Gents Mag 1850 part 1 p.618
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Gentleman's Magazine 1850 part 1 p.618
[arith]metique, et la fertilite de la terre a un terme. Cette reflexion de M. Malthus, dans son excellent Essai sur la Population, doit etre un sujet de meditation pour les hommes d'etat." See Bonald's Pensees Diverses, i. 76. P.194. "Coplestone, the Oxford Poetry Professor (a great admirer of Madoc)."list, This excellent and learned man, when at Oxford, engaged in his laborious duties both as tutor and professor, had little time or inclination to look into modern poetry, and the general sentiments of Oxford were too orthodox to regard with favour the new school that had arisen, when their own Lowth and Warton were no more; but, touching the immediate point before us, we can speak with absolute and authentic information. Mr. Professor Coplestone never possessed a copy of Madoc, nor ever read the entire poem; but soon after its appearance, when it was talked of in the common room and elsewhere, he asked us to mark a few passages for him in our own copy, and send the volume to his room, and we believe this is all he knew of it. He smiled when he read the introductory lines "Come listen to a tale of times of old," &c. and said, "Though Mr. Southey has despised the classical school of poetry, he has not disdained to borrow from Virgil here;" and he praised the simile with which the eighteenth book of Madoc in Wales, concludes, "No nobler crew filled that heroic bark," &c. and ending "And Oriana freed from Roman thrall!" We never heard him afterwards mention the poem. In regard to Mr. Professor Coplestone's contributions to the Qtrly Review, they were very few. We remember that of Dr. Whitaker "de Motu Civico" was one. P.205. "Bye-the-by, a very pretty piece of familiar verse, by Cowper, appeared, about two years ago, in the Monthly Magazine."This poem we believe to be "The Distressed Travellers, or the Journey to Clifton," a poem in Cowper's easy, light, and best style of humour. P.234. "Campbell's poem has disappointed his friends, Ballantyne tells me. It is, however, beter than I expected, except in story, which is meagre," &c.This poem was Gertrude of Wyoming, - a poem, in spite of its want of incident and character, that must please from its poetical taste and feeling. Bad as the story is, it appears that it was taken from a work of fiction, Barneck and Saldorf, by Aug. la Fontaine, 1804. We confess that we do not perceive what Campbell has borrowed from Wordsworth's "Ruth" and "The Brothers," as Southey alleges. P.248. "Old Dutens has had the office (of English Historiographer) with a salary of 400l. a-year, for many years - upon what plea, they who gave it him can best tell."The history of this and of the other preferments and pensions, ecclesiastical and civil, enjoyed by this person, may be read in his work, "Memoirs of a Traveller in Retirement." An account of him may be found in Biographie Universelle, vol.xii. p.395. P.266. "Your first book reminded me of an old pastoral poet - William Brown: he has the same fault of burying his story in Flowers." - (Letter to Eb. Elliott.)This is true, for all Brown's poetry seems to have been written before he attained his thirtieth year. Sir Egerton Brydges published a volume of his poetry from MS. in 4t0. Some interesting information concerning him and his works will be found in Drake's Shakspere, vol.i.p.604; Warton's History of English Poetry, vol.i. p.ccxxix; Todd's Milton, vol.v. p.395; the Retrospective Review, vol.ii. p.149; and the Gentleman's Magazine for March 1848; not to mention many other notices worthy of attention when the works of Brown are re-edited; the edition by Davies, 3 vols, 12mo. being very imperfect. P.310. The poems of Lucien Bonaparte obtained translators in the late Bishop Butler and the Rev. Francis Hodgson. P.333. Dr. Stanier Clarke. - He was brother of Dr. Edward Clarke, the traveller, Rector of Tillington, in Sussex, canon of Windsor, editor of Falconer's Shipwreck, Life of Lord Nelson, and other works, as King James's Memoirs, &c. P.346. "Mr. Morritt's father bought the house of Sir Thomas Robinson, well known in his day by the names of Long Robinson and Long Sir Thomas. You may recollect a good epigram upon this man:- Unlike to Robinson shall be my song. It shall be witty - and it sha'nt be long." |
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