Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/183

Rh "our Dibdins, O'Keefes, &c. are permitted to affright Common Sense from her propriety." He despondently inquires:

And he proceeds to do his bit toward correcting popular taste by pointing out the defects of successful dramatists. Passages from his criticisms of two, a man and a woman, illustrate his abusive mode of attack. The first is an estimate of the worth of O'Keefe:

And here are parts, not the worst lines, from his sketch of the author of the Simple Story:

To mangle poor Decency's breathless remains; To rob gentle Reason of all her domains; To give the last blow to expiring Propriety; To feed a base town with still baser variety— See delicate Inchbald assume the foul quill; And satirize Wisdom, by pleasing her will! Tho' unskill'd in the true fabrication of tenses, She tickles our weakness, and talks to the senses; For Venus is tittering, and Priapus smiles, As the Queen of Voluptuousness Nature beguiles Contemptuously treating the feminine duties, Her breast lacks the cambric to cover its beauties With the pages of Sappho her cranium she dresses,