406 Crotchet Castle. [APRIL, 



in blossom, his fern is always in full feather ; he gathers the celandine, the 

 primrose, the heath-flower, the jasmine, and the chrysanthemum, all on the 

 same day, and from the same spot ; his nightingale sings all the year round, 

 his moon is always full, his cygnet is as white as his swan j his cedar is as 

 tremulous as his aspen, and his poplar as embowering as his beech. Thus all 

 nature marches with the march of mind ; but, among barbarians, instead of 

 mead and wine, and the best seat by the fire, the reward of such a genius 

 would have been to be summarily turned out of doors in the snow, to meditate 

 on the difference between day and night, and between December and July. 

 It is an age of liberality, indeed, when not to know an oak from a burdock is 

 no disqualification for sylvan mynstrelsy. I am for truth and simplicity. 



" I am for truth and simplicity/' says Mr. Peacock, in the person of 

 Chainmail the antiquarian. So are we. But where is it to be found ? 

 Not in poetry, for we have none. Effect effect effect this is the 

 first this the second this the third fashionable desideratum in modern 

 bards. Owing to the demand for such stimulus, poetry has been 

 gathered to her fathers, and rhyme reigns in her stead. " Amurath an 

 Amurath succeeds;" rhymester follows rhymester each more dull 

 each more artificial each more incorrigible than the last. Mr. Pea- 

 cock, consequently, is as felicitious in his criticism on modern poetry 

 as in his definition of political economy. But our limits warn us to close. 

 " Tempus equum spumanlia solvere colla" so says an ugly devil at our 

 elbow. Suffice it then to say, that Crotchet Castle will well repay 

 perusal. It is lively, satirical, and even learned, though without pedantry 

 or assumption. It is, however, as we observed before, too much a Vari- 

 orum edition too much an echo of its predecessors. 



" Grove nods at grove, each alley has its brother, 

 And half the platform just reflects the other." 



Mr. Skionar is a mere adumbration of Mr. Flosky in Nightmare Abbey 

 Dr. Folliott only differs in name from Dr. Portpipe in Melincourt as for 

 Clarinda Bossnowl, she is evidently twin-sister to Anthelia Melincourt ; 

 and we half suspect, although they seem ashamed to acknowledge the 

 connection, that Messrs. Catchflat and Company, with their head clerk, 

 Robthetill, have had large literary dealings, and derived many service- 

 able hints from the equally eminent firm of Air-bubble, Smoke-shadow, 

 Hop-the-twig, and their secretary, Wm. Walkoff, who figure so promi- 

 nently in Melincourt. Of one thing we are certain. Mr. Toogood is 

 neither more nor less than Mr. Toobad one of the heroes of Nightmare 

 Abbey in a high state of health and good humour in which condition 

 we leave him and the other inhabitants of Crotchet Castle to make their 

 way with the public. 



