is like _nought on earth_ we ever read but Dean Swift's song of similes.
I _will prove_, he says, that
A swan--
A fawn--
An artless lamb--
A hawthorn tree--
A willow--
A laburnum--
A dream--
A rainbow--
Diana--
Aurora--
A dove that _singeth_--
A lily,--and finally,
Venus herself!
--I in truth will prove
These are not _half_ so _fair_ as she I love.
_Sonnet_ iii, p. 43.
Such heterogeneous compliments remind us of Shacabac's gallantry to
_Beda_ in _Blue Beard:_ "Ah, you little rogue, you have a prettier mouth
_than an elephant_, and you know it!"--A _fawn-coloured_ countenance
rivalling in _fairness a laburnum_ blossom, seems to us a more dubious
type of female beauty than even an elephant's mouth.
_Love_, it may be said, has carried away better poets and graver men
than Mr. Moxon seems to be, into such namby-pamby nonsense; but Mr.
Moxon is just as absurd in his _grief_ or his _musings_, as in his
_love_.
When he hears a nightingale--"sad Philomel!"--he concludes that the bird
was originally created for no other purpose than to prophesy in Paradise
_the fall of man_, or, as he chooses to collocate the words,
_Prophetic_ to have mourned of _man_ the _fall_,--p. 9.
but he does not tell us what she has been doing ever since.
When he sees two Cumberland streams--the Brathay and Rothay--flowing
down, first to a confluence, and afterwards to the sea, he fancies "a
_soul-knit_ pair," man and wife, mingling their waters and gliding to
their final haven--
in kindred love,
The haven Contemplation sees _above_!
_Below_, he would--following his allegory--have said; but rhyme forbade--
and _allegories_ are not _so headstrong_ on the banks of the Brathay as
on those of the _Nile_.
A sonnet on Thomson's grave is a fine specimen of empty sounds and solid
nonsense:--
Whene'er I linger, Thomson, near thy tomb,
Where _Thamis_--
"_Classic Cam_" will be somewhat amazed to hear his learned brother
called _Thamis_--
Where Thamis urges his majestic way,
And the Muse loves at twilight hour to stray,
I think how in thy theme ALL _seasons_ BLOOM;--
What, all four?--_autumn_, nay, _winter_--blooming?
What _heart_ so cold that of thy fame has _heard_,
And _pauses_ not to _gaze_ upon each scene.
We are inclined to be very indulgent to what is called a confusion of
metaphors, when it arises from a rush of ideas--but when it is produced
by an author's having no idea at all, we can hardly forgive him for
equipping the _Heart_ with eyes, ears, and legs:--he might just as well
have said that on entering Twickenham church to visit the tomb, every
_Heart_ would take off _its hat_, and on going out again would put _its
hand_ in _its pockets_ to fee the sexton.
And pauses not to gaze upon each scene
That was familiar to thy raptured view,
Those walks beloved by thee while I pursue,
Musing upon the years that intervene--
Why this line _intervenes_ or what it means we do not see--it seems
inserted just to make up the number--
Methinks, as eve descends, a hymn of praise
To thee, their bard, the _sister Seasons_ raise!
That is, as we understand it, ALL the _Seasons meet together_ on one or
more evenings of the year, to sing a hymn to the memory of Thompson.
This _simultaneous entree_ of the Four Seasons would be a much more
appropriate fancy for the opera stage than for Twickenham meadows.
Such are the tame extravagances--the vapid affectations--the unmeaning
mosaic which Mr. Moxon has laboriously tesselated into fifty and four
sonnets. If he had been--as all this childishness at first led us to
believe--a very young man--we should have discussed the matter with him
in a more conciliatory and persuasive tone; but we find that he is, what
we must call, an old offender. We have before us two little volumes of
what he entitles poetry--one dated 1826, and the other 1829--which,
though more laughable, are not in substance more absurd than his new
production. From the first of these we shall extract two or three
stanzas of the introductory poem, not only on account of their intrinsic
merit, but because they state, pretty roundly, Mr. Moxon's principles of
poetry. He modestly disclaims all rivalry with Pope, Byron, Moore,
Campbell, Scott, Rogers, Goldsmith, Dryden, Gray, Spenser, Milton, and
Shakespeare; but he, at the same time, intimates that he follows, what
he thinks, a truer line of poetry than the before-named illustrious,
but, in this point, _mistaken_ individuals.
'Tis not a poem with learning fraught,
To that I ne'er pretended;
Nor yet with Pope's fine touches wrought,
_From that my time prevented_.