believe bread to be flesh, may well be excused for believing flesh to be fish.
47. Hole's Arthur.
It is said in a late number of the Critical Review, that Mr. Hole's Arthur "failed of success, because published at the same time with the Joans of Arc, Alfreds, and Cœur de Lions, which disgusted the world with the very name of Epic." Arthur, or the Northern Enchantment, was published in 1789, Joan of Arc in 1796, the Alfreds and Cœur de Lion in 1800. The failure of Mr. Hole's poem, therefore, is not attributed to the true cause; and it cannot be necessary to point out the motive which induced the critic to assign a false one.
Mr. Hole's Arthur failed of success because it did not deserve it. The poem had fair play: it appeared before reviews were converted into tools of party, and before the butchers' phrase, "cutting up" was supposed to be synonymous with cri-
