202 "Mr. Robert Montgomery, and [Aua. 



heliacal emersion of a new poetical star from the lower belt of the vulgar 

 horizon"!!!!! that he ranks in the same class with Campbell and 

 Rogers, with this trifling difference in his favour, that he is sublime, 

 while they are merely polished and beautiful !!!!!! and, above all, that 

 his Satan is a (t deeply-reasoned abstraction, logically and metaphysically 

 consistent ;" while Milton's hero is " too elevated in his pride, and too 

 godlike in his sublimity ;" Marlowe's Mephistophiles, " coarse, vulgar, 

 and harmless ;" Goethe's, " a devilish sceptic ;" and Lord Byron's, " a 

 spirit dephlogisticated of his vulgar elementary flames and innocent of 

 bad intentions" !!!!!!! 



On reading all this trash, which is meant, we suppose, as a sample of 

 fine writing, the first question that naturally suggests itself is Who is 

 Mr. Clarkson ? We will " elucidate/' as Charles Surface says. Mr. Clark- 

 son (vide his title-page) is the author of Lectures on the Pyramids and 

 Hieroglyphical Language, delivered in Scott's Hall, in 1811, and pub- 

 lished in the Classical Journal ; of an Essay on the Portland Vase, 

 subject Pluto hence, we suppose, arises his predilection for Satan] 

 and of a novel entitled ' f Herwald de Wake," which we once remember 

 to have seen priced on a book-stall at nine-pence a sum not more than 

 three-pence probably above its real value. Thus variously accomplished, 

 but at the same time not content with the snug, quiet, domestic fame 

 he must already have secured by his lucubrations, Mr. Clarkson has 

 thought proper still further to increase that fame by coming forward 

 in the present pamphlet, and running a tilt against all who may be 

 hardy enough to question the poetic supremacy of the new " heliacal 

 emersion." His courage is more to be commended than his modesty 

 with which latter qualification, indeed, if we may judge from the pro- 

 fuse quotations he makes from his own writings, he must have but a 

 distant acquaintance and will have this bad effect on Mr. R. Montgo- 

 mery's reputation, that it will mix it up with strange associations of the 

 burlesque, and induce his reviewers to distrust more than ever that 

 genius which has so bewildered the reasoning faculties of the Lecturer 

 on the Hieroglyphic Language. 



There is nothing so embarrassing to an author, who would wish to 

 rank as the Milton of his age, as a critic of Mr. Clarkson's way of think- 

 ing. The bombastic eulogiums of such a man are loads that " would 

 sink a navy." Mr. R. Montgomery and Mr. E. Clarkson ! Singular 

 but unavoidable association of names ! The one henceforth will as 

 naturally suggest the other, as that high-flown gent. Bottom the weaver 

 suggests the recollection of the ass's head ! Had the Lecturer on the 

 Pyramids never published his present pamphlet, we should never have 

 published our present remarks. We should have left the subject of 

 them to sink or swim, as the case might happen, in the full convic- 

 tion that his genius would soon find its level. But the pamphlet 

 before us has wholly altered our intentions. Disgusted with its nau- 

 seous tone of flattery with its pedantry, its conceit, its ignorance, its 

 more than Milesian effrontery with its habit of every where mistaking 

 rant, fustian, and extravagance for vigour of mind, and grandeur of 

 expression, we are reluctantly forced into the arena of controversy. If, 

 therefore, our remarks on his various productions give pain to Mr. Mont- 

 gomery, we cannot help it : it is not our fault, it is his critic who is 

 solely to blame and this to a serious extent in having thrust him 

 before the public as the first poet of his age, and thereby compelled us 



