We have not been able to diſcover whether this collection of puerilities is of our own, or, as it is pretended, of foreign growth. Wherever it was found, it would have been far more adviſeable to leave it in its original obſcurity, than to expoſe its abſurdities thus naked to public ſcorn.
PUBLISHER.
I juſt recollect an anecdote which affords me ſome conſolation for the abruptneſs of your firſt queſtion, and the harſhneſs of your preſent ſtricture. When the moſt popular relater of popular tales had preſented to his princely patron his copious narrative, with its rich embroidery of knights and dames, ſquires and palfreys, Moors and Chriſtians, witches and enchanters, ſaints and phantoms, the only compliment he received was, ‘Where the devil, Signor Ludovico, didſt thou pick up all this traſh?’ Princes are only omnipotent; omniſcience they have relinquiſhed to Reviewers: the caſe is therefore not perfectly in point. But the omen is not diſcouraging.
REVIEWER.
Content to paſs ſlightly over abſurdities that provoke no laughter, and improbabilities that occaſion no ſurprize, we ſhould have conſigned theſe tales to a quiet corner of our monthly catalogue: but they are marked by one feature ſo prominent, that we cannot, as guardians of the public taſte and morals, refrain from ſetting our note of reprobation upon it.—Every page teems with profane alluſions. Whenever the author, whoſe range of information ſeems unuſually narrow, is at a loſs for a metaphor or an alluſion, he
