218 Mr. Robert Montgomery, and [Auo. 



Our readers may here exclaim, " if Mr. Montgomery's poems be so 

 secondary in point of merit, as you have attempted to prove, how is it 

 that they have gained such notoriety ?" We answer, by the most flagrant 

 system of puffing ever yet invented by the fertile genius of a bibliopole. 

 No sooner had the first impression (about 250) of the " Omnipresence/' 

 sold off, than an evangelical Magazine taking its cue from a weekly news- 

 paper, instantly put forth a portrait of the author, without his cravat, accom-t 

 panied by a vague but outrageously flattering memoir. This was followed 

 up by a statement ostentatiously trumpeted about in the daily prints, to 

 the effect that Mr. Montgomery was only in his twenty-first year, and 

 that consequently he was a prodigy. While the astonishment at this: 

 intelligence was yet rife in the public mind, a large quarto volume was 

 announced under the title of " a Universal Prayer," &c. whose value was 

 to be enhanced by a likeness of the writer, " engraved by Thompson, 

 after a painting by Hobday." No sooner had this appeared, than the 

 original was exhibited also at Somerset-House, wherein the "modern Mil- 

 ton" was portrayed in his favourite attitude of " staring" up at the skies 

 from the top of a huge rock which looked uncommonly like the outside of 

 an omnibus. Such seasonable quackery kept Mr. Montgomery before 

 the public mind until his Satan was advertised, when we were informed 

 day after day, by a series of adroit paragraphs thrust into the town and 

 country papers , first, that Milton had received only fifteen pounds for 

 his Paradise Lost, and Mr. Montgomery eight hundred for his Satan : 

 secondly, that the aforesaid Satan had arrived in Glasgow by the mail 

 coach ; thirdly, that the Omnipresence had been set to the music of .an 

 Oratorio ; (pray who was the composer ?) fourthly, that in consequence 

 of an unprecedented demand among schoolmasters, it was to be pub- 

 lished separately as a text-book for the use of little boys j fifthly, that 

 Mr. Montgomery was the true religious poet of England, and that all 

 who found fault with his works were infidels ; and, sixthly, that he had 

 entered himself a member of Lincoln College, Oxford ! Lastly, by way 

 of wind-up, appeared the present pamphlet, in which he was at once 

 unblushingly compared to Milton ! He is a Milton : but it is a 

 Brummagem one ! Besides all this noisy trumpeting, in every shape, 

 in every fashion, in every print, great or small, daily, weekly, or 

 monthly, wherever a puff or a paragraph could be inserted for love or 

 money, the works of Montgomery were thrust before the public. In 

 fact, the only place where they have not yet made their appearance, is 

 on the walls about the metropolis. We are not without hopes, however, 

 of shortly seeing " Buy Montgomery's Satan" take the wall of" Warren's 

 Blacking." 



Do we accuse the " heliacal emersion" himself of conniving at this 

 bare-faced, this unparalleled quackery ? Far from it, we should hope 

 that he has too much manly pride and dignity of character knowingly 

 to permit it. But why does he allow it still to continue ? Why does 

 he allow himself to be made the ladder on which an enterprising book- 

 seller mounts up to the Paradise of profit ? Above all, why does he 

 allow his flatterers to ascribe that success to his genius alone, which is 

 the almost inevitable result of shrewd, seasonable, and persevering puf- 

 fing ? Why does he not step forth in print modestly and without blus- 

 ter, like Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Shelley, Miss Bowles (that sweet and 

 retiring poetess !), Mr. Reade, Mr. Banim, Mr. Crowe and, like 

 these superior writers, suffer his talent to speak trumpet- tongued for 

 itself? We will tell him why he does not. Because his genius is not 

 strong enough. It is a poor ricketty bantling ; it cannot run alone, 



