ABSTRACT
Our author, conscious of his paradox, and of the feelings of his readers, adds that ‘they will often look round for poetry, and enqire by what species of courtesy these attempts can be permitted to assume that title.’ We really sympathise with the forlorn reader; but our author, to moderate his despair, offers a singular consolation; he assures us, that we have no settled notion of what poetry is. These are his words, ‘It is desirable that they should not suffer the solitary word, poetry, a word of very disputed meaning, to stand in the way of their gratification.’ Nothing can be more ludicrous than this ingenious request of our author, excepting its grave refutation. If the writer of these poems, will for a moment, dismiss his jocular paradox (and we almost suspect that some of these poems were intended merely as lusory effusions) we trust to his cultivated taste, and his poetical acquirements, to tell us what is poetry. He will find no difficulty in resolving the question, by comparing Dryden with D’Urfey, Pope with Pomfret, and Waller with Walsh.
