Annual Review, Volume 6
August 1807
The Alarum
p.585.

Art. XXXIII. The Epics of the Ton; or Glories of the Great World; a Poem in Two Books, with Notes and Illustrations. 8vo.pp. 269.

Not having any relish for personal and private satire we derived but little pleasure from these epics. Ladies of high rank are indecently dragged through the dirt, and held up to ridicule by this writer, with the same unfeeling impudence as we have seen displayed by some coarse carman, who when he has purposely splashed with mire a well dressed lady on the pave’, sets the dirty boys to laugh at her mishap.
The attack upon political characters is fair enough; but for an arrow to fl! y, it must have feathers at one end if it has lead at the other. Here is lead at both.



The Satirist Review
December 1808
January 1809

Volume 1 page 300
December 1808
The epics of the Ton; or The glories of the Great World, a Poem, in Two Books, with Notes and Illustrations, Second Edition. Baldwin, Price 7s.6d. pp280.

In this poem, which has been generally reviewed, and very liberally praised by our brother critics, we have discovered full as much ground for censure as for praise. Instead of amusing his readers with keen and legitimate satire, the author not unfrequently fatigues them with a dull detail of the birth, parentage, and education, of his heroes and heroines, and an uninteresting account of their shape and size.
He appears to have taken a transient view of the fashionable world, without having been permitted to mingle with its inhabitants: and to have sketched most of his portraits rather from des! cription than from life. Many of the enormities which disgrace some of the higher circles are permitted to escape with impunity, while their minor follies experience the severest punishment he is capable of inflicting. That his portraits are not always correct, the lines on the duchess of St. A---- incontrovertibly prove.
After having recorded the interesting fact, that her grace’s footmen wear black stockings with yellow clocks, he thus proceeds:
She has poor nature veil’d with skillful art,
Thrown rich amendments o’er each faulty part;
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And colours not vouchsafed the human face,
Cull’d from the shrub, the mine, and strow’d with grace,
So nicely touch’d her frame from top to bottom,
And all her charms so alter’d since she got ‘em,
That with the knowing’ tis an even bet
If she or nature most in other’s debt.
Now, we by no means take upon ourselves to say that if t! he duchess of St. A---imagined her charms would be increased by the addition of colours “culled from the shrub and mine,” she would not, like other fashionable beauties, have recourse to their assistance;but nature having bestowed on her brilliancy of complexion superior to any thing which could be supplied by foreign aid, we are certain that she possesses too much good taste, and too much vanity.
“To mar a gift so fair.”
The simplicity of her dress, which is always a destitute of metricious ornament as her lovely countenance is void of art, proves that she justly thinks.
“Beauty when unadorn’d, adorn’d the most.”
When, however, this author delineates characters with whom he happens to be well acquainted, his pictures are admirable executed: his poetry, with the exception of a few hobbling lines, and not a few miserable rhymes, such as “riddance’ and Siddons” is melodius, expressive, and sometimes exq! uisitely beautiful. The character of the lovely lady C--C--is, in our opinion by far his happiest effort; but as this has been selected as a specimen, by almost every reviewer, who has noticed the work, we shall present our readers with the following line on L-d H-y P-y:
“When mighty foes, now mightier than before,
Turn all their wrath on our deserted shore;
When many a king dethroned, and plunder’d state,
Would seem to warn us of approaching fate;
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Whom should we seek to snatch the wav’ring helm,
And through the shoals conduct the plunging realm?
The man oft, mid tempests loud and dark,
Has seen the breakers dash around the bark;
Who proudly resolute, and sternly brave,
Seems to require no second hand to save;
Plans for himself, and what he plans performs.
As deaf to prayers as to raging storms;
Who, stout in words, nor less in count’nance bold,
Confirms the timid, animates the! cold;
And seems prepared, when all at length is lost,
Still to stand up, and perish on his post:
Such is the man for this dark season fit,
Such once we had; for such a man was PITT.
Pease to his shade! Be all his faults forgot!
Complete perfection is no human lot.
He was a statesman from his cradle bred,
And high and lofty tower’d his youthful head;
His idol glory, matchless pow’r his pride,
All meaner ends were thrown with scorn aside;
While wealth and honours on his nod await,
He liv’d a commoner, and died in debt;--
A debt his grateful country pays in tears,
And counts it little of her vast arrears.
When Europe sunk and Britain stood aghast,
And freedom trembled at the seeping blast;
Thou ne’er wert known, with dangling petty grace,
At Lady Bab’s to shew thy simp’ring face;
At routs to flutter, or at hops to trip,
A bow to s! tudy, criticize a dip,
Consult with Hoby on the newest boot,
And hear Floriche upon a birth-day suit;
Thy trappings more than taxes to debate,
And more thy motions study than the state;
Or still at H-l l-d house to smirk and dine;
And charm my lady by looks so fine,
Accept her box to snuff the country air,
And waste your many hours of leisure there;
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Politely pliant or to dine or dance,
And but in council give a thought to France.
Or, in the senate, quite as brilliant grown,
And quite as pliant, swell in gentle tone,
The smooth round speech, whose lubricating phrase
Aims at some pretty thought a thousand ways;
(Soft its meander, save where vandal force
Of crabbed figures cross its limpid course,
Those imps which make the senses reel, and, zounds!
Mistake a cypher for a thousand pounds;
While pitying friends excuse thy stammering jaw,
By humbly pleading thou wer! 6;t but cat’s-paw:--)
Or shrinking hear the loud denouncer’s call,
Another Felix ‘force another Paul;
Quit thy crude measure without shame or sorrow,
To-day propose it, and retract to-morrow:
Content, though crowds should sneer, and Cobbett teaze,
To hold thy station, and be quite at ease.
Such wert not thou. By great ambition led
To rule in Britain and on France to tread.
No silly joys the fluttering crowd that fire
Possess’d thy heart, or waked thy desire.
One play see’d quite enough in fourteen years,
And women smiles were pass’d like actors tears.
Still full of Britain's fame, and Europe’s fate,
Days spent in business, nights in strong debate,
By thee no sports were sought, no tasteful hours,
Till nature mourn’d o’er thine exhausted pow’rs,
Saw thy griev’d spirit part with many a groan,
More pierc’d by Europe’s ills tha! n by thy own.”
Immediately after this just tribute to the memory of the greatest statesman boasted (which by the bye we are falsely told in the notes, is too flattering a picture) the author indulges in the most wanton, unjust, and illiberal attack upon Mr. S--r P--l,we suppose, with the intention of proving his impartiality, but which in our opinion evinces only his political depravity.
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The notes in general, though correctly written, are vapid and spiritless. In a satirical work of this nature, we generally look to these for the unrestrained ebullitions of the author’s wit and fancy; but, here we could discover nothing to laugh at, and very little to amuse. In some instances the satire is so obscure, and the irony so unskillfully managed, that it must be, by a majority of readers, mistaken for praise instead of ridicule. We select, as an example, the note at page 4, on the following line:
“And gold in showers produce! either Bell.

“It is needless,” says the author, “to inform my fashionable readers that La Belle Assemble, that ornament of every lady’s toilet, is published by Bell the father, while Le Beau Monde, that inseparable companion of every man’s fashion, is given to the world by Bell the son. But it is necessary to state, that a promise on the part of these gentlemen is the cause why this volume is not adorned with plates. As they have advertised their intention of giving the subjects of my song to the public in a series of engravings, of which the first will appear in an early number of their valuable repositories, I thought it unnecessary to encrease the price of my publication by embellishing it with the plates. The fashionable world may depend upon it, that the elegance of the execution will correspond with their highest expectation; and I would recommend to all lovers of this volume, to secure good impressions, by early orde! ring La Bell Assemblee and LeBeau Monde for the next two or three years. Had it not been for this undertaking of Messrs. Bell, each of the following epics would have been adornes with a cut exhibiting a striking likeness of the hero or heroine.”
Now, who that had not seen the ridiculous and absurd publications of those pretenders to fashionable patronage, the Messrs. Bells (which are only calculated to amuse country misses and city clerks, and to inform them what hackney painters imagine to be the newest fashions) could have supposed that the above note was meant for irony and ridicule. We very much doubt if the ingenious editors of those wonderful productions, practiced as they are in the art, could have penned a more captivating puff.

Satirist
Volume 1 p 426-427

Comparative Criticism.
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5. The Epics of the Ton, a Poem
“Where good morals, good sense, and good poetry combine to make a book palatalbe, fas! tidious indeed must that taste be, which either nauseates it or cannot digest it. The portraits are drawn to the life, by the hand of a master.”-- Antijacobin Review
“The characters are so correctly drawn, and so much like the life, that no mistake can well occur in the application.”--Critical Review
“The characters which the author draws, are not always suffi-
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ciently marked; and the liberty which he sometimes takes with rhymes is unpardonable.’--Monthly Review