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In sympathetic converse sat. Amid

The stormy world below, they had o'erwatch'd

The errant beings just arrived: through all
Their ways of sin and woe, their guardian power
Presided, until Mercy came to crown

Their doom, and they were saved, and seal'd for Heaven.
Seraphic sweetness from their lips exhaled,

As, wrapt with angel love, th' immortal pair
Their tale of heavenly triumph told.

HELL.

Apart, upon a throne of living fire
The fiend was seated; in his eye there shone
The look that dared OMNIPOTENCE; the light
Of sateless vengeance, and sublime despair,-
He sat amid a burning world, and saw
Tormented myriads, whose blaspheming shrieks
Were mingled with the howl of hidden floods,
And Acherontine groans; of all the host,
The only dauntless he! As o'er the wild
He glanced, the pride of agony endured
Awoke, and writhed through all his giant frame,
That redden'd and dilated like a sun!
Till, moved by some remember'd bliss or joy
Of paradisian hours, or to supply

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,
And stood an unimaginable mass

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,
And brighten every hole beneath the sun.
Dull scribbling cannibals, such authors sit,
And grin and gorge upon each other's wit.

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.
Make dirt more dirty than it was before.

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.
Belles first, and now beaux:

Full in the street, where fashion's pimpled apes
Limp forth at noon to show their poker shapes.

One of the culinary authors is thus described:

See round his frizzly pate what grandeur plays,
While his eyes twinkle with a kitchen blaze;

Thou stuff'st the meat with scientific hand,
And rott'st the noblest stomach of the land.
He melts a line from out his frosty brain:
So from the rooftops, when the sun is felt,
Reluctant snows in dirt-striped crystals mel.

• Reminiscent rubbish' is described as 'pestering fat octavos,'

I

Pick'd from brains

Addled and heavy with their rakish pains.

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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.

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Oh! bull-eyed goddess! let me pause awhile,
And thank thee for thy favours tow'rd our isle:
Here, with a full-blown pomp and painted mien,
Thou walk'st in brazen beauty o'er each scene;
Bless'd be thy bounty, for thou gav'stˆus, &c.
Viewless to vulgar eyes, he [Mr. Puff] sits alone,
With embryo puffs and papers round him thrown,

In the snug corner of a noiseless room
(True greatness loves to be enwrapt in gloom)
Here, unbeheld, he plies the live-long day,
At composition short, but sure to pay.
No muggy tomes from the Museum store,
No mildew'd relics of the hacks of yore,
He needs! true genius prompts the glowing line
Where avarice and impudence combine:
The sterling vigour of his pen ne'er fails,
Alike in novels, memoirs, and in tales;-
Yes! mark the magic of its lies support,
With smutty trash, the country and the court,-
Wake tender itchings in the public mind,
Astound the learned, and mislead the blind:
His puffs appeal-the nation hears the call—
They strike, they tickle, and they cozen all!

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;
So plainly honest, and so bluntly pure,

They liv'd in calm simplicity secure ;

Content to make their paradise at home,

They seldom frisk'd in France, or whined at Rome;
No snug elopement, or polite crim. con.,
For paper-grubs, or law, to live upon,-
No London trip, to run the crazy round

Of Vice above, and Folly under ground,

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No stage-worn beldames to amuse the land
With wedding fuss, or love at second hand;
No dirty demirep, no paltry peer

To cram the papers with their foul career:

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Good heavens! how dull the way of life they trod,—
Adorn'd their country, and adored their God!
And here, fair Muse! applaud the rich who roam
To sun-rouged lands, and leave their debts at home;

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