Editorial

We begin our amusement this evening with “The Queen of Sicily” whose maternal anxiety to provide husbands for her “three daughters” met with such very different receptions from the youthful objects of her care. The libertine disposition of the fair Rosalie we cheerfully consign to the circles of fashionable dissipation and without regret permit the icy Jane to take refuge in any cloister that the Gallic emperor has left her the choice of. But the sentiments of the romantic Clare deserve more attention and we believe will receive the approbation of the unmarried ladies in our Circle. They are too wise to refuse a good husband if such a one should offer himself and would even be content with something short of that absolute perfection which the princess requires rather than lead apes in the regions below. We however do not advise them to lower their expectation too readily because those who require many excellencies will (it may be presumed) endeavour to deserve them and the hope of obtaining the hand of a man of merit, may act as a stimulus to acquire those personal and mental accomplishments which solace the summer and enliven the winter of life. Then lovely ladies endeavour to render yourselves worthy of the most worthy and if you do not succeed to the utmost extent of your wishes you will at least be provided with the best means of blunting the edge of disappointment and of reconciling your minds to the defects of your partners. We do not understand why the princess has not named the place where she hoped to find her phoenix, or why if he is not there she should not seek him in some other. Perhaps the ingenious author will condescend to unravel the mystery.

We are confident that “The Summary of Alchemy” is an exquisite poem; although we confess that we do not understand one word of it, and therefore if we do not praise it as we are inclined to do, we hope for our excuse in the fear of exposing our ignorance, by praising (as the Monkey said Amen) in the wrong place. “The attempt to delineate a character” has the movement and diction observable in the blank verse of the time indicated by the date subjoined. The Compliment to the Lady is well-turned and whether the bard “be numbered with the things which were” or is a living votary of the Muses, this delineation does credit to his talents. We see with pleasure that our correspondents have at length complied with our request to give variety to our readings by compositions in prose, and thereby adding a little of the solidity of sense, to the volatility of wit. The Paper on Phosphorus contains information that may be new to many of our audience, and we trust the philosopher to whom we are indebted for this short essay, will lay us under frequent obligation, by more extensive communications.

The Fop in Distress is a hit, a palpable hit, on the male part of our society in which the Editor comes in for a share. For the evil ridiculed in this facetious poem there is no remedy and nothing is left but to punish the delinquent. We therefore advise every man to send for his tailor and singe him with his own goose, or, with his own shears cliff off so much of his lags as will supply the deficiencies occasioned by his cabbaging propensity. We take the liberty of suggesting to the author of the beautiful stanzas called “The Primrose of December” the propriety of converting them into two poems the first entitled An Address to the Primrose, the other An Address to a Favourite Robin. The four last stanzas have little or no relation to the flower. We also recommend a careful revision of the whole. The poem certainly deserves this attention.

We are much pleased with the neat epigrammatic jeu d’esprit on Miss Peacock the Lady Mayoress of York; but we think the signature a mis-nomer as he can scarcely be called an anti-Lancastrian who kills the corporation of that ancient city. If time will allow we may in this place read a private letter, from a fair member of our society that probably suggested the subject of the author. If in this we are mistaken, the merit of the letter will justify its production, and reconcile us to an absence that we cannot think of without regret. Our auditors cannot be at a loss to know that we mean the good humoured and lovely Eborina.

The Poem on seeing a Mouse run across the road in January, communicated by a friend of the Society, is another creditable imitation of the versification dialect and sentiments of Burns, whose early poems addressed to the mountain daisy, and the mouse’s nest turned up by the plough have been frequently imitated with success. The facility with which this appears to be done leads us to think that the rusticity of the Scotch dialect like the Doric of the Greeks is very favourable to the expression of genuine feeling, and gives a pleasing air of simplicity to the pieces composed in it. It is certain that the writer who can use it with dexterity has the advantage of another language which takes away much of the prosaic familiarity of common thoughts when expressed in pure English. Yet it must be acknowledges that it requires uncommon talents to wield such weapons with the grace of Burns.

We have long deferred the “Ode to a Pig While His Nose Was Boring” and have this evening placed it almost the last on our list that the melancholy reflections such a cruel operation must excite may not destroy the hilarity of the evening. We would gladly have reserved it still longer lest joined to the fogs of the season it should dampen the festive humour of Christmas but we were afraid that the author would think us insensible to its pathetic merit and did not feel the full value of the consolatory reflections which it is pathetically suggests to the squalling animal.

In the second number of the Selector, a title which we shall hereafter adopt for those extracts from larger works that we may present to our readers as possessing utility and interest independent of the works in which they were originally written, we bring forward the attack made by Dr. Johnson in his pamphlet entitled Falklands Islands on the celebrated Junius which extinguished, as it is said, that literary luminary, because he never afterwards appeared in the political hemisphere. Be this as it may, it is a striking example of the sarcastic severity of Johnson and the vigour with which he wielded the weapons of controversy.

We bring forward this extract now because it was recently the subject of an interesting conversation among some of our friends.

Our Society will perceive by the length and variety of our bill of fare that we have no reason to complain that the Chest is parsimonious in providing for our literary repast. We are under the necessity of apologizing again for keeping back the Ballad of Lord Edward, the two Sonnets to the Swallows of 1809, Verses to Maria, The Impatient Gnome, and many other pieces that we have not noticed. The Grecian Anecdotes are withheld only till we have leisure to introduce them with more interest than they would have alone and that we may do this effectually we request that our correspondent will continue his communications as by numbering his paper, he seems to promise. Besides the pieces above mentioned, we have received a letter, with a French epitaph annexed, the writer of which promises some memoirs of the person to whom it relates which we shall be glad to receive. The continuation of Vox Stellarum we defer because the author promises to conclude it in another number when we think the whole will appear to greater advantage.

The translation of Alcaeus, the poem entitled Sunrise and several other pieces arrived too late to be duly considered.

We have only to add that as the festivities of Christmas will interfere with the regular evenings of the Society our next meeting will be on the 15th of January 1811, when we hope to be honoured with a full attendance.