The imitations of Milton and Collins are of a like description. Such as it was, the book was a success, and samples of its contents were reproduced, after the fashion of the day, in the newspapers and magazines—the _Gentleman's_, the _European_, the _Universal Magazine_, and so forth. Of the quality of the poems, critically considered, and of the Della Cruscan poetry generally, I shall have something to say farther on. In the meantime, it may, perhaps, be worth while to disinter a ludicrous passage in one of Merry's contributions to the _Florence Miscellany_. The “Oziosi” had one day agreed that each of them should produce by the evening a story or poem which should “excite horror by description.” Mrs. Piozzi's production will be found in her _Autobiography_, and is by no means devoid of merit. Merry brought a poem (“a very fine one,” says Mrs. Piozzi), in which he introduced the following remarkable ghost, which I commend to the attention of the new Psychical Society:— While slow he trod this desolated coast, From the cracked ground uprose a warning ghost; Whose figure, all-confused, was dire to view, And loose his mantle flowed, of shifting hue; _He shed a lustre round; and sadly pressed What seemed his hand upon what seemed his breast; Then raised his doleful voice, like wolves that roar In famished troops round Orcas' sleepy shore,_— “Approach yon antiquated tower,” he cried, “There bold Rinaldo, fierce Mambrino, died,” etc. But I must not linger over the _Florence Miscellany_, which was but the prelude to those melodious bursts which filled the spacious times of George III. with the music of Della Crusca and Anna Matilda. A year or two after its publication the Florence coterie broke up, and returned to England. The first note of the concert was struck by Robert Merry, who, in June 1787, sent to the _World_ a poem entitled _The Adieu and Recall to Love_, subscribing himself Della Crusca, a nickname which had been given to him at Florence, on account of his connection, already mentioned, with the Italian Academy. The _World_ was a daily morning paper, price threepence, which in more than one respect resembled its modern namesake. A contemporary satirist, writing under the modest pseudonym of “Horace Juvenal,” describes how the young lady of 1787— Reluctant opes her eyes, 'twixt twelve and one, To skim the _World_, or criticise the _Sun_, And when she sees her darling friend abused Is half enraged, yet more than half-amused. And another poet portrays two unlucky baronets, Sir Gregory Turner and Sir John Miller—husband of Lady Miller of Bath Easton vase celebrity—lamenting the ridicule with which the same newspaper had overwhelmed them:— Woe wait the week, Sir John, and cursed the hour, When harmless gentlemen felt satire's power, When, raised from insignificance and sloth, The _World_ began to ridicule us both.