Satire's View of Sentimentalism 201 tulation (1799), however, Peter attacked the Bluestockings with mocking vituperation and pitiless irony. The following is a representative passage from Expostulation: Yet let me say, be done fair Justice too. Some damn in toto my poor thoughts and style; The toothless gums of half the grave Bas-bleu Watering, and wondering how the World can smile. Urganda, with more beard than female grace (If old Urganda has not learnt to shave), Makes, at my name, most horrible grimace; Screaming, 'I'd buy a rope to hang the knave. My dearest, sweetest panegyrist, More, Pray, pray oblige me with your flippant pen: Lord! you have so much wit; yes, such a store! Pray, Hannah, cut us up this worst of men. Oh, cut the fellow into mince-meat, pray! Whene'er I hear his name, I'm in a stew: He's worse than Johnson, ten times, let me say, Who gave himself such airs on the Bas-Bleu.' m The other poem, Nil Admirari, was addressed to the Bishop of London, because Bishop Porteus had made "an hyperbolical eulogy on Miss Hannah More ... in his late charge to the clergy." It is rather more coolly critical than Expostulation, and involves some cleverness of phrasing. A typical passage follows: With sighs I tell thee of Miss Hannah More, A mighty genius in thy Charge display 'd; Know, I have search'd the Damsel o'er and o'er, And only find Miss Hannah a good maid. Oft by my touchstone have I tried the Lass, And see no shining mark of Gold appear; No, nor one beam of silver: some small brass, And lead and glittering mundic, in thine ear. A sorry Critic, thou in Prose and Metre, Or thou hadst judged her power a scanty Rill; Which, if thou wilt believe the word of Peter, Crawls at the bottom of th' Aonian hill.
128 Ibid., IV, 282.
