Review of The Lamentation
author: Elizabeth Moody
source date: January 1802

Elizabeth Moody Art. II. The Lamentation. A Poem. In two Parts. To which are added other Miscellaneous Pieces, in Blank Verse and Rhyme. Crown 8vo. pp. 200. 6s. Boards. White. 1801. [This book review originally appeared in the Monthly Review , second series, vol. 7, January 1802, pp. 9-12. Benjamin Nangle identifies Elizabeth Moody as the author of this review from an editor's marked copy of The Monthly Review . See Nangle, The Montly Review, Second Series, 1790-1815: Indexes of Contributors and Articles , Clarendon Press, 1955. Mary A. Waters and Zachary Parker edited this essay for The Criticism Archive.]

Mythology tells us that, in days of yore, the man who slept on the top of Parnassus became a poet: —he slept, he waked,

And lisp’d in numbers, for the numbers came. [Alexander Pope, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735).]

Now whether this part of the mountain has been swallowed up by an earthquake, or worn out by continual usage; whether the identical spot, the once favoured soil of inspiration, be so overgrown by weeds as to be rendered impervious; or whether the would-be Bard—now anticipates his nap, and falls into his trance in the middle or at the bottom of the hill;—may be matter worthy of the investigation of the speculative inquirer, who feels himself anxiously solicitous to account for the degeneracy of the race of poets. To us these desultory ideas have occurred from venerable recollection of the sublime worthies of antient days: but we are ready to pay the due tribute of praise to all our modern Bards, whose merits we would not appreciate by the rules of invidious comparison; and we shall readily allow that, if the poems before us do not rank in the first class of excellence, they are yet far above mediocrity.

The poetical oglio [Miscellany.] here presented to us supplies a variety that may suit every taste; and the author tells us, in his preface, that his subjects have been produced under the very different impressions of joy and sorrow. Hence flow Lamentations, Elegies, Pastorals, Songs, and Sonnets.—The volume opens with the poem which, as being most considerable in size, gives title to the publication. Here we travel through the most dreary and gloomy paths of human life. The muse addresses an invocation to melancholy; and the pensive mind, obedient to the summons, accompanies her to the end of the journey. This poem, however, is correctly moral and religious, and will meet the approbation of the reflecting reader. The destructive vice of gaming is reprobated with a virtuous indignation:

O love of play! thou certain source of woe,
Thou ceaseless torturer of honest hearts!
Thou cause unfailing of tormenting thought,
How many noble souls hast thou destroy’d!

In page 42, we have a pleasing illustration of the superior state of happiness resulting from the retired life of virtuous innocence,when contrasted with the scenes of vice and pampered luxury:

O then for ever let us fly those scenes!
Which vice and odious cunning represent
On the throng’d theatre of human life:
For ‘tis in cottages, and not in courts,
At frugal tables, not at sumptuous feasts,
In still retirement, not in busy crowds,
That virtue and that happiness reside.

From the miscellaneous compositions, were it not that our boundary is circumscribed, we could select more than one poem which pleases us:—the following, on Lelia, obtains a preference:

O had I Titian’s skill to trace
A picture without fault or flaw,
A perfect form or perfect face,
I then would Lelia’s portrait draw.

Or had I Milton’s pow’r of song
Where strength with melody combin’d,
I’d sing in numbers soft, yet strong,
The nobler graces of her mind.

For none but Titian’s art could paint
Her eyes, her mouth, her shape, her air;
His art alone could represent
So sweet a form, a face so fair.

And Milton’s Muse alone could tell
Her graceful ease, her polish’d art,
Her soul where all attractions dwell,
And prostrate lays the proudest heart.

Among the Songs, we find several that are sprightly and convivial; and the poet seems to celebrate the juice of the grape and the charms of his mistress equally con amore. His devotion to both is pleasantly manifested in the following lines; though here the little blind Deity is a more principal object of worship that the jolly God:

You ask for a song, and, by Jove!
I’ll sing one as well as I’m able;
The theme I have chosen is Love,
A theme known to all at this table;
For where is the soul that escapes
The subtle and searching sensation?
It comes in all manners and shapes,
And fills the whole range of creation.

It spares neither aged nor young,
But travels the blessed world over,
And though never told by the tongue,
The eyes are still sure to discover.
‘Tis th’ essence of spiritual flame,
The source of each tender emotion,
A feeling that fills the whole frame,
And speaks in each feature and motion.

It warms ev’ry thought of the soul,
It opes a new world to the senses;
Fair fancy it frees from controul,
And breaks down stupidity’s fences.
It opens the mind of the sage;
The growth of bright genius it quickens,
Gives warmth to the coldness of age,
And health to the bosom that sickens.

If sometimes the source of much pain,
Its joys in proportion are greater;
And though long we suffer in vain,
Reward will come sooner or later.
Thus Phyllis once broke my repose,
But Myra is not so hard hearted,
Her kindness has bansh’d my woes,
And cur’d all the wounds that once smarted.

Now, as for myself, I declare,
The passion I ne’er will let languish;
For sweet are the smiles of the fair,
Tho’ frowns are my torment and anguish.
O those who have known well as I,
The value of Love’s sacred pleasures,
Find charms in the glance of an eye,
Surpassing the world’s richest treasures.

The sex, then, in bumpers I’ll toast,
While wine I can purchase or borrow;
For comfort without them were lost,
And life would be nothing but sorrow.
They e’er shall be prais’d by my pen;
Their healths I will drink in my glasses;
For who cares a straw for the men,
So long as he’s lov’d by the lasses?

We are glad to leave the author merrier at the conclusion of his volume than we find him at the beginning: but, before we part, we must comply with our usual custom of adding a few mild strictures, where they are requisite. In his blank verse, he is too frequently prosaic: e. g.

I early rose, yet found my friend was up
At work already in a neighbouring field.—

The cloth remov’d, an hour was spent in chat.

Happy I am, as one descending in the vale of years
Can well expect to be.

In his rhyme, the poet’s ear has often failed to perceive the effect that the simple transposition of a word produces, in the harmony of numbers: while his alliterations are still more obviously harsh and unpleasing; as in the line, page 189, in a poem on sleep:

Which—whilst waking.

It may be said that such faults are trifles: but, with respect to a writer’s reputation,

————Hæ nugæ seria ducent
In mala derisum semel exceptumque sinistrè.[^1]

[^1: "These trifles will bring that friend into serious trouble, if once he has been laughed down and given an unlucky reception." Horace, Ars Poetica l. 451-2 (Translation from Horace: Satires, Epistles, and Ars Poetica, with an English Translation by H. Rushton Fairclough , William Heinemann and Harvard University Press, 1942.]