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And the remember'd chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his destiny,-came back
And thrust themselves between him and the light:
What business had they there at such a time?

VII.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love;-oh! she was changed
As by the sickness of the soul; her mind
Had wander'd from its dwelling, and her eyes,
They had not their own lustre, but the look
Which is not of the earth; she was become
The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts
Were combinations of disjointed things;
And forms impalpable and unperceived
Of others' sight familiar were to hers.
And this the world calls frenzy: but the wise
Have a far deeper madness, and the glance
Of melancholy is a fearful gift;
What is it but the telescope of truth?
Which strips the distance of its fantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real!

VIII.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was alone as heretofore,
The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation, compass'd round
With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mix'd
In all which was served up to him, until,
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,
He fed on poisons, and they had no power,
But were a kind of nutriment; he lived
Through that which had been death to many men,
And made him friends of mountains: with the stars
And the quick Spirit of the Universe
He held his dialogues; and they did teach
To him the magic of their mysteries;

To him the book of Night was open'd wide,
And voices from the deep abyss reveal'd
A marvel and a secret.-Be it so.

IX.

My dream is past; it had no further change.
It was of a strange order, that the doom

Of these two creatures should be thus traced out
Almost like a reality-the one

To end in madness-both in misery.

LINES

ON HEARING THAT LADY BYRON WAS ILL. AND thou wert sad-yet I was not with thee! And thou wert sick, and yet I was not near;

Methought that joy and health alone could be Where I was not-and pain and sorrow here! And is it thus?-it is as I foretold,

And shall be more so; for the mind recoils Upon itself, and the wreck'd heart lies cold, While heaviness collects the shatter'd spoils. It is not in the storm nor in the strife We feel benumb'd, and wish to be no more, But in the after-silence on the shore, When all is lost, except a little life.

I am too well avenged -but 'twas my right!
Whate'er my sins might be, thou wert not sent
To be the Nemesis who should requite-

Nor did Heaven choose so near an instrument.
Mercy is for the merciful!-if thou

Hast been of such, 'twill be accorded now.
Thy nights are banish'd from the realms of sleep!--
Yes! they may flatter thee, but thou shalt feel
A hollow agony which will not heal,

For thou art pillow'd on a curse too deep;
Thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap
The bitter harvest in a woe as real!

I have had many foes, but none like thee;
For 'gainst the rest myself I could defend,
And be avenged, or turn them into friend;
But thou in safe implacability

Hadst nought to dread-in thy own weakness shielded,
And in my love, which hath but too much yielded,
And spared, for thy sake, some I should not spare ;
And thus upon the world-trust in thy truth,
And the wild fame of my ungovern'd youth-

On things that were not, and on things that are→
Even upon such a basis hast thou built

A monument, whose cement hath been guilt!
The moral Clytemnestra of thy lord,
And hew'd down with an unsuspected sword,
Fame, peace, and hope-and all the better life

Which, but for this cold treason of thy heart,
Might still have risen from out the grave of strife,
And found a nobler duty than to part.
But of thy virtues didst thou make a vice,
Trafficking with them in a purpose cold,
For present anger, and for future gold-
And buying other's grief at any price.
And thus once enter'd into crooked ways,
The early truth, which was thy proper praise,
Did not still walk beside thee-but at times,
And with a breast unknowing its own crimes,
Deceit, averments incompatible,
Equivocations, and the thoughts which dwell
In Janus-spirits-the significant eye
Which learns to lie with silence-the pretext
Of prudence, with advantages annex'd-
The acquiescence in all things which tend,
No matter how, to the desired end-

All found a place in thy philosophy.
The means were worthy, and the end is won-
I would not do by thee as thou hast done!

SATIRES.

ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS:

A SATIRE.

WRITTEN 1808.

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

SHAKSPEARE.

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

POPE.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

ALL my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged me not to publish this Satire with my naine. If I were to be 'turned 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 than in mending their own. But my object is not to prove that I can write well, but, if possible, to make others write better.

As the poem has met with far more success than I expected, I have endeavoured in this edition to make some additions and alterations, to render it more worthy of public perusal.

In the First Edition of this Satire, published anonymously, fourteen lines on the subject of Bowles's Pope were written by, and inserted at the request of, an ingenious friend of mine, who has now in the press a volume of poetry. In the present edition they are erased, and some of my own substituted in their stead; my only reason for this being that which I conceive would operate with any other person in the same manner,―a determination not to publish with my name any production which was not entirely and exclusively my own composition.

With regard to the real talents of many of the poetical persons whose performances are mentioned or alluded to in the following pages, it is presumed by the author that there can be little difference of opinion in the public at large; though, like other sectaries, each has his separate tabernacle of proselytes, by whom his abilities are overrated, his faults overlooked, and his metrical canons received without scruple and without consideration. But the unquestionable possession of considerable genius by several of the writers here censured, renders their mental prostitution more to be regretted. Imbecility may be pitied, or, at worst, laughed at and forgotten; perverted powers demand the most decided reprehension. No one can wish more than the author, that some known and able writer had undertaken their exposure; but Mr. Gifford has devoted himself to Massinger, and in the absence of the regular physician, a country practitioner may, in cases of absolute necessity, be allowed to prescribe his nostrum to prevent the extension of so deplorable an epidemic, provided there be no quackery in his treatment of the malady. A caustic is here offered, as it is to be feared nothing short of actual cautery can recover the numerous patients afflicted with the present prevalent and distressing rabies for rhyming.

As to the Edinburgh Reviewers, it would indeed require a Hercules to crush the Hydra; but if the author succeeds in merely 'bruising one of the heads of the serpent,' though his own hand should suffer in the encounter, he will be amply satisfied.

STILL must I hear?-hall hoarse Fitzgerald bawl*
His creaking couplets in a tavern hall,
And I not sing, lest, haply, Scotch reviews
Should dub me scribbler, and denounce my muse?
Prepare for rhyme-I'll publish, right or wrong:
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

Oh! nature's noblest gift-my grey-goose quill!
Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will,
Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen,
That mighty instrument of little men!
The pen foredoom'd to aid the mental throes
Of brains that labour, big with verse or prose,
Though nymphs forsake, and critics may deride,
The lover's solace, and the author's pride.
What wits, what poets, dost thou daily raise!
How frequent is thy use, how small thy praise!
Condemn'd at length to be forgotten quite,
With all the pages which 'twas thine to write.
But thou, at least, mine own especial pen
Once laid aside, but now assumed again,
Our task complete, like Hamet's, shall be free;t
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;
E'en 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 schoolboy freak, unworthy praise or blame :
I printed-older children do the same.

* IMITATION:

Semper ego auditor tantum? nunquamne reponam, Vexatus toties rauci Theseide Codri ?JUVENAL, Sat. 1. Mr. Fitzgerald, facetiously termed by Cobbett the Small Beer Poet, inflicts his annual tribute of verse on the Literary Fund:' not content with writing, he spouts in person, after the company have imbibed as reasonable quantity of bad port, to enable them to sustain the operation.

+Cid Hamet Benengeli promises repose to his pen in the last chapter of Don Quixote. Oh that our voluminous gentry would follow the example of Cid Hamet Benengeli!

'Tis 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,t
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, 'twill seem a lucky hit ;
Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill 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,

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, 'twould be sin to spare,§
While such are critics, why should I forbear?
But yet, so near all modern worthies run,
'Tis doubtful when to seek, or whom to shun;
Nor know we whom to spare, or where to strike,
Our bards and censors are so much alike.

Then should you ask me, why I venture o'er
The path that Pope and Gifford¶ trod before;
If not yet sicken'd, you can still proceed:
Go on my rhyme will tell you as you read.
'But hold!'exclaims a friend, here's some neglect:
This-that-and t'other line seem incorrect.'

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What then? the self-same blunder Pope has got.
And careless Dryden- Ay, but Pye has not :-
Indeed!-'tis granted, faith!-but what care I?
Better to err with Pope, than shine with Pye.

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'st
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 printer's 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: '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 swoll'n 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,
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 grovelling Stott.]}]
Behold! in various throngs the scribbling crew,
For notice eager, pass in long review:

* Dramatist; author of Love for Love, etc. etc. † A dramatist; the author of Venice Preserved, etc. etc.

T. Moore, who published at first under the name of Thomas Little. Eccles. i.

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-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 the sound at nights;
And goblin brats, of Gilpin Horner's 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,
Despatch 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,
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 scar, 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!

* See the Lay of the Last Minstrel, passim. Never was any plan so incongruous and absurd as the groundwork of this production. The entrance of Thunder and Lightning prologuizing to Bayes Tragedy, unfortunately takes away the merit of originality from the dialogue between Messieurs the Spirits of Flood and Fell in the first canto. Then we have the amiable William of Deloraine, a stark mosstrooper,' videlicet, a happy compound of poacher, sheep-stealer, and highwayman. The propriety of his magical lady's injunction not to read can only be equalled by his candid acknowledgment of his independence of the trammels of spelling, although, to use his own elegant phrase, 'twas his neck-verse at Harribee, f.e. the gallows.

The biography of Gilpin Horner, and the marvellous pedestrian page, who travelled twice as fast as his master's horse, without the aid of seven-leagued boots, are chefs-d'œuvre in the improvement of taste. Stott, better known in the Morning Post by the For incident we have the invisible, but by no means name of Hafiz. This person is at present the most sparing, box on the ear bestowed on the page, and profound explorer of the bathos. I remember, when the entrance of a knight and charger into the castle, the reigning family left Portugal, a special ode of under the very natural disguise of a wain of hay. Master Stott's beginning thus (Stott loquitur quoad Marmion, the hero of the latter romance, is exactly Hibernia):

'Princely offspring of Braganza,

Erin greets thee with a stanza,' etc. Also a sonnet to Rats, well worthy of the subject, and a most thundering ode, commencing as follows: 'Oh for a lay loud as the surge That lashes Lapland's sounding shore!' Lord have mercy on us! the Lay of the Last Minstrel was nothing to this.

what William of Deloraine would have been, had he been able to read and write. The poem was manufactured for Messrs. Constable, Murray, and Miller. worshipful booksellers, in consideration of the receipt of a sum of money; and truly, considering the inspiration, it is a very creditable production. If Mr Scott will write for hire, let him do his best for his paymasters, but not disgrace his genius, which is undoubtedly great, by a repetition of black-letter ballad imitations.

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 pinion soaring to the skies,
Behold the ballad-monger Southey rise!
To him let Camoëns, 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,t
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 the race!
Well might triumphant genii bear thee hence,
Illustrious conqueror of common sense!
Now, last and greatest, Madoc spreads his sails,
Cacique in Mexico, and prince in Wales;
Tells us strange tales, as other travellers do,
More old than Mandeville's, and not so true.

*Good-night to Marmion'-the pathetic and also prophetic exclamation of Henry Blount, Esquire, on the death of honest Marmion.

+ 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 Gierasalemme 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. Southey's will survive?

O! Southey! Southey! cease thy varied song!*
A bard may chant too often and too long:
As thou art strong in verse, in mercy spare !
A fourth, alas, were more than we could bear.
But if, in spite of all the world can say,
Thou still wilt verseward plod thy weary way;
If still in Berkley ballads most uncivil,
Thou wilt devote old women to the devil,t
The babe unborn thy dread intent may rue:
'God help thee,' Southey, and thy readers too.

Next comes the dull disciple of thy school,
That mild apostate from poetic rule,
The simple Wordsworth, fr amer of a lay
As soft as evening in his favourite May,
Who warns his friend 'to shake off toil and trouble,
And quit his books, for fear of growing double;'
Who, both by precept and example, shows
That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose;
Convincing all, by demonstration plain,
Poetic souls delight in prose insane;
And Christmas stories tortured into rhyme
Contain the essence of the true sublime.
Thus, when he tells the tale of Betty Foy,
The idiot mother of an idiot boy ;'

A moon-struck, silly lad, who lost his way,
And, like his bard, confounded night with day ;}
So close on each pathetic part he dwells,
And each adventure so sublimely tells,
That all who view the 'idiot in his glory,'
Conceive the bard the hero of the story.

Shall gentle Coleridge pass unnoticed here,
To turgid ode and tumid stanza dear?
Though themes of innocence amuse him best,
Yet still obscurity's a welcome guest.
If Inspiration should her aid refuse
To him who takes a pixy for a muse,

*We beg Mr. Southey's pardon; Madoc disdains the degraded title of epic.' See his preface. Why is epic degraded? and by whom? Certainly the late romaunts of Masters Cottle, Laureat Pye, Ogilvy, Hole, and gentle Mistress Cowley, have not exalted the epic muse; but as Mr. Southey's poem, disdains the appellation,' allow us to ask-Has he substituted anything better in its stead? or must he be content to rival Sir Richard Blackmore in the quantity as well as quality of his verse?

+ See The Old Woman of Berkley, a ballad by Mr. Southey, wherein an aged gentlewoman is carried away by Beelzebub on a high trotting horse.'

The last line, 'God help thee,' is an evident pla giarism from the Anti-Jacobin' to Mr. Southey, on his Dactylics. God help thee, silly one.'-Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin,' page 23.

Lyrical Ballads, page 4.-The Tables Turned, Stanza I.

Up, up, my friend, and clear your looks,
Why all this toil and trouble?

Up, up, my friend, and quit your books,
Or surely you'll grow double.'

Mr. W., in his preface, labours hard to prove that prose and verse are much the same: and certainly his precepts and practice are strictly conformable: And thus to Betty's question he

Thalaba, Mr. So they'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 Porson, will be read when Homer andjie. Virgil are forgotten, but-ot till then.

Made answer, like a traveller bold, The cock did crow to-whoo, to-whoo, And the sun did shine so cold.' etc. etc.Lyrical Ballads, page 129. Coleridge's Poems, page 11, Songs of the Pixies, Devonshire fairies; p. 42, we have Lines to a Young Lady; and p. 52. Lines to a Young Ass,

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