Edinburgh Review, Or, Critical Journal (Volume 71) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Art. IV?Poems by Mrs Boddington. 8vo. London: 1839. riiHE recent death of the amiable authoress imparts an addi- -- tional and melancholy interest to this pleasing volume, the last production of her pen. Even trifles acquire an importance when associated with the memory of the dead; and many of the fugitive poems and occasional verses which it contains, trifling and unimportant in themselves, will now acquire a value in the eyes of friends, as simple and natural records of the kindly feelings, the graceful tastes and sympathies of the accomplished writer. The appearance of a volume of poems by one who had already shown herself to be a poet in prose, was of itself calculated to excite some interest. When we noticed, some years ago, the ' Reminis- ' cencesof the Rhine and of a Corner of Italy, ' we were struck with the truth and felicity with which every scene was described. The writer seemed to render back the very spirit of the spot, so as to awaken in the reader the very associations of which the spectator would have been conscious in viewing the scene itself. In this insight into the spirit of nature, by which not only its leading features are delineated, but the finer play of its expression is arrested and reflected, a certain portion of poetical power is implied; and when we felt how skilfully, in her ' Reminiscences ' of the Rhine, ' the writer had embodied the gay and mingled associations derived from legendary lore, picturesque beauty, and fertility, which are called up by the banks of that 'exulting and ' abounding river j'?how much, again, of this species of local truth distinguished her portraits of the harder and grander features of Swiss scenery, ' where Nature cuts with a sharper chisel' than under the soft sky of Italy;?her sparkling and bustling Italian pictur...