[Footnote 13: Whatever momentary benefit may result from satire, it is clear that its influence in the long run is injurious to literature. The satirist, like a malignant Archimago, creates a false medium, through which posterity is obliged to look at his contemporaries,—a medium which so refracts and distorts their images, that it is almost out of the question to see them correctly. There is no rule, as in astronomy, by which this refraction may be allowed for and corrected.]
[Footnote 14: London, 1749, 8vo.]
[Footnote 15: Charge to the Poets, 1762.]
[Footnote 16: If the reader cares to hear the best that can be said of Thomas Warton, let him read the Life of Milton, prefixed by Sir Egerton Brydges to his edition of the poet. If he has any curiosity to hear the other side, let him read all that Ritson ever wrote, and Dr. Charles Symnions, in the Life of Milton, prefixed to the standard edition of the Prose Works, 1806. Symnions denies to Warton the possession of taste, learning, or sense. Certainly, to an American, the character of Joseph Warton, the brother of Thomas, is far more amiable. Joseph was as liberal as his brother was bigoted. While Thomas omits no chance of condemning Milton's republicanism, in his notes to the Minor Poems, Joseph is always disposed to sympathize with the poet. The same generous temper characterizes his commentary upon Dryden.]
[Footnote 17: Sonnet upon the River Lodon.]
[Footnote 18: Dr. Huddersford's Salmagundi.]
[Footnote 19: One of the earlier poems of Alexander Wilson, the ornithologist, was entitled, The Laurel Disputed, and was published in 1791. We have not met with it; but we apprehend, from title and date, that it is a jeu d'esprit, founded upon the recent appointment. The poetry of Wilson was characterized by much original humor.]
[Footnote 20:
"Come to our fête, and show again
That pea-green coat, thou pink of men!
Which charmed all eyes, that last surveyed it;
When Brummel's self inquired, 'Who made it?'
When Cits came wondering from the East,
And thought thee Poet Pye at least."
Two-Penny Post-Bag, 1812.]
[Footnote 21: TENNYSON, Maud.]