" "Having read these extracts," said another
exponent of public opinion, "turn _to any poet you will_, and
compare the texture of the composition,--it is a severe test, but
you will find that Alexander Smith bears it well." It was observable,
however, that all this praise was lavished on what were styled
"beauties." Passages and single lines, bricks from the edifice, were
extravagantly eulogized; but on turning to the poems, it was found
that the poetical lines and passages were not parts of a whole, that
the bricks formed no edifice at all. There were no indications of
creative genius, no shaping or constructive power, no substance and
fibre of individuality, no signs of a great poetical nature, but a
splendid anarchy of sensations and faculties. The separate beauties,
as the author had heaped and huddled them together, presented a
total result of deformity. It was also found, that, striking as some
of the images, metaphors, and similes were, they gave little poetic
satisfaction or delight. A certain thinness of sentiment, poverty of
idea, and shallowness of experience, were not hidden from view, to
one who looked sharply through the gorgeous wrappings of words. A
small, but sensitive and facile nature, capable of fully expressing
itself by the grace of a singularly fluent fancy, with an appetite
for beauty rather than a passion for it, with no essential
imagination and opulence of soul,--this was the mortifying result to
which we were conducted by analysis.
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