“In this paper,” says Gifford, “were given the earliest specimens of those audacious attacks on all private character, which the town first smiled at for their quaintness, then tolerated for their absurdity; and now that other papers, equally wicked and more intelligible, have ventured to imitate it, will have to lament to the last hour of British liberty.” That literary history is self-repeating, and that prophecies are mostly mistaken, are not new reflections; yet it is difficult to avoid making them when we compare those days with these. But beyond its function as a purveyor of social gossip, no newspaper was then considered complete without a Poet's Corner, consecrated to sentimental effusions and labored impromptus—“Complimentary verses to the brilliancy of the Hon. Mrs. N——h's Eyes,” or “Lines on Lady T—e—l's Ring.” In publishing his poem in the _World_, Della Crusca did but select the natural and recognized arena of the eighteenth-century poet. It may be as well to quote the greater part of _The Adieu and Recall to Love_, in order to give some notion of the calibre of the verses which were to found a school:— Go, idle Boy, I quit thy bower, The couch of many a thorn and flower; Thy twanging bow, thine arrow keen, Deceitful Beauty's timid mien; The feigned surprise, the roguish leer, The tender smile, the thrilling tear, Have now no pangs, no joys for me, So fare thee well, for I am free! Then flutter hence on wanton wing, Or lave thee in yon lucid spring, Or take thy beverage from the rose, Or on Louisa's breast repose; I wish thee well for pleasures past, Yet, bless the hour, I'm free at last, But sure, methinks, the altered day Scatters around a mournful ray; And chilling every zephyr blows, And every stream untuneful flows. * * * * * Alas! is all this boasted ease To lose each warm desire to please, No sweet solicitude to know For others' bliss, or others' woe, A frozen apathy to find, A sad vacuity of mind? Oh, hasten back, then, heavenly Boy, And with thine anguish bring thy joy! Return with all thy torments here, And let me hope, and doubt, and fear; Oh, rend my heart with every pain, But let me, let me love again.