COLIN AND LUCY.
Through all Tickell's works there is a strain of
ballad-thinking, if I may so express it; and, in this professed
ballad, he seems to have surpassed himself. It is, perhaps, the
best in our language in this way.
THE TEARS OF SCOTLAND. WRITTEN IN THE YEAR MDCCXLVI.
This ode, by Dr. Smollett, does rather more honour to the
author's feelings than his taste. The mechanical part, with
regard to numbers and language, is not so perfect as so short a
work as this requires; but the pathetic it contains,
particularly in the last stanza but one, is exquisitely fine.
ON THE DEATH OF THE LORD PROTECTOR.
Our poetry was not quite harmonized in Waller's time; so that
this, which would be now looked upon as a slovenly sort of
versification, was, with respect to the times in which it was
written, almost a prodigy of harmony. A modern reader will
chiefly be struck with the strength of thinking, and the turn of
the compliments bestowed upon the usurper.
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