Swift's boast with respect to the invention of irony, "Which I was born to introduce, Refin'd it first, and shew'd its use," can be allowed to be true only in part. The controversy between them being undecided, the Apothecary, to clench his pretensions as a liar of the first magnitude," by a coup-degrace, says to the Pedlar, " You are an honest man," but this home-thrust is somehow ingeniously parried. The Apothecary and Pardoner fall to their narrative vein again; and the latter tells a story of fetching a young woman from the lower world, from which I shall only give one specimen more as an instance of ludicrous and fantastic exaggeration. By the help of a passport from Lucifer, "given in the furnace of our palace," he obtains a safe conduct from one of the subordinate imps to his master's presence. "This devil and I walked arm in arm So far, 'till he had brought me thither, Their horns well gilt, their claws full clean, The master-devil sat in his jacket, And all the residue of the fiends Anon all this rout was brought in silence, Oh pleasant picture! O prince of hell!" &c. The piece concludes with some good wholesome advice from the Pedlar, who here, as well as in the poem of the Excursion, performs the part of Old Morality; but he does not seem, as in the latter case, to be acquainted with the mighty stream of Tendency." He is more "full of wise saws than modern instances;" as prosing, but less paradoxical! "But where ye doubt, the truth not knowing, But as the church does judge or take them, And so be you sure you cannot err, But may Nothing can be clearer than this. The RETURN FROM PARNASSUS was "first publicly acted," as the title-page as the title-page imports, "by the Students in St. John's College, in Cambridge." It is a very singular, a very ingenious, and as I think, a very interesting performance. It contains criticisms on contemporary authors, strictures on living manners, and the earliest denunciation (I know of) of the miseries and unprofitableness of a scholar's life. The only part I object to in our author's criticism is his abuse of Marston; and that, not because he says what is severe, but because he says what is not true of him. Anger may sharpen our insight into men's defects; but nothing should make us blind to their excellences. The whole passage is, however, so curious in itself (like the Edinburgh Review lately published for the year 1755) that I cannot forbear quoting a great part of it. We find in the list of candidates for praise many a name "That like a trumpet, makes the spirits dance:" there are others that have long since sunk to the bottom of the stream of time, and no Humane Society of Antiquarians and Critics is ever likely to fish them up again. "Read the names," says Judicio. Ingenioso. So I will, if thou wilt help me to censure them. "Good men and true, stand together, hear your censure: what's thy judgment of Spenser ? Jud. A sweeter swan than ever sung in Po; A shriller nightingale than ever blest The prouder groves of self-admiring Rome. Blithe was each valley, and each shepherd proud, Attentive was full many a dainty ear: Nay, hearers hung upon his melting tongue, While to the water's fall he tuned her fame, Careless even to prevent his exequy, Scarce deigning to shut up his dying eye. Ing. Pity it is that gentler wits should breed, Where thick-skinn'd chuffs laugh at a scholar's need. But softly may our honour'd ashes rest, That lie by merry Chaucer's noble chest. But I pray thee proceed briefly in thy censure, that I may be proud of myself, as in the first, so in the last, my censure may jump with thine. Henry Constable, Samuel Daniel, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Watson. Jud. Sweet Constable doth take the wondering ear, And lays it up in willing prisonment : Sweet honey-dropping Daniel doth wage War with the proudest big Italian, For Lodge and Watson, men of some desert, Lodge for his oar in every paper boat, To sit and simper Euphues' legacy. Ing. Michael Drayton. Jud. Drayton's sweet Muse is like a sanguine dye, Able to ravish the rash gazer's eye. Ing. However, he wants one true note of a poet of our times; and that is this, he cannot swagger in a tavern, nor domineer in a hot-house. John Davis Jud. Acute John Davis, I affect thy rhymes, That jerk in hidden charms these looser times: Thy plainer verse, thy unaffected vein, |