is ride across to Holland from Harwich under the sea, he finds great
mountains "and upon their sides a variety of tall noble trees loaded
with marine fruit, such as lobsters, crabs, oysters, scollops, mussels,
cockles, &c.," the periwinkle, he observes, is a kind of shrub, it grows
at the foot of the oyster tree, and twines round it as the ivy does
round the oak.

In the following, we have a manifest imitation of Lucian--Having passed
down Mount Etna through the earth, and come out at the other side, he
finds himself in the Southern Seas, and soon comes to land. They sail up
a river flowing with rich milk, and find that they are in an island
consisting of one large cheese--

"We discovered this by one of the company fainting away as soon as
he landed; this man always had an aversion to cheese--when he
recovered he desired the cheese to be taken from under his feet.
Upon examination we found him to be perfectly right--the whole
island was nothing but a cheese of immense magnitude. Here were
plenty of vines with bunches of grapes, which yielded nothing but
milk."

In all these cases he has contrived where there was an opening to
introduce some probable details. But as he proceeds further in his work,
his talent becoming duller--his extravagancies are worse sustained and
scarcely ever original. Sometimes he writes mere mawkish nonsense, and
at others he simply copies Lucian, as in the case of his making a voyage
to the moon, and then sailing into a sea-monster's stomach.

CHAPTER IX.

The Anti-Jacobin--Its Objects and Violence--"The Friends of
Freedom"--Imitation of Latin Lyrics--The "Knife Grinder"--The
"Progress of Man."

The "Anti-Jacobin" was commenced in 1797, with a view of counteracting
the baneful influences of those revolutionary principles which were
already rampant in France. The periodical, supported by the combined
talent of such men as Gifford, Ellis, Hookham Frere, Jenkinson (Lord
Liverpool), Lord Clare, Dr. Whitaker, and Lord Mornington, would no
doubt have had a long and successful career, had not politics led it
into a vituperative channel, through which it came to an untimely end in
eight months. The following address to Jacobinism will give some idea of
its spirit:--

"Daughter of Hell, insatiate power,
Destroyer of the human race,
Whose iron scourge and maddening hour
Exalt the bad, the good debase:
Thy mystic force, despotic sway,