Venus
confesses her peccadillo, and offers to descend to the Devonshire
borough with her lover, and see what can have become of the ethereal
shoe. As they reach the ground, they meet with an ill-favoured boot
of leather, which acknowledges that it has ill-treated the delicate
slipper of Mercury. This boot, of course, is Gifford, who had been a
shoemaker's apprentice in Ashburton. Mercury curses this unsightly
object, and part of his malediction may here be quoted.
_I hear some one say "Murrain take him, the ape!"
And so Murrain shall, in a bookseller's shape;
An evil-eyed elf, in a down-looking flurry,
Who'd fain be a coxcomb, and calls himself_ Murray.
_Adorn thou his door, like the sign of the Shoe,
For court-understrappers to congregate to;
For_ Southey _to come, in his dearth of invention,
And eat his own words for mock-praise and a pension;
For_ Croker _to lurk with his spider-like limb in,
And stock his lean bag with waylaying the women;
And Jove only knows for what creatures beside
To shelter their envy and dust-liking pride,
And feed on corruption, like bats, who at nights,
In the dark take their shuffles, which they call then flights;
Be these the court-critics and vamp a Review.
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