Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/168

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162 Whitford verses. 15 The other, Mathias' Rowley and Chatterton in the Shades (1782), an "interlude" in prose and various kinds of verse, makes use of a similar scheme of parody to deride the antiquaries. Though the most pretentious, these were by no means the only pieces of satirical mockery for the archaic diction which, largely through the influence of Spenser, the new medievalism introduced into English poetry. A classical example is Doctor Johnson's little poem in rebuke of Thomas Warton: Wheresoe'er I turn my view, All is strange, yet nothing new, Endless labour all along, Endless labour to be wrong; Phrase that Time has flung away; Uncouth words in disarray, Trick'd in antique ruff and bonnet, Ode, and elegy, and sonnet. 16 A somewhat similar piece of criticism appears in the New Pro- bationary Odes (1790). It is an ode in Spenserian stanza, contained in the letters of Horace Walpole, edited by Mrs. Paget Toynbee (XI, 427; XII, 216-219, 229-231, 241, 246-247) seems to prove that Mason was the author. For a discussion of the question as it stood before the publication of the definitive edition of Walpole's Letters, see Notes and Queries, 5th ser., II, 150, 251-252, 270. 15 For example, here is a stanza in which the poet displays the literary superiority of Rowley over Geoffrey Chaucer: "Tyrwhytte, thoughe clergyonned in Geoffroie's leare, Yette scalle yat leare stonde thee in drybblet stedde : Geoff roie wythe Rowley how maiest thoue comphere? Rowley hanne mottes, yat ne manne ever redde, Ne couthe bewryenne inne anie syngle tyme, Yet reynneythe echeone mole, in newe and swotie ryme. " I quote the passage as it appears in The School for Satire (London, 1801),.p. 116; An Archaeological Epistle to the Reverend and Worshipful Jeremiah Milles, D.D. . . . occupies pp. 103-123' 16 Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. ... by Hesther Lynch Piozzi (London, 1786), 64. Concerning the fact that the object of the attack was a volume of T. Warton's poems, published in 1777, see Thomas Warton, A Biographical and Critical Study by Clarissa Rinaker (Urbana, 1916), 140, and Birkbeck Hill's edition of BoswelTs Life of Johnson, III, 158n. Of interest in this connection are Johnson's various burlesque bits in ballad metre, especially

that in mockery of Bishop Percy's Hermit of Warkworth.