"
Mary felt as if perforated by bullets in all directions, as she
encountered the eyes of the company, turned alternately upon her aunt
and her; but they were on opposite sides of the room; therefore to
interpose betwixt Grizzy and her assailants was impossible.
"Possibly," suggested Mrs. Dalton, "Miss Douglas prefers the loftier
strains of the mighty Minstrel of the Mountains to the more polished
periods of the Poet of the Transatlantic Plain."
"Without either a possibility or a perhaps," said Mrs. Apsley, "the
probability is, Miss Douglas prefers the author of the 'Giaour' to all
the rest of her poetical countrymen. Where, in either Walter Scott or
Thomas Campbell, will you find such lines as these;--
'Wet with their own best blood, shall drip
Thy gnashing tooth and haggard lip!'"
"Pardon me, madam," said Miss Parkin; "but I am of opinion you have
scarcely given a fair specimen of the powers of the Noble Bard in
question. The image here presented is a familiar one; 'the gnashing
tooth' and 'haggard lip' we have all witnessed, perhaps some of us may
even have experienced. There is consequently little merit in presenting
it to the mind's eye. It is easy, comparatively speaking, to portray the
feelings and passions of our own kind. We have only, as Dryden expresses
it, to descend into ourselves to find the secret imperfections of our
mind.
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