POST SCRIPTUM.

SHIPWRECK.

I forgot to speak of a ship in a tempest as a poetical object; and this, probably, your Lordship may turn against me. A ship in a tempest undoubtedly is both sublime and terrible; but what makes it so? It is the intense sympathy with the terror and distress, that causes the sublimity: do we then sympathize with the people in the ship, or the ship? the men, or the boards? If with the men, then your sympathy is derived from nature. If you knew a ship had no men in it, the terror, and those feelings which cause sublimity, would be lost.

This

CRABBE and COLERIDGE have both taken that moment of terror, when, after conflicting with the waves, the vessel is seen no more! gives an indescribable sublimity; because an image from nature is called up, which shews you those miserable people in despair and agony one moment;

in the next, the waves are only seen, the storm only heard, and the ship gone.

COLERIDGE's idea is that, at midnight, he beholds a ship tossing, by one flash of lightning; another flash comes, and

"He sees no vessel there."

Whilst we are on the subject, allow me again to advert to that singularly affecting poem, "The Shipwreck."

How does FALCONER contrive to make the ship itself an object of sympathy? By personifying it, as endowed with sense:

"Now launching headlong down the horrid vale,
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"She hears no more the roaring of the gale."

The cause of the want of interest in the scenes and classic places by which the ship is surrounded, arises only from the anxiety and sympathy with the mariners, and particularly those for whom we are so much interested. Who at such a moment could bear to have his deep solicitude interrupted, by being called upon to contemplate even those shores, where

"Godlike SOCRATES and PLATO shone?"

(Shipwreck.)

As the scene rises in terror, how fine is the introduction of the ANGEL of the WIND:

"And lo! tremendous o'er the deep he springs,
"The inflaming sulphur flashing from his wings;
"Hark! his strong voice the dismal silence breaks."

Is not this infinitely more poetical than

"Taught aft the sheet, they tally and belay?"

In some cases, where nautical terms are used, the effect, I admit, is very striking, in bringing you, as it were, into the midst of this forlorn and nized crew. Such is the animated passage,

"Square fore and aft the yards,' the Master calls:

"You Timoneers her motion still attend,

"For on your steerage all our lives depend

"So, steady! meet her! watch the curving prow,
"And from the gale directly let her go!'
"Starboard again!' the watchful Pilot cries:
"'Starboard!' th' obedient Timoneer replies !"

ago

Who can read this without fancying himself amidst the crew, and almost hearing the conflict of the elements, the words given and repeated,

"Starboard again!' the watchful Pilot cries:
"Starboard!' th' obedient Timoneer replies!"

But an image from artificial life puts to flight almost all sympathy.

"Fate SPURS her on!"

A few more critical observations occur on looking over what your Lordship has advanced.

Architecture.

You observe that it is the architecture of Westminster Abbey, that makes it poetical: the tower for "making patent shot," accordingly, would be equally poetical, if the architecture was the same. I affirm this is not so. Westminster Abbey is, and must be, poetical, from moral associations'more than from its architecture. "The object" cannot be seen without these associations, connected with time, and the illustrious dead.

I say, your answer is that of a painter, not a poet! The architecture would make "the tower "for patent shot" equally picturesque, as an object, for painting sees nothing but the surface, but it would not make it as poetical, except in mere description; and I defy your Lordship, and all the poets who ever existed, to make "the patent shot "tower" poetical, let the architecture be what it

Nay,

will, unless they keep all its uses and name out of sight. In using the word " objects," of course I imply poetical" objects, which include not only the visible form, but the associations. Sir CHRISTOPHER WREN's additions to Westminster Abbey are not so poetical as the Abbey itself, though their "architecture" were as appropriate as it is inharmonious. I cannot shew the absurdity of a poetical tower for "patent shot," so well as by a plain instance-that of the "Old Minster" and theGlass-houses" at Bristol! If a glass-house had the same architecture, to a painter it would appear the same; but try the effect in poetry. CHATTERTON, speaking of the spirit of ÆLLA, says,

"Whether......

"Or fiery round the MINSTER glare!"

Try the effect of the other building, supposing its architecture the same,

"Or fiery round the 'Glass-house' glare!”

the whole passage becomes ludicrous.

The Wall of Malamocco, Euxine, and Argo.

When I speak of the sea, I do not speak of the Adriatic, or any part of it in particular. You take particular spots, and ask, whether, in that spot, the