And the result of the effort seemed always to be bathos!

This is bathos that unfortunately goes too far.

Wit is sacrilege, and sentiment is bathos.

There may be a still deeper descent; but that is bathos sufficient for any lover of his species.

If there is pathos in this, there is bathos in his apostrophe to the millipede, beginning "Poor sowbug!"

There is bathos, after these claims, in the concern some poets show over the question of priority between themselves and kings.