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And tenderest tints, along their summits driven, Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven; Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep, Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to sleep.

On such an eve his palest beam he cast, When, Athens! here thy wisest look'd his last. How watch'd thy better sons his farewell ray, That closed their murder'd sage's* latest day ; Not yet-not yet-Sol pauses on the hill, The precious hour of parting lingers still; But sad his light to agonizing eyes,

And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes;
Gloom o'er the lovely land he seem'd to pour,
The land where Phoebus never frown'd before;
But ere he sank below Citharon's head,

The cup of woe was quaff'd-the spirit fled;
The soul of him that scorn'd to fear or fly,
Who lived and died as none can live or die.

But, lo! from high Hymettus to the plain, The queen of night asserts her silent reign:t No murky vapour, herald of the storm, Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form; With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play, There the white column greets her grateful ray; And bright around, with quivering beams beset, Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret: The groves of olive scatter'd dark and wide, Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide, The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque, The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk, And sad and sombre 'mid the holy calm, Near Theseus' fane, yon solitary palm: All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye; And dull were his that passed them heedless by.

Again the Ægean, heard no more afar, Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war; Again his waves in milder tints unfold Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold, Mix'd with the shades of many a distant isle, That frown, where gentler ocean deigns to smile.

As thus, within the walls of Pallas' fane, I mark'd the beauties of the land and main, Alone, and friendless, on the magic shore, Whose arts and arms but live in poet's lore; Oft as the matchless dome I turn'd to scan, Sacred to gods, but not secure from man, The past return'd, the present seem'd to cease, And glory knew no clime beyond her Greece!

*Socrates drank the hemlock a short time before sunset (the hour of execution); notwithstanding the entreaties of his disciples to wait till the sun went down.

+ The twilight in Greece is much shorter than in our own country; the days in winter are longer, but in summer of less duration.

The kiosk is a Turkish summer-house; the palm is without the present walls of Athens, not far from the temple of Theseus, between which and the tree the wall intervenes. Cephisus' stream is indeed scanty, and Ilissus has no stream at all.

The Parthenon, or Temple of Minerva.

Hours rolled along, and Dian's orb on high Had gain'd the centre of her softest sky; And yet unwearied still ny footsteps trod O'er the vain shrine of many a vanish'd god; But chiefly, Pallas, thine; when Hecate's glare, Check'd by thy columns, fell more sadly fair O'er the chill marble, where the startling tread Thrills the lone heart like echoes from the dead. Long had I mused, and treasured every trace The wreck of Greece recorded of her race, When, lo! a giant form before me strode, And Pallas hail'd me in her own abode!

Yes, 'twas Minerva's self; but, ah, how changed Since o'er the Dardan field in arms she ranged! Not such as erst, by her divine command, Her form appear'd from Phidias' plastic hand: Gone were the terrors of her awful brow, Her idle ægis bore no Gorgon now; Her helm was dinted, and the broken lance Seem'd weak and shaftless e'en to mortal glance; The olive branch, which still she deign'd to clasp, Shrunk from her touch, and wither'd in her grasp; And, ah, though still the brightest of the sky, Celestial tears bedimm'd her large blue eye; Round the rent casque her owlet circled slow, And mourn'd his mistress with a shriek of woe!

'Mortal!'-'twas thus she spake-'that blush of shame

Proclaims thee Briton, once a noble name:
First of the mighty, foremost of the free,
Now honour'd less by all, and least by me:
Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found.
Seek'st thou the cause of loathing?-look around.
Lo! here, despite of war and wasting fire,
I saw successive tyrannies expire.

Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth,
Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both.
Survey this vacant, violated fane;

Recount the relics torn that yet remain:
These Cecrops placed, this Pericles adorn'd,*
That Adrian rear'd when drooping Science mourn'd.
What more I owe, let gratitude attest→
Know Alaric and Elgin did the rest.

That all may learn from whence the plunderer came,
The insulted wall sustains his hated name:
For Elgin's fame thus grateful Pallas pleads,
Below, his name-above, behold his deeds!
Be ever hail'd with equal honour here
The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer:
Arms gave the first his right, the last had none,
But basely stole what less barbarians won.
So when the lion quits his fell repast,
Next prowls the wolf, the filthy jackal last:
Flesh, limbs, and blood the former make their own,
The last poor brute securely gnaws the bone.
Yet still the gods are just, and crimes are cross'd:
See here what Elgin won, and what he lost!

*This is spoken of the city in general, and not of the Acropolis in particular. The temple of Jupiter Olympius, by some supposed the Parthenon, was finished by Hadrian; sixteen columns are standing, of the most beautiful marble architecture.

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Ask'st thou the difference? From fair Phyle's And marvel at his Lordship's "stone shop" there.

towers

Survey Boeotia ;-Caledonia's ours.

And well I know within that bastard landt
Hath Wisdom's goddess never held command;
A barren soil, where Nature's germs, confined
To stern sterility, can stint the mind;
Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth,
Emblem of all to whom the land gives birth;
Each genial influence nurtured to resist ;
A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist.
Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain
Dilutes with drivel every drizzly brain,
Till, burst at length, each watery head o'erflows,
Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows.
Then thousand schemes of petulance and pride
Despatch her scheming children far and wide:
Some east, some west: some everywhere but north,
In quest of lawless gain, they issue forth.
And thus-accursed be the day and year!-
She sent a Pict to play the felon here.
Yet Caledonia claims some native worth,
As dull Boeotia gave a Pindar birth.
So may her few, the letter'd and the brave,
Bound to no clime, and victors of the grave,
Shake off the sordid dust of such a land,
And shine like children of a happier strand;
As once of yore in some obnoxious place,
Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched race.'

Round the throng'd gates shall sauntering coxcomb

creep,

To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep;
While many a languid maid, with longing sigh,
On giant statues casts the curious eye;
The room with transient glance appears to skim,
Yet marks the mighty back and length of limb;
Mourns o'er the difference of now and then;
Exclaims," These Greeks indeed were proper men!
Draws sly comparisons of these and those,

And envies Laïs all her Attic beaux.

When shall a modern maid have swains like these?
Alas, Sir Harry is no Hercules!

And last of all amidst the gaping crew,
Some calm spectator, as he takes his view,
In silent indignation mix'd with grief,
Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.
Oh, loath'd in life, nor pardon'd in the dust,
May hate pursue his sacrilegious lust !
Link'd with the fool that fired the Ephesian dome,
Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb,
And Eratostratos* and Elgin shine

In many a branding page and burning line;
Alike reserved for aye to stand accursed,
Perchance the second blacker than the first.

'So let him stand through ages yet unborn,
Fix'd statue on the pedestal of scorn;
Though not for him alone revenge shall wait,
But fits thy country for her coming fate.

Mortal! the blue-eyed maid resumed, once Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son

more

Bear back my mandate to thy native shore.

Though fallen, alas, this vengeance yet is mine,
To turn my counsels far from lands like thine.
Hear then in silence Pallas' stern behest;
Hear and believe, for Time will tell the rest.

'First on the head of him who did this deed
My curse shall light, on him and all his seed;
Without one spark of intellectual fire,
Be all the sons as senseless as the sire;

If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,
Believe him bastard of a brighter race:
Still with his hireling artists let him prate,
And Folly's praise repay for Wisdom's hate;

* His Lordship's name, and that of one who no longer bears it, are carved conspicuously on the Parthenon; above, in a part not far distant, are the torn remnants of the basso-relievos, destroyed in a vain attempt to remove them.

To do what oft Britannia's self had done.
Look to the Baltic-blazing from afar,
Your old ally yet mourns perfidious war.
Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid,
Or break the compact which herself had made:
Far from such councils, from the faithless field
She fled, but left behind her Gorgon shield;
A fatal gift, that turn'd your friends to stone,
And left lost Albion hated and alone.

'Look to the east, where Ganges' swarthy race
Shall shake your tyrant empire to its base;
Lo! there Rebellion rears her ghastly head,
And glares the Nemesis of native dead;
Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood,
And claims his long arrear of northern blood.
So may ye perish !-Pallas, when she gave
Your freeborn rights, forbade ye to enslave.

* Eratostratos, who, in order to make his name re +Irish bastards, according to Sir Callaghan membered, set fire to the Temple of Diana at Ephe O'Bralaghan.

sus.

'Look on your Spain!-she clasps the hand she | Or, back returning, sees rejected stores
hates,

But boldly clasps, and thrusts you from her gates.
Bear witness, bright Barossa! thou canst tell
Whose were the sons that bravely fought and fell.
But Lusitania, kind and dear ally,

Can spare a few to fight, and sometimes fly.
Oh, glorious field! by Famine fiercely won,
The Gaul retires for once, and all is done!
But when did Pallas teach, that one retreat
Retrieved three long Olympiads of defeat!

'Look last at home-you love not to look there,
On the grim smile of comfortless despair:
Your city saddens : loud though Revel howls,
Here famine faints, and yonder rapine prowls.
See all alike, of more or less bereft;
No misers tremble when there's nothing left.
"Blest paper credit,"* who shall dare to sing?
It clogs like lead Corruption's weary wing.
Yet Pallas plucked each premier by the ear,
Who gods and men alike disdained to hear;
But one, repentant o'er a bankrupt state,
On Pallas calls,-but calls, alas, too late:
Then raves for . . .; to that mentor bends,
Though he and Pallas never yet were friends.
Him senates hear, whom never yet they heard,
Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd.
So, once of yore, each reasonable frog
Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign "log."
Thus hail'd your rulers their patrician clod,
As Egypt chose an onion for a god.

'Now fare ye well! enjoy your little hour;
Go, grasp the shadow of your vanish'd power;
Gloss o'er the failure of each fondest scheme:
Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a dream.
Gone is that gold the marvel of mankind,
And pirates barter all that's left behind.t
No more the hirelings, purchased near and far,
Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war;
The idle merchant on the useless quay
Droops o'er the bales no bark may bear away;

Blest paper credit! last and best supply,
That lends Corruption lighter wings to fly.'
POPE,
+ The Deal and Dover traffickers in specie.

Rot piecemeal on his own encumber'd shores:
The starved mechanic breaks his rusting loom,
And desperate mans him 'gainst the coming doom.
Then in the senate of your sinking state

Show me the man whose counsels may have weight. Vain is each voice where tones could once command;

E'en factions cease to charm a factious land :

Yet jarring sects convulse a sister isle,

And light with maddening hands the mutual pile.

"Tis done, 'tis past, since Pallas warns in vain;
The Furies seize her abdicated reign:
Wide o'er the realm they wave their kindling brands,
And wring her vitals with their fiery hands.
But one convulsive struggle still remains,
And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear the chains.
The banner'd pomp of war, the glittering files,
O'er whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles;
The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum,
That bid the foe defiance ere they come;
The hero bounding at his country's call,
The glorious death that consecrates his fall,
Swell the young heart with visionary charms,
And bid it antedate the joys of arms.
But know, a lesson you may yet be taught,
With death alone are laurels cheaply bought:
Not in the conflict Havoc seeks delight,
His day of mercy is the day of fight.
But when the field is fought, the battle won,
Though drench'd with gore, his woes are but begun:
His deeper deeds as yet ye know by name;
The slaughter'd peasant and the ravish'd dame,
The rifled mansion and the foe-reap'd field,
Ill suit with souls at home, untaught to yield.
Say with what eye along the distant down
Would flying burghers mark the blazing town?
How view the column of ascending flames
Shake his red shadow o'er the startled Thames
Nay, frown not, Albion ! for the torch was thine
That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:
Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,
Go, ask thy bosom who deserves them most.
The law of heaven and earth is life for life,
And she who raised, in vain regrets, the strife.'

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SIR,-I am a country gentleman of a midland county. I might have been a Parliament man for a certain horough; having had the offer of as many votes as General T. at the general election in 1812. But I was all for domestic happiness; as, fifteen years ago, on a visit to London, Í married a middle-aged maid of honour. We lived happily at Hornem Hall till last season, when my wife and I were invited by the Countess of Waltzaway (a distant relation of my spouse) to pass the winter in town. Thinking no harm, and our girls being come to a marriageable (or, as they call it, marketable) age, and having besides a Chancery suit inveterately entailed upon the family estate, we came up in our old chariot; of which, by the by, my wife grew so much ashamed in less than a week, that I was obliged to buy a second-hand barouche, of which I might mount the box, Mrs. H. says, if I could drive, but never see the inside-that place being reserved for the Honourable Augustus Tiptoe, her partner-general and opera-knight. Hearing great praises of Mrs. H.'s dancing (she was famous for birthnight minuets in the latter end of the last century), I unbooted, and went to a ball at the Countess's, expecting to see a country dance, or, at most, cotillons, reels, and all the old paces to the newest tunes. But judge of my surprise, on arriving, to see poor dear Mrs. Hornem with her arms half round the loins of a huge hussar-looking gentleman I never set eyes on before: and his, to say truth, rather more than half round her waist, turning round, and round, and round, to a d-d see-saw up-and-down sort of tune, that reminded me of the Black Joke,' only more ‘affetuoso,' till it made me quite giddy with wondering they were not so. By and by they stopped a bit, and I thought they would sit or fall down. But no; with Mrs. H.'s hand on his shoulder, 'quam familiariter'† (as Terence said when I was at school), they walked about a minute, and then at it again, like two cockchafers spitted upon the same bodkin. I asked what all this meant, when, with a loud laugh, a child no older than our Wilhelmina (a name I never heard but in the Vicar of Wakefield, though her mother would call her after the Princess of Swap. penbach) said, 'Lord! Mr. Hornem, can't you see they are valtzing!' or waltzing (I forget which); and then up she got, and her mother and sister, and away they went, and round-abouted it till supper-time. Now that I know what it is, I like it of all things, and so does Mrs. H. (though I have broken my shins, and four times overturned Mrs. Hornem's maid, in practising the preliminary steps in a morning). Indeed, so much do I like it, that having a turn for rhyme, tastily displayed in some election ballads, and songs in honour of all the victories (but till lately I have had little practice in that way), I sat down, and with the aid of William Fitzgerald, Esq., and a few hints from Dr. Busby (whose recitations I attend, and am monstrous fond of Master Busby's manner of delivering his father's late successful 'Drury Lane Address'), I composed the following hymn, wherewithal to make my sentiments known to the public; whom, nevertheless, I heartily despise, as well as the critics.-I am, Sir, yours, &c. &c., HORACE HORNEM.

State of the poll (last day), 5

My Latin is all forgotten, if a man can be said to have forgotten what he never remembered; but I bought my title-page motto of a Catholic priest for a three-shilling bank token, after much haggling for the even sixpence. 1 grudged the money to a Papist, being all for the memory of Perceval and No Popery,' and quite regretting the downfall of the Pope, because we can't burn him any more.

MUSE of the many-twinkling feet ! whose charms
Are now extended up from legs to arms;
Terpsichore !-too long misdeem'd a maid-
Reproachful term-bestow'd but to upbraid-
Henceforth in all the bronze of brightness shine,
The least a vestal of the virgin Nine.

Far be from thee and thine the name of prude;
Mock'd, yet triumphant; sneer'd at, unsubdued;
Thy legs must move to conquer as they fly,
If but thy coats are reasonably high;

Thy breast, if bare enough, requires no shield: Dance forth-sans armour thou shalt take the field,

And own-impregnable to most assaults,
Thy not too lawfully begotten 'Waltz.'

Hail, nimble nymph! to whom the young hussar, The whisker'd votary of waltz and war,

His night devotes, despite of spurs and boots;
A sight unmatch'd since Orpheus and his brutes:
Hail, spirit-stirring Waltz! beneath whose ban-

ners

A modern hero fought for modish manners;

On Hounslow's heath to rival Wellesley's fame,† Cock'd, fired, and miss'd his man-but gain'd his aim:

Hail, moving Muse! to whom the fair one's breast
Gives all it can, and bids us take the rest.
Oh, for the flow of Busby or of Fitz,
The latter's loyalty, the former's wits,
To energize the object I pursue,'

And give both Belial and his dance their due!

* 'Glance their many-twinkling feet.'-GRAY. + To rival Lord Wellesley's, or his nephew's, as the reader pleases. The one gained a pretty woman, whom he deserved, by fighting for; and the other has been fighting in the Peninsula many a long day. by Shrewsbury clock, without gaining anything in that country but the title of the great Lord, and the Lord; which savours of profanation, having been hitherto applied only to that Being to whom Te Deums for carnage is the rankest blasphemy. It is to be presumed that the general will one day return to

his Sabine farm, there

'To tame the genius of the stubborn plain, Almost as quickly as he conquer'd Spain !' The Lord Peterborough conquered continents in a summer; we do more: we contrive both to conquer and lose them in a shorter season. If the great Lord's Cincinnatian progress in agriculture be no speedier than the proportional average of time in Pope's couplet, it will, according to the farmer's proverb, beploughing with dogs.

By the by, one of this illustrious person's new titles is forgotten; it is, however, worth reinembering-Sal vador del mundo ! credite, posteri! If this be the appellation annexed by the inhabitants of the Peninsula to the name of a man who has not yet saved them (query, are they worth saving, even in this world? for, according to the mildest modifications of any Christian creed, those three words make the odds much against them in the next. 'Saviour of the world, quotha!)-it were to be wished that he, or any one else, could save a corner of it-his country. Yet this stupid misnomer, although it shows the near connexion between superstition and impiety, so far has its use, that it proves there can be little to dread from those Catholics (inquisitorial Catholics too) who can confer such an appellation on a Protestant. 1 suppose next year he will be entitled the Virgin Mary: if so, Lord George Gordon himself would have nothing to object to such liberal bastards of our Lady of Babylon.

Imperial Waltz! imported from the Rhine (Famed for the growth of pedigrees and wine), Long be thine import from all duty free, And hock itself be less esteem'd than thee; In some few qualities alike-for hock Improves our cellar--thou our living stock. The head to hock belongs-thy subtler art Intoxicates alone the heedless heart : Through the full veins thy gentler poison swims, And wakes to wantonness the willing limbs.

O Germany! how much to thee we owe,
As heaven-born Pitt can testify below,
Ere cursed confederation made thee France's,
And only left us thy d-d debts and dances!
Of subsidies and Hanover bereft,

We bless thee still-for George the Third is left!
Of kings the best, and last not least in worth,
For graciously begetting George the Fourth.
To Germany, and highnesses serene,
Who owe us millions-don t we owe the queen?
To Germany, what owe we not besides?
So oft bestowing Brunswickers and brides:
Who paid for vulgar, with her royal blood,
Drawn from the stem of each Teutonic stud;
Who sent us--so be pardoned all our faults-
A dozen dukes, some kings, a queen-and Waltz.

But peace to her, her emperor and diet,
Though now transferr'd to Bonaparte's 'fiat !'
Back to my theme-O Muse of motion! say,
How first to Albion found thy Waltz her way?

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Ere yet unlucky Fame, compelled to creep
To snowy Gottenburg, was chill'd to sleep;
Or, starting from her slumbers, deign'd arise,
Heligoland, to stock thy mart with lies;
While unburnt Moscow yet had news to send,
Nor owed her fiery exit to a friend,

She came-Waltz came-and with her certain sets
Of true despatches, and as true gazettes:
Then flamed of Austerlitz the blest despatch,
Which Moniteur nor Morning Post can match;
And, almost crushed beneath the glorious news,
Ten plays, and forty tales of Kotzebue's:
One envoy's letters, six composers' airs,
And loads from Frankfort and from Leipsic fairs;
Meiner's four volumes upon womankind,
Like Lapland witches to ensure a wind,
Brunck's heaviest tome for ballast, and, to back it,
Of Heynè, such as should not sink the packet.

Fraught with this cargo, and her fairest freight,
Delightful Waltz, on tiptoe for a mate,
The welcome vessel reach'd the genial strand,
And round her flock'd the daughters of the land.
Not decent David, when, before the ark,
His grand pas-seul excited some remark;
Not love-lorn Quixote, when his Sancho thought
The knight's fandango friskier than it ought:
Not soft Herodias, when, with winning tread,
Her nimble feet danced off another's head;

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