the day after the play opened:

_A Brief Criticism on the New Tragedy of Elvira_

Act I. Indifferent.

Act II. Something better.

Act III. MIDDLING.

Act IV. Execrable.

Act V. Very Tolerable.

Dempeter later regretted his share in _Critical Strictures_ on the
ground that neither he nor his collaborators could have written a
tragedy nearly so good. _The Critical Review_, in which Mallet himself
sometimes wrote, characterized the pamphlet as "the crude efforts of envy,
petulance, and self-conceit." "There being thus three epithets," says
Boswell, "we, the three authours, had a humourous contention how each
should be appropriated."[8] _The Monthly Review_ was hardly less
severe. It conceived the author of _Critical Structures_ to be either
a personal enemy of Mallet's or else a bitter enemy of Mallet's country,
prejudiced against everything Scotch. The reviewer could not but look upon
this author "as a man of more abilities than honesty, as the want of
candour is certainly a species of dishonesty."[9]

It was natural to infer that _Critical Strictures_ was motivated by
prejudice against Scotland. It appeared in the days of Wilkes's _North
Briton_ and shortly after Charles Churchill's _Prophecy of Famine_, that