the year 1790, at Lady Borrowes's private theatre in Dublin, where, among the items of the evening's entertainment, is "An Epilogue, A Squeeze to St. Paul's, Master Moore." Aungier Street, by my elder sister, myself, It will be seen, from all this, that, however imprudent and premature was my first appearance in the London world as an author, it is With acting, indeed, is associated the very first attempt at verse-making to which my memory enables me to plead guilty. It was at a period, I think, even earlier than the date last mentioned, that, while passing the summer holidays, with a number of other young people, at one of those bathing-places, in the neigh-only lucky that I had not much earlier assumed bourhood of Dublin, which afford such fresh and healthful retreats to its inhabitants, it was proposed among us that we should combine together in some theatrical performance; and the Poor Soldier and a Harlequin Pantomime being the entertainments agreed upon, the parts of Patrick and the Motley hero fell to my share. I was also encouraged to write and recite an appropriate epilogue on the occasion; and the following lines, alluding to our speedy return to school, and remarkable only for their having lived so long in my memory, formed part of this juvenile effort: Cur Pantaloon, who did so aged look, Must now resume his youth, his task, his book: Our Harlequin, who skipp'd, laugh'd, danc'd, and died, I have thus been led back, step by step, from an early date to one still earlier, with the view of ascertaining, for those who take any interest in literary biography, at what period I first showed an aptitude for the now common craft of verse-making; and the result is-so far back in childhood lies the epoch- that I am really unable to say at what age I first began to act, sing, and rhyme. To these different talents, such as they were, the gay and social habits prevailing in Dublin afforded frequent opportunities of display; while, at home, a most amiable father, and a mother such as in heart and head has rarely been equalled, furnished me with that purest stimulus to exertion- the desire to please those whom we, at once, most love and most respect. It was, I think, a year or two after my entrance into college, that a masque written by myself, and of which I had adapted one of the songs to the air of Haydn's Spirit-Song, was acted, under our own humble roof in that responsible character; in which case the public would probably have treated my nursery productions in much the same manner in which that sensible critic, my Uncle Toby, would have disposed of the "work which the great Lipsius produced on the day he was born." While thus the turn I had so early shown for rhyme and song was, by the gay and sociable circle in which I lived, called so encouragingly into play, a far deeper feelingand, I should hope, power- -was at the same time awakened in me by the mighty change then working in the political aspect of Europe, and the stirring influence it had begun to exercise on the spirit and hopes of Ireland. Born of Catholic parents, I had come into the world with the slave's yoke around my neck; and it was all in vain that the fond ambition of a mother looked forward to the Bar as opening a career that might lead her son to honour and affluence. Against the young Papist all such avenues to distinction were closed; and even the University, the professed source of public education, was to him "a fountain sealed." Can any one now wonder that a people thus wronged and trampled upon should have hailed the first dazzling outbreak of the French Revolution as a signal to the slave, wherever suffering, that the day of his deliverance was near at hand? I remember being taken by my father (1792) to one of the dinners given in honour of that great event, and sitting upon the knee of the chairman while the following toast was enthusiastically sent round:-"May the breezes from France fan our Irish Oak into verdure." In a few months after was passed the memorable Act of 1793, sweeping away some of the most monstrous of the remaining sanctions of the penal code; and I was myself among the first of the young Helots of the land, who hastened to avail themselves of the new privilege of being educated in their country's university, though still excluded from all share in those college honours and emoluments by which the ambition of the youths of the ascendant class was stimulated and rewarded. As I well knew that, next to my attaining some of these distinctions, my showing that I deserved to attain them would most gratify my anxious mother, I entered as candidate for a scholarship, and (as far as the result of the examination went) successfully. But, of course, the mere barren credit of the effort was all I enjoyed for my pains. It was in this year (1794), or about the beginning of the next, that I remember having, for the first time, tried my hand at political satire. In their very worst times of slavery and suffering, the happy disposition of my countrymen had kept their cheerfulness still unbroken and buoyant; and, at the period of which I am speaking, the hope of a brighter day dawning upon Ireland had given to the society of the middle classes in Dublin a more than usual flow of hilarity and life. Among other gay results of this festive spirit, a club, or society, was instituted by some of our most convivial citizens, one of whose objects was to burlesque, good-humouredly, the forms and pomps of royalty. With this view they established a sort of mock kingdom, of which Dalkey, a small island near Dublin, was made the seat, and an eminent pawnbroker, named | Stephen Armitage, much renowned for his agreeable singing, was the chosen and popular monarch. Before public affairs had become too serious for such pastime, it was usual to celebrate, yearly, at Dalkey, the day of this sovereign's accession; and, among the gay scenes that still live in my memory, there are few it recalls with more freshness than the celebration, on a fine Sunday in summer, of one of these anniversaries of King Stephen's coronation. The picturesque sea-views from that spot, the gay crowds along the shores, the innumerable boats, full of life, floating about, and, above all, that true spirit of mirth which the Irish temperament never fails to lend to such meetings, rendered the whole a scene not easily forgotten. The state ceremonies of the day were performed, with all due gravity, within the ruins of an ancient church that stands on the island, where his mock majesty bestowed the order of knighthood upon certain favoured personages, and among others, I recollect, upon Incledon, the celebrated singer, who arose from under the touch of the royal sword with the appropriate title of Sir Charles Melody. There was also selected, for the favours of the crown on that day, a lady of no ordinary poetic talent, Mrs. Battier, who had gained much fame by some spirited satires in the manner of Churchill, and whose kind encouragement of my early attempts in versification were to me a source of much pride. This lady, as was officially announced in the course of the day, had been appointed his majesty's poetess laureate, under the style and title of Henrietta, Countess of Laurel. There could hardly have been devised an apter vehicle for lively political satire than this gay travesty of monarchical power, and its showy appurtenances, so temptingly supplied. The very day, indeed, after this commemoration, there appeared, in the Dalkey stategazette, an amusing proclamation from the king, offering a large reward, in cronebane»*, to the finder or finders of his majesty's crown, which, owing to his " having measured both sides of the road" in his pedestrian progress on the preceding night, had unluckily fallen from the royal brow. It is not to be wondered at, that whatever natural turn I may have possessed for the lighter skirmishing of satire should have been called into play by so pleasant a field for its exercise as the state affairs of the Dalkey kingdom afforded; and, accordingly, my first attempt in this line was an Ode to his Majesty, King Stephen, contrasting the happy state of security in which he lived among his merry lieges, with the "metal coach," and other such precautions against mob violence, which were said to have been adopted at that time by his Irish halfpence, so called. royal brother of England. Some portions of this juvenile squib still live in my memory; but they fall far too short of the lively demands of the subject to be worth preserving, even as juvenilia. trying was it when I perceived that the reverend inquisitor, in whose hands was my fate, had left the rest of the awful group, and was bending his steps towards the table where I was seated. Leaning across to me, he asked suspiciously, whether the verses which I had just given in were my own; and, on my answering in the affirmative, added these cheering words, "they do you great credit; and I shall not fail to recommend them to the notice of the Board." This result of a step, ventured upon with some little fear and scruple, was of course very gratifying to me; and the premium I received from the Board was a well-bound copy of the Travels of Anacharsis, together with a certificate, stating, in not very lofty Latin, that this reward had been conferred upon me, "propter laudabilem in versibus In college, the first circumstance that drew any attention to my rhyming powers was my giving in a theme, in English verse, at one of the quarterly examinations. As the sort of short essays required on those occasions were considered, in general, as a mere matter of form, and were written, invariably, I believe, in Latin prose, the appearance of a theme in English verse could hardly fail to attract some notice. It was, therefore, with no small anxiety that, when the moment for judging of the themes arrived, I saw the examiners of the different divisions assemble, as usual, at the bottom of the hall for that purpose. Still more componendis progressum." PREFACE BY THE EDITOR.1 THE Poems which I take the liberty of publishing, were never intended by the author to pass beyond the circle of his friends. He thought, with some justice, that what are called Occasional Poems must be always insipid and uninteresting to the greater part of their readers. The particular situations in which they were written; the character of the author and of his associates; all these peculiarities must be known and felt before we can enter into the spirit of such compositions. This consideration would have always, I believe, prevented the author himself from submitting these trifles to the eye of dispassionate criticism: and if their posthumous introduction to the world be injustice to his memory, or intrusion on the public, the error must be imputed to the injudicious partiality of friendship. Mr. LITTLE died in his one and twentieth year; and most of these Poems were written at so early a period that their errors may lay claim to some indulgence from the critic. Their author, as unambitious as indolent, scarce ever looked beyond the moment of composition; but, in general, wrote as he pleased, careless whether he pleased as he 1 A portion of these Poems were published originally as the works of the late Thomas Little," with the Preface here given prefixed to them. wrote. It may likewise be remembered, that they were all the productions of an age when the pas sions very often give a colouring too warm to the imagination; and this may palliate, if it cannot excuse, that air of levity which pervades so many of them. The "aurea legge, s'ei piace ei lice," he too much pursued, and too much inculeates. Few can regret this more sincerely than myself; and if my friend had lived, the judgment of riper years would have chastened his mind, and tempered the luxuriance of his fancy. Mr. LITTLE gave much of his time to the study of the amatory writers. If ever he expected to find in the ancients that delicacy of sentiment, and variety of fancy, which are so necessary to refine and animate the poetry of love, he was much disappointed. I know not any one of them who can be regarded as a model in that style; Ovid made | love like a rake, and Propertius like a schoolmaster. The mythological allusions of the latter are called erudition by his commentators; but | such ostentatious display, upon a subject so simple as love, would be now esteemed vague and puerile, and was even in his own times pedantic. It is astonishing that so many critics should have preferred him to the gentle and touching Tibullus; but those defects, I believe, which a cominon reader condemns, have been regarded rather as beauties by those erudite men, the commentators; who find a field for their ingenuity and research, in his Grecian learning and quaint obscurities. Tibullus abounds with touches of fine and natural feeling. The idea of his unexpected return to Delia, "Tunc veniam subito," &c. is imagined with all the delicate ardour of a lover; and the sentiment of "nec te posse carere velim," however colloquial the expression may have been, is natural, and from the heart. But the poet of Verona, in my opinion, possessed more genuine feeling than any of them. His life was, I believe, unfortunate; his associates were wild and abandoned; and the warmth of his nature took too much advantage of the latitude which the morals of those times so criminally allowed to the passions. All this depraved his imagination, and made it the slave of his senses. But still a native sensibility is often very warmly perceptible; and when he touches the chord of pathos, he reaches immediately the heart. They who have felt the sweets of return to a home from which they have long been absent will confess the beauty of those simple unaffected lines :: O quid solutis est beatius curis! His sorrows on the death of his brother are the very tears of poesy; and when he complains of the ingratitude of mankind, even the inexperienced cannot but sympathise with him. I wish I were a poet; I should then endeavour to catch, by translation, the spirit of those beauties which I have always so warmly admired.2 It seems to have been peculiarly the fate of Catullus, that the better and more valuable part of his poetry has not reached us; for there is confessedly nothing in his extant works to authorise the epithet "doctus," so universally bestowed upon him by the ancients. If time had suffered his other writings to escape, we perhaps should have found among them some more purely amatory; but of those we possess, can there be a sweeter specimen of warm, yet chastened description, than his loves of Acme and Septimius? and the few Ettle songs of dalliance to Lesbia are distinguished by such an exquisite playfulness, that they have ! Lib. i. Eleg. 3. 2 In the following Poems, will be found a translation of one of his finest Carmina; but I fancy it is only a mere schoolboy's essay, and deserves to be praised for little more than the attempt. › Lucretius. always been assumed as models by the most elegant modern Latinists. Still, it must be confessed, in the midst of all these beauties, Medio de fonte leporum Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat.3 It has often been remarked, that the ancients knew nothing of gallantry; and we are sometimes told there was too much sincerity in their love to allow them to trifle thus with the semblance of passion. But I cannot perceive that they were anything more constant than the moderns: they felt all the same dissipation of the heart, though they knew not those seductive graces by which gallantry almost teaches it to be amiable. Wotton, the learned advocate for the moderns, deserts them in considering this point of comparison, and praises the ancients for their ignorance of such refinements. But he seems to have collected his notions of gallantry from the insipid fadeurs of the French romances, which have nothing congenial with the graceful levity, the "grata protervitas," of a Rochester or a Sedley. As far as I can judge, the early poets of our own language were the models which Mr. LITTLE selected for imitation. To attain their simplicity ("ævo rarissima nostro simplicitas ") was his fondest ambition. He could not have aimed at a grace more difficult of attainment'; and his life was of too short a date to allow him to perfect such a taste; but how far he was likely to have succeeded, the critic may judge from his productions. I have found among his papers a novel, in rather an imperfect state, which, as soon as I have arranged and collected it, shall be submitted to the public eye. Where Mr. LITTLE was born, or what is the genealogy of his parents, are points in which very few readers can be interested. His life was one of those humble streams which have scarcely a name in the map of life, and the traveller may pass it by without inquiring its source or direction. His character was well known to all who were acquainted with him; for he had too much vanity to hide its virtues, and not enough of art to conceal its defects. The lighter traits of his mind may be traced perhaps in his writings; but the few for which he was valued live only in the remembrance of his friends. T. M. 4 It is a curious illustration of the labour which simplicity requires, that the Ramblers of Johnson, elaborate as they appear, were written with fluency, and seldom required revision: while the simple language of Rousseau, which seems to come flowing from the heart, was the slow production of painful labour, pausing on every word, and balancing every sentence. ΤΟ JOSEPH ATKINSON, ESQ. MY DEAR SIR, I FEEL a very sincere pleasure in dedicating to you the Second Edition of our friend LITTLE'S Poems. I am not unconscious that there are many in the collection which perhaps it would be prudent to have altered or omitted; and, to say the truth, I more than once revised them for that purpose; but, I know not why, I distrusted either my heart or my judgment; and the consequence is, you have them in their original form: Non possunt nostros multa, Faustine, lituræ |