, you are dull, _very dull_. Your jaded fancy seems
to have been exhausted by two pigmy octavos, which scarce contained the
substance of a twelve-penny pamphlet, and we now find nothing new to
entertain us."

The following epithets are selected at random. "We are sick--we are
quite tired--we can no longer bear corporal Trim's
insipidity--thread-bare--stupid and unaffecting--absolutely
dull--misapplication of talents--he will unavoidably sink into
contempt."

The Critical Review, vol II, p. 212, has the following account of the
Rosciad:

"It is _natural_ for young authors to conceive themselves the
cleverest fellows in the world, and withal, that there is not
the least degree of merit subsisting but in their own works: It
is _natural_ likewise for them to imagine, that they may conceal
themselves by appearing in different shapes, and that they are
not to be found out by their stile; but little do these
_Connoisseurs_ in writing conceive, how easily they are
discovered by a veteran in the service. In the title-page to
this performance we are told (by way of quaint conceit), that it
was written by _the author_; what if it should prove that the
Author and the Actor[A] are the same! Certain it is that we meet
with the _same_ vein of peculiar humour, the same turn of
thought, the same _autophilism_ (there's a new word for you to
bring into the next poem) which we meet with in the other;
insomuch that we are ready to make the conclusion in the
author's own words:

[Footnote A: _The Actor, a Poem, by Robert Lloyd, Esq._]

Who is it?------LLOYD.

"We will not pretend however absolutely to assert that Mr. L----
wrote this poem; but we may venture to affirm, that it is the
production, jointly or separately, of the new triumvirate of
wits, who never let an opportunity slip of singing their own
praises. _Caw me, caw thee_, as Sawney says, and so to it they
go, and _scratch_ one another like so many Scotch pedlars."

In page 339, I find a passage referred to in the Index, under the head
of "a notable instance of their candour," retracting their insinuations
against Lloyd and Colman, and ascribing the poem in a particular vein of
pleasantry to Mr. Flexney, the bookseller, and Mr. Griffin, the printer.
Candour certainly did not require that they should acknowledge Mr.
Churchill, whose name was now inserted in the title-pa