which I am already so highly indebted for the warın reception of the Baviad. I should here conclude this introduction, already too long, were it not for the sake of noticing the strange inconsistency of the town. I hear that I am NOTES. has not been produced on the stage is to me a matter of astonishment, since it unites the beauties of the "Stranger" and "Pizarro;" and though perfectly German in its sentiments, is English in its language, -intelligible English; which is infinitely more than can be said of the translation from Kotzebue, so maliciously attributed to Mr. Sheridan. In a word; if you take from the German dramas their horrid blasphemies, their wanton invocations of the sacred name, and their minute and ridiculous stage-directions, which seem calculated to turn the whole into a pantomime, nothing will remain but a caput mortuum, a vapid and gloomy mass of matter unenlightened by a single ray of genius or nature. If you leave them their blasphemies, &c. you have then a nameless something, insipid though immoral, tedious though impious, and stupid though extravagant!-so much so, that, as a judicious writer well observes, "it becomes a doubt which are the greatest objects "of contempt and scorn, those who conceived and F now breaking butterflies upon wheels! There was a time (it was when the Baviad first appeared) that these butterflies were Eagles, and their obscure and desultory flights, the object of universal envy and admiration. They are yet so with too many: and surely no one can wish another to continue under the infatuation from which himself is happily free, for want of a little additional exertion! NOTES. "wrote them, or those who have the effrontery to "praise them." Yet "these be thy Gods, O Israel!” -and to these are sacrificed our taste, our sense, and our national honour! THE MÆVIAD. (a) YES, I DID say that Crusca's "true sublime" Lack'd taste, and sense, and every thing but rhyme; IMITATIONS. HORACE, SAT. X. LIB. I. (a) Nempe incomposito dixi pede currere versus NOTES. * Crusca's "true sublime." The words between inverted commas in this, and the following verses, are Mr. Bell's. They contain, as the reader sees, a short character of the works to which they are respectively affixed. Though I have the misfortune to differ from this gentleman in the present instances, yet I observe such acuteness of perception in his general criticism, that I should have stiled him the "profound" instead That Arno's "easy strains" were coarse and rough, And who-forgive, O gentle Bell! the word, So mulishly absurd, as not to join In this with me; save always THEE, and THINE! 5 ΤΟ That lords and dukes hung blubbering o'er each line, That lady-critics wept, and cried "divine!" IMITATIONS. Lucili. Quis tam Lucilî fautor inepte est, Ut non hoc fateatur ? (b) At idem quod sale multo NOTES. of the "gentle" Bell; if I had not previously applied the epithet to a still greater man, (absit invidia dicto) to Mr. T. Vaughan. I trust this incidental preference will create no jealousy-for though, as Virgil properly remarks, “An "oaken staff EACH merits;" yet I need not inform a gentleman, who, like Mr. Bell, reads Shakspeare every day after dinner, that "if two men ride upon a "horse, one of them must ride behind." That love-lorn priests reclin❜d the pensive head, Wiped the sad drops of pity from their eye, 15 And burst between a hiccup and a sigh. Yet, not content, like horse-leeches they come, And split my head with one eternal hum For "more! more! more!"(c) Away! For should I grant The full, the unreserv'd applause, ye want, * St. John might then my partial voice accuse, And claim my suffrage for his tragic muse; 20 IMITATIONS. Urbem defricuit, charta laudatur eadem. Nec tamen hoc tribuens dederim quoque cætera: nam sic Et Laberî mimos, ut pulchra poemata mirer. (c) The horse-leech has two daughters, crying, "Give! give!" PROVERBS. NOTES. St. John, &c. Having already observed in the Introduction that the Mæviad was nearly finished two years since, and consequently before the death of this |