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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
solid j but $ hat 4 i- / is surprising that \ the * hints they M&t < k ire not seized by writersof t squaMiterary andsuperior ^ hSto ^ pl 1 ic » l Jp 0 W € pe . But enough . Mr . Moore had no such object in view ; nor Was it to be expected that he should : but more might have beeti anticipated than is to be found in his Tale . r
The greater part of the volume is made up of description : very beautiful description certainly , and so characteristic of Mr . Moore , tHat a sentence picked out from any part of the book would declare its author . In Persia , $ gypt , or the Emerald Isle , or eTen in the literary and legislative society-of our metropolis , Mr . Moore is the same . Once having met him , there is no mistaking him for ever after . Accordingly , in his detail of the loves of an Epicurean on the banks of the Nile , are to be found the same peculiarities which equally characterize his descriptions of Sheridan ' s pursuit of Miss
Lmley , and of his influence over the British House of Commons : the same smoothness of style , the same abundance of imagery , occasionally far-fetched , but generally felicitous ; the mantle of embroidery thrown over every subject , lofty or mean , grand or trivial , and , therefore , sometimes constituting a , decoration , and sometimes a deformity . When he bears the reader on through scenes of Oriental luxury and beauty , his studied elegance of style is appropriate , and our minds are prepared to relish such descriptions as the following :
" While I indulged in these dreams , the sun , half sunk beneath $ * e horizon ^ was taking , calmly and gloriously , his leave of the Pyramids ,-r- ? is t * $ Jjad done , evening after evening , for ages , till they had become famuia ^ to him ia the earth itself . On the side turned to his ray they now presentedia " 'Wbiif of dazzling Whiteness ; while , on the other , their great shadows ; len ^ ening to the eastward , looked like the first steps of Night , hastening to Envelope the hills of Araby in her shade"No sooner had the last gleam of the sun disappeared ,, than * on every house-top in Memphis , gay , gilded banners were seen waving aloft , to proclaim his setting , —while a full burst of harmony pealed from all the temples along the shores . "—P . 40 ;
But when we rest in the wilderness , which forms the abode of a Christian father and his disciples , the feelings are prepared for something less trivia ) and far-fetched than such a conceit as this : " The only living thing I saw was a restless swallow , whose wings wereof the hue of the gray sands over which he fluttered . ' Why may not the mind , like this bird , take the colour of the desert , and sympathize in its austerity ,, its freedom , and its calm ?'"—P . 256 . ¦ > >¦
Small pieces of poetry are dispersed throughout the volume ; some ; . exceedingly pretty , and others far inferior to the generality of Mr * Mood's lighter productions . Two specimens may be extracted ; the one a piefctfe of the light studies of a female disciple of Epicurus , and the other the lityof a spirit in the subterranean regions of Memphis . ¦¦ : »> > \ " As o ' er the lake , in ev ' ning ' s glow , ; , That temple threw its length ' ning shade , Upon the marble steps below , ¦ " ' i There sat a fair Corinthian maid , Gracefully o * er some volume bending *; While , b y Ifcr aide , the youthflil sage Held back her ringlets , 1 ^ , descending , They should o * crahadow all the p * # e ; '' - * P . &
Untitled Article
Beview *~* Mooi * eE % pfaumtS . 903
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1827, page 903, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1803/page/47/
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