Famous Reviews by Unknown
page 165 of 625 (26%)
page 165 of 625 (26%)
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their father's grave. Never was anything, however, more miserable....
The next is a very tedious, affected performance, called "The Yarrow Unvisited." ... After this we come to some ineffable compositions, which the poet has entitled, "Moods of my own Mind." ... We have then a rapturous mystical ode to the Cuckoo; in which the author, striving after force and originality, produces nothing but absurdity ... after this there is an address to a butterfly.... We come next to a long story of a "Blind Highland Boy," who lived near an arm of the sea, and had taken a most unnatural desire to venture on that perilous element. His mother did all she could to prevent him; but one morning, when the good woman was out of the way, he got into a vessel of his own, and pushed out from the shore. In such a vessel ne'er before Did human creature leave the shore. II, p. 72. And then we are told, that if the sea should get rough, "a beehive would be ship as safe." "But say, what was it?" a poetical interlocutor is made to exclaim most naturally; and here followeth the answer, upon which all the pathos and interest of the story depend. A HOUSEHOLD TUB, like one of those Which women use to wash their clothes!! II, p. 72. This, it will be admitted, is carrying the matter as far as it will go; nor is there anything,--down to the wiping of shoes or the evisceration of chickens, which may not be introduced in poetry, if this is tolerated.... Afterwards come some stanzas about an echo repeating a cuckoo's |
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