cused the captain of
cruelty, for applauding the lady for killing her lover. But these are
unfounded and calumnious charges: it was a love of justice which induced
the captain to applaud her: not that I positively say, that he might not
also be swayed by the lady's beauty. The vehemence of the captain's
applause is admirably displayed by the quantity of dactyls in the second
line of this stanza. Let us proceed:

"And he made her first lieutenant of the valiant Thunder-bomb."

Many are shocked at the apparent indifference of the lady; and foolishly
condemn the poet for inconsistency. Such ignorant critics know nothing
of the matter. Our poet, who is the poet of nature, did not mean to draw
a perfect character, a "sine labe monstrum," but, like Homer, and
Euripides, which latter he greatly resembles in his tenderness of
expression, draws men and women such as they are. Still there is another
objection started: how could a woman be made a lieutenant? It must be
confessed that though such things are not entirely unprecedented, that
they are very singular: some have therefore thought this a decent
allegory of the poet to express that she was the captain's chief
mistress, his sultana; and we must remember that she was a free lady,
and, after the murder she had committed, glad of the _protection_ of a
captain. I hope the ladies will not be offended at this interpretation,
and, since a recent inquiry, will pardon me the expression that conveys
it.

It remains now to say something concerning the sentiments, characters,
incidents, moral, and diction of the poem, and [Greek: oroton apo
proton], let us speak of the sentiments. These, as I observed before,
are not, like Lucan's, obtruded upon the reader, but suggested by
incidents. For instance, does not the circumstance of the lady's going
to sea after her true-love suggest more than the most laboured
declamation on the force of love? When the captain is melted by the
pathetic address, and lily-white breast of the lady, is it not clearly
and expressively intimated how great is the power of weeping beauty
pleading in a good cause, over even the boisterous nature of a sailor?
Again, when the lady shoots Billy Taylor, what a fine sentiment is to be
discovered here of the power of jealousy? and in the death of Billy
contrasted with his former gayety, who is there whose soul is of so iron
a mould as not to be touched by the implied sentiment of the
shortlivedness of human pleasur