Of the demerits of the poem it is only necessary to remark, that it has been proscribed on account of its immorality; perhaps, however, there was more of prudery than of equity in the decision, at least it is liable to be so considered, so long as reprints are permitted of the older dramatists, with all their unpruned licentiousness.

The same schoolmaster uses seven synonyms in describing the "fashion" of speech of the ignorant constable, "undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or, rather unlettered, or, ratherest, unconfirmed, fashion."

His verse does not tolerate the unpruned irregularities and exaggerations of many former English poets.

The unpruned, shapeless, and extravagant forms of earlier times will no longer be tolerated.

[6058]For a woman had need to have an overseer to keep her honest; they are bad by nature, and lightly given all, and if they be not curbed in time, as an unpruned tree, they will be full of wild branches, and degenerate of a sudden."

Undine, at the outset, had been sorry for the friend whose new venture seemed likely to result so much less brilliantly than her own; but compassion had been replaced by irritation as Mabel's unpruned vulgarities, her enormous encroaching satisfaction with herself and her surroundings, began to pervade every corner of their provisional household.

Farther it may be said, that Mr. Gifford hazarded his first poetical attempts under all the disadvantages of a neglected education: but the same circumstance, together with a few unpruned redundancies of fancy and quaintnesses of expression, was made the plea on which Mr. Keats was hooted out of the world, and his fine talents and wounded sensibilities consigned to an early grave.

Look round and see What vices flourish still unpruned by me: Corruption, roll'd in a triumphant car, Displays his burnish'd front and glittering star, Nor heeds the public scorn, or transient curse, Unknown alike to honour and remorse.

In this retired neighborhood the road is narrow and bordered with grass, and sometimes interrupted by gates; the hedges grow in unpruned luxuriance; there is not that close-shaven neatness and trimness that characterize the ordinary English landscape.

The vineshere partly supported by decayed and broken-down trellises, there twining themselves among the branches of the slender saplings which had sprung up among themgrew in wild and unpruned luxuriance, and the few scattered grapes they bore were the undisputed prey of the first comer.

I saw unpruned fruit trees, broken fences, and farm implements, rusting in the rainall evidences of wasted time.

When our sea-walled garden, the whole land, Is full of weeds; her finest flowers choked up, Her fruit-trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined, Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs Swarming with caterpillars.