volume to immortalize his employments at school and college, we cannot possibly dismiss it without presenting the reader with a specimen of these ingenious effusions. In an ode with a Greek motto, called Granta, we have the following magnificent stanzas :

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There, in apartments small and damp,

The candidate for college prizes

Sits poring by the midnight lamp,

Goes late to bed, yet early rises.

Who reads false quantities in Sele,
Or puzzles o'er the deep triangle,
Deprived of many a wholesome meal,
In barbarous latin doom'd to wrangle :

Renouncing every pleasing page

From authors of historic use,
Preferring to the letter'd sage
The square of the hypothenuse.

Still harmless are these occupations,
That hurt none but the hapless student,

Compared with other recreations,
Which bring together the imprudent.

p. 123, 124, 125.

We are sorry to hear so bad an account of the college Psalmody as is contained in the following Attic

stanzas.

Our choir would scarcely be excused,
Even as a band of raw beginners;

All mercy now must be refused

To such a set of croaking sinners.

If David, when his toils were ended,

Had heard these blockheads sing before him,
To us his psalms had ne'er descended:

In furious mood he would have tore 'em!'

p. 126, 127.

But whatever judgment may be passed on the poems of this noble minor, it seems we must take them as we find them, and be content; for they are the last we shall ever have from him. He is, at best, he says, but an intruder into the groves of Parnassus; he never lived in a garret, like thorough-bred poets; and though he once roved a careless mountaineer in the Highlands of Scotland,' he has not of late enjoyed this advantage. Moreover, he expects no profit from his publication; and, whether it succeeds or not,

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it is highly improbable, from his situation and pursuits hereafter,' that he should again condescend to become an author. Therefore, let us take what we get and be thankful. What right have we poor devils to be nice? We are well off to have got so much from a man of this Lord's station, who does not live in a garret, but has the sway' of Newstead Abbey. Again, we say, let us be thankful; and, with honest Sancho, bid God bless the giver, nor look the gift horse in the mouth.

ENGLISH BARDS

AND

SCOTCH REVIEWERS;

A SATIRE.

I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew!
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers.

Shakespeare.

Such shameless Bards we have; and yet, 'tis true,
There are as mad, abandon'd Critics too.

Pope.

PREFACE.*

ALL my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged me not to publish this Satire with my name. If I were to be "turn'd from the career of my humour by quibbles quick, and paper bullets of the brain," I should have complied with their counsel. But I am not to be terrified by abuse, or bullied by reviewers, with or without arms. I can safely say that I have attacked none personally who did not commence on the offensive. An author's works are public property: he who purchases may judge, and publish his opinion if he pleases; and the authors I have endeavoured to commemorate may do by me as I have done by them: I dare say they will succeed better in condemning my scribblings,

*This Preface was written for the second edition of this Poem, and printed with it.