While we admit, then,
that we have to blame our own forbearance in some degree for its
appearance, we think it our duty to take this opportunity of amending
our code of criticism, and shall try the volume simply as it stands, and
somewhat according to the good old principles of literary jurisprudence.

We are further instigated to this act of duty by the laudatory terms in
which the volume has been hailed by certain contemporary journalists.
Had Mr Patmore's injudicious friends not thought proper to announce him
to the world as the brightest rising star in the poetical firmament of
Young England, we would probably have allowed his effusions to die of
their own utter insignificance. But since they have acted as they have
done, we too must be permitted to express our opinion of their merits;
and our deliberate judgment is, that the weakest inanity ever
perpetrated in rhyme by the vilest poetaster of any former generation,
becomes masculine verse when contrasted with the nauseous pulings of Mr
Patmore's muse. Indeed, we question whether the strains of any poetaster
can be considered vile, when brought into comparison with this
gentleman's verses. His silly and conceited rhapsodies rather make us
sigh for the good old times when all poetry, below the very highest, was
made up of artifice and conventionalism; when all poets, except the very
greatest, spoke a hereditary dialect of their own, which nobody else
interfered with--counted on their fingers every line they penned, and
knew no inspiration except that which they imbibed from Byssh's rhyming
dictionary. True that there was then no life or spirit in the poetical
vocabulary--true that there was no nature in the delineations of our
minor poets; but better far was such language than the slip-slop
vulgarities of the present rhymester--better far that there should be no
nature in poetry, than _such_ nature as Mr Patmore has exhibited for the
entertainment of his readers.

The first poem in the volume, entitled "The River," is a tale of
disappointed love, terminating in the suicide of the lover. Poor and
pointless as this performance is, it is by far the best in the book. As
Mr Patmore advances, there is a marked increase of silliness and
affectation in his effusions, which shows how sedulously he has
cultivated the art of sinking in poetry; and that the same adage which
has been applied to vice, may be applied also to folly, "_Nemo repente
fuit stultissimus_." Never was th