Oun, De Lacy, Wilton, Tancarville, and Vivian--(for the author's
names are aristocratic, like his predilections)--is effected through
the medium of a stanza, new, we believe, in arrangement, though
differing but slightly from the established octave, and of verses so
easy and flowing as to make us wonder less at the promise of
"provision plenty
For cantos twelve, or may be, four and twenty,"
than at Mr. Cayley's assertion that he "Can never get along at all in
prose."
The incidents, as might be expected of a first canto, are neither
many nor important, and will admit of compression into a very small
compass.
Sir Reginald, whose five friends had arrived at Nornyth Place late on
the preceding night, is going over the grounds with them in a
shooting party after a late breakfast. St. Oun expresses a wish to
"prowl about the place" in preference, not feeling in the mood for
the required exertion.
"'Of lazy dogs the laziest ever fate
Set on two useless legs you surely are,
And born beneath some wayward sauntering star
To sit for ever swinging on a gate,
And laugh at wiser people passing through.'
So spake the bard De Lacy: for they two
In frequent skirmishes of fierce debate
Would bicker, tho' their mutual love was great."--p. 35.
Mohun, however, sides with St.
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