The writer for the Sydney Monitor reflects on aesthetics in general and then turns his attention to poetry. As a (rare) example of fine poetry, the Monitor reprints Nathaniel Lipscomb Kentish's 'Hymn' declaring it to be 'poetry of the first character'. The Monitor then comments, in relation to Kentish: 'it does certainly astonish us, that the man who can think such thoughts as are contained in the following sublime lines, can utter such bad politics at public meetings as he does.'