This nuisance then being abated; we are left at liberty to contemplate a character of a different complexion, “buxom, blithe, and debonair”:  one who, although evidently a great favourite of the Poet’s and therefore to be received with all due courtesy, is notwithstanding introduced under the suspicious description of an alias.

    In heaven, ycleped EUPHROSYNE;
    And by men, heart-easing Mirth.

Judging indeed from the light and easy deportment of this gay Nymph; one might guess there were good reasons for a change of name as she changed her residence.

But of all vices there is none we abhor more than that of slanderous insinuation.  We shall therefore confine our moral strictures to the Nymph’s mother; in whose defence the Poet has little to say himself.  Here too, as in the case of the name, there is some doubt.  For the uncertainty of descent on the Father’s side having become trite to a proverb; the Author, scorning that beaten track, has left us to choose between two mothers for his favourite and without much to guide our choice; for, whichever we fix upon, it is plain she was no better than she should be.  As he seems however himself inclined to the latter of the two, we will even suppose it so to be.

Or whether (as some sager say) The frolic wind that breathes the Spring, ZEPHYR with AURORA playing, As he met her once a Maying; There on beds of violets blue, And fresh-blown roses washed in dew, _&c._

Some dull people might imagine that the wind was more like the breath of Spring; than Spring, the breath of the wind:  but we are more disposed to question the Author’s Ethics than his Physics; and accordingly cannot dismiss these May gambols without some observations.

In the first place, Mr. M. seems to have higher notions of the antiquity of the May Pole than we have been accustomed to attach to it.  Or perhaps he sought to shelter the equivocal nature of this affair under that sanction.  To us, however, who can hardly subscribe to the doctrine that “Vice loses half its evil by losing all its grossness”; neither the remoteness of time, nor the gaiety of the season, furnishes a sufficient palliation.  “Violets blue” and “fresh-blown roses” are, to be sure, more agreeable objects of the Imagination than a gin shop in Wapping or a booth in Bartholomew Fair; but, in point of morality, these are distinctions without a difference:  or it may be the cultivation of mind (which teaches us to reject and nauseate these latter objects) aggravates the case, if our improvement in taste be not accompanied by a proportionate improvement of morals.

If the Reader can reconcile himself to this latitude of principle, the anachronism will not long stand in his way.  Much indeed may be said in favour of this union of ancient Mythology with modern notions and manners.  It is a sort of chronological metaphor—­an artificial analogy, by which ideas, widely remote and heterogeneous, are brought into contact; and the mind is delighted by this unexpected assemblage, as it is by the combinations of figurative language.