Our task complete, like Hamet's,' shall be free;
Though spurn'd by others, yet beloved by me :
Then let us soar to-day; no common theme,
No eastern vision, no distemper'd dream
Inspires-our path, though full of thorns, is plain;
Smooth be the verse, and easy be the strain.

When Vice triumphant holds her sovereign sway,
And men, through life her willing slaves, obey;
When Folly, frequent harbinger of crime,
Unfolds her motley store to suit the time;
When knaves and fools combined o'er all prevail,
When Justice halts, and Right begins to fail,
Een then the boldest start from public sneers,
Afraid of shame, unknown to other fears,
More darkly sin, by Satire kept in awe,

And shrink from ridicule, though not from law.

Such is the force of Wit! but not belong
To me the arrows of satiric song;
The royal vices of our age demand
A keener weapon, and a mightier hand.
Still there are follies e'en for me to chase,
And yield at least amusement in the race;
Laugh when I laugh, I seek no other fame-
The cry is up, and Scribblers are my game;
Speed, Pegasus!-ye strains of great and small,
Ode, Epic, Elegy, have at you all!

I too can scrawl, and once upon a time

I pour'd along the town a flood of rhyme—
A school-boy freak, unworthy praise or blame :
I printed-older children do the same.
T is pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
A book's a book, although there 's nothing in 't.
Not that a title's sounding charm can save
Or scrawl or scribbler from an equal grave:
This LAMBE must own, since his patrician name
Fail'd to preserve the spurious farce from shame,"
No matter, GEORGE Continues still to write,3
Though now the name is veil'd from public sight.
Moved by the great example, I pursue
The self-same road, but make my own review:
Not seek great JEFFREY'S—yet, like him, will be
Self-constituted judge of poesy.

A man must serve his time to every trade,
Save censure-critics all are ready made.
Take hackney'd jokes from MILLER, got by rote,
With just enough of learning to misquote;
A mind well skill'd to find or forge a fault,
A turn for punning, call it Attic salt;
TO JEFFREY go, be silent and discreet,
His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet:
Fear not to lie, 't will seem a lucky hit;
Shrink not from blasphemy, 't will pass for wit;
Care not for feeling-pass your proper jest,
And stand a critic, hated yet caress'd.

And shall we own such judgment? no-as soon
Seek roses in December, ice in June;
Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff;
Believe a woman, or an epitaph;

· Co Hamer BeNENGELI promises repose to his pen in the last chapter of Dos Quisore. Oh that our voluminous gentry would follow the example of Cis HANET BENANGALI!

• This ingenious youth is mentioned more particularly, with his production, in another place.

Or any other thing that 's false, before
You trust in critics who themselves are sore;
Or yield one single thought to be misled
By JEFFREY'S heart, or LAMBE's Boeotian head.'

To these young tyrants, by themselves misplaced,
Combined usurpers on the throne of Taste;
To these, when authors bend in humble awe,
And hail their voice as truth, their word as law;
While these are censors, 't would be sin to spare;
While such are critics, why should I forbear?
But yet, so near all modern worthies run,
"T is doubtful whom to seek, or whom to shun;
Nor know we when to spare, or where to strike,
Our bards and censors are so much alike.

3 Then should you ask me, why I venture o'er
The path which POPE and GIFFORD trod before;
If not yet sicken'd, you can still proceed :
Go on; my rhyme will tell you as you read.

Time was, ere yet in these degenerate days
Ignoble themes obtain'd mistaken praise,
When Sense and Wit with poesy allied,
No fabled Graces, flourish'd side by side,
From the same fount their inspiration drew,
And, rear'd by Taste, bloom'd fairer as they grew.
Then, in this happy isle, a POPE's pure strain
Sought the rapt soul to charm, nor sought in vain;
A polish'd nation's praise aspired to claim,
And raised the people's, as the poet's fame.
Like him great DRYDEN pour'd the tide of song,
In stream less smooth, indeed, yet doubly strong.
Then CONGREVE's scenes could cheer, or OTWAY's melt-
For nature then an English audience felt.
But why these names, or greater still, retrace,
When all to feebler bards resign their place?
Yet to such times our lingering looks are cast,
When taste and reason with those times are past.
Now look around, and turn each trifling page,
Survey the precious works that please the age;
This truth at least let Satire's self allow,
No dearth of bards can be complain'd of now:
The loaded press beneath her labour groans,
And printers' devils shake their weary bones;
While SOUTHEY's epics cram the creaking shelves,
And LITTLE's lyrics shine in hot-press'd twelves.

Thus saith the Preacher,4 «nought beneath the sun Is new yet still from change to change we run; What varied wonders tempt us as they pass? The cow-pox, tractors, galvanism, and gas, In turns appear, to make the vulgar stare, Till the swoln bubble bursts-and all is air! Nor less new schools of poetry arise, Where dull pretenders grapple for the prize: O'er Taste awhile these pseudo-bards prevail; Each country book-club bows the knee to Baal,

Messrs JEFFREY and LAMBE are the Alpha and Omega, the first and last of the EDINBURGH REVIEW: the others are mentioned hereafter.

Stulta est clementia, cum tot ubique
--occurras perituræ parcere chartæ, -Juvenal. Sat. 1.
3 IMITATION.

Cur tamen hoc potius libeat decurrere campo
Per quem magnus eques Aurunca flexit alumnus;

Si vacat, et placidi rationem admittitis, edam.-Juv, Sat. 1.

4 Ecclesiastes, chap. 1.

And, hurling lawful genius from the throne,
Erects a shrine and idol of its own;

Some leaden calf-but whom it matters not,
From soaring SOUTHEY down to groveling STOTT.'

Behold! in various throngs the scribbling crew,
For notice eager, pass in long review:
Each spurs his jaded Pegasus apace,
And rhyme and blank maintain an equal race;
Sonnets on sonnets crowd, and ode on ode;
And tales of terror jostle on the road; '
Immeasurable measures move along;
For simpering Folly loves a varied song,
To strange mysterious Dulness still the friend,
Admires the strain she cannot comprehend.
Thus Lays of Minstrels 2-may they be the last!
On half-strung harps whine mournful to the blast.
While mountain spirits prate to river sprites,
That dames may listen to their sound at nights;
And goblin brats, of Gilpin Horner's 3 brood,
Decoy young border-nobles through the wood.
And skip at every step, Lord knows how high,
And frighten foolish babes, the Lord knows why;
While high-born ladies in their magic cell,
Forbidding knights to read who cannot spell,
Dispatch a courier to a wizard's grave,
And fight with honest men to shield a knave.

Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan,
The golden-crested haughty Marmion,
Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight,
Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight;

Srorr, better known in the Morning Post by the name of HAFIZ. This personage is at present the most profound explorer of the bathos. I remember, to the reigning family of Portugal, a special ode of Master Srorr's beginning thus:

a

The gibbet or the field prepared to grace-
A mighty mixture of the great and base.

And think'st thou, SCOTT! by vain conceit perchance,
On public taste to foist thy stale romance,
Though MURRAY with his MILLER may combine
To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line?
No! when the sons of song descend to trade,
Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade.
Let such forego the poet's sacred name,

Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame:

Low may they sink to merited contempt,
And scorn remunerate the mean attempt!

Such be their meed, such still the just reward
Of prostituted muse and hireling bard!
For this we spurn Apollo's venal son,

And bid a long « good night to Marmion.»>

These are the themes that claim our plaudits now;
These are the bards to whom the muse must bow:
While MILTON, DRYDEN, POPE, alike forgot,
Resign their hallow'd bays to WALTER SCOTT.

The time has been when yet the muse was young,
When HOMER Swept the lyre, and MARO Sung,

An epic scarce ten centuries could claim,
While awe-struck nations hail'd the magic name :
The work of each immortal bard appears

The single wonder of a thousand years.

Empires have moulder'd from the face of earth,

Tongues have expired with those who gave them birth,
Without the glory such a strain can give,

As even in ruin bids the language live.
Not so with us, though minor bards, content,
On one great work a life of labour spent:
With eagle pinions soaring to the skies,
Behold the ballad-monger, SoUTHEY, rise!
To him let CAMOENS, MILTON, TASSO, yield,
Whose annual strains, like armies, take the field.
First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance,
The scourge of England, and the boast of France!
Though burnt by wicked BEDFORD for a witch,
Behold her statue placed in glory's niche;
Her fetters burst, and just released from prison,
A virgin Phoenix from her ashes risen.
Next see tremendous Thalaba come on,3
Arabia's monstrous, wild, and wondrous son;
Domdaniel's dread destroyer, who o'erthrew
More mad magicians than the world e'er knew.
Immortal hero! all thy foes o'ercome,
For ever reign-the rival of Tom Thumb!
Since startled metre fled before thy face,
Well wert thou doom'd the last of all thy race!
Well might triumphant Genii bear thee hence,
Illustrious conqueror of common sense!

Good night to Marmion, the pathetic and also prophetic exclamation of HENAY BLOUNT, Esquire, on the death of honest Marmion. 2 As the Odyssey is so closely connected with the story of the Iliad, they may almost be classed as one grand historical Poem. In alluding to MILTON and Tasso, we consider the Paradise Lost and - Gierusalemme Liberata as their standard efforts, since neither the Jerusalem Conquered of the Italian, nor the Paradise Regained of the English Bard, obtained a proportionate celebrity to their former poems. Query: Which of Mr Sourner's will survive?

Thalaba, Mr Sourney's second poem, is written in open defiance of precedent and poetry. Mr. S. wished to produce something novel, and succeeded to a miracle. Joan of Arc was marvellous enough, but Thalaba was one of those poems « which (in the words of Poasos) will be read when Homer and Virgil are forgotten, but — not till then.»

Of«< Music's Triumphs » all who read may swear That luckless Music never triumph'd there.'

Moravians, rise! bestow some meet reward
On dull Devotion-lo! the Sabbath Bard
Sepulchral GRAHAME, pours his notes sublime
In mangled prose, nor e'en aspires to rhyme,
Breaks into blank the Gospel of St Luke,
And boldly pilfers from the Pentateuch;
And, undisturb'd by conscientious qualms,
Perverts the Prophets, and purloins the Psalms.1

Hail, Sympathy! thy soft idea brings

A thousand visions of a thousand things,
And shows, dissolved in thine own melting tears,
The maudlin prince of mournful sonneteers.

And art thou not their prince, harmonious BOWLES?
Thou first great oracle of tender souls!
Whether in sighing winds thou seek'st relief,
Or consolation in a yellow leaf;
Whether thy muse most lamentably tells
What merry sounds proceed from Oxford bells,3
Or, still in bells delighting, finds a friend
In every chime that jingled from Ostend?
Ah! how much juster were thy Muse's hap,
If to thy bells thou wouldst but add a cap!
Delightful BOWLES! still blessing and still blest,
All love thy strain, but children like it best.
T is thine, with gentle LITTLE's moral song,
To soothe the mania of the amorous throng!
With thee our nursery damsels shed their tears,
Ere Miss as yet completes her infant years:
But in her teens thy whining powers are vain:
She quits poor BOWLES for LITTLE's purer strain.
Now to soft themes thou scornest to confine
The lofty numbers of a harp like thine:
« Awake a louder and a loftier strain,»4
Such as none heard before, or will again;
Where all discoveries jumbled from the flood,
Since first the leaky ark reposed in mud,
By more or less, are sung in every book,
From Captain NOAH down to Captain Cook.
Nor this alone, but pausing on the road,
The bard sighs forth a gentle episode ;5
And gravely tells-attend each beauteous Miss!—
When first Madeira trembled to a kiss.
BOWLES! in thy memory let this precept dwell,
Stick to thy sonnets, man! at least they sell.

HAYLEY'S two most notorious verse productions are, Triumphs of Temper, and Triumphs of Music." He has also written much comedy in rhyme, Epistles, etc., etc. As he is rather an elegant writer of notes and biography, let us recommend Pope's advice to WYCHERLEY 10 Mr H.'s consideration; viz. to convert his poetry into prose, which may be easily done by taking away the final syllable of each couplet.

But if some new-born whim, or larger bribe,
Prompt thy crude brain, and claim thee for a scribe;
If chance some bard, though once by dunces fear'd,
Now, prone in dust, can only be revered;
If POPE, whose fame and genius from the first
Have foil'd the best of critics, needs the worst,
Do thou essay; each fault, each failing scan;
The first of poets was, alas! but man!
Rake from each ancient dunghill every pearl,
Consult Lord Fanny, and confide in CURLL;'
Let all the scandals of a former age
Perch on thy pen and flutter o'er thy page;
Affect a candour which thou canst not feel,
Clothe envy in the garb of honest zeal;
Write as if St John's soul could still inspire,
And do from hate what MALLET 2 did for hire.
Oh! hadst thou lived in that congenial time,
To rave with DENNIS, and with RALPH to rhyme,3
Throng'd with the rest around his living head,
Not raised thy hoof against the lion dead,
A meet reward had crown'd thy glorious gains,
And link'd thee to the Dunciad for thy pains.4

Another Epic! who inflicts again

More books of blank upon the sons of men?
Baotian COTTLE, rich Bristowa's boast,
Imports old stories from the Cambrian coast,
And sends his goods to market-all alive!
Lines forty thousand, Cantos twenty-five!
Fresh fish from Helicon! who 'll buy? who 'll buy?
The precious bargain 's cheap-in faith not I.
Too much in turtle Bristol's sons delight,
Too much o'er bowls of sack prolong the night:
If Commerce fills the purse, she clogs the brain,
And AMOS COTTLE strikes the lyre in vain.
In him an author's luckless lot behold!
Condemn'd to make the books which once he sold.
Oh! AMOS COTTLE!-Phœbus! what a name
To fill the speaking trump of future fame!—
Oh! AMOS COTTLE! for a moment think
What meagre profits spread from pen and ink!
When thus devoted to poetic dreams,
Who will peruse thy prostituted reams ?
Oh! pen perverted! paper misapplied!
Had CorTLE 5 still adorn'd the counter's side,
Bent o'er the desk, or, born to useful toils,
Been taught to make the paper which he soils,
Plough'd, delved, or plied the oar with lusty limb,
He had not sung of Wales, nor I of him.

As Sisyphus against the infernal steep
Rolls the huge rock, whose motions ne'er may sleep,

1 CURLL is one of the heroes of the Dunciad, and was a bookseller. Lord Fanny is the poetical name of Lord Herver, author of « Lines to the Imitator of Horace.»

Lord BOLINGBROKE hired MALLET to traduce Porz after his decease, because the poet had retained some copies of a work by Lord BOLINGBROKE (the Patriot King), which that splendid but malignant genius bad ordered to be destroyed.

3 DENNIS the critic, and RALPR the rhymester.

Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls,
Making night hideous-answer him ye owls!-Dunciad.

4 See BOWLES's late edition of Pors's works, for which he received 304 . thus Mr B. has experienced how much easier it is to profit by the reputation of another, than to elevate his own.

5 Mr COTTLE, Amos or Josers, I don't know which, but one or both, once sellers of books they did not write, and now writers of books that do not sell, have published a pair of Epics: Alfred, (poor Alfred! Prs has been at him too!) and the Fall of Cambria..

So up thy hill, ambrosial Richmond! heaves

Dull MAURICE all his granite weight of leaves: Smooth, solid monuments of mental pain!

The petrifactions of a plodding brain,

When LITTLE's leadless pistol met his eye,

And Bow-street myrmidons stood laughing by?1 O day disastrous! on her firm-set rock, Dunedin's castle felt a secret shock;

With broken lyre and cheek serenely pale, Lo! sad ALCEUs wanders down the vale!

Yet say! why should the Bard at once resign
His claim to favour from the sacred Nine?
For ever startled by the mingled howl

Of northern wolves, that still in darkness prowl:
A coward brood, which mangle as they prey,
By hellish instinct, all that cross their way;
Aged or young, the living or the dead,

No mercy find-these harpies must be fed.
Why do the injured unresisting yield
The calm possession of their native field?
Why tamely thus before their fangs retreat,
Nor hunt the bloodhounds back to Arthur's Seat?3

Health to immortal JEFFREY! once, in name,
England could boast a judge almost the same:
In soul so like, so merciful, yet just,
Some think that Satan has resign'd his trust,
And given the Spirit to the world again,
To sentence letters as he sentenced men;
With band less mighty, but with heart as black,
With voice as willing to decree the rack;
Bred in the courts betimes, though all that law
As yet hath taught him is to find a flaw.
Since well instructed in the patriot school
To rail at party, though a party tool,
Who knows, if chance his patrons should restore
Back to the sway they forfeited before,
His scribbling toils some recompense may meet,
And raise this Daniel to the Judgment Seat.
Let JEFFRIES' shade indulge the pious hope,
And greeting thus, present him with a rope :
« Heir to my virtues! man of equal mind!
Skill'd to condemn as to traduce mankind,
This cord receive-for thee reserved with care,
To yield in judgment, and at length to wear.>>

Health to great JEFFREY! Heaven preserve his life,
To flourish on the fertile shores of Fife,
And guard it sacred in his future wars,
Since authors sometimes seek the field of Mars!
Can none remember that eventful day,
That ever-glorious, almost fatal fray,

Mr Mavatce hath manufactured the component parts of a ponderous quarto, upon the beauties of Richmond Hill and the like: it also takes in a charming view of Turnham Green, Hammersmith, Brentford, Old and New, and the parts adjacent.

* Poor MOSTGOMERY, though praised by every English Review, has been bitterly reviled by the EDINBURGH. After all, the Bard of Sheffield is a man of considerable genius: his Wanderer of Switzerland is worth a thousand Lyrical Ballads, and at least fifty •Degraded Epics..

* Arthur's Seat, the hill which overhangs Edinburgh.

The surly Tolbooth scarcely kept her place;
The Tolbooth felt-for marble sometimes can,
On such occasions, feel as much as man-
The Tolbooth felt defrauded of his charms
If JEFFREY died, except within her arms :3
Nay last, not least, on that portentous morn,
The sixteenth story, where himself was born,
His patrimonial garret fell to ground,

And pale Edina shudder'd at the sound:
Strew'd were the streets around with milk-white reams,
Flow'd all the Canongate with inky streams;

This of his candour seem'd the sable dew,
That of his valour show'd the bloodless hue,
And all with justice deem'd the two combined
The mingled emblems of his mighty mind.
But Caledonia's Goddess hover'd o'er
The field, and saved him from the wrath of MOORE,
From either pistol snatch'd the vengeful lead,
And straight restor'd it to her favourite's head:
That head, with greater than magnetic power,
Caught it, as Danaë the golden shower;
And, though the thickening dross will scarce refine,
Augments its ore, and is itself a mine.

My son,» she cried, « ne'er thirst for gore again,
Resign the pistol, and resume the pen;
O'er politics and poesy preside,
Boast of thy country, and Britannia's guide!
For long as Albion's heedless sons submit,
Or Scottish taste decides on English wit,
So long shall last thine unmolested reign,
Nor any dare to take thy name in vain.
Behold a chosen band shall aid thy plan,
And own thee chieftain of the critic clan.
First in the ranks illustrious shall be seen
The travell'd Thane! Athenian Aberdeen.4
HERBERT shall wield THOR's hammer, and sometimes,
In gratitude, thou 'It praise his rugged rhymes.

In 1806, Messrs JEFFREY and Moons met at Chalk-Farm. The duel was prevented by the interference of the magistracy; and, on examination, the balls of the pistols, like the courage of the combatants, were found to have evaporated. This incident gave occasion to much waggery in the daily prints.

The Tweed here Fehaved with proper decorum: it would have been highly reprehensible in the English half of the river to have shown the smallest symptom of apprehension.

This display of sympathy on the part of the Tolbooth (the principal prison in Edinburgh), which truly seems to have been most affected on this occasion, is much to be commended. It was to be apprehended, that the many unhappy criminals executed in the front might have rendered the edifice more callous. She is said to be of the softer sex, I ecause her delicacy of feeling on this day was truly feminine, though, like most feminine impulses, perhaps a little selfish. His lordship has been much abroad, is a member of the Athenian Society, and reviewer of Ga's Topography of Troy..

5 Mr HERDEST is a translator of Icelandic and other Poetry. One of the principal pieces is a Song on the Recovery of Thor's Hammer. The translation is a pleasant chaunt in the vulgar tongue, and ended thus:

. Instead of money and rings, I wot,
The hammer's bruises were her lot;
Thus Odin's son his hammer got..