He is "simple, sensuous, and passionate," and Milton
asked no more from a poet.
"A wreath of orange blossoms,
When next we met, she wore.
The expression of her features
Was more thoughtful than before."
On his own principles Wordsworth should have admired this unaffected
statement; but Wordsworth rarely praised his contemporaries, and
said that "Guy Mannering" was a respectable effort in the style of
Mrs. Radcliffe. Nor did he even extol, though it is more in his own
line,
"Of what is the old man thinking,
As he leans on his oaken staff?"
My own favourite among Mr. Bayly's effusions is not a sentimental
ode, but the following gush of true natural feeling:-
"Oh, give me new faces, new faces, new faces,
I've seen those around me a fortnight and more.
Some people grow weary of things or of places,
But persons to me are a much greater bore.
I care not for features, I'm sure to discover
Some exquisite trait in the first that you send.
My fondness falls off when the novelty's over;
I want a new face for an intimate friend."
This is perfectly candid: we should all prefer a new face, if
pretty, every fortnight:
"Come, I pray you, and tell me this,
All good fellows whose beards are grey,
Did not the fairest of the fair
Common grow and wearisome ere
Ever a month had passed away?"
For once Mr. Bayly uttered in his "New Faces" a sentiment not
usually expressed, but universally felt; and now he suffers, as a
poet, because he is no longer a new face, because we have welcomed
his juniors.
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