1: This romantic circumstance of our great Poet's juvenility was inserted, as a well known fact, in one of the General Evening Posts in the Spring 1789, and it was there supposed to have formed the first impulse of his Italian journey. SONNET LXXV. SUBJECT CONTINUED. He found her not;--yet much the POET found, To swell Imagination's golden store, On Arno's bank, and on that bloomy shore, Warbling Parthenope; in the wide bound, Where Rome's forlorn Campania stretches round Her ruin'd towers and temples;--classic lore Breathing sublimer spirit from the power Of local consciousness.--Thrice happy wound, Given by his sleeping graces, as the Fair “Hung over them enamour'd,” the desire Thy fond result inspir'd, that wing'd him there, Where breath'd each Roman and each Tuscan Lyre, Might haply fan the emulative flame, That rose o'er DANTE's song, and rival'd MARO's fame. SONNET LXXVI. THE CRITICS OF DOCTOR JOHNSON'S SCHOOL[1]. Lo! modern Critics emulously dare Ape the great Despot; throw in pompous tone And massy words their true _no meaning_ down! But while their envious eyes on Genius glare, While axioms false assiduously they square In arrogant antithesis, a frown Lours on the brow of Justice, to disown The _kindred malice_ with its mimic air. Spirit of Common Sense[2]! must we endure The incrustation hard without the _gem_? Find in th' Anana's rind the wilding sour, The Oak's rough knots on every _Osier_'s stem? The dark contortions of the Sybil bear, Whose inspirations never meet our ear? 1: In jargon, like the following, copied from a REVIEW, are the works of Genius perpetually criticized in our public Prints: “Passion has not sufficient coolness to pause for metaphor, nor has metaphor ardor enough to keep pace with passion.”--Nothing can be less true. Metaphoric strength of expression will burst even from vulgar and illiterate minds when they are agitated. It is a natural effort of roused sensibility in every gradation, from unlettered simplicity to the highest refinement. Passion has no occasion to _pause_ for metaphors, they _rush_ upon the mind which it has heated. Similies, it is true, are not natural to strong emotion. _They_ are the result of spirits that are calm, and at leisure to _compare_. 2: This idea is from a speech of Mr. Burke's, recorded by Boswell. SONNET LXXVII.