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[ This is worthy of ranking as a maxim, (regula maxima,) of criticism. Whatever is translatable in other and simpler words of the same language, without loss of sense or dignity, is bad. N.B.—By dignity I mean the absence of ludicrous and debasing associations.]
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[ The Christ’s Hospital phrase, not for holidays altogether, but for those on which the boys are permitted to go beyond the precincts of the school.]
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[ I remember a ludicrous instance in the poem of a young tradesman:
“No more will I endure love’s pleasing pain,
Or round my heart’s leg tie his galling chain.”]
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[ Cowper’s Task was published some time before the Sonnets of Mr. Bowles; but I was not familiar with it till many years afterwards. The vein of satire which runs through that excellent poem, together with the sombre hue of its religious opinions, would probably, at that time, have prevented its laying any strong hold on my affections. The love of nature seems to have led Thomson to a cheerful religion; and a gloomy religion to have led Cowper to a love of nature. The one would carry his fellow-men along with him into nature; the other flies to nature from his fellow-men. In chastity of diction however, and the harmony of blank verse, Cowper leaves Thomson immeasurably below him; yet still I feel the latter to have been the born poet.]
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[ SONNET I