" It might not be so in a 
 particular angle of Europe, in that particular spot, 
 compared with those particular features ; but the 
 general principle will not be affected; and I 
 have doubts whether Venice, brilliant as she is, 
 
C 55 ] 
 
 might not look small by the side of the blue and 
 billowy Pacific. I therefore hold it not certain, 
 that Lord BYRON has gained a triumph for the 
 cause he espouses, even at this his favourite and 
 unique city ; but I contend, if it be so there, the 
 general principle is not altered. The embrace of 
 the Mud Nymphs, therefore, for the present, I 
 think I may decline, with your Lordship's per- 
 mission ; and I was almost about to add, concern- 
 ing this embrace, " DETUR DIGNIORI !" 
 
[ 56 ] 
 
 CITY OF ROME, $c. 
 
 But from the gay and glittering Queen of the 
 Adriatic, where do your Lordship's eccentric wan- 
 derings take us now ? 
 
 To Rome, and the Cloaca at Rome ! The city 
 of Rome, with its scattered remains of ancient 
 grandeur, 
 
 " Fall'n columns, broken arches, spread." 
 " Spirat adhuc Imperiosa minas." 
 
 But, if cities are considered poetically, it must 
 be for their picturesque, and so far " poetical," 
 beauty, like Venice and Constantinople. Seen at 
 a distance, when their appearance harmonizes with 
 the sky, they are most interesting and poetical : 
 the ART of the buildings is lost sight of ; and a 
 thousand circumstances of light and shade, glitter- 
 ing towers or cupolas, have an effect of making us 
 entirely overlook the work of art, whilst their most 
 picturesque features blend with the distance into 
 the beauties of NATURE. But the distinction 
 ought always to be kept in mind, of what is most 
 sublime or beautiful in Nature being compared 
 with what is sublime in art ; and you, my Lord, 
 without regard to this obvious distinction, take 
 your city, and without discrimination of what is 
 
most picturesque or poetical even in a city, demand, 
 " what are the seven hills without the CITY ?" As 
 you make no discrimination, I will : a distant city 
 is much more poetical than one close in sight ; the 
 intermixture of water or trees, as in CLAUDE'S 
 landscapes, takes off and subdues the glare of 'nearer 
 art* The different points of elevation that catch 
 the light ; smoke here and there, perhaps, ascend- 
 ing slowly into the cloudless sky ; these, and sundry 
 other accidental adjuncts, make a distant city har- 
 monize, as I have said, with the colours and 
 beauties of NATURE in the surrounding scenery : 
 place your city so near as to lose the effect of all 
 these circumstances, your city will not be " so pic- 
 " turesque" to the eye, or so poetical to the imagi- 
 nation. 
 
 It is on this account, the line I quoted in the 
 Letter to CAMPBELL has so poetical an effect, 
 
 " Fumum, et opes, strepitumque Romae." 
 
 What an idea does the " smoke and the noise" 
 give of the magnitude and multitude of a vast 
 metropolis ; but if the view had been more distinct, 
 had all the buildings, as buildings, been brought 
 nearer, the poetry of the city would be lost at once. 
 
 The very sounds of a great city, in like manner, 
 become poetical, when blended into an indistinct 
 murmur, 
 
 " And the busy hum of men." MILTON. 
 
I 58 3 
 
 " For cities humming with a restless noise." 
 
 " Confusae sonus urbis et illaetabile murmur." VIRGIL. 
 
 If you come nearer, you may hear 
 
 " Tlie stir 
 
 "Of the GREAT Babel, and the .noise she makes, 
 ' Through all her gates." 
 
 If you go nearer yet, you may enter with CRAB BE 
 into the alleys or lanes ; the picture may be drawn 
 with a faithful hand, and every thing set before us as 
 it is: but the BEAUTY or SUBLIMITY in poetry is lost, 
 and you of necessity approach to what is doubtless no 
 less difficult to execute, the confines of the familiar. 
 And so much in general of cities as poetical objects. 
 But Lord BYRON brings us from Venice, not 
 only to the magnificent ruins, but the very Cloaca 
 of Rome. Even here I shall follow you. Who 
 will think " this work of labour as poetical as Rich- 
 " mond Hill, I know not:" that it may be made 
 poetical, we have the authority of DYER. 
 
 *' Such the sewers large, 
 
 " Whether the great Tanjuinean Genius dooms 
 " Each wave impure ; and proud with added raint, 
 " Hark! how the MIGHTY billows LASH their vaults, 
 " And thunder ; how they heave their rocks in vain ! 
 " Though now incessant time has roll'd around 
 
 " A THOUSAND WINTERS o'er the CHANGEFUL world, 
 
 " And yet a thousand since, the indignant floods 
 
 " ROAR LOUD in their firm bounds, and dash and swell 
 
 " In vain." 
 
 I need not point out where the poetry lies ; and the 
 reader will observe, there is as little about art, even 
 in this description, asthere was in CAMPBELL'S ship. 
 
L * 
 
 APOLLO, GLADIATOR, 
 HERCULES, c. 
 
 Which way shall we now turn ; for lo ! not the 
 hog's tail in a high wind, but all your gods and 
 goddesses, Apollo, Hercules, &c. brought against 
 me and poor Nature! 
 
 What an assemblage ! We almost shrink at the 
 entrance. " The Coliseum, the Pantheon, the 
 " Apollo, the Laocoon, the Venus de Medicis, 
 " the Hercules, the GLADIATOR," (I shall omit 
 MOSES,) and all the HIGHER works of CANOVA, 
 (why higher works, as HERCULES' club, if it 
 were equal in EXECUTION, do 1 understand your 
 Lordship, would be as fine a piece of art as HER- 
 CULES ;) but these great works of MAN are as 
 poetical as Mount Etna, and still more so as 
 
 " DIRECT MANIFESTATIONS OF MIND," &C. 
 
 I do not think so , but whether they are or are 
 not as poetical as Mount Etna, &c. I can bring 
 " manifestations of mind" against them, manifes- 
 tations of the ALMIGHTY MIND, as I have before 
 
said. Why, if JUPITER himself was in your Pan- 
 theon, he would fall instantly before the thunder 
 and lightning of the JUPITER in VIRGIL, 
 
 " Ipse Pater, MEDIA NIMBORUM in NOCTE, CORUSCA 
 " Fulmina molitur dextra :" &c. 
 
 Why is this JUPITER, as poetry, superior to any 
 marble JUPITER in the world ? because no marble 
 can imitate that which forms the most sublime and 
 poetical part of the picture, 
 
 "MEDIA NIMBORUM IN NOCTE." 
 
 As we are playing at " Bowls," my Lord, I 
 think I can overset your marble gods ; for if I bowl 
 down one, all the rest, upon the same principle, 
 will fall about us, like ninepins. I will call in no 
 supernatural assistance, 
 
 " Nee deus intersit nisi dignus vindiee nodus." 
 
 I will take the Dying Gladiator, though it seems 
 rather ungenerous to attack any one after he is 
 down. But as this is the most consummate specimen 
 of ART, I shall examine your exquisite delineation 
 in poetry of the same statue. 
 
 I have done this in my vindication against the 
 Quarterly. I must examine your copy again, and 
 more minutely. 
 
 Here, my Lord, follows your copy, but we must 
 remember we are not speaking of the statue of the 
 Gladiator merely as a work of art, but enquiring 
 which is the most poetical, the statue itself, or 
 your copy ? 
 
r 61 ] 
 
 44 1 see before me the Gladiator lie : 
 
 - He leans upon bis hand his manly brow ; 
 
 4 Consents to death, but conquers agony, 
 * And his droop'd head sinks gradually low : 
 4 And from his side the last drops ; ebbing slow, 
 4 From the sad gash, fall heavy, one by one, 
 4 Like the first drops of a thunder shower ; and now 
 4 The arena swims around him. He is gone, 
 ' Ere ecus' d the inhuman sound which kill'd the wretch who won* 
 4 He heard it, but he heeded not. His eyes 
 4 Were with his heart, and that was far away : 
 44 He reck'dnot of the life he lost, nor prize ; 
 " But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, 
 44 T/iere were his young barbarians all at play, 
 44 There was their Dacian mother. He, their sire, 
 44 Butchered to make a Roman holiday ! 
 14 All this ruhs'dwilh his blood. Shall he expire, 
 ' 4 And uuaveng'd ? Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire !" 
 
 Let us examine these lines by the statue be- 
 fore us. I look at the marble; I see you have 
 faithfully exhibited the " Dying Gladiator :" 
 
 " He leans upon his hand his manly brow, 
 44 Consents to death, but conquers agony/' 
 
 A fine idea, which the statue excites in the be- 
 holder, and which you have so powerfully ex- 
 pressed ! I see also, in your exquisite copy, that 
 the 
 
 " Droop'd head sinks gradually low." 
 
 Following the idea excited, it may be so represented 
 in poetry. The sad drops in the " statue" may 
 seem to FALL HEAVY, ONE BY ONE, and thus you 
 may describe the act of falling heavy, ONE BY ONE; 
 but when you add, like the Jirst drops of a thunder- 
 storm, you leave the statue as a work, and take the 
 
L 62 J 
 
 finest part of your poetical representation FROM 
 NATURE. Thus you make it instantly more poeti- 
 cal, or else you need not have brought in this 
 beautiful comparison, which is as remoter/row art, 
 as thunder is from a marble man. 
 
 You have made the marble drop blood, with 
 drops that fall heavy ', and in doing so, you paint 
 from nature, not the statue. But what are the 
 most affecting images ? Following nature, you 
 make the marble think, as well as drop blood. We 
 instantly feel his increase of agony, as the dying 
 Gladiator in his last hour thinks on his distant 
 home, the banks of the Danube, his children at 
 play ; their Dacian mother, and himself, "butchered 
 " to make a Roman holiday !" From whence are 
 all these affecting images ? FROM NATURE ; these 
 tender recollections? from NATURE ; and why in- 
 troduced ? to make the statue more poetical. 
 
 If you say the dumb marble excited all these 
 affecting images in the mind of you, gazing on it 
 with the feelings of a poet, from whence are these 
 pictures and images taken ? Who does not answer, 
 from NATURE ? 
 
 I shall now leave your Deities, and Statues, &c. ; 
 for if what is here said be true in one example, it 
 must be so in all.* 
 
 * The reader may compare with the statue of the Laocoon, 
 the description in VIRGIL. 
 
 ' 
 
[ 63 ] 
 
 The same results will follow, and for the same 
 reason ; because " images taken from what is SUB- 
 " LIME or beautiful in nature," are more beautiful 
 and sublime, and therefore more poetical, " than 
 " any images drawn purely from art." " Quod erat 
 "demonstrandum;" and, let me add, my Lord, 
 " ex ore tuo," from your own poetry, opposed to 
 your own criticisms. 
 
 I think it best to divide the subject, for more 
 clearness, into two parts ; and I cannot better end 
 this part than with the battle against your principal 
 deities j and I remain, my Lord, 
 
 &c. &c. &c. 
 

LETTER II. 
 
 Mrs. VNWIBTs NEEDLE. 
 
 MY LORD, 
 
 THE transition from all the Gods of Art to this 
 humble instrument is rather abrupt ; but it is im- 
 portant, although you have included it in the note, 
 because we now leave mere works of art for passions ; 
 and Mrs. UN WIN'S needle alone, in my opinion, is 
 as much superior to all your Gods, poetically con- 
 sidered, as it is to COWPER'S " sylvan sampler." 
 The affecting beauty of this image does not depend 
 in the least upon being a needle, quoad needle, but 
 upon being that needle 9 which, like the horn-box 
 of STERNE, sets all the interesting circumstances 
 connected with the sacred remembrance of the 
 dead, and the bereaved friend, before us. 
 
 Does your Lordship think a spoon, per se, po- 
 etical ? Probably not. Yet when the companions 
 of the brave and unfortunate COOK, so long sepa. 
 
C 66 ] 
 
 rated from their country, and in the wildest regions, 
 thousands of leagues from their native land, acci- 
 dentally saw a spoon, with the name of London on 
 it 5 their distant country, and their tenderest con- 
 nections, from whom they had been separated so 
 long, and whom they might never see again, were 
 more strongly recalled to their recollection; and 
 this spoon, like Mrs. UNWIN'S needle, thus becomes 
 poetical, not because it is a spoon, but because, 
 under the peculiar circumstances with which it is 
 presented to the imagination, it wakes the tenderest 
 and most affectionate feelings of our NATURE. 
 
 But we had better be a little more particular 
 concerning this one circumstance. Mrs. UNWINDS 
 needle is, indeed, submitted to my judgment, with 
 a kind of especial emphasis. " I submit to Mr. 
 " BOWLES'S own judgment a passage from another 
 " poem of COWPER'S, to be compared with the same 
 " writer's * sylvan sampler. 9 " I will let the " syl- 
 " van sampler" alone at present ; it shall be all 
 " twaddle ;" but the comparison is not fair. You 
 take pure description, and compare it with poetry 
 that affects the heart and passions. I say a tree, 
 any tree, is, per se, quoad tree, more poetical than 
 any needle, quoad needle, or quoad needle and 
 " stockings," which is your Lordship's association. 
 
 " I submit to Mr. BOWLES'S own judgment !" 
 A subject so respectfully submitted requires deli- 
 beration ; and after deliberation, " I submit" the 
 
[ 67 ] 
 
 following observations to Lord BYRON'S own judg- 
 ment ! But first referring me to the stanza, he 
 asks, .if these three lines are not worth all the 
 " boasted twaddling" about trees, so triumphantly 
 re-quoted. I answer, Yes, yes, yes ; worth ten thou- 
 sand trees, merely as trees, visible trees, connected 
 with no passions of the heart. But, after shewing 
 that you feel the affecting beauty of the needles as 
 much as I do, you add, " a homely collection of 
 " images and ideas, associated with the darning 
 " of stockings, the hemming of shirts, and mend- 
 " IU S Of breeches; and will any one deny they 
 " are eminently poetical, and beautiful, and pa- 
 " thetic, as addressed by COWPER to his nurse?" 
 No, my Lord: no one will deny, and I the last, I 
 hope, that they are eminently poetical and beautiful. 
 But what I marvel at is this, that this image should 
 be so touching and affecting to your Lordship, 
 with your associations, darning of stockings ! hem- 
 ming of shirts! and mending of breeches! Why, 
 I could not extract the passage without laugh- 
 ing to myself, though I never read the stanzas of 
 poor COWPER without tears in my eyes. I do mar- 
 vel, that with these associations in your Lordship's 
 mind, of shirt, stockings, and BREECHES ! the 
 image should seem affecting to your Lordship at 
 all. In my mind, it is poetically associated neither 
 with one, nor all, nor any, of these auxiliaries 
 that art has brought in versus nature : the thought 
 
 F a 
 
[ 68 ] 
 
 of one or the other never entered into my head. 
 The needles were associated in my ideas with the 
 loss of a beloved companion, never to be seen more 
 upon earth, and COWPER'S solitary and desolate 
 heart, when he beheld the humblest relic of her 
 domestic cares. 
 
 These thoughts, my Lord, give the needles in- 
 terest ; and affecting as the lines have ever been, 
 and will be, to all lovers of poetry and NATURE, 
 I do not think it worth while to take notice of 
 SHERIDAN'S pleasant story of " the poulterer" 
 
 Let us see the effect of your Lordship's interest- 
 ing and affecting associations with Mrs. UNWIN'S 
 needles. CQWPER'S lines are, 
 
 *' Thy NEEDLES, once a shining store, 
 " For my sake restless, heretofore, 
 * Now rust disus'd, and shine no more, 
 
 My MARY." 
 
 Suppose it were written more closely, accord- 
 ing to the associations which have such an effect 
 upon your Lordship's sensibility, it would run, 
 perhaps, in this manner ; 
 
 "My STOCKINGS, Oh! DEPARTED FRIEND, 
 
 "My SHIRT, that I so OFT DID REND, 
 " My BREEHES, thou no more shalt mend I 
 "My MAR v." 
 
 The " true critic" will not fail to remark how 
 much pathos and poetry is added to the " shirt," 
 as making it at the same time more characteristic 
 qf a poetical wearer, by being " rent," 
 
t 69 ] 
 
 To return. After your Lordship's triumphant 
 sally against nature, armed with Mrs. UNWIN'S 
 needle in one hand, and COWPER'S " stockings" 
 and " breeches" in the other, you seem scarce able 
 to restrain your expressions of triumph, for thus, 
 my Lord, flows the tenor of your exulting prose : 
 
 " One more poetical instance of the POWER of ART, 
 and even its superiority, over NATURE, in poetry, and 
 I HAVE done." 
 
 And now behold 
 
THE BUST OF ANTING US. 
 
 " The bust of ANTINOUS," in your Lordship's 
 animated language, is "not natural, but super - 
 " natural, or rather super-artificial!" As a work 
 of ART, of statuary, this head I conceive to be, if 
 I may judge from rude copies, most perfect. But 
 poetry and statuary are two things, as poetry and 
 painting are ; and therefore, though nothing in the 
 whole world of art may exceed this head in 
 marble, I would only beg your Lordship to en- 
 deavour to describe it in poetry. With such en- 
 thusiasm, if you cannot describe it, I know no 
 one who can. When you have put it into verse, 
 I will examine it, and see how far your Lordship 
 will, per force, be obliged to have recourse to 
 her, by whose aid your poetry shines, as much as 
 your criticism ungratefully decries her. You say, 
 " the poetry in this bust is in no respect derived 
 " from nature ! It must be difficult to say what 
 " the poetry of the bust is derived from, for it is 
 " not natural, but supernatural, or rather SUPER- 
 " ARTIFICIAL !" Byron. 
 
C 71 ] 
 
 As I am not one of the initiated in these mys- 
 teries, but only pretend to be a man of common 
 sense, this is all to me, I confess, as myr.tic as 
 " Muggletonian" dreams, or rather, might I ven- 
 ture to say, like " super-artificial twaddle !" 
 
 " Is there any thing in nature like this bust, e$ 
 " cept the Venus? 9 ' That is, is there any thing 
 in nature like this bust, except the Venus, which 
 is NOT in nature? Do I understand it? Let the 
 reader try. 
 
 " Is there any thing in nature like this marble, 
 " except the VENUS? Can there be more poetry 
 " gathered into existence than in that wonderful 
 " creation of perfect beauty ; but the poetry of this 
 " bust is in no degree derived from nature. Tjhe 
 " execution is not natural, it is super-natural, and 
 " swpev -artificial" I know that every thing in 
 ART must be ideal nature, possible nature, beyond 
 common, existing^ every-day NATURE ; yes, and 
 the great prototype of the most beautiful " super- 
 natural," " super- artificial" art, must be NATURE. 
 The most perfect bust must have eyes, lips, fore- 
 head, hair, nose, &c. &c. " Aye: but nature never 
 " produced any thing so perfect as this bust, in this 
 " respect!" It is of no great consequence, in my 
 opinion, whether this be literally true or not. But 
 your Lordship is a little hard upon nature. You 
 are yet a young man, and. in the course of your 
 travels have seen a lady of rank, and I* 
 
[ 72 ] 
 
 such an elegans formarum spectator as your Lord- 
 ship, who have also had the pleasure of being once 
 in the company of the lady you compare with the 
 statue of Venus, admit all you say. You, then, 
 my Lord, in a space of life, compared with the time 
 that has passed since man was first created, but as 
 a wink, you have seen a BRITISH LADY, and an 
 ALBANIAN GIRL, nearly, if not quite, as perfect, 
 with respect to form, features, countenance, &c. as 
 THE VENUS j yet, in your circumscription of the 
 powers of nature, you tell us " nature never pro- 
 " duced a living face like this, or the bust of An- 
 '* tinous." How do you know ? But L do not 
 care whether nature has or has not. Poetry has; 
 and I will take MILTON'S Adam and Eve, as per- 
 fect in form, in " supernatural, or in super-arti- 
 "Jicial" beauty, as the bust of Antinous, or the 
 statue of Venus! 
 
 When I reflect on the ardour of your language, 
 granting this bust to be that of woman, and made 
 complete as a whole " supernatural, super-artificial 
 "female," there might almost be a fear that your 
 Lordship's love would resemble at last that of 
 Pigmalion ; but there would be no danger, for the 
 moment your " supernatural, super-artificial" 
 beauty was alive, your " super-artificial" trans- 
 port would be over! The whole of what you 
 say on this point appears so strange to a man of 
 plain understanding, that I think I must have 
 
misconceived your meaning. If I have done so, 
 I shall be sorry ; if I do understand it, I have no 
 hesitation to use your own words, " away with such 
 " cant!" such " supernatural and super-artificial 
 " twaddle!" I here put aside this bust, as I have 
 already made an attack upon your full assemblage 
 of marble gods, the mighty machinery of your 
 criticism. 
 
 I have said that statuary and poetry are two 
 things. Statuary, as an art, is indebted to nature 
 for only one thing, with which, indeed, she per- 
 forms her wonders; turning a rude block into such 
 a creature, sui generis, as now adorns the dining- 
 room of Lansdown House, so beautiful, so per- 
 fectly beautiful, that I, Goth as I may seem to 
 your Lordship, when I have the honour of being 
 admitted as a guest, have sometimes forgot my 
 soup to gaze. Art, then, is indebted to nature for 
 nothing but the block ; but for what is the statu- 
 ary indebted to nature? for all his ideas. For 
 though he might have been less fortunate than your 
 Lordship, who have accidentally met in your tra- 
 vels so near a resemblance to Venus, as the Alba- 
 nian girl, yet he could have had no ideas at all of 
 beauty, except from nature ; for if there had not 
 been a beautiful human figure, and " thinking 
 " things," my Lord, like you and me, upon earth, 
 had other forms, neither of us could have had the 
 least idea of that beauty, the conception of which 
 
L 7* J 
 
 is first required in the sculptor. But let the art 
 and artist have done all they can, they cannot 
 render their image as perfect as poetry canj for 
 she can give to the statue life, animation, tears, 
 smiles, language, eyes that shine, &c. ; and for 
 these ideas poetry is indebted to NATURE. 
 
 The bust of Antinous, which seems even superior 
 to all your other vanquished gods, to Mrs. UN- 
 WIN'S needles themselves, I fear, also, must fall, 
 like " Friar BACON'S HEAD!" 
 
 But as you have joined with this bust the 
 " Poulterer's shop," and COWPER'S " sylvan sam- 
 pler" of trees, by way of saving time, I shall here 
 say a word or two of poetical trees. Your Lordship 
 does not seem to admire " trees." However, let 
 us only remark that even Constantinople would be 
 less poetical without them, and by putting them 
 here together, the city and trees, I think I shall 
 be able, not only to save time, but to " kill two 
 " birds with one stone" 
 
C 75 ] 
 
 PORT OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 
 
 I have no doubt, from what I have read, the 
 view you speak of is unique in picturesque and 
 poetical beauty. But, my Lord, are there indeed 
 no trees among the buildings ? No golden cupolas 
 shining to the morn ? Much as your Lordship dis- 
 likes " sylvan samplers," are there no beautiful 
 palms, sleeping, as it were, in the sunshine, like 
 an Albanian girl? No dark cypresses breaking 
 the white buildings ? As to the sylvan part of 
 the landscape, I shall ask permission to quote a 
 line of my own. 
 
 "Sees 
 
 " Damascus' golden fanes, and minarets, and TREES." 
 
 I put the " trees" into the picture, my Lord, not 
 for the sake of rhyme, which sometimes more sub- 
 lime poets do j (and your Lordship well knows 
 that rhyme 
 
 ts The rudder is of verses, 
 " By which, like ships, they steer their courses :" 
 
 HuniBRAs:) 
 
t 1G } 
 
 but I assure you I put in these " odious trees," not 
 for the sake of the rhyme, but to break the mono- 
 tony of buildings, and to make them more poetical. 
 I doubt how poetical even Constantinople would 
 look without them ; and to shew this, though not 
 a grand voyageur, yet having seen the sea, not 
 " only in a picture," but also in reality, I must take 
 you from Constantinople, and the Hellespont, to 
 that part of the sea with which I am most familiar, 
 Southampton Water. The banks are hung almost 
 entirely with wood, as far as the eye can reach. 
 
 " And forests sweep the margin of the main." 
 
 Now suppose the whole line was houses, would it 
 be so poetical? I THINK NOT! 
 
 " And chimniet sweep the margin of the main." 
 
 If you say, the buildings, interspersed, add to 
 the poetical effect of the trees, as well as the trees 
 to them, I answer, " Doubtless !" But the test is 
 this: which would be most poetical on the sea- 
 side a beautiful building without trees, or trees 
 without buildings? The bust, and the trees, have 
 led me a little out of my way, for I intended to 
 have connected " The Needle" with 
 
[ 77 ] 
 
 HOMER's SPEAR, WARRIORS, ARMS, 
 HELMETS, BOWS, c. 
 
 " The shield of ACHILLES derives its poetical in- 
 " terest from the subjects described on it." Bowles. 
 
 * And from what does the spear of ACHILLRS derive 
 " its interest ? and the helmet and the mail worn by 
 PATROCLUS; and the celestial armour, and the very 
 ' brazen greaves, of the well-booted Greeks?" Byron. 
 
 And now, if Mrs. UNWIN'S needle and stockings 
 will not much serve your Lordship, let us see what 
 can be effected on your side as the champion of art 
 versus NATURE, by the " spear" of ACHILLES. 
 
 But why did you take the spear, my Lord ? 
 What can the " spear" do, if the " shield" could 
 do nothing? The helmet, of which you find CAMP- 
 BELL has made so poetical an use in O'CONNOR'S 
 Child, would have done better ; but not to quail 
 under the SPEAR of ACHILLES, even in the hands of 
 Lord BYRON, I ask you, first, if the spear be poeti- 
 cal, is it more poetical than the warrior who uses 
 it ? The shield in HOMER, and the pastoral cup in 
 THEOCRITUS, are described at large. These great 
 
[ 78 ] 
 
 poets were obliged to have recourse to images from 
 NATURE to sustain the poetical interest of a work 
 of art. But describe distinctly a spear. It is long, 
 it is short, or glittering, or, perhaps, bloody. Let 
 us take the first arms that occur in HOMER, not 
 of ACHILLES, but of a secondary warrior.* 
 
 Let us remark DIOMED, putting on his war- 
 like habiliments. Now observe, for it is a matter 
 of mere observation, how HOMER, by images 
 drawn FROM NATURE, in connection with ideas of 
 terror or sublimity, makes us forget the work of 
 art, and rouses the attention ; these are some of the 
 animating adjuncts that make the picture MORE 
 poetical. 
 
 The first thing that presents itself is the helmet. 
 
 " High on his helm CELESTIAL LIGHTNINGS PLAY! 
 '* His beamy shield emits a living ray ;" 
 " Like the RED STAR that FIRES TH' AUTUMNAL SKIES, 
 44 WHEN FRESH HE REARS HIS RADIANT ORB TO SIGHT, 
 " AND BATH'D IN OCEAN, SHOOTS A KEENER LIGHT." 
 
 Pope's Homer. 
 
 I have extracted these remarks from a few ob- 
 servations, written long before your criticism ; there 
 are none of your examples, my Lord, which I have 
 not before attentively considered; and I must 
 think, you have not so attentively considered them 
 as myself. 
 
 * I have spoken at large on this subject in the last vindica- 
 tion, where I mentioned the images from art introduced in the 
 Paradise Lost. ACHILLES' spear is an ash from Mount Pelion, 
 Satan's spear was like a mast'* hewn in Norwegian forests." 
 
C 79 ] 
 
 I hope this will be sufficient to shew, that I do 
 not wish ULYSSES to use, as in the travestie, his 
 41 mutton-fist" instead of his bow. 
 
 But suppose you had brought against me HEC- 
 TOR himself, xopvOeuoXoe HECTOR ! Examine the 
 most interesting circumstance in the whole Iliad, 
 particularly where THE HELMET becomes most inte- 
 resting: Need I mention the parting between 
 HECTOR and ANDROMACHE? Every heart has 
 been smitten with the affecting incidents of the 
 passage, since HOMER existed. The child is in 
 the mother's arms ; and as HECTOR, going to 
 battle, is about to kiss it, the child is frightened 
 at the plumes, and turns his head into his mother's 
 bosom: HECTOR takes his helmet off, and then 
 kisses the child, who, exXivQy laiceav, whilst the 
 mother smiles in her tears ; and I ask, which does 
 your Lordship think the most poetical, the affec- 
 tionate father, the tearfully smiling mother, the 
 child that shrinks, or THE HELMET! I know what 
 you will say in your heart, if you are indeed 
 " magnanimous" enough, whilst you will admit 
 the truth of what I have said. 
 
 As I think I have taken your city of Venice, 
 Constantinople, &c. " played at Bowls,'* not, I 
 hope, without success, among your marble gods, and 
 even supported my case against you, whether armed 
 with the glittering spear of ACHILLES, or bran- 
 dishing Mrs. UNWIN'S needle, I consider the 
 
t 80 ] 
 
 battle nearly won. I shall dispatch some of the 
 most material of the other arguments as shortly 
 as I can. 
 
 Your Lordship brings the sublime image before 
 us, " Who is this that cometh from Edom, with 
 *' dyed garments from Bozrah." 
 
 I object to the dyed garments from Bozrah ! ! 
 Had they been specified as a work of art, I should ; 
 but who thinks of the garments, when nothing is 
 specified, and when the eye and mind are fixed 
 on the terrible and advancing spectacle ? 
 
 As to garments, now your Lordship has taken 
 me to the scriptures, let me ask what is more sub- 
 lime than this passage ; " the battle of every war- 
 " rior is with confused noise, and WITH GARMENTS 
 " ROLLED IN BLOOD!" You have also omitted, 
 in the passage you have quoted, a circumstance 
 which gives an indistinct glory even to the gar- 
 ments. " He that is GLORIOUS in his apparel, 
 " travelling in the GREATNESS of his strength." 
 
 I do not like to touch this awful and sublime 
 passage, but must only desire your Lordship to con- 
 sider what would be the effect of a garment from 
 artificial life, a "red coat" for instance. 
 
 From the " dyed garments," which do not take 
 off from the grandeur of the image in the least, 
 because they are not specified, let us pass to the 
 garments of C^SAR, and the dagger that destroyed 
 him, for we are now speaking of the works of ART 
 in poetry. 
 
L si ] 
 
 I do not object, HOP ever should object, nor is 
 there any thing in the principles I have laid down 
 which should make me object, to the " dagger," or 
 the " garment." The dagger is connected with 
 ideas of terror, and is, per se, in some degree poe- 
 tical 5 but a " knife" is not ; and therefore, though 
 I do not object to the "dagger," I object very 
 much to the " knife" when Lady MACBETH says, 
 
 " Pall me in the deepest shroud of night, 
 
 " That my keen knife sees not the wound it makes." 
 
 I object as much to " blanket," which renders 
 the sublimest passage ludicrous. 
 
 " Nor heav'n peep through the blanket of the dark !" 
 
 This I object to ; and I object somewhat, not to the 
 " dagger,"* or the " garment" which are intro- 
 duced, but to "peep through;" and I object, for 
 the same reason, to 
 
 " See what a rent the envious CASCA made." 
 
 But so far from objecting to the garment, when 
 ANTONY says, 
 
 " You all do know -this garment." 
 
 I think it most affecting ; and how much more 
 affecting is it rendered by the magic touch of 
 SHAKESPEARE, when, in continuation, ANTONY 
 
 * The poetry of the " dagger" depends entirely upon its asso- 
 ciating images. The dagger in Macbeth is sublime; in the ballad 
 on St. George it is ludicrous ; because, 
 
 " When it had kill'd a Cheshire man, 
 " 'T would toast a CHESHIRE cheese." 
 
C S ] 
 
 (how could you, a poet, omit these exquisite lines?) 
 brings to the recollection of CAESAR'S friends a 
 particular and beautiful circumstance from nature; 
 whilst the orator affects their hearts by the dis- 
 tinct image of the summer evening, and the very 
 tent, connected with ideas of CESAR'S victories. 
 
 " You all do know this mantle ! I remember 
 
 " The FIRST TIME CyESAR ever put it OD I 
 
 " 'Twas on a SUMMER'S EVENING, in his TENT, 
 " THE DAY he OVERCAME the NERVII !" 
 
 Any thing more beautiful as poetry, or more 
 effective as oratory, designed to rouse the feelings, 
 cannot be imagined. 
 
 Thus you see, my Lord, I can turn SHAKES- 
 PEARE against you, as well as MILTON against 
 CAMPBELL, and gain strength from your own 
 quotations. Who that feels the circumstances I 
 have mentioned thinks of the garment of CAESAR 
 merely as a garment ? It is the poetical sentiment 
 that fills the mind, and the poetical imagery from 
 NATURE. But the case had been different, if the 
 garment had been from artificial life, or too dis- 
 tinctly brought in sight. 
 
 I will illustrate this by a trifling circumstance. 
 You recollect the passage, 
 
 " Life is a walking shadow, &c. 
 
 " Out, out, BRIEF CANDLE." Shakespeare. 
 
 The passage is quoted in an edition of the Tatler, 
 as follows : 
 
li Life is a walking shadow ; a poor player, 
 " That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 
 " And then is heard no more. 
 " Out, out, short candle /" 
 
 Now every one feels this absurdity ; and yet brief 
 is short, and short is brief. Why has it so ludicrous 
 an effect? Because, when the word " brief* is 
 used, the mind is fixed only upon the sentiment ; 
 when " short" is used, it is fixed only on the 
 CANDLE ! 
 
 If these observations are just, and I believe they 
 will generally be found so, nothing more need be 
 said of daggers, arms, shields, spears, &c. ; or the 
 bow of ULYSSES. 
 
 The human hand may be poetical or not, as it is 
 described. But zjist doubled up as in the act of 
 committing an assault, complaint of which comes 
 before a country justice, is not poetical ; and I am 
 afraid, my Lord, all you have said of "fists," 
 and " fighting," and " gouging," must go for 
 nothing. 
 
 " It grieves me much, replied the Clerk again, 
 
 " Who speaks so well should ever speak in vain !" 
 
 I cannot put aside the bow of ULYSSES without 
 one more remark. I have spoken before of the 
 affecting circumstance of PENELOPE weeping over 
 the bow of her long-lost husband. Do you think 
 that the effect would have been the same, if she 
 had wept over his wig, provided he ever wore one? 
 
[ 84 ] 
 
 Mrs. UNWIN'S " needles" were dangerous, and 
 would have failed in any hands but COWPER'S ; 
 and him you pronounce "no poet!" This is an 
 avTog e(py, which I could not have expected. He 
 failed in HOMER completely; but your assertion 
 can only be met by another. He was a great, a 
 sublime, an affecting, and, what is more, a truly 
 ethical and religious poet, my Lord. But he les- 
 sened the effect of passages of the utmost sublimity 
 of thought and language, by transitions to the fa- 
 miliar and to the artificial. Who can bear, 
 " Who loves a HOT-HOUSE, loves a GREEN-HOUSE too?" 
 
 and the reason of our dislike is, because hot-houses 
 and green-houses are not so poetical as "green 
 " fields." And when you describe me as having 
 " a heart of gall" for endeavouring to appreciate 
 (" not depreciate") POPE, as a poet and a man, 
 consider, my Lord, whether he be quite consistent, 
 who talks of poetry without feeling COWPER'S; who 
 talks of ethics, without venerating him ; and who 
 severely judges him as guilty of a crime, the effect 
 of that awful CALAMITY, with which it pleased the 
 ALMIGHTY to afflict him ! 
 
 But to return, for a last grapple with 
 
ACHILLES 9 SPEAR. 
 
 Now, my Lord, permit me to remark, first, that 
 ACHILLES' spear is the only part of his armour 
 that is unworthy of him ; and this you select, in- 
 stead of the emblazoned shield, so distinctly marked 
 as a finished piece of " ART." HOMER seemed to 
 have paid so much attention to the other part of his 
 favourite hero's armour, that he scarcely says any 
 thing of this. But even this, my Lord, I can turn 
 against you, as I did Satan's spear against CAMP- 
 BELL. All that is said of this spear is, that it is 
 paternal, and was cut from the mountain Pelion. 
 What signifies where it was cut? you might say! 
 So, when you observe there was no occasion for 
 the " Norwegian pine," when you liked the 
 " ammiral's" mast, with which to compare Satan's 
 spear, better, I withdraw from the contest, and 
 leave your Lordship to battle with HOMER and 
 MILTON as to the propriety of any poetical ad- 
 dition to their similies. If the " grey-haired loon' 1 
 did not skip from the staff, he remains equally 
 sturdy against the " spear of ACHILLES." 
 
 What I have said of the armour of DIOMED and 
 others in HOMER, may be said of that of ACHILLES j 
 
[ 86 ] 
 
 and without expecting a coadjutor in POPE, I 
 looked at the note on the passage, and found these 
 words : " There is wonderful pomp in the descrip- 
 tion of ACHILLES arming himself, &c. &c. He 
 " is at first likened to the moonlight, then to the 
 "fames of a beacon, then to a COMET, and lastly 
 "to the SUN himself !" 
 
 Your Lordship thinks the execution of a poem 
 a///* This I deny j and affirm, that, comparatis 
 comparandis, if an [epic poem evince as consum- 
 mate execution as a smaller poem, he who composes 
 an epic poem, with this consummate execution, will 
 be a greater poet, in every sense of the word, than 
 he who evinces the utmost and most consummate 
 skill on an inferior and less poetical subject. And 
 I need not hesitate to affirm this, for it is the 
 opinion of all critics, from ARISTOTLE to Dr. 
 JOHNSON, 
 
 As to PETRARCH being equal, or reckoned, in 
 Italy, superior, to DANTE, it may be the conse- 
 quence of some peculiar attachment of the Italians 
 to the name of PETRARCH ; but of this they could 
 never persuade me, though fulminated ex cathedra 
 
 What! is the conception of such a JJOGW as the Paradis 
 Lost nothing ? 
 
c 87 : 
 
 by all the Popes that Italy ever produced. And 
 I may safely appeal to the universal opinion, not 
 only of professed critics, but of all men of general 
 common intelligence. 
 
 One word more will end all I have to say at 
 present on another subject, the moral character 
 of POPE. If it was not from want of " money" 
 &c. that I wrote his life, and published an edition 
 of his works, there is another circumstance that 
 might have prevailed with me|in giving my opinions, 
 namely, a conscientious conviction of the truth of 
 what I advanced; and what is biography, if failings 
 are not to be mentioned ? As to his " ethics,'* the 
 poet, I admit, profanes the dignity of his high art, 
 who does not apply the gifts he possesses to the 
 furtherance of TRUTH and of VIRTUE. But I con- 
 tend, that one epistle of Eloisa will counteract, as 
 a pander to vice, ten thousand of POPE'S ethical 
 epistles ; and I wish your Lordship to look at that 
 glorious passage in MILTON'S prose works, where 
 he speaks of meditating some immortal strain, and 
 you will confess, that, so far from thinking he was 
 telling " lies," his object was high and holy praise 
 to that Being, to whom he owed the power of 
 praising him. 
 
 Whether it was wise to say all I did of POPE, I 
 cannot tell. I spoke as I sincerely believed j that 
 it was not wise to speak with candour I I have 
 found to my cost. 
 
t 83 J 
 
 FALCONER'S SHIPWRECK, DESERT, 
 HO UN SLOW HEATH. 
 
 What has been said, I conceive, will be sufficient 
 to enable the commonest reader to see the weakness 
 or irrelevancy of all your arguments. In looking 
 back, I shall only notice shortly a few I have 
 omitted. You have spoken of the poetical effect 
 of terms of art in FALCONER'S Shipwreck. No- 
 tjiing can have a greater effect than many, in bring- 
 ing us as it were into the ship, and enabling us to 
 see every action of the men employed in the hour 
 of horror. Nothing can be more beautiful than the 
 description " of weighing anchor;" the descrip- 
 tion of the stately Britannia, and her riding on, 
 
 " The pride and glory of the JEgean main." 
 
 The other parts of the landscape are purposely 
 kept out of sight, that every eye and every heart 
 may be fixed on this beautiful object, as she streams 
 on the sight, departing for ever. 
 
 But when you speak of the poetry of the tackle, 
 bunt-line, clue lines, &c. do you really think these 
 as poetical as the description of the tempestuous 
 scene of darkness and distress itself? Do you 
 think that when the ship is in the hollow of one of 
 those enormous waves; when 
 
I 89 ] 
 
 t 
 
 " In that horrid vale, 
 " She hears no more the roaring of the galo ;" 
 
 do you think this awful and novel image is not ten 
 thousand times more poetical than such lines as, 
 
 " For he who seeks the tempest to disarm, 
 " Must never first euhrail a lee yard-arm?" 
 
 Or, 
 
 " Taught aft the sheet, they tally and belay ?" 
 
 Your cannon itself, my Lord, has smoke and 
 noise, but does no execution. I have spoken of 
 this in my last pamphlet, on the subject of the 
 "devilish artillery'* in MILTON. Your criticism, 
 on this point, is sensible and judicious; but of 
 your own cannon we cannot say, as one of the 
 leaders did, 
 
 " The TERMS we sent were TERMS of WEIGHT !" 
 
 Much as I have said about the poetical effect of 
 ships on their element, and although I have quoted 
 your own striking description before, I cannot 
 resist recalling to the reader's attention the ani- 
 mated picture of this kind from the publication 
 before me : 
 
 " The aspect of a storm in the Archipelago is as 
 poetical as need be, the sea being particularly short, 
 dashing, and dangerous, and the navigation intricate 
 and broken by the isles and currents. Cape Sigeum, the 
 tumuli of the Troad, Lemnos, Tenedos, all added to the 
 associations of the time. But what seemed the most 
 'poetical' of all at the moment, were the numbers (about 
 
C 90 ] 
 
 two hundred) of Greek and Turkish craft, which were 
 obliged to ' cut and run' before the wind, from their 
 unsafe anchorage, some for Tenedos, some for other 
 isles, some for the main, and some it might be for eter- 
 nity. The sight of these little scudding vessels, darting 
 over the foam in the twilight, now appearing and now 
 disappearing between the waves in the cloud of night, 
 with their peculiarly white sails, (the Levant sails not 
 being of 'coarse canvass,' but of white cotton,) skimming 
 along as quickly, but less safely, than the sea-mews 
 which hovered over them ; their evident distress, their 
 reduction to fluttering specks in the distance, their 
 crowded succession, their littleness, as contending with 
 the giant element, which made our stout forty-four's 
 teak timbers (she was built in India) creak again ; their 
 aspect and their motion, all struck me as something far 
 more ' poetical' than the mere broad, brawling, shipless 
 sea, and the sullen winds, could possibly have been 
 without them." 
 
 This is a beautiful picture indeed ; but the ex- 
 traordinary circumstance is, that if I could have 
 painted it, I could not have brought anything in 
 the world so much in favour of the principles of 
 poetry I advocate, and AGAINST yourself. I will 
 mention a few circumstances. ' 
 
 " The sight of these little scudding vessels, darting 
 over the foam, in the TWILIGHT, now appearing and 
 now disappearing' between the waves in the cloud of 
 night, with their peculiarly white sails, skimming along 
 as quickly, but less safely, than the SEA-MEWS which 
 hovered over them ; their evident distress, their reduc- 
 
[ 91 ] 
 
 tion to flattering specks in the disfonce, their crowded 
 succession, their littleness, as contending with the 
 GIANT ELEMENT!!"* 
 
 * This most picturesque, beautiful, and animated passage 
 from Lord BYRON has been quoted in the Gentleman's Maga- 
 zine; but such is the impartiality of the press, and such is the 
 difficulty, not only of getting fair play, but even a hearing, that in 
 one of the most respectable of the London periodical publica- 
 tions, and the oldest, and so long distinguished by a name that 
 would at least imply something like " audi alteram partem," 
 this passage from Lord BYRON is quoted, when not only the 
 answer to this passage is kept out of sight, but even any notice 
 that an answer at all to Lord BYRON has been published, is 
 OMITTED. 
 
 Another critic, professing to know nothing of the subject, nor 
 condescending, I suppose, to look at or read what was reviewed, 
 very sagaciously confining his observations to what appeared, 
 not in the page, but on the top of it, found out, first, that I was 
 very excursive, as if I could answer Lord BYRON without going 
 where I was led ; and, secondly, thought, only looking at the 
 words on the top of the page, (Sun, Sea, HOMKII, &c.) it was an 
 admirable proof of the author's logic ! ! ! If this critic had con- 
 descended to read only the words with which the pages were 
 headed, to the last chapter, entitled the " Doctor's Hat," they 
 would have found that the titles of the chapter were not meant 
 as logic, but as shewing Lord BYRON'S various positions, more 
 ludicrously than seriously. 
 
 All the other periodical publications admitted, more or less, 
 the advantage I had in this game of *' Bowls" over my noble 
 opponent; and I cannot mention this circumstance without re- 
 turning my thanks to the Editor, the only Editor who admitted 
 warmly, and promptly, what the others, with the exceptions men- 
 tioned, could not entirely deny.* I may say the same, though a 
 perfect stranger, respecting the language of that one Magazine, 
 when I wrote the answer to CAMPBELL ! 
 
 How different would have been the language of the periodical 
 publications I have spoken of, incase Lord BYKON had turned 
 * Black wood',-* Edinburgh Magaziuf. 
 
[ 92 ] 
 
 Thank you, my Lord ! Any one who casts his 
 eye over the words I have marked, will see how 
 much of NATURE, and how little of ART, appears 
 in the poetry of this animated description ; and I 
 conclude this observation by turning the most richly 
 coloured passage in your publication, my Lord, 
 AGAINST yourself. 
 
 Whether the mere brawling, shipless sea, and 
 
 the tables on me ! But though the victory has been tacitly, and 
 by some reluctantly, acknowledged, not one has done me the 
 justice, which is all I ask, of placing Lord BYRON'S arguments 
 and my answers side by side. 
 
 In fact the secret history of reviewing is now pretty well un- 
 derstood. One of the " princely merchants of the Muses" pays 
 a considerable sum of money for a poem ; he knows and em- 
 ploys many men of talent, who occasionally furnish works for 
 his warehouse. Most of these writers either write in, or can 
 command the entree of, some Magazine or Review. Into their 
 hands a work, purchased for a large price, is consigned to be 
 reviewed : if the bookseller give nothing, it is seldom he cares 
 about any review ; but he can command it, if he thinks it of im- 
 portance. When a person has a power over one popular Review, 
 a review of the poem purchased appears immediately, and the 
 book is sent, before publication, to particular journals. I know 
 one instance where this has been done, and where a hundred 
 pounds have been offered to writers who have the entree, as it is 
 called, of other Reviews, for an article on the purchased work : 
 an able and popular writer gets both ways, from the publisher, 
 and from the Review in which he writes, at five, or ten, or 
 fifteen, or perhaps twenty, pounds a sheet. A " provincial" poet 
 or critic, in the mean time, wonders he is not taken notice of, 
 which he seldom is, unless for particular purposes. Mr. PENNIE, 
 a young man of genius, but in poverty, has written a long poem 
 of high poetical merit, and never has been able to get it even 
 mentioned in any publication, one alone excepted. 
 
[ 9S ] 
 
 the sulkn winds, (as your Lordship, with the skill 
 of a rhetorician, not as a reasoner, calls them,) could 
 be as poetical without the vessels, I say not ; but, 
 when thus seen, and thus set before us, I fearlessly 
 repeat, that to those winds, to that element so 
 gigantic, against which their " littleness" con- 
 tended, we owe the most picturesque and poetical 
 part of the beauty of this passage. 
 
 I have observed, " that your own poetry laughed 
 at" your " variable 9 ' principles of criticism, and 
 so animated were you in this description, ^that you 
 must have utterly forgotten, whilst you wrote it, 
 its tendency, which is to establish the " INVARI- 
 " ABLE" principles of NATURE, confirmed by your- 
 self, on the very element with which you are so 
 familiar. 
 
 " Take away the ' pyramids/ and what is the ' desert?' 
 Take away Stonehenge from Salisbury Plain, and it is 
 nothing more than Hounslow Heath, or any other unin- 
 closed down." Byron. 
 
 I will tell you, my Lord, why a desert is poetical 
 without a pyramid : because it conveys ideas of im- 
 measurable extent, of profound silence, of solitude. 
 What is Salisbury Plain without Stonehenge? 
 Stonehenge is poetical from its traditions, and un- 
 certain origin. (See WARTON'S fine sonnet.) But 
 
L 9* J 
 
 Hounslow Heath conveys to the mind chiefly ideas 
 of " artificial" life, turnpike-roads, stage-coaches 
 in all directions, raree-showmen, whose shows 
 " thousands" would look at, who do not look at the 
 sun ! ! carts and caravans, and butcher boys scam- 
 pering on horseback with one spur, and my Lord in 
 his coach, with the " poetical LIVERYMAN'* behind ! 
 
 Therefore, HOUNSLOW HEATH is not so poetical 
 as " the Desert," connected with the idea of soli- 
 tude, of extent, of sands moving in the vast wilder- 
 ness ; of Arabs telling their wild stories by moon- 
 light, &c. : these make the " desert" more 
 poetical than Hounslow Heath, with or without a 
 pyramid. 
 
 But we must be more particular, now we are 
 come to 
 
SALISB UR Y PLAIN. 
 
 We have been taking a delightful excursion, from 
 Venice to Constantinople, from Athens and the 
 shore of Greece to the deserts and the Pyramids 
 of Egypt, as on ROGERO'S horse, from the pyra- 
 mids and deserts of Egypt, having placed me, 
 
 " Ut magus, modo Thebis, modo AT HEMS/' 
 
 you have brought me back safely to Salisbury Plain, 
 and within thirty miles of my own door. 
 
 And here it is almost time (for which I am sorry) 
 to part, for the excursion has been pleasant j and if 
 we have not quite agreed on the road, I hope we 
 shall part in as good humour as we met. But before 
 I take my leave, suffer me to recall to your recol- 
 lection the first words of your sentence about the 
 pyramids. 
 
 The reader has seen, that you have admitted 
 they are not so poetical without the desert and its 
 associations as with them. Now I have quoted my 
 original positions Jour or Jive times, placed them 
 before Mr. CAMPBELL, the Quarterly Review, and 
 your Lordship, and I beg and entreat you again to 
 remember, I never said that WORKS OF ART were 
 not poetical, (I must have been an idiot so to have 
 
said,) I only said the sublime and beautiful works* 
 of NATURE were, per se, abstractedly, MORE so I 
 Has the AIR of Italy, Milan, &c. affected your 
 Lordship's recollection ? " Works of nature are, 
 "per se, in what is beautiful or sublime, more 
 "poetical than any w r orks of art," 
 
 " PASSIONS are more poetical than the manners 
 " and habits of artificial life." 
 
 If you had read what I distinctly laid down, or, 
 having read the first propositions, remembered them, 
 your book would not have been so pleasant, but I 
 cannot concede that any instance you have advanced, 
 has affected my original positions. 
 
 Your gods and goddesses ; your statues, busts, 
 temples ; your arms, shields, and spears, (not for- 
 getting Mrs. UN WIN'S needle and COWPER'S small* 
 clothes ;J your prospects of cities by sea, Venice, 
 Constantinople, &c. ; your pyramids and pigsties; 
 your slop-basins and " other vessels;" your livery- 
 man j the desert, Hounslow Heath, (why not 
 Bagshot? it is most poetical of the two,) Salisbury 
 Plain, the poulterer, the rabbits, " white, black, 
 " and grey," vanish at the waving of the wand of 
 truth ; and the grotesque assembly becomes 
 " Like the baseless shadow of a vision." 
 
 However, as we are got safe upon Salisbury Plain 
 at last, it is time to make my bow ; and I can 
 assure you, my Lord, I look back on many of the 
 
t 97 ] 
 
 beautiful pictures you have painted with unfeigned 
 delight, though still thinking my principles of 
 poetical criticism not a jot the less " INVARIABLE," 
 in consequence of any arguments you have brought 
 against them. 
 
 There are one or two personal passages in your 
 pamphlet, which it is possible, upon second thoughts, 
 you would have omitted. Whether you would do 
 so or not, I shall pass them over sub silentio; and 
 
 I remain, my Lord, &c. 
 
 W. L. BOWLES. 
 
 ii 
 
POST SCRIPTUM. ' 
 
 SHIPWRECK. 
 
 I forgot to speak of a ship in a tempest as a 
 poetical object ; and this, probably, your Lordship 
 may turn against me. A ship in a tempest un- 
 doubtedly is both sublime and terrible - 9 but what 
 makes it so ? It is the intense sympathy with the 
 terror and distress, that causes the sublimity : 
 do we then sympathize with the people in the ship, 
 or the ship? the men, or the boards? If with 
 the men, then your sympathy is derived from 
 nature. If you knew a ship had no men in it, 
 the terror, and those feelings which cause sublimity, 
 would be lost. 
 
 CRABBE and COLERIDGE have both taken that 
 moment of terror, when, after conflicting with 
 the waves, the vessel is seen no more ! This 
 gives an indescribable sublimity ; because an image 
 from nature is called up, which shews you those 
 miserable people in despair and agony one moment; 
 
L 99 J 
 
 in the next, the waves are only seen, the storm 
 only heard, and the ship gone. 
 
 COLERIDGE'S idea is that, at midnight, he beholds 
 a ship tossing, by one flash of lightning j another 
 flash comes, and 
 
 " He sees no vessel there." 
 
 Whilst we are on the subject, allow me again to 
 advert to that singularly affecting poem, " The 
 " Shipwreck." 
 
 How does FALCONER contrive to make the ship 
 itself an object of sympathy ? By personifying 
 it, as endowed with sense : 
 
 " Now launching headlong down the horrid vale, 
 " She hears no more the roaring of the gale.' 7 
 
 The cause of the want of interest in the scenes 
 and classic places by which the ship is surrounded, 
 arises only from the anxiety and sympathy with 
 the mariners, and particularly those for whom we 
 are so much interested. Who at such a mo- 
 ment could bear to have his deep solicitude inter- 
 rupted, by being called upon to contemplate even 
 those shores, where 
 
 " Godlike SOCRATES and PLATO shone ?" 
 
 (Shipwreck.) 
 
 As the scene rises in terror, how fine is the in- 
 troduction of the ANGEL of the WIND: 
 
 " And lo ! tremendous o'er the deep he springs, 
 " The inflaming sulphur flashing from his wings ; 
 "Hark! his strong voice the dismal silence break.^." 
 
 H 2 
 
[ 100 J 
 Is not this infinitely more poetical than 
 
 " Taught aft the sheet, they tally and belay ?" 
 
 In some cases, where nautical terms are used, the 
 effect, I admit, is very striking, in bringing you, as 
 it were, into the midst of this forlorn and ago- 
 nized crew. Such is the animated passage, 
 
 ' Square fore and aft the yards,' the Master calls : 
 1 ' You Timoneers her motion still attend, 
 ' For on your steerage all our lives depend : 
 ' So, steady ! meet her ! watch the curving prow, 
 ' And from the gale directly let her go !' 
 "Starboard again P the watchful Pilot cries : 
 4 Starboard!' th' obedient Timoneer replies !" 
 
 Who can read this without fancying himself amidst 
 the crew, and almost hearing the conflict of the 
 elements, the words given and repeated, 
 
 " ' Starboard again P the watchful Pilot cries : 
 " ' Starboard !' th' obedient Timoneer replies !" 
 
 But an image from artificial life puts to flight 
 almost all sympathy. 
 
 " Fate SPURS her on !" 
 
A few more critical observations occur on looking 
 over what your Lordship has advanced. 
 
 Architecture. 
 
 You observe that it is the architecture of West- 
 minster Abbey, that makes it poetical : the tower 
 for " making patent shot," accordingly, would be 
 equally poetical, if the architecture was the same. 
 I affirm this is not so. Westminster Abbey is, and 
 must be, poetical, from moral associations more than 
 from its architecture. " The object" cannot be 
 seen without these associations, connected with 
 time, and the illustrious dead. 
 
 I say, your answer is that of a painter, not a 
 poet ! The architecture would make " the tower 
 " for patent shot" equally picturesque, as an object, 
 for painting sees nothing but the surface, but it 
 would not make it as poetical, except in mere de- 
 scription ; and I defy your Lordship, and all the 
 poets who ever existed, to make " the patent shot 
 " tower" poetical, let the architecture be what it 
 
[ 102 ] 
 
 will, unless they keep all its uses and name out of 
 sight. In using the word " objects," of course 
 I imply " poetical'* objects, which include not 
 only the visible form, but the associations. Nay, 
 Sir CHRISTOPHER WREN'S additions to Westmin- 
 ster Abbey are not so poetical as the Abbey itself, 
 though their " architecture" were as appropriate 
 as it is inhannonious. I cannot shew the absurdity 
 of a poetical tower for " patent shot/* so well as by 
 a plain instance that of the " Old Minster" and 
 the " Glass-houses" at Bristol ! If a glass-house 
 had the same architecture, to a painter it would 
 appear the same; but try the effect in poetry. 
 CHATTERTON, speaking of the spirit of -^ELLA, says, 
 
 "Whether 
 
 ** Or fiery round the MINSTEK glare !" 
 
 Try the effect of the other building, supposing 
 its architecture the same, 
 
 Or fiery round the f Glass-hmise ' glare !" 
 
 the whole passage becomes ludicrous. 
 
 The ty r all ofMalamocco, Euxine, and Argo. 
 
 When I speak of the sea, I do not speak of the 
 Adriatic, or any part of it in particular. You take 
 particular spots, and ask, whether, in that spot, the 
 
C 103 ] 
 
 " master" that curbs the sea, be not more poetical 
 than the sea? " Curb the Adriatic!" What must 
 this strip of sea be to bear being " so curbed?" Its 
 poetical SUBLIMITY must be entirely subdued, by 
 Venice in one comer, and " a waff 9 in the other! 
 Bring your " walls," my Lord, to " curb" THE 
 PACIFIC ! and you would do something! But the 
 mighty Cordelleiras, of NATURE, only can do that. 
 The " Argo" entering into the Euxine must 
 have been, indeed, a most poetical object ; and I 
 can readily feel with the poet, standing on the 
 spot from whence the spectacle might have been 
 first seen, repeating the lines from the Greek tra- 
 gedian. No ship had been there before ! What 
 reflections, fears, and awe, would that thought 
 alone create ! But I ask, is the interest, even here, 
 derived from the ship as a work of art? It is 
 in part derived, no doubt, from the idea of the 
 courage, enterprise, and mastery of man over 
 this great element, in part from the beauty added 
 to the scene ; but the novelty, the awe, and other 
 complex ideas, excite the highest poetical enthu- 
 siasm, which I should partake with your Lord- 
 ship, but should not think my principles of the 
 sublime of nature in the least affected by this 
 instance. For, abstractedly, the Euxine is a 
 more sublime object than the Argo ; and if you 
 admit associations, they must be derived from 
 feelings] of NATURE. 
 
Having now, I believe, examined all of your 
 arguments, I must add, that it appears to me, and I 
 think it will appear so to every attentive and 
 unprejudiced reader, that the " tall" ship becomes 
 "diminished to a buoy;" the marble temples 
 sink to dust, or, opposed even to the mountains of 
 America, appear as little as the Pyramids, scarcely 
 seen at the bottom of the engraving called the 
 ** scale of mountains ;" Mrs. UN WIN'S needle 
 renders not more service than that of Gammer 
 GURTON, which was found in HODGE'S " breeches !" 
 ANTINOUS* bust becomes fragile as the brazen 
 head of Friar BACON ; and HOMER'S arms, that 
 make such a glittering shew, impose only for a 
 moment, like the coruscations of a fire-work, which 
 seems to add, as it ascends, a thousand stars and 
 glories to the night, and falls down " a bit of 
 burnt stick!" 
 
 So my" Lord, the airy style, the pleasant stories, 
 the transient pictures, the brilliant imagery, of 
 your publication, are as beautiful as they are base- 
 less; because, on the least touch of argumentative 
 examination, they are reduced to nothing, 
 
 *' Cum ventum ad veram est sensus, NATURA repugnat." 
 
 In fully, and I hope satisfactorily, developing 
 my ideas on the subject of this controversy, I have 
 
C 105 ] 
 
 thought it necessary to go into more minute detail, 
 to prevent the possibility of future misrepresenta- 
 tion :* having done this, and being convinced that 
 misrepresentation must now be from design, I hope 
 to drop for ever the controversial pen. 
 
 The " order" of classing the highest kind of 
 poetry is not mine, and, therefore, not arbitrary ; 
 " the order" is that admitted by all who ever 
 thought or wrote on the subject. 
 
 Lord BYRON'S code is arbitrary, and not mine. 
 As to the poet being ranked according to his " exe- 
 "cution, and not the branch, of his art," I have 
 never considered the branch of the art as consti- 
 tuting a poet independent of the execution. I 
 estimate a poet's character from both. 
 
 Though I hope to lay down, after what I have 
 now said, my controversial pen, if a single ex- 
 pression occur in the preceding pages contrary 
 to the fairest mode of argument, it has not been 
 intentional. 
 
 The public will decide between us; but one 
 concluding observation must be made. Your Lord- 
 ship has entertained us with a pleasant story of the 
 " doctor s" HAT, alluding to my " sensitiveness" to 
 criticism; therefore I devote what remains to the 
 " chapter of the" 
 
 * This has since been done, in my opinion wilfully ; for which 
 opiuion the reasons will be given. 
 
[ 106 ] 
 
 DOCTOR'S HAT. 
 
 " Mr. BOWLES'S extreme sensibility reminds me of 
 a circumstance which occurred on board of a frigate in 
 which I was a passenger. The surgeon wore a wig. 
 Upon this ornament he was extremely tenacious. One 
 day a young lieutenant, in the course of a facetious dis- 
 cussion, said, " Suppose now, doctor, I should take off 
 " your hat" l Sir/ replied the doctor, ' I shall talk no 
 ' longer with you; you grow scurrilous? " Byron. 
 
 Allow me only to say, that for thirty years I 
 never made one reply to any criticism, good, bad, 
 or indifferent ; nor should I have done so now, 
 if I had had commoner play. But I must hint, 
 that the " doctor's hat," in my opinion, fits your 
 Lordship better than it does me ; for the instant 
 your early poems were sent into the world, and en- 
 countered the rude breath of the critics, you Jell 
 foul of critics, poets, statesmen, lords, ladies, and, 
 among the number, none received less indulgence 
 than your present correspondent. You have 
 admitted with what good-humour this criticism on 
 my temper and talents was met, whether it was 
 more than I deserved or not. 
 
 * " HIPPOCRATES says, Let us be covered, In what chapter? 
 " the CHAPTER of HATS." Molitre. 
 
[ 107 ] 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 toiKu$. P. 15. 
 
 EVERY classical reader will recollect the passage of 
 Apollo descending from the top of Olympus to avenge 
 the cause of his priest. POPE has completely misun- 
 derstood, as well as weakened, the image by expan- 
 sion. In the original, the action of the incensed Deity 
 is brought before us, and the simile is added, without 
 any amplification, 
 
 HOMER says, "Apollo descended from the top of 
 " Olympus," having his bow on his shoulder, and his 
 pharetra of arrows. POPE says, " bent was his bow ! 
 Instead of his being represented as descending in his 
 wrath, " like night," POPE says, 
 
 " Breathing revenge, a sudden night he spread, 
 " And gloomy darkness roll'd around bis head 1" 
 
 The last line is from SANDY'S translation of the Psalms, 
 (t Gloomy darkness roll'd beneath his feet/' 
 
 The lines of POPE are very fine, undoubtedly; but 
 I, who am called such a lover of minute particulars, 
 prefer infinitely HOMER'S brief and bold imagery. 
 
[ 108 ] 
 
 The passage, to which I alluded, in the Tivo Gentle- 
 men of Verona, has been so often quoted, I did not 
 particularize it ; but I here give it to confirm what I 
 said, that one of the criterions of a true poet is, to 
 know when to be general, and when specific. The cur- 
 rent in its wanderings is thus exquisitely described; 
 
 " The current that with gentle motion glides, 
 
 " Thonknow'st, being stopt, impatiently doth rage ; 
 
 " But when his fair course is not hindered, 
 
 " He makes sweet music with the enamelled stones , 
 
 " Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge 
 
 " He overtaketh in his pilgrimage ; 
 
 " And so by many winding nooks he strays, 
 
 "With willing sport, to the WILD OCEAN." 
 
 How many images of poetry are here brought together 
 in one delightldl picture ! If my opponents should 
 say, that, according to my principles, " every sedge" 
 should be particularized ; I shall only remark, that I 
 think SHAKESPEARE would have spoiled its beauty if 
 he had made the description one jot more or less specific. 
 Could he have made a Venetian canal, or the canal at 
 Paddington, as beautiful, with all his genius I No : 
 
 because 
 
 " Ornari RES IPSA negat;" 
 
 and, therefore, as the same genius, by " any treatment," 
 cannot make one subject as poetical as another, it 
 must be, because one subject is more poetical, that is, 
 more adapted to poetry than another. Yet, can it be 
 believed, that a whole pamphlet should be written to 
 prove that there is nothing in art or nature POETICAL, 
 abstractedly from its treatment ? that the writer should 
 amuse himself by asserting he " had proved this ?" and 
 that a quibble upon the meaning of the word " poetical," 
 
[ 109 ] 
 
 which I originally defined, " adapted to poetry," should 
 make Mr. CAMPBELL call such reasonings an answer? 
 Will he or Lord BYRON say a river is not more adapted 
 to poetry than a canal? or that SHAKESPEARE, or 
 CAMPBELL, or BYRON,* by " any treatment" could 
 make it as beautiful in description as they could make 
 the other? Let Mr. CAMPBELL'S metaphysician answer 
 this question without circuitous subterfuges, or elabo- 
 rate quibbling, if he can ! 
 
 If picturesque obviously mean " adapted to paint- 
 "ing," who could think a point gained by a quibble on 
 the word ? 
 
 Having occasion to look into VoLXEY's Travels in 
 Egypt, the following passage struck me as so appli- 
 cable to the subject, that I transcribe it. 
 
 " No country is LESS PICTURESQUE, LESS ADAPTED 
 " to the pencil of the painter, or the descriptions of th 
 "poet; nothing can be seen of what constitutes the 
 " charm of their pictures ; and it is remarkable, that 
 " neither the Arabs nor the Ancients make any mention 
 tl of Egyptian poets. What, indeed, could an Egyptian 
 " sing on the reed of GRSNER or THEOCRITUS ? He 
 " sees neither limpid streams, nor verdant lawns, nor 
 " solitary caves ; and is equally a stranger to vallics, 
 " mountain sides, and pendant rocks." 
 
 He goes on to say, " THOMSON could not there have 
 " known either the whistling of the winds in the forest, 
 "the rolling of thunder among the mountains, or the 
 " peaceful majesty of ancient woods ; he could not have 
 " observed the awful tempest, nor the sweet tranquillity 
 "of the succeeding calm." Vol. i. page 245, English 
 translation. 
 * These objections will be more attentively considered in the sequel. 
 
A N S W E R 
 
 TO 
 
 SOME OBSERVATIONS 
 
 OP 
 
 THOMAS CAMPBELL, ESQ; 
 
 IN HIS 
 SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETS. 
 
A LETTER, &c. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 A Short time since a friend of yours, and one of 
 -^^- the most distinguished poets of the present 
 day, informed me that there had appeared, in the 
 Morning Chronicle, an extract from your Specimens 
 of British Poets, entitled, " CAMPBELL'S Answer 
 " to BOWLES." I have since read, with much 
 pleasure, the work from which the extract was 
 taken; and I beg to return you my thanks, for the 
 kind manner with which my name is introduced, 
 though you profess to differ from me, and state at 
 large the grounds of that difference, on a point of 
 criticism. The criticism of mine, which you have 
 discussed, is that which appears in the last volume 
 of the last edition of Pope's Works, entitled, " On 
 " the Poetical Character of Pope." 
 
[ 2 3 
 
 As the opinion pronounced by the editor of the 
 Morning Chronicle will probably be the opinion 
 of all who read, without much reflection, not my 
 criticism, but your representation of it ; I am bound, 
 in justice to myself, to state the grounds of my 
 proposition clearly; to meet the arguments you 
 have brought against it, manfully but respectfully ; 
 and to make the public (at least that part of the 
 public which may be interested in such a discus- 
 sion) & judge between us! 
 
 I feel it the more incumbent on me to do this, 
 knowing the deserved popularity of your name, 
 and the impression which your representation of 
 my arguments must make on the public ; though I 
 must confess, it does appear to me that you could 
 not have read the criticism which you discuss. 
 
 I do not think that any thing, Sir, you have 
 advanced, at all shakes the propositions I have laid 
 down ; and, moreover, I do not doubt I shall be 
 able to prove that you have misconceived my 
 meaning ; ill supported your own arguments ; con- 
 founded what I had distinguished; and even fgiven 
 me grounds to think you had replied to propositions 
 which you never read, or, at least, of which you 
 could have read only the first sentence, omitting 
 that which was integrally and essentially connected 
 with it. 
 
 In an article in the Edinburgh Review, the 
 same mis-statement was made, and the same course 
 
L a ] 
 
 of argument pursued. I feel, indeed, bound to 
 thank Mr. JEFFREY, if he wrote the article, for 
 the liberal tribute he paid to my poetry, at the 
 expense of my canons of criticism. But in truth, 
 from the coincidences here remarked, I might be 
 led to think Mr. CAMPBELL wrote the Review, 
 were I not more disposed to think he drew his 
 knowledge of my criticism on POPE, not from 
 the criticism itself, but, at second-hand, from the 
 criticism on the criticism in that Review, inadver- 
 tently involving himself in all its misconceptions 
 and misrepresentations. 
 
 For, I beg you to observe, Sir, that in my first 
 proposition, I do not say that WORKS OF ART are 
 in no instances poetical; but only that " what is 
 " sublime or beautiful in works of nature is MORE 
 " so !" The very expression " more so" is a proof 
 that poetry belongs, though not in the same degree, 
 to both. I must also beg you to remark, that, 
 having laid down this position, I observe, in the 
 very next sentence, (lest it should be misunder- 
 stood as it now is, and was by a writer in the 
 Edinburgh Review,) substantially as follows, 
 that the loftier passions of human nature are 
 more poetical than artificial manners; the one 
 being eternal, the other local and transitory. I 
 think the mere stating of these circumstances will 
 be sufficient to shew, that both the Edinburgh 
 Review and yourself have completely misrepre. 
 
sented my meaning. With respect to the images 
 FROM ART, which you have adduced as a trium- 
 phant answer to what I laid down, I shall generally 
 observe, that your own illustrations are against 
 you. The Edinburgh Review, in the same man- 
 ner, had spoken of the Pyramids. Now the Py- 
 ramids of Egypt, the Chinese Wall, &c. had oc- 
 curred to me, at the time of writing, as undoubtedly 
 POETICAL in WORKS of ART ; but I supposed that 
 any reflecting person would see that these were 
 A*4 i poetical, not essentially as works of art, but from 
 *T;a x associations both with the highest feelings of nature, 
 and some of her sublimest external works. The 
 generations swept away round the ancient base of 
 the Pyramids, the ages that are past since their 
 
 \ \ generations swept away round the ancient base of 
 
 It 
 
 A erection, the mysterious obscurity of their origin, 
 and many other complex ideas, enter into the 
 imagination at the thought of these wonderful 
 structures, besides the association with boundless 
 deserts; as the Wall of China is associated with 
 unknown rocks, mountains, and rivers. Build a 
 pyramid of new brick, of the same dimensions as 
 the pyramids of Egypt, in Lincoln's-Inn Fields, 
 and then say how much of the poetical sublimity of 
 the immense and immortal piles in the deserts of 
 Egypt is derived, not from art, but from moral 
 associations!* Place your own image of the 
 
 * A London critic, in the Quarterly Review, says, he knows 
 nothing; of Nature, external, moral, or general ! I believe him. 
 
" GIANT OF THE WESTERN STAR" Upon Such a 
 
 pyramid, if it could be made as HIGH as the Andes, 
 and say whether it would be considered as poetical 
 as now it appears, " looking from its throne of 
 " clouds o'er half the world." I had often con- 
 sidered these and such instances generally and 
 specifically ; and I think, if you reflect a moment, 
 you will agree with me, that though they are works 
 of art, they are rendered POETICAL chiefly by moral 
 associations and physical circumstances.* But to 
 come to your most interesting example. Let us 
 examine the ship which you have described so beau- 
 tifully. On what does the poetical beauty depend? 
 not on art, but NATURE. Take awayt the waves, 
 the winds, the sun, that, in association with the 
 streamer and sails, make them look so beautiful ! 
 take all poetical associations away, ONE will become 
 a strip of blue bunting, and the other a piece of 
 coarse canvas on three tall poles!! 
 
 You speak also of the poetical effect of the drum 
 andjifef Are the drum and fife poetical, without 
 other associations ? In the quotation from Shake- 
 
 * As Mr. DISRAELI has taken such antipathy to *' NATURE," 
 I have left out the word, where the sense could be understood 
 without it, 
 
 t Lord BYRON'S argument is a verbal quibble on " Takeaway." 
 The sense will be obvious, though it is true, if there were no sea, 
 there would be no ships ! 1 But the chief poetical beauty is never- 
 theless derived from Nature, according to Mr. CAMPULLI/S OWN 
 description. 
 
[ 6 ] 
 
 speare which you adduce, the fife is u ear piercing," 
 and the drum is " spirit stirring ;" and both are 
 associated, by the consummate art of Shakespeare 
 with what? with the " PRIDE, POMP, and CIR- 
 CUMSTANCE of GLORIOUS WAR!" and passions and 
 pictures are called up; those of fortitude, of terror, 
 of pity, &c. &c. ; arms glittering in the sun, and 
 banners waving in the AIR. It is these pictures 
 and passions from NATURE,* and these alone, 
 which make a drum or fife poetical ; and let the 
 same drum or fife be heard before a booth in a 
 fair, or in a regiment with wooden guns, and this 
 poetical effect will be lost. I therefore turn your 
 own instances against you. 
 
 What I said respecting descriptive poetry, in 
 my Essay on the Poetical Character of POPE, was 
 not with a view of shewing that a poet should 
 be a botanist, or even a Dutch painter; but that 
 no one could be lt pre-eminent," as a great (de- 
 scriptive) poet, without this knowledge, which 
 peculiarly distinguishes COWPER and THOMSON. 
 The objects I had in view, when I used the 
 expressions objected to, were Pope's Pastorals 
 and Windsor Forest. I will appeal to your own 
 quotation from the first of these poets. Why 
 is COWPER so eminent as a descriptive poet? for 
 I am now speaking of this part of his poetical cha- 
 racter alone. Because he is the most accurate 
 
 * To distinguish from local and artificial manners. 
 
[ 7 ] 
 
 describer of the works of external nature, and for 
 that reason is superior, as a descriptive poet, to 
 POPE.* Every tree, and every peculiarity of 
 colour and shape, are so described, that the reader 
 becomes a spectator, and is doubly interested with 
 the truth of colouring, and the beauty of the scene, 
 so vividly and so delightfully painted; and you 
 yourself have observed the same in your criticism 
 on this exquisite poet, in WORDS AS DECISIVE AS 
 MY OWN. 
 
 Having thus merely stated my sentiments in 
 general, as they stand in order and connection in 
 the Essay on the Poetic Character of POPE, I shall 
 now pursue your arguments more in detail. 
 
 You say, " as the subject of inspired fiction, 
 " nature includes artificial forms and manners." 
 " RICHARDSON is no less a painter of nature than 
 " HOMER!" I will not stoop to notice your vague 
 expression of * c inspired Jiction ;" but will admit 
 that RICHARDSON is not less a painter of nature 
 than HOMER. For, indeed, RICHARDSON, 
 
 Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet, 
 Ut magus ! 
 
 But let us take Clarissa Harlowe, the most af- 
 fecting of RICHARDSON'S " inspired fictions!'* 
 Though Lovelace be a character in ARTIFICIAL 
 LIFE, the interest we take in the history of Clarissa 
 is derived from PASSIONS. Its great characteristic 
 
 * Mr. CAMPBELL'S own quotation will be seen in the Postscript. 
 
[ 8 ] 
 
 / is PATHOS ; and this I have distinguished as a far 
 more essential property of poetry than flowers and 
 V leaves! The passions excited make RICHARDSON 
 so far, and no farther, poetical. There is nothing 
 poetical in the feathered hat or the sword-knot of 
 Lovelace ; nor in the gallant but artificial manners 
 .of this accomplished villain. In Sir Charles Gran- 
 dison the character of Clementina is poetical ', and 
 for the same reasons ; but there is nothing very 
 poetical in Sir Charles himself, or ' ' the venerable 
 " Mrs. Shirley!" 
 
 I must here observe, that when I speak of pas- 
 
 sions as poetical, I speak of those which are most 
 
 / elevated or pathetic ; for it is true, passions are 
 
 y described* in TERENCE as well as SOPHOCLES ; but 
 
 < Jf I confine my definition to what is heroic, sublime, 
 
 { \ pathetic, or beautiful, in human feelings ; and this 
 
 distinction is kept in view through the Essay on 
 
 i/ \ the Poetic Character of POPE. SHAKESPEARE 
 
 displays the same wonderful powers in Fal staff as 
 
 in Lear, but not the same poetical powers ; and 
 
 the provinces of comedy and tragedy will be al- 
 
 ways separate ; the one relating to the passions, the 
 
 other combined with the passing fashions, and in- 
 
 cidental variations of the " Cynthia of the minute." 
 
 To proceed ; you say, " HOMER himself is a 
 
 " minute describer of the works of art !" But are 
 
 * This is the reason why I used the expression of passions 
 derived from manners. 
 
C 9 1 
 
 his descriptions of works of art more poetical than 
 his descriptions of the great feelings of nature ? 
 Nay, the whole of the Odyssey derives its peculiar 
 charm from the scenes of NATURE ; as the Iliad 
 does from its loftier passions. But do you really 
 think that the catalogue of the Grecian ships is as 
 poetical as the animated horses of Achilles ; and 
 do you think HOMER would have been so great a 
 poet, if he had been only a minute describer of 
 works of art ? Jejune as the catalogue of the 
 leaders arid ships is, how much more interesting 
 and poetical is it rendered by the brief interpositions 
 of varied and natural landscape ; and it is this very 
 circumstance that gives the dry account any in- 
 terest at all. Besides, was the age of HOMER an 
 aera of refinement or artificial life ? by whom not 
 even such a poetical work of art as a bridge is 
 mentioned !* 
 
 But RICHARDSON and HOMER are not sufficient 
 to overwhelm me and my hypothesis ; and it is 
 remarked, as if the argument were at once decisive, 
 
 * Mr. CAMPBELL asks me if yiQypxs might not signify a bridge ? 
 I answer, it may signify any thing that connects the two banks 
 of a river : but he is very welcome to the bridge, and it shall be 
 as beautiful in architecture as Westminster bridge, if he likes-. 
 Yet what will it serve him respecting the main argument, which 
 was, that HOMER lived in an age before the existence of works 
 of the highest perfection in art; so his Jupiter, Apollo, and 
 Neptune, and his most exquisite delineations of scenes of nature, 
 and forms of gods, and passions of the heart, could not have 
 been derived from those secondary sources of intellectual delight. 
 

 [ 10 ] 
 
 that MILTON is full of imagery derived from art ; 
 " Satan's spear," for example, is compared to the 
 
 *' MAST OF SOME GREAT AMMIRAL!" Supposing 
 
 it is, do you really think that such a comparison 
 makes the description of Satan's spear a whit more 
 poetical? I think much less so. But MILTON was 
 not so unpoetical as you imagine, though I think 
 his simile does not greatly add to our poetical ideas 
 of Satan's spear ! The " mast of the great admiral" 
 might have been left out; but remark, in this image 
 MILTON DOES NOT compare Satan's spear " with 
 " the mast of some great admiral, 9 ' as you assert. 
 The passage is, 
 
 " His spear, to equal which the TALLEST PINE 
 " HEWN ON NORWEGIAN HILLS TO BE the mast 
 " Of some great ammiral, were but a wand ! 1" 
 
 You leave out the chief, I might say the only, cir- 
 cumstance which reconciles the " mast" to us ; 
 and having detruncated MILTON'S image, trium- 
 phantly say, " MILTON is full of imagery " derived 
 "from art!!" You then advance, " dextrdque 
 " sinislraque" and say, not only Satan's spear is 
 compared to an " admirals mast" but " his shield 
 " to the moon seen through a telescope!" 
 
 My dear Sir, consider a little. You forget the 
 passage ; or have purposely left out more than half 
 of its essential poetical beauty. What reason have 
 I to complain, when you use MILTON thus ? I 
 beseech you recollect MILTON'S image. 
 
t 11 ] 
 
 " His pond'rous shield 
 
 *' Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb 
 " Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views 
 
 " At EVENING, FROM THE TOP OF FESOLE, 
 
 " Or in VALDARNO, to DESCRY NEW LANDS, 
 
 " RIVERS, or MOUNTAINS, IN HER SPOTTY GLOBE/' 
 
 Who does not perceive the art of the poet in 
 introducing, besides the telescope, as if conscious 
 how unpoetical it was in itself, all the circumstances 
 from NATURE, external nature* the evening 
 the top of Fesole the scenes of Valdarno and 
 the LANDS, MOUNTAINS, and RIVERS, in the 
 moon's orb ? It is these which make the passage 
 poetical, and not the telescope!!" 
 
 Whilst I am on this subject, let me point out a 
 grand and sublime passage of this great poet, in 
 which images from art are most successfully in- 
 troduced, and made most highly poetical. The 
 passage I allude to is in the Paradise Regained 
 the picture of Imperial Rome. 
 
 " On each side an Imperial city stood, 
 " With TOW'RS and TEMPLES proudly elevate 
 " On seven small hills, with PALACES adorn'd, 
 " PORCHES, and THEATRES, BATHS, AQUEDUCTS, 
 " STATUES, and TROPHIES, and TRIUMPHAL ARCS, 
 " GARDENS, and GROVES, presented to his eyes, 
 
 S* Above the height of mountains interpos'd," &c. 
 
 *' The CITY which thou see'st, no other deem 
 
 " Than GREAT and GLORIOUS Rome, QUEEN of the EARTH 
 
 " So far renowned, and with the spoils enrich'd 
 
 " Of nations; there the CAPITOL thou see'st, 
 
 " Above the rest, lifting his stately head 
 
 " On the Tarpeian rock, her citadel 
 
 *' Impregnable, and there Mount Palatine, 
 
r 12 ] 
 
 " The Imperial palace, compass huge, and high, 
 " The structure, skill of noblest architects, 
 
 " With GILDED BATTLEMENTS, CONSPICUOUS far, 
 
 " TURRETS, and TERRACES, and GLITTERING SPIRES," &c, 
 
 " Thence to the gates cast round thine eye, and see 
 
 " What conflux issuing forth, or ent'ringin, 
 
 " PR/ETORS, PROCONSULS to their provinces 
 
 " Hasting, or on return, in robes of state, 
 
 44 LicTORS,and RODS, the ensigns of their power, 
 
 ** Legions, and cohorts, Turms of horse and wings, 
 
 " Or embassies from regions far remote, 
 
 " In various habits on the Appian road, 
 
 ' Or on th' Emilian," &c. 
 
 This truly grand and most poetical picture I 
 here gratuitously set before you, convinced as you 
 must now, I think, be, of the weakness of your 
 telescope, and admiral's mast ! And with the im- 
 pression left on the imagination by this lofty and 
 beautiful assemblage, drawn chiefly from art, but 
 mixed up in a grand and impressive picture, by 
 MILTON'S consummate powers of painting, I will 
 still contend, that " images drawn from what is 
 " BEAUTIFUL and SUBLIME in NATURE, are more 
 " poetical than images drawn from art." 
 
 I cannot dismiss this part of the subject, and 
 the " launching of the ship," which I have already 
 touched on, without quoting your own animated 
 description. 
 
 " Those who have ever witnessed the spectacle 
 " of the launching of a ship of the line, will, 
 " perhaps, forgive me for adding this to the exam- 
 " pies of the sublime objects of artificial life. Of 
 " that spectacle I can never forget the impression. 
 
[ 13 ] 
 
 " When the vast bulwark sprung from her cra- 
 " die, the CALM WATER on which she swung 
 " MAJESTICALLY round, gave the IMAGINATION 
 " a contrast of the STORMY ELEMENT, on which 
 " she was soon to ride. All the days of battle, 
 " and nights of danger, she had to encounter; all 
 " the ENDS of the EARTH which she had to visit ; 
 " and all that she had to do and suffer for her 
 " country, rose in awful presentiment before the 
 " mind; and when the heart gave her a' benedic- 
 " tion, it was like one pronounced on a living 
 " being!! 99 Now let me ask you, when you so 
 beautifully described this ship, why was it neces- 
 sary to describe its LAUNCHING at all? If im 
 derived from art are as beautiful and sublime 
 those derived from nature, why was it necessary 
 to bring your ship off the stocks ? It was com- 
 plete, as far as art was concerned, before ; it had 
 the same sails, the same streamers, and the same 
 tackle. But surely your own illustration is de- 
 cidedly in my favour, when it appears, from this 
 animated description, to make the object of art 
 so poetically interesting, you are obliged to have 
 recourse to NATURE ! 
 
 This circumstance, confirms my doubt, whether 
 you ever really read my estimate of POPE'S Poetical 
 Character. Even if I had been less explicit, could 
 you suppose that, when I used the expression of 
 
t 14 1 
 
 general nature, I meant to confine the idea that 
 expression conveyed, to external nature alone? 
 
 You observe, in page 264 of your first volume 
 of Specimens of British Poets ,that " Nature is 
 " the poet's goddess; but by nature no one rightly 
 " understands her mere inanimate face, however 
 " charming it may be ; or the simple landscape 
 " painting of trees, clouds, precipices, and flowers- 
 " Why then try POPE, or any other poet EXCLU- 
 
 " SIVELY BY HIS POWERS OF DESCRIBING hiaili- 
 
 " mate phenomena? Nature, in the wide and 
 " proper sense of the word, means life in all its 
 "circumstances nature JWORA as well a^ex- 
 " ternal." Campbell 9 s ^pecimensT^ ***** 
 
 Have I ever tried POPE by the exclusive power 
 of painting Inanimate phenomena ? Have I ever 
 denied that Nature, in the proper sense of the 
 word, means Nature moral as well as external ! 
 Have I not, in the very first sentences of the ob- 
 servations on POPE'S Poetical Character, said nearly 
 the same thing? Could this utterly escape your 
 notice, if you had (I will not say read the criti- 
 cism,} but only looked at the two first sentences? 
 
 To set before you, in one view, your palpable 
 perversions of my positions, I will briefly state the 
 course of my argument, and your representation of 
 it. The plain course of my argument was simply 
 this : 1st. Works of Nature, speaking of those 
 more beautiful and sublime, are more sublime and 
 
[ 15 ] 
 
 beautiful than works of Art ; therefore more poe- 
 tical. 2d. The passions of the human heart, which 
 are the same in all ages, and which are the causes 
 of the sublime and pathetic in sentiment, are more 
 poetical than artificial manners. 3d. The great A 
 poet of human passions is the most consummate ) 
 master of his art ; and the heroic, the lofty, and 
 the pathetic, as belonging to this class, are distin- 
 guished. 4th. If these premises be true, the de- 
 scriptive poet, who paints from an intimate know- 
 ledge of external nature, is more poetical, sup- 
 posing the fidelity and execution equal, not than 
 the painter of human passions, but the painter of 
 external circumstances in artificial life ; as 
 COWPER paints a morning walk, and POPE a 
 game of cards ! 
 
 This is the ground of my argument ; and your 
 representation, leaving out the most essential part, 
 is this : " He alone is a poet who paints from works 
 " of external nature ; and his knowledge of exter- 
 " nal nature must be as minute as that of a bota- 
 " nist and Dutch painter !"* I appeal to your 
 book ; and if this were not the mutilated repre- 
 sentation of my argument, you would never have 
 thought it necessary to say that SOPHOCLES was a 
 GREAT POET, notwithstanding there is no minute 
 painting of " leaves," c. in Philoctetes ! I have 
 here given a short analysis of my argument, and 
 
 * Yet Mr. Campbell has not misrepresented me j he says. 
 
[ 10 ] 
 
 your mutilation of it; on which mutilation alone 
 your build your answer. For, indeed, you have 
 totally left out the middle of my argument, and 
 ludicrously joined the heads and the legs, like the 
 PICTURE of NOBODY in the London shops. 
 
 If this be so, I ask you whether you do not think 
 I have some reason to make this remonstrance ? 
 You leave out the most material part of my propo- 
 sition j and, taking a sentence relating to another 
 point in another place, you separate it from its 
 direct application, and misapply it to that with 
 which it had no relation ; omitting what was con- 
 nected and even consecutive, and connecting what 
 was neither the one nor the other. 
 
 The minute knowledge of external nature, which 
 I laid down as one essential of a great descrip- 
 tive poet, you apply to tragedians, in whose more 
 elevated works (the subjects of which are the loftier 
 passions of general nature) descriptions of external 
 nature ought least of all to have place. But per- 
 haps I ought to thank you for thus bringing me 
 back to the delightful remembrance of the most 
 interesting studies of my youth, the tragedies of 
 SOPHOCLES, and particularly the Sperchian foun- 
 tains, the Lemnian rock, and the solitary cave of 
 Philoctetes. Nor can I forget, that one of the 
 companions of my youthful studies, now in the 
 dust, made this melancholy abode the subject of 
 one of the most beautiful, and affecting, and pic- 
 
C J7 ] 
 
 turesque sonnets in the English language : the 
 insertion of which in your next edition,* would be, 
 I am persuaded, far more acceptable than many 
 specimens you have admitted. 
 
 To return to SOPHOCLES. There is no minute 
 description of leaves and flowers ; but you have 
 forgotten that the affecting story of the desolate 
 Philoctetes displays not only the higher passions, 
 but exhibits the interesting display of many of 
 nature's external beauties, of her most romantic 
 scenery, of her most secluded solitudes. It is many 
 years since I read the play ; but recollecting its 
 wild poetic scenery, and impassioned language, I 
 repeated, with a sigh, 
 
 Vvv S*, u xpyvxi, yXvxiov n iroToi t 
 
 , &C. 
 
 It is the rocks, the caves, the wild and solitary 
 scenery, the desert island, and the surrounding 
 seas, all images of nature, that, mixed with the 
 language of human passions derived from the 
 same general nature, give this ancient and unique 
 drama its peculiar charm ; reminding us of the 
 romantic imagery in the Tempest and Midsummer 
 Night's Dream, so beautifully interwoven by 
 SHAKSPEARE in those interesting dramas. 
 
 * Written by the Rev. THOS, RUSSELL, of New College, Oxford. 
 
 C 
 

 C 18 ] 
 
 The miserable abode of the lonely inhabitant of 
 Lemnos is marked by one image drawn from art, 
 which is so minute, and sets so strongly before us 
 the wants and resources of the desolate exile, 
 that none cf the minute circumstances which ren- 
 der so natural the narrative of Robinson Crusoe, 
 can be imagined more affecting. I allude to the 
 
 y* v/.iTw^oe. ^at'Xtf^ya rivos 
 
 in the cave of Philoctetes. There is nothing 
 poetical in an ill-carved cup ; but in this place it 
 is rendered poetical, and most strikingly affecting, 
 by the associated circumstances. 
 
 In the quotation from SHAKESPEARE, where you 
 triumphantly appeal to the " towers, and solemn 
 " temples, and gorgeous palaces;" recollect, Sir, 
 the tower is " cloud-capt ;" the temple is asso- 
 ciated with the " solemnity" of religious awe; and 
 (( palaces 9 ' with the splendour of earthly magnifi- 
 cence: and all these images are brought into one 
 grand and awful picture, to shew the mighty devas- 
 tation of final ruin ; and are associated with that 
 leading idea of the destruction of the globe itself, 
 which will leave not a WRECK behind ! Thus the 
 " cloud-capt towers' become highly poetical ; nor 
 can I leave this point without speaking a word of 
 the particular object of the tower. POPE himself 
 has thought its image so pleasing, that, in the cata- 
 
[ 19 ] 
 
 logue of ships from HOMER, he sets before us the 
 prospect of English spires, not Grecian. If the. 
 " cloiul-capt tower" itself be a striking, and often 
 a beautiful, object; how much more poetical, when, 
 grey with years, or illumined by the setting sun, 
 it carries the thought to that worship with which 
 it is connected, the sabbaths of our forefathers ; or 
 harmonizes with the soft, sinking landscape of 
 evening, and the ideas of another world. 
 
 If ever I should have the pleasure of seeing you 
 in this county, in which I should sincerely rejoice, 
 not far from my own house I could shew you a 
 tower which is " cloud-capt,"* but not poetical ; 
 though it is of the same size with other towers, 
 and adorned with pinnacles. It is what is called 
 a sham tower, built in all respects like other towers 
 as to one side, but it is only a wall built in this 
 shape, and added to a cottage for the sake of a 
 view, from the poetical and picturesque terrace of 
 an ancient Abbey. To take you to scenes with 
 which you are better acquainted. I would ask 
 you, what makes the venerable towers of West- 
 minster Abbey, on the side of the Thames, more 
 poetical, as objects, than the tower for the manu- 
 factory of patent shot, surrounded by the same 
 v scenery, and towering amidst the smoke of the city ? 
 
 * The evening or morning has the same effect on this tower 
 as any other ; but describe it in poetry, you must keep out of sight 
 that it is " sham," otherwise all poetical associations will be lost. 
 See Lcttei to Lord Byron. 
 
t 20 ] 
 
 s But, enough of this! I have read your obser- 
 vations with greater attention than you could have 
 read mine ; and having so read them, I must con- 
 fess I do not find one point established against 
 those positions which I had distinctly laid down, 
 unless your observations may be called an answer, 
 where, in refutation of such plain positions, you 
 repeat yourself* 
 
 There is another circumstance, which almost 
 persuades me you never read my criticism on 
 POPE'S Poetic Character, You say, " He glows 
 " with passion in the Epistle of Eloisa; and displays 
 " a lofty feeling, much above that of the satirist 
 " and man of the world* in his prologue to Cato, 
 "and his Epistle to Lord OXFORD. "Campbell. 
 
 This may be called an " answer!" how complete 
 an answer it is, will be shewn by the following few 
 lines of my criticism: " We regret that we have 
 " little more truly pathetic from his pen than the 
 4< Epistle of Eloisa ; and the Elegy to the unfortu- 
 " nate Lady; yet let me not forget one of the 
 " sweetest and most melodious of his pathetic effii- 
 " sions, the Address to Lord OXFORD, 
 
 " Such were the notes my once^Iov'd Poet sung." 
 
 Bowles. 
 
 1 must again entreat pardon for shewing what I 
 did say of a poem founded on manners, and what 
 I did not say of the Rape of the Lock. " In this 
 " composition POPE stands alone, unrivalled, and 
 " possibly never to be rivalled. All his successful 
 
[ 21 ] 
 
 ** labour of correct and musical versification, all 
 " his talents of accurate description, though in an 
 M inferior province of poetry, are here consum- 
 " mately displayed ; and as far as artificial life, that 
 " is, ' manner s> not PASSIONS, are capable of being 
 " rendered poetical, they are here rendered so by 
 " the fancy, the propriety, the elegance, and the 
 * c poetic beauty of the machinery." 
 
 Now I would put to you a few plain questions \ 
 and I would beseech you not to ask whether I mean 
 this or that, for I think you must now understand 
 what I do mean. I would beseech you also not 
 to write beside the question, but answer simply and 
 plainly, whether you think that the sylph of POPE, 
 " trembling over the fumes of a chocolate-pot," be 
 an image as poetical as that of delicate and quaint 
 Ariel, who sings " Where the bee sucks, there 
 *' lurk I ?" Or of the elves of SHAKESPEARE : 
 
 " Spirits of another sort, 
 
 " That with the morning light make sport.'* 
 
 Whether you think the description of a game of 
 cards be as poetical, supposing the execution in the 
 artists equal, as a description of a WALK in a FOREST? 
 Whether an age of refinement be as conducive to 
 pictures of poetry, as a period less refined ? Whe- 
 ther passions, affections, &c. of the human heart be 
 not a higher source of what is pathetic or sublime 
 in poetry, than habits or manners, that apply only 
 to artificial life? If you agree with me, I am 
 
satisfied ; if not, we differ, and always shall, on the 
 principles of poetical criticism. 
 
 Your last observation is this: " I know not how 
 " to designate the possessor of such gifts, but by 
 " the name of a genuine poet." Nor do I, nor did 
 I ever ; and I will venture to assert, that if you 
 examine well what I have here said on POPE'S several 
 writings, you will not think I ever shewed reluc- 
 tance to attribute to him that high name. 
 
 Again. You say, " POPE'S discrimination lies 
 *' in the lights and shades of " human 9 ' manners, 
 " which are at least as interesting as those of rocks 
 " and leaves! 9 ' Does it require more than the 
 commonest understanding to perceive the fallacy 
 of this language. 
 
 I fear it would be thought impertinent to ask 
 you at what University you acquired your logic ; 
 but I guess your knowledge of the art was not 
 acquired at Oxford. Your logic is this: " Human 
 " manners are the province of poets ;'* therefore, 
 cc the general and loftier passions are not more 
 " poetical than manners oj artificial life" Shall 
 I hint further, that the expression human manners 
 is vague and inapplicable. Human manners may 
 designate equally the red Indian, in the forests of 
 the Mississippi \ the plumed soldier, and the grey- 
 haired minstrel of chivalry ; or Beau Nash, in a 
 Bath ball-room. Every comedy, every farce, has 
 human manners ; but my proposition was confined 
 

 
 L 23 ] 
 
 to manners of a refined age, which I called arti- 
 ficial; and which you have artificially slurred over 
 with irrelevant expressions, that prove nothing. 
 Artificial manners are human, but " human man- 
 " ners" ARE NOT so ADAPTED TO POETRY OF THE 
 
 HIGHEST KIND AS HUMAN PASSIONS. 
 
 I beg further to say, that there is not one passage, 
 concerning the poetical beauties of which you have so 
 justly spoken, which I have not expressly pointed 
 out myself, as the reader may find in turning to the 
 passages ; particularly let him remember what I have 
 said respecting the PATHOS, and the PICTURES, 
 and the SOLEMN and SWEET HARMONIES, in the 
 Epistle of Eloisa. And can I help pointing out, 
 not with triumph, but with regret, that you only 
 agree with me in some points, and that where 
 we differ, your criticism conflictingly labours against 
 your own argument : for when, nearly in the last 
 sentence, you say, " he, POPE, glows with passion 
 " in the Eloisa, and displays a LOFTY feeling, much 
 " ABOVE that of the SATIRIST and man of the world, 
 " in his Prologue to Cato, and his Epistle to Lord 
 ' OXFORD ;" what is that but to say, that " glowing 
 " passions and lofty feelings are much ABOVE those 
 " which distinguish the SATIRIST and man of the 
 " world !!" Q. E. D. 
 
AN 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 TO 
 
 THOMAS CAMPBELL, ESQ. 
 
 Editor of the New Monthly Magazine, 
 In Consequence of an Article in that Publication, 
 
ToTHOMAS CAMPBELL, Esq. 
 
 Bremhill, March U, 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 I Assure you it was only yesterday that I 
 accidentally saw, in the Magazine, of which you 
 are the Editor, an article professedly reviewing a 
 pamphlet, in which a late controversy is spoken of. 
 The article in the Magazine, if not written, which 
 I can hardly suppose, by the Editor, has, at least, 
 his sanction, and therefore is entitled to some notice. 
 1st. I am happy it is admitted that I spoke of 
 " passions" in my definition of poetry. 
 
 Est quodain prodire tcnus si non datur ultra. 
 
 No misunderstanding could have taken place, be- 
 tween me and yourself, if this had been originally 
 admitted ; because I could not have been repre- 
 sented as confining my views of poetry to Dutch 
 pictures and inanimate landscapes. 
 
[ 28 ] 
 
 2d. It being admitted that I had spoken of 
 " passions,' 9 and that you had represented me as 
 omitting them, I am very willing that your repre- 
 sentation of my sentiments shall not be called 
 misrepresentation, if there be any other term.* 
 
 Whether the sentence in which " passions" are 
 spoken of as " derived" from " manners," be 
 verbally accurate or not, the main drift of the 
 argument is not affected by it ; which is, whether 
 art or nature, passions or manners, are more sus- 
 ceptible of the highest poetical effects, or, in other 
 words, " are more adapted to the highest orders of 
 " poetry," which is my proposition. 
 
 A third edition of the Letters to Lord BYRON 
 being about to appear, I shall have an opportunity 
 of making some further remarks respecting the 
 sentiments which come under the sanction of 
 Mr. CAMPBELL. 
 
 As to the writer reviewed in the New Monthly 
 Magazine, to pass over the eternal quibbles, " split- 
 " ting hairs" about words ; his writing " about 
 " it, Goddess, and about it ;" to pass over his 
 " proving'* what I never denied, and assuming what; 
 [ never asserted; his reasonings appear to me 
 ne plus ultra absurdities in any man who can 
 read and write. 
 
 * Mr. C. had originally quoted, but omitted to make any 
 use of, Mr. BOWLES'S second position. 
 
[ 29 ] 
 
 Third and lastly ; when he speaks of HOMER as 
 introducing images from art, I would ask, " Te 
 "judice," whether those passages, through the 
 whole of the Iliad or Odyssey, are more poetical, 
 whose chief beauty depends on images from ART 
 or NATURE ? Yes or no? If you say, " the pas- 
 " sages are more poetical that describe images from 
 " nature, and passions, than those that describe 
 '* art, you AGREE with me I ' Can you venture 
 to say the contrary ? 
 
 I would ask you another question. 
 
 Why could not so great and poetical a genius 
 as VIRGIL, have made his top as poetical as his 
 JUPITER, (media nimborum in nocte,) if the sub- 
 limity of any object depended solely on the genius 
 of the describer ? 
 
 Whatever verbal cavils may be made, I am quite 
 sure the immoveable foundation of these principles 
 cannot be shaken, either by yourself or Lord 
 BYRON, if the question be met fully and fairly ; and 
 after all, if you should succeed, you will destroy, not 
 my principles, but the principles of common sense, 
 the acknowledged foundation of all sound criticism, 
 from LONGINUS to Dr. JOHNSON. Itwill be enough 
 to say, that, looking to the authority of POPE him- 
 self, and to him alone, if these principles are not 
 sound, the line of the Essay on Criticism, describing 
 nature as 
 
 The source, the end, the teit of art, 
 
C so 3 
 
 was meant by POPE as burlesque, and the <e song" 
 by a person of quality, 
 
 " NATURE must give way to ART," 
 
 As serious ; which is reductio ad absurdum, or 
 rather absurdum per absurdius. 
 
 Be assured I never was " angry with you." 
 How could I be ? You had never used the lan- 
 guage of vulgar insult nor even incivility ; you had 
 unintentionally omitted, what I thought it necessary, 
 in my definition of poetry, to lay down, and I 
 thought it right to shew this ; and you had spoken 
 of art y without reflecting, apparently, that images 
 from art'm poetry, are rendered more poetical from 
 their moral associations, or connection with the 
 external beauties of nature. 
 
 I should certainly have thought it would have 
 been more manly and generous in the Editor of 
 the New Monthly Magazine, to have stated Lord 
 BYRON'S arguments, and my answers, briefly but 
 substantially, or his own arguments, and my an- 
 swers, and his own fair answers to them, instead 
 of tacking his opinions to ex parte statements of 
 a writer, whose ingenuity consists chiefly in 
 elaborate verbal cavils. 
 
 Now, my good Sir, it will not avail you to say, 
 that no one object is more poetical, (that is, more 
 adapted to poetry) than another; it signifies little 
 to assert and build a baseless theory upon an 
 
C 31 1 
 
 opinion, that I ever said " the subject of a poem 
 constitutes its merit more than the genius of the 
 " author;" it is unfair to affirm that I said subject 
 was all, when I affirmed that execution must be 
 taken into consideration. It it unjust to cavil on 
 the words " taken into consideration," when it is 
 clear from the context that the words imply " taken 
 " into consideration, before you can estimate the 
 " rank of a poet in his art ;" it won't do to cavil 
 about the words sublime and poetical, when, if the 
 subject be poetry, every one will know that the 
 gublime, beautiful, or picturesque, or pathetic, must 
 be applied to poetry. It won't do to say, that the 
 sea, the sun, c. have no sublimity in themselves, 
 but that it depends on the treatment 5 for I then 
 appeal to those who have best described them. It 
 won't do to say they are nothing in themselves ; 
 for even by itself, without an adjunct, the sea is 
 more poetical, (more adapted to poetry) than any 
 canal. It won't do to affirm, or to pretend to 
 " prove, " that one subject is not more adapted to 
 poetry than another ; for then VIRGIL could have 
 made his "plough," in the Georgic, as poetic, at 
 least, as he has made his "serpent." It is of no 
 use to talk of the " no less exquisite performances 
 " of GENIUS in WORKS of ART, without defining 
 what that genius is. It wont do to assert there 
 is nothing sublime or beautiful in nature, ab- 
 stractedly considered, when, tho* a bad poet like 
 
BLACKMORE might undo "Creation at a jerk," 
 yet the best poet could not make a " mouse-trap 19 
 sublime. 
 
 This appears to me the substance of the argu- 
 ments which you think, as editor of a Magazine, 
 CONVINCING ! ! 
 
 Now, my good Sir, ponder these things a little 
 before you put forward your metaphysical coadjutor. 
 1 owe to yourself to pay some more particular 
 attention to arguments which I should otherwise 
 think unworthy of notice. In the first page it is 
 said mine is a new poetic theory : Answer, it is 
 as old as common sense. 2d page, it is said, 
 " the creations and associations of poetry are ad- 
 " dressed to the imaginations and feelings alone." 
 Quere : how many of POPE'S poems are ad- 
 dressed to the imagination and feelings alone ? 
 Ibid: It is said " the influence of poetry is con- 
 "Jined to the heart and affections alone /" Quere, 
 How many of the poems of Pops'are confined to 
 the heart and affections alone ? 
 
 This is quite^enough for me, who ask only, and 
 never did ask more, than THESE DATA ; and upon 
 these (for my opponents blunder in my favour, 
 the first step, when they thought to destroy my 
 theory,) DATA alone, I assert, MILTON and 
 SHAKESPEARE are far greater Poets than POPE 
 was, or ever could be, in his line of poetry. 
 
[ 33 ] 
 
 In a most popular periodical publication, one of 
 BLACKWOOD'S clever wags says, " What can Lord 
 " BYRON and CAMPBELL mean, by saying art and 
 " manners are as poetical as nature? It is all my 
 " eye, Betty Martin !" Could the writer have in 
 prophetical view, or what is called "second sight," 
 this identical Martinus secundus? You probably 
 might have heard, that the familiar expression is 
 from an old hymn, " Mihi Beate Mar tine ! ! /" 
 
 As to making " the hog in the wind" a sublime 
 object, neither Lord BYRON nor POPE could do it, 
 any more than they could make, in the vulgar 
 phrase, "a silk purse of a sow 9 sear! 1 '* For yourself, 
 I am sorry to be compelled to observe, that, by so 
 ostentatiously bringing forward absurdities, and ap- 
 proving a mode of controversy you must despise, you 
 appear to me to have added something like inten- 
 tional insult to unintentional misrepresentation. 
 Nevertheless, without the least feelings of "anger," 
 
 I remain, dear Sir, &c. 
 
 W. L. BOWLES. 
 
 * A Cockney critic and poet, seeing a countryman going to a 
 market-town behind the animals of which he had the charge, 
 wrapt in the pastoral ideas of "Arcadia," put an eye-glass to 
 his eye, and said to the countryman, " Friend, what sheep are 
 " those?" * Sheep!' the man replied ; * where dost thee come 
 * from, not to know a sheep from apig 1 J 
 
 I am afraid all the great geniusses of Cockney-land could not 
 make a very poetical pig-pastoral, however they might succeed 
 in " sentimental" and amorous swans, of which there is an affect- 
 ing description in certain comical histories, called " Romances," 
 by J. D'IsRAELi, Esq. 
 
 D 
 
On the Question, whether, in Poetical Criti- 
 cism, the " SUBJECT" of a Poem should be 
 considered as well as the " EXECUTION." 
 
 THE words of Mr. CAMPBELL'S Oracle, in his 
 first page, (for we " must speak by the card, or 
 " equivocation will ensue,") are these: " he trusts 
 " that neither the REVOLUTIONS of EMPIRE, nor 
 " the circumstances of literature, will ever lead 
 " men to believe that the subject of a poem con- 
 " stitutes MORE of its poetical excellency than it 
 " derives from the genius of the poet !" 
 
 But, reader, perpend 
 
 In " the REVOLUTIONS of EMPIRE," who knows, 
 but that (though the philosopher " TRUSTS'* it 
 never will be) my portentous propositions may be 
 established ; propositions so appalling, as that the 
 sublime and beautiful in nature may be thought 
 superior to art, and passions may be thought a 
 groundwork of poetry more sure than manners ! ! 
 What will become of this world, if ever these 
 opinions should prevail? Even the Editor of the 
 New Monthly, and the publisher, and the printer's 
 devil, all aghast, might enter, crying out to the 
 philosopher, whom they advocate, 
 
 " This day, oh ! Mr. Doodle, is a day indeed ! 
 " A day we never saw before ! !" 
 D 2 
 
[ 36 ] 
 
 But what is the proposition, that this metaphy- 
 sical Doodle trusts in the revolutions of empire 
 will never take place! lest, " horresco refer ens" 
 future generations may believe that the subject of 
 a poem shall ever CONSTITUTE MORE of its EXCEL- 
 LENCE than the GENIUS of the poet ! ! Take heart, 
 poor man ; as far as I am concerned you need not 
 be in the least fear!! for my words are, "we 
 " might fall asleep over the Creation of BLACK- 
 " MORE, but be alive to the touches of anima- 
 " tion and satire in BOILEAU. The subject, there- 
 " fore, and execution, are equally to be considered; 
 " the one respecting the poetry, and the other 
 " the ART and POWERS of the poet." [Fifth 
 paragraph of the observations on the Poetic Cha- 
 racter of POPE.]) 
 
 Now, as Mr. CAMPBELL is a man of veracity, 
 I would wish him to ask his metaphysician, why, 
 in a quotation from me, did he leave out the above 
 words I have quoted, stopping in the middle of 
 the sentence ? Because he knew they stared him 
 in the face, and told you what a " lee that was,"* 
 when he said I made no distinction between the 
 subject and manner of treating it. 
 
 When the reader looks at my words he will 
 think so too, and be convinced that they were 
 omitted purposely. I will not say here, as in some 
 other passages, Oh! Te 9 Dermotte, cerebri! but 
 
 * See that delectable History, " Sir Andrew Wylie." 
 
ask, Where, in the words of that arch wag, FOOTE, 
 do you think you shall go when you die, Martin? 
 Further, if one subject be not, per se, more poe- 
 tical than another, I would at>k Mr. CAMPBELI/S 
 oracle this question, Which does his sapience 
 suppose to be the finest subject for tragedy, Mac- 
 beth, or " a mouse-trap ?" If you say the mouse- 
 trap, the boys, as JOHNSON says, " would throw 
 " stones at you!" If you say that Macbeth, as a 
 subject is, per se, more poetical than the other, we 
 agree! You will reply, " Yes," but one man can 
 write better on the subject of a, mouse-trap, than the 
 other on Macbeth! Good! So say I, otherwise 
 BLACKMORE would be a greater poet than POPE! 
 
 Stop a minute, and do not leave out what I am 
 going to add ; " Suppose SHAKESPEARE himself 
 " had made a tragedy on the mouse-trap, executed 
 14 as perfectly as such a pathetic subject of trans- 
 " cendental art could be executed by mortal poet, 
 " do you think it would be equally poetical as 
 " Macbeth?" Why not ? Because the subject of 
 one is " more adapted to the highest orders of 
 "poetry" than the other: so I think, 
 
 Nisi quid tu, docte Trebate, 
 
 Dissentis ! 
 
 I have quoted a specimen of the veracity and 
 ingenuity of this " wonderful" oracle of the New 
 
 " What do you call the play J 
 
 " The Mouse-trap i" HamUt. 
 
 " To be grave exceeds all power of face !" - 
 
[ 38 ] 
 
 Monthly Magazine, from the Jirst page ; it is but 
 right to shew what this gentleman has achieved, in 
 his own opinion, from the last page! He has 
 " proved" he says, that there is not a poetical 
 object in nature or art ! ! Proved he has not, 
 and proved he never can ; but suppose he has, has 
 he proved no one object is more adapted, per se 9 
 to the highest orders of poetry than another, for 
 that is my proposition ? He has " proved/' also, 
 that objects I have called poetical have no poetry, 
 abstracted from the manner in which they are as- 
 sociated by the " poet.'* Even this is not fairly 
 stated : my position is, " Images, &c. from nature 
 " are, per se, more poetical than any from art!" 
 Take this position as it is, and answer it if you can. 
 Now, if this gentleman, who, coming forward 
 "for the Jirst time" so marvellously to illumine 
 the New Monthly Magazine, had read a little 
 more, and wrote a little less, and paid a little at- 
 tention to the subject on which he was writing, 
 he would then have found, by my own admissions, 
 that what I had said nullified one half of his book, 
 and stultified the other ; and proved, on the whole, 
 that, though he can quibble, he was as destitute of 
 veracity as of common sense. 
 
 If ever this gentleman should begin to read a 
 little, before he next sends his lucubrations into the 
 world, though considering it is the Jirst time, he 
 is not the less " wonderful" I could venture to 
 
C 39 ] 
 
 point out a passage, which I think he himself must 
 pronounce highly poetical, as follows : 
 
 " He was in logic a gi-eat critic, 
 
 " Profoundly skill'd in analytic; 
 
 " He could distinguish and divide 
 
 " A hair 'twixt south and south-west side : 
 
 " On either which he would dispute, 
 
 " Confute, change hands, and still confute; 
 
 " He'd undertake " to prove," by force 
 
 " Of argument, a man's no horse. 
 
 " All this, without a gloss or comment, 
 
 " He could unriddle in a moment, 
 
 " In proper terms such as men smatter, 
 
 " When they throw out, and MISS THE MATTER \" 
 
 But I must not here pass over one argument, 
 quite new and convincing ! ! 
 
 This acute logician, quibbling on the word 
 " poetical," asks, " But if a man's wife be 
 " beautiful, should we therefore call her a poe- 
 " tical wife ?" A poetical subject we might; but 
 Mr. BOWLES would not call a man's wife poetical, 
 because she was beautiful ; for this reason, if the 
 word " poetical," in common parlance, be applied 
 " to reading and writing animals," it would 
 be understood to imply, that the writing or read- 
 ing animal was addicted to read or write poetry, 
 or scribble quibbling criticisms ; but if the word 
 poetical be applied, in the sense Mr. BOWLES con- 
 stantly used it, to a beautiful, or picturesque 
 object, or to passions, far more poetical than in- 
 animate objects, in spite of Cockney logic, it would 
 
[ 40 J 
 mean that a landscape or tree, the beech that 
 
 " Wreaths its old fantastic roots so high/' 
 
 was poetical, being adapted top oetical description! 
 
 Admit it, therefore, to be true, that a beautiful 
 woman would not be called " poetical, because she 
 " was beautiful;" Mr. BOWLES has no hesitation to 
 say, that even the " proser," " who penned a 
 " stanza when he should engross," might be called 
 " poetical," though he was as ugly as Grimaldi, 
 wrote verses worse than TOM DURFEY, and was so 
 ignorant of the beauties of external nature, that he 
 never saw evenapotatoe, except in a wheelbarrow ! 
 
 As I have mentioned the " nodding beech," I 
 must add that it is a fact, as may be seen in a 
 London periodical publication, that the Cockney 
 critic, not conceiving what GRAY could mean by a 
 
 " Tree that wreaths its roots so high!" 
 
 absolutely indulges his blithe disdain, by imagining 
 " the tree to stand on its head."* 
 
 If I shall be more particular in this than I in- 
 tended, it may be excused, as I promise not to an- 
 swer, or read, one word of this wonderful genius's 
 future lucubrations on the " sublime and beautiful." 
 I would just request him, before he begins, to hear 
 what an " old obsolete dunce," called Dr. SAMUEL 
 JOHNSON, says of the " subject" of an epic poem, 
 in the life of MILTON. 
 
 * The .whole is signed " Calamus ;" quere, Quill Driver ? 
 
PROOFS AND EXAMPLES. 
 
 Mr. CAMPBELL'S metaphysician is too absurd, and 
 too dishonest, to contend with. I shall therefore re- 
 quest Mr. CAMPBELL'S attention to the following 
 extracts, and ask, if he admit or deny the truth contained 
 in them. In my opinion, the plain question respecting 
 the " SUBJECT and EXECUTION" of a poem is re- 
 solved by them. Let us then hear Dr. JOHNSON : 
 
 ' I am now to examine PARADISE LOST; a poem 
 " which, with respect to DESIGN, may CLAIM the FIRST 
 " PLACE, and, with respect to PERFORMANCE, the 
 " SECOND, among the productions of the human mind.' 1 
 Dr. Johnson. 
 
 I will next beg Mr. CAMPBELL to answer, plainly, 
 if this poem claim the FIRST PLACE, with regard to 
 design, and the SECOND with respect to performance, 
 WHY it could be so pronounced } Nay, if MILTON 
 had written satires, moral poems, one most exquisite 
 and pathetic epistle, one most exquisite mock-heroic, 
 whatever proofs these might be of his GENIUS, pro 
 lantv, could he have been so pronounced, though the 
 satires were the best the world ever saw? I will beg 
 Mr. CAMPBELL to say Yes or No! If he deny 
 what Dr. JOHNSON, and what most men of reflection 
 
[ 4,2 ] 
 
 will say, I think he would find it difficult to prove a 
 counter-position. If he agree with Dr, JOHNSON, the 
 difference on this point between him and me is small 
 indeed. I must come a little closer respecting 
 "SUBJECT," and put Dr. JOHNSON forward. 
 
 " By the general consent of critics, the first praise of 
 " GENIUS is due to the writer of an EPIC POEM ; for it 
 " requires an ASSEMBLAGE OF ALL THE POWERS, 
 " which are singly sufficient for other compositions !!" 
 Life of Milton. 
 
 Is this good sense, or is it nonsense ? 
 
 Again : 
 
 " The SUBJECT of an epic poem is naturally an 
 " event of great importance. That of MILTON is not 
 " the destruction of a city, or the foundation of an 
 "empire: the SUBJECT is, the Fall of Worlds, the 
 " Revolutions of Heaven, &e." Life of Milton. 
 
 '* Before the GREATNESS displayed by MILTON'S 
 " poem, all other GREATNESS shrinks away, 1 ' &c. 
 
 " To display the motions and actions of BEINGS thus 
 " superior, so far as human reason can examine them, 
 " or human imagination represent them, is the task 
 " which this MIGHTY POET has UNDERTAKEN and 
 ' PERFORMED!!" 
 
 I place before you these extracts from "one whom, 
 I think, as good a judge as you can produce. Are 
 the positions sound? Yes, or no. If yes, can POPE, 
 however exquisite his skill, in respect to any thing he 
 has written, be ranked on the same *' file" with this 
 lt mighty" poet*. It is almost too absurd to ask the 
 question. POPE'S genius is granted, his talents are 
 granted, his execution of what he has done puts this 
 
t 43 i 
 
 beyond all doubt ; but his genius has never undertaken 
 or performed a subject so adapted to the higher orders 
 of poetry ; and his EXECUTION, if these premises be 
 true, though consummate, will only place him eminent 
 in his line; and no more in the same walk with MILTON 
 and SHAKESPEARE, than with him whose execution 
 entitled him, among all poets that ever lived, to be 
 pronounced THE FIRST among the lights of the human 
 mind! ! 
 
 Upon these premises I rest, as far as " subject" and 
 execution are concerned. And I have only to add that 
 those who, in their blind idolatry, wish to place POPE 
 in the rank of SHAKESPEARE and MILTON, are the 
 " bigots," and " sectarists ;"* not I, who wished only 
 to appreciate, not depreciate, his distinctive and cha- 
 racteristic excellence. 
 
 * I cannot pass over the audacious falsehood of Mr. CAMP- 
 BELL'S advocate, who can " prove" from my propositions, that 
 THOMSON is as great a poet as SHAKESPEARE ! ! Whereas, I have 
 constantly put all descriptive poetry least and last ; and " pas- 
 *' sions," passions, passions ! ! first. The only way to prevent, 
 if any thing can in future, this audacious perversion, will be to 
 print " passions" at the end of every sentence, when I am speak- 
 ing of external nature. 
 
[ 44 J 
 
 On Objects " Sublime and Beautiful" in 
 Nature, abstractedly. 
 
 WHETHER there be sublime or beautiful objects in 
 nature, per se, or not, (though it appears to me that none 
 but the most metaphysically mad could think otherwise,) 
 there can be no cavil, if I take my pictures from poetry, 
 as to whether what is beautiful, or picturesque, or sub- 
 lime, be poetical. We will open THEOCRITUS, for 
 the book lies on my table. 
 
 Ay n TO ivptqrpuit XOLI tx tyirvs, otcjrofa, ryvx, 
 A isoTt TXIS 'Kfoty/xio't /x.eA/o'SV]*/* 
 
 To say nothing of the music of these lines, we see the 
 landscape, and hear, as it were, the very whisper of the 
 pine hanging over the fountain ; though another poet 
 might, from want of taste, or from injudicious selection, 
 or mean additions, even of these very objects make a 
 contemptible daub by " imitating nature abominably ;" 
 yet, if the objects had not been picturesque, and so far 
 adapted to poetry, THEOCRITUS could not have made 
 the picture so beautiful ; and therefore the objects are, 
 per se, poetical. For if it were true, that this subject 
 had not intrinsic poetry from nature, THEOCRITUS 
 could have made the subsequent verses as poetical as 
 these. Has he done so ? No, he could not. All the 
 
[ 45 ] 
 
 execution in the world could not make the next suc- 
 ceeding lines as poetical. 
 
 Every scholar, of any taste and feeling, involuntarily 
 repeats the first passage with delight, and turns as in- 
 voluntarily from the other. Why ? Because the sub- 
 ject of the one is picturesque, and therefore so far 
 poetical ; the other is less so, and no art or genius in 
 the poet could make it as poetically beautiful. 
 
 A lover of " in-door nature"' who would say that there 
 is nothing in the whole range of art, or of nature, per se, 
 more poetical than another, might apply A&y n ro ^Qtu- 
 fia-f^ae. to the kitcJien bellows, not omitting, in shining 
 description, the fire-tongs and shovel: the genius with 
 which these in-door implements, together with the gentle 
 b&vfiffnac. of the bellows were described, would probably 
 make them, as poetry, pari passu with the landscape 
 of THEOCRITUS, in his opinion! ! 
 
 I assert, on the contrary, that whatever skill MAY 
 BE EMPLOYED, some subjects, describedby one and the 
 same genius, will be more poetical than others, and all 
 men will involuntarily confess it, cum ventum ad 
 verum est. 
 
 HORACE says, (and t have at least such a dunce as 
 HORACE on my side on more points than one,) 
 
 " Et qua?, 
 "DESPERAT TRACTATA NITESCERE, POSSE RELINQUIT:" 
 
 Further; if I were to go for an object, abstractedly 
 poetical, from nature as given by this poet, I would 
 transcribe one line only : 
 
 " Et praeceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus. 
 The next line is 
 
 " Uda mobilibus Pomaria rivis." 
 
[ 46 ] 
 
 Which of these three pictures are the most poetical, 
 " Praeceps Anio, Tiburni lucus ;" 
 
 or the last? 
 
 Every one, I think, would say the first ; because in 
 the first the eye is fixed on the picturesque torrent of 
 Anio, and the woods of Tivoli ; and in the other, to 
 the small artificial rivulets by which the Pomaria were 
 watered. But let us appeal to POPE himself. Who 
 does not remember the celebrated simile paraphrased 
 from HOMER : 
 
 " As when the moon, &c. 
 
 " O'er heavVs pure azure sheds, &c." 
 
 Now granting, argumenti causa, that the moon were, 
 per se, no more poetical, that is, adapted to poetry, than 
 a green cheese, (which is a natural object, an artificial 
 object, an object of out-of-door nature, and in-door also ; 
 and, as Lord BYRON might say, a " super-natural," 
 " super- artificial" object!) let it be the green cheese 
 of POLYPHEMUS, laid by for his beloved GALATEA, 
 could THEOCRITUS, could HOMER, have made a 
 picture of it as poetical as the moon-light simile ? 
 
 I was going to speak of '" the sun, in MILTON ;" of the 
 stars, where " Hesperus rides brightest;" of the morn; 
 of evening ; but 
 
 Cynthius auretn vellet. 
 
 If what I have said cannot persuade even the most 
 obtuse and blundering metaphysician, that there are 
 some objects in nature more adapted to poetry, per 
 se, than others ; and if this position be denied, that 
 there are some objects in nature more describable, and 
 which have been more exquisitely described, than any 
 
[ 47 ] 
 
 works of art can be, though described by the greatest 
 genius the world ever saw ; if what I have said be not 
 sufficient to prove this, no examples could ; and I must 
 rest on these reasons, whether good or bad, for 
 retaining that opinion myself, at least till I shall hear 
 some much better arguments, to the contrary. 
 
 These quibbles about the word " poetical," which 
 word, if it affect me, affects Lord Byron also, and in 
 the same degree; and the whole elaborate nonsense, 
 which Mr. CAMPBELL calls " an Answer," is NUL- 
 LIFIED in a moment, by only remembering that 
 poetical is adapted to poetry. 
 
 Yet for the sake of my readers I will canvass some 
 objections a little farther. No great correspondent 
 feeling is excited in the bare words ocean, sun, planet, 
 firmament, because the mind is fixed chiefly on the 
 word, as a noun substantive in grammar Musa, do- 
 minus, domus, ccelum, mundus. Something is added, 
 if I say dominus jussit, mundus patet, sol nitet. 
 
 Still, the bare word, if it excite a moment's thought, 
 excites ideas that are, and must be, more poetical than 
 any images from art. 
 
 "And GOD said, let there BE LIGHT, and there 
 " WAS LIGHT!!" This is sublime, and so thinks as 
 great a critic as Mr. CAMPBELL'S. But it could not 
 have been so poetically sublime, if the object from which 
 the image is derived, was not abstractedly capable of 
 exciting sublime ideas more poetical than any object in 
 works of art. The object is sublime in its magnificence, 
 sublime in its relation to power, though such a poet as 
 BLACKMORE could not describe it. One scene in 
 landscape is more picturesque, adapted to painting, 
 
than another, though a sign-post painter could not 
 paint it. 
 
 If it be action that chiefly excites emotion, on which 
 account I think it will appear that what LONGINUS calls 
 " sublime," ARISTOTLE with greater discrimination 
 calls " energetic," 
 
 the object itself must be sublime, and as such adapted 
 to poetry in the first instance. A thousand circum- 
 stances may be added to any poetical object to render 
 it still more so by accumulation of accessary " images*' 
 that belong to it ; thus 
 
 To behold the wandering moon, 
 Riding, near her highest noon, 
 Like one that had been led astray, 
 Through the heav'ns wide pathless way. 
 
 Here are five or six images, all in relation, and all 
 of the highest poetical interest, rendering more distinct, 
 in action and in glory, one object, abstractedly poetical 
 far more adapted to poetry than any object in art. 
 It is thus poetry paints! An object is not merely set 
 before us, but being primarily adapted to poetry, it be- 
 comes more poetical, when it thus shines out amidst the 
 galaxy of its glorious relations ; whilst the mind follows 
 with excited attention, and more profound delight. 
 
 Perhaps the Canticle, in our Common Prayer Book, 
 would best shew the poetic sublimity of mere objects of 
 nature upon the simplest scale, called into action. 
 
 Oh ! ye sun and moon Praise ye the Lord. 
 
 Oh! ye winds of GOD Praise ye, &c. 
 
 Oh ! ye winter and summer Praise ye, &tc. 
 
 Oh ! ye seas and floods Praise ye, be. 
 
[ 49 1 
 
 I would merely ask, if any " artificial" object in 
 the whole world could sustain a like sublimity with all 
 these objects ? " O ye cities and towns," for instance ? 
 Therefore some objects are more poetical (adapted to 
 poetry) than others; and " what are sublime or beau- 
 " tiful in the works of nature, are more poetical than 
 " any works of art!" but PASSIONS are more poetical, 
 that is to say, more adapted to the highest orders of 
 poetry, than any visible object in nature or art. 
 
 Having taken up this slight examination, in de- 
 ference to Mr. CAMPBELL, I shall go a step farther. 
 The SUN and the OCEAN, we are told, are not poe- 
 tical in themselves,- as all poetry depends on the treat- 
 ment alone ! ! 
 
 " I have introduced both these objects," the meta- 
 physician proclaims aloud, "in the two following lines, 
 " and thiiik you will hardly pronounce them poetical!" 
 
 " The SUN had risen before we left town ; 
 
 " And we got within sight of the OCEAN about five o'clock." 
 
 Bravo! However, " the SUN" and " the OCEAN" are 
 something, even here. But my position is, that what 
 is sublime and beautiful in nature is more so than any 
 thing in art: so, by your leave, if, for " SUN and 
 " OCEAN," I put the artificial objects, a cock'd-hat, 
 and the sign of the Green Gander, the sentence with the 
 Ocean and Sun would be more poetical than the other. 
 
 E 
 
[ 50 ] 
 
 I leave those to whom " Nature" is so mysterious, 
 to say which even of these two sentences is most 
 poetical ! ! 
 
 Let Mr. CAMPBELI/S wonderful logician, who starts 
 out thus powerful at once, like Minerva from the head 
 of Jupiter, let him go yet higher : 
 
 " The sun, stare, planets, and firmament, 
 " Give light to the ocean and earth !" 
 
 He asks "if this be poetical?" Answer: More poe- 
 tical, certainly, than 
 
 " The wax-lights, the lustres, the sconces and the chandeliers, 
 " Give light to the ball-room!!" 
 
C 31 ] 
 
 On Poetry derivedfrom Passions; and Instances 
 in which what is sublime or pathetic may be 
 affected by tcnpoetical treatment. 
 
 WE have hitherto been speaking only of 
 visible objects of poetical sublimity in Nature. Though 
 I point to my most material proposition, and say, 
 " passions, passions, passions," are the soul of poe- 
 try, it is of no use ! It is still asserted that I confine 
 my ideas to minute descriptions of external nature ! 
 that THOMSON, according to my principles, is a greater 
 poet than SHAKESPEARE!! I shall therefore say a 
 few words concerning poetry derived from its highest 
 source ; and shall take the first examples which occur 
 in the volume that contains the sublimes! and most 
 poetical images in the world. 
 
 " He bowed the heavens, also, and came down ; and it 
 " was dark under his feet : he rode upon the cherubims, 
 " and did fly : he came flying on the wings of the wind." 
 
 It was not even in the power of STERNHOLD and 
 HOPKINS to destroy the sublimity of this passage : 
 
 " The LORD descended from above, 
 
 " And bow'd the heavens most high ; 
 " And underneath his feet he cast 
 
 " The darkness of the sky. 
 " On cherubs and on cherubim," &c. 
 
 Now let us take a poetical passage of the most pathetic 
 kind: " By the waters of Babylon we sat down and 
 " wept, when we remembered thee, oh ! Sion." 
 
 E '2 
 
With regard to the first of these passages, to shew 
 how just is the general remark of HORACE, 
 " Invenias etiam disjecti membra poet*/' 
 
 let the images be disjointed how they will, the images 
 being sublime or magnificent in themselves, you cannot 
 destroy them you will still find, turning them into 
 prose, the same materials of sublimity, the same dis- 
 jecti membra poette. It is exactly the reverse with 
 pathetic poetry. In the Psalm, " by the waters of 
 " Babylon," words the most simple, combined with the 
 imagery, excite instantaneous feelings of sympathy. 
 
 Such being the sublimity and pathos of those two 
 passages from scripture, let us set these performers, 
 " THOMAS STERNHOLD, JOHN HOPKINS, and others," 
 to work on them. The first passage, as I have said, 
 they could hardly do otherwise than render sublime, 
 though they were themselves entirely unconscious of it. 
 Now let us see what they can make of the pathetic 
 verse which I have quoted from the Psalms ! 
 
 " When as we sat in Babylon, 
 
 " The rivers round about, 
 " All in remembrance of Sion, 
 
 " The tears for grief burst out ! 
 " We hung our harps and instruments 
 
 " The willow trees upon ; 
 " For in this place, men, for their use, 
 
 " Had planted many a one!" 
 
 Who does not instantly feel the lameness, the diluted- 
 ness, the scrannel impotence of the paraphrase ? 
 
 If I were to adduce one incident more pathetic 
 than another, in the whole world of writings, I should, 
 perhaps, draw an example from the affecting story of 
 " JOSEPH and his brethren." The mind is worked up 
 
[ 53 ] 
 
 to the most intense interest, when his brothers stand 
 before JOSEPH, who is unknown to them. What is the 
 first word he utters, after he has told them who he is ? 
 " I am Joseph your brother:" he stops not a moment 
 for an answer, but instantly, and as scarce breathing, 
 enquires, " Does my FATHER yet live? the OLD MAN, 
 " of whom ye spake ?" The slightest alteration of 
 these words, so delicate is high-wrought sympathy^ 
 would instantly destroy the interest. 
 
 One distinction seems to me obvious: by additions, 
 and those chiefly from art, a passage in which sublime 
 objectsoccur may be made mean, as by COWLEY and 
 BLACKMORE; though the objects themselves, abstract- 
 edly, cannot be made so. Pathos may be entirely de- 
 stroyed by bad treatment, or even altering words ; but 
 I affirm, as will be shewn afterwards, that no possible 
 treatment can make a really unpoetical image poetical, 
 nor any image from art as sublime as images from 
 nature, or manners as poetical as passions, provided the 
 poet be adequate in genius, as MILTON and SHAKES- 
 PEARE were; and that, therefore, POPE can never be 
 in the same line with these immortal poets, let his exe- 
 cution be what it may ; never equal to them in sublimity, 
 or in pathos ; never equally master of our Jiearts ; and 
 though equalling in execution, pro tanto, (all his works 
 being considered,) never even approaching them in the 
 vastness, richness, copiousness, or affecting beauties, 
 of their several creations. 
 
 I have placed, in consequence of the consummate 
 execution of his Eloisa, and Rape of the Lock, POPE 
 before DRYDEN. But if the " Flower and the Leaf' 
 of DRYDEN had been original, this exquisite work of 
 
fancy and execution would have weighed down the 
 Rape of the Lock ; but in consequence of this unique, 
 original, and exquisite performance, the Rape of the 
 Lock, and the most finished and passionate Epistle of 
 Eloisa, infinitely superior to any thing of the kind ex- 
 tant, I have ventured to place POPE above DRYDEN, 
 notwithstanding the superiority of DRY DEN'S Ode e 
 And yet, with this printed and published decision, I am 
 held op as considering that he who could write a 
 " sonnet to a lap-dog, a greater poet than POPE." See 
 a publication called " The Speculum !" 
 
 Such is the periodical press in the year 1822!! 
 Some writers, having been beat out of asserting that 
 I called " POPE no great poet," turn round and say, 
 if I allow his exquisite Eloisa to be so pathetic, and 
 pathos to be one of the great characteristicks of the 
 higher orders of poetry, why not place him with 
 SHAKESPEARE? Because " one swallow does not 
 " make a summer:'* and what comparison is there be- 
 tween Eloisa and Lear ? 
 
VIRGIL'S GEORGICS ; and whether what is mean, 
 per se, can be rendered poetical by any art of 
 the Poet. 
 
 Mr. CAMPBELL, in the New Monthly Magazine, 
 professes to call the arguments I have examined, an 
 answer to me ! ! This luminous coadjutor of Mr. CAMP- 
 BELL has " proved" that the most insignificant crea- 
 tures, swarming bees, may, in the hands of Virgil, 
 become sublime, the whole poetical sublimity, or beauty, 
 depending upon the describer!! As he adduces the 
 very respectable authority of such a scholar as Mr. 
 KNIGHT, I shall be more particular. 
 
 All creatures that^Ty, may, I think, as I have before 
 observed, be generally pronounced poetical. How ex- 
 quisitely has Spencer set before us the clown brushing 
 away the flies on a summer evening ! It is the air, 
 the flowers, herbs, the broken hum in the sunshine, 
 that make these objects poetical ; as the wild rocks 
 the daring flight the eye of fire make the " fulminis 
 " alitem" the most poetically sublime among birds. 
 
 It may be further observed, that birds become more 
 poetical according to the places where they chiefly 
 inhabit, associated feelings, &c. Hence, rock birds, 
 sea-birds, birds of the desert, are poetical; in the 
 solitary woodland, Philomel sings 
 
 " Most musical, most melancholy ;" 
 
 and VIRGIL as beautifully describes the murmurs of 
 the wild dove on the elm, 
 
 " Nee gemerc aeria cessabit tartar ab ulmo." 
 
C 56 3 
 
 All these circumstances enhance the poetical interest. 
 The cuckoo is associated with spring ; the vulture with 
 rocks and tempests ; the redbreast with the sacred asso- 
 ciations of the dead, 
 
 " The Redbreast oft, at evening hours, 
 
 "Shall kindly lend its little aid, 
 " With scatter'd moss and gather'd flow'rs, 
 
 " To deck the ground where thou art laid." 
 
 Why is this last picture so affecting? because it is 
 strongly and beautifully connected with human sym- 
 pathy. The observation leads to an infinitude of ex- 
 amples, independent of the flowers, the air, the sunshine, 
 the beautiful forms which birds possess. But let me 
 turn from these poetical objects to a toad in a garden ! 
 Who can make a sublime, pathetic, or beautiful toad ? 
 Though such an object might be in sympathy with 
 certain characters that shall be nameless, who can make 
 a toad poetical ? You must connect with it feelings of 
 dislike and aversion : 
 
 " Squftt at the ear of Eve, familiar toad." MILTON. 
 
 " Familiar toad, 
 
 " Half froth, half venom, spits itself abroad." POPE. 
 
 If these images be introduced, it is to excite aver- 
 sion ; but the sympathy with what is great, or delight- 
 ful, or beautiful, is the foundation of the higher orders 
 of poetry. 
 
 VIRGIL could not make a harrow as poetical as 
 a waterfall, or dignify that unpoetical reptile which, in 
 a garden, better associates itself with the ideas of a 
 CRITIC than with poetry, as the Editor of the Quar- 
 terly Review has once happily observed, in his answer 
 
[ 57 ] 
 
 to the Critical Review, on his admirable translation of 
 JUVENAL!!! 
 
 There are two characters who constantly cry out, 
 " Away with this cant about Nature ! !" One sees with 
 more delight 
 
 " The flambeaux flash against the morning skies," 
 than the sun 
 
 " Firing the red top of the eastern piues." 
 
 The other, who cries, " Away with this cant about Na- 
 " tare !" is the critic who, probably, never saw any thing 
 higher than St. Paul's; who writes of blue Italian skies, 
 and gardens of roses, though he never saw a sky but 
 through smoke, or a rose but in the spout of a china 
 teapot! " AWAY with the cant about NATURE!" is 
 as natural to such characters as the ivonderment ex- 
 pressed about " general nature, external nature," by a 
 critic, whose ideas in poetry are, probably, confined 
 to the sublime and magnificent in a London square, 
 or blandishments of " erotic" swans ! Such characters 
 are thus described by the Satirist: 
 
 " He, with an awkward briskness, not his own, 
 
 " TRIUMPHANT seem'd, when that strange savage Dame, 
 
 " Known but to few, and only known by NAME, 
 
 " Plain COMMON SENSE, appear'd, by NATURE there 
 
 " Appointed, with plain Truth, to guard the chair. 
 
 " The Arch-Cockney saw, and, blasted with a frown, 
 
 " To his first state of nothing melted down." 
 
 Churchill 
 
 A little acquaintance with " this strange SAVAGE 
 "DAME," and no less strange thing, called Nature, 
 would be of great service to some metaphysicians, as 
 well as poets. 
 
[ 58 ] 
 
 To return to the " sublime' insects ! If they fly,* 
 they are poetical. Take even the beetle : 
 
 " Save where the beetle wheels his drony flight." Gray. 
 " Against the traveller borne in heedless ham." Colling. 
 
 Reptiles exciting terror for that reason may be 
 made highly poetical. So in VIRGIL'S Georgics : 
 
 " Postquam exusta pains, terraeque ardore dehiscunt : 
 " Exilit in siccum, et ilatninantia lumina torquens 
 " Saevit agris." 
 
 Again, 
 
 " Cum positis novus exuviis nitidusque juventa 
 " Volvitur, aut catulos tectis aut ova relinquens, 
 " Arduus ad solem et linguis micat ora trisulcis." 
 
 -/~ But no " treatment" can make the bee " sublime!" 
 
 I Poetic sublimity is not its character, but poetic beauty 
 
 \is: and first, let the " most sluggish of the Dunciad 
 
 " tribe" answer, is a bee a natural or artificial object? 
 
 " Ergo, uhi ver nactce sudum camposque patentee 
 " Erumpunt portis, concurritur ; cethere in alto 
 tl fit sonitus, magnum mixta glomerantur in orbem, 
 " Prcecipitesque eadunt. Non densior acre grando, 
 " Nee de concussa tantum pluit ilice glandis." 
 
 This is beautiful, inest sua gratia PARVIS ; but all 
 the poets in the world cannot make the imagery sub- 
 lime. It is beautiful by nature ; a consummate poet 
 avails himself of that beauty; so THEOCRITUS, 
 
 It is said that I should prefer " FLYING* with supreme domi- 
 " nion !" I should prefer " SAILING !" for, if the artificer made 
 the sails, he did not make ' the winds !" 
 
 * See GRAY'S Progress of Poetry. 
 
iron 
 
 And observe, in the passage from the Georgics, the 
 images from nature! " Ver sudum campos patentes 
 " tethere in alto" &c. &c. From his vagrant labours, 
 his life among the flowers, in the sunshine of spring, 
 over the fields, or when 
 
 " With early wing, 
 " He murmurs the hlossoin'd trees among ;" 
 
 from his airy hum, his rich colours in the light. 
 the bee is peculiarly poetical, and its introduction ac- 
 companied necessarily with poetical circumstances. 
 VIRGIL, therefore, could give a poetical interest to 
 bees, and even to the snake ! Could he do so to the 
 instrument of art t employed more especially upon the 
 subject of his poem, the plough, or any of its artificial 
 accessaries ? Let the reader see. 
 
 " Curvi formam accipit ulmus aratri ; 
 " Hnic a stirpe pcdes temo protentus in octo, 
 " Binae aures, duplici aptantur dentalia dorso/' 
 
 Nay, with all the poetry VIRGIL has thrown on his 
 subject, and that poetry from nature, (as POPE has done 
 in his Essay on Man,) the Georgics would have lost their 
 most imperishable charm, if he had not shewn in his 
 poem the " dulcia' as well as the " pulchra" by the 
 exquisite episode of ORPHEUS, &c. 
 
 " Ipse cava solans aegruni testudine amorem, 
 ** Te, dulcis conjux, te solo in littore secum, 
 " Te veniente die, te decedente canebat. 
 " Taenarias etiam fauces, alta ostia Ditis, 
 " Et caligantem nigra formidinc liicuni 
 " Ingressus." 
 
[ 60 ) 
 
 Who does not almost involuntarily repeat the rest to 
 
 " Heu non tua, palmas ! 
 *' Dixit, et ex oculis subito, ceu fumus in auras," &c. 
 
 Need I mention, in farther illustration of the ne~ 
 cessity of such interspersions in such a work, Aristaeus 
 descending into the Deep to see his mother the Sea- 
 Nymph 
 
 " Jamque doraum mirans genetrieis, et humida regna, 
 " Speluncisque lacus clauses, lucosque sonantes, 
 " Jbat, et, ingenti motu stupefactus aquarum." 
 
 Who that reads these passages cares one farthing 
 about the latas segetes, and the plough? and who does 
 not see the art of the poet? and who does not know it 
 is these images from NATURE, from external nature 
 and PASSIONS, that make the Georgics, whatever they 
 may be as a treatise on agriculture, ETERNAL AS A 
 POEM? 
 
 The only part of the heap of blunders that Mr. CAMP- 
 BELL has puffed, which has the least claim to any 
 attention from a sensible man, is that taken from Mr. 
 KNIGHT ; and which, on that account, I have examined 
 with more respectful attention. 
 
[ 61 ] 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 As what I have stated in some part of these pages 
 might not be believed without proof, I transcribe lite- 
 rally two passages, one from my Observations, and the 
 other from a Letter to me, by which the reader will see 
 the shifts to which such opponents are reduced. 
 
 Passage from my Edition of POPE. 
 
 " Let me not be considered as thinking that THE 
 " SUBJECT ALONE constitutes poetical excellency, the 
 " execution is to be taken into consideration at the same 
 " time, for we might fall asleep over the CREATION 
 " of BLACKMORE, but be alive to the touches of ani- 
 " mation and satire in BOILEAU !" BOWLES. 
 
 " I am aware that you affect to assign a part of it to 
 " execution! Let me not, however, you say, be con- 
 " sidered as thinking that the subject constitutes poetical 
 " excellency ! Here you seem (as usual) to have studied 
 "AMBIGUITY OF EXPRESSION." MAC DfiRMOT, 
 
 page 44. 
 
 The latter limb of the sentence, which puts the mean- 
 ing out of doubt, is omitted. A full stop is put in the 
 middle of the sentence, for no other reason than that it 
 should appear ambiguous; and then I am boldly ac- 
 cused of purposed ambiguity ! ! ! No reader could 
 believe this, if he had not seen it ! and I leave it to 
 speak for itself. 
 
The whole of what this logician '* HAS PROVED" is 
 y thus summed up : 
 
 N/ f " I have PROVED that there is nothing poetical in 
 
 I " the works of nature or art ! I have proved that the 
 
 1 " objects you call poetical have no poetry, abstracted 
 
 " from the manner in which they are associated by the 
 
 " poet ; and that where the manner is not poetical, the 
 
 " description will be prosaic, however richly it may be 
 
 " gown with your poetical images ; ajud that conse- 
 
 " quently in all cases it is the manner alone that con- 
 
 " stitutes poetical pre-eminence." Page last. 
 
 The first is not "proved" nor can be "Drover/," unless 
 it can be "proved" that no one object is more adapted 
 to poetry than another ; adapted to poetry, being my 
 definition of poetical; bearing the same relation to 
 poetry that picturesque does to painting. 
 
 To the second : I refer my reader to the example of 
 BLACKMORE and BOILEAU, which this opponent has 
 designedly omitted. 
 
 To the third : I deny, if by " treatment alone" it be 
 inferred, that the most successful " treatment" of epis- 
 tles, or satires, places a poet in the same file as the most 
 successful " treatment" of an epic poem. 
 
 This is the logician's own SUMMARY ! the rest is 
 confusion worse confounded, quibbles, word-catching, 
 blunders, and fraud, as far as I can comprehend him. 
 He quotes the lines, 
 
 " He who would see Melrose aright, 
 " Must see it by the pale moon-light !" 
 
 He quotes COLLINS'S Ode to Fear!! as if he had never 
 heard that tragedy was founded on terror and pity, and 
 as if " fear" was not a passion ! 
 I here leave Mr. M'DERMOT ! 
 
[ 63 ] 
 
 Having given this summary of the answer to me, I 
 will conclude by giving a summary of my principles, to 
 which this affects to be an answer : 
 
 1. That there are some objects, both in nature and 
 art, more poetical, that is, more adapted to poetry, than 
 others. 
 
 2. That those most adapted will be found among the 
 greatest objects in nature. 
 
 3. That, as in external nature there exist objects more 
 susceptible of poetry than others, from their beauty, 
 picturesque appearance, ideas excited by the contem- 
 plation of power, &c. &c. ; so are the higher passions 
 of the heart, including all that affects the imagination, 
 more adapted to poetry than the manners and habits of 
 any particular period. 
 
 4. That the subject, whether of an epic poem, or 
 tragedy, or moral epistles, or satire, must be taken into 
 consideration, before the rank of a poet in his art can 
 be determined, let his execution, in that rank, be what 
 it may. 
 
 5. That, be the subject what it may, it must so far 
 depend on the execution, that he who executes, as 
 well as possible, a poem on any subject, would be a 
 better poet than he would be, whose subject was an 
 epic, in which the execution entirely failed. 
 
 6. That if of three poets, one had executed an epic 
 poem, another a tragedy, and the third a most pathetic 
 epistle, one work of exquisite imagination in mock- 
 heroic, with satires, &c.; and that these three poets 
 had executed their several descriptions of poetry with 
 the same perfection, viz, an epic poem, a tragedy, an 
 ode or epistle, or a mock-heroic', or moral essays, or 
 
satires ; that then, those who had so executed works like 
 Paradise Lost, or dramas like Macbeth, Othello, Tem- 
 pest, As you like it, &c. would, from the nature of the 
 subjects, and equal execution, according to my prin- 
 ciples, and the principles in criticism generally admitted 
 and acknowledged, be pronounced the greatest poets; 
 and, therefore, that POPE, with all his execution, never 
 could be placed in the same rank with MILTON and 
 SHAKESPEARE.* 
 
 These are the deductions from my principles, which 
 neither Lord BYRON nor Mr. CAMPBELL have an- 
 swered. 
 
 So far from depreciating POPE, I believe I am the only 
 writer who would place, and who has placed, him above 
 DRYDEN! As to Mr. M'DERMOT'S reasonings, they appear to 
 meTsucFas could only be met by ridicule. I should not, indeed, 
 have said a word that looked like disrespect, if he, as well as the 
 Critic in the Quarterly Review, had not used the language of 
 personal flippancies towards me. But, in return for the kindness 
 expressed by him, that, instructed by him I may remove from 
 the ranks of those " who write dull receipts how poems may be 
 " made" (which I have not done) ; I hope, under the hasty ex- 
 amination which his Letter to me has undergone, *' HE may 
 / " REMOVE" from the ranks of carping verbal hypercritics, to 
 become a critic with larger and more liberal views, to scorn dis- 
 ingenuous perversions, and to use no language, unprovoked, 
 which may be thought inconsistent with the character of a fair 
 critic, a candid man, or a liberal scholar. 
 
A* 
 
 ANSWER 
 
 TO A 
 
 Writer in the Quarterly Review, 
 
 MAINTAINING) 
 
 THAT " IN-DOOR NATURE" IS AS POETICAL AS THE 
 MAGNIFICENCE OF THE CREATION; 
 
 AND 
 
 That exquisite Delineations of Manners entitle a Poet 
 to rank as high in his Art, as exquisite Delineations 
 of the Passions of Nature. 
 
 NOD si te ruperis, iaqaara, 
 
 Par erit. HORACE. 
 
It mil be observed, that in Lord BYRON'S argu- 
 ment little was said respecting the character of 
 POPE as a Poet; it was a mere literary dis- 
 cussion, evidently in part badinage, by Lord 
 BYRON, to prove, in the disdainful loftiness of 
 genius, that he could make black white. It 
 would hardly have required an answer, had not 
 so many unreflecting people deemed it conclu- 
 sive. In the criticism of the Writer in the 
 Quarterly Review, all is serious and elaborate; 
 and it is so far more difficult to answer, as 
 
 " Your true no-nieaning puzzles more than wit" 
 
 The substance of the Answer, as far as poetical 
 criticism is concerned, I have here added, that 
 the reader may form his opinion. 
 
ANSWER, &c. 
 
 DR. WARTON had declared, or, according to 
 the Quarterly Reviewer, had the " MERIT of first 
 " declaring of POPE, that he did not think him at 
 " the head of his profession, and that his species of 
 " poetry was not the most excellent one of the art." 
 
 This is WARTON'S opinion, and this is mine ; 
 and this opinion I have supported in the Principles 
 of Poetry ; and this opinion I think I can easily 
 defend (though I believe that so defined it will be 
 generally admitted) against Dr. JOHNSON, Mr. 
 CAMPBELL, and the Quarterly Reviewer. But 
 first for Dr. JOHNSON. What says the Doctor ? 
 
 " To circumscribe poetry by a definition will 
 *' only show the narrowness of the definer." " If 
 " POPE be not a poet, where is poetry to be found?" 
 
[ 68 1 
 
 He might as well have said, " If the LARK be not 
 " a singing bird, where is a singing bird to be 
 " found ?" Such is the Doctor's logic ! 
 
 " Aye ! but such a definer," adds the critic, 
 " arose in the disciple of WARTON, the Rev. W. 
 " L. BOWLES^ \vTibTa& distinguished himself in 
 " this IDLE controversy." Now, such a definer 
 did not arise in W. L. B. He was not so absurd 
 as to attempt *' circumscribing" poetry to ONE 
 species, and to that ONE SPECIES ALONE ! He 
 never thought, and never implied he thought, that 
 POPE was not a poet, or that any definition would 
 exclude him from a most high order; but, when 
 vague claims were made, as they now are, respect- 
 ing his absolute supremacy in the art not his line 
 of art the Rev. W. L. BOWLES thought, and 
 does think, not that POPE was not a poet, a poet 
 the most finished and most excellent in his order, 
 but that his order was not the highest in poetry, 
 whilst HOMER, and SHAKESPEARE, and MILTON 
 remain. 
 
 And he must here also observe, that he did not 
 enter into this " idle controversy" voluntarily, but 
 was forced into it by total misrepresentation. 
 
 I proceed to consider the other authority 
 which this critic advances, namely, that of Mr, 
 CAMPBELL. 
 
 The sentence in which th^authority of his name 
 is produced is this : 
 
C 69 ] 
 
 " Mr. BOWLES opens his observations on the poetic 
 character of POPE, with two regular propositions : that 
 IMAGES drawn from what is SUBLIME or BEAUTIFUL 
 in Nature are MORE poetical than images drawn from 
 art; and that passions are more adapted to poetry than 
 manners." 
 
 This is my proposition, which I think substan- 
 tially unanswerable. I had said I was obliged to 
 the writer for being so far fair, in this one instance, 
 as not to leave out the latter part of the sen- 
 tence ! ! But the writer did not do so ; he falsified 
 the passage on purpose, leaving out artificial /" 
 Hce tibi erunt artes ! Nevertheless, I take it as it 
 is. This is my position, and I think it unan- 
 swered and unanswerable. 
 
 For the sake of clearness, I shall re-state the 
 grounds of my opinions. 
 
 " All images drawn from what is BEAUTIFUL or 
 SUBLIME in the WORKS of NATURE, are more beau- 
 tiful and sublime than any images drawn from art,* and 
 they are, therefore, per se, (abstractedly,) more poe- 
 tical! In like manner, those PASSIONS of the human 
 heart, which belong to NATURE in general, are per se 
 more adapted to the higher species of poetry than IN- 
 CIDENTAL and transient manners!" 
 
 I have not Mr. CAMPBELL'S Specimens at hand, 
 and as I am now answering the critic in the Qua^r- 
 
 * This is an axiom, not a rt theory." 
 
r 70 j 
 
 terly Review who brings the passage against me, I 
 must take the words before me. 
 
 " Mr. CAMPBELL judges, that the exquisite descrip- 
 tion of artificial objects and manners is NOT LESS 
 CHARACTERISTIC of GENIUS than the description of 
 simple physical appearances /" 
 
 In the first place, CAMPBELL overlooked entirely 
 what I had made the chief principle of poetry, 
 taking his opinions at second-hand from the Edin- 
 burgh Review. The critic here confines himself 
 to the first part of my proposition. Instead of an- 
 swering even this part, he says, the " exquisite de- 
 " scription" of works of art is not less characteristic 
 of genius than descriptions of simple PHYSICAL 
 APPEARANCES! Doubtless! but one half, and that 
 the most essential, of my proposition is entirely 
 omitted, and the other half mistaken. Why not 
 take the plain words of the two propositions, and 
 answer " negatur ?'* 
 
 Without talking of " exquisite description" of 
 art as " characteristic of genius," will any one 
 deny, that " images, drawn from what is SUBLIME 
 " or BEAUTIFUL in the WORKS of NATURE, are 
 " MORE beautiful and sublime than any images 
 " drawn from art, and therefore, per se, abstract- 
 tl edly, MORE POETICAL ?'* Will this critic deny 
 it? Then, why confound the proposition, by 
 talking of " characteristics of genius," and that 
 
[ 71 ] 
 
 genius indefinite? Doubtless! because Mr. CAMP- 
 BELL must define what he means by genius. 
 COWLEY had as much genius as MILTON, but not 
 for the highest orders of poetry. 
 
 I used the words per se, designedly, to shew 
 that, let works of art be as sublime or beautiful as 
 they might, images drawn from what is SUBLIME 
 or BEAUTIFUL in NATURE, that is, from the great 
 and beautiful works of the Almighty, are MORE so, 
 and therefore more poetical, more adapted to poetry. 
 
 What would be the most exquisite description of 
 Mr. CAMPBELL'S ship, abstractedly r , as a poetical 
 object, in comparison with the description of the 
 same ship, in conjunction with the elements of 
 nature ? This I have shewn ; nor have I said any 
 thing as to the point whether the " exquisite de- 
 " scription" of this object or of that is " most 
 " characteristic of genius !" I spoke of the inva- 
 riable principles of poetry. An " exquisite" 
 painting on a snuff-box may be, for aught I have 
 said to the contrary, characteristic of genius, so 
 far as exquisite skill goes, in that line; but the 
 most exquisite skill in that line cannot make a 
 painter so eminent in all that relates to the higher 
 orders of his art, as the Cartoons conceived by 
 the genius, and EXECUTED by the hand, of a 
 RAPHAEL! 
 
 I turn from Dr. JOHNSON and Mr. CAMPBELL 
 to my critic. I will shew more fairness to him 
 
[ 72 3 
 
 than he has shewn to me, by transcribing, word ftr 
 word, not " splitting sentences/' the whole lumi- 
 nous passage in which he displays so triumphantly 
 his consummate analytical powers of philosophy 
 and criticism. 
 
 " It is clear to us that a theory, which frequently ad- 
 mitting every thing the votary of POPE could desire, to 
 substantiate the high genius of his master, yet termi- 
 nates in excluding the poet from ' the highest order of 
 ' poets/ must involve some fallacy ; and this we pre- 
 sume we have discovered in the absurd attempt to raise 
 ' a criterion of poetical talents.' Such an artificial 
 test is repugnant to the man of taste who can take en- 
 larged views, and to the experience of the true critic. 
 In the contrast of human tempers and habits, in the 
 changes of circumstances in society, and the conse- 
 quent mutations of tastes, the objects of poetry may be 
 different in different periods ; pre-eminent genius ob- 
 tains its purpose by its adaptation to this eternal 
 variety ; and on this principle, if we would justly ap- 
 preciate the creative faculty, we cannot see why POPE 
 should not class, at least in file, with DANTE or 
 MILTON. It is probable that POPE could not have 
 produced an * Inferno,' or a ' Paradise Lost/ for his 
 invention was elsewhere : but it is equally probable that 
 DANTE and MILTON, with their cast of mind, could 
 not have so exquisitely touched the retined gaiety of 
 ' the Rape of the Lock.' 
 
 " It has frequently been attempted to raise up such 
 arbitrary standards and such narrowing theories of art; 
 and these ' criterions' and ' invariable principles* 
 
[ 73 ] 
 
 have usually been drawn from the habitual practices and 
 individual tastes of the framers ; they are a sort of con- 
 cealed egotism, a stratagem of self-love. When Mr. 
 BOWLES informs us that one of the essential qualities of 
 a poet * is to have an eye attentive to and familiar with 
 (for so he strengthens his canons of criticism) ' every 
 ' external appearance of nature, every change of 
 ' season, every variation of light and shade, every 
 ' rock, every tree, every leaf, every diversity of hue, 
 ' &c. ;' we all know who the poet is that Mr. BOWLES 
 so fondly describes.* * Here, POPE,' he adds, 'from 
 ' infirmities and from physical causes, was particularly 
 ' deficient/ In artificial life, ' he perfectly suc- 
 ' ceeded; how miuute in his description when he 
 ' describes what he is master of! for instance, the game 
 ' of ombre in the Rape of the Lock. If he had been 
 ' gifted with the same powers of observing outward 
 ' nature, I have no doubt he would have exhibited as 
 ' much accuracy in describing the appropriate beauties 
 f of the forest where he lived, as he was able to describe 
 ' in a manner so novel, and in colours so vivid, a game of 
 ' cards.' It happened, however, that POPE preferred 
 in-door to out'door nature ; but did this require inferior 
 skill, or less of the creative faculty, than Mr. BOWLES'S 
 Nature? In POPE'S artificial life we discover a great 
 deal of nature; and in Mr. BOWLES'S nature^ or poe- 
 try, we find much that is artificial. On this absurd 
 principle of definition and criterion, Mr. WORDS- 
 WORTH, who is often by genius so true a poet, is by 
 
 * In this passage I had in view only descriptive poets, particu- 
 larly THOMSON and COWPER! so that there was no " concealed 
 * egotism" in the matter. 
 
[ 7* ] 
 
 his theory so mistaken a one. DARWIN, too, ascer- 
 tained that " the invariable principle of poetry," or, in 
 his own words, ' the essence of poetry,' was picture. 
 This was a convenient principle for one whose solitary 
 t alent lay in the minute pencilling^ of his descriptions ; 
 and the idea was instantly adopted as being so consonant 
 to nature, and to Alderman BOYDELL, that our author- 
 painters now asserted, that if the excellence of a poem 
 consisted in forming a picture, the more perfect poetry 
 would be painting itself: in consequence of this ' in- 
 ' variable principle of poetry,' Mr. SHEE, in his bril- 
 liant ' Rhymes on Art,' declared, that ' the narrative 
 of an action is not comparable to the ' action itself 
 ' before the eyes ; and BARRY ardently exclaimed^ 
 ' that painting is poetry realised !' To detract from 
 what itself is excellent, by parallels with another species 
 of excellence, or by trying it by some arbitrary criterion, 
 will ever terminate, as here, in false criticism and ab- 
 surd depreciation." Quarterly Review. 
 
 I beg the reader attentively to peruse this pas* 
 sage, which is so luminous, in comparison of my 
 " mystic dreams," and which exhibits such powers 
 of logical and accurate discrimination. I might 
 say, as CHILLINGWORTH did, when he heard that 
 KNOX, the Jesuit, was engaged in controversy 
 against him, 
 
 Si Pergama dextra 
 Defendi possent, etiam hac defensa videbo ! 
 
 I have already set before the reader the whole 
 of my positions, which he has garbled. And 
 
I 75 J 
 
 first, I would ask any one, who compares my 
 general passage with that in the Quarterly, to 
 say, bonajide, which he thinks the most obscure ? 
 Any one, in half a moment, could perceive that, in 
 speaking of the " execution" of a poem, I spoke 
 figuratively, having taken the expressions " sub- 
 " ject" and " execution" metaphorically, from the 
 art of painting. I will not insult the reader's un- 
 derstanding by supposing he is ignorant of the 
 meaning of the terms employed to define " execu- 
 " tion." The words are familiar to every artist, 
 and almost to every common reader. Need I say 
 what is the execution of a poem ? The whole 
 performance. The disposition ? The distribution 
 of the several parts. The contrast of light and 
 shade, the effect produced by opposing one part to 
 another, relief, light and shade, contrast, colours of 
 expression, animation, &c. are all taken figuratively 
 from one and " the same art," painting, and are 
 common expressions of criticism. See JOHNSON* 
 POPE, &c. 
 
 And now to apply to the logic before us: 
 " It is CLEAR to us, that a theory ', which fre- 
 " quently admitting every thing the votary of 
 " POPE could desire, to substantiate the high 
 " genius of his master, yet terminates in excluding 
 " the poet from ' the highest order of poets,' must 
 " involve some fallacy I" Which commencement 
 seems to imply, that if a poet is admitted to be of 
 a very high order, he must therefore necessarily be 
 
C 76 ] 
 
 also of the *' HIGHEST ORDER !" But the logician's 
 sagacity is not long before it begins to perceive the 
 "fallacy !" " And this we presume we have DIS- 
 *' COVERED in the absurd attempt to RAISE A CRITE- 
 
 <* RION OF POETICAL TALENTS.'* 
 
 My ^ criterion" went only to ascertain the rank 
 in poetry, to which the successful execution of an 
 epic poem, a tragedy, or satire, severally entitled 
 the authors. If SHAKESPEARE had written satire, 
 equal, in execution, as satire, even to Macbeth, 
 would he have been so great a poet ? The question 
 answers itself. 
 
 As I have never said any thing about " crite- 
 rion," farther than concerned the " execution" of 
 a poem, I presume the critic is not a jot nearer 
 discovering the fallacy, if fallacy there be, than he 
 was before ! 
 
 From the " fallacy," which the critic presumes 
 he has discovered, he goes on rapidly. " Such an 
 " artificial test is repugnant to the man of taste, 
 " who can take ENLARGED views, as to the expe- 
 4< rience of the TRUE CRITIC !" Quarterly Re- 
 view. 
 
 The " theory," of which this " TRUE CRITIC" 
 has found the fallacy ', next becomes an " artificial 
 " test ;" and now the " fallacy" and " artificial 
 " test" are thus summarily and satisfactorily 
 proved, by those who have " such enlarged views ! M 
 
 Reader* 
 
 " Attcntis auribus adsta ! 
 
t 77 ) 
 
 " In the contrast of human tempers and habits, 
 *' in the changes of circumstances in society, and 
 " the consequent MUTATION OF TASTES, the OB- 
 " JECTS of poetry MAY BE DIFFERENT in different 
 "periods!!" Indeed! 
 
 I marvel, then, what could have made HOMER 
 the ETERNAL FATHER OF POETRY, amidst all con- 
 trast of human tempers and habits, in all changes 
 of society, in all mutations of taste. But we must 
 not interrupt the now rapidly running stream of 
 this frothy and shallow sophistry. 
 
 Contrast of " tempers and habits, changes of 
 " circumstances in society, mutation of tastes !" 
 These, compassions, imaginations, affections, are the 
 most sublime and beautiful objects of poetry, and 
 these are all changeable, as changes of society, and 
 mutation of " taste," operate ! " Pre-eminent 
 *' genius," we are told, " attains its purpose by its 
 adaptation to " this eternal variety ;" (the eternal 
 variety of habits, tastes, &c.) and now for " quod 
 46 er at demonstrandum ;" thus, my "fallacy "being 
 overturned, the opposite principles being readily 
 granted that the objects of poetry are mutable, 
 not eternal, as mutable as " habits and fashions," 
 then we jump to the conclusion, which thus instan- 
 taneously follows ! " On this principle, if we 
 " would JUSTLY APPRECIATE the creative faculty, 
 " WE CANNOT see why POPE should not class, at 
 
" least in file, with DANTE and MILTON !" 
 Quarterly Review. 
 
 " We deem this matter well made out,'* said 
 " John the Saint," to " Mat," in PRIOR'S witty 
 fable of" Erie Robert's Mice!" and if our readers 
 think it as well " made ouf by such "fallacies' 9 
 as these, and such baseless arguments, d la bonne 
 heure ! 
 
 In the mean time, not to impede the career of 
 this " true" critic's triumph, let us see what 
 follows. 
 
 " It is PROBABLE POPE could not have produced 
 " an Inferno, or Paradise Lost." (Probably not :) 
 " for his invention lay elsewhere :" (undoubtedly, 
 and among subjects less poetical ; but) it " is 
 " equally probable that MILTON and DANTE 
 ' could not have so exquisitely touched the refined 
 " gaiety of the Rape of the Lock!" Probably 
 not ; but Dii boni, what a discovery ! who would 
 have surmised, that MILTON and DANTE, WITH 
 THEIR CAST of MIND, could not so exquisitely have 
 touched the refined gaiety of the " Rape of the 
 Lock!" Therefore, is POPE of " the same ft te 
 " with MILTON and DANTE!" 
 
 Even for this last thought the writer is indebted 
 
 to one, whose criticism he holds so cheap ; though 
 
 I should never have thought of applying the obser" 
 
 r( vation as is here done, that because MILTON could 
 
 ^VAnot write the Rape of the Lock, and POPE could 
 
[ 79 J 
 
 not write Paradise Lost, one poet was in the same 
 file with the other! 
 
 Merely to shew that some great critics may bor- 
 row of those " whose principles** they affect to de- 
 spise, I extract a note to POPE'S Rape of the Lock, 
 from the last edition. 
 
 " This poem is founded, however, upon local man- 
 ners, and of all poems of that kind it is undoubtedly far 
 the best ; whether we consider the exquisite tone of rail- 
 lery, the musical sweetness, &c. of the versification, 
 the management of the story, or the kind of fancy and 
 airiness given to the whole : but what entitles it to its 
 high claim of peculiar poetic excellencies? The powers 
 of imagination, and the felicity of invention, displayed 
 in adopting, and most artfully conducting, a machinery 
 so fanciful, so appropriate, so novel, and so poetical. 
 The introduction of Discord, &c. as machinery in the 
 Lutrin, is not to be mentioned at the same time. Such 
 a being as Discord will suit a hundred subjects ; but 
 the elegant, the airy sylph, 
 
 ' Loose to the wind whose airy garments flew, 
 ' Thin glittering textures of the filmy dew, 
 ' Dipt in the richest tincture of the skies, 
 * Where light disports, in ever mingling dyes ;' 
 
 Such a being as this is suited alone to the identical 
 and peculiar poem in which it is employed. I will now 
 go a step farther in appreciating the elegance and 
 beauty of this poem ; and I would ask the question, 
 Let any other poet, DRYDEN, WALLER, COWLEY, 
 or GRAY, be assigned this subject, and this machinery: 
 could they have produced a work allogttlier no correct 
 

 [ so ] 
 
 and beautiful, from the same given materials ? Let us, 
 however, still remember, that this poem is founded oft 
 local manners, and the employment of the sylphs is in 
 artificial life; for this reason the poem must have a 
 secondary rank, when considered strictly and truly with 
 regard to its poetry, Whether POPE would have ex- 
 celled as much in loftier subjects, of a general nature, 
 in the high mood of Lycidas, the rich colourings of 
 Comus, and the magnificent descriptions and sublime 
 images of Paradise Lost? or in painting the characters 
 and employments of aerial beings, 
 
 ' That tread the ouse of the salt deep, 
 
 * Or run upon the sharp wind of the north/ 
 
 is another question. He has not attempted it ; I 
 have no doubt he would have failed ; but to have pro- 
 duced a poem infinitely the highest of its kind, and 
 which no other poet could perhaps altogether have done 
 so well, is surely very high praise. The excellence is 
 POPE'S own, the inferiority is in the subject; no one un- 
 derstood better that excellent rule of HORACE, 
 
 'Sumite materiem, &c.' BOWLES'S POPE." 
 
 I give this extract for you to ponder on ; in the 
 mean time, I must ask, Why do you say I have pro- 
 nounced the " subjects" of POPE'S poetry not poe- 
 tical? Why, in the language of that entertaining 
 book, the " Quarrels of Authors/' " perplex con- 
 " troversy by a SUBTLE change of a word ?" This 
 art you have studied with the greatest success, as 
 you have so well and so admirably illustrated it, (m 
 another place of this identical criticism, which will 
 
C 81 ] 
 
 be hereafter spoken of) " by breaking up of a sen- 
 " tence/' or contriving some ABSURDITY in tbe 
 shape of inference, to get rid of it in a " MOCK 
 " TRIUMPH !" * 
 
 Now if, in this illustration of the " subtle arts," 
 by which " controversy is perplexed, 7 ' you had not 
 left out, subtilely, one small word, consisting of two 
 letters " (so),*' my meaning would not have been 
 " perplexed," nor would such disingenuous modes 
 of meeting a question have assumed for a moment 
 the appearance of a " mock triumph !" Have the 
 goodness to insert the little word "so," which you 
 thus subtilely left out, and you will not do injus- 
 tice to me or the public ; for my meaning will then 
 be (to which I adhere, notwithstanding all such 
 profound arguments as you have brought against 
 it) that the " subjects" of satires are not so " POE- 
 " TICAL" as those subjects which appeal to the 
 imagination and passions. 
 
 And if this be admitted, it would follow, that a 
 poem might be in its " execution" (a word which, 
 
 * An example of all these arts is shewn in this very criticism 
 of the Quarterly Review, leaving out the word " so," which 
 makes all the difference ; " breaking up a sentence/' as is lite- 
 rally done, and shamefully, in what is said of Mr. BOWLES'S 
 want of being *' explained himself/' when the sentence which 
 elucidates his meaning is entirely left out ; and this is done, by 
 " contriving some absurdity, in the shape of an inference, to get 
 " rid of it by a mock triumph I" Who that observes these arts 
 does not instantly exclaim, These little weapons, against the 
 laws of war, are insidiously practised in this WAR OF WORDS ! ! 
 QUARRELS OF AUTHORS, page 99. 
 
 Q 
 
[ 82 ] 
 
 together with " subject," though so " dark" to 
 this logician, I have taken from POPE'S POSTSCRIPT 
 to the Odyssey!) complete, and yet not be so 
 poetical as a GREATER " subject," treated with 
 powers of " execution" in every respect equal to 
 the " subject !" 
 
 Then, it would follow that the " Rape of the 
 " Lock," though, in point of its peculiar fancy 
 and consummate " execution,' 5 it be the most per- 
 fect work of the kind in any language, might yet, 
 in point of poetry, remain for ever inferior to such 
 a poem as the Paradise Lost ; as much as the beau- 
 tiful " Belinda," surrounded by white-gloved 
 beaux, on the bosom of the silver Thames, in the 
 summer sunshine, and whilst the sails are fanned 
 by the wings of sylphs, is a picture, though de- 
 lightful and poetical, far less poetical than that, 
 
 " The planets in their stations listening stood, 
 AS THE BRIGHT POMP ASCENDED JUBILANT." 
 
 PARADISE LOST. 
 
 You say, " we presume, we have found the 
 " 'fallacy' of Mr. BOWLES'S theory!" Without 
 presuming at all, I will point out the fallacy of 
 your's in two minutes. It is in confining the 
 invariable principles of poetry to the " criterion" 
 of talents, and in supposing I ever conceived that 
 " manners," &c. might not be poetical, when all 
 I said was, that PASSIONS were MORE so. 
 
[ 83 ] 
 
 No criterion of talents, as talents, were spoken 
 of or intended. I confined myself to the " Prin- 
 " ciples of POETRY," reckoning the more serious 
 as the more sublime, pathetic, or beautiful, and, 
 therefore, the most accordant to the higher class of 
 poetry. But, in this article, no discrimination is 
 made, either from ignorance or confusion of ideas, 
 between the province of epic poetry and that of 
 tragedy or comedy, between poems or novels, I 
 might almost say between verse and prose ; for 
 if talents were to be made a " criterion," they 
 would apply as much, undoubtedly, to the descrip- 
 tion of manners, as to the pourtraying of passions. 
 Nay, to produce such a poem as Hudibras, or 
 such a history as Don Quixote, would evince 
 certainly as much talents as to produce the Fairy 
 Queen. But in which would you look for the 
 most essential poetry ? Whom would you call the 
 greatest poet ? 
 
 But the very argument defeats itself. For, if 
 " fluctuating manners and habits' 9 are subjects as 
 poetical as works of the imagination and passions, 
 the representation of these manners and habits can 
 never be perfectly understood, or the propriety of 
 the representation felt, except during the period 
 in which they prevail. As such manners and habits 
 fluctuate, the representation of them, however in- 
 teresting at the time, must lose the greatest part of 
 its charm. Is this the case with HOMER, or SOPHO- 
 
 G 2 
 
CLES, or EURIPIDES, where the 
 never expires ? Is this the case with THEOCRITUS, 
 whose KaXa TBpTrta,, &c. are at this moment as 
 beautiful and fresh as when they were first tran- 
 scribed from living nature ? These poets remain, 
 and these will remain, whatever " habits" or 
 " manners may prevail at different periods, and 
 whatever generations may rise or pass away on the 
 face of the globe. 
 
 " By the consent of the critics, (says Dr. JOHN- 
 '* SON,) the FIRST praise of genius is due to the 
 " writer of an epic poem, as it requires an assem- 
 " blage of all the powers which are singly sufficient 
 " for any other composition." 
 
 Now even this great critic did not take into con- 
 sideration the " execution," or performance, of the 
 said epic ; and, therefore, according to HIS views, 
 not mine, BLACKMORE must be a greater poet than 
 POPE! But this I deny; and must refer the 
 reader to what I before had written concerning 
 the subject and execution of a " poem." What- 
 ever Dr. JOHNSON might have thought of the 
 " universal consent of the critics," had he lived to 
 see certain criticisms in the Review we speak of, 
 he would have found some radicals in their pro- 
 fession, who cared not a jot for this " universal 
 " consent;" who confounded epic, tragic, tragi- 
 comical, comic, elegiac, " IN-DOOR and out-of-door" 
 nature, the prbvince of morals, novels, and farces; 
 
C 85 ] 
 
 and asserted that, to the writer of moral epistles 
 and satires, the Jirst praise of genius is due, quoad 
 poetry, as much as to the writer of the epic ; and 
 that, therefore, POPE may be, notwithstanding his 
 avowed preference of in-door nature, of the u SAME 
 " FILE" WITH MILTON AND DANTE !!!* 
 
 According to this " discovery," all former critics 
 may as well hide their diminished heads, ancient 
 and modern; but this indeed, in the language 
 of the Reviewer, will " BE THE TRIUMPH OF 
 " THE FUTURE!" In the mean time, HOMER 
 will remain on his " throne of ADAMANT ;" for it 
 must be indeed the " triumph of the future" that 
 would place on the same throne the most poetical 
 writer of moral essays or satires the world ever 
 produced. 
 
 The principles of poetry y in this sense, are IN- 
 VARIABLE and ETERNAL. 
 
 * This definition, I think, (pace dixerim,) is not quite ac- 
 curate ; for, in my opinion, it would have been more just to have 
 said, " the highest praise of poetry is due to the successful writer 
 " of an epic poem." 
 
 Dr. JOHNSON speaks with accurate distinction, and with his. 
 usual sense and eloquence, when he says, " Paradise Lost is a, 
 " poem, with respect to design, which may claim the FIRST 
 " place, and with respect to performance, the second, among the 
 '' productions of the human mind. His * subject' is the fate of 
 " worlds, and the revolutions of heaven and earth !" 
 
 " The subject of this poem is universally and perpetually interest- 
 "ing;" and as " light and shade" is not understood by my 
 critic, any more than " subject and execution/' I may just 
 mention some further expressions: " In a GREAT work there are 
 ' vicissitudes of luminous and opaque parts." LIFE OF MILTON., 
 
If the higher principles of poetry be thus eternal, 
 it follows that he who exerts his talents on the 
 / highest poetical subject; he who sustains a flight 
 -eyaaLlo that subject; who, in pursuing it, exe- 
 cutes, in the most perfect manner, the most sub- 
 lime subject; he who thus conceives and executes 
 such, and so great, a subject, will stand superior 
 to him who may have displayed as much judg- 
 ment and powers of execution on a gayer and more 
 evanescent theme; and therefore MILTON, and 
 DANTE, and HOMER, and SHAKESPEARE, must 
 stand, in the intrinsic excellence of their art, 
 superior to POPE. 
 
 As the critic cannot see why POPE may not be 
 classed in the same file with MILTON and DANTE, 
 we can only wonder, whilst he was so animated 
 with his subject, that he had not also put him in 
 the same file with HOMER and SOPHOCLES, for he 
 might with as much propriety have done one as 
 the other. 
 
 And now, Sir, one more word about " principles 
 " of poetry." Do you think that there is any art 
 which is not founded on " some invariable prin- 
 " ciples?" There are " invariable principles of 
 " painting," " invariable principles of poetry, "and 
 let me whisper to you, in every honest mind " in- 
 " variable principles of criticism/' two of which 
 are, not to deal dishonestly and fraudulently with 
 the arguments of the writer whose opinion you con- 
 
trovert ; not to cut the sentences in halves, and 
 and think to " reply" to them 
 
 " By a fool-born jest." 
 
 There is another " invariable principle' 9 of criti- 
 cism, which ought to be constantly kept in mind. 
 It is this, " not to write on a subject till you know 
 " a little about it !" 
 
 As to my own " principles of poetry," suffer me 
 to try once more to set you a little right. DAR- 
 WIN'S principle of trying poetry universally by 
 painting is limited and confined indeed; for, by 
 such a criterion, the highest part of poetry, whicn\ 
 relates to the imagination and passions, must be J 
 excluded. But, with rer.pect to the principles you 
 combat being limited and confined, nothing was 
 ever so remote from the truth. 
 
 The eye of the poet may be truly said to glance 
 from 
 
 " Earth to heaven, 
 " From heaven to earth." 
 
 The ideal and visible worlds are his province. In 
 the ideal, beings of imagination, connected with 
 images of terror, power, glory, beauty ; such as 
 " ride the storm," or " play in the plighted clouds," 
 wake at his bidding. In the visible world, objects 
 and pictures, the most magnificent, or the most 
 lovely in the works of GOD, are before him, all 
 passions, and affections, and emotions, and sym- 
 
C 88 ] 
 ft ? 
 
 pathies of the heart, are the great poet's peculiar 
 subjects.* The principles, then, I have built on, 
 when closely examined, will be found to be those 
 of LONGINUS and HORACE; which are derived 
 primarily from ETERNAL NATURE. But works of 
 ,art, which can only belong to the " visible diurnal 
 " sphere," are not excluded; these, however, be- 
 come poetical, as they associate more or less with 
 ideas of power, magnificence, beauty, all of which 
 have their origin in NATURE. Thus, " the aque- 
 " ducts, temples, obelisks," of which MILTON has 
 made so fine a use, become more poetical, as com- 
 bined with moral associations or picturesque effect. 
 
 To these succeed high moral satire, habits and 
 manners and characters of artificial life, which 
 may be, in the master's work, mixed and combined, 
 almost ad infinitum. 
 
 But as poetry approaches this province, it neces- 
 sarily assumes more the character of wit. And to 
 shew that this opinion will not' be the " TRIUMPH OF 
 " THE FUTURE," as this writer affectedly calls it, I 
 will quote only one passage from that critic, who 
 was the great sublime he drew, and who was, at 
 least, as true a critic &s himself: 
 
 " 1 have digressed thus far, for the sake of shewing- 
 as I observed before, that a decrease of the pathetic in 
 great orators and poets often ends in the MORAL KIND 
 
 * Yet, notwithstanding this, I am accused of confining all my 
 ideas of poetry to external nature ! 
 
f 89 ] 
 
 OF WRITING. Thus the Odyssey, furnishing us with 
 rules of morality, drawn from that course of life, which 
 the SUITORS lead in THE PALACE OF ULYSSES, has 
 in some degree the air of a COMEDY, where the various 
 MANNERS of men are INGENIOUSLY and FAITHFULLY 
 DESCRIBED." Lonyinus. 
 
 The reader will see from the sketch I have drawn, 
 that the works of art and manners of men are not 
 they were never thought of being excluded 
 from the province of poetry; but be they as poe- 
 tical as they may, the greater passions are more so, 
 and I only contenH for this; and "that, therefore, 
 POPE, exquisite as he is, cannot be ranked in the 
 same file with the poet of Macbeth, King Lear, or 
 Paradise Lost. As to my definition being limited, 
 1 would request to know whose definitions are 
 most limited, those which are bounded by the vast- 
 ness of heaven, or those which are confined to a 
 London square? 
 
 Now, I repeat, nothing was said by me about 
 " a criterion of talents!" It is probably as difficult 
 to write a good comedy as a fine tragedy to paint 
 a Falstaff as a Lear. POPE found it more difficult 
 to translate those parts of HOMER which were least 
 poetical ; but it is not these that placed HOMER on 
 his eternal throne. It may require, for aught I 
 know, as much talent to describe the " habits and 
 " manners of the suitors/' and their " in-door 
 " nature j" but where does the poetry (in the last 
 
[ 90 ] 
 
 books of the Odyssey) lie ? Every one will instantly 
 exclaim, in the half-famished dog that recognises 
 his old master, and dies, having seen him ; in the 
 affectionate wife, bending over the bow of her long- 
 lost husband ; in that husband, after so long an 
 absence, a forlorn stranger in his own hall, essaying 
 and bending it; in the cottage of Eumasus, &c. 
 These are scenes, upon which the feelings rest. 
 By my " theory," as the critic calls it, which is 
 only common sense, nothing is excluded. Pic- 
 tures, passions, characters, manners, habits, morals, 
 have all their places. But the characteristic dif- 
 ference, as far as poetry is concerned, is pointed out. 
 
 Having mentioned the Odyssey, and quoted what 
 LONGINUS has so justly said, I may here make 
 some observations on this subject, as they connect 
 themselves with what has been before laid down. 
 
 The Odyssey, indeed, as POPE truly says, is not 
 to be compared with the Iliad. " The poems are 
 " totally different, but both are master-pieces in 
 "their kind." Nor is the Rape of the Lock to 
 be compared with the Paradise Lost; but when 
 uncertain claims are made, these works are to be 
 taken into consideration, whether epic, tragic, 
 dramatic, moral, or pathetic, which place the poet 
 HIGHEST in his art,* supposing the execution of 
 either equal. 
 
 * We may here observe a remark of POPE on this* passage, in - 
 his postscript to the Odyssey. Of LONGINUS he says, " that iu 
 
C 91 1 
 
 Associations of Nature may be varied, com- 
 bined, mixed, almost to infinitude, yet the basis be 
 the same, as to poetical principles, which are re- 
 ferred through all to the source of what is sub- 
 
 " his own particular taste, and with respect to the SUBLIME, he 
 " (LONGINUS) preferred the Iliad/' &c. 
 
 But POPE adds this particular distinction, " that HORACE 
 " gives the preference rather to the Odyssey, in the Epistle to 
 44 Lollius, and in the Art of Poetry !" 
 
 It appears to me that POPE seemed to feel that the criticism of 
 LONGINUS on the sublime in poetry, and what he said of the in- 
 feriority of Banners to passions, touched his own character as a 
 poet, who certainly was more distinguished for painting " inau- 
 ' ners/' than reaching the great sublime of his art; and there- 
 fore he covertly brings in HORACE'S opinion, which he thinks is 
 in favour of a poem, a considerable part of which is founded on 
 manners. 
 
 But HORACE, in what he said of the Odyssey, either in the 
 Epistle to Loliius, or in the Art of Poetry, had not in view 
 poetry, but morals only. In the Epistle to Lollius, who appears 
 from the text to be a young man likely to be led away by his 
 passions, he especially points out the example of virtue and 
 wisdom: how Ulysses avoided the cup of Circe, and turned from 
 the song of the Syrens ! Then he proceeds to speak of the in- 
 temperance of the suitors, &c. Morals and not poetry were the 
 objects of this epistle, addressed to a young man, who thus 
 might learn from his own early studies, not so much the lessons 
 of taste, but, what he more needed, regulation of conduct. In 
 the Art of Poetry, when HORACE speaks particularly of the 
 unassuming introduction of the Odyssey, in opposition to the 
 bombast style which he reproves, he fixes the imagination 
 directly on the poetical parts of the Odyssey, arising from an 
 humble beginning, like fire rising from smoke, and expressly 
 says of HOMER, that from hence he draws 
 
 *' speciosa miracula, 
 " Antiphaten, Scyllam, et cum Cyclope Charybdin." 
 
 And HORACE has not left unrecorded his precise definition of 
 poetry, when he says ao distinctly, 
 
C 92 ] 
 
 lime, beautiful, and pathetic ; and thus, the eternal 
 line of poetic excellence will NOT " be defined by 
 " some arbitrary criterion" nor will the inquiry 
 terminate " in false criticism and absurd depre- 
 " ciation t " but by unvarying principles of <c JUST 
 " CRITICISM and FAIR APPRECIATION.** 
 
 Having thus examined in return this " true 
 " critic's'* theory, let me be indulged in comparing 
 what he calls " Mr. BOWLES'S Nature," and what 
 may surely call his IN-DOOR NATURE. 
 
 " Nature," he profoundly observes, " is a critical 
 " term which the BOWLES'S have been two thou- 
 " sand years EXPLAINING !'* 
 
 Who and what the BOWLES'S are, I know as 
 little as this arch-cockney, when he " sits down to 
 
 " Neque, si quis scribat, uti nos, 
 " Sermoni propiora, PUTES hunc esse Poetam. 
 " Ingenium cui sit, cui mens divinior, atque os 
 " Magna sonaturum, des NOMINIS HUJUS HONOREM." 
 
 And he brings an example more particular still, that there 
 might never be a misunderstanding of his meaning in appre- 
 ciating the high rank of the Father of Poetry : 
 
 " Non, si priores Mseonius tenet 
 " Sedes Homerus, Pindaricae latent, 
 " Ceseque et Alcaei minaces, 
 
 " Stesichorique graves Camoenae, 
 " Nee, si quid olim lusit Anacreon, 
 ** Delevit aetas; spirat adbuc amor, 
 " Vivuntque commissi calores 
 Molise fidibus puell*. v 
 
 Now, would any one think, that because HORACE gave the 
 first place to HOMER, he " depreciates" or sought to depreciate, 
 the exquisite beauty of SAPPHO? 
 
[ 93 ] 
 
 " square the circle," knows of Nature; but this I 
 am sure, the family of the BOWLES'S are honoured 
 by the remark, inasmuch as they may be con- 
 sidered lovers of the great prototype of all that is 
 sublime or beautiful in art. 
 
 If any " explanation" were necessary, the 
 BOWLES'S need not be consulted, when even in 
 criticism the expressive language was at hand, from 
 authority that will not be doubted : 
 
 * First, follow NATURE, and your judgment frame 
 4 By ber just standard, WHICH is STILL the same. 
 1 UNERRING NATURE, still divinely bright, 
 ' One clear, unchanged, and universal light, 
 ' Life, force, and beauty, must to all impart, 
 " At once the SOURCE, and END, and TEST, of ART ! !" 
 
 Essay on Criticism. 
 
 This general opinion, thus admirably and ele- 
 gantly expressed, will be quite sufficient to justify 
 me in what I have laid down, even if it should not 
 be so clear as I wish to make it; and if the 
 BOWLES'S have been for two thousand years ringing 
 chimes and changes on the term " Nature," they 
 may well imagine that some few others may indeed 
 hope to succeed in their '-favourite studies of 
 " squaring the circle," before they can compre- 
 hend it certainly they must look beyond that 
 "Nature" which is bounded by "four walls!" 
 and which, blind to the magnificence of the 
 Creation, they facetiously designate as " In-door" 
 " Nature/* and think a poet, who preferred this 
 
[ 94 ] 
 
 Nature, to be in the same FILE with HOMER, and 
 SHAKESPEARE, and MILTON, and DANTE I 
 
 Turning from a critic of this description, I 
 would here address some particular observations to 
 the reader. 
 
 Mr. CAMPBELL made an unfortunate appeal to 
 MILTON, with respect to his having, in his sub- 
 limest parts of Paradise Lost, drawn images from 
 art. I hope to be excused, if, in speaking on this 
 point, I examine somewhat more closely MILTON'S 
 examples in general. 
 
 There are some passages which, without con- 
 sidering the cause, strike almost every reader with 
 a kind of instinctive and involuntary dislike. 
 Some of these passages will perhaps instantly occur. 
 Who does not draw back with peculiar distaste 
 from those passages where the Satanic army bring 
 their great guns charged with the gunpowder? 
 Why is this? Because an image of art is brought 
 too close, and too immediately and distinctly to our 
 view! The same may be said, when the Creator 
 applies the " golden compasses" to mark the orb 
 of the world ! The image is taken from art, and 
 brought too distinctly into our view! The same 
 may be said, when Death and Sin build a " bridge" 
 from Hell to this world! 
 
 These images from art are all too manifestly 
 and too minutely in sight. But this is not the 
 case in general, where MILTON introduces images 
 
[ 95 ] 
 
 from art. They are placed before us, if I may 
 say so, by a single evanescent touch you are not 
 left to dwell on them and most commonly some 
 epithet is added, to generalise , them with higher 
 imagery. 
 
 Thus, if the trumpet is mentioned, an indistinct 
 grandeur is given to it by the epithet " the ARCH- 
 " ANGEL trumpet." The wheels of the brazen 
 chariot are alive " The madding wheels of brazen 
 " chariots raged. " 
 
 If Satan lifts his shield, it is the " rocky orb 
 " of vast circumference." The " swords" are 
 " fiery ;" the " shields," " two BRIGHT SUNS, 
 
 " THAT BLAZE Opposite." 
 
 The adjunct, generally taken from some mag- 
 nificent object in Nature subdues what has a 
 too mechanical appearance, and this tends to exalt 
 the image, as well as to prevent the imagination 
 dwelling too minutely on it. 
 
 Gold, the most precious stones, are often added 
 as epithets, where the naked image from art wants 
 exalting : in other cases, a word is joined for the 
 sake of taking off and shadowing, if I may say so 
 the too distinctive glare of an artificial image. 
 
 It is for want of attending to this nice propriety, 
 Cwhich in MILTON, with the exception of some 
 passages, appears instinctive,) that COWLEY is 
 generally so absurd in his imagery, as when he 
 makes art and nature coachman and postillion, &c. 
 
[ 96 ] 
 
 If COWLEY had used the image of the angel 
 unfurling Satan's standard from the " staff, 9 ' he 
 would, probably, have minutely described it. 
 MILTON scarce touches the image ; but how does 
 he instantly exalt it, by associating it with the 
 most striking and awful image from Nature : 
 
 " A Cherub tall, 
 
 " Who, forthwith, from the glittering staff unfurl'd 
 " The Imperial ensign, which, full high advanced, 
 " Shone, like a meteor, streaming to the tcindl" 
 
 The building of Pandemonium is associated with 
 ideas of super-earthly POWER. When it rises 
 
 " LIKE AN EXHALATION, to the sound 
 " Of dulcet symphonies/' 
 
 every thing accords with the ideas of immense size 
 and grandeur. 
 
 Is not this in some measure destroyed, when 
 MILTON speaks more minutely of pilasters, and 
 Doric pillars, and architraves, and cornice, and 
 frieze? And how repulsive is the image (it is to 
 me) of Belial himself digging out the gold, pound- 
 ing the ore, and scumming the dross ; and the 
 simile of the " sound- board," and row of pipes 
 of the organ ! 
 
 One image is peculiar, and very sublime, in the 
 use of an image drawn from art, where Satan 
 
 " above the rest, 
 
 " In shape and gesture proudly eminent, 
 " Stood, LIKE A TOW'K." 
 
 Here is an instant image of immoveable strength : 
 but if the " tower'* had been particularised, by one 
 
C 97 ] 
 
 stroke introducing battlements, pinnacles, corbels, 
 &c. the image would have lost so much grandeur ; 
 but " stood, like a tower," at once conveys a dis- 
 tinct idea of stately and immoveable strength, 
 by a single word ; and it may here be observed, 
 having spoken of the " sounding-board" of an organ, 
 that almost all musical instruments, as sounding, 
 (not otherwise,) are poetical. Why? Because the 
 sound instantly assimilates itself with some kindred 
 feeling or passion as the flute with tenderness, 
 the viol with sprightliness, the trumpet with heroic 
 animation. Scott, of Amwell, has made a fine 
 and original use of the drum by the association of 
 sadness and pity 
 
 " I hate that drum's discordant sound, 
 " Parading round, and round, and round." 
 
 The late Mrs. SHERIDAN has given to the sound 
 " of the violin" a poetical feeling, which is as new 
 as beautiful and affecting, where she speaks of her 
 brother, bringing forth those tones that live beyond 
 the touch! 
 
 " Ah! who, like him, can teach the liquid notes, 
 " So soft, so sweet, so eloquently clear, 
 
 " To LIVE BEYOND THE TOUCH, Elld gently float 
 
 " In dying modulations on the ear. 7 " 
 
 But let us look a little farther abroad. 
 
 Take any work of art,, how little, considered as 
 a work of art, can you make it POETICAL, without 
 adjuncts from Nature ! 
 
 H 
 
C 98 ] 
 
 Take useful or decorative architecture, statuary, 
 pictures, carvings, music, bridges, aqueducts, 
 canals, &c. 
 
 Take an elegant mansion, or an old abbey : It 
 would be ridiculous to say which, as an object, is 
 most poetical. Undoubtedly that which is ren- 
 dered more interesting by various moral associations 
 and picturesque beauty. Time, that leans on the 
 reft battlements, brings with it a thousand asso- 
 ciations of sublimity and melancholy. These are 
 most poetically affecting ! Even external adven- 
 titious circumstances of Nature make the picture 
 more peculiarly and intensely interesting: 
 
 if Scarce a sickly straggling flower 
 
 ' Decks the rough castle's rifled tower." WARTON. 
 
 " He, who would see Melrose aright, 
 
 *' Must see it by the pale moonlight."' SCOTT. 
 
 But, one of the finest pictures of modern poetry, 
 where Nature makes the works of art so much 
 more effectually poetical, is to be found in the 
 Gladiator dying in the Coliseum, who remembers, 
 as he dies, " the scenes of his infancy, the hut of 
 " his mother, on the banks of the Danube." 
 
 " I see before me the Gladiator lie : 
 " He leans upon his hand his manly brow ; 
 " Consents to death, but conquers agony, 
 " And bis droop'd head sinks gradually low : 
 " And from his side the last drops, ebbing slow 
 " From the sad gash, fall heavy, one by one, 
 
u Like the first drops of a thunder-shower; and now 
 " The arena swims around him. He is gone 
 " Kre ceased the inhuman sound which bail'd the wretch 
 who won. 
 
 " He heard it, but he heeded not. His eyes 
 
 "Were with his heart, and that was far away: 
 
 ' He reck'd not of the life he lost, nor prize ; 
 
 " But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, 
 
 " There were his young barbarians all at play, 
 
 " There was their Dacian mother. He, their sire, 
 
 " Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday ! 
 
 " AH this rush'd with his blood. Shall he expire, 
 
 " And unaveng'd .' Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire,"* 
 
 In the " Faithful Shepherdess" of BEAUMONT 
 and FLETCHER are two similes, immediately suc- 
 ceeding each other, one from a beautiful image 
 in nature, the other from a common one of human 
 art 
 
 Holy virgin, I will dance 
 
 Round about these woods as quick 
 
 As THE BREAKING LIGHT, and prick 
 
 Down the lawns, and down the vales, 
 Faster than the WIND-MILL SAILS !" 
 
 It is the " sails careering in the wind" that gives 
 such poetical effect to the last image. How ex- 
 quisite is a picture from the finest poem of the 
 present age 
 
 " It was thf hour 
 
 " Of vespers, but no vesper-bell was lu-ard, 
 '* Nor other SOUND, than of the passing si ream, 
 " Or stork, who, flapping with aide wing' t/te aiV, 
 " Sought her broad next upon the SII.KNT tower." SoiJTHEY. 
 
 * This has been already spoken of. 
 II 2 
 
A clock, as a work of art, is not very poetical ; 
 but its sound at night is poetical in the highest 
 degree: more so when associated with moral feel- 
 ings the time past the time perpetually going 
 on Why is this ? Because we hear the sound 
 
 " As if an angel spoke." 
 
 A striking circumstance of this kind is to be 
 found in Wilson's City of the Plague. The clock 
 is motionless! There is no poetry in this circum- 
 stance, abstractedly; but how deeply, how affect- 
 ingly, is it rendered poetry, when the circumstance 
 that has caused it to cease is taken into con- 
 sideration, and is felt to be the strongest proof of 
 the death and silence of a multitudinous city almost 
 devastated ! 
 
 This point is so certain, so clear, that I feel 
 almost lessened in self-estimation, that it should 
 appear necessary to bring any proof of what ninety- 
 nine men in a hundred, of common sense and 
 taste, acknowledge and feel. 
 
 The two greatest works of art that are intro- 
 duced in ancient poetry are the carved cup in 
 THEOCRITUS, and the shield of Achilles in 
 HOMER. But how is the description of these 
 works of art rendered more peculiarly poetical, by 
 animating them, by making the objects repre- 
 sented in them live, and become as if a part of 
 Nature! The dead carving is not remembered, 
 
[ 101 ] 
 
 when we see the old fisher, with his swelling 
 muscles, near the gray rock, not on the cup, but 
 as in the very landscapes of Nature. It is the 
 same in the shield: the creation, the sun, the 
 moon, the concourse of citizens, the shepherds, 
 &c. all are represented, not as in dead art, but as 
 living and moving. And it is this necessity of 
 losing as much as possible the idea of the work of 
 art, and fixing the eye and thought on the works 
 of Nature herself, which give the only interesting 
 and most poetical charm. 
 
 This position has been disputed in two literary 
 journals, to which we have been taught to look for 
 sound principles of critical investigation. 
 
 The first, the Edinburgh Review, now admits 
 what it at fyrst did not : at least, in the review of 
 CAMPBELL'S Specimens, it is said, 
 
 " They incline to my opinion!" I have no 
 doubt, the more they think of it, or the more Mr. 
 JEFFREY thinks of it, the more he will be inclined 
 to admit it. I have the same opinion of the most 
 intelligent writers of the Quarterly Review, and 
 indeed of every one, except that " unfortunate 
 u wight" who was permitted to " fret his hour 
 " upon the stage," to talk such strange nonsense 
 about " In-door Nature!!" 
 
 To this gentleman I shall now point out, by way 
 of apology for representations that may be to him 
 as dark as Muggletonian dreams, some images 
 
[ 102 ] 
 
 both from Art arid Nature, which himself may 
 estimate. 
 
 COWLEY calls Nature a postillion, and Art a 
 coachman : 
 
 " Let the postillion, NATURE, mount, and let 
 " The coachman, ART, be set ." 
 
 COWLEY, whose " language of the heart" we still 
 love, notwithstanding these vagaries, seems very 
 fond of images drawn from " in-door" nature. 
 So he says, speaking of the " blue sky/' it 
 would make an admirable waistcoat for an arch- 
 angel : 
 
 *' He cuts out a silk tnantle from the skies, 
 '* Where the most sprightly azure pleas'd the eyes." 
 
 A rainbow also forms a most elegant scarf, 
 jitted, from the same pattern, with the same scis- 
 sars of art : 
 
 " Of a new rainbow, eve it fret and fade, 
 
 " The choicest piece cur our, a scarf is made. 3 * 
 
 HORACE says, 
 
 " NATURAM expellas furca, tamen usque redibit;" 
 
 and even here, in spite of C OWLET'S bad taste, 
 which I have no doubt the critic will approve, 
 NATURE steps in, and we have one beautiful 
 image, " the rainbow, ere it fret and fade!" 
 
 To turn from the poet to the critic, I have no 
 doubt some of the images from art here brought 
 
[ 103 ] 
 
 together, have been much more clear to him, and 
 much more satisfactory, than the " dreams," of 
 which our extracts from works of poetry were 
 before filled. 
 
 Thus, Art, the postillion, and Nature, the coach- 
 man, and the angel in a new cloak of SKY-BLUE, 
 must have been images probably congenial to his 
 heart ; and who can leave the subject without en- 
 deavouring to impress on the imagination, that 
 perhaps the most sublime image of all the works of 
 " in-door nature," is that " king of shreds and 
 " patches, " who once, for a sight of " rural 
 " nature," went as far as BRENTFORD! and as this 
 heroic personage is, doubtless, of all images of " in- 
 " door nature" the most sublime; so the " bird" 
 which attends him, though not so sublime as 
 " ministrum fulminis alitem" must be admitted, 
 of all images of in-door Nature, to be the most 
 beautiful. 
 
 This bird, which in poetical beauty " arches its 
 " head" more than " certain swans," is vulgarly 
 called a goose; and if the terrible be thought as 
 necessary for this poetical assemblage, " Hell" 
 yawns from beneath, 
 
 " Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo /" 
 
 As I would have the critical admirer of the 
 SUBLIME, and BEAUTIFUL, and TERRIBLE, of " in- 
 " door" nature, to be like the LONGINUS of POPE, 
 
 " The great sublime he draws," 
 
[ 101 ] 
 
 J know not how I could better please him, than by 
 comparing him with that emblem of " in-door" 
 beauty attendant on its triumphant master, and 
 generally described " as hot as heavy," the GOOSE! ! 
 
 Begging the reader to pardon this involuntary 
 association, I must proceed to expose, not criticism, 
 but that which is worse than absurdity, the utter 
 destitution of all feelings fair and honourable as a 
 controversialist. I must expose a species of du- 
 plicity, which has no example in the character of 
 him whom this writer defends, and whom, I fear, 
 from the soreness which he evinces, when some 
 obvious parts of his character are touched, he more 
 nearly resembles. I make the following remarks on 
 the criticism in the Quarterly Review with pain. 
 
 Reader, in the " Invariable Principles of Poetry*' 
 this passage occurs : 
 
 " Now I would put to you a few plain questions ; 
 and 1 would beseech you not to ask whether I mean 
 this or that, for I think you must now understand what 
 I do mean. I would beseech you also not to write beside 
 the question, but answer simply and plainly whether you 
 think that the sylph of POPE, " trembling over the froth 
 " of a coffee-cup/' be an image as poetical as the deli- 
 cate and quaint Ariel, who sings 
 
 " Where the bee sucks, there lurk I ;" 
 or the elves of SHAKESPEARE 
 
 " Spirits of another sort, 
 " That with the morning light make sport." 
 
[ 10.5 ] 
 
 " Whether you think the description of a game of 
 cards be as poetical, supposing the execution, in the 
 artists equal, as a description of a walk in a forest ; 
 Whether an age of refinement be as conducive to pic- 
 tures of poetry, as a period less refined? Whether 
 passions, affections, &c., of the human heart, be not a 
 higher source of what is pathetic or sublime in poetry, 
 than manners and habits, or manners that apply only to 
 artificial life? 
 
 " If you agree with me, it is all I meant to say ; if not, 
 we difler, and always shall, on the principles of poetical 
 criticism." 
 
 I believe most sincerely that every reader, with- 
 out exception, will understand my meaning in the 
 passage, when taken together. 
 
 But the critic in the Quarterly Review takes the 
 first sentence, and no more then makes a poor and 
 affected banter, that " Mr. BOWLES wants explain- 
 " ing himself; 99 when, but for this his dishonest 
 and dishonourable stratagem, no one would or 
 could have doubted his meaning ! 
 
 This is what a writer, who has written " On 
 " the Quarrels of Authors," calls " breaking up a 
 " sentence," for the purpose of securing a momen- 
 tary " mock-triumph !" Are such " arts" of 
 criticism, well as they seem to be understood, 
 worthy a scholar a gentleman ? worthy a publi- 
 cation as distinguished as the Quarterly Review ? 
 
 Well might this same writer say, " We suspect 
 " Mr. BOWLES does not like criticism !" 
 
C 100 i 
 
 Such criticism, connected with such stratagems, 
 he " DOES NOT LIKE," and trusts he never shall. 
 
 What this " TRUE CRITIC, of ENLARGED views," 
 calls " FASHIONABLE CRITICISM," is, in general, 
 equally abhorrent from the principles of every 
 upright man; and, distinguished as are some of 
 the masterly and eloquent articles in the Quarterly 
 Review, as far as poetry and works of taste are 
 concerned, the writers have at least evinced their 
 sincerity in one respect, that is, to have " NO PRIN- 
 " CIPLES" at all ! either in poetry or criticism. 
 
 Having thus replied to what appears most essential 
 in the criticism of the Quarterly, I would willingly 
 part with my Reviewer; but a few words more may 
 be added on his concluding observations respecting 
 the poetical character of him whose life and 
 writings have caused these animadversions. 
 
 It is said, " In vain would our populace of poets 
 " estrange themselves from POPE, because 
 
 " He stoop'd to truth, and moralized his song." 
 
 Answer. Where he stoop'd to truth, and 
 moralized his song, his province is no longer that 
 of imagination and PASSION ; it is, and it must be, 
 f truth and morals, > and not " imagination and 
 " passion/' the highest sources of the terrible, 
 sublime, pathetic, and beautiful in poetry. But 
 who, " among the populace of poets," would 
 *' estrange" themselves from POPE I know not. 
 He has attained an unquestioned, an unrivalled 
 
[ 107 1 
 
 place, in his own line of poetry, from which I 
 should pity any one who could wish or attempt 
 to remove him. His excellence in his art is un- 
 rivalled, and I, for one, have admitted that he 
 stands before every poet in his line of art, ancient 
 or modern. 
 
 Is HORACE no great poet? Is JUVENAL no 
 great poet ? Are OVID, TIBULLUS, CATULLUS, 
 no great poets ? I have already said, and I must 
 repeat, his Eloisa stands as much above the elegies 
 of CATULLUS, TIBULLUS, and OVID, as his satires 
 are above those of JUVENAL and HORACE. Will 
 the reader believe, I have said this distinctly and 
 unreservedly before ? 
 
 If, in looking over what is remarked speci- 
 fically of the Satires, I have dwelt too much on his 
 bitter tone of personal invective, it was not for want 
 of feeling his beauties that I did not say more, but 
 because I thought, on these points, it was excel- 
 lence that all admitted. I have endeavoured to 
 shew upon what principles his line of poetry could 
 not be pronounced the most excellent, whilst 
 HOMER, and SHAKESPEARE, and SOPHOCLES, and 
 EURIPIDES, live ; and to prevent that confusion 
 which often arises when we pronounce that this 
 poet, or that painter, is at the head of his art ! 
 But, I should think that not only the " populace 
 " of poets," but all who have any discriminating 
 sense and taste j who, whilst they know what 
 
[ 108 ] 
 
 distinguishes MILTON and DANTE, know also what 
 distinguishes POPE; who read him, and recur to 
 him, as much as they do who think he is " dis- 
 " paraged," have admitted, and cheerfully admit, 
 " that he carried his art to the highest point of 
 " excellence," as far as his own excellence, in his 
 own line, was concerned ; that all who went be- 
 fore, in this line, never reached, and all who come 
 after probably never will reach, this excellence ; 
 that he will still remain unrivalled for " the cor- 
 " rectness and delicacy of his taste, as well as the 
 " vigour of his judgment;" that in " poetical ex- 
 " pression" and versification, (with some abate- 
 ments in the latter,) he will be superior, as long 
 as poetical expression and exquisite versification 
 distinguish his species of excellence; but that, 
 nevertheless, " nature," not manners passion and 
 imagination, not " truth" or morals will afford 
 the highest specimens of the works of a great poet, 
 provided the execution equals the subject, in spite 
 of Quarterly Reviewers and all the FAMILY of 
 GILCHRISTS, or DISRAELIS, in the world ! 
 
 Printed by Richard Crattwel), 
 St. James's-Street, Bath. 
 
_^ 
 

 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY