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 assum'd again,
Our task complete, like Hamet's* shall be free;
Though spurn'd by others, yet belov'd 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 combin'd 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.
* Cid Hamet Benengeli promises repose to his pen in the last chapter of Don Quixote. Oh! that our voluminous gentry would follow the example 1 Hamet Benengeli.
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 school-boy freak, unworthy praise or blame;
I printed-older children do the same.
"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,f
Though now the name is veil'd from public sight.
Mov'd 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;
* This ingenious youth is mentioned more particularly, with his production, in another place.
† In the Edinburgh Review.
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 Baotian head.*
To these young tyrants,† by themselves misplac'd,
Combin'd 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;
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, which POPE and GIFFORD trod before?
* Messrs. Jeffrey and Lambe are the Alpha and Omega, the first and last of the Edinburgh Review; the others are mentioned hereafter.
"Stulta es Clementia, cum tot ubique
- occurras perituræ parcere charta."
"Cur tamen hoc libeat potius decurrere campo
Per quem magnus equos Auruncæ flexit alumnus:
Si vacat, et placidi rationem admittitis, edam.”
If not yet sicken'd, you can still proceed;
Go on; my rhyme will tell you as you read.
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 aspir'd to claim,
And rais'd 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 Orway's 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 printers' 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;* "naught 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, Gas
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:
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:
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,
* Stott, better known in the Morning Post by the name of Hafiz. This per son 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 loquitor quoad Hibernia.)
"Princely offspring of Briganza,
Erin greets thee with a stanza," &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
† See the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," passim. Never was any plan so in
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