But still, tho’ false the fleeting dream,
  Indulge awhile the tender theme,
  And hear, had fortune yet been kind,
  How bright the prospect of the mind. 
  O! had I had it in my power
  To wed her—­with a suited dower—­
  And proudly bear the beauteous maid
  To Saltrum’s venerable shade,—­
  Or if she liked not woods at Saltrum,
  Why, nothing easier than to alter ’em,—­
  Then had I tasted bliss sincere,
  And happy been from year to year. 
  How changed this scene! for now, my Granville,
  Another match is on the anvil. 
  And I, a widow’d dove, complain,
  And feel no refuge from my pain—­
  Save that of pitying Spencer’s sister,
  Who’s lost a lord, and gained a Mister.

LI.  REFORMATION OF THE KNAVE OF HEARTS.

This is an exquisite satire on the attempts at criticism which were current in pre-Edinburgh Review days, when the majority of the journals were mere touts for the booksellers.  The papers in question are taken from Nos. 11 and 12 of the Microcosm, published on Monday, February 12th, 1787—­when Canning was seventeen years of age.

The epic poem on which I shall ground my present critique has for its chief characteristics brevity and simplicity.  The author—­whose name I lament that I am, in some degree, prevented from consecrating to immortal fame, by not knowing what it is—­the author, I say, has not branched his poem into excrescences of episode, or prolixities of digression; it is neither variegated with diversity of unmeaning similitudes, nor glaring with the varnish of unnatural metaphor.  The whole is plain and uniform; so much so, indeed, that I should hardly be surprised if some morose readers were to conjecture that the poet had been thus simple rather from necessity than choice; that he had been restrained, not so much by chastity of judgment, as sterility of imagination.

Nay, some there may be, perhaps, who will dispute his claim to the title of an epic poet, and will endeavour to degrade him even to the rank of a ballad-monger.  But I, as his commentator, will contend for the dignity of my author, and will plainly demonstrate his poem to be an epic poem, agreeable to the example of all poets, and the consent of all critics heretofore.

First, it is universally agreed that an epic poem should have three component parts—­a beginning, a middle, and an end; secondly, it is allowed that it should have one grand action or main design, to the forwarding of which all the parts of it should directly or indirectly tend, and that this design should be in some measure consonant with, and conducive to, the purposes of morality; and thirdly, it is indisputably settled that it should have a hero.  I trust that in none of these points the poem before us will be found deficient.  There are other inferior properties which I shall consider in due order.