Baruh Loves of the Devils Reviews

— The Corvey Poets Project at the University of Nebraska —

British Poetry of the later Eighteenth and Earlier Nineteenth Centuries

Bibliographical and Contextual Apparatus

Baruh, S.

The Loves of The Devils; The Rape of the Lips; and other Poems. London: John Chappell and Son, 1823. xiv+145p.

Contemporary Reviews

The following is a list of contemporary reviews for The Loves of Devils. If possible, I have included their contents verbatim from the original texts. Also included at the end is a review for Baruh's The Dance, Pythagoras, Plato's Dream, and Other Poems to help give further insight to the critics' views of his writing abilities.

The Literary Chronicle, no. 233 (Nov. 1, 1823), 964.

Among the ephemeral productions which that teeming mother, a new year, produces, there was one called, we believe, 'the Metropolis,' which gave a sort of parody on 'Moore's Loves of the Angels,' and entitled it the 'Loves of the Mortals.' Ex-sheriff Parkins, and Olive, soi-disant Princess of Cumberland, were the first and the only pair whose loves we recollect to have read and laughed at. Whether the author of the 'Loves of the Devils,' who states himself to be unschooled, self-taught, and under 21 years of age, took the hint from Moore, or from the editor of 'The Metropolis,' we know not, but he appears to us to have fallen as far short of the beauty and spirit of the one as he has of the humor of the other; and yet there is a sort of wild untutored genius about the pieces, which gives presage of better things.

The 'Rape of the Lips' is not quite so irregular a poem. It is addressed to the ladies, and we should almost suspect the author to be of the sister kingdom, as he tells the fair that he is a bachelor, and will remain unmarried until one of them blesses him with their charms! In both poems the author subjects himself to unfavorable comparison, and involuntarily Moore and Pope rush on our recollections as we read the titles of his poems; nor are they original in other respects, for, in reading them, we perpetually meet with old acquaintances. Some of his minor poems, which are numerous, are more to our taste than either of the principal ones, which do not rise above mediocrity. The following — though a most palpable parody, is pretty:
         'Oh! say not woman's heart is cold,
         Or lost to every feeling;
         Mark but that look, —that glance behold
         Whilst every care revealing,
         And sure 'twill prove that each found thought,
         With kind compassions glowing;
         When love and pity melt the soul,
         And burning tears are flowing.
         'Oh! say not woman's tear is false,
         Or that it flows at telling;
         It is the soft perceptive glow,
         Which melts without compelling;
         The flush that lights up Beauty's cheeks,
         Whilst every care revealing,
         Her warm expressive soul bespeaks, —
         Bespeaks her gen'rous feeling.

The 'Fare Thee Well' is still a closer parody on Byron's celebrated address to his wife; and we might quite several other imitations equally obvious.

The author is young, and very amatory, for, independent of his 'Rape of the Lips,' there is scarcely one, even of his minor pieces, that is without his homage to lips and kisses; now we think both lips and kisses very good things in their way, but bad subjects to be always either talking or writing about, and, not withstanding all our author may say, we believe the ladies will be of our opinion. In conclusion, we must observe, that whatever indulgence may be extended to Mr. Baruh, on account of his youth or defective education, he has much to learn, and much, also, to unlearn, before he can attain celebrity as a poet."

Lady's Magazine, ns, v5 (1824), 352.
[unseen]

Literary Museum, no78 (1823), 659-60.
[unseen]

A review on The Dance, Pythagoras, Plato's Dream, and other Poems (1825).

Monthly Magazine, no 60 (1825), 255-256.

The Dance, Pythagoras, Plato's Dream, and other Poems by S. Baruh, Author of "The Loves of the Devils," "Rape of the Lips," &c. &c. 12 mo.

Poems — other poems! No, indeed, Mr. S. Baruh, not poems — rhymes, indeed, they are, though, sometimes, queer ones, but not even meters. Those who attempt to write verses, if they have no ears to scan, can generally count their fingers; S.B. cannot even do this — or, if he can, he heeds it not — half a foot too much, or have a foot too little, he deems, perhaps, of no importance in such verses as his — they are destined for eternity, he seems to imagine, and therefore the feet they move one may be like eternity — of which the half is equal to the whole. But Mr. B. tells us that he has been praised, and therefore, he writes again;
          But when you're prais'd for verses half a score,
          You're tempted oft to write a dozen more.
We wish he had been contented with a dozen — if it had even been a baker's dozen, we might have got through them without actually yawning; but 134, not lines, but pages! — it is really too much for patience. But by whom can he have been praised? Not by reviewers, that is clear; for he is in a might passion with them, and lampoons them in such verses as these—
          The half-starved, crack-brain'd, miserable garreteer,
          And the commanding potent reviewer.
That is re-view-eer, we suppose, by license of poetics pronunciation, or verse-mouth, as Dr. Southey would call it: — re-view-eer! but why not? As Mr. B. had annihilated a syllabus in one line, why should he not create one in the other? But by whom, then, have his "Loving Devils," and "Ravished Lips," &c. &c. been praised? Not by the ladies, delightful as lovings and lip-ravishings may be to them, — that is equally certain: for he lampoons them, also, most grossly — tells them that "their silly tongues deform their pretty faces;" and that
         They criticize, and kill, and damn, and fight in
         A manly style — they set up such a clatter,
         It sounds like drumsticks struck upon a platter.
So that it is clear the blue-stockings have been at him, also; and yet he will write, and continue to be praised (by himself?) for—
         "'Gad, I don't fear their blus-ter-ing and raving."—
         "Take them all in all, or by they quire."—
We bring these two lines together, because they prove that Mr. B. can make as good verses with nine syllables as with ten; and we will add that also which rhymes with the latter of these, as containing a just estimate of the author's own poems.
         "They're only fit to put behind the fire."