The Works of Lord Byron

Smug SYDNEY too thy bitter page shall seek,
And classic HALLAM,2 much reuown'd for Greek.
SCOTT may perchance his name and influence lend,
And paltry PILLANS 3 shall traduce his friend:
While
gay Thalia's luckless votary, LAMBE,4
As he himself was damn'd, shall try to damn.
Known be thy name, unbounded be thy sway!
Thy HOLLAND's banquets shall each toil repay;
While grateful Britain yields the praise she owes
TO HOLLAND'S hirelings, and to Learning's foes.
Yet mark one caution,- -ere thy next Review
Spread its light wings of saffron and of blue,
Beware lest blundering BROUGHAM3 destroy the sale,
Turn beef to bannocks, cauliflowers to kail.»>
Thus having said, the kilted goddess kist
Her son, and vanish'd in a Scottish mist.6
Illustrious HOLLAND! hard would be his lot,
His hirelings mention'd, and himself forgot!
HOLLAND, with HENRY PETTY at his back,
The whipper-in and huntsman of the pack.
Blest be the banquets spread at Holland House,
Where Scotchmen feed, and critics may carouse!
Long, long beneath that hospitable roof,
Shall Grub-street dine, while duns are kept aloof.
See honest HALLAM lay aside his fork,
Resume his pen, review his lordship's work,
And, grateful to the founder of the feast,
Declare his landlord can translate, at least!7
Dunedin! view thy children with delight,
They write for food, and feed because they write:
And lest, when heated with th' unusual grape,
Some glowing thoughts should to the press escape,
The Rev. SYDNEY SMITH, the reputed Author of Peter Plymley's
Letters, and sundry criticisms.

2 Mr HALLAM reviewed PAYNE KNIGHT's Taste, and was exceedingly

severe on some Greek verses therein: it was not discovered that the

lines were PINDAR's, till the press rendered it impossible to cancel the critique, which still stands an everlasting monument of HALLAM's ingenuity.

The said HALLAM is incensed, because he is falsely accused, saying that he never dineth at Holland House. If this be true, I am sorrynot for having said so, but on his account, as I understand his lordship's feasts are preferable to his compositions. If he did not review Lor HOLLAND's performance, I am glad, because it must have been painful to read, and irksome to praise it. If Mr HALLAM will tell me who did review it, the real name shall find a place in the text, provided nevertheless the said name be of two orthodox musical syllables, and will come into the verse; till then, HALLAM must stand for want of a better.

3 PILLANS is a tutor at Eton.

4 The Hon. G. LAMBE reviewed BERESFORD'S Miseries; and is morcover author of a Farce enacted with much applause at the Priory, Stanmore, and damned with great expedition at the late Theatre Covent-Garden. It was entitled Whistle for it."

5 Mr BROUGHAM, in No XXV of the Edinburgh Review, throughout the article concerning Don Pedro de Cevallos, has displayed more politics than policy; many of the worthy burgesses of Edinburgh being so incensed at the infamous principles it evinces, as to have withdrawn their subscriptions.

And tinge with red the female reader's cheek,
My lady skims the cream of each critique;
Breathes o'er the page her purity of soul,
Reforms each error and refines the whole.'

Now to the Drama turn: Oh motley sight!
What precious scenes the wondering eyes invite!
Puns, and a prince within a barrel pent,2
And DIBDIN's nonsense, yield complete content.
Though now, thank HEAVEN! the Rosciomania 's o'er,
And full-grown actors are endured once more;
Yet what avail their vain attempts to please,
While British critics suffer scenes like these?

While REYNOLDS vents his «< dammes, poohs, and
zounds,»>3

And common-place, and common sense confounds?
While KENNY'S World, just suffer'd to proceed,
Proclaims the audience very kind indeed?
And BEAUMONT's pilfer'd Caratach affords
A tragedy complete in all but words?4

Who but must mourn while these are all the rage,
The degradation of our vaunted stage?
Heavens is all sense of shame and talent gone?
Have we no living bard of merit ?-none!
Awake, GEORGE COLMAN, CUMBERLAND, awake!
Ring the alarum-bell, let folly quake!
O SHERIDAN! if aught can move thy pen,
Let Comedy resume her throne again,
Abjure the mummery of German schools,
Leave new Pizarros to translating fools;
Give, as thy last memorial to the age,
One classic Drama, and reform the stage.
Gods! o'er those boards shall Folly rear her head
Where GARRICK trod, and KEMBLE lives to tread?
On those shall Farce display Buffoonery's mask,

And HOOKE conceal his heroes in a cask?

Shall sapient managers new scenes produce
From CHERRY, SKEFFINGTON, and MOTHER GOOSE?
While SHAKSPEARE, OTWAY, MASSINGER, forgot,
On stalls must moulder, or in closets rot?
Lo! with what pomp the daily prints proclaim
The rival candidates for Attic fame!
In grim array though LEWIS' spectres rise,
Still SKEFFINGTON and Goose divide the prize.
And sure great SKEFFINGTON must claim our praise,
For skirtless coats and skeletons of plays
Renown'd alike; whose genius ne'er confines
Her flight to garnish GREENWOOD's gay designs;5
Nor sleeps with « Sleeping Beauties,» but anon
In five facetious acts comes thundering on,6
While poor John Bull, bewilder'd with the scene,
Stares, wondering what the devil it can mean;

Certain it is, her ladyship is suspected of having displayed her matchless wit in the Edinburgh Review: however that may be, we know from good authority that the manuscripts are submitted to her perasal no doubt for correction.

It seems that Mr BROUGHAM is not a Pict, as I supposed, but a borderer, and his name is pronounced Broom, from Trent to Tay. So be it. I ought to apologise to the worthy Deities for introducing a new Goddess with short petticoats to their notice; but, alas! what was to be done? I could not say Caledonia's Genius, it being well known there is no Genius to be found, from Clackmannan to Caithness: yet without supernatural agency, how was Jeffrey to be saved? The national Kelpies, etc. are too unpretical, and the Brownies and Gude Neighbours (Spirits of a good disposition,) refused to extricate him. A Goddess therefore has been called for the purpose, and great ought to be the gratitude of Jeffrey, seeing it is the only communication he ever held or is likely to hold with any thing heavenly.atre: as such Mr S. is much indebted to him. 7 Lord H. has translated some specimens of Lope de Vega inserted in his Life of the Author: both are bepraised by his disinterested guest.

In the melo-drame of Tekeli, that heroic prince is clapt into a barrel on the stage-a new asylum for distressed heroes.

All these are favourite expressions of Mr R., and prominent in his Comedies, living and defunct.

4 Mr T. SHERIDAN, the new Manager of Drury-Lane Theatre, stripped the Tragedy of Bonduca of the Dialogue, and exhibited the scenes as the spectacles of Caractacus. Was this worthy of his sire, or of himself?

Mr GREENWOOD is, we believe, Scene-Painter to Drury-Lane The

Mr S. is the illustrious author of the Sleeping Beauty; and some Comedies, particularly « Maids and Bachelors; Baccalaurei baculo magis quam lauro digni.

But as some hands applaud, a venal few!
Rather than sleep, why John applauds it too.

Such are we now, ah! wherefore should we turn
To what our fathers were, unless to mourn!
Degenerate Britons! are ye dead to shame,
Or, kind to duiness, do ye fear to blame?
Well may the nobles of our present race
Watch each distortion of a Naldi's face;
Well may they smile on Italy's buffoons,
And worship Catalani's pantaloons,'

Since their own drama yields no fairer trace
Of wit than puns, of humour than grimace.

1 Then let AUSONIA, skill'd in every art,
To soften manners, but corrupt the heart,
Pour her exotic follies o'er the town,

To sanction vice, and hunt decorum down:
Let wedded strumpets languish o'er Deshayes,
And bless the promise which his form displays;
While Gayton bounds before the enraptured looks
Of boary marquises and stripling dukes:
Let high-born lechers eye the lively Presle
Twirl her light limbs that spurn the needless veil:
Let Angiolini bare her breast of snow,
Wave the white arm, and point the pliant toe:
Collini trill her love-inspiring song,

Strain her fair neck, and charm the listening throng!
Raise not your scythe, suppressors of our vice!
Reforming saints, too delicately nice!

By whose decrees, our sinful souls to save,

No sunday tankards foam, no barbers shave,

And beer undrawn and beards unmown display
Your holy reverence for the sabbath-day.

Or hail at once the patron and the pile

Of vice and folly, Greville and Argyle!

Where you proud palace, Fashion's hallow'd fane,
Spreads wide her portals for the motley train,
Behold the new Petronius' of the day,
The arbiter of pleasure and of play!
There the hired eunuch, the Hesperian choir,
The melting lute, the soft lascivious lyre,
The song from Italy, the step from France,
The midnight orgy, and the mazy dance,
The smile of beauty, and the flush of wine,

For fops, fools, gamesters, knaves, and lords combine:
Each to his humour,-Comus all allows;
Champaign, dice, music, or your neighbour's spouse.

1 NALDI and Catalanı require little notice, for the visage of the one, and the salary of the other, will enable us long to recollect these amusing vagal onds; besides we are still black and blue from the squeeze on the first night of the lady's appearance in trowsers. To prevent any blunder, such as mistaking a street for a man, I beg leave to state, that it is the Institution, and not the Duke of

that name, which is here alluded to.

A gentleman with whom I am slightly acquainted, lost in the

Argyle Rooms several thousand pounds at backgammon. It is but

justice to the manager in this instance to say, that some degree of disapprobation was manifested. But why are the implements of caming allowed in a place devoted to the society of both sexes? pirasant thing for the wives and daughters of those who are flest or carood with such connexions, to hear the billard-talles rattling in ce room, and the dice in another! That this is the case I myself as testify, as a late unworthy member of an institution which materially affects the morals of the higher orders, while the lower may Bot even more to the sound of a tabor and fiddle, without a chance of indictment for riotous behaviour.

Talk not to us, ye starving sons of trade!
Of piteous ruin which ourselves have made:
In Plenty's sunshine Fortune's minions bask,
Nor think of Poverty, except « en masque,»
When for the night some lately titled ass
Appears the beggar which his grandsire was.
The curtain dropp'd, the gay burletta o'er,
The audience take their turn upon the floor;
Now round the room the circling dow'gers sweep,
Now in loose waltz the thin-clad daughters leap:
The first in lengthen'd line majestic swim,
The last display the free unfetter'd limb:
Those for Hibernia's lusty sons repair

With art the charms which Nature could not spare;
These after husbands wing their eager flight,
Nor leave much mystery for the nuptial night.

Oh! blest retreats of infamy and ease!
Where, all forgotten but the power to please,
Each maid may give a loose to genial thought,
Each swain may teach new systems, or be taught:
There the blithe youngster, just return'd from Spain,
Cuts the light pack, or calls the rattling main:
The jovial caster 's set, and seven 's the nick,
Or-done!-a thousand on the coming trick!
If, mad with loss, existence 'gins to tire,
And all your hope or wish is to expire,
Here's PowELL's pistol ready for your life,
And, kinder still, a PAGET for your wife.
Fit consummation of an earthly race
Begun in folly, ended in disgrace,

While none but menials o'er the bed of death,
Wash thy red wounds, or watch thy wavering breath:
Traduced by liars, and forgot by all,

The mangled victims of a drunken brawl,

To live like CLODIUS, and like FALKLAND2 fall.
Truth! rouse some genuine bard, and guide his hand,
To drive this pestilence from out the land.
Even -least thinking of a thoughtless throng,
Just skill'd to know the right and chuse the wrong,
Freed at that age when Reason's shield is lost,
To fight my course through Passion's countless host,
Whom every path of Pleasure's flowery way
Has lured in turn, and all have led astray-
E'en I must raise my voice, e'en I must feel
Such scenes, such men, destroy the public weal;
Although some kind censorious friend will say,
What art thou better, meddling fool, than they?»
And every brother rake will smile to see
That miracle, a moralist, in me.
No matter-when some bard, in virtue strong,
GIFFORD perchance, shall raise the chastening song,
Then sleep my pen for ever! and my voice
Be only heard to hail him and rejoice;
Rejoice, and yield my feeble praise; though I
May feel the lash that virtue must apply.

Mutato nomine de te Fabula parrator.

I knew the late Lord FALKLAND well. On Sunday night I beheld him presiding at his own tale, in all the honest pride of hospitality; on Wednesday morning at three o'clock, I saw, stretched before me, all that remained of courage, feeling, and a host of passions. He was a gallant and successful officer; his faults were the faults of a sailor-as su b, Britons will forgive them. He died like a brave man in a better cause, for bad he fallen in like manner on the deck of the

* Petronius, arbiter elegantiarum » to Nero, and a very pretty frigate to which he was just appointed, his last moments would have follow in his day, • as Mr CONGREyn's old Bachelor saith.

been held up by his countrymen as an example to succeeding heroes.

As for the smaller fry, who swarm in shoals,
From silly HAFIZI up to simple BOWLES,
Why should we call them from their dark abode,
In broad St Giles's or in Tottenham Road?
Or (since some men of fashion nobly dare

To scrawl in verse) from Bond-street, or the Square?
If things of ton their harmless lays indite,
Most wisely doom'd to shun the public sight,
What harm? in spite of every critic elf,
Sir T. may read his stanzas to himself;
MILES ANDREWS still his strength in couplets try,
And live in prologues, though his dramas die.
Lords too are bards: such things at times befal,
And 't is some praise in peers to write at all.
Yet, did or taste or reason sway the times,
Ah! who would take their titles with their rhymes?
ROSCOMMON! SHEFFIELD! with your spirits fled,
No future laurels deck a noble head;
No muse will cheer, with renovating smile,
The paralytic puling of CARLISLE:
The puny school-boy and his early lay
Men pardon, if his follies pass away;

But who forgives the senior's ceaseless verse,

Whose hairs grow hoary as his rhymes grow worse?
What heterogeneous honours deck the peer!
Lord, rhymester, petit-maitre, pamphleteer!*
So dull in youth, so drivelling in his age,
Ilis scenes alone had damn'd our sinking stage:
But managers for once cried «< hold, enough!>>
Nor drugg'd their audience with the tragic stuff.
Yet at their judgment let his lordship laugh,
And case his volumes in congenial calf:
Yes! doff that covering where morocco shines,
And hang a calf-skin 3 on those recreant lines.

With you, ye Druids! rich in native lead,
Who daily scribble for your daily bread,
With you I war not: GIFFORD's heavy hand

Has crush'd, without remorse, your numerous band.
On « all the talents » vent your venal spleen,
Want your defence, let pity be your screen.
Let monodies on Fox regale your crew,
And Melville's Mantle 4 prove a blanket too!
One common Lethe waits each hapless bard,
And peace be with you! 't is your best reward.
Such damning fame as Dunciads only give,
Could bid your lines beyond a morning live;
But now at once your fleeting labours close,
With names of greater note in blest repose.
Far be 't from me unkindly to upbraid
The lovely Rosa's prose in masquerade,

What would be the sentiments of the Persian Anacreon, HAFIZ, could he rise from his splendid sepulchre at Sheeraz, where he reposes with FERDOUSI and SADI, the Oriental HOMER and CATULLUS, and behold his name assumed by one SrTOTT of DAOMORE, the most impudent and execrable of literary poachers for the daily prints?

2 The Earl of Carlisle has lately published an eighteen-penny
pamphlet on the state of the stage, and offers his plan for building a
new theatre: it is to be hoped his lordship will be permitted to bring
forward any thing for the stage, except his own tragedies.
Doff that lion's hide,

And hang a calf-skin on those recreant limbs.
Snaxs. King John.
Lord C.'s works, most resplendently bound, form a conspicuous or-
nament to his book-shelves:

The rest is all but leather and prunella..

4 MELVILLE'S Mantle, a parody on Elijah's Mantle, a poem.

Whose strains, the faithful echoes of her mind,
Leave wondering comprehension far behind.
Though CRUSCA's bards no more our journals fill,
Some stragglers skirmish round their columns still;
Last of the howling host which once was BELL'S,
MATILDA snivels yet, and HAFız yells;
And MERRY'S metaphors appear anew,
Chain'd to the signature of O. P. Q.2

When some brisk youth, the tenant of a stall,
Employs a pen less pointed than his awl,
Leaves his snug shop, forsakes his store of shoes,
St Crispin quits, and cobbles for the Muse,
Heavens! how the vulgar stare! how crowds applaud!
How ladies read, and literati laud!

If chance some wicked wag should pass his jest,
'T is sheer ill-nature, don't the world know best?
Genius must guide when wits admire the rhyme,
And CAPEL LOFFT3 declares 't is quite sublime.
Hear, then, ye happy sons of needless trade!
Swains! quit the plough, resign the useless spade;
Lo! BURNS and BLOOMFIELD,4 nay, a greater far,
GIFFORD was born beneath an adverse star,
Forsook the labours of a servile state,
Stemm'd the rude storm, and triumph'd over Fate.
Then why no more? if Phoebus smiled on you,
BLOOMFIELD! why not on brother Nathan too?
Him too the Mania, not the Muse, has seized;
Not inspiration, but a mind diseased:
And now no boor can seek his last abode,
No common be inclosed, without an ode.
Oh! since increased refinement deigns to smile
On Britain's sons, and bless our genial isle,
Let Poesy go forth, pervade the whole,
Alike the rustic and mechanic soul:
Ye tuneful cobblers! still your notes prolong,
Compose at once a slipper and a song;

So shall the fair your handiwork peruse;
Your sonnets sure shall please-perhaps your shoes.
May Moorlands weavers boast Pindaric skill,
And tailors' lays be longer than their bill!
While punctual beaux reward the grateful notes,
And pay for poems-when they pay for coats.

To the famed throng now paid the tribute due,
Neglected Genius! let me turn to you.
Come forth, O CAMPBELL !6 give thy talents scope;
Who dares aspire if thou must cease to hope?
And thou, melodious ROGERS! rise at last,
Recal the pleasing memory of the past;

This lovely little Jessica, the daughter of the noted Jew K-—, seems to be a follower of the Della Crusca School, and bas published two volumes of very respectable absurdities in rhyme, as times go; besides sundry novels in the style of the first edition of the Monk.

These are the signatures of various worthies who figure in the poetical departments of the newspapers.

3 CAPEL LOFFT, Esq., the Maecenas of shoemakers, and Prefacewriter general to distressed versemen; a kind of gratis accoucheur to those who wish to be delivered of rhyme, but do not know how to bring it forth.

4 See NATHANIEL BLOOMFIELD's ode, elegy, or whatever he or any one else chuses to call it, on the enclosure of Honington Green. s Vide Recollections of a Weaver in the Moorlands of Staffordshire..

6 It would be superfluous to recal to the mind of the reader the author of The Pleasures of Memory, and a The Pleasures of Hope, the most beautiful didactic poems in our language, if we except Pope's Essay on Man: but so many poetasters have started up, that even the names of CAMPBELL and ROGERS are become strange.

Arise! let blest remembrance still inspire,

And strike to wonted tones thy hallow'd lyre!
Restore Apollo to his vacant throne,
Assert thy country's honour and thine own.
What! must deserted Poesy still weep
Where her last hopes with pious CowPER sleep?
L'aless, perchance, from his cold bier she turns,
To deck the turf that wraps her minstrel, BURNS!
No; though contempt hath mark'd the spurious brood,
The race who rhyme from folly, or for food;
Yet still some genuine sons 't is hers to boast,
Who, least affecting, still affect the most;
Feel as they write, and write but as they feel-
Bear witness, GIFFORD, SOTHEBY, MACNEIL.

Why slumbers GIFFORD?» once was ask'd in vain :"
Why slumbers GIFFORD? let us ask again :
Are there no follies for his pen to purge?

Are there no fools whose backs demand the scourge?
Are there no sins for Satire's Bard to greet?
Stalks not gigantic Vice in every street?
Shall peers or princes tread Pollution's path,
And 'scape alike the laws' and Muse's wrath?
Nor blaze with guilty glare through future time,
Eternal beacons of consummate crime?
Arouse thee, GIFFORD! be thy promise claim'd,
Make bad men better, or at least ashamed.

Cohappy WHITE!3 while life was in its spring,
And thy young muse just waved her joyous wing,
The spoiler came, and all thy promise fair
Has sought the grave, to sleep for ever there.
On! what a noble heart was here undone,
When Science self destroy'd her favourite son!
Yes! she too much indulged thy fond pursuit,
She sow'd the seeds, but Death has reap'd the fruit.
I was thine own genius gave the final blow,
And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low:
So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,
And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart:
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel
He nursed the pinion which impell'd the steel,
While the same plumage that had warm'd his nest
Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast.

There be who say in these enlighten'd days
That splendid lies are all the poet's praise;
That strain'd invention, ever on the wing,
Alone impels the modern bard to sing :
Tis true that all who rhyme, nay, all who write,
Shrink from that fatal word to genius-trite;

Girous, author of the Bavlad and Mæviad, the first satires of the day, and translator of JUVENAL.

Sorney, translator of WIELAND'S Oberon and VIRGIL's Georgics,

and author of Saul, an epic poem.

MARI, whose poems are deservedly popular: particularly

•Sealand's Scaith, or the Waes of War, of which ten thousand copies were sold in one month.

3 Mr. Gross promised publicly that the Baviad and Mæviad should not be his last original works: let him remember, mox in relactantes dracones.

* HEDAY KIRKE WHITE died at Cambridge, in October, 1806, in consequence of too much exertion in the pursuit of studies, that would have matured a mind which disease and poverty could not impair, and which Death itself destroyed rather than subdued. His poems abound in such beanties as must impress the reader with the liveliest regret that so short a period was allotted to talents which would have dignified even the sacred functions he was destined to assume.

Yet truth sometimes will lend her noblest fires,
And decorate the verse herself inspires:
This fact, in virtue's name let CRABBE attest-
Though nature's sternest painter, yet the best.

And here let SHEE' and genius find a place,
Whose pen and pencil yield an equal grace;
To guide whose hand the sister arts combine,
Whose magic touch can bid the canvas glow,
And trace the poet's or the painter's line;
Or pour the easy rhyme's harmonious flow,
While honours doubly merited attend
The poet's rival, but the painter's friend.

Blest is the man who dares approach the bower
Where dwelt the Muses at their natal hour;
Whose steps have press'd, whose eye has mark'd afar
The clime that nursed the sons of song and war,
The scenes which glory still must hover o'er,
Her place of birth, her own Achaian shore:
But doubly blest is he whose heart expands
With hallow'd feelings for those classic lands;
Who rends the veil of ages long gone by,
And views their remnants with a poet's eye!
WRIGHT! 't was thy happy lot at once to view
Those shores of glory, and to sing them too;
And sure no common muse inspired thy pen.
To hail the land of gods and godlike men.

And you, associate Bards!3 who snatch'd to light Those gems too long withheld from modern sight; Whose mingling taste combined to cull the wreath Where Attic flowers Aonian odours breathe, And all their renovated fragrance flung, the beauties of grace native tongue, your Now let those minds that nobly could transfuse The glorious spirit of the Grecian muse, Though soft the echo, scorn a borrow'd tone, Resign Achaia's lyre, and strike your own.

Let these, or such as these, with just applause,
Restore the Muse's violated laws :
But not in flimsy Darwin's pompous chime,
That mighty master of unmeaning rhyme;
Whose gilded cymbals, more adorn'd than clear,
The eye delighted, but fatigued the ear,
In show the simple lyre could once surpass,
But now worn down, appear in native brass;
While all his train of hovering sylphs around,
Evaporate in similes and sound:

Him let them shun, with him let tinsel die :
False glare attracts, but more offends the eye.4

Yet let them not to vulgar WORDSWORTH Stoop,
The meanest object of the lowly group,
Whose verse, of all but childish prattle void,
Seems blessed harmony to LAMBE and LLOYD ;5
Let them-but hold, my muse, nor dare to teach
A strain far, far beyond thy humble reach:

Mr Suze, author of Rhymes on Art, and Elements of Art." 2 Mr WAIGHT, late Consul-General for the Seven Islands, is author. of a very beautiful poem just published: it is entitled Hora Ionicæ, and is descriptive of the Isles and the adjacent coast of Greece.

The translators of the Anthology have since published separate poems, which evince genius that only requires opportunity to attain eminence.

4 The neglect of the Botanic Garden is some proof of returning taste: the scenery is its sole recommendation.

5 Messrs LAMB and LLOYD, the most ignoble followers of Southey and Co.

The native genius with their feeling given
Will point the path, and peal their notes to heaven.

And thou, too, SCOTT! resign to minstrels rude
The wilder slogan of a Border feud:

Let others spin their meagre rhymes for hire-
Enough for genius if itself inspire!

Let SOUTHEY sing, although his teeming muse,
Prolific every string, be too profuse;

Let simple WORDSWORTH chime his childish verse,
And brother COLERIDGE lull the babe at nurse;
Let spectre-mongering LEWIS aim at most,
To rouse the galleries, or to raise a ghost;

Let MOORE be lewd; let STRANGFORD steal from MOORE,
And swear that CAMOENS sang such notes of yore:
Let HAYLEY hobble on, MONTGOMERY rave,
And godly GRAHAME chaunt a stupid stave;
Let sonneteering BOWLES his strains refine,
And whine and whimper to the fourteenth line;
Let STOTT, CARLisle, Matilda, and the rest
Of Grub-street, and of Grosvenor-place the best,
Scrawl on, till death release us from the strain,
Or common sense assert her rights again:
But thou, with powers that mock the aid of praise,
Shouldst leave to humbler bards ignoble lays :
Thy country's voice, the voice of all the Nine,
Demand a hallow'd harp-that harp is thine.
Say! will not Caledonia's annals yield
The glorious record of some nobler field,
Than the vile foray of a plundering clan,
Whose proudest deeds disgrace the name of man?
Or Marmion's acts of darkness, fitter food
For outlaw'd Sherwood's tales of Robin Hood?
Scotland! still proudly claim thy native bard,
And be thy praise his first, his best reward!
Yet not with thee alone his name should live,
But own the vast renown a world can give;
Be known, perchance, when Albion is no more,
And tell the tale of what she was before;
To future times her faded fame recal,
And save her glory, though his country fall.

By the bye, I hope that in Mr Scorr's next poem his hero or heroine will be less addicted to «gramarye, and more to grammar, than the Lady of the Lay, and her bravo, William of Deloraine.

* It may be asked why I have censured the Earl of CARLISLE, my guardian and relative, to whom I dedicated a volume of puerile poems a few years ago. The guardianship was nominal, at least as far as I have been able to discover; the relationship I cannot help, and am

very sorry for it; but as his lordship seemed to forget it on a very essential occasion to me, I shall not burthen my memory with the recollection. I do not think that personal differences sanction the unjust condemnation of a brother scribbler; but I see no reason why they should act as a preventive, when the author, noble or ignoble, has for a series of years beguiled a discerning public (as the advertisements have it) with divers reams of most orthodox, imperial

nonsense. Besides I do not step aside to vituperate the Earl: no-bis works come fairly in review with those of other patrician literati. If, before I escaped from my teens, I said any thing in favour of his lordship's paper books, it was in the way of dutiful dedication, and more from the advice of others than my own judgment, and I seize the first opportunity of pronouncing my sincere recantation. I have heard that some persons conceive me to be under obligations to Lord CARLISLE: if so, I shall be most particularly happy to learn what they are, and when conferred, that they may be duly appreciated and publicly acknowledged. What I have humbly advanced as an opinion on his printed things, I am prepared to support, if necessary, by

quotations from elegies, eulogies, odes, episodes, and certain face-
tious and dainty tragedies, bearing his name and mark:

What can ennoble knaves or fools, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards!»

So says Porr. Amen.

Yet what avails the sanguine poet's hope
To conquer ages, and with time to cope?
New eras spread their wings, new nations rise,
And other victors' fill the applauding skies:
A few brief generations fleet along,
Whose sons forget the poet and his song:

E'en now what once-loved minstrels scarce may claim
The transient mention of a dubious name!

When Fame's loud trump hath blown its noblest blast,
Though long the sound, the echo sleeps at last,
And glory, like the phoenix, 'midst her fires,
Exhales her odours, blazes, and expires.

Shall hoary Granta call her sable sons,
Expert in science, more expert at puns?
Shall these approach the muse? ah, no! she flies,
And even spurns the great Seatoniau prize,
Though printers condescend the press to soil
With rhyme by HOARE, and epic blank by HOYLE:
Not him whose page, if still upheld by whist,
Requires no sacred theme to bid us list.
Ye, who in Granta's honours would surpass,
Must mount her Pegasus, a full-grown ass-
A foal well worthy of her ancient dam,
Whose Helicon is duller than her Cam.
There CLARKE, still striving piteously « to please,»>
Forgetting doggrel leads not to degrees,
A would-be satirist, a hired buffoon,
A monthly scribbler of some low lampoon,
Condemn'd to drudge, the meanest of the mean,
And furnish falsehoods for a magazine,
Devotes to scandal his congenial mind—
Himself a living libel on mankind.3
O dark asylum of a Vandal race!4

At once the boast of learning, and disgrace;
So sunk in dulness and so lost in shame,
That SMYTHE and HODGSON5 scarce redeem thy fame!
But where fair Isis rolls her purer wave,
The partial muse delighted loves to lave;
On her green banks a greener wreath is wove,
To crown the bards that haunt her classic grove,
Where RICHARDs wakes a genuine poet's fires,
And modern Britons justly praise their sires.6

For me, who thus, unask'd, have dared to tell
My country what her sons should know too well,
Zeal for her honour bade me here engage
The host of idiots that infest her age.

« Tollere humo, victorque virum volitare per ora.-VIRGIL. The Games of Hoyle, well known to the votaries of whist, chess, etc. are not to be superseded by the vagaries of his poetical namesake, whose poem comprised, as expressly stated in the adver tisement, all the Plagues of Egypt.

3 This person, who has lately betrayed the most rapid symptoms of confirmed authorship, is writer of a poem denominated the Art of Pleasing, as lucus a non lucendo, containing little pleasantry, and less poetry. He also acts as monthly stipendiary and collector of calumnies for the Satirist. If this unfortunate young man would exchange the magazines for the mathematics, and endeavour to take a decent degree in his university, it might eventually prove more serviceable than his present salary.

4 Into Cambridgeshire the Emperor Probus transported a convol. 2. There is no reason to doubt the truth of this assertion-the siderable body of Vandals.-Gibbon's Decline and Fall, page 83, breed is still in high perfection.

This gentleman's name requires no praise: the man who in translation displays unquestionable genius, may well be expected to excel in original composition, of which it is to be hoped we shall soon see a splendid specimen.

• The Aboriginal Britons, an excellent poem by Richards.

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The Works of Lord Byron: Including the Suppressed Poems. Complete in One Volume