text: " Were we not right in saying that there is nothing in the writings of any former poetaster to equal the silly and conceited jargon of the present versifier? Having favoured us with the emphatic lines in italics to depict the physical concomitants of Maud's guilt he again has recourse to asterisks to veil the mental throes by which her mind is tortured into madness by remorse: and very wisely--for they lead us to suppose that the writer could have powerfully delineated these inner agitations if he had chosen; but that he has abstained from doing so out of mercy to the feelings of his readers