The spoiler swept that soaring lyre away,
Which else had sounded an immortal lay.
Oh! 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.
"T 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. 1

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;
Yet Truth sometimes will lend her noblest fires,
And decorate the verse herself inspires:
This fact in Virtue's name let Crabbe 2 attest;
Though nature's sternest painter, yet the best. 3

And here let Shee 4 and Genius find a place,
Whose pen and pencil yield an equal grace;
To guide whose hand the sister arts combine,
And trace the poet's or the painter's line;
Whose magic touch can bid the canvass glow,
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;

1 [Mr. Southey's delightful Life of Kirke White is in every one's hands.]

2 ["I consider Crabbe and Coleridge as the first of these times, in point of power and genius." B. 1816]

3 [This eminent poet and excellent man died at his rectory of Trowbridge, in February 1832, aged seventy-eight. With the exception of the late Lord Stowell, he was the last surviving celebrated man mentioned by Boswell in connection with Johnson, who revised his poem of the "Village." His other works are the "Library," the "Newspaper," the "Borough," a collection of "Poems," which Charles Fox read in manuscript on his death-bed; "Tales," and also "Tales of the Hall." He left various poetical pieces in MS., and a collective edition of his works was published in 1834, preceded by an interesting Memoir, written by his Son.]

4 Mr. Shee, author of " Rhymes on Art," and "Elements of Art."-[Now (1836) Sir Martin Shee, and President of the Royal Academy.]

5 Waller Rodwell Wright, late consul-general for the Seven Islands, is author of a very beautiful poem, just published: it is entitled "Horæ lonicæ," and is descriptive of the isles and the adjacent coast of Greece. [To the third edition, which came out in 1816, was added an excellent translation of the "Oreste" of Alfieri. After his return to England, Mr. Wright was chosen Recorder of Bury St. Edmunds.]

And sure no common muse inspired thy pen To hail the land of gods and godlike men.

And you, associate bards 6! 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, To grace the beauties of your native tongue; 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. 7

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: 8 Let them but hold, my muse, nor dare to teach A strain far, far beyond thy humble reach: The native genius with their being given Will point the path, and peal their notes to heaven.

And thou, too, Scott 9! resign to minstrels rude
The wilder slogan of a border feud :
Let others spin their meagre lines for hire;
Enough for genius, if itself inspire !

Let Southey sing, although his teeming muse,
Prolific every spring, be too profuse;

Let simple Wordsworth 10 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 still sigh; let Strangford steal from Moore,
And swear that Camoëns sang such notes of yore;

6 The translators of the Anthology, Bland and MerivUE, have since published separate poems, which evince ge that only requires opportunity to attain eminence. -- [Ta late Rev. Robert Bland published, in conjunction with Mr. Merivale," Collections from the Greek Anthology." Hr wrote Edwy and Elgiva," the "Four Slaves of Cyther &c. In 1814, Mr Merivale published "Orlando in Fcevalles ;" and in the following year, "An Ode on the DC very of Europe." He is now one of the Commissioners of the new Bankruptcy Court.]

7 The neglect of the "Botanic Garden" is some proof of returning taste. The scenery is its sole recommendation. 8 Messrs. Lamb and Lloyd, the most ignoble followers of Southey and Co.-[In 1798, Charles Lamb and Cares Lloyd published in conjunction a volume, entitled, " Po in Blank Verse." Mr. Lamb was also the author of -2.5 Woodville," "Tales from Shakspeare," the ** Essays of Elia," &c. He died in 1835. Mr. Lloyd has since publishe "Edward Oliver," a novel, "Nugæ Canore," and à trans tion of Alfieri's Tragedies.]

9 By the bye, I hope that in Mr. Scott's next poem, his hero or heroine will be less addicted to " Gramarye," and TU grammar, than the Lady of the Lay and her bravo, W of Deloraine.

10 ["Unjust."- Byron, 1816.]

Let Hayley hobble on, Montgomery rave,
And godly Grahame chant a stupid stave;
Let sonneteering Bowles his strains refine,
And whine and whimper to the fourteenth line;
Let Stott, Carlisle 1, 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 wild foray of a plundering clan,
Whose proudest deeds disgrace the name of man?
Or Marmion's acts of darkness, fitter food
For Sherwood's outlaw 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 recall,
And save her glory, though his country fall.

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 2 'midst her fires,
Exhales her odours, blazes, and expires.

1 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 rela tionship 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 burden my memory with the recollection. I do not think that personal differences sanction the unjust con. demnation 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 pub. lic," (as the advertisements have it) with divers reams of most orthodox, imperial nonsense. Besides, I do not step aside to vituperate the earl: no- his 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. 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 facetious 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."

I

So says Pope. Amen!-[" Much too savage, whatever the foundation might be." B. 1816.]

["The devil take that phoenix! How came it there?"— B. 1816.]

3 [The Rev. Charles James Hoare published, in 1808, the "Shipwreck of St. Paul," a Seatonian prize poem.]

4 [The Rev. Charles Hoyle, author of " Exodus," an epic in thirteen books, and several other Seatonian prize poems.]

Shall hoary Granta call her sable sons, Expert in science, more expert at puns? Shall these approach the muse? ah, no! she flies, Even from the tempting ore of Seaton's prize; Though printers condescend the press to soil With rhyme by Hoare3, and epic blank by Hoyle: 4 Not him whose page, if still upheld by whist, Requires no sacred theme to bid us list. 5 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, 6
Condemn'd to drudge, the meanest of the mean,
And furbish falsehoods for a magazine,
Devotes to scandal his congenial mind;
Himself a living libel on mankind. 7

Oh! dark asylum of a Vandal race! 8 At once the boast of learning, and disgrace! So lost to Phoebus, that nor Hodgson's 9 verse Can make thee better, nor poor Hewson's 10 worse.11 But where fair Isis rolls her purer wave, The partial muse delighted loves to lave; On her green banks a greener wreath she wove, To crown the bards that haunt her classic grove; Where Richards wakes a genuine poet's fires, And modern Britons glory in their sires. 12

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; No just applause her honour'd name shall lose, As first in freedom, dearest to the muse.

The" Games of Hoyle," well known to the votaries of whist, chess, &c., are not to be superseded by the vagaries of his poetical namesake, whose poem comprised, as expressly stated in the advertisement, all the "plagues of Egypt."

6 ["Right enough this was well deserved, and well laid on." B. 1816.]

7 This person, who has lately betrayed the most rabid 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. [Mr. Hewson Clarke was also the author of "The Saunterer," and a "History of the Campaign in Russia."]

8" Into Cambridgeshire the Emperor Probus transported a considerable body of Vandals."- Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. ii. p. 83. There is no reason to doubt the truth of this assertion; the breed is still in high perfection.

9 This gentleman's name requires no praise: the man who in translation displays unquestionable genius may be well expected to excel in original composition, of which it is to be hoped we shall soon see a splendid specimen.- [Besides a translation of Juvenal, Mr Hodgson has published Lady Jane Grey," "Sir Edgar," and "The Friends," a poem in four books. He also translated, in conjunction with Dr. Butler, Lucien Bona. parte's unreadable epic of “ Charlemagne."]

10 Hewson Clarke, esq., as it is written. 11 [Originally,

"So sunk in dulness, and so lost in shame,

That Smythe and Hodgson scarce redeem thy name."] 12 The "Aboriginal Britons," an excellent poem by Richards. [The Rev. George Richards, D.D. has also sent from the press" Songs of the Aboriginal Bards of Britain," "Modern France," two volumes of Miscellaneous Poems, and Bampton Lectures" On the Divine Origin of Prophecy."]

Oh! would thy bards but emulate thy fame,
And rise more worthy, Albion, of thy name!
What Athens was in science, Rome in power,
What Tyre appear'd in her meridian hour,
"Tis thine at once, fair Albion to have been-
Earth's chief dictatress, ocean's lovely queen:
But Rome decay'd, and Athens strew'd the plain,
And Tyre's proud piers lie shatter'd in the main ;
Like these, thy strength may sink, in ruin hurl'd,
And Britain fall, the bulwark of the world.
But let me cease, and dread Cassandra's fate,
With warning ever scoff'd at, till too late;
To themes less lofty still my lay confine,
And urge thy bards to gain a name like thine. 1

Then, hapless Britain ! be thy rulers blest, The senate's oracles, the people's jest! Still hear thy motley orators dispense The flowers of rhetoric, though not of sense, While Canning's colleagues hate him for his wit, And old dame Portland 2 fills the place of Pitt.

Yet once again, adieu ! ere this the sail
That wafts me hence is shivering in the gale;
And Afric's coast and Calpe's adverse height,
And Stamboul's minarets must greet my sight:
Thence shall I stray through beauty's native clime, 3
Where Kaff is clad in rocks, and crown'd with snows
sublime.

But should I back return, no tempting press 5
Shall drag my journal from the desk's recess :
Let coxcombs, printing as they come from far,
Snatch his own wreath of ridicule from Carr; 6
Let Aberdeen and Elgin 7 still pursue
The shade of fame through regions of virtù ;

1 With this verse the satire originally ended.

2 A friend of mine being asked, why his Grace of Portland was likened to an old woman? replied, "he supposed it was because he was past bearing." His Grace is now gathered to his grandmothers, where he sleeps as sound as ever; but even his sleep was better than his colleagues' waking. 1811. 3 Georgia. 4 Mount Caucasus.

5 These four lines originally stood, -
"But should I back return, no letter'd sage
Shall drag my common-place book on the stage;
Let vain Valentia rival luckless Carr, t

And equal him whose work he sought to mar." 6 [In a letter written from Gibraltar to his friend Hodgson, Lord Byron says, "I have seen Sir John Carr at Seville and Cadiz, and, like Swift's barber, have been down on my knees to beg he would not put me into black and white."]

Lord Elgin would fain persuade us that all the figures, with and without noses, in his stoneshop, are the work of Phidias!" Credat Judæus !"

[The original epithet was "classic." Lord Byron altered it in the fifth edition, and added this note:-" Rapid," indeed! He topographised and typographised King Priam's dominions in three days! I called him 'classic' before I saw the Troad,

• Lord Valentia (whose tremendous travels are forthcom. ing, with due decorations, graphical, topographical, typographical) deposed, on Sir John Carr's unlucky suit, that Mr. Dubois's satire prevented his purchase of the "Stranger in Ireland."Oh, fie, my lord has your lordship no more feeling for a fellow-tourist ?-but "two of a trade," they

say, C.

[From the many tours he made, Sir John was called "The Jaunting Car." A wicked wit having severely lashed him in a publication, called " My Pocket Book ; or Hints for a Ryght Merrie and Conceited Tour," he brought an action of damages against the publisher; but as the work contained only what the court deemed legitimate criticism, the knight was nonsuited. Edward Dubois, Esq., the author of this pleasant satire, has also published The Wreath," consisting of translations from Sappho, Bion and Moschus, "Old Nick," a satirical story, and an edition of the Decameron of Boccaccio.]

Waste useless thousands on their Phidian freaks,
Misshapen monuments and maim'd antiques;
And make their grand saloons a general mart
For all the mutilated blocks of art.
Of Dardan tours let dilettanti tell,

I leave topography to rapid 8 Gell; 9
And, quite content, no more shall interpose
To stun the public year—at least with prose. 19

Thus far I've held my undisturb'd career,
Prepared for rancour, steel'd 'gainst selfish fear:
This thing of rhyme I ne'er disdain'd to own-
Though not obtrusive, yet not quite unknown:
My voice was heard again, though not so loud,
My page, though nameless, never disavow'd;
And now at once I tear the veil away :
Cheer on the pack! the quarry stands at bay,
Unscared by all the din of Melbourne house,11
By Lambe's resentment, or by Holland's spouse,
By Jeffrey's harmless pistol, Hallam's rage,
Edina's brawny sons and brimstone page.
Our men in buckram shall have blows enough,
And feel they too "are penetrable stuff :"
And though I hope not hence unscathed to go,
Who conquers me shall find a stubborn foe.
The time hath been, when no harsh sound would fall
From lips that now may seem imbued with gall; 12
Nor fools nor follies tempt me to despise

The meanest thing that crawl'd beneath my eyes:
But now, so callous grown, so changed since youth,
I've learn'd to think, and sternly speak the truth;
Learn'd to deride the critic's starch decree,
And break him on the wheel he meant for me;
To spurn the rod a scribbler bids me kiss,
Nor care if courts and crowds applaud or hiss :

but since have learned better than to tack to his name what don't belong to it."]

9 Mr. Gell's Topography of Troy and Ithaca cannot fail to ensure the approbation of every man possessed of classical taste, as well for the information Mr. Gell conveys to the mind of the reader, as for the ability and research the respec tive works display." Since seeing the plain of Troy, my opinions are somewhat changed as to the above note. Gell's survey was hasty and superficial."— B. 1816.]

[Shortly after his return from Greece, in 1811, Lord Byron wrote a review of Mr. (now Sir William) Gell's works for the Monthly Review. In his Diary of 1821, there is this pas sage: "In reading, I have just chanced upon an express ca of Tom Campbell's ; - speaking of Collins, he says that ar reader cares any more about the characteristic manners of his eclogues than about the authenticity of the tale of Troy." 'Tis false we do care about the authenticity of the tale of Troy. I have stood upon that plain, daily, for more than a month, in 1810; and if any thing diminished my pleasure, was that the blackguard Bryant had impugned its veracity It is true I read Homer Travestied,' because Hobhouse and others bored me with their learned localities, and I love quizzing. But I still venerated the grand original as the truth of history (in the material facts) and of place. Otter. wise it would have given me no delight. Who will persiante me, when I reclined upon a mighty tomb, that it did not cuttain a hero? its very magnitude proved this. Men do t labour over the ignoble and petty dead:- and why should not the dead be Homer's dead?"]"

19 [Lord Byron set out on his travels with the determinat în to keep no journal. In a letter to his friend Henry Drury, when on the point of sailing, he pleasantly says,“ Ĥobbovar has made woundy preparations for a book on his return one hundred pens, two gallons of japan ink, and several volumes of best blank, is no bad provision for a discern public. I have laid down my pen, but have promised to cuttribute a chapter on the state of morals, &c. &c."]

11["Singular enough, and din enough, God knows"-B 1816.]

12 [In this passage, hastily thrown off as it is. "we frol" savs Moore, " the strongest trace of that wounded irre which bleeds, as it were, through all his subsequent writings.

Nay more, though all my rival rhymesters frown,
I too can hunt a poetaster down;
And, arm'd in proof, the gauntlet cast at once
To Scotch marauder, and to southern dunce.
Thus much I've dared; if my incondite lay
Hath wrong'd these righteous times, let others say:
This, let the world, which knows not how to spare,
Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare. 1

POSTSCRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION.

I HAVE been informed, since the present edition went to the press, that my trusty and well-beloved cousins, the Edinburgh Reviewers, are preparing a most vehement critique on my poor, gentle, unresisting Muse, whom they have already so be-deviled with their ungodly ríbaldry:

"Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ!"

I suppose I must say of Jeffrey as Sir Andrew Aguecheek saith," An I had known he was so cunning of fence, I had seen him damned ere I had fought him." What a pity it is that I shall be beyond the Bosphorus before the next number has passed the Tweed! But I yet hope to light my pipe with it in Persia.

My northern friends have accused me, with justice, of personality towards their great literary anthropophagus, Jeffrey; but what else was to be done with him and his dirty pack, who feed by "lying and slandering," and slake their thirst by "evil speaking?" I have adduced facts already well known, and of Jeffrey's mind I have stated my free opinion, nor has he thence sustained any injury-what scavenger was ever soiled by being pelted with mud? It may be said that I quit England because I have censured there "persons of honour and wit about town;" but I am coming back again, and their

vengeance will keep hot till my return. Those who know me can testify that my motives for leaving England are very ditferent from fears, literary or personal: those who do not, may one day be convinced. Since the publication of this thing, my name has not been concealed; I have been mostly in London, ready to answer for my transgressions, and in daily expectation of sundry cartels; but, alas! "the age of chivalry is over," or, in the vulgar tongue, there is no spirit now-a-days.

There is a youth ycleped Hewson Clarke (subandi esquire), a sizer of Emanuel College, and, I believe, a denizen of Berwick-upon-Tweed, whom I have introduced in these pages to much better company than he has been accustomed to meet; he is, notwithstanding, a very sad dog, and for no reason that I can discover, except a personal quarrel with a bear, kept by me at Cambridge to sit for a fellowship, and whom the jealousy of his Trinity contemporaries prevented from success, has been abusing me, and, what is worse, the defenceless innocent above mentioned, in the " Satirist," for one year and some months. I am utterly unconscious of having given him any provocation; indeed, I am guiltless of having heard his name till coupled with the "Satirist." He has therefore no giary, he is rather pleased than otherwise. I have now menreason to complain, and I dare say that, like Sir Fretful Plationed all who have done me the honour to notice me and mine, that is, my bear and my book, except the editor of the "Satirist," who, it seems, is a gentleman-God wot! I wish he could impart a little of his gentility to his subordinate scrib. blers. I hear that Mr. Jerningham is about to take up the cudgels for his Mæcenas, Lord Carlisle. I hope not: he was one of the few, who, in the very short intercourse I had with him, treated me with kindness when a boy; and whatever he may say or do," pour on, I will endure." I have nothing further to add, save a general note of thanksgiving to readers, purchasers, and publishers; and, in the words of Scott, I wish "To all and each a fair good night, And rosy dreams and slumbers light."

["The greater part of this satire I most sincerely wish had never been written-not only on account of the injustice of much of the critical, and some of the personal part of itbut the tone and temper are such as I cannot approve.". BYRON. July 14. 1816. Diodati, Geneva.]

2 [Authors are apt, it is said, to estimate their performances more according to the trouble they have cost themselves, than the pleasure they afford to the public; and it is only in this way that we can pretend to account for the extraordinary value which Lord Byron attached, even many long years after they were written, to these "Hints from Horace. The business of translating Horace has hitherto been a hopeless one; --and notwithstanding the brilliant cleverness of some passages, in both Pope's and Swift's Imitations of him, there had been, on the whole, very little to encourage any one to meddle seriously even with that less difficult department. is, comparatively, an easy affair to transfer the effect, or some

It

Or, should some limner join, for show or sale,
A maid of honour to a mermaid's tail?
Or low Dubost as once the world has seen
Degrade God's creatures in his graphic spleen?

Undique collatis membris, ut turpiter atrum Desinat in piscem mulier formosa supernè;

thing like the effect, of the majestic declamations of Juvenal; but the Horatian satire is cast in a mould of such exquisite delicacy-uniting perfect case with perfect elegance throughout as has hitherto defied all the skill of the moderns. Lord Byron, however, having composed this piece at Athens, in 1811, and brought it home in the same desk with the two first cantos of "Childe Harold," appears to have, on his arrival in London, contemplated its publication as far more likely to increase his reputation than that of his original poem. Perhaps Milton's preference of the "Paradise Regained" over the "Paradise Lost" is not a more decisive example of the extent to which a great author may mistake the source of his greatness.

Lord Byron was prevented from publishing these lines, by a feeling, which, considering his high notion of their merit, does him honour. By accident, or nearly so, the " Harold" came out before the "Hints; "-and the reception of the

Not all that forced politeness, which defends
Fools in their faults, could gag his grinning friends. 1
Believe me, Moschus 2, like that picture seems
The book which, sillier than a sick man's dreams,
Displays a crowd of figures incomplete,
Poetic nightmares, without head or feet. 3

Poets and painters, as all artists 4 know, May shoot a little with a lengthen'd bow; We claim this mutual mercy for our task, And grant in turn the pardon which we ask ; But make not monsters spring from gentle dams Birds breed not vipers, tigers nurse not lambs.

A labour'd, long exordium, sometimes tends (Like patriot speeches) but to paltry ends; And nonsense in a lofty note goes down As pertness passes with a legal gown: Thus many a bard describes in pompous strain The clear brook babbling through the goodly plain : The groves of Granta, and her gothic halls, [walls; King's Coll., Cam's stream, stain'd windows, and old Or, in advent'rous numbers, neatly aims To paint a rainbow, or- the river Thames. 5

You sketch a tree, and so perhaps may shine. But daub a shipwreck like an alehouse sign; You plan a vase - it dwindles to a pot; Then glide down Grub-street-fasting and forgot;

Spectatum admiss! risum teneatis, amici?
Credite, Pisones, isti tabulæ fore librum
Persimilem, cujus, velut ægri somnia, vanæ
Fingentur species; ut nec pes, nec caput uni
Reddatur formæ. Pictoribus atque poetis
Quidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestas.
Scimus, et hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim :
Sed non ut placidis coëant immitia; non ut
Serpentes avibus geminentur, tigribus agni.

Incœptis gravibus plerumque et magna professis
Purpureus, latè qui splendeat, unus et alter
Assuitur pannus; cum lucus et ara Dianæ,
Et properantis aquæ per amonos ambitus agros,
Aut flumen Rhenum, aut pluvius describitur arcus.
Sed nunc non erat his locus: et fortasse cupressum
Scis simulare: quid hoc, si fractis enatat exspes
Navibus, ære dato qui pingitur? amphora cœpit
Institui; currente rota cur urceus exit?
Denique sit quod vis, simplex duntaxat et unum.

former was so flattering to Lord Byron, that it could scarcely fail to take off, for the time, the edge of his appetite for lite rary bitterness. In short, he found himself mixing constantly in society with persons who had-from good sense, or goodnature, or from both-overlooked the petulancies of his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," and felt, as he said, that he should be "heaping coals of fire on his head" if he were to persist in bringing forth a continuation of his juvenile lampoon. Nine years had passed ere he is found writing thus to Mr. Murray:-" Get from Mr. Hobhouse, and send me, a proof of my Hints from Horace: it has now the nonum prematur in annum complete for its production. I have a notion that, with some omissions of names and passages, it will do; and I could put my late observations for Pope amongst the notes. As far as versification goes, it is good; and, in looking back at what I wrote about that period, I am astonished to see how little I have trained on. I wrote better then than now; but that comes of my having fallen into the atrocious bad taste of the times." On hearing, however, that, in Mr. Hobhouse's opinion, the iambics would require "a good deal of slashing" to suit the times, the notion of printing them was once more abandoned. They were first published, therefore, in 1831, seven years after the poet's death.]

In an English newspaper, which finds its way abroad wherever there are Englishmen, I read an account of this dirty dauber's caricature of Mr. Has a "beast," and the consequent action, &c. The circumstance is, probably, too well known to require further comment.-[The gentleman here alluded to was Thomas Hope, Esq., the author of "Anastasius," and one of the most munificent patrons of art this country ever possessed. Having, somehow, offended an un

Laugh'd into Lethe by some quaint Review, Whose wit is never troublesome till true. 6

In fine, to whatsoever you aspire, Let it at least be simple and entire.

The greater portion of the rhyming tribe (Give ear, my friend, for thou hast been a scribe) Are led astray by some peculiar lure.

I labour to be brief- become obscure;
One falls while following elegance too fast;
Another soars, inflated with bombast;
Too low a third crawls on, afraid to fly,
He spins his subject to satiety;
Absurdly varying, he at last engraves

Fish in the woods, and boars beneath the waves!

Unless your care 's exact, your judgment nice,
The flight from folly leads but into vice;
None are complete, all wanting in some part,
Like certain tailors, limited in art.

For gallygaskins Slowshears is your man;
But coats must claim another artisan. 7
Now this to me, I own, seems much the same
As Vulcan's feet to bear Apollo's frames;
Or, with a fair complexion, to expose
Black eyes, black ringlets, but — a bottle nose!

Dear authors! suit your topics to your strength, And ponder well your subject, and its length;

Maxima pars vatum, pater, et juvenes patre digni, Decipimur specie recti. Brevis esse laboro, Obscurus fio: sectantem levia, nervi Deticiunt animique: professus grandia, turget: Serpit humi tutus nimium timidusque procellæ : Qui variare cupit rem prodigialiter unam, Delphinum sylvis appingit, fluctibus aprum.

In vitium ducit culpæ fuga, si caret arte. Æmilium circa ludum faber imus et ungues Exprimet, et molles imitabitur ære capillos; Infelix operis summa, quia ponere totum Nesciet. Hunc ego me, si quid componere curem, Non magis esse velim, quam pravo vivere naso, Spectandum nigris oculis nigroque capillo.

Sumite materiem vestris, qui scribitis, æquam Viribus; et versate diù quid ferre recusent, Quid valeant humeri. Cui lecta potenter erit res, Nec facundia deseret hunc, nec lucidus ordo.

Ordinis hæc virtus erit et venus, aut ego fallor,

principled French painter, by name Dubost, that adventurer revenged himself by a picture called "Beauty and the Beast in which Mr. Hope and his lady were represented according to the well-known fairy story. The picture had too malice not to succeed; and, to the disgrace of John Bull, the exhibition of it is said to have fetched thirty pounds in a day. A brother of Mrs. Hope thrust his sword through the cavass; and M. Dubost had the consolation to get tive po damages. The affair made much noise at the time; th Mr. Hope had not then placed himself on that seat of literary eminence, which he afterwards attained. Probably, indeed no man's reputation in the world was ever so suddenly and completely altered, as his was by the appearance of his E nificent romance. He died in 1833.]

2 ["Moschus."-In the original MS., " Hobhouse."] 3[The opening of the poem is, with reference to the orig nal, ingenious.-MOORE.]

["All artists."— Originally, "We scribblers."]
"Where pure description held the place of sense."-

6 [This is pointed, and felicitously expressed.- MOORE ] 7 Mere common mortals were commonly content with or tailor and with one bill, but the more particular gontiems found it impossible to confide their lower garments to be makers of their body clothes. I speak of the begun e f 1809: what reform may have since taken place, I mestim know, nor desire to know.

8 [" As one leg perfect, and the other lame."— MS.]