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the sullen winds, (as your Lordship, with the skill of a rhetorician, not as a reasoner, calls them,) could be as poetical without the vessels, I say not; but, when thus seen, and thus set before us, I fearlessly repeat, that to those winds, to that element so gigantic, against which their "littleness" contended, we owe the most picturesque and poetical part of the beauty of this passage.

I have observed, "that your own poetry laughed

"at" your "variable" principles of criticism, and so animated were you in this description, that you must have utterly forgotten, whilst you wrote it, its tendency, which is to establish the "INVARI"ABLE" principles of NATURE, confirmed by yourself, on the very element with which you are so familiar.

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"Take away the pyramids,' and what is the desert? Take away Stonehenge from Salisbury Plain, and it is nothing more than Hounslow Heath, or any other uninclosed down."-Byron.

I will tell you, my Lord, why a desert is poetical without a pyramid because it conveys ideas of immeasurable extent, of profound silence, of solitude. What is Salisbury Plain without Stonehenge? Stonehenge is poetical from its traditions, and uncertain origin. (See WARTON's fine sonnet.) But

Hounslow Heath conveys to the mind chiefly ideas of "artificial" life,-turnpike-roads, stage-coaches in all directions, raree-showmen, whose shows "thousands" would look at, who do not look at the sun!! carts and caravans, and butcher boys scampering on horseback with one spur, and my Lord in his coach, with the "poetical LIVERYMAN" behind!

Therefore, HOUNSLOW HEATH is not so poetical as "the Desert," connected with the idea of solitude, of extent, of sands moving in the vast wilderness; of Arabs telling their wild stories by moonlight, &c.—these make the "desert" more poetical than Hounslow Heath, with or without a pyramid.

But we must be more particular, now we are

come to

SALISBURY PLAIN.

We have been taking a delightful excursion, from Venice to Constantinople, from Athens and the shore of Greece to the deserts and the Pyramids of Egypt, as on ROGERO's horse, from the pyramids and deserts of Egypt, having placed me, “Ut magus, modo Thebis, modo ATHENIS,”

you have brought me back safely to Salisbury Plain, and within thirty miles of my own door.

And here it is almost time (for which I am sorry) to part, for the excursion has been pleasant; and if we have not quite agreed on the road, I hope we shall part in as good humour as we met. But before I take my leave, suffer me to recall to your recollection the first words of your sentence about the pyramids.

The reader has seen, that you have admitted they are not so poetical without the desert and its associations as with them. Now I have quoted my original positions four or five times, placed them before Mr. CAMPBELL, the Quarterly Review, and your Lordship, and I beg and entreat you again to remember, I never said that wORKS OF ART were not poetical, (I must have been an idiot so to have

said,) I only said the sublime and beautiful works of NATURE were, per se, abstractedly, MORE SO! Has the AIR of Italy, Milan, &c. affected your Lordship's recollection? "Works of nature are, "per se, in what is beautiful or sublime, more "poetical than any works of art."

"PASSIONS are more poetical than the manners "and habits of artificial life."

If you had read what I distinctly laid down, or, having read the first propositions, remembered them, your book would not have been so pleasant, but I cannot concede that any instance you have advanced, has affected my original positions.

Your gods and goddesses; your statues, busts, temples; your arms, shields, and spears, (not forgetting Mrs. UNWIN's needle and CowPER's smallclothes;) your prospects of cities by sea, Venice, Constantinople, &c. ; your pyramids and pigsties; your slop-basins and "other vessels;" your liveryman; the desert, Hounslow Heath, (why not Bagshot? it is most poetical of the two,). Salisbury Plain, the poulterer, the rabbits, white, black, "and grey," vanish at the waving of the wand of truth; and the grotesque assembly becomes

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"Like the baseless shadow of a vision."

However, as we are got safe upon Salisbury Plain at last, it is time to make my bow; and I can assure you, my Lord, I look back on many of the

beautiful pictures you have painted with unfeigned delight, though still thinking my principles of poetical criticism not a jot the less " INVARIABLE,” in consequence of any arguments you have brought against them.

There are one or two personal passages in your pamphlet, which it is possible, upon second thoughts, you would have omitted. Whether you would do so or not, I shall pass them over sub silentio; and

I remain, my Lord, &c.

H

W. L. BOWLES.

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