That a feeling of this nature is
utterly at war with the Poetic Sentiment will not be disputed by those
who comprehend the character of the sentiment itself. This character
is finely shadowed out in that popular although vague idea so
prevalent throughout all time, that a species of melancholy is
inseparably connected with the higher manifestations of the beautiful.
But with the numerous and seriously- adduced incongruities of the
Culprit Fay, we find it generally impossible to connect other ideas
than those of the ridiculous. We are bidden, in the first place, and
in a tone of sentiment and language adapted to the loftiest breathings
of the Muse, to imagine a race of Fairies in the vicinity of West
Point. We are told, with a grave air, of their camp, of their king,
and especially of their sentry, who is a wood-tick. We are informed
that an Ouphe of about an inch in height has committed a deadly sin in
falling in love with a mortal maiden, who may, very possibly, be six
feet in her stockings. The consequence to the Ouphe is- what? Why,
that he has "dyed his wings," "broken his elfin chain," and
"quenched his flame-wood lamp." And he is therefore sentenced to what?
To catch a spark from the tail of a falling star, and a drop of
water from the belly of a sturgeon. What are his equipments for the
first adventure? An acorn-helmet, a thistle-down plume, a butterfly
cloak, a lady-bug shield, cockle-seed spurs, and a fire-fly horse.
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