Summer tints begemmed the scene, And silky ocean slept in glossy green. A large and amusing assortment of this ambitious verbiage, which subsequently became in the eyes of the critics the sole “differentia” of Della Cruscan verse, may be seen in the notes to Gifford's _Baviad_. It was, however, an after-development, proceeding from a gradual consciousness of flagging powers; the feeling which induced Charles Reade's Triplet to “shove his pen under the thought, and lift it by polysyllables to the true level of fiction.” The other members of the Florence coterie, who, as I have said, were now back in England, speedily began to swell the Della Cruscan chorus in the columns of the _World_ and the _Oracle_. Bertie Greathead as “Reuben” became Della Crusca's rival, on paper, in the affections of Anna Matilda; and Parsons, signing himself “Benedict,” in memory of a sojourn in the Benedictine convent of Vallombrosa, deluged with sonnets an imaginary Melissa. Whether Mrs. Piozzi contributed anything beyond tea-party patronage, appears to be doubtful; but, as was only to be expected, London already possessed a score of indigenous rhymesters, eager to pursue the triumph and partake the gale. One of the principal of these was Edward Jerningham, _alias_ “The Bard,” who is commemorated in Macaulay's neat sentence: “Lady Miller who kept a vase wherein fools were wont to put verses, and Jerningham who wrote verses fit to be put into the vase of Lady Miller.” His brother, Sir William, of Cossy Hall, in Norfolk, kept an album which rivalled in celebrity the vase of Bath Easton, and “The Bard” had been a determined poetaster for the last thirty years. He is described as “a mighty gentleman, who looks to be painted, and is all daintification in manner, speech, and dress, singing to his own accompaniment on the harp, whilst he looks the gentlest of all dying Corydons.” Fashionable poets seldom suffer from lack of appreciation. Burke wrote of Jerningham's poem _The Shakespeare Gallery_, “I have not for a long time seen anything so well finished. The author has caught new fire by approaching in his perihelion so near to the sun of our poetical system.” I think we may be certain, after reading _The Shakespeare Gallery_, that the patron of Crabbe did not read it.