Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/113

viously written much that he would not willingly own; it is no disgrace to Parnell, to allow that these poems are the genuine production of his muse; they are not without some harmonious lines, and poetical passages; but there is nothing in them that can add a single leaf of laurel to his brow, who in his Hesiod, his Hermit, and his Fairy Tale, has given us poems that, in their kind, it would be very difficult to surpass in excellence. While some passages show marks of a mind habituated to poetical conceptions, while the ideas are well selected, and the expressions proper; others abound in flat prosaic lines, alike devoid of dignity of thought, or harmony bf language. Sometimes there is considerable harshness in the phrase, and obscurity in the meaning, an inability of seizing the proper word, and a want of skill in the management of the metre. The general character of these poems is a mediocrity that is never sharpened into energy, nor exalted into excellence. They show no vigorous application of thought, boast no refined variety of metre, and exhibit no skilful combination of musical numbers. They are not enriched with metaphorical figures, strengthened by antient idioms, nor spangled with brilliant and curious expressions. Nor do they possess that select and simple elegance, that happiness of language, expressing its thought, without weakening or encumbering it, which he subsequently attained. They are such as a well educated person could write