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But why this vain advice? once published, books

Can never be recall'd-from pastry cooks!

The muse, like mortal females, may be woo'd; In turns she'll seem a Paphian or a prude;

Though "Madoc," with "Pucelle," ," instead of Fierce as a bride when first she feels affright,

punk,

May travel back to Quito-on a trunk! †

Orpheus, we learn from Ovid and Lempriere,
Led all wild beasts but women by the ear;
And had he fiddled at the present hour,
We'd seen the lions waltzing in the Tower:
And old Amphion, such were minstrels then,
Had built St. Paul's without the aid of Wren.
Verse too was justice, and the bards of Greece
Did more than constables to keep the peace;
Abolish'd cuckoldom with much applause,
Call'd county meetings, and enforced the laws,
Cut down crown influence with reforming scythes,
And served the church without demanding tithes;
And hence, throughout all Hellas and the East,
Each poet was a prophet and a priest,
Whose old-establish'd board of joint controls
Included kingdoms in the cure of souls.

Next rose the martial Homer, epic's prince,
And fighting's been in fashion ever since;
And old Tyrtæus, when the Spartan's warr'd,
(A limping leader, but a lofty bard,)
Though wall'd Ithome had resisted long,
Reduced the fortress by the force of song.

When oracles prevail'd, in times of old,
In song alone Apollo's will was told.
Then if your verse is what all verse should be,
And gods were not ashamed on't, why should we?

tial evidence being since strong against the "Curse of Kehama," of which the above words are an exact description,) it will be tried by its peers next session, in Grub-street.-Arthur, Alfred, Davideis, Richard Cœur de Lion, Exodus, Exodia, Epigoniad, Calvary, Fall of Cambria, Seige of Acre, Don Rod erick, and Tom Thumb the Great, are the names of the twelve jurors. The judges are Pye, Bowles, and the Bellman of St. Sepulchre's. The same advocates, pro and con, will be employed as are now engaged in Sir F. Burdett's celebrated cause in the Scotch courts The public anxiously await the result, and all live publishers will be subpoenaed as witnesses.

But Mr. Southey has published the "Curse of Kehama:" an inviting title to quibblers. By the by, it is a good deal beneath Scott and Campbell, and not much above Southey, to allow the booby Ballantyne to entitle them, in the Edinburgh Annual Register (of which, by the by, Southey is editor) "the grand poetical triumvirate of the day." But, on second thoughts, it can be no great degree of praise to be the one-eyed leaders of the blind, though they might as well keep to themselves "Scott's thirty thousand copies sold," which must sadly discomfit poor Southey's unsaleables. Poor Southey, it should seem, is the "Lepidus" of this poetical triumvirate. I am only sur Frised to see him in such good company.

"Such things we know are neither rich nor rare,

But wonder how the devil he came there."

The trio are well defined in the sixth proposition of Euclid: "Because, in the triangles DBC, ACB, DB is equal to AC, and BC, common to both; the two sides DB, BC, are equal to the two AC, CB, each to each, and the angle DEC is equal to the angle ACB: therefore, the base DC is equal to the base AB, and the triangle DBC (Mr. Southcy) is equal to the triangle ACB, the leas to the greater, which is absurd," &c.-The editor of the Edinburgh Reg. ister will find the rest of the theorem hard by his stabiing: he has only to cross the river; 'tis the first turnpike 'tother side "Pons Asinorum."

• Voltaire's "Pucelle" is not quite so immaculate as Mr. Southey's "Joan of Arc," and yet I am afraid the Frenchman has both more truth and poetry too on his side-(they rarely go together)-than our patriotic minstrel, whose first essay was in praise of a fanatical French strumpet, whose title of witch would be correct with the change of the first letter.

↑ Like Sir B. Burgess's Richard, the tenth book of which I read at Malta, on a trunk of Eyres, 19 Cockapur street. If this be doubted, 1 shall buy a portmantean to quote from.

• This Latin has sorely puzzled the University of Edinburgh. Ballantyne said it meant the "Bridge of Berwick," but Southey claimed it as half English; Scott swore it was the "Brig o' Stirling;" he had just passed two King James's and a dozen Douglasses over it. At last it was decided by Jeffrey, that it meant nothing more nor less than "the counter of Archy Constable's shop."

Mild as the same upon the second night;
Wild as the wife of alderman or peer,
Now for his grace, and now a grenadier!
Her eyes beseem, her heart belies, her zone,
Ice in a crowd, and lava when alone.

If verse be studied with some show of art,
Kind nature always will perform her part.
Though without genius, and a native vein
Of wit, we loathe an artificial strain;
Yet art and nature join'd will win the prize,
Unless they act like us and our allies.

The youth who trains to ride or run a race,
Must bear privation with unruffled face,
Be call'd to labor when he thinks to dine,
And, harder still, leave wenching and his wine.
Ladies who sing, at least who sing at sight,
Have follow'd music through her farthest flight;
But rhymers tell you neither more nor less,
"I've got a pretty poem for the press;"
And that's enough; then write and print so fast;-
If Satan take the hindmost, who'd be last?
They storm the types, they publish; one and all.
They leap the counter, and they leave the stall.
Provincial maidens, men of high command,
Yea, baronet's have inked the bloody hand!
Cash cannot quell them; Pollio play'd this prank,
(Then Phoebus first found credit in a bank!)
Not all the living only, but the dead,
Fool on, as fluent as an Orpheus' head ;*

Cædibus et victu fœdo deterruit Orpheus:
Dictus ob hoc lenire tigres, rabidosque leones:
Dictus et Amphion, Thebanæ conditor arcis,
Saxa movere sono testudinis, et prece blanda
Ducere quo vellet: fuit hæc sapientia quondam,
Publica privatis secernere: sacra profanis;
Concubito prohibere vago; dare jura maritis;
Oppida moliri; leges incidere ligno.
Sic honor et nomen divinis vatibus atque
Carminibus venit. Post hos insignis Homerus
Tyrtæusque mares animos in Martia bella
Versibus exacuit; dicta per carmina sortes,
Et vitæ monstrata via est: et gratia regum
Pieriis tentata modis: ludusque repertus,
Et longorum operum finis: ne forte pudori
Sit tibi Musa lyræ solers, et cantor Apollo.

Natura fieret laudabile carmen, an arte,
Quæsitum est: ego nec studium sine divite vena,
Nec rude quid prosit video ingenium; alterius si:
Altera poscit opem res, et conjurat amice.
Qui studet optatam cursu contingere metam,
Multa tulit fecitque puer; sudavit et alsit;
Abstinuit Venere et vino: qui Pythia cantat
Tibicen, didicit prius, extimuitque magistrum.
Nunc satis est dixisse; Ego mira poemata
pango;

Occupet extremum scabies; mihi turpe relinqui Et quod non didici, sane nescire fateri.

-Si carmina condes, Nunquam te fallant animi sub vulpe latentes. Quintilio si quid recitares, Corrige, sodes Hoc (aiebat) et hoc: melius te posse negares,

• "Tum quoque marmorea caput a cervice revulsum,
Gurgite cum medio portans Eagrius Hebrus,
Volveret Eurydicen vox ipsa, et frigida lingua;
Ab, miseram Eurydicen! anima fugiente vocabat;
Eurydicen toto referebant flumine npæ.-Georgie, iv. 523

Damn'd all their days, they posthumously thrive-
Dug up from dust, though buried when alive!
Reviews record this epidemic crime,

Those "Books of Martyrs" to the rage for rhyme.
Alas! wo worth the scribbler! often seen
In Morning Post or Monthly Magazine.
There lurk his earlier lays; but soon, hot-prest,
Behold a quarto!-Tarts must tell the rest.
Then leave, ye wise, the lyre's precarious chords,
To muse-mad baronets or madder lords,
Or country Crispins, now grown somewhat stale,
Twin Doric minstrels, drunk with Doric ale!
Hark to those notes, narcotically soft!
The cobbler laureats sing to Capel Lofft!†
Till, lo! that modern Midas, as he hears,
Adds an ell growth to his egregious ears!

There lives one druid who prepares in time
'Gainst future feuds his poor revenge of rhyme;
Racks his dull memory, and his duller muse,
To publish faults which friendship should excuse.
If friendship's nothing, self-regard might teach
More polish'd usage of his parts of speech.
But what is shame, or what is aught, to him?
He vents his spleen or gratifies his whim.

Bis terque expertum frustra, delere jubebat,
Et male tornatos incudi reddere versus.
Si defendere delictum quam vertere malles,
Nullum ultra verbum, aut operam insumebat
inanem,

|Some fancied slight has roused his lurking hate,
Some folly cross'd, some jest, or some debate;
Up to his den Sir Scribbler hies, and soon
The gather'd gall is voided in lampoon.
Perhaps at some pert speech you've dared to frown
Perhaps your poem may have pleased the town;
If so, alas, 'tis nature in the man-
May heaven forgive you, for he never can!
Then be it so; and may his withering bays
Bloom fresh in satire, though they fade in praise!
While his lost songs no more shall steep and stink,
The dullest, fattest weeds on Lethe's brink,
But springing upwards from the sluggish mould,
Be (what they never were before)-be sold!
Should some rich bard, (but such a monster now,
In modern physics, we can scarce allow,)
Should some pretending scribbler of the court,
Some rhyming peer-there's plenty of the sort-
All but one poor dependent priest withdrawn,
(Ah! too regardless of his chaplain's yawn!)
Condemn the unlucky curate to recite
Their last dramatic work by candle-light,
How would the preacher turn eacn rueful leaf,
Dull as his sermons, but not half so brief!
Yet, since 'tis promised at the rector's death,
He'll risk no living for a little breath.

Quin sine rivali teque et tua solus amares.

Vir bonus et prudens versus reprehendet inertes: Culpabit duros; incomptis allinet atrum Transverso calamo signum; ambitiosa recidet Ornamenta; parum claris lucem dare coget;

⚫ I beg Nathaniel's pardon; he is not a cobbler; it is a tailor, but begged • Here will Mr. Gifford allow me to introduce once more to his notice the Capel Lofft to sink the profession in his preface to two pair of panta-psha! sole survivor, the "ultimus Romanorum," the last of the "Cruscanti !"— of cantos, which he wished the public to try on; but the sieve of a patron let it" Edwin," the "profound," by our Lady of Punishment! here he is sa out, and so far saved the expense of an advertisement to his country custo-lively as in the days of "well said Baviad the Correct." I thought Fitzgeraldi mers.-Merry's "Moorfield's whine" was nothing to all this. The "Della had been the tail of poesy, but, alas! he is only the penultimate. Cruscans" were people of some education, and no profession: but these Ar

CHRONICLE.

cadians ("Arcades ambo "--bumpkins both) send out their native nonsense A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING without the smallest alloy, and leave all the shoes and smallclothes in the parish unrepaired, to patch up Elegies on Enclosures and Peans to Gunpowder. Sitting on a shopboard, they describe fields of battle, when the only blood they ever saw was shed from the finger; and an "Essay on War" is produced by the ninth part of a "poet."

"And own that nine such poets made a Tate."

Did Nathan ever read that line of Pope? and if he did, why not take it as his motto?

†This well-meaning gentleman has spoiled some excellent shoemakers, and been accessory to the poetical undoing of many of the industrious poor. Nathaniel Bloomfield and his brother Bobby have set all Somersetshire sing Ing; nor has the malady confined itself to one county. Pratt too, (who once was wiser,) has caught the contagion of patronage, and decoyed a poor fellow named Blackett into poetry; but he died during the operation, leaving one child and two volumes of "Remains " utterly destitute. The girl, if she don't take a poetical twist, and come forth as a shoemaking Sappho, may do well; but the "tragedies" are as rickety as if they had been the offspring of an Earl or a Seatonian prize poet. The patrons of this poor lad are certainly answerable for his end, and it ought to be an indictable offence. But this is the least they have done, for, by a refinement of barbarity, they have made the (late) man posthumously ridiculous, by printing what he would have had sense enough never to print himself. Certes these rakers of "Remains " come under the statute against "resurrection men." What does it signify whether a poor, dear, dead dunce is to be stuck up in Surgeons' or in Stationers' Hall? Is it so bad to unearth his bones as his blunders? Is it not better to gibbet his body on a heath, than his soul in an octavo? "We know what we are, but we know not what we may be;" and it is to be hoped we never shall know, if a man who has passed through life with a sort of eclat is to find himself a mountebank on the other side of Styx, and made, like poor Joe Blackett, the laughing-stock of purgatory. The plea of publication is to provile for the child; now, might not some of this "Sutor ultra Crepidam's " friends and seducers have done a decent action without inveigling Pratt into biography? And then his inscription split into so many modicums!" To the Duchess of Somuch, the Rght Hon. So-and-So, and Mrs. and Miss Somebody, these volumes are, &c., &c."-why, this is doling out the "soft milk of dedication" in gills,-there is but a quart, and he divides it among a dozen. Why, Pratt, hadst thou not a puff left? Dost thou think six families of distinction can share this in quiet?-There is a child, a book, and a dedication; send the girl to her grace, the volume to the grocer, and the dedication to the devil.

"What reams of paper, floods of ink,”
Do some men spoil, who never think!
And so perhaps you'll say of me,
In which your readers may agree.
Still I write on, and tell you why;
Nothing's so bad, you can't deny,
But may instruct or entertain,
Without the risk of giving pain.
And should you doubt what 1 assert,
The name of Camden 1 insert,
Who novels read, and oft maintain'd
He here and there some knowledge gain'd:
Then why not I indulge my pen,
Though I no fame or profit gain,
Yet may amuse your idle men;
Of whom, though some may be severe,
Others may read without a sneer?
Thus much premised, I next proceed
To give you what I feel my creed,
And in what follows to display
Some humors of the passing day.

ON SOME MODERN QUACKS AND REFORMISTE.

In tracing of the human mind
Through all its various courses,
Though strange, 'tis true, we often find
It knows not its resources:

And men through life assume a part

For which no talents they possess,
Yet wonder that, with all their art,

They meet no better with success.
"Tis thus we see, through life's career,
So few excel in their profession;
Whereas, would each man but appear
In what's within his own possession,

Then spouts and foams, and cries at every line,
(The Lord forgive him !) "Bravo! grand! divine!"
Hoarse with those praises, (which, by flatt'ry fed,
Dependence barters for her bitter bread,)
He strides and stamps along with creaking boot,
Till the floor echoes his emphatic foot;
Then sits again, then rolls his pious eye,
As when the dying vicar will not die!
Nor feels, forsooth, emotion at his heart;
But all dissemblers overact their part.

Ye who aspire to build the lofty rhyme,
Believe not all who laud your false "sublime;"
But if some friend shall hear your work, and say,
"Expunge that stanza, lop that line away,"
And, after fruitless efforts, you return
Without amendment, and he answers "Burn!"
That instant throw your paper in the fire,
Ask not his thoughts, or follow his desire;
But if (true bard!) you scorn to condescend,
And will not alter what you can't defend,
If you will breed this bastard of your brains,-*
We'll have no words-I've only lost my pains.

Yet, if you only prize your favorite thought
As critics kindly do, and authors ought;
If your cool friend annoy you now and then,
And cross whole pages with his plaguy pen;
No matter, throw your ornaments aside-
Better let him than all the world deride.
Give light to passages too much in shade,
Nor let a doubt obscure one verse you've made;
Your friend's "a Johnson," not to leave one word,
However trifling, which may seem absurd;
Such erring trifles lead to serious ills,
And furnish food for critics,† or their quills.

Arguet ambigue dictum: mutanda notabit;
Fiet Aristarchus: nec dicet, Cur ego amicum
Offendam in nugis? hæ nugæ seria ducent
In mala derisum semel exceptumque sinistre.
Ut mala quem scabies aut morbus regius urguet,

We should not see such daily quacks
(For quacks there are in every art)
Attempting, by their strange attacks,
To meliorate the mind and heart.

Nor mean I here the stage alone,

Where some deserve th' applause they meet;
For quacks there are, and they well known,
In either house, who hold a seat.

Reform's the order of the day, I hear,
To which 1 cordially assent;

But then let this reform appear,

And every class of men cement.

For if you but reform a few,

And others leave to their full bent,

I fear you will but little do,

And find your time and pains misspent.

Let each man to his post assign'd
By Nature, take his part to act,
And then few causes shall we find
To call each man we meet-a quack.*

• Bastard of your brains.-Minerva being the first by Jupiter's headpiece, and a variety of such unaccountable parturitions upon earth, such as Madoc, &c., &c., &c.

↑ "A crust for the critics."-Bays, in the Rehearsal.

As the Scotch fiddle, with its touching tune,
Or the sad influence of the angry moon,
All men avoid bad writers' ready tongues,
As yawning waiters fly* Fitzscribble's lungs;
Yet on he mouths-ten minutes-tedious each
As prelate's homily or placeman's speech;
Long as the last years of a lingering lease,
When riot pauses until rents increase.
While such a minstrel, muttering fustian, strays
O'er hedge and ditch, through unfrequented ways,
If by some chance he walks into a well,
And shouts for succor with stentorian yell,
"A rope! help, Christians, as ye hope for grace!"
Nor woman, man, nor child will stir a pace;
For there his carcass he might freely fling,
From frenzy, or the humor of the thing,
Though this has happen'd to more bards than

one,

I'll tell you Budgell's story and have done.

Budgell a rogue and rhymester for no good,
(Unless his case be much misunderstood,)
When teased with creditors' continual claims,
"To die like Cato," leapt into the Thames!
And therefore be it lawful through the town
For any bard to poison, hang or drown.
Who saves the intended suicide receives
Small thanks from him who loathes the life he
leaves;

And, sooth to say, mad poets must not lose
The glory of that death they freely choose.

Nor is it certain that some sorts of verse
Prick not the poets conscience as a curse;
Dosed with vile drams on Sunday he was found,
Or got a child on consecrated ground!

Aut fanaticus error et iracunda Diana,
Vesanum tetigisse timent fugiuntque sequuntur.
Hic dum sublimes versus ructatur, et errat,
Si veluti merulis intentus decidit auceps
In puteum, foveamve; licet, Succurrite, longum
Clamet, Io cives! non sit qui tollere curet.
Si quis curet opem ferre, et demittere funem,
Qui scis an prudens huc se dejicerit, atque
Servari nolit? Dicam: Siculique poetæ
Narrabo interitum. Deus immortalis haberi
Dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus Etnam
Insiluit; sit jus, liceatque perire poetis:
Invitum qui servat, idem facit occidenti.
Nec semel hoc fecit; nec, si retractus erit, jam
Fiet homo, et ponet famosæ mortis amorem
Nec satis apparet cur versus factitet: utrum
Minxerit in patrios cineres, an triste bidental
Moverit incestus: certe furit, ac velut ursus,

And the "waiters" are the only fortunate people who can "fly" from them; all the rest, viz., the sad subscribers to the "Literary Fund," being compelled, by courtesy, to sit out the recitation, without a hope of exclaiming: "Sic" (that is, by choking Fitz, with bad wine or worse poetry) “me servavit Apollo ! "

↑ On his table were found these words: What Cato did and Addison ap proved cannot be wrong." But Addison did not "approve; " and if he had, it would not have mended the matter. He had invited his daughter on the same water party, but Miss Budgell, by some accident, escaped this last paternal attention. Thus fell the sycophant of "Atticus," and the enemy of Pope.

↑ If "dosed with," &c., be censured as low, I beg leave to refer to the original for something still lower; and if any reader will translate "Minx

• For such every man is who either appears to be what he is not, or strives erit in patrios cineres," &c., into a decent souplet, I will insert said couplet in lieu of the present.

to be what he cannt.

And hence is haunted with a rhyming rage-
Fear'd like a bear just bursting from his cage.
If free, all fly his versifying fit,
Fatal at once to simpleton or wit:

Objectos caveæ valuit si frangere clathros,
Indoctum doctumque fugat recitator acerbus.

But him, unhappy! whom he seizes,-him
He flays with recitation limb by limb;
Probes to the quick where'er he makes his breach.
And gorges like a lawyer or a leech.

Quem vero arripuit, tenet, occiditque legendo,
Non missura cutem, nisi plena cruoris, hirudo.

"Difficile est proprie communia dicere."-Mde. Dacier, Mde. de Sevigne, some thirty pages, I omit, particularly as M. Grouvelle observes, "La chom Boileau, and others, have left their dispute on the meaning of this passage in est bien remarquable, aucune de ces diverses interpretations ne parait être la a tract considerably longer than the poem of Horace. It is printed at the veritable." But, by way of comfort, it seems, fifty years afterwards, "Le close of the eleventh volume of Madame de Sevigné's Letters, edited by lumineux Dumarsais" made his appearance to set Horace on his legs again, Grouvelle, Paris, 1806. Presuming that all who can construe may venture an" dissaper tous les nuages, et concilier tous les dissentimens;" and, some opinion on such subjects, particularly as so many who can not have taken the fifty years hence, somebody, still more luminous, will doubtless start up and same liberty, I should have held my "farthing candle" as awkwardly as demolish Dumarsais and his system on this weighty affair, as if he were no another, had not my respect for the wits of Louis the Fourteenth's Augustan better than Ptolemy or Tycho, or comments of no more consequence than siecle induced me to subjoin these illustrious authorities. 1st, Boileau: "I astronomical calculations on the present comet. I am happy to say, "la est difficile de traiter des sujets qui sont à la portée de tout le monde d'une longueur de la dissertation" of M. D. prevents M. G. from saying any more manière qui vous les rende propes, ce qui s'apelle s'approprier un sujet par le on the matter. A better poet than Boileau, and at least as good a shear da tour qu'on y donne." 2lly, Batteux: "Mais il est bien difficile de donner Sevigué, has said, des traits propres et individuels aux éties purement possibles." 3dly, Dacier: "A little learning is a dangerous thing," "Il est difficile de traiter convenablement ces caractères que tout le monde and by this comparison of comments it may be perceived how a good des peut inventer." Mde. de Sevigne's opinion and translation, consisting of may be rendered as perilous to the proprietors.

THE CURSE OF MINERVA.

"Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas

Immolat, et pænam scelerato ex sanguine sumit."

NEID, lib. zii.

Athens, Capuchin Convent, March 17, 1811.
*SLOW sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea's hills the setting sun;
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light;
O'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows;
On old Ægina's rock and Hydra's isle
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O'er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast, the monntain-shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulf, unconquer'd Salamis!
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance,
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 looked his last.

• The lines with which this satire opens, to "As thus, within the walls of 'allas' faue," are repeated, with some alterations, at the commencement of the third canto of the Corsair.

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 sunk below Citharon's head,
The cup of wo was quaff'd-the spirit fled;
The soul of him that scorned to fear or fly,
Who lived and died as none can live or die.

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And bright around, with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkled 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 glimmering 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 pass'd 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 poets' 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!

Hours roll'd along, and Dian's orb on high
Had gain'd the centre of her softest sky;
And yet unwearied still my 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 appeared 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 wo!

I'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 honor 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!
Another name with his pollutes my shrine:
Behold where Dian's beams disdain'd to shine!
Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
When Venus half avenged Minerva's shame."t

She ceased awhile and thus I dared reply,
To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye:
"Daughter of Jove! in Britian's injured name,
A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim.
Frown not on England; England owns him not;
Athena! no! thy plunderer was a Scot.
Ask'st thou the difference? From fair Phyles

towers

Survey Boeotia; Caledonia's ours.

And well I know within that bastard land
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 wat'ry 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 every where 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.

"Mortal!"-'twas thus she spake-"that blush of Yet Caledonia claims some native worth,

shame

Proclaims thee Briton, once a noble name;
First of the mighty, foremost of the free,
Now honor'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.

• 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 Illissus has Do stream at all.

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;

• This is spoken of the city in general, and not of the Acropolis in partioular: the temple of Jupiter Olympus, by some supposed the Pantheon, was finished by Hadrian; sixteen columns are standing, of the most beautifu marble and architecture.

† 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 torm remnants of the basso relievos destroyed in a vain attempt to remove them. ↑ "Irish bastards," according to Sir Callaghan O'Brallaghan.

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