ion, feigned to act
and speak with human interests and passions. To this description the
compositions of Gay do not always conform. For a fable he gives now and
then a tale, or an abstracted allegory; and from some, by whatever name
they may be called, it will be difficult to extract any moral principle.
They are, however, told with liveliness, the versification is smooth,
and the diction, though now and then a little constrained by the measure
or the rhyme, is generally happy.

To "Trivia" may be allowed all that it claims; it is sprightly, various,
and pleasant. The subject is of that kind which Gay was by nature
qualified to adorn, yet some of his decorations may be justly wished
away. An honest blacksmith might have done for Patty what is performed
by Vulcan. The appearance of Cloacina is nauseous and superfluous; a
shoe-boy could have been produced by the casual cohabitation of mere
mortals. Horace's rule is broken in both cases; there is no
dignus vindice nodus, no difficulty that required any supernatural
interposition. A patten may be made by the hammer of a mortal, and a
bastard may be dropped by a human strumpet. On great occasions, and on
small, the mind is repelled by useless and apparent falsehood.

Of his little poems the public judgment seems to be right; they
are neither much esteemed nor totally despised. The story of "The
Apparition" is borrowed from one of the tales of Poggio. Those that
please least are the pieces to which Gulliver gave occasion, for who can
much delight in the echo of an unnatural fiction?

"Dione" is a counterpart to "Amynta" and "Pastor Fido" and other trifles
of the same kind, easily imitated, and unworthy of imitation. What the
Italians call comedies from a happy conclusion, Gay calls a tragedy from
a mournful event, but the style of the Italians and of Gay is equally
tragical. There is something in the poetical Arcadia so remote from
known reality and speculative possibility that we can never support its
representation through a long work. A pastoral of an hundred lines may
be endured, but who will hear of sheep and goats, and myrtle bowers and
purling rivulets, through five acts? Such scenes please barbarians in
the dawn of literature, and children in the dawn of life, but will be
for the most part thrown away as men grow wise and nations grow learned.

TICKELL.

Thomas Tickell, the son of the Rev. Richard Tickell, was born in 1686,
at Bridekirk, in Cumberland, an