Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/198

 192 Whitford The leader of the group, Robert Merry, surnamed ''Delia Crusca" because he had been elected to membership in the Accademia della Crusca of Florence, seems to have been only half in earnest in writing the amorous nonsense which made up his contributions to The Poetry of the World. y And yet those verses found honest admirers. Even among the satirists, one, the author of The Children of Apollo, who considered Merry as a playwright as well as a poet, ventured to commend his senti- mental rhymes: As then your lays are to the soft inclin'd, Oh! why attempt those of the comic kind? As in the plaintive you're surpassing very, Oh Merry, Merry, wherefore art thou Merry? 96 Delia Cruscan sentimentalism was amusingly mocked in one of the "New Probationary Odes" which were collected by A. M'Donald (" Matthew Bramble") and published together in 1790. The typography of this good natured parody is, as the prefatory note explains, a part of the fun: The candid reader will observe, that, according to the method adopted by this order of Poets, we have taken the liberty to print the passages of most peculiar beauty in a different type, that they may not be negligently overlooked. The burlesque conceits display a rather happy wit. A pleasant passage runs: What can escape thy rage, OH TIME? THE ROSE, the garden's princely prime, That round its sweets so freely throws, And gives such transports to THE NOSE, must die, for the Caterpillar kills it, And fearless of THE MUSE'S SNUB, Remorseless triumphs o'er the martyr'd shrub, 91 Thereafter, in a gush of sweet sentiment, the poet recommends Della Crusca for the post of Poet Laureat. A somewhat similar arraignment of the Della Cruscan affectation was Southey's in The Amatory Poems of Abel Shuffle- 95 A collection of Della Cruscan verse (London, 1788). 96 The Children of Apollo, 27. 97 Works of A. M'Donald, 80.