Not that a Title's sounding charm can save
Or scrawl or scribbler from an equal grave:
This LAMB must own, since his Patrician name
Failed to preserve the spurious Farce from shame*.
No matter, GEORGE continues still to write†,
Tho' now the name is veiled from public sight.
Moved by the great example I pursue

The self-same road, but make my own review: 60
Not seek great JEFFREY'S, yet like him will be
Self-constituted Judge of Poesy.

A man must serve his time to ev'ry trade Save Censure, Critics all are ready-made. Take hackneyed jokes from MILLER, got by rote, With just enough of learning to misquote;

* This ingenious youth is mentioned more particularly, with his production, in another place.

f In the EDINBURGH REVIEW.

A mind well skilled 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
Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a lucky hit,

sheet: 70

Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit;
Care not for feeling-pass your proper jest,
And stand a Critic hated yet caressed.

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; 80
Or yield one single thought to be misled
By JEFFREY'S heart or LAMB's Boeotian head*.

* Messrs. JEFFREY and LAMB are the Alpha and Omega, the first and last of the Edinburgh Review; the others are mentioned hereafter.

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 whom to seek, or whom to shun; 90 Nor know we when 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?

66

Stulta est Clementia, cum tot ubique

occurras perituræ parcere chartæ.

+ IMITATION.

JUVENAL, SAT. 1.

"Cur tamen hoc libeat potius decurrere campo
"Per quem magnus equos Auruncæ flexit alumnus:
"Si vacat, et płacidi rationem admittitis, edam."
JUVENAL, S. 1.

If not yet sickened, you can still proceed;
Go on; my rhyme will tell you as you read.

100

Time was, ere yet in these degenerate days Ignoble themes obtained mistaken praise, When Sense and Wit with Poesy allied, No fabled Graces, flourished side by side, From the same fount their inspiration drew, And, reared by Taste, bloomed 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 polished nation's praise aspired to claim, And raised the people's, as the poet's fame. Like him great DRYDEN poured the tide of song, In stream less smooth, indeed, yet doubly strong. Then CONGREVE's scenes could cheer, or OTWAY'S melt;

For nature then an English audience felt- 110

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 complained of now:
The loaded Press beneath her labour groans,
And Printer's devils shake their weary bones, 120
While SOUTHEY's Epics cram the creaking shelves,
And LITTLE'S Lyrics shine in hot-pressed 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

Ecclesiastes, Cap. 1.