imputation of degenerating in poetry, were there no such beings extant
as Burns, and Bowles, Cowper, and ----, ---- fill up the blank how you
please; I say nothing. The subject is well chosen; it opens well. To
become more particular, I will notice in their order a few passages that
chiefly struck me on perusal. Page 26: "Fierce and terrible
Benevolence!" is a phrase full of grandeur and originality, The whole
context made me feel _possessed_, even like Joan herself. Page 28: "It
is most horrible with the keen sword to gore the finely fibred human
frame," and what follows, pleased me mightily. In the second book, the
first forty lines in particular are majestic and high-sounding. Indeed,
the whole vision of the Palace of Ambition and what follows are
supremely excellent. Your simile of the Laplander, "By Niemi's lake, or
Balda Zhiok, or the mossy stone of Solfar-Kapper," [1] will bear
comparison with any in Milton for fulness of circumstance and
lofty-pacedness of versification. Southey's similes, though many of 'em
are capital, are all inferior. In one of his books, the simile of the
oak in the storm occurs, I think, four times. To return: the light in
which you view the heathen deities is accurate and beautiful. Southey's
personifications in this book are so many fine and faultless pictures. I
was much pleased with your manner of accounting for the reason why
monarchs take delight in war. At the 447th line you have placed Prophets
and Enthusiasts cheek by jowl, on too intimate a footing for the dignity
of the former. Necessarian-like-speaking, it is correct. Page 98: "Dead
is the Douglas! cold thy warrior frame, illustrious Buchan," etc., are
of kindred excellence with Gray's "Cold is Cadwallo's tongue," etc. How
famously the Maid baffles the Doctors, Seraphic and Irrefragable, "with
all their trumpery!" Page 126: the procession, the appearances of the
Maid, of the Bastard Son of Orleans, and of Tremouille, are full of fire
and fancy, and exquisite melody of versification. The personifications
from line 303 to 309, in the heat of the battle, had better been