What art can wash her guilt away?
"'The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom--is to die.'"
Scarce had the Vicar of Wakefield made its appearance and been received
with acclamation than its author was subjected to one of the usual
penalties that attend success. He was attacked in the newspapers. In one of
the chapters he had introduced his ballad of the Hermit, of which, as we
have mentioned, a few copies had been printed some considerable time
previously for the use of the Countess of Northumberland. This brought
forth the following article in a fashionable journal of the day:
"_To the Printer of the 'St. James's Chronicle_.'
"Sir--In the Reliques of Ancient Poetry, published about two years ago, is
a very beautiful little balled called A Friar of Orders Gray. The ingenious
editor, Mr. Percy, supposes that the stanzas sung by Ophelia in the play of
Hamlet were parts of some ballad well known in Shakespeare's time, and from
these stanzas with the addition of one or two of his own to connect them,
he has formed the above-mentioned ballad; the subject of which is, a lady
comes to a convent to inquire for her love who had been driven there by her
disdain.
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