Sentiment is built up upon plays of words; the hero or heroine
feels, not from the impulse of passion, but from the force of
dialectics. There is besides, a strange attempt to substitute the
language of painting for that of poetry, to make us SEE their
feelings in the faces of the persons; and again, consistently with
this, in the description of the picture in TARQUIN AND LUCRECE,
those circumstances are chiefly insisted on, which it would be
impossible to convey except by words. The invocation to Opportunity
in the TARQUIN AND LUCRECE is full of thoughts and images, but at
the same time it is overloaded by them. The concluding stanza
expresses all our objections to this kind of poetry:
Oh! idle words, servants to shallow fools;
Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators;
Busy yourselves in skill-contending schools;
Debate when leisure serves with dull debaters;
To trembling clients be their mediators:
For me I force not argument a straw,
Since that my case is past all help of law.
The description of the horse in VENUS AND ADONIS has been
particularly admired, and not without reason:
Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,
Broad breast, full eyes, small head, and nostril wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong,
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide:
Look, what a horse should have he did not lack,
Save a proud rider on so proud a back.
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