Your Poetry is so bad that I
look upon it as your personal kindness to me that you did not put my
lines under that head. Your criticism on Painting begins by calling
West's very pale horse "an extraordinary effort of human _genius_." Your
criticism on Sculpture begins by applauding _beforehand_ Mr. Wyatt's
_impudent_ cenotaph. Your criticism on the Theatre begins by
_denouncing_ the best production of its kind, 'The Beggar's Opera.' Your
article on Engraving puts under the head of Italy a stone drawing made
in Paris. Your own engraving of the Polar Regions is confused and dirty;
and your article on the Polar Seas sets out with the assertion of a fact
of which I was profoundly ignorant, namely, that the Physical
Constitution of the Globe is subject to _constant changes_ and
revolution. Of _constant changes_ I never heard, except in one of
Congreve's plays, in which the fair sex is accused of _constant
inconstancy_; but suppose that for _constant_ you read _frequent_. I
should wish you, for my own particular information, to add in a note a
few instances of the Physical Changes in the Constitution of the Globe,
which have occurred since the year 1781, in which I happened to be born.
Pages:
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433