The late Mr. Shelley (for he is dead since the commencement of this publication) was chiefly distinguished by a fervour of philosophic speculation, which he clad in the garb of fancy, and in words of Tyrian die. He had spirit and genius, but his eagerness to give effect and produce conviction often defeated his object, and bewildered himself and his readers.
Lord Thurlow has written some very unaccountable, but some occasionally good and feeling poetry.
Mr. Keats is also dead. He gave the greatest promise of genius of any poet of his day. He displayed extreme tenderness, beauty, originality, and delicacy of fancy; all he wanted was manly strength and fortitude to reject the temptations of singularity in sentiment and expression. Some of his shorter and later pieces are, however, as free from faults as they are full of beauties.
Mr. Milman is a writer of classical taste and attainments rather than of original genius. Poeta nascitur—non fit.
Of Bowles‘s sonnets it is recommendation enough to say, that they were the favourites of Mr. Coleridge’s youthful mind.
It only remains to speak of Mr. Barry Cornwall, who, both in the drama, and in his other poems, has shewn brilliancy and tenderness of fancy, and a fidelity to truth and nature, in conceiving the finer movements of the mind equal to the felicity of his execution in expressing them.
Some additions have been made in the Miscellaneous part of the volume, from the Lyrical effusions of the elder Dramatists, whose beauty, it is presumed, can never decay, whose sweetness can never cloy!