The following List of contributions yet unread will prove to our hearers, that we did not exaggerate when we vaunted the richness of our repository, in our last introduction.
Of these we select such as from temporary circumstances, cannot with propriety be delayed, and mingle with them others that we think will best variegate our entertainment.
The first Attic meeting in the year 1811 ought to have appeared on the 15th instant, but was received too late. We are pleased with its easy humour, and well turned compliments to some of our members whose essential assistance and long friendship has laid us under the greatest obligation. We must also praise its unaffected diction, but we are sorry to see the author indulge in irregular metre, when the subject possessed no poetic fury, to hurry the verse. This defect must be attributed to idleness, which contents itself with that expression, that comes spontaneously, rather than the best, which sometimes must be sought for. Few writers are entitled to plead the example of Shakespear, in their justification.
The poem entitled The New Year is of a graven cast, and will merit the approbation of those who hear it, for its moral sentiment and the consolatory reflections with which it concludes. Whoever is its author we join our hopes and wishes to his, that the ensuing year may dispel the gloom of the past.
The Sonnet from Petrarch breathes the tender spirit of the Italian bard, but is imperfect in its rhymes. It deserves to be carefully retouched.
Cupid Turned Shepherd, from Tasso’s Amynta, is prettily rendered, but if we remember it is given with more gaiety than the original.
We believe all our hearers will agree that the Pious Painter is a Devilish good story.
The Stanzas to Memory have produced a poem that we hope will soothe the sorrows of their author, if it cannot remove the cause.
The thought in the Translation from Alcaeus we believe is too literally given, and deserves a more poetical style of versification, especially in the concluding couplet, in which the protection of Heaven requires greater elevation of language. The Little Poem, alluding to the Tale of the Lawyer, has revealed a secret that before was unknown to us, namely, that the fair Emilia has enslaved both her tormentors, and become a tormentor in her turn. This accounts for the melancholy gloom, which has for a long time overshadowed the face of the lawyer, and we are seriously apprehensive that the unnatural friendship of sable and scarlet, though it has continued thro’ the whole of our court mourning, will end in dire contention. It is proverbial that the friendship of the wicked is a rope of sand.
“But part in time, whoever hear
This our instructive Song,
For tho’ such Friendships may be dear
They can’t continue long.”
The Grecian Apothegms and Anecdotes ought to have been brought forward much sooner, they will speak for themselves. We might say the same with equal truth on the poem called The Ornament of Dress, tho’ it would be unjust not to express our approbation of the poetical ingenuity of its author.
The First Canto of the Sylphiad is interesting and a production of high poetical Fancy, but we must defer any remarks upon it till the poem is completed.
The Dispute Between Tuesday and Wednesday has in Vox Planetarum and Vox Stellarum produced two poems, which we could scarcely have expected to arise from so trifling a circumstance, and we hope the author will revise and complete them, lest the idea should be taken up by some other, and deprive them of the merit of originality. But after all the squabbling of Stars and Planets, the matter in debate is still undecided, and as the parties in question are to appear before our august tribunal, not in person we presume, but by their attorneys, we think it would be proper for the Society to take the merits of the case into consideration this evening.
It is requested that our correspondents will give a private intimation, whence their contributions are taken, if they have been published.