Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/201

 Satire's View of Sentimentalism 195 He lamented the good old days of classic simplicity, when every- thing was natural, even language: Now all is changed! We fume and fret, poor elves, Less to display our subject, than ourselves; Whate'er we paint a grot, a flow'r, a bird, Heavens! how we sweat, laboriously absurd! Words of gigantic bulk, and uncouth sound, In rattling triads the long sentence bound; While points with points, with periods periods jar, And the whole work seems one continued war! 107 This logomachy was bad enough; but in the Delia Cruscan poetry there was even worse departure from the classic realms of Common Sense. More abhorrent to Gifford than meaning- less rant was the mawkish, sentimental gush which he rebuked in such couplets as: E'en Bertie burns of gods and chiefs to sing- Bertie who lately twitter'd to the string His namby-pamby madrigals of love, In the dark dingles of a glittering grove, Where airy lays, wove by the hand ot morn, Were hung to dry upon a cobweb thorn!!! 108 Thus William Gifford in heavy heroic couplets and con- vincing notes condemned the sentimental nonsense which was then rife in the world of English letters. He wrote forcefully, if not with easy grace. Moreover, his attack seems to have had the practical effect of weakening the vogue for Verse that like Maria's flows, No rubs to stagger, and no sense to pose; Which read, and read, you raise your eyes in doubt, And gravely wonder what it is about. 109 Ibid., 38. lo Baviad and Maeviad, 30-31. Bertie Greathead wrote also a tragedy, The Regent, which Gifford demolished in five pages of The Maeviad. 109 Ibid., 31.