APOLLO, GLADIATOR, HERCULES, &c.

Which way shall we now turn; for lo! not the hog's tail in a high wind, but all your gods and goddesses, Apollo, Hercules, &c. brought against me and poor Nature!

What an assemblage! We almost shrink at the entrance. "The Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Apollo, the Laocoon, the Venus de Medicis, the Hercules, the GLADIATOR," (I shall omit Moses,) and all the HIGHER works of Canova, (why higher works, as Hercules' club, ifit were equal in EXECUTIONdo I understand your Lordship ?-would be as fine a piece of art as Hercules;) but these great works of MAN are as poetical as Mount Etna, and still more so as "DIRECT MANIFESTATIONS OF MIND," &c.

I do not think so; but whether they are or are not as poetical as Mount Etna, &c. I can bring "manifestations of mind" against them, manifestations of the ALMIGHTY MIND, as I have before said. Why, if Jupiter himself was in your Pantheon, he would fall instantly before the thunder and lightning of the Jupiter in Virgil,

"Ipse Pater, MEDIA NIMBORUM in NOCTE, CORUSCA
Fulmina molitur dextra:" &c.

Why is this Jupiter, as poetry, superior to any marble Jupiter in the world? because no marble can imitate that which forms the most sublime and poetical part of the picture, "MEDIA NIMBORUM IN NOCTE."

As we are playing at "Bowls," my Lord, I think I can overset your inarble gods; for if I bowl down one, all the rest, upon the same principle, will fall about us, like ninepins. I will call in no supernatural assistance,

"Nec deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus."

I will take the Dying Gladiator, though it seems rather ungenerous to attack any one after he is down. But as this is the most consummate specimen of ART, I shall examine your exquisite delineation in poetry of the same statue.

I have done this in my Vindication against the Quarterly. I must examine your copy again, and more minutely.

Here, my Lord, follows your copy, but we must remember we are not speaking of the statue of the gladiator merely as a work of Art, but enquiring which is the most poetical, the statue itself, or your copy?

"I see before me the Gladiator lie :

He leans upon his hand his manly brow;
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his droop'd head sinks gradually low:
And from his side the last drops, ebbing slow,

From the sad gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first drops of a thunder shower; and now
The arena swims around him-He is gone,

Ere ceas'd the inhuman sound which hail'd the wretch who won.
He heard it, but he heeded not. His eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away:
He reck'd not of the life he lost, nor prize ;
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother. He, their sire,
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday!

All this rush'd with his blood. Shall he expire,

And unaveng'd? Arises, ye Goths, and glut your ire !" Let us examine these lines, by the statue before us. I look at the marble; I see you have faithfully exhibited the "Dying Gladiator,"

"Leaning upon his hand, his manly brow

Consenting to death, but conqu'ring agony."

A fine idea, which the statue excites in the beholder, and which you have so powerfully expressed! I see also, in your exquisite copy, that the

"

"Droop'd head sinks gradually low."

Following the idea excited, it may be so represented in poetry. The sad drops in the " statue" may seem to FALL HEAVY, ONE BY ONE, and thus you may describe the act of 'falling heavy, ONE BY ONE;" but when you add, like the first drops of a thunder-storm, you leave the statue as a work, and take the finest part of your poetical representation FROM NATURE. Thus you make it instantly more poetical, or else you need not have brought in this beautiful comparison, which is as remote from Art, as thunder is from a marble man.

You have made the marble drop blood, with drops that fall heavy, and in doing so, you paint from Nature, not the statue. But what are the most affecting_images? Following Nature, you make the marble think, as well as drop blood. We instantly feel his increase of agony, as the dying Gladiator in his last hour thinks on his distant home, the banks of the Danube, his children at play; their Dacian mother, and himself, "butchered to make a Roman holiday!" From whence are all these affecting images—FROM NATURE? these tender recollections? from NATURE; and why introduced? to make the statue more poetical.

If you say the dumb marble excited all these affecting images in the mind of you, gazing on it with the feelings of a poet, from whence are these pictures and images taken? Who does not answer, from NATURE?

I shall now leave your Deities, and Statues, &c.; for if

what is here said be true in one example, it must be so in all.' The same results will follow, and for the same reason; because "images taken from what is SUBLIME or beautiful in Nature," are more beautiful and sublime, and therefore more poetical, "than any images drawn purely from Art."" Quod erat demonstrandum;" and, let me add, my Lord, "ex ore tuo," from your own poetry, opposed to your own criticisms.

I think it best to divide the subject, for more clearness, into two parts; and I cannot better end this part than with the battle against your principal deities;—and I remain, my Lord,

&c. &c. &c.

THE transition from all the Gods of Art to this humble instrument is rather abrupt; but it is important, although you have included it in the note, because we now leave mere works of Art for passions; and Mrs. Unwin's needle alone, in my opinion, is as much superior to all your Gods, poetically considered, as it is to Cowper's "sylvan sampler." The affecting beauty of this image does not depend in the least upon being a needle, quoad needle, but upon being that needle, which, like the horn-box of Sterne, sets all the interesting circumstances connected with the sacred remembrance of the dead, and the bereaved friend, before us.

Does your Lordship think a spoon, per se, poetical? Probably not. Yet when the companions of the brave and unfortunate Cook, so long separated from their country, and in the wildest regions, thousands of leagues from their native land, accidentally saw a spoon, with the name of London on it; their distant country, and their tenderest connections, from whom they had been separated so long, and whom they might never see again, were more strongly recalled to their recollection; and this spoon, like Mrs. Unwin's needle, thus becomes poetical, not because it is a spoon, but because, under the peculiar circumstances with which it is presented to the

The reader may compare with the statue of the Laocoon, the description in VIRGIL.

1

imagination, it wakes the tenderest and most affectionate feelings of our NATURE.

But we had better be a little more particular concerning this one circumstance. Mrs. Unwin's needle is, indeed, submitted to my judgment, with a kind of especial emphasis. "I submit to Mr. Bowles's own judgment a passage from another poem of Cowper's, to be compared with the same writer's sylvan sampler." I will let the "sylvan sampler" alone at present; it shall be all " twaddle;" but the comparison is not fair. You take pure description, and compare it with poetry that affects the heart and passions. I say a tree, any tree, is, per se, quoad tree, more poetical than any needle, quoad needle, or quoad needle and "stockings," which is your Lordship's

association.

"I submit to Mr. Bowles's own judgment!" A subject so respectfully submitted requires deliberation; and after deliberation, "I submit" the following observations to Lord Byron's own judgment! But first referring me to the stanza, he asks, if these three lines are not worth all the "boasted twaddling" about trees, so triumphantly re-quoted. I answer, Yes, yes, yes: worth ten thousand trees, merely as trees, visible trees, connected with no passions of the heart. But, after showing that you feel the affecting beauty of the needles as much as I do, you add, "a homely collection of images and ideas, associated with the darning of stockings, the hemming of shirts, and mending of breeches; and will any one deny they are eminently poetical, and beautiful, and pathetic, as addressed by Cowper to his nurse?" No, my Lord: no one will deny, and I the last, I hope, that they are eminently poetical and beautiful. But what I marvel at is this, that this image should be so touching and affecting to your Lordship, with your specific associations, darning of stockings! hemming of shirts! and mending of breeches! Why, I could not extract the passage without laughing to myself, though I never read the. stanzas of poor Cowper without tears in my eyes. I do marvel, that with these associations in your Lordship's mind, of shirt, stockings, and BREECHES! the image should seem affecting to your Lordship at all. In my mind, it is poetically associated neither with one, nor all, nor any, of these auxiliaries that Art has brought in versus Nature, as particularly considered; the thought of one or the other never entered into my head. The needles were associated in my ideas with the loss of a beloved companion, never to be seen more upon earth, and Cowper's solitary and desolate heart, when he beheld the humblest relic of her domestic cares.

These thoughts, my Lord, give the needles interest; and affecting as these lines have ever been, and will be, to all lovers of poetry and NATURE, I do not think it worth while to take notice of Sheridan's pleasant story of the poulterer.

Let us see the effect of your Lordship's interesting and affecting associations with Mrs. Unwin's needles. Cowper's lines are,

Thy NEEDLES, once a shining store,
For my sake restless, heretofore,
Now rust disused, and shine no more,

MY MARY.

"My 'STOCKINGS,' oh, departed friend!
MySHIRT,' that I so oft did rend,

'BREECHES,' that I no more shall mend,

MY MARY!"、

The "true critic" will not fail to remark how much pathos and poetry is added to the "shirt," as making it at the same time more characteristic of a poetical wearer, by being" rent."

To return. After your Lordship's triumphant sally against nature, armed with Mrs. Unwin's needle, in one hand, and Cowper's "stockings" and "breeches" in the other, you seem scarce able to restrain your expressions of triumph, for thus, my Lord, flows the tenor of your exulting prose:

"One more poetical instance of the POWER of ART, and even its superiority, Over NATURE, in poetry, and I Have done.”

And now behold

THE BUST OF ANTINOUS.

"The bust of ANTINOUS," in your Lordship's animated language, is "not natural, but super-natural, or rather superartificial!" As a work of ART, of statuary, this head I conceive to be, if I may judge from rude copies, most perfect. But poetry and statuary are two things, as poetry and painting are; and therefore, though nothing in the whole world of art may exceed this head in marble, I would only beg your Lordship to endeavour to describe it in poetry. We are speaking of poetry, and not of statuary as an art; and with such enthusiasm, if you cannot describe it, I know no one who can. When you have put it into verse, I will examine it, and see how far your Lordship will, per force, be obliged to have recourse to her, by whose aid your poetry shines, as much as

your criticism ungratefully decries her. You say, "the poetry in this bust is in no respect derived from nature! It must be difficult to say what the poetry of the bust is derived from, for it is not natural, but supernatural, or rather SUPER-ARTIFICIAL!"-Byron. VOL. XVIII. NO. XXXVI. 2 A

Pam.