he other: but to be a coward, is not the way to succeed either in
poetry, in war, or in love! Still he is a genuine poet, and deserves all
his reputation. His worst vices are amiable weaknesses, elegant
trifling. Though there is a frequent dryness, timidity, and jejuneness
in his manner, he has left a number of pictures of domestic comfort and
social refinement, as well as of natural imagery and feeling, which can
hardly be forgotten but with the language itself. Such, among others,
are his memorable description of the post coming in, that of the
preparations for tea in a winter's evening in the country, of the
unexpected fall of snow, of the frosty morning (with the fine satirical
transition to the Empress of Russia's palace of ice), and most of all,
the winter's walk at noon. Every one of these may be considered as
distinct studies, or highly finished cabinet-pieces, arranged without
order or coherence. I shall be excused for giving the last of them, as
what has always appeared to me one of the most feeling, elegant, and
perfect specimens of this writer's manner.
"The night was winter in his roughest mood;
The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon
Upon the southern side of the slant hills,
And where the woods fence off the northern blast,
The season smiles, resigning all its rage,
And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue,
Without a cloud, and white without a speck
The dazzling splendour of the scene below.
Again the harmony comes o'er the vale;
And through the trees I view th' embattled tow'r,
Whence all the music. I again perceive
The soothing influence of the wafted strains,
And settle in soft musings as I tread
The walk, still verdant, under oaks and elms,
Whose outspread branches overarch the glade.
The roof, though moveable through all its length,
As the wind sways it, has yet well suffic'd,
And, intercepting in their silent fall
The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me.
No noise is here, or none that hinders thought.
The redbreast warbles still, but is content
With slender notes, and more than half suppress'd.
Pleas'd with his solitude, and flitting light
From spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes
From many a twig the pendent drop of ice,
That tinkle in the wither'd leaves below.
Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft,
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