[243] The ridicule was crystallized in Canning’s famous parody, “The Loves of the Triangles,” which appeared in “The Anti-Jacobin,” Nos. 23, 24 and 26, April to May, 1798. (_Vide_ “The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin,” edited C. Edmonds, 1854, 3rd edition, 1890.) [244] “The Botanic Garden” (4th edition, 1799), Interlude I, Vol. II, p. 64. Cp. also _ibid._, Interlude III, p. 182 foll. [245] For details see Legouis, _op. cit._ [246] Both the original and the final versions of the “Evening Walk” and the “Descriptive Sketches” are given by Hutchinson, _op. cit._, Appendix, pp. 592, 601. [247] But the artistic possibilities of Personification were not unrecognized by writers and critics in the eighteenth century. _Vide_ Blair’s lecture on “Personification” (“Lectures on Rhetoric”) 9th edition, 1803; Lec. XVI, p. 375. [248] “The Stones of Venice” (1851), Vol. II, Chap. VIII, pp. 312 foll.—The Ducal Palace, “Personification is, in some sort, the reverse of symbolism, and is far less noble. Symbolism is the setting forth of a great truth by an imperfect and inferior sign ... and it is almost always employed by men in their most serious moods of faith, rarely in recreation.... But Personification is the bestowing of a human or living form upon an abstract idea; it is in most cases, a mere recreation of the fancy, and is apt to disturb the belief in the reality of the thing personified.” [249] For an illuminating analysis, see Elton, “A Survey of English Literature,” 1780-1830 (1912), pp. 1-29. [250] “Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise,” Vol. IV, pp. 175-178. [251] Cf. Coleridge’s remarks in “Biographia Literaria,” ed. Shawcross, Chap. I (Oxford, 1907). [252] Elton, “The Augustan Ages” (1895), p. 211. [253] “Sleep and Poetry,” ll. 188-201. [254] Hutchinson, _op. cit._, p. 948. [255] “Poets of Great Britain” (1794), Vol. X, p. 709. [256] Cf. “Works” (1889), ed. Courthope and Elwin, Vol. V., p. 360-364. [257] George Saintsbury, “Eighteenth Century Poetry” (“The London Mercury,” December, 1919, pp. 155-163); an article in which a great authority once again tilts an effective lance on behalf of the despised Augustans. [258] The best of them have been garnered by Mr. Iola A. Williams into a little volume, “By-ways Round Helicon” (London, 1922), where the interested reader may browse with much pleasure and profit, and where he will no doubt find not a little to surprise and delight him. For a still more complete anthology, _vide_ “The Shorter Poems of the Eighteenth Century” (1923) by the same editor. But for the devil’s advocacy see Doughty, “English Lyric in the Age of Reason” (London, 1922)