Lives of distinguished shoemakers by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Shoemakers -- United States
Publisher: Portland [Me.] : Davis & Southworth
Published: 1849-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

I confess, however, that the work was received more favorably than I expected. Bell, indeed, and a few others, whose craft was touched, vented their indignation in prose and verse ; but, on the whole, the clamor against me was not loud, and was lost by insensible degrees in the applauses of such I as was truly ambitious to please.

Thus supported, the good effects of the satire (gloriose lo-quor) were not long in manifesting themselves. Delia Crusca appeared no more in the Oracle, and, if any of his followers ventured to ti-eat the town with a soft sonnet, it was not, as before, introduced by a pompous preface. Pope and Milton resumed their superiority ; and Este and his coadjutors silently acquiesced in the growing opinion of their incompetency and showed some sense of shame.

With this I was satisfied. I had taken up my pen for no other end, and was quietly retiring, with the idea that I had " done the state some service," and proposing to abandon for ever the csestus, which a respectable critic fancies I wielded " with too much severity," when I was once more called into the lists* by th& reappearance of some of the scattered enemy.

It was not enough that the stream of folly flowed more sparingly in the Oracle than before; I was detei'mined

" To have the current in that yl ice damm'd up ;" and accordingly began the present poem — for which, indeed, I had by this time other reasons. I had been told that there were still a few admirers of the Cruscan school, miIio thought

* 1 hope no one will do me tlie injustice to suppose that I imagine myself another Hercules contending with hydras, tfec. Far from it. My enemies cannot well have an humbler opinion of me than I have of myself; and yet, " if I am not ashamed of them, I am a soused gurnet." Mere pecora inertia ! The contest is without danger, and the victory without glory. At the same time, I declare against any undue advantage being taken of these concessions. Though I knew the impotence of these literary Askaparts, the town did not; and many a man, who now affects to pity me for wasting my strength upon unresisting imbecility, would, not long since, have heard their poems with applause, and their praises with delight,

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