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.

In turns appear to make the vulgar stare
Till the swoln bubble bursts-and all is air!
Nor less new schools of poetry arise,
Where dull pretenders grapple for the prize : 130
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 grov'ling Storr*.

* STOTT, better known in the " Morning Post" by the name of HAFIZ. This person is at present the most profound explorer of the Bathos. I remember, when the reigning family left Portugal, a special ode of Master STOTT's beginning thus: (Stott loquitur quoad Hibernia.)

"Princely offspring of Braganza,

"Erin greets thee with a Stanza," &c. &c.

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.

Behold! in various throngs the scribbling crew, For notice eager, pass in long review:

Each spurs his jaded Pegasus apace,

And Rhyme and Blank maintain an equal race; 140
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,

* See the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," passim. Never was any plan so incongruous and absurd as the ground-work of this production. The entrance of Thunder and Lightning prologuising 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, sheepstealer, and highwayman. The propriety of his magical lady's injunction not to read can only be equalled by his

While mountain spirits prate to river sprites, That dames may listen to the sound at nights; 150 And goblin brats of Gilpin Horner's brood Decoy young Border-nobles through the wood,

candid acknowledgement of his independence of the trammels of spelling, although, to use his own elegant phrase, " 'twas his neck-verse at hairibee," i. 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 chef dœuvres in the improvement of taste. For incident we have the invisible, but by no means sparing, box on the ear, bestowed on the page, and the entrance of a Knight and Charger into the castle, under the very natural disguise of a wain of hay. Marmion, the hero of the latter romance, is exactly 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.

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,
Dispatch 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.

160

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 sear, their former laurels fade. 170