ABSTRACT
In the second class after Dryden, the Critic places Donne, as possessing the true poetical genius, with noble talents for moral poesy. And yet, but two pages before, he characterizes this author, as a man of wit, and a man of sense, but asks what traces he had left of pure poetry? We readily agree that he has left none; for as an elegant genius of the north has expressed it,* we shall never be induced to regard that as poetry, which Homer and Virgil, if alive, would not have understood. Did any man with a poetical ear, ever yet read ten lines of Donne without disgust? or are there ten lines of poetry in all his works? No. How then comes this Adjuster ofliterary rank to post him before Denham, Waller, Cowley &c. In truth, Daniel, Drayton, Randolph, or almost any other of his contemporary poets, the translator of Du Bartas not excepted, deserve the place better than he.
