ABSTRACT
The process of writing himself down is here fully performed by Mr. Southey, if it be allowed that he had ever written himself up. A more complete monument of vile and depraved taste no man ever raised. In his Preface he has the absurdity to speak of the verse of Dryden and Pope, that is, the English heroic couplet, in the following ridiculous terms: ‘Verse is not enough favoured by the English reader; perhaps this is owing to the obtrusiveness, the regular fews-harp twing twang, of what has been foolishly called heroic measure.’ He has, therefore, given a rhapsody of Twelve Books in a sort of irregular lyric, so unlike verse or sense, that if it were worth while to present our readers with a tissue of so coarse a texture, we could fill whole pages with specimens of its absurdity. We will have mercy, and give only a single example, which may be taken at random, for no part seems to be better than the rest.
