Page:Essays and studies; by members of the English Association, volume 1.djvu/151



(The reason for the asterisks remains unexplained they seem merely a little overflow of incoherence).

The 'swelling' minstrel goes through other rather chaotic experiences, rising to a vision of bishops 'round the altars pale', and ending in a gentle impropriety:

Here follow fresh asterisks, but they are perhaps more in place. For the author is a clergyman, the Rev. George Croly, and there is a certain wistfulness in the last lines which almost exalts it into poetry. But there is about all the minstrel's dreams a flavour, as it were of strong innocent claret cup, drunk rather too quickly at an afternoon party. There is no reason why the seas should be Tuscan, Tuscany being scant of seaboard, or why the serenade should be silver, except for the sake of alliteration. Holland's sonnet on Chatsworth can boast of a more pompous vagueness:

Stranger, who ramblest here, say, dost thou seek Some gem of art midst Nature's wonders laid? Look down that river-cleft tree-tufted glade— Yon mansion is the palace of the Peak! How tall the linden trees—the deer how sleek—