ot intended to detract from
its sanctity, as, for instance, the attack upon sceptical philosophy
which lately appeared in an American paper, pretending to be the
commencement of a new Bible "suited to the enlightenment of the age,"
and beginning--

"Primarily the unknowable moved upon kosmos and evolved protoplasm.

"And protoplasm was inorganic and undifferentiated, containing all
things in potential energy: and a spirit of evolution moved upon
the fluid mass.

"And atoms caused other atoms to attract: and their contact begat
light, heat, and electricity.

"And the unconditioned differentiated the atoms, each after its
kind and their combination begat rocks, air, and water.

"And there went out a spirit of evolution and working in protoplasm
by accretion and absorption produced the organic cell.

"And the cell by nutrition evolved primordial germ, and germ
devolved protogene, and protogene begat eozoon and eozoon begat
monad and monad begot animalcule ..."

We are at first somewhat at a loss to understand what made the "Splendid
Shilling" so celebrated: it is called by Steele the finest burlesque in
the English language. Although far from being, as Dr. Johnson asserts,
the first parody, it is undoubtedly a work of talent, and was more
appreciated in 1703 than it can be now, being recognised as an imitation
of Milton's poems which were then becoming celebrated.[3] Reading it at
the present day, we should scarcely recognise any parody; but blank
verse was at that time uncommon, although the Italians were beginning to
protest against the gothic barbarity of rhyme, and Surrey had given in
his translation of the first and fourth books of Virgil a specimen of
the freer versification.

Meres says that "Piers Plowman was the first that observed the true
quality of our verse without the curiositie of rime" but he was not
followed.

The new character of the "Splendid Shilling" caused it to bring more
fame to its author than has been gained by any other work so short and
simple. It was no doubt an inspiration of the moment, and was written by
John Philips at the age of twenty. There is considerable freshness and
strength in the poem, which commences--

"Happy the man, who void of cares and strife
In silken or in leathern purse retains
A splendid shilling: he nor hears with pain
New oysters cried, nor sighs for cheerful ale;
But with his frien