or involution of phrase and
syntax, let us whisper in the ear of our Troy correspondent, is not a very
great beauty in poetry. His own good thoughts are spoiled by this
affectation. It requires an artist to employ frequent inversion
successfully. The opening of the '_Lines on a Bust of Dante_', by Mr. T. W.
PARSONS, affords a pleasing example in this kind. It is clear and musical:

'See from this counterfeit of him
Whom Arno shall remember long,
_How stern of lineament, how grim
The father was of Tuscan song_.'

Inversion should be naturally suggested, not forced. . . . IT is to be
inferred, we fear, that the late 'principal editor' of the '_Brother
Jonathan_' does not take it in good part that the new proprietors of that
now popular journal saw fit to arrest its rapid decadence, by a removal of
the inevitable cause of such a consummation. Lo! how from his distant
down-east ambush, with characteristic phrase, he denounces them as
'cowards' and 'puppies!' Whereupon, in a response appropriately brief, the
'brave few' of the 'principal editor's' old readers who have 'endured unto
the end,' are informed by the new incumbent, that the tabooed ci-devant
functionary 'seems disturbed because he was not suffered to kill the
'Brother Jonathan' as he had killed every journal in which he was
permitted to pour out his vapid balderdash. He is a perfect BLUEBEARD
among newspapers. He no sooner slaughters one, than he manages to get hold
of another, and butcher that with the same remorseless indifference.' The
editor adds: 'He once enjoyed the honor of some connection with the 'New
World,' and would have consigned that well-known sheet to the tomb of the
Capulets, had not the publishers foreseen the danger, and escaped in
season.' We merely note these facts, as corroborative of a remark or two
of our own, in our last issue. . . . '_An Incident in Normandy_', we
shrewdly suspect, is _not_ 'from the French;' if it be, all that we have
to say is, that such pseudo-rhapsodists as the writer could never by any
possibility _love_ nature. The thing is altogether _over-done_. A
Frenchman's opinion, however, COWELL tells us, should never be taken where
the beauties of nature are concerned, _unless they can be cooked_. There
is another grave objection to the article; which consists in the undue
frequency of Italian and French words and phrases, foisted into the
narrative. We have a strong attachment to plain, perspicuous _English_.