"
Now, as far as this sonnet shows of the discourse which occasioned
it, we cannot see anything so absurd in that discourse; and where the
author confutes the Independent preacher by arguing that
"Nature is cruel; man is sick of blood:
Nature is stubborn; man would fain adore:
Nature is fickle; man hath need of rest:"
we cannot but think that, by attributing to nature a certain human
degree of qualities, which will not suffice for man, he loses sight
of the point really raised: for is not man's nature only a part of
nature? and, if a part, necessary to the completeness of the whole?
and should not the individual, avoiding a factitious life, order
himself in conformity with his own rule of being? And, indeed, the
author himself would converse with the self-sufficing progress of
nature, with its rest in action, as distinguished from the troublous
vexation of man's toiling:--
"Two lessons, Nature, let me learn of thee,
Two lessons that in every wind are blown;
Two blending duties harmonised in one,
Tho' the loud world proclaim their enmity."--p. 1.
The short lyric poem, "To Fausta" has a Shelleian spirit and grace in
it. & "The Hayswater Boat" seems a little _got up_, and is scarcely
positive enough. This remark applies also, and in a stonger degree,
to the "Stanzas on a Gipsy Child," which, and the "Modern Sappho,"
previously mentioned, are the pieces least to our taste in the
volume.
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