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, delv'd, 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 MAURICEf 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 ALCEUS wanders down the vale!

Tho' fair they rose, and might have bloom'd at last,
His hopes have perish'd by the northern blast;

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

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.

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 !*
Yet, say! why should the bard, at once, resign
His claim to favour from the sacred Nine?
For ever startled by the mingled howl

Of northern wolves that still in darkness prowl:
A coward brood, which mangle as they prey,
By hellish instinct, all that cross their way;
Aged or young, the living or the dead,
No mercy find,-these harpies must be fed.
Why do the injur'd 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 sentenc'd 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,

* 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 Ballads," and at least fifty "Degraded Epics."

seat; the hill which overhangs Edinburgh.

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 JEFFREY's 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 reserv'd 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 his 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 waves 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;

*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, like the courage of the combatants, were found to have evaporated. This incident gave occasion to much waggery in the daily prints.

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

The Tolbooth felt-for marble sometimes can,
On such occasions, feel as much as man—
The Tolbooth felt defrauded of his charms,
If JEFFREY died, except within her arms :*
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 candour seem'd the sable dew,
That of his valour show'd the bloodless hue,
And all with justice deem'd the two combin'd
The mingled emblems of his mighty mind.
But Caledonia's goddess hover'd o'er

The field, and sav'd him from the wrath of MoORE;
From either pistol snatch'd the vengeful lead,
And straight restor❜d it to her favourite's head.
That head, with greater than magnetic power,
Caught it as Danæ caught the golden shower,
And tho' the thickening dross will scarce refine,
Augments its ore, and is itself a mine.

66

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!

*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 impulses, perhaps a little selfish.

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 bard shall aid thy plan,
And own the chieftain of the critic clan.
First in the ranks illustrious shall be seen
The travell'd Thane! Athenian Aberdeen.*
HERBERT shall yield THOR's hammer,† and sometimes
In gratitude thou'lt praise his rugged rhymes.
Smug SYDNEY‡ too thy bitter page shall seek,
And classic HALLAMO much renown'd for Greek,
SCOTT may perchance his name and influence lend,
And paltry PILLANS || shall traduce his friend.

* His Lordship has been much abroad, is a member of the Athenian Society, and Reviewer of" Gell's Topography of Troy."

† Mr. Herbert is a translator of Icelandic and other poetry. One of the principal pieces is a "Song on the Recovery of Thor's Hammer;" the translation is a pleasant chant in the vulgar tongue, aud endeth thus:

"Instead of money and rings, I wot,

The hammer's bruises were her lot,

Thus Odin's son his hammer got."

The Rev. Sydney Smith, the reputed author of Peter Plymley's Letters, and sundry criticisms.

§ Mr. Hallam reviewed Payne Knight's Taste, and was exceedingly severe on some Greek verses therein; it was not discovered that the lines were Pindar's till the press rendered it impossible to cancel the critique, which still stands an everlasting monument of Hallam's ingenuity.

The said 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, I am glad, because it must have been painful to read, and irksome to praise it. If 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.

Pillans is a tutor at Eton.