"
"To be sold to the best Bidder,
My Seat in Parliament being vacated."
"I have long laboured under a complaint
For ready money only,"
"Notice is hereby given,
and no Notice taken."
Note:
[80] Master of the Ceremonies.]
And so forth, fully justifying the writer's motto from Cicero, _De
Finibus_: "_Fortuitu Concursu hoc fieri, mirum est._" It may seem that
the mirthful element is not overpowering. But "gentle Dulness ever loves
a joke"; and in 1766 this one, in modern parlance, "caught on." "Cross
readings" had, moreover, one popular advantage: like the Limericks of
Edward Lear, they were easily imitated. What is not so intelligible is,
that they seem to have fascinated many people who were assuredly not
dull. Even Johnson condescended to commend the aptness of the pseudonym,
and to speak of the performance as "ingenious and diverting." Horace
Walpole, writing to Montagu in December 1766, professes to have laughed
over them till he cried. It was "the newest piece of humour," he
declared, "except the _Bath Guide_ [Anstey's], that he had seen of many
years"; and Goldsmith--Goldsmith, who has been charged with want of
sympathy for rival humourists--is reported by Northcote to have even
gone so far as to say, in a transport of enthusiasm, that "it would have
given him more pleasure to have been the author of them than of all the
works he had ever published of his own,"--which, of course, must be
classed with "Dr.
Pages:
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170