No. VI.
Dec. 18, 1797.
We cannot enough congratulate ourselves on having been so fortunate as to fall upon the curious specimens of classical metre and correct sentiment which we have made the subject of our late Jacobinical imitations.
The fashion of admiring and imitating these productions has spread in a surprising degree. Even those who sympathise with the principles of the writer selected as our model, seem to have been struck with the ridicule of his poetry.
There appeared in the Morning Chronicle of Monday a Sapphic Ode, apparently written by a friend and associate of our author, in which he is however travestied most unmercifully. And to make the joke the more pointed, the learned and judicious editor contrived to print the ode en masse, without any order of lines, or division of stanza; so that it was not discovered to be verse till the next day, when it was explained in a hobbling erratum.
We hardly know which to consider as the greater object of compassion in this case—the original Odist, thus parodied by his friend, or the mortified Parodist thus mutilated by his printer. “Et tu, Brute!” has probably been echoed from each of these worthies to his murderer, in a tone that might melt the hardest heart to pity.
We cordially wish them joy of each other, and we resign the modern Lesbian lyre into their hands without envy or repining.
Our author’s Dactylics have produced a second imitation (conveyed to us from an unknown hand), with which we take our leave of this species of poetry also.
THE SOLDIER’S WIFE.[[20]]
DACTYLICS.
“Wēāry̆ wăy-wāndĕrĕr,” &c. &c.
IMITATION.
DACTYLICS.
Being the quintessence of all the Dactylics that ever were, or ever will be written.
HUMBLY ADDRESSED TO THE AUTHOR OF THE ABOVE.
Wearisome Sonnetteer, feeble and querulous,
Painfully dragging out thy demo-cratic lays—
Moon-stricken Sonnetteer, “ah! for thy heavy chance!”
Sorely thy Dactylics lag on uneven feet:
Slow is the syllable which thou wouldst urge to speed,
Lame and o’erburthen’d, and “screaming its wretchedness!”
. . . . . . . . .[[21]]
Ne’er talk of ears again! look at thy spelling-book;
Dilworth and Dyche[[22]] are both mad at thy quantities—
Dactylics, call’st thou ’em—“God help thee, silly one!”
[The following is the Sapphic Ode alluded to above, which was intended by the poet of the Morning Chronicle as a “retort courteous” to the Friend of Humanity. The printer of that paper, unfortunately, being new to “such branches of learning,” and not dreaming it could be intended for poetry, printed it as below. The mistake seems to have been immediately discovered, for it re-appeared next day (Dec. 12) in the guise of verse.—Ed.]