In sympathetic converse sat. Amid The stormy world below, they had o'erwatch'd The errant beings just arrived: through all Their doom, and they were saved, and seal'd for Heaven. As, wrapt with angel love, th' immortal pair HELL. Apart, upon a throne of living fire The cravings of infernal wrath,--he bade The roar of Hell be hush'd,-and silence was! He call'd the cursed,-and they flash'd from cave And wild-from dungeon and from den they came, Of spirits agonized with burning pangs. The Age Reviewed, and the Puffiad, are imputed to Mr. R. Montgomery; and, though not avowed, are not denied. A studied detail of them may be passed over notice and extract are, however, necessary to show the probable quo animo of the late attack. Notwithstanding its great scope, the Age Reviewed appears incomplete—the Puffiad complete, though a mere single sheaf of the great harvest of satire which life presents. It should never be forgotten, that the former satire was written at the age of nineteen; and those who recollect that Pitt was so early matured in the giant proportions of his fatal eloquence as to wield the destinies of the world at twenty-one, will not consider this fact as derogatory from genius, but the contrary. I shall dispose of the Puffiad first. If the Age Reviewed may be, in fierce vituperation and range of purpose, compared to Juvenal, the style occasionally approaches to that of the orthodox poet, Young, in his powerful satire the Universal Passion. The Puffiad may be compared to some of the lighter censures of Horace, in its playful range; but approximates still nearer to Young, who, Johnson says, unites the different qualities of Horace and Juvenal, without the laxity of the former, and the latter's deficiency of image. It is pointed and epigrammatic; the wit is sharp, and the thought is weighty; but, like Young's sarcasm, it plays chiefly on the surface of actions. It is mock heroic, like the Dunciad; it has a hero like that, and numerous victims. The diction is terse (unlike Mr. Montgomery's usual redundant style), and the imagery and metaphors are appropriately adapted to the subject. A few of the latter are added, which are original, and will remind the reader of the sly smartness of Pope. Of universal knowledge, he says Like a mad cracker, let her whisk and run, A rhyming race, Who creep and drag their filthy trail around, Like crawling snails upon the slime-laced ground. The diction is equally appropriate to the subject— witness the following terse, pointed, and energetic Of certain critics he says: sentences. They fly-blow every line. With rotten laurels rustling on his brow. Begot by dulness. Fume of ropy brains Bid the stifled lumber breathe again. The syllables run scampering into rhyme. They crawl away like spiders fat with blood. He terms battered dandies, Diseased perfumes. Unlucky criticisms, Crude disasters of the quill. Filthy bloom of vice. Sallow belles that bloom, Like mouldy parchment with a rank perfume. Full in the street, where fashion's pimpled apes One of the culinary authors is thus described: See round his frizzly pate what grandeur plays, Thou stuff'st the meat with scientific hand, • Reminiscent rubbish' is described as 'pestering fat octavos,' I Pick'd from brains Addled and heavy with their rakish pains. pass over quotations giving too clear explanation of the secret causes of the late combined attack on Mr. R. Montgomery, unwilling to give offence myself. My argument will suffer by doing so, but my courtesy will be preserved. The passages, therefore, in which • Quack Reviews,'' Monthly Humdrums,''Lettered cutthroats,' and the system of Puff me, puff thee,' are wittily, but too uncompromisingly dealt with, I shall beg leave to pass over, as well as to forbear extracting the witty comparison of the Parnassian state,' God wot, to a mixed herd of pigs,' 46; and shall proceed to the satirical sentiment. The following passages, describing Impudence the 'mighty mother' of Puff, and her protegé, the Hero, will not unfavourably remind the reader of the Dunciad. Oh! bull-eyed goddess! let me pause awhile, In the snug corner of a noiseless room The following passage will remind the reader, and not disadvantageously, of Cowper and Pope. Our ancestors-monotonously good! Liv'd on, poor souls! as virtuous as they could; They liv'd in calm simplicity secure ; Content to make their paradise at home, They seldom frisk'd in France, or whined at Rome; Of Vice above, and Folly under ground, * * * No stage-worn beldames to amuse the land To cram the papers with their foul career: * Good heavens! how dull the way of life they trod,— |