Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1872-10-27
COMPARISONS THAT ARE NOT
ODTOUS.

ChauceF is a Greek poet; Milton is a
Hebrew poet; Pope is a Latin poet, and
Shakespeare is a world poet.-Idem.
The humor of Addison is intellectual
that of Goldsmith moral, and that of
Irving purely fsnciful.-H. B. Wallace.
Pope drives a handsome chariot with
a couple of neat, trim nags; Dryden a
coach and six steady hOrses.-Voltaire.
They both drive coaches and six; but
Dryden's horses are either galloping or
stumbling; Pope's go at a steady, even
trOt-JOhnsOn.
Milton is the synthesist, Dante the
analyst Of hell-the one here practices
the transcendental, the other the aseen-
dental method.-Gilfllan.
Scott should be read in the spring;
Shelley in the fervid summer; Words
worth in autumn; Cowper and Byron in
the winter; Shakespeare all the year
round.-Gilfllan.
The earliest English poets are Of a
heather or Greek family of art; the
middle ones of a moral cast, the spiritual
predominates in those most eminent in
those Of our w day.-H.> b. Wallace.
MiltOn's poem is a building testing on
mighty pillars. K~lOpstoek's magic pic
ture lowering between heaven and
earth, amid the tenderest emotions and
the roost moving scenes of human ma
ture.-Herder.
Goldsmith was a fool to Johnson in
argument; that is, in assigning the spe-
cifc grounds of his opinion. DR.. John
son was a fool to Goldsmith in the fine
tact with which he SKINNED the sur
face of things and formed his opinions.
Anonymous.
The sympathy of the poet with the
subjects OF his poetry is particularly re-
markable in Chaueer and Shakespeare,
but what the latter effects by a strong
act Of imagination and mental meta
mOrphosis, the former does without effort,
merely by the Unborn ~joyousness of his
nature. Coleridge.
The love of nature seems to have led
Thomson to a cheerful religion, and a
gloomy religion to have led COWper to
a love of nature. In chastity of dictiOn
and the harmony of blank verse. Cow
per leaves Thompson UNNECESSARILY be-
low him, yet l feel the latter to have
been the pOet.-Coleridge.
Akenside describes a landscape as it
affects the fancy COwper, as it impress
es the feelings; SOuthey daguerreotypes
the landscape itself. Coleridge descants
on the waving of leaf; Southey on its
color and configuratiOn. Wordsworth
delights in ~OutfOwing sentiment; South
ey in picturesque Outline.-Moir.
Chaucer excels as the poet of real life;
Spencer as the poet Of romance; Shakes
peare as the poet Of nature, and Milton
as the poet Of morality. Chaucer most
frequently describes things as they are;
Spencer, as we wish them to be; Shakes
peare, as they would be, and Milton as
they should be.-Anonymous.
In the first great era of our national
literature-thatiof Spencer, Shakespeare,
Milton, Taylor, Hooker, Bacon, Browne,
each of whom may be regarded as the
fountain of separate great rivers, We dis
cover that their materials We're found in
great, first principles-in the grand aud
overlooking emotions of the heart-in
the passions, whose display stamp char
acter-in the heroic as to action, and
the tender as to feeling.-Moir.
Millions life was a great epic itself;
ByrOu's life was a tragi-eomedy; Sheri-
dams was a brilliant farce; Keatsis was a
sad, brief, beautiful lyric; Mo0re's has
been a ~love-soag; COleridgeis was a
midsummer Nights Dream;n Sehil-
ler's was a harsh, difficult wailing, but
ultimately victorious war ode, ike one
of Pindar's; Gotbe's was q brilliant.
somewhat dramatic, but finished novel.
TassO's was an elegy.-Gilhllan.
Wordsworth aimed at being the model
for poets. He was; indeed, he could
not but be much more than this: but
this is what he chiefly and most con-
purposed to be. COleridge
wished to be the inspirer and former Of
age. He is so only to a few, but to
those few be is 50 still; his thoughts
heave and ferment in that underlined
mass which the generation is striving to
develop into order and life.-LittelI's
Living Age.
The darkness of Shelley is not that Of
Coleridge, which was partly the defer
entail property Of his mind; not that Of
Carlyle, which proceeds from an un-
couth terminology nor that Of Foster,
springs from an 6ROpjd U~er5OrWHl; 7
nor that Of Hazlett, which arises from q
love Of one sided paradox; nor that Of
Byron, which is either the aflectation Of
or the mere turbulence of passion;
nor that ofDe Stael, which is the be-
wilderment of sharp, but not subtle
mind in the fogs of a region too traneen-
dental for its powers; nor that Of Words
worth, which is caused by the refine
peculiar and personal assccia-
ton; but something distinct, partly in
digenous and partly acquired, 3 conn
posite formed less from natural tenden-
CIV than from a habit Of reading German
and high Greek, from the habit Of eSt-
opium, from an imperfect metsphys-
les and by persecution throughout his
existenee.-ldem.