What then remains? Chiefly
this. In one class of writing, liveliness of witty banter, along with
neatness; and, in the other and ostensibly more permanent class, elegance,
also along with neatness. Reduce these qualities to one denomination, and
we come to something that may be called "Propriety": a sufficiently
disastrous "raw material" for the purposes of a poet, and by no means
loftily to be praised or admired even when regarded as the outer
investiture of a nobler poetic something within. But let desert of every
kind have its place, and welcome. In the cosmical diapason and august
orchestra of poetry, Tom Moore's little Pan's-pipe can at odd moments be
heard, and interjects an appreciable and rightly-combined twiddle or two.
To be gratified with these at the instant is no more than the instrument
justifies, and the executant claims: to think much about them when the
organ is pealing or the violin plaining (with a Shelley performing on the
first, or a Mrs. Browning on the second), or to be on the watch for their
recurrences, would be equally superfluous and weak-minded.
CONTENTS
Advertisement.
After the Battle.
Alarming Intelligence.
Alciphron: a Fragment.
Letter I. From Alciphron at Alexandria to Cleon at Athens.
II. From the Same to the Same.
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