[46] See the Epistle to my Sisters (1734) by Thomas Lisle; The ’Piscopade, a Panegyri-Satiri-Serio-Comical Poem (1748) by “Porcupinus Pelagius”; and Goldsmith’s three graceful satires, Retaliation (1774), The Haunch of Venison (1776), and the Letter to Mrs. Bunbury (1777).
[47] The attitude of the Anti-Jacobin was almost precisely that already adopted by Gifford and Mathias; that is, it represented extreme Tory feeling, and therefore was resolutely opposed to any movement in literature which seemed new or strange.
[48] The Anti-Jacobin was deserted by its original editors, largely because it was becoming too dangerous a weapon for aspiring statesmen to handle. A new journal, under the same name, was less successful.
[49] It was the era described by Wordsworth in his sonnets Written in London, 1802, and London, 1802, the last beginning,
“Milton! thou should’st be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters! Altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men.”