FADLADEEN, at the conclusion of this light rhapsody, took occasion to sum up his opinion of the young Cashmerian’s poetry,—of which, he trusted, they had that evening heard the last. Having recapitulated the epithets, “frivolous”—“inharmonious”—“nonsensical,” he proceeded to say that, viewing it in the most favourable light, it resembled one of those Maldivian boats, to which the Princess had alluded in the relation of her dream,[378]—a slight, gilded thing, sent adrift without rudder or ballast, and with nothing but vapid sweets and faded flowers on board. The profusion, indeed, of flowers and birds, which this poet had ready on all occasions,—not to mention dews, gems, &c.—was a most oppressive kind of opulence to his hearers; and had the unlucky effect of giving to his style all the glitter of the flower-garden without its method, and all the flutter of the aviary without its song. In addition to this, he chose his subjects badly, and was always most inspired by the worst parts of them. The charms of paganism, the merits of rebellion,—these were the themes honoured with his particular enthusiasm; and, in the poem just recited, one of his most palatable passages was in praise of that beverage of the Unfaithful, wine;—“being, perhaps,” said he, relaxing into a smile, as conscious of his own character in the Haram on this point, “one of those bards, whose fancy owes all its illumination to the grape, like that painted porcelain,[379] so curious and so rare, whose images are only visible when liquor is poured into it.” Upon the whole, it was his opinion, from the specimens which they had heard, and which, he begged to say, were the most tiresome part of the journey, that—whatever other merits this well-dressed young gentleman might possess—poetry was by no means his proper avocation: “and indeed,” concluded the critic, “from his fondness for flowers and for birds, I would venture to suggest that a florist or a bird-catcher is a much more suitable calling for him than a poet.”