* i.e. Arne’s _Water Parted from the Sea_,—the song of Arbaces in the opera of _ Artaxerxes_ 1762. The minuet in _Ariadne_ was by Handel. It came at the end of the overture, and is said to have been the best thing in the opera. When Methodist preachers, etc. Tony Lumpkin’s utterance accurately represents the view of this sect taken by some of his contemporaries. While moderate and just spectators of the Johnson type could recognize the sincerity of men, who, like Wesley, travelled ‘nine hundred miles in a month, and preached twelve times a week’ for no ostensibly adequate reward, there were others who saw in Methodism, and especially in the extravagancies of its camp followers, nothing but cant and duplicity. It was this which prompted on the stage Foote’s _Minor_ (1760) and Bickerstaffe’s _ Hypocrite_ (1768); in art the _Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism_ of Hogarth (1762); and in literature the _New Bath Guide_ of Anstey (1766), the _Spiritual Quixote_ of Graves, 1772, and the sarcasms of Sterne, Smollett and Walpole. It is notable that the most generous contemporary portrait of these much satirised sectaries came from one of the originals of the _Retaliation_ gallery. Scott highly praises the character of Ezekiel Daw in Cumberland’s _ Henry_, 1795, adding, in his large impartial fashion, with reference to the general practice of representing Methodists either as idiots or hypocrites, ‘A very different feeling is due to many, perhaps to most, of this enthusiastic sect; nor is it rashly to be inferred, that he who makes religion the general object of his life, is for that sole reason to be held either a fool or an impostor.’ (Scott’s _Miscellaneous Prose Works_, 1834, iii. 222.) But of all the birds in the air. Hypercriticism may object that ‘the hare’ is not a bird. But exigence of rhyme has to answer for many things. Some editors needlessly read ‘the _gay_ birds’ to lengthen the line. There is no sanction for this in the earlier editions. EPILOGUE TO ‘SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.’ This epilogue was spoken by Mrs. Bulkley in the character of Miss Hardcastle. It is probably the epilogue described by Goldsmith to Cradock, in the letter quoted at p. 246, as ‘a very mawkish thing,’ a phrase not so incontestable as Bolton Corney’s remark that it is ‘an obvious imitation of Shakespere.’ That pretty Bar-maids have done execution. Cf. _The Vicar of Wakefield_, 1766, i. 7:—‘Sophia’s features were not so striking at first; but often did more certain execution.’