all
good things, with the lowest possible bathos, baldness, and imbecility,
as to render it not a matter of doubt that the average results of mind
in such a school will be found inferior to those results in one
(_ceteris paribus_) more artificial.

We cannot bring ourselves to believe that the selections of the "Book of
Gems" are such as will impart to a poetical reader the clearest possible
idea of the beauty of the _school_--but if the intention had been merely
to show the school's character, the attempt might have been considered
successful in the highest degree. There are long passages now before us
of the most despicable trash, with no merit whatever beyond that of
their antiquity. The criticisms of the editor do not particularly please
us. His enthusiasm is too general and too vivid not to be false. His
opinion, for example, of Sir Henry's Wotton's "Verses on the Queen of
Bohemia"--that "there are few finer things in our language," is
untenable and absurd.

In such lines we can perceive not one of those higher attributes of
Poesy which belong to her in all circumstances and throughout all time.
Here everything is art, nakedly, or but awkwardly concealed. No
prepossession for the mere antique (and in this case we can imagine no
other prepossession) should induce us to dignify with the sacred name of
poetry, a series, such as this, of elaborate and threadbare compliments,
stitched, apparently, together, without fancy, without plausibility, and
without even an attempt at adaptation.

In common with all the world, we have been much delighted with "The
Shepherd's Hunting" by Withers--a poem partaking, in a remarkable
degree, of the peculiarities of 'Il Penseroso'. Speaking of Poesy, the
author says:

"By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least boughs rustleling,
By a daisy whose leaves spread,
Shut when Titan goes to bed,
Or a shady bush or tree,
She could more infuse in me
Than all Nature's beauties con
In some other wiser man.
By her help I also now
Make this churlish place allow
Something that may sweeten gladness
In the very gall of sadness--
The dull loneness, the black shade,
That these hanging vaults have made
The strange music of the waves
Beating on these hollow caves,
This black den which rocks emboss,
Overgrown with eldest moss,
The rude portals that give light
More to terror than delight,
This my chamber of neglect
Walled about with disrespect;