must be very incorrect; for I have added
eight or ten stanzas within this fortnight. But inaccuracy is more
excusable in _ludicrous poetry_ than in any other. If it strikes _any_,
it must be merely people of _taste_; for people of _wit_ without taste,
which comprehends the larger part of the critical tribe, will
unavoidably despise it. I have been at some pains to recover myself from
A. Phi**** misfortune of mere _childishness_, 'Little charm of placid
mien,' &c. I have added a _ludicrous index_ purely to show (fools) that
I am in jest; and my motto, 'O, qua sol habitabiles illustrat oras,
maxima principum!' is calculated for the same purpose. You cannot
conceive how large the number is of those that mistake burlesque for the
very foolishness it exposes; which observation I made once at the
_Rehearsal_, at _Tom Thumb_, at _Chrononhotonthologos_, all which, are
pieces of elegant humour. I have some mind to pursue this caution
further, and advertise it 'The School-Mistress,' &c. a very _childish_
performance everybody knows (_novorum more_). But if a person seriously
calls this, or rather burlesque, a childish or low species of poetry,
he says wrong. For the most regular and formal poetry may be called
trifling, folly, and weakness, in comparison of what is written with a
more _manly_ spirit in ridicule of it.'

This edition is now lying before me, with its splendid "red-letter," its
"seemly designs," and, what is more precious, its "Index." Shenstone,
who had greatly pleased himself with his graphical inventions, at length
found that his engraver, Mynde, had sadly bungled with the poet's ideal.
Vexed and disappointed, he writes, "I have been plagued to death about
the ill-execution of my designs. Nothing is certain in London but
expense, which I can ill bear." The truth is, that what is placed in the
landskip over the thatched-house, and the birch-tree, is like a falling
monster rather than a setting sun; but the fruit-piece at the end, the
grapes, the plums, the melon, and the Catharine pears, Mr. Mynde has
made sufficiently tempting. This edition contains only twenty-eight
stanzas, which were afterwards enlarged to thirty-five. Several stanzas
have been omitted, and they have also passed through many corrections,
and some improvements, which show that Shenstone had more judgment and
felicity in severe correction than perhaps is suspected. Some of these I
will point out.[321]

In the second stanza, the _first_ edition