So may her few, the letter'd and the brave, << Bound to no clime, and victors o'er the grave,

Shake off the sordid dust of such a land, «And shine like children of a happier strand.

As once of yore, in some obnoxious place,

«Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched race!

Mortal, the blue-ey'd Maid resum'd, « once more, «Bear back my mandate to thy native shore;

Though fall'n, alas! this vengeance still is mine, «To turn my counsels far from lands like thine. «Hear then in silence Pallas' stern behest; «Hear and believe, for Time shall tell the rest. «First on the head of him who did the deed

My curse shall light,—on him and all his seed : « Without one spark of intellectual fire,

«Be all the sons as senseless as the sire:

« If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,
« Believe him bastard of a brighter race;
« Still with his hireling artists let him prate,
«And Folly's praise repay for Wisdom's hate!

Long of their patron's gusto let them tell,
"Whose noblest native gusto--is to sell :
« To sell, and make (may shame record the day!),
« The State receiver of his pilfer'd prey!
«Meantime the flattering feeble dotard, West,
Europe's worst dauber and poor Britain's best,
"With palsied hand shall turn each model o'er,
« And own himself an infant of fourscore (1):
"Be all the bruisers called from all St. Giles,
« That Art and Nature may compare their styles;

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(1) Mr. West, on seeing « the Elgin collection » ( I suppose we shall hear of the Abershaw's and Jack Shephard's collection next,) declared himself a mere Tyro in Art.

« While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare, And marvel at his Lordship's stone shop there (1). « Round the throng'd gate shall sauntering coxcombs creep, To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep : "While many a languid maid, with longing sigh, << On giant statues casts the curious cye;

« The room with transient glance appears to skim, "Yet marks the mighty back and length of limb, «Mourns o'er the difference of now and then;

Exclaims, these Greeks indeed were proper men,' «Draws slight comparisons of these with those,

"And envies Laïs all her Attic beaux :

« When shall a modern maid have swains like these? « Alas! Sir Harry is no Hercules!

« And last of all, amidst the gaping crew

« Some calm spectator, as he takes his view (2),

(1) Poor Crib was sadly puzzled when exhibited at Elgin house; he asked if it was not « a stone shop » : he was right, it is a shop.

(2) Alas! all the monuments of roman magnificence, all the remains of Grecian taste, so dear to the Artist, the Historian, the Antiquary, all depend on the will of an arbitrary sovereign; and that will is influenced too often by interest or vanity, by a nephew or a sycophant. Is a new palace to be erected (at Rome) for an upstart family? the Colyseum is stripped to furnish materials. Does a foreign minister wish to adorn the bleak walls of a northern castle with antiques? the Temples of Theseus or Minerva must be dismantled, and the works of Phidias or Praxiteles be torn from the shattered frieze. That a decrepid uncle, wrapped up in the religious duties of his age and station, should listen to the suggestions of an interested nephew, is natural and that an oriental despot should undervalue the masterpieces of Grecian art, is to be expected; though in both cases the consequences of such weakness are much to be lamented but that the minister of a nation, famed for

<< In silent indignation mix'd with grief,

« Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.

<< Loathed throughout life-scarce pardon'd in the dust, << May hate pursue his sacrilegious lust!

« Link'd with the fool who fired th' Ephesian dome,

« Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb;
« Erostratus and Elgin e'er shall shine

<< In many a branding page and burning line!
« Alike condemned for aye to stand accurs'd,
«Perchance the second viler than the first ;
«So let him stand, thro' ages yet unborn,

« Fixed statue on the pedestal of Scorn?

r

Though not for him alone revenge shall wait,
But fits thy country for her coming fate;

<< Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son
"To do, what oft Britannia's self had done.
Look to the Baltic blazing from afar,

«Your old ally yet mourns perfidious war:

its knowledge of the language, and its veneration for the monuments of ancient Greece, should have been the prompter and the instrument of these destructions, is almost incredible. Such rapacity is a crime against all and all geneages rations; it deprives the past of the trophies of their genius and the title deeds of their fame; the present, of the strongest inducements to exertion, the noblest exhibitions that curiosity can contemplate; the future, of the masterpieces of art, the models of imitation. To guard against the repetition of such depredations is the wish of every man of genius, the duty of every man in power, and the common interest of every civilized nation. Eustace's Classical Tour through Italy, p. 269.

This attempt to transplant the temple of Vesta from Italy to England may, perhaps, do honour to the late Lord Bristol's patriotism or to his magnificence; but it cannot be considered as an indication of either taste or judgment. Ibid, p. 419.

<< Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid,
« Or break the compact which herself had made;
Far from such councils, from the faithless field
« She fled-but left behind her Gorgon shield;
A fatal gift that turned your friends to stone,
« And left lost Albion hated and alone.
«Look to the East, where Ganges' swarthy race
<< Shall shake your usurpation to its base;
«Lo! there rebellion rears her ghastly head,
And glares the Nemesis of native dead,
Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood,
«And claims his long arrear of northern blood.
<< So may ye perish! Pallas, when she gave

« Your free-born rights, forbade ye to enslave.

Look on your Spain, she clasps the hand she hates, But coldly clasps and thrusts you from her gates. "Bear witness bright Barrossa, thou canst tell, "Whose were the sons that bravely fought and fell. "While Lusitania, kind and dear ally,

" Can spare a few to fight and sometimes fly.
"Oh glorious field! by famine fiercely won;
"The Gaul retires for once, and all is done!
<< But when did Pallas teach that one retreat
« Retriey'd three long olympiads of defeat:
« Look last at home, ye love not to look there,
« On the grim smile of comfortless despair;
«Your city saddens, loud though revel howls,
«Here famine faints, and yonder rapine prowls =
«See all alike of more or less bereft,

"No misers tremble when there's nothing left: • Blest paper credit (1), who shall dare to sing? << It clogs like lead Corruption's weary wing :

(1) Blest paper credit, Iast and best supply, That lends Corruption lighter wings to fly,

« Yet Pallas pluck'd each Premier by the ear « Who gods and men alike disdain❜d to hear; « But one, repentant o'er a bankrupt state,

On Pallas calls, but calls, alas! too late :

<< Then raves for *** (1); to that Mentor bends,

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Though he and Pallas never yet were friends:

Him senates hear whom never yet they heard, « Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd : " So once of yore each reasonable frog « Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign log; Thus hail'd your rulers their Patrician clod, "As Egypt chose an onion for a god.

«Now fare ye well, enjoy your little hour; « Go,-grasp the shadow of your vanish'd power; Gloss o'er the failure of each fondest scheme,

Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a dream,

« Gone is that gold, the marvel of mankind,

And pirates barter all that's left behind (2);

"No more the hirelings purchas'd near and far « Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war;

«The idle merchant on the useless quay

Droops o'er the bales no bark may bear away;

« Or back returning sees rejected stores

« Rot piecemeal on his own encumber'd shores : · «The starved mechanic breaks his rusting loom,

« And desperate mans him 'gainst the common doom.

<< Then in the senate of your sinking state,

a Shew me the whose counsels have weight.

man

may

(1) The Deal and Dover traffickers in specie.

(2) See the foregoing note.