Definitely not a future research project

Although I've got a hard-won reputation for being able to read and write about anything--sermons by fifth-rate Victorian preachers, long didactic novels by Calvinists, derivative popular biographies, conduct manuals--I think I've finally met my match. In my future career, I will never, ever write an article about poetry in The Bulwark or Reformation Journal. Good heavens. I've never had the misfortune to read so many flubbed iambic tetrameters and wacky slant rhymes. Here are a couple of stanzas from a poem entitled "The Doom of Rome":

There was a time—‘tis even now—
It was in ancient days,
It was when slaughter’d thousands fell;
It cannot last always.

There was a time when morning dawn’d
Upon the Saviour’s tomb—
A dark and empty sepulcher;
Mark this, O Papal Rome!

The rest of the magazine isn't much of an improvement. Still, I'm finding some useful articles, as well as inspiration for a Cliopatria post about Benjamin Disraeli. Seven volumes down and eleven to go. (If you feel a desperate longing to sample some of the Bulwark's deathless prose, you can try here.)

I'm going to have to take a pass on the Strand (luckily for my pocketbook), but I did enjoy my trip to Labyrinth Books. Oh, and the Union Theological Seminary's bookstore is having a sale.

In other news, an invisible one became visible. I was worried that my eyes might melt, but all's well.

Comments

[Amardeep]

That truly was an awful poem...

I'm looking forward to the Disraeli post; I find Disraeli fascinating. (I often wonder why more people aren't interested in him)