In illustration of these peculiar doctrines of Love and Marriage, the authors of the present Parody introduced into the first twenty lines of the preceding “Extract,” the very free statements on these subjects which appear in Chapters 8, 12, 14, 16, 17, of the narrative of Cook’s First Voyage to the Pacific in the “Endeavour,” in 1768, derived, by the editor, Dr. John Hawkesworth, from the Diary of Mr. (afterwards Sir Joseph) Banks, who accompanied Captain Cook.—ED.] [LORD ERSKINE, after dinner, inveighed bitterly against Marriage; and smarting, I suppose, under the recollection of his own unsuccessful choice, concluded by saying that a wife was _a tin canister tied to a man’s tail_, which very much excited the indignation of Lady Ann Culling Smith, who was of the party. “Monk” Lewis took a sheet of paper, and wrote the following neat epigram on the subject, which he presented to Her Royal Highness [the Duchess of York]:— “Lord Erskine at marriage presuming to rail, Says, _a wife’s a tin canister tied to ones tail_; And the fair Lady Ann, while the subject he carries on, Feels hurt at his Lordship’s degrading comparison. But wherefore degrading? if taken aright, A tin canister’s useful, and polished, and bright, And if dirt its original purity hide, ’Tis the fault of the puppy to whom it is tied.” —_Journal of T. Raikes_, ii. 56.—ED.] [RICHARD PAYNE KNIGHT, eminent as he was as a classical scholar and archæologist, was not successful as a poet or moralist, and this is shown in an amusing manner in a letter from Horace Walpole to the Rev. W. Mason, dated 22nd March, 1796, in which he declares how much he is offended and disgusted by Knight’s “_new_ insolent and self-conceited poem,” alluding to his _Progress of Civil Society_,—the former one being “_The Landscape_, a didactic poem in three books,” 4to, pub. 1794, of which mention has already been made. In 1816 he was examined before a Select Committee of the House of Commons on the proposed purchase by the Government of the Elgin Marbles; but his estimate of their value as works of the highest art was much below that of other artistic witnesses, such as Flaxman, Westmacott, Chantrey, B. West, and others. For these statements he was severely criticised in vol. 14 of the _Quarterly Review_, and in a squib, reprinted in the _New Whig Guide_ in 1819. He valued the collection at £25,000; Gavin Hamilton’s estimate was £60,800, and Lord Aberdeen’s £35,000; for which latter sum they were obtained by the Government. He bequeathed his collection of ancient Bronzes, Greek Coins, &c.—valued at £50,000—to the British Museum.