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To these young tyrants, by themselves misplaced, | In turns appear, to make the vulgar stare,
Combined 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;
If not yet sicken'd, you can still proceed:
Go on; my rhyme will tell you as you read.
But hold! exclaims a friend,—here's some neglect;
This-that-and 't other line seem incorrect.
What then? the self-same blunder Pope has got,
And careless Dryden-ay-but Pye has not,-
Indeed!-'tis granted, faith-but what care I?
Better to err with Pope, than shine with Pye.

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 aspired to claim,
And raised 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 Otway's
For

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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.

long review:

Behold! in various throngs the scribbling crew,
For notice eager
Each spurs his j

egasus 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 dullness still the friend,
Admires the strain she cannot comprehend.
Thus Lays of Minstrelst-may they be the last!-
On half-strung harps whine mournful to the blast.
While mountain spirits prate to river sprites,
That dames may listen to the sound at nights;
And goblin brats, of Gilpin Horner's brood,
Decoy young border-nobles through the wood,
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,
Despatch 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.

• Stott, better known in the "Morning Post" by the name of Hafiz This personage 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:

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 labor groans, And printers' devils shake their weary bones; While Southey's epics cram the creaking shelves, And Little's lyrics shinę in hot-press'd twelves. Thus saith the preacher: "Nought beneath the Lord have mercy on us! the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" was nothing to

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(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."

this.

↑ See the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," passim. Never was any plan so incongruous and absurd as the groundwork of this production. The entrance of Thunder and Lightning prologuizing to Bayes's tragedy unfortunate y 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 moss-trooper," videlicet, a happy compɔual of poacher, sheep-stealer, and highwayman. The propriety of his magical lady's injunction not to read can only be equalled by his candid acknowledg ment of his independence of the trammels of spelling, although, tɔ use his own elegant phrase, "twas his neck-verse at hairbee," 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-leagueo boots, are the chef de œuvres 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.

1

A bard may chant too often and too long:
As thou art strong in verse, in mercy spare!
A fourth, alas! were more than we could bear.
But if, in spite of all the world can say,
Thou still wilt verseward plod thy weary way;
If still in Berkley ballads most uncivil,
Thou wilt devote old women to the devil,t
The babe unborn thy dread intent may rue:
"God help thee," Southey, and thy readers too.

And think'st thou, Scott! by vain conceit perchance, | Oh! Southey! Southey!* cease thy varied song !
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.
Let such forego the poet's sacred name,
Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame:
Still for stern Mammon may they toil in vain,
And sadly gaze on gold they cannot gain!
Such be their meed, such still the just reward
Of prostituted muse and hireling bard!
For this we spurn Apollo's; son,
And bid a long

"good nigharmion."

These are the themes that claim our plaudits now;
These are the bards to whom the muse must bow;
While Milton, Dryden, Pope, alike forgot,
Resign their hallow'd bays to Walter Scott.

The time has been, when yet the muse was young,
When Homer swept the lyre, and Maro sung,
An epic scarce ten centuries could claim,
While awe-struck nations hail'd the magic name!
The work of each immortal bard appears
The single wonder of a thousand years.†
Empires have moulder'd from the face of earth,
Tongues have expired with those who gave them
birth,

Without the glory such a strain can give,
As even in ruin bids the language live.
Not so with us, though minor bards content,
On one great work a life of labor spent:
With eagle pinions soaring to the skies,
Behold the ballad-monger Southey rise!
To him let Camoens, Milton, Tasso yield,
Whose annual strains, like armies, take the field.
First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance,
The scourge of England and the boast of France!
Though burnt by wicked Bedford for a witch,
Behold her statue placed in glory's niche;
Her fetters burst, and just released from prison,
A virgin phoenix from her ashes risen.
Next see tremendous Thalaba come on,
Arabia's monstrous, wild and wond'rous son;
Domdaniel's dread destroyer, who o'erthrew
More mad magicians than the world e'er knew.
Immortal hero! all thy foes o'ercome,
For ever reign-the rival of Tom Thumb!
Since startled metre fied before thy face,
Well wert thou doom'd the last of all thy race!
Well might triumphant genii bear thee hence,
Illustrious conquerer of common sense!
Now, last and greatest Madoc spreads his sails,
Cacique in Mexico and prince in Wales:
Tells us strange tales, as other travellers do,
More old than Mandeville's and not so true.

• "Good night to Marraion "the pathetic and also prophetic exclamation Henry Blount, Esquire, on the death of honest Marmion.

↑ As the Odyssey is so closely connected with the story of the Iliad, they may almost be classed as one grand historical poem. In alluding to Milton and Tasso, we consider the "Paradise Lost," and "Gierusalemme Liberata," as their standard efforts, since neither the "Jerusalem Conquered" of the Italian, nor the "Paradise Regained" of the English bard, obtained a proportionate celebrity to their former poems. Query: Which of Mr. Southey's will survive?

Next comes the dull disciple of thy schoo.,
That mild apostate from poetic rule,
The simple Wordsworth, framer of a lay
As soft as evening in his favorite May,
Who warns his friend "to shake off toil and trouble
And quit his books for fear of growing double; "I
Who, both by precept and example, shows
That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose;
Convincing all, by demonstration plain,
Poetic souls delight in prose insane;
And Christmas stories tortured into rhyme
Contain the essence of the true sublime.
Thus, when he tells the tale of Betty Foy,
The idiot mother of "an idiot boy;"
A moon-struck, silly lad, who lost his way,
And, like his bard, confounded night with day; ¶
So close on each pathetic part he dwells,
And each adventure so sublimely tells,
That all who view the "idiot in his glory,
Conceive the bard the hero of the story,

Shall gentle Coleridge pass unnoticed here,
To turgid ode and tumid stanza dear?
Though themes of innocence amuse him best,
Yet still obscurity's a welcome guest.
If Inspiration should her aid refuse
To him who takes a pixy for a muse, **
Yet none in lofty numbers can surpass
The bard who soars to elegize an ass.
So well the subject suits his noble mind,
He brays, the laureat of the long-ear'd kind.††

We beg Mr. Southey's pardon: "Madoc dialains the degrading title a epic." See his preface. Why is epic degraded and by whom? Certainly the late romaunts of Masters Cortle, Laureat Pye, Ogilvy, Hole, and gentle Mistress Cowley, have not exalted the epic muse; but as Mr. Southey's poem "died ins the appellation," allow us to ask-has he substituted any thing better instead? or must be be content to rival Sir Richard Blackmore in the quantity as well as the quality of his verse?

† See "The Old Woman of Berkley," a ballad, by Mr. Southey, wherein as
aged gentlewoman is carried away by Beelzebub, on a "high-trotting horse."
The last line, "God help thee," is an evident plagiarism from the Anti-
Jacobin to Mr. Southey, on his dactylics:
"God help thee, silly one!'
!"
Poetry of the Anti-jacobin, p. 25.
Against this passage on Wordsworth and Coleridge, Lord Byron
written "unjust."

Lyrical Ballads, p. 4.-" The Tables Turned." Stanza I.
"Up, up, my friend, and clear your looks;

Why all this toil and trouble?

Up, up, my friend, and quit your books,

Or surely you'll grow double."

Mr. W. in his preface labors hard to prove that prose and verse ass much the same; and certainly his precepts and practice are strictly com formable.

"And thus to Betty's questions, he

Made answer like a traveller bold,
The cock did crow, to whoo, to-whoo,
And the suu did shine so cold," &c. &c.
Lyrical Ballads, p. 129.

* Coleridge's Poerne, p. 11, Songs of the Pixies, i. e. Devonshire fairies; Thalaba, Mr. Southey's second poem, is written in open defiance of pre-p. 42, we have "Lines to a Young Lady;" and p. 52, "Lines to a young sedent and poetry. Mr. S. wished to produce something novel, and succeeded Ass."

to a miracle. Joan of Arc was marvellous enough, but Thalaba was one of 11 He brays, the laureat of the long-ear'd kind.-Altered by Lori Byron those poems" which," in the words of Purson, "will be read when Homer in his last revision of the satire. In all former editions the line stood, and Virgi are forgotten, but-not till then,”

"A fellow-feeling makes us wond'rous kind."

Oh! wonder-working Lewis! monk, or bard,
Who fain wouldst make Parnassus a church-yard!
Lo! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy brow,
Thy muse a sprite, Apollo's sexton thou!
Whether on ancient tombs thou takest thy stand,
By gibb'ring spectres hail'd thy kindred band;
Or tracest chaste description on thy page,
To please the females of our modest age:
All hail, M. P. !* from whose infernal brain
Thin sheeted phantoms glide, a grisly train;
At whose command "grim women" throng
crowds,

And kings of fire, of water, and of clouds,

Whether he spin poor couplets into plays,
Or damn the dead with purgatorial praise,
His style in youth or age is still the same,
For ever feeble and for ever tame.
Triumphant first see "Temper's Triumphs" shine'
At least I'm sure they triumph'd over mine.
Of "Music's Triumphs," all who read my swear
That luckless music never triumph'd there.

Moravians, rise! bestow some meet reward
in On dull devotion-lo! the Sabbath bard,
|Sepulchral Grahame, pours his notes sublime
In mangled prose, nor e'en aspires to rhyme;

With "small gray men," "wild yagers," and what- Breaks into blank the Gospel of St. Luke,†

not,

To crown with honor thee and Walter Scott;
Again all hail! if tales like thine may please,
St. Luke alone can vanquish the disease;
Even Satan's self with thee might dread to dwell,
And in thy skull discern a deeper hell.

Who in soft guise, surrounded by a choir
Of virgins melting, not to Vesta's fire,
With sparkling eyes and cheek by passion flush'd,
Strikes his wild lyre, whilst listening dames are
hush'd?

'Tis Little! young Catullus of his day,
As sweet, but as immoral, in his lay!
Grieved to condemn, the muse must still be just,
Nor spare melodious advocates of lust.
Pure is the flame which o'er her altar burns;
From grosser incense with disgust she turns:
Yet kind to youth, this expiation o'er,
She bids thee "mend thy line,† and sin no

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And boldly pilfers from the Pentateuch;
And, undisturb'd by conscientious qualms,
Perverts the Prophets, and purloins the Psalms.‡

[years.

Hail, Sympathy! thy soft idea brings
A thousand visions of a thousand things,
And shows, still whimpering through threescore of
The maudlin prince of mournful sonneteers.

And art thou not their prince, harmonious Bowles! |
Thou first, great oracle of tender souls?

Whether thou sing'st with equal ease, and grief,
The fall of empires, or a yellow leaf;
Whether thy muse most lamentably tells
What merry sounds proceed from Oxford bells.¶
Or, still in bells delighting, finds a friend
In every chime that jingled from Ostend;
Ah! how much juster were thy muse's hap,
If to thy bells thou wouldst but add a cap!
Delightful Bowles! still blessing and still blest,
more."All love thy strain, but children like it best:
'Tis thine, with gentle Little's moral song,
To soothe the mania of the amorous throng!
With thee our nursery damsels shed their tears,
Ere miss as yet completes her infant years:
But in her teens thy whining powers are vain;
She quits poor Bowles for Little's purer strain.
Now to soft themes thou scornest to confine
The lofty numbers of a harp like thine,
"Awake a louder and a loftier strain,"
Such as none heard before, or will again !

For thee, translator of the tinsel song,
To whom such glittering ornaments belong,
Hibernian Strangford! with thine eyes of blue,‡
And boasted locks of red or auburn hue,
Whose plaintive strain each love-sick miss admires,
And o'er harmonious fustianý half expires,
Learn, if thou canst, to yield thine author's sense,
Nor vend thy sonnets on a false pretence.
Think'st thou to gain thy verse a higher place,
By dressing Camoens in a suit of lace!
Mend, Strangford! mend thy morals and thy taste;
Be warm, but pure; be amorous, but chaste:
Cease to deceive; thy pilfer'd harp restore,
Nor teach the Lusian bard to copy Moore.

"麥

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Behold!-ye tarts! one moment spare the text-In the first edition, Hayley's last work, and worst-until his next;

"For every one knows little Matt's an M. P."-See a poem to Mr. Lewis, in The Statesman, supposed to be written by Mr. Jekyll.

↑ In the original manuscript, " Mend thy life."

The reader, who may wish for an explanation of this, may refer to

"Strangford's Camoens," page 127, note to page 56, or to the last page of

the Edinburgh Review of Strangford's Camoens.

§ Fustian; in the first edition, nonsense,

It is also to be remarked, that the things given to the public as poems of Camoens are no more to be found in the original Portugese, than in the

Songs of Solomon.

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were originally printed:

"In many marble-cover'd volumes view

Hayley, in vain attempting something new ;

Whether he spins his comedies in rhyme,

Or scrawl, an Wood and Barclay walk, 'gainst time'

"Breaks into mawkish lines each holy book." Mr. Grahame has poured forth two volumes of cant, under the name of "Sabbath Walks," and "Biblical Pictures."

§ Still whimpering through threescore of years.-Thus altered in the fifth edition. The original reading was,

"Dissolved in thine own melting tears."
Whether thou sing'st, &c.-This couplet, in all the editions before o
fifth, was printed,

"Whether in sighing winds thou seek'st relief,
Or consolation in a yellow leaf."

T See Bowles's Sonnets, &c.-" Sonnet to Oxford," and "Stannas on

hearing the Bells of Ostend."

**"Awake a louder," &c., &c., is the first line in Bowles's "Spirit of Discovery; " a very spirited and pretty dwarf epic. Among other exquisite lines we have the following:

"A kiss

Stole on the list ning silence, never yet

Here heard; they trembled even as if the power," &c., &c. That is, the woods of Madeira trembled to a kiss, very much astonished, as well they might be, at such a phenomenon.

[Misquoted and misunderstood by me; but not intentionally. It was noj the "woods," but the people in them who trembled-why, Heaven only knows-unless they were overheard making the prodigious smack.-MS. note by Lord Byron. 1816.

Where all discoveries jumbled from the flood,
Since first the leaky ark reposed in mud,
By more or less, are sung in every book,
From Captain Noah down to Captain Cook.
Nor this alone; but, pausing on the road,
The bard sighs forth a gentle episode ;*

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Baotian Cottle, rich Bristowa's boast,
Imports old stories from the Cambrian coast,
And sends his goods to market-all alive!
Lines forty thousand, cantos twenty-five!
Fresh fish from Helicon! who'll buy! who'll buy?
The precious bargain's cheap-in faith not I.

And gravely tells-attend, each beauteous miss! Your turtle-feeder's verse must needs be flat,
When first Madeira trembled to a kiss.

Bowles! in thy memory let this precept dwell,
Stick to thy sonnets, man! at least they sell.†
But if some new-born whim, or larger bribe,
Prompt thy crude brain, and claim thee for a scribe;
If chance some bard, though once by dunces fear'd,
Now, prone in dust, can only be revered;
If Pope whose fame and genius from the first
Have foil'd the best of critics, needs the worst,
Do thou essay; each fault, each failing scan;
The first of poets was, alas! but man.
Rake from each ancient dunghill ev'ry pearl,
Consult Lord Fanny, and confide in Curll; ‡
Let all the scandals of a former age
Perch on thy pen, and flutter o'er thy page;
Affect a candor which thou canst not feel,
Clothe envy in the garb of honest zeal;
Write, as if St. John's soul could still inspire,
And do for hate what Mallet§ did for hire.
Oh! had'st thou lived in that congenial time,
To rave with Dennis, and with Ralph to rhyme ; ||
Throng'd with the rest around his living head,
Not raised thy hoof against the lion dead;
A meet reward had crown'd thy glorious gains,
And link'd thee to the Dunciad for thy pains.**

++ Another epic! Who inflicts again
More books of blank upon the sons of men?

• The episode above alluded to is the story of "Robert a Machin" and "Aune d'Arfet," a pair of constant lovers, who performed the kiss above mentioned, that startled the woods of Madeira.

t

"Stick to thy sonnets, man at least they sell:

Or take the only path that open lies
For modern worthies who would hope to rise:
Fix on some well-known name, and, bit by bit,
Pare off the merits of his worth and wit;
On each alike employ the critic's knife,
And when a comment fails, prefix a life;
Hint certain failings, faults before unknown,
Review forgotten lies, and add your own;
Let no discase, let no misfortune 'scape,
And print, if luckily deformed, his shape:
Thus shall the world, quite undeceived at last,
Cleave to their present wits, and quit their past;
Bards once revered no more with favor view,
But give the modern sonneteers their due:
Thus with the dead may living merit cope,

Thus Bowles may triumph o'er the shade of Pope."

In the first edition, the observations on Bowles ended with these lines, which were written by a friend of Lord Byron, and omitted when the satire was published with the author's name. The following fifty-five verses, containing the conclusion of the passage on Bowles, and the notices of Cottle and Maurice, were then printed for the first time.

Curil is one of the heroes of the Dunciad, and was a bookseller. Lord Fanny is the poetical name of Lord Hervey, author of "Lines to the Imitator of Horace."

§ Lord Bolingbroke hired Mallet to traduce Pope after his docense, because the poet had retained some copies of a work by Lord Bolingbroke, (the Patriot King,) which that splendid, but malignant genius, had ordered to be

desty.

Des the critic, and Ralph the rhymester.

"Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls,
Making night hideous: answer him, ye owls!"

Dunciad,

And line'd thee to the Dunciad for thy pains.-Too savage all this on Bowles.-MS. note by Lord Byron. 1816.

** See Bowles's late edition of Pope's works, for which he received three Bundred pounds: thus Mr. B. has experienced how much easier it is to profit by the reputation of another than to elevate his own.

tt Another epic!-Opposite this passage on Joseph and Amos Cottle, Lord Byron has written, “All right.”

• Hobhouse.

Though Bristol bloat him with the verdant fat;
If Commerce fills the purse, she clogs the brain,
And Amos Cottle strikes the lyre in vain.
In him an author's luckless lot behold,
Condemn'd to make the books which once he sold
Oh, Amos Cottle!-Phoebus! what a name
To fill the speaking trump of future fame!-
Oh, Amos Cottle! for a moment think
What meagre profits spring from pen and ink!
When thus devoted to poetic dreams,
Who will peruse thy prostituted reams?
Oh pen perverted! paper misapplied!
Had Cottle still adorn'd the counter's side,
Bent o'er the desk, or, born to useful toils,
Been taught to make the paper which he soils,
Plough'd, delved, or plied the oar with lusty limb,
He had not sung of Wales, nor I of him.§

As Sisyphus against the infernal steep
Rolls the huge rock whose motions ne'er may sleep
So up thy hill, ambrosial Richmond, heaves
Dull Maurice | all his granite weight of leaves:
Smooth solid monuments of mental pain!
The petrifactions of a plodding brain,
That, ere they reach the top, fall lumbering back

[again

With broken lyre, and cheek serenely pale,
Lo! sad Alcæus wanders down the vale;
Though fair they rose, and might have bloom'd at
last,

His hopes have perish'd by the northern blast:
Nipp'd in the bud by Caledonian gales,
His blossoms wither as the blast prevails!
O'er his lost works let classic Sheffield weep!
May no rude hand disturb their early sleep! ¶

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Your turtle feeder's verse, &c.-This couplet was altered in the dif edition. It originally stood:

"Too much in turtle Bristol's sons delight,

Too much o'er bowls of sack prolong the night,"

Mr. Cottle, Amos, Joseph, I don't know which, but one or both, onse sellers of books they did not write, and now writers of books that do not sell, have published a pair of epics. "Alfred," (poor Alfred! Pye has been at him too 1) "Alfred," and the "Fall of Cambria."

He had not sung of Wales, nor I of him.-I saw some letters of this fellow (Joseph Cottle) to an unfortunate poetess, whose productions, which the poor woman by no means thought vainly of, he attacked so roughly and bitterly, that I could hardly resist assailing him, even were it unjust, which i is not-for verily he is an ass.-MS. note by Lord Byron. 1816.

Mr. Maurice hath manufactured the component parts of a ponderous quarto upon the beauties of "Richmond Hill," and the like:-it also takes in a charming view of Turnham Green, Hammersmith, Brentford, Old and New, and the parts adjacent.

T Poor Montgomery ! though praised by every English Review, has been bitterly reviled by the Edinburgh. After all, the bard of Sheffield is a man of considerable genius: his "Wanderer of Switzerland," is worth a thousand "Lyrical "ade," and at least fifty "degraded epics."

* See Lord Byron's letter to Mr. Murry, June 13, 1813, volume 2.

Aged or young, the living or the dead,

No mercy find-these harpies must be fed.
Why do the injured unresisting yield
The calm possession of their native field?
Why tamely thus before their fangs retreat,
Nor hunt the bloodhounds back to Arthur's Seat?*|

Health to immortal Jeffrey! once, in name,
England could boast a judge almost the same;
In soul so like, so merciful, yet just,
Some think that Satan has resign'd his trust,
And given the spirit to the world again,
To sentence letters, as he sentenced men.
With hand less mighty, but with heart as black,
With voice as willing to decree the rack;
Bred in the courts betimes, though all that law
As yet hath taught him is to find a flaw;
Since well instructed in the patriot school
To rail at party, though a party tool,
Who knows, if chance his patrons should restore
Back to the sway they forfeited before,

His scribbling toils some recompense may meet,
And raise this Daniel to the judgment seat? +
Let Jeffries' shade indulge the pious hope,
And greeting thus, present him with a rope:
"Heir to my virtues! man of equal mind!
Skill'd to condemn as to traduce mankind,
This cord receive, for thee reserved with care,
To wield in judgment, and at length to wear."

Health to great Jeffrey! Heaven preserve his life,
To flourish on the fertile shores of Fife,
And guard it sacred in its future wars,
Since authors sometimes seek the field of Mars!
Can none remember that eventful day,‡
That ever glorious, almost fatal fray,
When Little's leadless pistol met his eye,
And Bow-street myrmidons stood laughing by ? §
Oh, day disastrous! On her firm-set rock,
Dunedin's castle felt a secret shock:
Dark roll'd the sympathetic waves of Forth,
Low groan'd the startled whirlwinds of the north;
Tweed ruffled half his wave to form a tear,
The other half pursued its calm career; ||
Arthur's steep summit nodded to its base,
The surly Tolbooth scarcely kept her place.
The Tolbooth felt-for marble sometimes can,
On such occasions, feel as much as man-
The Tolbooth felt defrauded of his charms,
If Jeffery died, except within her arms: ¶

• Arthur's seat; the hill which overhangs Edinburgh.

↑ And raise this Daniel to the judgment-seat.-Too ferocious-this is mere insanity. MS. note by Lord Byron. 1816.

Nay last, not least, on that portentous morn,
The sixteenth story, where himself was born,
His patrimonial garret, fell to ground,
And pale Edina shudder'd at the sound:
Strew'd were the streets around with milk-white
reams,

Flow'd all the Canongate with inky streams;
This of his candor seem'd the sable dew,
That of his valor show'd the bloodless hue;
And all with justice deem'd the two combined
The mingled emblems of his mighty mind.
But Caledonia's goddess hover'd o'er

The field, and saved him from the wrath of Moore;
From either pistol snatch'd the vengeful lead,
And straight restored it to her favorite's head:
That head, with greater than magnetic pow'r,
Caught it, as Danae caught the golden show'r,
And, though the thickening dross will scarce refine,
Augments its ore, and is itself a mine.

"My son," she cried, "ne'er thirst for gore again,
Resign the pistol, and resume the pen ;
O'er politics and poesy preside,

Boast of thy country, and Britannia's guide?
For long as Albion's heedless sons submit,
Or Scottish taste decides on English wit,
So long shall last thine unmolested reign,
Nor any dare to take thy name in vain.
Behold, a chosen band shall aid thy plan,
And own thee chieftain of the critic clan.
First in the oat-fed phalanx shall be seen
The travell'd Thane, Athenian Aberdeen.†
Herbert shall wield Thor's hammer, and sometimes,
In gratitude, thou'lt praise his rugged rhymes.
Smug Sydney § too thy bitter page shall seek,
And classic Hallam,|| much renown'd for Greek;
Scott may perchance his name and influence lend,
And paltry Pillans ¶ shall traduce his friend;
While gay Thalia's luckless votary, Lambe,**
Damn'd like the devil, devil-like will damn.tt
Known be thy name, unbounded be thy sway!
Thy Holland's banquets shall each toil repay;

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Can none remember, &c.—All this is bad, because personal.-MS. note were Pindar's till the press rendered it impossible to cancel the critique, which by Lord Byron. 1816.

5 In 1806, Messrs. Jeffrey and Moore met at Chalk-Farm. The duel was prevented by the interference of the magistracy; and, on examination, the balls of the pistols were found to have evaporated. This incident gave occasion to much waggery in the daily prints.

I am informed that Mr. Moore published at the time a disavowal of the statements in the newspapers, as far as regarded himself; and in justice to him I mention this circumstance. As I never heard of it before, I cannot Pate the particulars, and was only made acquainted with the fact very lately.-November 4, 1811.

The Tweed here behaved with proper decorum; It would have been highly reprehensible in the English half of the river to have shown the mallest symptom of apprehension.

This display of sympathy on the part of the Tolbooth (the principal prison in Edinburgh), which truly seems to have been most affected on this occasion, is much to be commended. It was to be apprehended, that the many unhappy criminals executed in the front might have rendered the edifice more callous. She is said to be of the softer sex, because her delicacy of feeling on this day was truly feminine, though, like most feminine impul sea, perhaps a little selfish.

still stands an everlasting monument of Hallam's ingenuity."

The sail Hallam is incensed because he is falsely accused, seeing that he never dineth at Holland House. If this be true, I am sorry-not for having said so, but on his account, as I understand his lordship's feasts are preferable to his compositions.-If he did not review Lord Holland's performance, 1 am. glad, because it must have been painful to read, and irksome to praise it. I Mr. Hallam will tell me who did review it, the real name shall find a place in the text; provided, nevertheless, the said name be of two orthodox musical syllables, and will come into the verse: till then, Hallam must stand for want of a better.

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