"Awake a louder and a loftier strain,”.

And pray, what follows from his boiling brain?—
He sinks to Southey's level in a trice,

Whose epic mountains never fail in mice!

"Fortunam Priami cantabo, et nobile bellum."
Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu ?
Parturiunt montes: nascetur ridiculus mus.

I shall not depreciate by the humble tribute of my praise) and Mr. Townsend must not suppose me actuated by unworthy motives in this suggestion. I wish the author all the success he can wish himself, and shall be truly happy to see epic poetry weighed up from the bathos where it lies sunken with Southey, Cottle, Cowley (Mrs. or Abraham), Ogilvy, Wilkie, Pye, and all the " dull of past and present days." Even if he is not a Milton, he may be better than Blackmore; if not a Homer, an Antimachus. I should deem myself presumptuous, as a young man, in offering advice, were it not addressed to one still younger. Mr. Townsend has the greatest difficulties to encounter: but in conquering them he will find employment; in having conquered them, his reward. I know too well "the scribbler's scoff, the critic's contumely; " and I am afraid time will teach Mr. Townsend to know them better. Those who succeed, and those who do not, must bear this alike, and it is hard to say which have most of it. I trust that Mr. Townsend's share will be from envy ; - he will soon know mankind well enough not to attribute this expression to malice. — [This was penned at Athens. On his return to England Lord B. wrote to a friend: "There is a sucking epic poet at Granta, a Mr. Townsend, protégé of the late Cumberland. Did you ever hear of him and his Armageddon?' I think his plan (the man I don't know) borders on the sublime; though, perhaps, the anticipation of the 'Last Day' is a little too daring: at least, it looks like telling the Almighty what he is to do; and might remind an ill-natured person of the line —

'And fools rush in where angels fear to tread.’

But I don't mean to cavil-only other folks will; and he may bring all the lambs of Jacob Behmen about his ears. However, I hope he will bring it to a conclusion, though Milton is in his way."— All Lord Byron's anticipations, with regard to this poem, were realised to the very letter. To gratify the curiosity which had been excited, Mr. Townsend, in 1815, was induced to publish eight out of the twelve books of which it was to consist. "In the benevolence of his heart, Mr. Cumberland," he says, "bestowed praise on me, certainly too abundantly and prematurely; but I hope that any deficiency on my part may be imputed to the true cause- my own inability to support a subject, under which the greatest mental powers must inevitably sink. My talents were neither equal to my own ambition, nor his zeal to serve me."— E.]

Not so of yore awoke your mighty sire
The temper'd warblings of his master-lyre;
Soft as the gentler breathing of the lute,
"Of man's first disobedience and the fruit"
He speaks, but, as his subject swells along,
Earth, heaven, and Hades echo with the song. (1)
Still to the midst of things he hastens on,
As if we witness'd all already done;
Leaves on his path whatever seems too mean
To raise the subject, or adorn the scene;
Gives, as each page improves upon the sight,
Not smoke from brightness, but from darkness-light;
And truth and fiction with such art compounds,
We know not where to fix their several bounds.
If you would please the public, deign to hear
What soothes the many-headed monster's ear;
If your heart triumph when the hands of all
Applaud in thunder at the curtain's fall,

Quanto rectius hic, qui nil molitur inepte!
"Dic mihi, Musa, virum captæ post tempora Troja,
Qui mores hominum multorum vidit, et urbes."
Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem
Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat,
Antiphaten, Scyllamque, et cum Cyclope Charybdim.
Nec reditum Diomedis ab interitu Meleagri,
Nec gemino bellum Trojanum orditur ab ovo.
Semper ad eventum festinat; et in medias res
Non secus ac notas, auditorem rapit, et quæ
Desperat tractata nitescere posse, relinquit:
Atque ita mentitur, sic veris falsa remiscet,
Primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum.

Tu, quid ego et populus mecum desideret, audi.

(1) [There is more of poetry in these verses upon Milton than in any other passage throughout the paraphrase. — MOORE.]

Deserve those plaudits-study nature's page,
And sketch the striking traits of every age;
While varying man and varying years unfold
Life's little tale, so oft, so vainly told.

Observe his simple childhood's dawning days,
His pranks, his prate, his playmates, and his plays;
Till time at length the mannish tyro weans,
And prurient vice outstrips his tardy teens!

Behold him Freshman! forced no more to groan

O'er Virgil's (1) devilish verses and

his own;

Prayers are too tedious, lectures too abstruse,
He flies from Tavell's frown to "Fordham's Mews;"
(Unlucky Tavell! (2) doom'd to daily cares
By pugilistic pupils, and by bears,) (3)

Si plausoris eges aulæa manentis, et usque
Sessuri, donec cantor, Vos plaudite, dicat;
Etatis cujusque notandi sunt tibi mores,
Mobilibusque decor naturis dandus et annis.
Reddere qui voces jam scit puer, et pede certo
Signat humum; gestit paribus colludere, et iram
Colligit ac ponit temere, et mutatur in horas.
Imberbis juvenis, tandem custode remoto,

Gaudet equis canibusque, et aprici gramine campi ;`

(1) Harvey, the circulator of the circulation of the blood, used to fling away Virgil in his ecstasy of admiration, and say, " the book had a devil.” Now, such a character as I am copying would probably fling it away also, but rather wish that the devil had the book; not from dislike to the poet, but a well founded horror of hexameters. Indeed, the public school penance of "Long and Short" is enough to beget an antipathy to poetry for the residue of a man's life, and, perhaps, so far may be an advantage.

(2) "Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem." I dare say Mr. Tavell (to whom I mean no affront) will understand me; and it is no matter whether any one else does or no. To the above events, "quæque ipse miserrima vidi, et quorum pars magna fui,” all times and terms bear testimony. (3) [The Rev. G. F. Tavell was a fellow and tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge, during Lord Byron's residence, and owed this notice to the zeal with which he had protested against some juvenile vagaries, sufficiently explained in Mr. Moore's Notices, Vol. I. p. 210.-E.]

Fines, tutors, tasks, conventions threat in vain,
Before hounds, hunters, and Newmarket plain.
Rough with his elders, with his equals rash,
Civil to sharpers, prodigal of cash;

Constant to nought - save hazard and a whore,
Yet cursing both - for both have made him sore;
Unread (unless, since books beguile disease,
The p-x becomes his passage to degrees);
Fool'd, pillaged, dunn'd, he wastes his term away,
And, unexpell'd perhaps, retires M. A.;

Master of arts! as hells and clubs (1) proclaim,
Where scarce a blackleg bears a brighter name!

Launch'd into life, extinct his early fire,

He apes the selfish prudence of his sire; Marries for money, chooses friends for rank, Buys land, and shrewdly trusts not to the Bank; Sits in the Senate; gets a son and heir;

Sends him to Harrow, for himself was there.

Mute, though he votes, unless when call'd to cheer, His son's so sharp-he'll see the dog a peer!

Manhood declines-age palsies every limb; He quits the scene or else the scene quits him;

Cereus in vitium flecti, monitoribus asper,

Utilium tardus provisor, prodigus æris,

Sublimis, cupidusque, et amata relinquere pernix.
Conversis studiis, ætas animusque virilis

Quærit opes, et amicitias inservit honori ;
Commisisse cavet quod mox mutare laboret.

Multa senem conveniunt incommoda; vel quod

(1) "Hell," a gaming-house so called, where you risk little, and are cheated a good deal. "Club," a pleasant purgatory, where you lose more, and are not supposed to be cheated at all.

Scrapes wealth, o'er each departing penny grieves,
And avarice seizes all ambition leaves;

Counts cent per cent, and smiles, or vainly frets,
O'er hoards diminish'd by young Hopeful's debts;
Weighs well and wisely what to sell or buy,
Complete in all life's lessons - but to die;
Peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to please,
Commending every time, save times like these;
Crazed, querulous, forsaken, half forgot,
Expires unwept - is buried - let him rot!

But from the Drama let me not digress,
Nor spare my precepts, though they please you less.
Though woman weep, and hardest hearts are stirr'd,
When what is done is rather seen than heard,
Yet many deeds preserved in history's page
Are better told than acted on the stage;
The ear sustains what shocks the timid eye,
And horror thus subsides to sympathy.
True Briton all beside, I here am French-
Bloodshed 'tis surely better to retrench;
The gladiatorial gore we teach to flow
In tragic scene disgusts, though but in show;

Quærit, et inventis miser abstinet, ac timet uti;
Vel quod res omnes timide gelideque ministrat,
Dilator, spe longus, iners, avidusque futuri;
Difficilis, quærulus, laudator temporis acti
Se puero, castigator censorque minorum.
Multa ferunt anni venientes commoda secum,
Multa recedentes adimunt. Ne forte seniles
Mandentur juveni partes, pueroque viriles,
Semper in adjunctis, ævoque morabimur aptis.
Aut agitur res in scenis, aut acta refertur.
Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem
Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quæ
Ipse sibi tradit spectator. Non tamen intus.