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,
Where all the devils of hell together
Stood in array in such apparel,
As for that day there meetly fell.

Their horns well gilt, their claws full clean,
Their tails well kempt, and as I ween,
With sothery butter their bodies anointed;
I never saw devils so well appointed.

The master-devil sat in his jacket,
And all the souls were playing at racket.
None other rackets they had in hand,
Save every soul a good fire-brand;
Wherewith they play'd so prettily,
That Lucifer laugh'd merrily.

And all the residue of the fiends
Did laugh thereat full well like friends.
But of my friend I saw no whit,
Nor durst not ask for her as yet.

Anon all this rout was brought in silence,
And I by an usher brought to presence
Of Lucifer; then low, as well I could,
I kneeled, which he so well allow'd
That thus he beck'd, and by St. Antony
He smiled on me well-favour'dly,
Bending his brows as broad as barn-doors;
Shaking his ears as rugged as burrs ;
Rolling his eyes as round as two bushels;
Flashing the fire out of his nostrils;
Gnashing his teeth so vain-gloriously,
That methought time to fall to flattery,
Wherewith I told, as I shall tell;

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,
Believing the best, good may be growing.
In judging the best, no harm at the least:
In judging the worst, no good at the best.
But best in these things it seemeth to me,
To make no judgment upon ye;

But as the church does judge or take them,
So do ye receive or forsake them.

And so be you sure you cannot err,
be a fruitful follower."

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,
While he did chaunt his rural minstrelsy.

Attentive was full many a dainty ear:

Nay, hearers hung upon his melting tongue,
While sweetly of his Faëry Queen he sung;

While to the water's fall he tuned her fame,
And in each bark engrav'd Eliza's name.
And yet for all, this unregarding soil
Unlaced the line of his desired life,
Denying maintenance for his dear relief;

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,
That melts his heart in sugar'd sonnetting.
Only let him more sparingly make use
Of others' wit, and use his own the more,
That well may scorn base imitation.

For Lodge and Watson, men of some desert,
Yet subject to a critic's marginal:

Lodge for his oar in every paper boat,
He that turns over Galen every day,

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,
Is graced with a fair and sweeping train.
John Marston-