shrewdness, be accused of Heathenism for talking of Flora and Ceres in a poem on the Seasons!  What are produced as the exclusive badges and occult proofs of Catholic bigotry, are nothing but the adventitious ornaments and external symbols, the gross and sensible language, in a word, the poetry of Christianity in general.  What indeed shews the frivolousness of the whole inference is that Deckar, who is asserted by our critic to have contributed some of the most passionate and fantastic of these devotional scenes, is not even suspected of a leaning to Popery.  In like manner, he excuses Massinger for the grossness of one of his plots (that of the Unnatural Combat) by saying that it was supposed to take place before the Christian era; by this shallow common-place persuading himself, or fancying he could persuade others, that the crime in question (which yet on the very face of the story is made the ground of a tragic catastrophe) was first made statutory by the Christian religion.

The foregoing is a harsh criticism, and may be thought illiberal.  But as Mr. Gifford assumes a right to say what he pleases of others—­they may be allowed to speak the truth of him!

[Footnote A:  What an awkward bed-fellow for a tuft of violets!]

[Footnote B: 

  “How oft, O Dart! what time the faithful pair
  Walk’d forth, the fragrant hour of eve to share,
  On thy romantic banks, have my wild strains
  (Not yet forgot amidst my native plains)
  While thou hast sweetly gurgled down the vale. 
  Filled up the pause of love’s delightful tale! 
  While, ever as she read, the conscious maid,
  By faultering voice and downcast looks betray’d,
  Would blushing on her lover’s neck recline,
  And with her finger—­point the tenderest line!”

  Maeviad, pp. 194, 202.

Yet the author assures us just before, that in these “wild strains” “all was plain.”

  “Even then (admire, John Bell! my simple ways)
  No heaven and hell danced madly through my lays,
  No oaths, no execrations; all was plain;
  Yet trust me, while thy ever jingling train
  Chime their sonorous woes with frigid art,
  And shock the reason and revolt the heart;
  My hopes and fears, in nature’s language drest,
  Awakened love in many a gentle breast.”

  Ibid. v. 185-92.

If any one else had composed these “wild strains,” in which “all is plain,” Mr. Gifford would have accused them of three things, “1.  Downright nonsense. 2.  Downright frigidity. 3.  Downright doggrel;” and proceeded to anatomise them very cordially in his way.  As it is, he is thrilled with a very pleasing horror at his former scenes of tenderness, and “gasps at the recollection” of watery Aquarius! he! jam satis est! “Why rack a grub—­a butterfly upon a wheel?”]

[Footnote C:  Mr. Merry was even with our author in personality of abuse.  See his Lines on the Story of the Ape that was given in charge to the ex-tutor.]