The beings who luxuriate in the everlasting beauties of nature have a deeper charm for us than creatures whose chief delight is in the little artifices of a woman's toilet. The skill is exquisite by which the ephemeral nothings of gay fashion are coloured with the hues of poetic fancy, but in spite of the brilliancy they remain nothings still, and cannot compete with strains which are struck from the profoundest chords in the heart and mind of man. Lord Byron, to save the supremacy of Pope, asserted that "the poet is always ranked according to his execution."[339] Bowles maintained that the test of poetical excellence was the subject and execution combined.[340] He admitted that the loftiest theme in feeble hands would be eclipsed by insignificant topics when treated by a master, but he said that no genius could render subordinate topics equal in poetry to the highest where the execution, as in Shakespeare and Milton, was worthy of the subject. Lord Byron stultified himself. He had no sooner completed his proof that execution was the sole criterion of poetry, than he went on to argue that "the highest of all poetry is ethical poetry, as the highest of all earthly objects must be moral truth."[341] His paradox did not deserve a reply, even if he had not contradicted it the moment it was uttered. Hume wisely recommended that words should not be wasted upon theories which it is inconceivable that any human being could believe. In his Observations on the Poetry of Pope, Bowles put the modes and incidents of artificial life, the secondary passions, and descriptions of outward objects in a lower grade than the development of the impressive passions.[342] What he said of manners and passions was suppressed by Campbell, who based his reply upon his own misstatements, and proceeded to protest against "trying Pope exclusively by his powers of describing inanimate phenomena."[343] No one could be more emphatic than Bowles in placing souls before things. Of "inanimate phenomena," he had said that "all images drawn from what is beautiful or sublime in the works of nature, are more beautiful and sublime than any images drawn from art." Again, his antagonists misrepresented him, and arguing as though he had asserted that all images drawn from nature were beautiful, and that there was no beauty in any image drawn from art, they imagined they refuted him by adducing natural objects which were unsightly, and artificial objects which were the reverse. The canal at Venice, without the buildings and gondolas "would be nothing," said Lord Byron, "but a clay-coloured ditch."[344] The illustration did not touch the position of Bowles, who had never pretended that the ugly in nature eclipsed the beautiful in art. His principle was that, beauty for beauty, Solomon in the richest products of the loom was not arrayed like the flowers of the field. Campbell did not reason better than Byron. He selected the launching of a ship of the line for an instance of the sublime.