FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134  
135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   >>   >|  
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
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134  
135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Patmore
 

volume

 

poetry

 

nature

 

poetical

 
poetaster
 
effusions
 

applied

 
penned
 

imbibed


dictionary

 

rhyming

 
fingers
 

inspiration

 
artifice
 

conventionalism

 
stultissimus
 
highest
 

repente

 

greatest


interfered

 

counted

 

spirit

 

dialect

 

hereditary

 

disappointed

 

silliness

 

increase

 

entitled

 

readers


marked

 
pointless
 

performance

 

advances

 

terminating

 
suicide
 

entertainment

 
exhibited
 

cultivated

 
delineations

sinking
 

sedulously

 
present
 
rhymester
 

affectation

 

vulgarities

 
language
 

vocabulary

 
Indeed
 

journalists