Mightiest of all Dunedin's beasts of chase!
For thee my Pegasus would mend his pace.
Arise, my Jeffrey! or my inkless pen

Shall never blunt its edge on meaner men;
Till thee or thine mine evil eye discerns,
Alas! I cannot "strike at wretched kernes."(1)
Inhuman Saxon! wilt thou then resign

A muse and heart by choice so wholly thine?
Dear, d―d contemner of my schoolboy songs,
Hast thou no vengeance for my manhood's wrongs?
If unprovoked thou once couldst bid me bleed,
Hast thou no weapon for my daring deed?
What! not a word!-and am I then so low?
Wilt thou forbear, who never spared a foe?
Hast thou no wrath, or wish to give it vent?
No wit for nobles dunces by descent?
No jest on "minors," quibbles on a name, (2)
Nor one facetious paragraph of blame?
Is it for this on Ilion I have stood,
And thought of Homer less than Holyrood?
On shore of Euxine or Ægean sea,

My hate, untravell'd, fondly turn'd to thee.
Ah! let me cease; in vain my bosom burns,
From Corydon unkind Alexis turns: (3)

Thy rhymes are vain; thy Jeffrey then forego,
Nor woo that anger which he will not show.
What then?--Edina starves some lanker son,
To write an article thou canst not shun;
Some less fastidious Scotchman shall be found,
As bold in Billingsgate, though less renown'd.
As if at table some discordant dish
Should shock our optics, such as frogs for fish;

Ut gratas inter mensas symphonia discors,

Et crassum unguentum, et Sardo cum melle papaver
Offendunt; poterat duci quia cœna sine istis;
Sic animis natum inventumque poema juvandis,
Si paulum a summo discessit, vergit ad imum.
Ludere qui nescit, campestribus abstinet armis,
Indoctusque pilæ, discive, trochive, quiescit;
Ne spissæ risum tollant impune coronæ.

was to accrue, provided one or both were knocked on the head. Having survived two years and a half those Elegies which they were kindly preparing to review, I have no peculiar gusto to give them "so joyful a trouble," except, indeed, "upon compulsion, Hal;" but if, as David says in the Rivals, it should come to "bloody sword and gun fighting," we "won't run, will we, Sir Lucius?" I do not know what I had done to these Eclectic gentlemen: my works are their lawful perquisite, to be bewn in piece like Agag, if it seem meet unto them: but why they should be in such a hurry to kill off their author, I am ignorant. "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong:" and now, as these Christians have" smote me on one cheek, "I hold them up the other; and, in return for their good wishes, give them an opportunity of repeating them. Had any other set of men expressed such sentiments, I should have smiled, and left them to the "recording angel;" but from the pharisees of Christianity decency might be expected. I can assure these brethren, that, publican and sinner as I am, I would not have treated "mine enemy's dog thus." To show them the superiority of my brotherly love, if ever the Reverend Messrs. Simeon or Ramsden should be engaged in such a conflict as that in which they requested me to fall, I hope they

As oil in lieu of butter men decry,
And poppies please not in a modern pie;
If all such mixtures then be half a crime,
We must have excellence to relish rhyme.
Mere roast and boil'd no epicure invites;
Thus poetry disgusts, or else delights.

Who shoot not flying rarely touch a gun : Will he who swims not to the river run? And men unpractised in exchanging knocks Must go to Jackson (4) ere they dare to box. Whate'er the weapon, cudgel, fist, or foil, None reach expertness without years of toil; But fifty dunces can, with perfect ease, Tag twenty thousand couplets, when they please. Why not?-shall I, thus qualified to sit For rotten boroughs, never show my wit? Shall 1, whose fathers with the quorum sate, And lived in freedom on a fair estate; Who left me heir, with stables, kennels, packs, To all their income, and to-twice its tax; Whose form and pedigree have scarce a fault, Shall I, I say, suppress my Attic salt?

Thus think "the mob of gentlemen ;" but you,
Besides all this, must have some genius too.
Be this your sober judgment, and a rule,
And print not piping hot from Southey's school,
Who (ere another Thalaba appears),

1 trust, will spare us for at least nine years.
And hark ye, Southey!(5) pray-but don't be vex'd-
Burn all your last three works-and half the next.
But why this vair. advice? once publish'd, books
Can never be recall'd—from pastry-cooks!

Qui nescit, versus tamen audet fingere!-"Quid ni?
Liber et ingenuus, præsertim census equestrem
Summam nummorum, vitioque remotus ab omni."
Tu nihil invità dices faciesve Minervå:

Id tibi judicium est, ea mens. Si quid tamen olim
Scripseris, in Metti descendat judicis aures,
Et patris, et nostras; nonumque prematur in annum.
Membranis intus positis, delere licebit

may escape with being "winged" only, and that Heaviside may "If the noble lord and the learned advocate have the courage requisite to sustain their mutual insults, we shall probably soon hear the explosions of another kind of paper-war, after the fashion of the ever-memorable duel which the latter is said to have fought, or seemed to fight, with 'Little Moore.' We confess there is sufficient provocation, if not in the critique, at least in the satire, to urge a man of honour' to defy his assailant to mortal combat. Of this we shall no doubt hear more in due time.”—E.]

(1) "Alas!1 cannot strike at wretched kernes." Macbeth.-E. (2) See the memorable critique of the Edinburgh Review, on Hours of Idleness.-E.

(3) "Invenies alium, si te hic fastidit, Alexin.”

(4) Lord Byron's taste for boxing brought him acquainted, at an early period, with this distinguished, and, it is not too much to say, respected professor of the art; for whom, throughout life, he continued to entertain a sincere regard. In a note to the eleventh canto of Don Juan, he calls him "his old friend, and corporeal pastor and master.”—E.

(5) Mr. Southey has lately tied another canister to his tail in

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 racé,
Must bear privations with unruffled face,
Be call'd to labour 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 ner 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, baronets have ink'd the bloody hand! (1)
| Cash cannot quell them; Pollio (2) play'd this prank,
|(Then Phœbus first found credit in a bank!)
Not all the living only, but the dead,
Fool on, as fluent as an Orpheus' head; (3)
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! woe worth the scribbler! often seen
In Morning Post, or Monthly Magazine.
There lurk his earlier lays; but soon, hot-press'd,
Behold a quarto!-Tarts must tell the rest.

Nec rude quid prosit video ingenium : alterius sic 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

no doubt, influenced Lord Byron's alteration of the manuscript

line.-E.

(1) The Red Hand of Ulster, introduced generally in a canton, marks the shield of a baronet of the United Kingdom.-E. (2) "Pollio."-In the original MS. "Rogers."-E. (3) "Tum quoque marmorea caput a cervice revulsum, Gurgite cum medio portans Æagrius Hebrus Volveret, Eurydicen vox ipsa, et frigida lingua; Ab, miseram Eurydicen! anima fugiente vocabat; Eurydicen toto referebant flumine ripa."

Georgic. iv. 525.

(4) I beg Nathaniel's pardon: he is not a cobbler; it is a tailor, but begged Capel Lofft to sink the profession in his preface to two pair of panta--psha!-of cantos, which he wished the public to try on; but the sieve of a patron let it out, and so far saved the expense of an advertisement to his country customers. Merry's "Moorfields whine" was nothing to all this. The "Della Cruscans" were people of some education, and no profession; but these Arcadians (“Arcades ambo"-bumpkins both) send out their native nonsense without the smallest alloy, and leave all the shoes nd smallclothes in the parish unrepaired, to patch up elegies on Enclosures and pæans 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"

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 (4) sing to Capel Lofft! (5) Till lo! that modern Midas, as he hears, Adds an ell's 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. Some fancied slight has roused his lurking bate, 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 perts peech you've dared to frown, Perhaps your poem may have pleased the town: If so, alas! 't is nature in the manMay 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,

Tibicen, didicit prius, extimuitque magistrum. Nunc satis est dixisse: "Ego mira poemata pango; Occupet extremum scabies; mihi turpe relinqui est, Et, quod non didici, sanè nescire fateri."

shoemakers, and been accessary to the poetical undoing of many of the industrious poor. Nathaniel Bloomfield and his brother Bobby have set all Somersetshire singing; 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 “resur- ¦ rection 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 10 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 éclat, is to find himself a mountebank on the other side of Styx, and be made, like poor Joe Blackett, the laughingstock of Purgatory, The plea of publication is to provide for the child; now, might not some of this "Sutor ultra crepidam's" friends and seducers have done a decent action without inveig

All but one poor dependent priest withdrawn,
(All! 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 each rueful leaf,
Dull as his sermons, but not half so brief!
Yet since 't is promised at the rector's death,
He'll risk no living for a little breath.

Then spouts and foams, and cries at every line,
(The Lord forgive him!) "Bravo! grand! divine!"
Hoarse with those praises (which, by flattery fed,
Dependence barters for her bitter bread),

Si carmina condes,

Nunquam te fallant animi sub vulpe latentes.
Quintilio si quid recitares, "Corrige, sodes,
Hoc (aiebat) et hoc :" melius te posse negares,
Nullum ultra verbum, aut operam insumebat Inanem,

etc. etc."-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 fa milies of distinction can share this in quiet? There is a child; a book, and a dedication; send the girl to her grace, the volumes to the grocer, and the dedication to the devil.-[See antè, p. 61.-E.]

(1) In the original MS.

"Some rhyming peer-Carlisle or Carisfort."

To which is subjoined this note:-" Of John Joshua, Earl of Carysfort' I know nothing at present, but from an advertisement in an old newspaper of certain Poems and Tragedies by his Lordship, which I saw by accident in the Morea. Being a rhymer bimself, he will forgive the liberty I take with his name, seeing, as he must, how very commodious it is at the close of that couplet; and as for what follows and goes before, let him place it to the account of the other Thane; since I cannot, under these circumstances, augur pro or con the contents of his foolscap crown octavos.'"-[John Joshua Proby, first Earl of Carysfort, was joint postmaster-general in 1805, envoy to Berlin in 1806, and ambassador to Petersburgh in 1807. Besides his poems he published two pamphlets, to show the necessity of universal suffrage and short parliaments. He died in 1828.-E.]

(2) Here will Mr. Gifford allow me to introduce once more to his notice the sole survivor, the " ultimus Romanorum," the last of the Cruscanti-"Edwin" the "profound" by our Lady of Punishment! here he is, as lively as in the days of "well said Baviad the Correct." I thought Fitzgerald had been the tail of poesy; but, alas! he is only the penultimate.

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING

CHRONICLE.

What reams of paper, floods of ink,
Do some men spoil, who never think!
And so perhaps you 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 I assert

The name of Camden I insert,

Who novels read, and oft maintain'd

He here and there some knowledge gain'd: Then why not I indulge my pen,

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.

"Burn!"

Ye, who aspire to "build the lofty rhyme," (3)
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,
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, (4)
We'll have no words-I 've only lost my pains

Bis terque expertum frustra; delere jubebat,
Et male tornatos incudi reddere versus.
Si defendere delictum, quam vertere, malles,
Quin sine rivali teque et tua solus amares.

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 humours of the passing day.

ON SOME MODERN QUACKS AND REFORMISTS.

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;
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 the 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 I 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. *

Yet, if you only prize your favourite 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, (1) or their quills.
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 (2) Fitzscribble's (3) 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 succour with stentorian yell,
"A rope! help, Christians, as ye hope for grace!"
Nor woman, man, nor child will stir a pace;

Vir borus et prudens versus reprehendet inertes, Culpabit duros, incomtis allinet atrum Transverso calamo signum; anbitiosa recidet Ornamenta: parum claris lucem dare coget: Arguet ambigue dictum: mutanda notabit; Fiet Aristarchus: nec dicet, "Cur ego amicum Offendam in nugis."-llæ nugæ sería ducent In mala derisum semel exceptumque sinistre. Ut mala quem scabies, aut morbus regius urget, Aut fanaticus error, et iracunda Diana; Vesanum tetigisse timent fugiuntque poetam, Qui sapiunt; agitant pueri, incautique 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,

Jupiter's head-piece, and a variety of equally unaccountable parturitions upon earth, such as Madoc, etc. etc. etc.

(1) "A crust for the critics."-Bayes in the Rehearsal.

(2) 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!" (3) "Fitzscribble," originally "Fitzgerald." (See p. 00).-E. (4) On his table were found these words: "What Cato did, and Addison approved, 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!--[Eustace Budgell, a friend and relative of Addison's, leapt into the Thames" to escape a prosecution on account of forging the will of Dr. Tindal; in which Eustace had provided

For there his carcass he might freely fling,
From frenzy, or the humour 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,” (4) leapt into the Thames!
And therefore be it lawful through the town
For any hard to poison, hang, or drown. (5)
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 poet's conscience as a curse;
Dosed (6) with vile drams on Sunday he was found,
Or got a child on consecrated ground!
And hence is haunted with a rhyming rage-
Fear'd like a bear just bursting from his cage.
If free, ail fly his versifying fit,
Fatal at once to simpleton or wit.

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.

Si quis curet opem ferre, et demittere funem;
Qui seis an prudens hue se projeccri', atque
Servari notit? Dicam: Siculique poctæ
Narrabo interitum. Deus immortalis haberi
Dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus Ætnam
Insiluit. Sit jus, liceatque perire poetis:
Invitum qui servat, idem facit occidenti.
Nee 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,
Objectos caveæ valuit si frangere clathros,
Indoctum doctumque fugat recitator acerbus;
Quem vero arripuit, tenet, occiditque legendo,
Non missura cutem, nisi plena cruoris, hirudo.

himself with a legacy of two thousand pounds. To this Pope alludes:

"Let Budgell charge low Grab-street on my quill,

And write whate 'er be please-except my will."-E.

(5) "We talked (says Boswell) of a man's drowning himself.-. -JOHNSON. 'I should never think it time to make away with myself. I put the case of Eustace Badgeli, who was accused of forging a will, and sunk himself in the Thames, before the trial of its authenticity came on. Suppose, Sir,' said 1, that a man is absolutely sure that, if he lives a few days longer, he shall be detected in a fraud, the consequence of which will be utter disgrace, and expulsion from society?'-JOHNSON. Then, Sir, let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known." See Croker's Boswell, vol. ii. pp. 229. 290.-E.

(6) If "dosed with," etc. be censured as low, I beg leave to refer to the original for something still lower; and if any reader will translate "Minxerit in patrios cineres," etc. into a decent couplet, I will insert said couplet in lieu of the present.