Author: [PROCTOR (Bryan Waller)]
Title: A Silician Story. With Diego de Montilla. And Other Poems. By Barry Cornwall.
Description: London: C. and J. Ollive C. and J. Olliver..., 1820. FIRST EDITION. 12mo, 185 x 108 mms., pp. [xi], 6 - 170 [171 blank, 172 notes, 173 - 174 adverts], including half-title, orignal boards uncut, paper label on spine,with the book label of Simon Nowell-Smith on the top margin of the front paste-down end-paper; binding a bit soiled, lower spine slightly defective, very slight to rest of spine, but a good to very good copy. In The Edinburgh Review for 1820, Francis Jeffrey asserted thatn "in our opinion, the finest poem in the book, is the 'Sicilian Story'; the outline, and a good deal of the details of which, are taken from a well known tale in the Decameron. It is in the sweet and irregular measure of Lycidas —though in a much more familiar and dramatic strain of diction than any of the Miltonic varieties." The book was available in late 1819, and the reviewer in The Literary Gazette, who had earlier affirmed the excellence of "Cornwall's" verse, claimed of this volume that, "it is with pleasure we see one of whom we expected much, fulfilling those expectations; and, by many a diversified song, showing us that it was not in catching the spirit of the elder dramatists alone that his genius consisted, but that he has power over all the elements of verse, and can delight us in almost every form."

Keywords: poetry Decameron literature


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