Our Milton when at college. For this act
Did Brownrigg swing. Harsh laws! but time shall come
When France shall reign, and laws be all repeal’d!
In the next number of the Anti-Jacobin there was an article on Jacobin Poetry, in which it was stated that “one of the most universally recognised principles in the Jacobin creed was that the truly benevolent mind should consider only the severity of the punishment inflicted by human laws without any reference to the malignity of the crime. It remained only to fit it with a poetical dress, which had been attempted in the inscription for Chepstow Castle, and which (we flatter ourselves), was accomplished in that for Mrs. Brownrigg’s cell.”
“Another principle, no less devoutly entertained, and no less sedulously administered, is the natural and eternal warfare of the Poor and the Rich.”
“This principle is treated at large by many authors, we trace it particularly in a poem by the same author from whom we borrowed our former illustration of the Jacobin doctrine of crimes and punishments. In this poem, the pathos of the matter is not a little relieved by the absurdity of the metre. The learned reader will perceive that the metre is sapphic, and affords a fine opportunity for his SCANNING and PROVING, if he has not forgotten them”:—
The Widow.
Cold was the night wind; drifting fast the snows fell;
Wide were the downs, and shelterless and naked;
When a poor wanderer struggled on her journey,