The reverend gentleman says he can purchase it for ninepence. If he will take the copy to Mr. Ridgeway, I will pay him the publishing price for it, thus giving him the opportunity of earning more than he ever can expect to do by preaching his volume of sermons. But as one good turn deserves another, the reverend gentleman will perhaps have the politeness to give me the publisher's price for such of his various literary offspring as I may redeem from the greasy fingers of the cheesemongers and tripemen, or awake from their grim repose on the dusty shelves of the book-stalls. The balance will be greatly in my favour.

In all this, the reverend Editor acts on the honest system of some of the lower canaille of the Press, who, equally contemptuous and ignorant of the decencies of good society, uniformly abuse the Editors into whose places they shuffle themselves. Like the craped footpad, creeping with dastard caution in the dark, they first steal a man's purse, and then abuse him for not having the stolen purse. While devouring the grapes, they blaspheme the planter of the vine. Such ruffians would steal the clothes from the backs of children, and then boast, with profligate effrontery, of having reduced them to nudity, or stabbed them in the back. Your presumptuous New Series (and of newspapers as well as magazines,) often forgets its Creator in the days of its youth,' till reminded, by the growing debility of its circulation, of premature old age, approaching decay, and inevitable dissolution.

The attack on Montgomery as a religious poet, by the reverend Editor, (he being himself a religious poet) is conducted on the same disinterested principle.

The assailants resemble the ugly Tartar recorded by Hudibras, who could think of no other means to make himself look handsome, but by knocking out the brains of every handsome fellow he encountered.

6

Let us briefly examine this pretended criticism of the Monthly Magazine. It is, in fact, a mere rechauffé of the old garbled extracts from the Omnipresence,' as collected by an Ultra colleague of the reverend gentleman in stripping the laurels from Lord Byron's brows, in order therewith to cover their own poetical baldness. A few specimens from this dungheap of musty and ragged criticism, may be taken up with quarantine caution at the point of the fingers Unearthly terror gripes his coward fame.

Omnipresence.'

Clanely note on that same, by the reverend 'Milesian.'

Imagine terror griping a murderer. A dose of calomel would do no more.' Is not this beastly dirty?" The reverend gentleman's colleague, in the same spirit, makes a still more dirty • comment on my phrase "pungent gripe of the satire," which I cannot soil my paper by quoting. Is not this blackguardism?' The succeeding quotation is as polished in its wit, as the preceding is cleanly in its manners:

How did thy presence smite all Israel's eye.

Omnipresence.'

Note by the reverend disciple of Knox.

"This

is very like giving Israel a black eye." How facetious! This apostolic blow' is worthy of other critical and witty professors of real fancy and science!'

A third quotation will show what it is for Milesian'

Absintees to be immersed for any considerable time in the cess-pool effluvia of Cockneyism, till they clane forgit ould Ireland.'

The meadow minstrels carol to the scene.

'Omnipresence.'

"Note by the reverend Editor. What have birds to do with meadows?" Innocent inquirer! Surely some cockney from the suburban hedgerows and reeking brickkilns of Brompton, must have interpolated this in order to smoke the reverend gentleman; his Irish colleague in Fraser's' having already informed us that nightingales bray!! He denies the existence of sparrows, and the sneering wag presents him with a lark. But, perhaps the Milesian' birds differ from the English; or like the Irish reptiles, (biped or otherwise) not liking their own bogs and fogs, favour us with their exclusive company.

So much for the wit and knowledge of this pseudocriticism on R. Montgomery. A more serious charge remains that of wilful falsification.

The Monthly critic says that Montgomery in my pamphlet, is unblushingly compared to Milton.' This is untrue. I repeatedly assert his dissimilarity and inferiority and compare him to Akenside, Cowper, and Young, but chiefly to the latter: (page 64.)

The Monthly Magazine Editor says, that according to Mr. Clarkson, Montgomery's description of the last day is superior to anything in the Pleasures of Hope or Memory.' This is untrue. I say, on the contrary, (page 118) that it is faulty and inflated; that it is only better than Young's which is not good; and I adduce but two phrases from each in proof of the fairness of this comparative estimate.

The Monthly Critic again asserts that I wrote thus:

'the thought is weighty, but like Young, it plays on the surface of actions.'

This is untrue, I say of the satire, that like Young's sarcasm, it plays, &c. (page 123).

The Eruditissimo Reverendissimo again purposely misquotes: "Soared like the heliacal emersion," &c. &c. This is another wilful falsification. • Soared like,' are words foisted in by the ingenious, but not ingenuous reverend. Again, "heliacal emersion" is applied to Mr. Croly-and to all poets who struggling into light, write for the reading minority, (see p. 17); not, as he labours shiftily to infer, exclusively to Mr. Robert Montgomery.

Our critical Milesian' says, The Universal Prayer * * *, Mr. Clarkson assures us, resembles the gorgeous &c.

Mr. Clarkson says no such thing. On the contrary, I expressly disapprove (page 118) the Universal Prayer, as unworthy of Montgomery's fame.

The poetical critic affirms that I (as well as others) deprecate attack on the score of Montgomery's youth. Monthly Magazine, page 212).

This is not only untrue; but the critic must have known it to be so when he pledged his editorial character to the falsehood, since he has the Milesian' effrontery to appropriate, without the politeness of acknowledgment, the series of examples which I adduce (page 32) to prove that poetical precocity is a common occurrence, and, therefore, that a poet's youth can neither be matter of praise nor depreciation.

So much for the good faith of my reverend assailant. His critical acquaintanceship with authors, is equal to his good faith. To display this, he ventures out of his depth in some collateral remarks on Juvenal

'

and Milton. And first,-with laughable caution, however, eschewing the risks of Latin quotation,—he pays his respects to the former. Will any of the reading public believe, that this Bavian Zoilus-half poetaster, half criticaster-who imposes on them with the muffled bugbear of the dogmatic we,' is ignorant that Juvenal's style is characterized by coarseness? Why, Millenarian Sir, his coarseness amounts to obscenity. Is obscenity due to man and his worth,' Mr. Croly? The word 'straddle' is unhappily too close a translation of Juvenal's prurient energy; his vituperation, indeed, not only stings (pungit) but 'butchers;' and the words 'pustuled' and porkish whiteness,' (page 204) are Juvenalian, precisely for the very reason this pseudo-critic thinks they are not, their coarse energy and stigmatizing condensation. There is 'pungency' of wit I thank thee, Jew, (Wandering Jew, of course,) for teaching me that word'-in Juvenal, but it is stained, like the pothouse wit of the reverend gentleman's colleague, and as the Monthly, but not witty, attack on me is stained, by beastliness' and 'blackguardism.' May I not add that the latter is also stained by intentional falsification? May I not add, by stupid infatuation, when I state that this grave and reverend signor' can, in the midst of his silly quibbles and word catching,' suffer the following passage to turn his minute shuffling and Slop-pail research into ridicule ?

6

'Montgomery makes his Damon (this is the Irish way of pronouncing Demon, and ludicrously betrays the 'Milesian' concoctor of the criticism) gaze around.' The process was as thus'-The Orange Bishop in petto, while dictating his critical inspirations, says to his Sub-Deacon, Arrah, Janus dear, write Demon (Daa-mon) now,' and Damon' is accordingly written.

So much for the modern Damon and Pythius! (u

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