Ephemera Critica; Or, Plain Truths About Current LiteratureCollins, John Churton
History
Ephemera Critica; Or, Plain Truths About Current Literature
Collins, John Churton
Criticism; English literature -- History and criticism; Literature -- History and criticism
As Wordsworth said, “Dyer’s beauties are innumerable and of a high
order.” It is very surprising that nothing should have been said about
Shenstone and the Wartons, about Scott of Amwell, Jago, Crowe and
Bowles, all of whom are, in various ways, remarkable as descriptive
poets. And certainly Mr. Palgrave does scant justice to Cowper; his
touch may be prosaic, but he always had his eye on the object, and his
landscape lives. Surely, by the way, Mr. Palgrave is mistaken in
supposing that Shelley apparently understood Alastor to mean a
“wanderer”; he understood it, as the preface shows, to mean, what it
means so often in Greek, “one under the spell of an avenging deity.”
Here we must break off. Mr. Palgrave’s is an important work, and it is
the duty, therefore, of a critic to review it seriously, in the hope
that, should it reach a second edition, which may be confidently
anticipated, Mr. Palgrave may be disposed to do a little more justice to
his most interesting subject.
Since this article was written Mr. Palgrave’s lamented death
has unhappily rendered all hope of what was anticipated in the
last paragraph, vain. But the review has been reprinted, and
with some additions, in the hope that it may not be
unacceptable as a contribution, however slight and imperfect,
to a subject of great interest to lovers of poetry.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 32: See Bergk, Poet. Lyr. _Carm._ Pop. xxix.]
[Footnote 33: Nauck, _Trag. Græc. Frag._, p. 473.]
AN APPRECIATION OF PROFESSOR PALGRAVE
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