ODE IV.

TO THE PUBLIC.

WHAT shallow youth, at the bottom of Helicon,
Larded with metaphors, hid beneath epithets,
Courts now, rhyming, thy favor?
Which way does thy fancy waver,

Barren in judgment? How often thy fickleness
Will he deplore, and his stars, and, poor innocent!
Stare at thy coldness, meeting

Nothing of warmth in thy greeting,

Who with thy blandishments feeds his credulity,
Hoping one day to grow fat on thy graciousness,
Unconscious thy tongue's election

Had never a brain's direction.

Wo, where it falls overvalu'd! My verses, which Waltz not like SHELLEY'S, nor trudge with the Wagoner(1), Show thee what estimation

I put on thy approbation.

equally love to lose themselves in the mazes of the latter. Yet was SHELLEY, be it observed, the author of the Cenci, which, if you except the blemish of the Song in Act V., has, as an English tragedy, no modern rival in dramatic diction, and I know not whether in any other of the dramatic requisites; and the same gave to the world the drama of Prometheus Unbound, which, less faultless in style, especially towards the close, is as a whole a work of extra

LIB. I. 22.

AD ARISTIUM FUSCUM.

INTEGER vitæ, scelerisque purus,
Non eget MAURI jaculis, neque arcu,
Nec venenatis gravida sagittis,
FUSCE, pharetra ;

Sive per Syrtes iter æstuosas,
Sive facturus per inhospitalem
Caucasum, vel quæ loca fabulosus
Lambit Hydaspes.

Namque me silva lupus in Sabina,
Dum meam canto LALAGEN, et ultra
Terminum curis vagor expeditus,

Fugit inermem :

Quale portentum neque militaris
DAUNIA in latis alit æsculetis,

Nec JUBÆ tellus generat, leonum
Arida nutrix.

ordinary genius and of exceeding beauty, opening with a sublimity that almost makes us think we are reading Æschylus. Mr. WORDSWORTH has not the faults of SHELLEY, proceeding from an over-luxuriance of imagination, disdaining rule; and he may be read throughout with more patience, as, though not unfrequently far from perspicuous, his tame prosaic language does not bewilder the brain, or cloy with profusion of sweets the intellectual palate; but he has never written any thing that may be compared for ex

ODE V.

TO ANYBODY.

He that acts wisely, wronging nothing living,
Needs not the pistol of W-BB, nor the rifle,
Nor the broad-bladed dagger of the Southron,
Nam'd after BowIE;

Though through the wilds of FLORIDA he journey,
Or on the desert billows of the Prairies,
Or where his deep tide rolls the Mississippi,
Father of waters.

For in the groves of SNS at HOBOKEN,
While on a rock I meditate my CHLORIS,

A dog H-LE himself had driven from his house-door,
Fled me, though caneless :

Such a huge beast as never yet NEWFOUNDLAND
Litter'd in fogs, nor yet the Great St. Bernard,
Where unceasing winter heaps round the Hospice
Snows never melted.

cellence with either the Cenci or Prometheus, while the former of these dramas is singly worth the whole of Mr. WORDSWORTH'S works, all put together. "Of the two extremes," says POPE, "one would rather pardon phrenzy than frigidity." SHAKSPEARE and DRYDEN both abound in extravagancies, and have quite as much, in quantity, of bombast as of sublimity; but who would look in either of those immortal poets for examples of the frigid in writing? SWIFT drew his from one Sir Richard Blackmore.

Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis
Arbor æstiva recreatur aura,

Quod latus mundi nebulæ, malusque
Jupiter urguet;

Pone sub curru nimium propinqui
Solis, in terra domibus negata,
Dulce ridentem LALAGEN amabo,
Dulce loquentem.

LIB. I. 26.

AD ELIUM LAMIAM.

MUSIS amicus, tristitiam et metus
Tradam protervis in mare Creticum
Portare ventis, queis sub Arcto
Rex gelidæ metuatur oræ,

Quid Tiridatem terreat, unice

Securus. O quæ fontibus integris

Gaudes, apricos necte flores,

Necte meo Lamiæ coronam,

(1) An ode from Horace is dedicated with peculiar propriety to Professor AN, who has lately given his labors as a commentator to the illustration of this favorite classic. His edition of the great lyrical and moral poet I have not seen; but I can easily conjecture what must be its value, coming, as it does, from the

Place me in the Alpine barrens of the reindeer,

Where the swart carl sleeps naked 'neath his sheepskin, Shines not the sun for weeks, and Heaven's thunder

Rolls in midwinter ;

Place me in sands where pants the long-breath'd camel, Where for whole days no shrub is seen nor fountain, Still will I love my CHLORIS' spoken music,

And her laugh's dimples.

ODE VI.

TO CH- -S AN. (1)

To song now wedded, doubt and disquietude
I give to brood o'er commerce and politics,
At ease though fall the southern staple,
Careless what favorite of the people

The White House shelters, so that the Eagle still
His pennons droop not. Muse that delightest in
Founts undefil'd, twine sunny flowers,

Twine me for A- -N a fadeless garland.

desk of one whose solid yet elegant talents and varied erudition are equalled by his unremitting industry. To no AMERICAN are the schools and colleges of our country so much indebted in polite learning as to Dr. A

-N.