And MBRRY': metaphors appear anew, Unless, perchance, from his cold bier she Chain'd to the signature of 0. P. Q.

turns, When some brisk youth, the tenant of To deck the turf that wraps her minstrel, a stall,

BURNS! Employs a pen less pointed than his awl, No! tho' contempt hath mark'd the spurlLeaves his snug shop, forsakes his store of

ous brood, shoes,

The race who rhyme from folly,or for food, St. Crispin quits, and cobbles for the Muse, Yet still some genuine sons'tis hers to boast, Heavens! how the vulgar stare ! how Who, least affecting, still affect the most

crowds applaud ! Feel as they write, and write but as they How ladies read, and literati laud!

feel If chance some wicked wag should pass bis Bear witness GIFFORD, SOTHEBY, MAONBIL.

jest, Tis sheer ill-nature ; don't the world know

best?

“Why slumbers GIFFORD ?” once was Genius must guide when wite admire the

ask'd in vain : rhyme,

Why slumbers GIFFORD ? let us ask again, * And CAPEL Lopft declares 'tis quite sublime. Are there no follies for his pen to' purge ? Hear, then, ye happy sons of needless trade! Are there no fools whose backs demand the Swains! quit the plough, resign the useless

scourge? spade:

Are there no sins for Satire's Bard to greet? Lo!BURNs and BLOOMFIELD, nay,a greater far, Stalks not gigantic Vice in every street ? GIFFORD was born beneath an adverse star, Shall peers or princes tread Pollution's path, Forsook the labours of a servile state, And 'scape alike theLaw's and Muse's wrath? Stemm’d the rude storm and triumph'd over Nor blaze with guilty glare through future Fate :

time, Then why no more? ifPhæbus smiled on you, Eternal beacons of consummate crime ? BLOOMFIELD! why not on brother Nathan Arouse thee, GIFFORD! be thy promise too?

claim'd, Him too the Mania, not the Muse, has seized; Make bad men better, or at least ashamed. Not inspiration, but å mind diseased : And now no boor can seek his last abode, No common be enclosed, without an ode. Unhappy WHITB! while life was in its Oh! since increased refinement deigns to

spring smile

And thy young muse just waved her joyous On Britain's sons, and bless our genial Isle,

wing, Let Poesy go forth, pervade the whole, The spoiler came, and all thy promise fair Alike the rustic, and mechanic soul: Has sought the grave, to sleep for ever there. Ye tuneful cobblers! still your notes prolong, Oh! what a noble heart was here undone, Compose at once a slipper and a song ; When Science self destroyed her favourite So shall the fair your handiwork peruse;

eon! Your sonnets sure shall please – perhaps Yes! she too much indulged thy fond pursuit,

your shoes.

She sow'd the seeds, but death has reap'd MayMoorland-weavers boast Pindaric skill,

the fruit. And taylors' lays be longer than their bill! 'Twas thine own Genius gave the final blow, While punctual beaux reward the grateful And help'd to plant the wound that laid notes,

thee low: And pay for poems – when they pay for coats. So the struck eagle, streteh'd upon the plain,

No more through rolling clouds to soar

again, To the famed throng now paid the tribute View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,

due,

And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his Neglected Genius! let me turn to you.

heart: Come forth, oh CAMPBELL! give thy talents Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel

scope;

He nursed the pinion which impell’d the Who dares aspire if thon must cease to hope ?

steel, And thou, melodious Rogers! rise at last, While the same plumage that had warm'd Recal the pleasing memory of the past;

his nest Arise! let blest remembrance still inspire, Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding And strike to wonted tones thy hallow'd lyre!

breast. Restore Apollo to his vacant throne, Assert thy country's honour and thine own. What? must deserted Poesy still weep There be who say in these enlighten'd Where her last hopes with pious CowPER

days sleep? That splendid lies are all the poet's praise ; That strain'd invention, ever on the wing, Whose gilded cymbals, more adorn'd than Alone impels the modern bard to sing:

clear, 'Tis true that all who rhyme, nay, all who The eye delighted, but fatigued the ear,

write,

In show the simple lyre could once surpass, Shrink from that fatal word to Genius– But now,worn down, appear in native brass;

trite;

While all his strain of hovering sylphs Yet truth sometimes will lend her noblest

around, fires,

Evaporate in similies and sonnd: And decorate the verse herself inspires: Ilim let them shun, with him let tinsel die: This fact in Virtue's name let Crabbe attest- False glare attracts, but more offends the eye. Though nature'ssternest painter,yet the best.

Yet let them not to vulgar WORDSWORTA And here let Shes and Genius find a place,

stoop, Whose pen and pencil yield an equal grace; The meanest object of the lowly group, To guide whose hand the sister-arts combine, Whose verse,of all but childish prattle void, And trace the poet's or the painter's line; Seems blessed harmony to Lamb and LLOYD: Whose magic touch can bid the canvass Let them -- but hold, my muse, nor dare to glow,

teach Or pour the easy rhyme's harmonious flow, A strain far, far beyond thy humble reach; While honours doully merited attend The native genius with their feeling given The poet's rival, but the painter's friend. Will point the path , and peal their notes

to heaven.

verse,

lands;

of yore;

Blest is the man who dares approach the bower

And thou, too, Scort! resign to minstrels Wherc dwelt the Muses at their natal hour;

rude Whose steps have press'd, whose eye has The wilder Slogan of a Border-fend :

mark'd afar Let others spin their meagre lines for hire The clime that nursed the sons of song and Enough for genius if itself inspire!

war,

Let SOUTHEY sing, although his teeming Thescenes which glory still must hover o'er,

muse, Her place of birth, her own Achaian shore : Prolific every spring, be too profuse; But doubly blest is he whose heart expands Let simple WORDSWORTH chime his childish With hallow'd feelings for those classic

And brotherCOLERIDGElull the babe at nurse; Who rends the veil of ages long gone by, Let spectre-mongering Lewis aim, at most, And views their remnants with a poet's eye! To rouse the galleries, or to raise a ghost; Wright ! 'twas thy happy lot at once to view Let MOORE be lewd ; let STRANGFORD steal Those shores of glory, and to sing them too;

from MOORE, And sure no common muse inspired thy pen And swear that CAMOENS sang such notes To hail the land of gods and godlike men.

Let HAYLEY hobble on, MONTGOMERY rave,

And godly GRAHAM chaunt a stupid stave; And you, associate Bards! who snatch'd Let sonnetteering Bowles his strains refine,

to light

And whine and whimper to the fourteenth Those gems too long withheld from modern

sight;

Let Stort, CARLISLE, MATILDA, and the rest Whose mingling taste combined to call Of Grub-street, and of Grosvenor-Place the the wreath

best, Where Attic flowers Aonian odours breathe, Scrawl on, 'till death release us from the And all their renovated fragrance flang,

strain, To grace the beauties of your native tongue; Or common-sense assert her rights again; Now let those minds that nobly could But thou, with powers that mock the aid transfuse

of praise, The glorious spirit of the Grecian muse, Shouldst leave to humbler bards ignoble Though soft the echo, scorn a borrow'd tone:

lays: Resign Achaia's lyre, and strike your own. Thy country's voice, the voice of all the Nine,

Demand a hallow'd harp- that harp is thine.

Say! will not Caledonia's annals yield Let these, or such as these, with just The glorious record of some nobler field,

applause,

Than the vile foray of a plundering clan, Restore the Muse's violated laws:

Whose proudest deeds disgrace the name But not in flimsy Darwin's pompous chime,

of man? That mighty master of unmeaning rhyme; Or Marmion's acts of darkness, fitter food

line ;

me,

may claim

For outlaw'd SHERWOOD's tales of Robin To crown the bards that haunt her classic Hood ?

grove, Scotland! still proudly claim thy native Where RICHARDS wakes a genuine poet's Bard,

fires, And be thy praise his first, his best reward! And modern Britons justly praise their sires. Yet not with thee alone his name should live, But own the vast renown a world can give; Be known, perchance, when Albion is no For who thus Gnask'd have dared more,

to tell And tell the tale of what she was before; My country what her sons should know To future times her faded fame recal,

too well, And save her glory, though his country fall. Zeal for her honour bade me here engage

The host of idiots that infest her age.

No just applause her honour'd name shall Yet what avails the sanguine poet's hope

lose, To conquer ages, and with time to cope ? As first in freedom, dearest to the Muse. New eras spread their wings, new nations Oh, would thy bards but emulate thy fame,

rise,

And rise more worthy, Albion, of thy name! And other victors fill the applanding skies: What Athens was in science, Rome in power, A few brief generations fleet along, What Tyre appear'd in her meridian hour, Whose sons forget the poet and his song: Tis thine at once, fair Albion, to have been, E'en now what once-loved minstrels scarce Earth's chief dictatress, Ocean's mighty

queen : The transient mention of a dubious name! But Rome decay'd, and Athens strew'd the When Fame's loud trump hath' blown it's

plain, noblest blast, And Tyre's proud piers lie shatter'd in the Though long the sound, the echo sleeps at

main: last,

Like these thy strength may sink in ruin And Glory, like the Phænix midst her fires,

hurl'd, Exhales her odeurs, blazes, and expires. And Britain fall, the bulwark of the world.

But let me cease, and dread Cassandra's fate,

With warning ever scoft'd at, till too late; Shall hoary Granta call her sable sons, To themes less lofty still my lay confine, Expert in science, more expert at puns? And urge thy bards to gain a name like thine. Shall these approach the Muse ? ah , no!

she flies, And even spurns the great Seatonian prize, Then, hapless Britain! be thy rulers blest, Though printers condescend the press to soil The senate's oracles, the people's jest ! With rhyme by Hoare, and epic blank by Still hear thy motley orators dispense

HOYLE:

The flowers of rhetoric, though not of sense, Nothim whose page, if still upheld by whist, While Canning's colleagues hate him for Requires no sacred theme to bid us list.

his wit, Ye who in Granta's honours would surpass, And old dame PORTLAND fills the place of Must mount her Pegasus, a fullgrown ass—

Рітт. A foal well worthy of her ancient dam, Whose Helicon is duller than her Cam. There Clarke, still striving piteously “to Yet once again adieu ! ere this the sail

please,"

That wafts me hence is shivering in the gale: Forgetting doggrel leads not to degrees, And Afric's coast and Calpe's adverse height, A would-be satirist a hired buffoon, And Stamboul's minarets must greet my A monthly scribbler of some low lampoon,

sight: Condemn'd to drudge, the meanest of the Thence shall I stray through beanty's mean,

native clime, And furbish falsehoods for a magazine, Where Kaff is clad in rocks, and crown'd Devotes to scandal his congenial mind

with snows sublime. Himself a living libel on mankind. But should I back return, no letter'd rage Oh, dark asylum of a Vandal race! Shall drag my common-place-book on the At once the boast of learning, and disgrace:

stage: So sunk in dulness and su lost in shame, Let vain VALENTIA rival luckless CARR, That Smythe and Hodgson scarce redeem And equal him whose work he sought to mar;

thy fame!

Let ABERDEEN and Elgin still pursue But where fair Isis rolls her purer wave, The shade of fame through regions of Virtu; The partial muse delighted loves to lave; Waste useless thousands on their Phidian. On her green banks a greener wreath is

freaks, wove,

Misshapen monuments and maim'd antiqnes ;

And make their grand saloons a general And though I hope not hence unscathed to go, mart

Who conquers me shall find a stubborn foe. For all the mutilated blocks of art: The time hath been, when no harsh sound Of Dardan tours let dilettanti tell,

would fall I leave topography to classic GELL; From lips that now may seem imbued with And quite content, no more shall interpose

gall, To stun mankind with poesy or prose.

Nor fools nor follies tempt me to despise
The meanest thing that crawld beneath

my eyes: Thus far I've held my undisturb'd career, But now, 80 callous grown, so changed Prepared for rancour, steel'd 'gainst selfish

since youth, fear:

I've learned to think and sternly speak the This thing of rhyme I ne'er disdaind to

truth;

Learn'd to deride the critic's starch decree, Though not obtrusive, yet not quite un- And break him on the wheel he meant for me; known:

To spurn the rod a scribbler bids me kiss, My voice was heard again, though not so Nor care if courts and crowds applaud or

hiss : My page, though nameless, never disavow'd; Nay, more, though all my rival rhymestens And now at once I tear the veil away:

frown, Cheer on the pack! the quarry stands at bay, I too can hunt a poetaster down ; Unscared by all the din of MELBOURNB-house, And, arm'd in proof, the gauntlet cast at once By LAMB’s resentment, or by HOLLAND'S To Scotch marauder, and to Southern dance, spouse,

Thus much I've dared to do; how far my lay By JKPFREY's harmless pistol, HALLAM's rage, Hath wrong'd these righteous times, let EDINA's brawny sons and brimstone page. Our men in buckram shall have blows This let the world, which knows not how enough,

to spare, And feel they too are "penetrable stuff!" Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare.

Own

loud;

others say;

THE CURSE OF MINERVA.

- Pallas te hac vulnere, Pallas Immolat, et pænam scelerato ex sanguiné sumit.

Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race | Mark his gay course and own the hues of

be run,

heaven;

Along Morea's hills the setting sun: Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright, Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep.
But one unclouded blaze of living light!
O'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he

throws,

On such an eve, his palest beam he cast, Gilds the green wave, that trembles as it When, Athens ! here thy wisest look'd his glows:

last: On old Egina's rock, and Idra's isle, How watch'd thy better sons his farewell ray, The god of gladness sheds his parting smile; That closed their murder'd sage's latest day! O'er his own

regions lingering loves to shine, Not yet—not yet-Sol pauses on the hill Though there his altars are no more divine. The precious hour of parting lingers still: Descending fast the mountain-shadows kiss But sad his light to agonizing eyes, Thy glorious gulph, unconquer'd Salamis! And dark the mountain's once delightful Their azure arches through the long expanse,

dyes; More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing Gloom o'er the lovely land he seem'd to pour,

glance,

The land where Phæbus never frown'd And tenderest tints, along their summits

before ; driven,

But ere he sunk below Cithæron's head,

66

The cup of woe was quaffd--the spirit fled; | Not such as erst, by her divine command,
The soul of him that scorn'd to fear or fly- Her form appear'd' from Phidias' plastic
Who lived and died as none can live or die!

hand;
Gone were the terrors of her awful brow,

Her idle Ægis bore no Gorgon now;
But, lo! from high Hymettus to the plain, Her helm was deep indented, and her lance
The queen of night asserts her silent reign; Seem'd weak and shaftless, e'en to mortal
No murky vapour, herald of the storm,

glance;
Hides her fair face, nor girds her glowing The olive-branch, which still she deign'd
form:

to clasp, With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams Shrunk from her touch and wither'd in her play,

grasp: There the white column greets her grateful And,ah! though still the brightest of the sky,

ray,

Celestial tears bedimm'd her large blue eye; And bright around, with quivering beams Round the rent casque her owlet circled beset,

slow, Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret: And mourn'd his mistress with a shriek The groves of olive scatter'd dark and wide

of woe. Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide, "Mortal! ('twas thus she spake) that blush The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,

of shame The gleaming turret of the gay Kiosk, Proclaims thee Briton-once a noble nameAnd, dun and sombre mid the holy calm, First of the mighty, foremost of the free, Near Theseus' fane, yon solitary palm, Now honour'd less by all—and least by me: All tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye- Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found:And dull were his that pass'd them heed- Seekst thou the cause? 0 mortal, look less by.

around!
Lo! here, despite of war and wasting, fire,

I saw successive tyrannies expire;
Again the Ægean, heard no more afar, 'Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war;

Goth,
Again waves in milder tints unfold Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both!
Their long array of sapphire and of gold, Survey this vacant violated fane;
Mix'd with the shades of many a distant isle, Recount the relics torn that yet remain;
That frown, where gentler ocean seems to These Cecrops placed -- this Pericles adorn'd-

smile.
That Hadrian rear'd when drooping science

mourn'd:

What more I owe let gratitude attest-
As thus within the walls of Pallas' fane Know, Alaric and Elgin did the rest.
I mark'd the beauties of the land and main, That all may learn from whence the plun-
Alone and friendless, on the magic shore

derer came,
Whose arts and arms but live in poet's lore, Th'insulted wall sustains his hated name.
Oft as the matchless dome I turn'd to scan, For Elgin's fame thus grateful Pallas pleads:
Sacred to gods, but not secure from man, Below, his name-above, behold his deeds!
The past return'd, the present seem'd to Be ever hail'd with equal honour here

cease,

The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer. AndGlory knew no clime beyond her Greece. Arms gave the first his right-the last had Hours rolld along, and Dian's orb on high

none, Had gain'd the centre of her softest sky, But basely stole what less barbarians won! And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod So when the lion quits his fell repast, O'er the vain shrine of many a vanish'd god; Next prowls the wolf- the filthy jackal last : But chiefly, Pallas! thine, when Hecate's Flesh, limbs, and blood, the former make glare,

their own; Check'd by thy columns, fell more sadly fair The last base brute securely gnaws the bone. O'er the chili marble, where the startling Yet still the gods are just, and crimes are tread

crostThrills the lone heart like echoes from See here what Elgin won, and what he lost!

the dead.

Another name with his pollutes my shrine,
Long had I mused, and measured every trace Behold where Dian's beams disdain to shine!
The wreck of Greece recorded of her race, Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
When, lo! a giant-form before me strode, When Venus half avenged Minerva's shame."
And Pallas hail'd me in her own abode.
Yes, 'twas Minerva's self, but, ah! how

changed

She censed awhile, and thus I dared reply, Since o'er the Dardan field in arins she To soothe the vengeance kindling in her ranged!