The Age Reviewed A Satire: In two parts: Second edition, revised and corrected [by Robert Montgomery] |
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 | The Age Reviewed |  |
Place the poor pic-nic volumes
authors pour,
To fill their purses—then the ragman's store,—
With feeling Goldsmith, or conclusive Swift,—
Their glitt'ring veil of florid words uplift;—
Like these, do they with forcing truth controul,
Exalt, refine, or animate the soul?—
Alas! their venal page is but one line,
Of spinning flatness, and ideas supine;
Manœuv'ring on from simple dross to trope,
In the wide nothingness of fustian's scope,—
They wrench allusions from each rock and sky,
Flag with their dullness, and all sense defy;
While trash is pounded to laborious wit,
And Satire whiffles for a morbid hit.
To fill their purses—then the ragman's store,—
With feeling Goldsmith, or conclusive Swift,—
Their glitt'ring veil of florid words uplift;—
Like these, do they with forcing truth controul,
Exalt, refine, or animate the soul?—
Alas! their venal page is but one line,
Of spinning flatness, and ideas supine;
129
In the wide nothingness of fustian's scope,—
They wrench allusions from each rock and sky,
Flag with their dullness, and all sense defy;
While trash is pounded to laborious wit,
And Satire whiffles for a morbid hit.
It is astonishing, when we compare the teeming volumes, both of prose and verse, of the present day, with some of the writers that existed seventy years back, to mark the vast difference. In the national decline, there is a continual analogy in one circumstance; show for substance, and refinement for strength, are now universal interlopers.
| The Age Reviewed | |