Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/189

 Satire's View of Sentimentalism 183 obtain a general perusal, not meet the magnitude and extent of the evil com- plained of, the Author of the present production has had recourse to the assist- ance of the comic and satiric Muse; and curvetting into the flowery regions of Fancy, has employed the machinery of the poetic world, to give a more pleasing and prepossessing introduction to his critical remarks. 70 The poem is an account of a dream which came to Mrs. Inch- bald, who as she fell asleep had been thinking over her literary triumphs, and in particular the success of her two translations from Kotzebue, Lover's Vows and The Wise Man of the East. Zoroaster appears to her and, not without poking a little fun at the terror novels, rebukes her for the aid which she has given to the pernicious popularizing of German romantic drama in England. He pleads with her: On foreign dulness scorn your wit to waste Nor sanction with your pen a vicious taste. 71 Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who was not entirely consistent in his attitude toward sentimentalism, was often a target for the shafts of verse-satire. In the very twelvemonth when, in The Critic, he attacked most effectively the vogue of sentimental comedy, his brother-in-law Richard Tickell thus rebuked him for being inveigled into the fashionable Bath-easton circle of sentimental poetasters: Can'st thou to Fashion's tyranny submit, Secure in native, independent wit? Or yield to Sentiment's insipid rule, By Taste, by Fancy, chac'd thro Scandal's School? A reason for Sheridan's failure to adhere to the strictest artistic honesty is suggested by the author of The Sauce-Pan (1781), who declares that according to the dictates of "the idol Fashion," 70 The Wise Man of the East; or, The Apparition of Zoroaster the son of Oromases, to the theatrical midwife of Leicester-Fields. A satirical poem by Thomas Button, A.M. (London, 1800), iii-iv. 71 Ibid., 73. 72 The School for Satire, 157.