“‘It is only necessary to add, what is most conscientiously the truth, that this production, such as it is, is by far the best of all the attacks that the combined wits of the cause have been able to muster against The Anti-Jacobin.’
“The Answer opens thus:—
“‘Bard of the borrow’d lyre! to whom belong
The shreds and remnants of each hackney’d song;
Whose verse thy friends in vain for wit explore,
And count but one good line, in eighty-four!
Whoe’er thou art, all hail! Thy bitter smile
Gilds our dull page, and cheers our humble toil!’
“The ‘one good line’ was ‘By Leveson Gower’s crop-imitating wig,’ but the Epistle contains many equally good and some better. The speculations as to its authorship afforded no slight amusement to the writer and his friends....
“New Morality is commonly regarded as the master-piece of The Anti-Jacobin; and, with the exception of a few lines, the whole of it is by Canning. It appeared in the last number, and he is said to have concentrated all his energies for a parting blow. The reader who comes fresh from Dryden or Pope, or even Churchill, will be disappointed on finding far less variety of images, sparkling antithesis, or condensed brilliancy of expression. The author exhibits abundant humour and eloquence, but comparatively little wit; i.e., if there be any truth in Sydney Smith’s doctrine ‘that the feeling of wit is occasioned by those relations of ideas which excite surprise, and surprise alone’. We are commonly prepared for what is coming, and our admiration is excited rather by the justness of the observations, the elevation of the thoughts, and the vigour of the style, than by a startling succession of flashes of fancy. If, as we believe, the same might be said of Juvenal, and the best of his English imitators, Johnson, we leave ample scope for praise; and New Morality contains passages which have been preserved to our time and bid fair to reach posterity. How often are the lines on Candour quoted in entire ignorance or forgetfulness of their author....