jeunes feroces_, leaped on the poor uncomplaining Ass like so many
hunting-leopards. The air was darkened by hurtling parodies, the
arrangement of which is still a standing _crux_ to the bibliographers.

It was Keats's friend, John Hamilton Reynolds, who opened the attack.
His parody _(Peter Bell: a Lyrical Ballad_. London, Taylor and Hessey,
1819) was positively in the field before the original. It was said, at
the time, that Wordsworth, feverishly awaiting a specimen copy of his
own _Peter Bell_ from town, seized a packet which the mail brought
him, only to find that it was the spurious poem which had anticipated
Simon Pure. _The Times_ protested that the two poems must be from the
same pen. Reynolds had probably glanced at proofs of the genuine poem;
his preface is a close imitation of Wordsworth's introduction, and the
stanzaic form in which the two pieces are written is identical. On the
other hand, the main parody is made up of allusions to previous poems
by Wordsworth, and shows no acquaintance with the story of _Peter
Bell_. Reynolds's whole pamphlet--preface, text, and notes--is
excessively clever, and touches up the bard at a score of tender
points. It catches the sententious tone of Wordsworth deliciously, and
it closes with this charming stanza:

_He quits that moonlight yard of skulls,
And still he feels right glad, and smiles
With moral joy at that old tomb;
Peter's cheek recalls its bloom,
And as he creepeth by the tiles,
He mutters ever--"W.W.
Never more will trouble you, trouble you_."

_Peter Bell the Second_, as it is convenient, though not strictly
accurate, to call Reynold's "antenatal Peter," was more popular than
the original. By May a third edition had been called for, and this
contained fresh stanzas and additional notes.

Another parody, which ridiculed the affection for donkeys displayed
both by Wordsworth and Coleridge, was called _The Dead Asses: A
Lyrical Ballad_; and an elaborate production, the author of which I
have not been able to discover, was published later on in the year,
_Benjamin the Waggoner_ (Baldwin, Craddock and Joy, 1819), which,
although the title suggests _The Waggoner_ of Wordsworth, is entirely
taken up with making fun of _Peter Bell_. This parody--and it is
certainly neither pointless nor unskilful--chiefly deals with the
poet's fantastic prologue. Then, no less a person than Shelley,
writing to Leigh Hunt from Florence in November of the same year