But not even these stupidities would suffice to justify a total condemnation of the poetry of Mr. Dawes. We have known follies very similar committed by men of real ability, and have been induced to disregard them in earnest admiration of the brilliancy of the minor beauty of _style_. Simplicity, perspicuity and vigor, or a well-disciplined ornateness, of language, have done wonders for the reputation of many a writer really deficient in the higher and more essential qualities of the Muse. But upon these minor points of manner our poet has not even the shadow of a shadow to sustain him. His works, in this respect, may be regarded as a theatrical world of mere verbiage, somewhat speciously bedizzened with a tinselly meaning well adapted to the eyes of the rabble. There is not a page of any thing that he has written which will bear, for an instant, the scrutiny of a critical eye. Exceedingly fond of the glitter of metaphor, he has not the capacity to manage it, and, in the awkward attempt, jumbles together the most incongruous of ornament. Let us take any passage of “Geraldine” by way of exemplification. ——Thy rivers swell the sea— In one eternal diapason pour Thy cataracts the hymn of liberty, Teaching the clouds to thunder. Here we have cataracts teaching clouds to thunder—and how? By means of a hymn. Why should chromatic discord charm the ear And smiles and tears stream o’er with troubled joy? Tears may stream over, but not smiles. Then comes the breathing time of young Romance, The June of life, when summer’s earliest ray Warms the red arteries, that bound and dance With soft voluptuous impulses at play, While the full heart sends forth as from a hive A thousand winged messengers alive. Let us reduce this to a simple statement, and we have—what? The earliest ray of summer warming red arteries, which are bounding and dancing, and playing with a parcel of urchins, called voluptuous impulses, while the bee-hive of a heart attached to these dancing arteries is at the same time sending forth a swarm of its innocent little inhabitants. The eyes were like the sapphire of deep air, The garb that distance robes elysium in, But oh, so much of heaven lingered there The wayward heart forgot its blissful sin And worshiped all Religion well forbids Beneath the silken fringes of their lids. That _distance_ is _not_ the cause of the sapphire of the sky, is not to our present purpose. We wish merely to call attention to the verbiage of the stanza. It is impossible to put the latter portion of it into any thing like intelligible prose. So much of heaven lingered in the lady’s eyes that the wayward heart forgot its blissful sin, and worshiped every thing which religion forbids, beneath the silken fringes of the lady’s eyelids. This we cannot be compelled to understand, and shall therefore say nothing further about it.