He has adduced his arguments, and I have answered. I had no “occasion to gnaw my pen,” for the answer was written in three days, currente calamo, and for this reason, because I well knew if the answer had not come out by the end of the month, the whole periodical press would have echoed my defeat.

The arguments that have been offered in answer to Lord Byron's shewy and rhetorical paradoxes are before the reader. But behold my friend, the Quarterly, again! sed quantum mutatus ab illo Hectore! from that D'ISRAELI, at whose “hec.

toring”. I felt, indeed, indignant. The language now is at least that of courtesy, of gentlemanly courtesy, towards me, however bitter against my disinterested but then unknown supporter.

To shew “how LITTLE ENMITY” the Quarterly has for me, they will not quote what was said in my favour!! And not to be outdone in generous contention, as they will not quote what is said, I will, coute qu'il coute !

Extracts from a Kit-Cat.

Against the Quarterly Review and Mr. GILCHRIST, bowever, Mr. Bowles would bave more serious causes of complaint. By this latter person he has been attacked in terms of such indecent scurrility, as is hardly ever met with in the annals of criticism,” &c. &c.

a

" We will venture to assert, notwithstanding all the virulent invective and elaborate abuse, Mr. BOWLES bas still the best of the argument."

“His reply to his noble opponent has settled the question beyond the possibility of a rejoinder,"* &c.-Life of Addison.

Mr. B. has been accused of wantonly vilifying Pope on all occasions. Lord BYRON, it would seem, first found out this; then came Mr. CAMPBELL ; and subsequently the whole bevy of magging scribblers joined in the cry! The reply to Mr. CAMPBELL has, however, put the question at rest, save with those learned Thebans, of whom it may be said,

“ That e'en though vanquish'd they can argue still."

Kit-Kat.

It is said, that they have the “vanity's to think differently respecting the controversy between Lord BYRON and myself! I am, therefore, to suppose they could, if they would, do what I am persuaded neither Lord Byron nor Mr. CAMPBELL can do, prove, by fair and manly argumentation, without petty cavils, that art is generally more poetical, more adapted to the higher orders of poetry, than nature; manners and habits of a given period in

• Those who have followed after Lord BYRON and Mr. CAMPBELL, GILCHRIST, M'Dermot, et hoc genus omne, put me in mind of Swift's fable of the pippins swimming in an inundation:

“A new-fall’n ball of horse's dang,

Mingling with apples in the throng,
" Said to a pippin, plump and prim,
"SEE, BROTHER, HOW WE APPLES SWIM!!"

society more poetical than passions; and that Pope, therefore, must be “in the same file with SHAKE

SPEARE and MILTON. Can they do this? If Lord BYRON could not, and whether he could is left to the judgment of the public, I doubt whether the most chosen of the phalanx could.

Let us first give a very brief summary of what Lord Byron has done. Passing over the long story of the sea, ship, &c. he took me to the coast of Attica; he pointed to Athens, and the Acropolis, and said, “there are works of art! what would the “mountains be without them?” I answered, That was no argument against a general position; he took particular works, whose remains were poetical, not as works of art merely, but as affecting the passions by a thousand associations; and he compared these, the sublimest wrecks of ancient glory, with the identical spot where they stood. That was no comparison : divest them of associations, and bring them to the Cordelleiras.

He pointed to the Temple of Theseus. swered, Take the TEMPLE OF NATURE, and I have no doubt which will be thought the more poetical. He took the spear of Achilles, and said, "what

ACHILLES a poetical spear !" I answered, It was one of the least poetical spears in Homer for a great warrior;

; and asked, which he thought more poetical, the spear, or the spear's owner ?

I an:

a

but n salle

He took up “Mrs. Unwin's needle," and said, What a needle ! how poetical! CowPER’s trees are all twaddle ; but this needle is a needle indeed, connected with darning of stockings ! images of " in door NATURE !!" I answered, No one, in feeling an interest on account of this humble relic of the old lady, ever thought of the “ darning • stockings,” but of the desolate, heart of him, who, looking on this relic, remembered with a tear the general character of its departed owner. I asked him, if the recollection of darning stockings rendered it poetical, whether the following stanza would not have been most poetical ?

its hi pati

“ My small-clothes, oh! departed friend,

My shirt, which I so oft did rend,
My stockings thou no more shalt mend,

“My MARY!"

He took me to the deserts of Egypt, and asked, Why was not Salisbury Plain as poetical as the deserts of Egypt? I answered, Solitude, extent, and associations of the deepest interest, made the vast plains of Egypt poetical; but Salisbury Plain was crossed by a hundred turnpikes ;

in
every

road were post-chaises, mail-coaches, footmen in gilt buttons, &c. objects in artificial life!

He pointed to the Tower on the Thames for making Patent Shot, and said it would be as poetical as Westminster Abbey, if it had the same architecture! I answered, it would not, let the architecture be what it might; and defied him to make it as poetical in description, to say nothing of the associations, unless he kept out of sight all its uses ! I instanced the ode in CHATTERTON :

“ Fiery o'er the MINSTER glare!" and asked him, whether it would have been as poetical, if the poet had said,

“ And fiery o'er the GLASS-HOUSE glare !" supposing a glass-house was the same in architecturé.

He then shewed his Heathen Gods, Apollo, &c. I said, The Jupiter in VIRGIL, nimborum in nocte, would scatter them to atoms! Then he took up ANTINOUS' head, and cried, here is a “ supernatural, super-artificial head!" I said “ that was TWADDLE!” requested him to describe the said head, as he had spoken of Venus, in Childe Harold, “raining kisses,'' and then we shall see how much in his description was from nature, and how much from art!

I need not go on; but to prevent the mere verbal cavils of pragmatical stupidity, I ask, whether any of these images from art, adduced by Lord Byron, are equally "adapted to poetry?” I ask, whether my answers are answers or not? are not answers, let him or any one answer them again, meeting them, one and all, as fairly as I have stated them!

If they