The Knickerbocker, Vol. 22, No. 3, September 1843Various
General
The Knickerbocker, Vol. 22, No. 3, September 1843
Various
Periodicals
The last couplet here is very original and striking. 'Dying Well,'
'The Lost that Come not Back,' and others which arrested our
attention, will be read with pleasure; especially 'Beauty and Fame,'
which we regret we have not space to present entire. It will be
seen, however, by what we have quoted, that Mr. KILBOURNE has a good
share of poetic feeling and capability of expression. He has not
lived in the world in vain; but with an eye, and an ear, and most
of all, a heart. Yet several things are wanting, before our young
bard can become an effective poet, which doubtless he must needs
desire to be. He has more sensibility than taste; the consequence
of which is, that the best passages in his best pieces are marred
by the proximity of such as are weak and infelicitous. Then again
there is a want throughout the volume of condensation and energy.
Mr. KILBOURNE must gird himself to greater terseness and strength;
he must chisel and refine with a severer taste and more assiduity,
before he can reach the place where doubtless bright anticipations
have at times placed him. We beg him, in all due kindness, to
remember, that it is easier to jump in thought to such a conclusion
than actually to attain it. We conclude with the expression of our
hope and trust that his day-dreams in this regard, in common with
those of other gifted and rising spirits among us, may not have been
altogether idle.
EDITOR'S TABLE.
JEFFREY AND GIFFORD _versus_ SHAKSPEARE AND MILTON.--An acute and
comprehensive mind, an intelligence superior to prejudice, and
an undeviating conscientious spirit of rectitude, are among the
necessary endowments of true criticism. But how rare has been this
combination, even in the examples of those who have been admitted
to be the most distinguished critics of their time! Let the whole
history of literature furnish the answer; while we direct the reader
to an amusing commentary upon this general theme, which we find in
the last number of FRAZER'S Magazine, under the title of 'JEFFREY
and GIFFORD _versus_ SHAKSPEARE and MILTON.' 'We have often amused
ourselves,' says the writer, 'by imagining how SHAKSPEARE and MILTON
would have fared at the hands of these illustrious reviewers had
the paramount pair of immortals and the two clever party writers
been contemporaries. Let us follow out this curious speculation.
To make our suppositions quite plain, we will imagine that the
Edinburgh Review existed at the time of SHAKSPEARE; that the disgust
which is expressed for the tribunes, or the opposition, and the
ministerial contempt of the people, shown forth in 'Coriolanus,'
were disagreeable to the Whig party of that day; that SHAKSPEARE'S
high Tory principles; the admiration which he appears to have felt
for kings and princes, and the favor in which he may be fairly
supposed to have stood at court; were unpalatable to the Liberals of
the day. In such case we may be pretty sure he would have been given
over for critical dissection to Mr.
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