Men praise THE SOURCE! while Nature's Self,

restored

To light and life, salutes with smiles her Lord.
The jocund morn, the dew-bespangled field,
For me have pleasures, Sloth can never yield;
E'en tho' she can the Conqueror's eyelids close,
And rock both vice and virtue to repose;
Lulled in her lap to rest, alike subside
The Patriot's purpose, and the Tyrant's pride;
Her opiate too th' avenger's fury tames
Full oft, when mercy all the merit claims;
Thus when the pillow cures the fell disease,

*

Physicians take the credit, and the fees.

* My late Uncle, Sir G. Staunton, related to me a curious Anecdote of old Kien Long, Emperor of China. He was enquiring of Sir G. the manner in which Physicians were paid in England. When after some difficulty, his majesty was made to comprehend the system; he exclaimed, “Is any man well in England, that can afford to be ill? Now I will inform you," said he "how I manage my Physicians. I have four, to whom the care of my health is committed; a certain weekly Salary is allowed them; but the moment. I am ill, that Salary stops, till I am well again. I need not inform you my illnesses are usually short."

The majestic Title, WE, is a signature under which the Critics have very successfully dealt out vast cargoes of intellectual Physic; that is to say, their critical catharticum, emeticum, and "omne quod exit in um," (or rather in hum) præter remedium. The Gentlemen of the faculty observing this success of the Critics, have now adopted a similar phraseology. A

Unused am I the muse's path to tread, And cursed with Adam's* unpoetic head;

country Gentleman who visited Bath for the sake of his health was thus addressed by his Physician; "Well, Sir, and how did our Physic agree with us?" He, being not exactly up to the fashionable slang of the place, replied; "I cannot, Sır, pretend to say how it agreed with you; but this I know that it made me confoundedly sick." Were critics to put the same question to their Patients, I suspect hey would receive a similar reply.

* Adam Smith, the great author of the "Wealth of Nations," could not draw for one farthing on Mount Parnassas. He often attempted to put together two lines in rhime; but without success. In good truth he was much better employed; "Felix curarum, cui non Heliconia cordi

Serta, nec imbelles Parnassi e vertice laurus;

Sed viget Ingenium, et magnos accinctus in usus,

-Animus."

Paley is another instance of the possibility of possessing a strong head, and a feeling heart, without being an enthusiastic admirer of Poetry. He has been heard to say he never could effect a couplet. The only Latin Poet he could tolerate, was Virgil; and his false quantity Profūgus is well known. The walls of St. Mary's trembled at the unusual sound, as Mr. Bowles informs us did the Woods of Madeira, at the first kiss performed in them, by his pair of Lovers. Paley's error was handed about in the following Epigram.

"Italiam Profugus Lavinaque littora venit,

Errat Virgilius, forte Profugus erat."

I have heard of a boy who committed a similar mistake, but who escaped a flogging by a similar Epigram.

He had pronounced Euphrates Euphrates, but saved himself by these extemporaneous Lines,

"Venit ad Euphratis juvenis perterritus undas,

Ut cito transiret, corripuit fluvium.”

Who, though that pen he wielded in his hand
Ordained the "wealth of nations" to command,
Yet, when on Helicon he dared to draw,
His draft returned, and unaccepted saw:
If then, like him, we woo the Nine in vain,
Like him we'll strive some humbler prize to gain.
More pleased, would Gifford's * pen, to virtue true,
Expose each Hypocrite to public view;

Such stern admirers of truth as Smith and Paley, may be allowed to prefer reality to fiction; demonstration to probability ; and the exercise of the judgment to that of the imagination. And we can even forgive so eminent a Mathematician as Dr. Vince, when he shuts up his Milton with this laconic comment, "Very fine, but it proves nothing." But what are we to think? when a deservedly popular Poet of the present day, very lately observed to a friend, "That Man must be possessed of no common share of stupidity who can read Milton through!"

*To attempt a translation of Juvenal after Mr. Gifford, was certainly a bold, perhaps an unnecessary task. It has, however, been performed, with spirit and success, by Mr. Hodgson. Neither of these Gentlemen follow their author at a servile distance; they walk by his side; nor has Juvenal any reason "misere descedere quærens" to be ashamed of his companions. Every Author of Genius (and others are not worth translating) will pray to be delivered from translators who are only anxious, "Verbum Verbo reddere." A Man may be the Fidus Interpres of his Author, without descending to those minutia which strongly indicate a little mind. Such translations have been wittily compared to the wrong side of a piece of tapestry; very correct, but also very tame and unin

No more should cant for sound Religion pass,
Degrees defend, nor wigs conceal an áss.

But Amos Cottle writes, while Gifford sleeps, And every muse o'er Hayley's triumphs weeps; They write, and what they write, more strange, is sold,

And lead is purchased, at the price of gold!
Gold mines pay least, sagacious Adam* said,
This Hayley heard,-and worked his mine of lead;

teresting. Johnson's imitations of Juvenal, and Pope's of Horace, please, from the liberty of paraphrase in which they have indulged. By adapting the striking illustrations, and sententious remarks of these antient Satyrists, to recent events, and modern characters, they have been enabled, like good Vintners, to transfuse the wine without losing the spirit, or the flavour. They have by this means enriched their muse with the charms of novelty, the fire of youth! and the experience of age. Of such happy imitations and exquisite resemblances, may be said what Mr. Burke once applied to the Universities of Europe,

"Facies non omnibus una,

Nec diversa tamen, qualem decet esse Sororum."

I remember an half-starved German at Cambridge by the name of Render. He had been long enough in England to forget German, but not to learn English. He became, however a voluminous Translator of his native diablerie; and it was proverbial to say of a bad translation-that it was Rendered into English!

* Adam Smith observes that the profits which arise to those who work mines, decrease, as the value of their contents increase. Thus, by speculating in mines of gold, or silver, many

These write, are read! some swear, and shall not I Plead th' old excuse, * and join the babbling cry?

But ah, my lays no dying Patriot † read, While Holland wept, and Bayley shook his head : Stay greedy Death,‡ for Britain's sake, thine Hand, Take any ten-his Ransom! through the Land, Take all the Talents, Tyrant ; are not those Enough? take G-s, and for a make-weight R

capitalists have been ruined; whereas large fortunes have been made by working mines of copper, or of lead; and perhaps even larger profits have arisen from an article of still less value, namely coal; which has on this account been termed, not inaptly, the Black Diamond. Milton was proprietor of a gold mine on Parnassus, but he was Poor, "divite Vena." For his Paradise lost he received only fifteen pounds paid by Instal ments. Johnson went a begging with his London in his hand; many Booksellers refused even to run the risk of printing it ; at length, Dodsley, who was certainly the most liberal Mæcænas of his day, after printing it, ventured to remunerate the Author with ten Pounds, for a Poem which, as it were, electrified the metropolis, and extorted the strongest approba tion from Pope; who, from that moment, in satire at least, could no longer be said to have "No Rival near the Throne."

* "Semper Ego Auditor tantum."

That Mr. Crabbe's Poems were read to Mr. Fox on his death-bed, is a fact as creditable to the talents of the one, as to the taste of the other.

Vicerunt."

"Sed multæ Urbes, nec publica Vota