Hadst thou no fears my full-avenging wrath Would send thee down the scorn of every age? be remembered, that it is their power over the people which compels me to the degradation, not themselves. The subjects of PHARAOH bowed the knee to a puppy; but it was the religion represented by the quadruped, not the bestial symbol itself that they worshipped. Were ten such creatures as W-BB, SE, and ST, to be kneaded into one mass, the mass were still too insignificant for notice; but seated in the tribunal of the Press, with power of life and death upon an author's reputation, I must needs regard it, though it were ten times more beastly than all the bestialities of EGYPT. P. S. Since this epigram and note were written, I have had reason, in the ungrateful and disgustingly dishonest conduct of Messrs. W-KS, J— -N, and Co., to believe that the second person of that firm was guilty of a falsehood as little as himself, and that Mr. W-BB alone was probably the author of that disgraceful paragraph, not Mr. ST. Should my suspicion prove correct, and I will find means to bring the truth to light, I shall owe to Mr. ST a reparation the highest I can offer him: I will ask his pardon as publicly as I have given the offence. My countrymen may rest contented, if they please, with the reproach under which they labor with all foreigners, that of not daring to speak their individual opinions when they may happen to conflict with those of the majority, or of their masters, the conductors of the public press; but while there shall be left to me a limb of this body, and the soul that now animates it, there shall be at least one man in AMERICA whom no consideration, either personal or moral, shall prevent from speaking the truth of all persons and on all occasions, where propriety shall demand it. Should it cost me my life, I will lay this down too, as I have already sacrificed my temporal prosperity, an unreluctant offering at the altar of that divinity whose majesty I have worshipped from my childhood, and who has hitherto rewarded my devotion, as the celestial powers are said to visit those whose actions please them, with worldly castigation and abasement. Look back upon thy life. How well!... But no ! XVI. PRUDENCE. AT forty, IRIS, crook'd and pale, "Make me your pattern; I'll engage,' XVII. LA MÊME EN FRANÇAIS. (1) À QUARANTE ans jaune et difforme, IRis Reprend sa nièce de l' hommage (1) Perhaps it will be permitted me to remind the general reader, that in French the final e which is mute in prose is sounded in Quoi! veux-tu donc," dit-elle, " mettre à prix La rose, le bouton de ton vert pucelage? Tous ces discours flatteurs, ces doux souris Devraient te donner de l'ombrage. Imite-moi, ma fille, je te dis; Tu peux te bien garder de cet outrage. Nul homme ne m' appelle une ange, ou sa Cypris, Et j'ai le double de ton âge." XVIII. TO THE "POETS OF AMERICA, EDITED BY J-N K-E." (1) I. BARDS, some two dozen, Folly's latest seed! To spell ten lines, how should I read you through? verse when the next word begins with a consonant. Thus in the second line of the epigram above, nièce is of two syllables, not of one as in prose. The e is also counted in the termination ent; and in the next line attirent is of three syllables. Devraient, however, in the eighth line, is by a peculiarity of the language but of two. - I should not have thought of giving this lesson, had I not heard in FRANCE persons of tolerable education read their native poets without the least attention to these rules, and had not my own French teacher in this city permitted them to be disregarded by all his pupils. I therefore have a right to suppose that many persons may be conversant with the French language who are not acquainted with the laws that regulate the structure of French verses. (1) I need not say that there are some exceptions in this book to the character I give of it. The name of B-T, for example, is to be II. ENOUGH (and no small merit 't is, I trust,) XIX. CONSOLATION TO ONE WHO WAS NOT NOTICED IN THE VISION. ROUSE not, dear Ollapod, thy spite, If then I have not given to light Thy ragged verse and tittle-tattle, With W-BB's cheap cant (1), and "soaps of Camus "(2), 'T is that I would not make thee famous. (3) found in the catalogue of its Poets; and wherever that occurs, we may be sure there is reason, though it were surrounded by folly, and that poetry may be gathered from the heap of rhyme. (1) In the additional matter to Canto IV., which appeared in the second issue (4th edition, as Col. S- and brotherhood would call it) of the Vision. (2) "And sees his privy ills, like verse, made famous, With Saponaceous Cream, and Soaps of Camus." Vis. of R. i. But as there is (3) The subject of this epigram is now dead. nothing in the piece which could have been answered in any other way than by the pen, I do not see that I am called upon to suppress it. — Mr. C. (Ollapod) was one of the persons to whom the XX. ON A ZEALOUS HYPOCRITE. WONDER not should pray With zeal as hot as if Hell drave him : He mocks not God, nor means to brave him, But, being modest in his way, Trusts at the fire-and-brimstone day His insignificance will save him. XXI. ON THE NAME GIVEN TO THE HERO OF THE Vision. RUBETA means, you say, a toad Sort? None; the reptile stands alone. It is the toad that lives in Stone. publishers of the Vision had the effrontery to send a copy with the respects of the author. |