Mr. HERVEY'S Poetical Illustrations of the beautiful engraving* from Select
Specimens of Modern Sculpture, to which we alluded two or three weeks ago, merit a separate notice, for the elegant verses they contain,—bearing, indeed, but slightly on the works which they embellish rather than illustrate. Mr. HER VETS muse has the vagrant wing of the butterfly; which, if it settle for a moment on a flower, is presently off again, sporting in the sun, and hovering round the blossoms,—as our fanciful poet strikes out poetic conceits. In truth, the productions of Modern Sculpture have in themselves but little to excite even the poet's imagina- tion: indeed, they appear almost to greater advantage as pictures in the delicate engravings of the work before us, than as statues in the original marble; for the beauty of the plate is pleasing to the eye, but the marble, wanting the soul of' genius,. is, as Sir :HUMPHREY DAVY said of the Apollo Belvidere, "a splendid stalactite."
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