The Contention of Death and Love is, like the preceding,
a species of allegory. The scene of it is a "serene leaf-latticed chamber," where a " (lying poet calmly slept ;" the human figures are, we conjecture, his mother, three sisters, and his betrothed; the allegorical ones, Death and Love, who appear in the shape of females. Love beseeches Death to spare the bard, not only for his youth dad connexions, but for the sake of the world at large. Death is inexorable, but vouchsafes her reasons ; which amount to this—that she is an instrument in the hands of Fate ; but if otherwise, greater bards have died before now, and therefore there is no excuse to postpone the decree. The manner in which these sleader materials are put together displays no art ; the sen- timents occasionally display some tenderness and some fancy, but arc deficient in strength and truth; whilst the poem throughout is marked by the peculiarities of the Cockney school.
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