And though some trifling share of praise, Lines written beneath an Elm in the Church-yard of Spot of my youth! whose hoary branches sigh, Mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still, And seem to whisper, as they gently swell, When fate shall chill, at length, this fever'd breast, And calm its cares and passions into rest, Oft have I thought, 'twould soothe my dying hour,If aught may soothe when life resigns her power,To know some humbler grave, some narrow cell, Would hide my bosom where it loved to dwell; With this fond dream, methinks, 'twere sweet to dieAnd here it linger'd, here my heart might lie; Here might I sleep where all my hopes arose, Scene of my youth, and couch of my repose; For ever stretch'd beneath this mantling shade, Mix'd with the earth o'er which my footsteps moved; ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. A SATIRE. I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew, Than one of those same metre ballad-mongers.- Shakspeare. Such shameless bards we have; and yet 'tis true, There are as mad, abandon'd critics too.-Pope. PREFACE. ALL my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged me not to publish this Satire with my name. If I were to be turned from the career of my humour by quibbles quick, and paper bullets of the brain," I should have complied with their counsel. But I am not to be terrified by abuse, or bullied by reviewers, with or without arms. I can safely say that I have attacked none personally, who did not commence on the offensive. An author's works are public property: he who purchases may judge, and publish his opinion if he pleases; and the authors I have endeavoured to commemorate may do by me as I have done by them. I dare say they will succeed better in condemning my scribblings, than in mending their own. But my object is not to prove that I can write well, but, if possible, to make others write better. As the poem has met with far more success than I expected, I have endeavoured in this edition to make some additions and alterations, to render it more worthy of public perusal. In the first edition of this satire, published anonymously, fourteen lines on the subject of Bowles' Pope were written and inserted at the request of an ingenious friend of mine, who has now in the press a volume of poetry. In the present edition they are erased, and some of my own substituted in their stead; my only reason for this being, that which I conceive would operate with any other person in the same |