grotesque-terrific

Updated: May 10, 2025

Two among his smaller pieces the beautiful "Holly Tree," and the much later but exquisite stanzas "My days among the dead are past" can never be in any danger; the grasp of the grotesque-terrific, which the poet shows in the "Old Woman of Berkley" and a great many other places, anticipates the Ingoldsby Legends with equal ease but with a finer literary gift; some other things are really admirable and not a little pleasing.

George Saintsbury - A History of Nineteenth Century Literature (1780-1895)