"Stands in the sun, and with no partial gaze
Views all creation."
I wish I could have written those lines. I rejoice that I am able to
relish them. The loftier walks of Pindus are your proper region. There
you have no compeer in modern times. Leave the lowlands, unenvied, in
possession of such men as Cowper and Southey. Thus am I pouring balsam
into the wounds I may have been inflicting on my poor friend's vanity.
In your notice of Southey's new volume you omit to mention the most
pleasing of all, the "Miniature."
"There were
Who formed high hopes and flattering ones of thee,
Young Robert!"
"Spirit of Spenser! was the wanderer wrong?"
Fairfax I have been in quest of a long time. Johnson, in his "Life of
Waller," gives a most delicious specimen of him, and adds, in the true
manner of that delicate critic, as well as amiable man, "It may be
presumed that this old version will not be much read after the elegant
translation of my friend Mr. Hoole." I endeavored--I wished to gain some
idea of Tasso from this Mr. Hoole, the great boast and ornament of the
India House, but soon desisted. I found him more vapid than smallest
small beer "sun-vinegared." Your "Dream," down to that exquisite line,--
"I can't tell half his adventures,"
is a most happy resemblance of Chaucer. The remainder is so-so. The best
line, I think, is, "He belong'd, I believe, to the witch Melancholy.
Pages:
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90