) It is an odd collocation; but not
unintelligible. William Crowe, the now forgotten Public Orator of
Oxford, and author of _Lewesdon Hill_, was an intimate friend; a writer
on versification; and, last but not least, a very respectable echo of
the Miltonic note, as the following, from a passage dealing with the
loss in 1786 of the _Halsewell_ East Indiaman off the coast of Dorset,
sufficiently testifies:--
The richliest-laden ship
Of spicy Ternate, or that annual sent
To the Philippines o'er the southern main
From Acapulco, carrying massy gold,
Were poor to this;--freighted with hopeful Youth
And Beauty, and high Courage undismay'd
By mortal terrors, and paternal Love, etc., etc.
It is not improbable that Rogers caught the mould of his blank verse
from the copy rather than from the model. In the matter of style--as
Flaubert has said--the second-bests are often the better teachers. More
is to be learned from La Fontaine and Gautier than from Moliere and
Victor Hugo.
Many art-books, many books addressed specially to the connoisseur, as
well as most of those invaluable volumes no gentleman's library should
be without, found their places on Rogers's hospitable shelves. Of such,
it is needless to speak; nor, in this place, is it necessary to deal
with his finished and amiable, but not very vigorous or vital poetry.
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