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Epic.

Tragic. Comic. Lyric.

Pastoral.

"On the false taste of the moderns in poetry-
Of all the rusts and crusts and fusts
Which spoil and stifle genuine taste
Of fiddles, paintings, medals, busts,
In jasper, giall, antique, or paste
Nought like your modern poets' idiom
For staff, bombast, and nonsense all—
While in poetic Icarian flights that giddy'em
They labour only for a fall.-

Verse should be common sense refin'd,

The thoughts all pure, compact and new:
A well-wrought picture of the mind
Its colours warm, its outline true.

While*

sips his matin news

Suppose the rhyming fit comes on.
Turns this his laundress to a muse,
His tea pot to a helicon ?

What magic whips him from his chamber
A thousand miles an end at least,
Up a steep two-fork'd rock to clamber
Where nothing grows for man or beast?

"The God of verse dwelt there."—I know it,
And just as much each school-boy knows :
But trust me, Sir, your modern poet

Should fly his brains, and not his toes.

In Greece, Parnassus was just by-
And Pegasus might waft them soon-
But, would your English songster fly,
It must be on an air-balloon.
What more impertinent by nauseous
Than talking of the buskin'd muse ?

While we should hiss the each modern Roscius
For only wearing high-heel'd shoes.

If to the comic stage I run

Need verse with lies my reader mock?

all know, I went to see the pen,
And not the actor's dirty sock.t
When Whitehead by a sea-coal fire
Eke's out his annual tax of rhime,
Think you, he "sweeps the sounding lyre

"In heav'n-born raptures" all the time?

When Lubin in the month of May

Beholds his Delia's auburn locks-
His pipe allowably may play,
But why apostrophize his flocks?
What poet now has flocks to drive,
Or cottage with a sheep-walk to it-

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Give him but one whole sheep alive,
You'd pose him mightily to stow it.
Theocritus perhaps had sheep-
His Idylls fact and nature speak :
Our bards should other measures keep,

Who buy their mutton by the steak.

"I stumbled upon this as I jogged in my palanquin hither from Patna, and have scribbled it down the instant of my arrival. Here I must wait (and I shall wait with much impatience) till I hear from you and from Palmer. I trust in your goodness not to let the matter die away and if you will condescend to broach the hint I before mentioned to the Minister, it cannot but succeed. Wilkins presents his antediluvian respects, and I have the honour to remain, with the most inviolable attachment,

Hon'ble Sir,

Your most faithful

and devoted, humble servant,

N. B. HALHED.

"13th November. Addenda.-My letter having been too late for yesterday's dawk.

"To spout alternate rhymes, is common

In Italy, as sloth or Eunuchs.

But when did sturdy British yeomen

Alternate ought save ale and blue knocks ?*

Who really" tunes a vocal shell ?"

Can it be tun'd ?-set once about it
You'l find a post's horn sound as well.—
Yet who can write a song without it?
In verse no heathen god can 'scape us:
All these are idol-worship-holders.
From Jove to honest old Priapus

In they must come by head and shoulders.
Still Saturn sweeps his reckless scythe on,
Lucina still protrudes each Fatus:
Aurora quits the bed of Tithon,

And Sol descends to that of Thetis.
Full twenty thousand odes per annum
In strains devout on Venus call.
More yet has Cupid than his Grannum,
and Cloacina most of all.
"Manibus Sacris" on a tomb

Writes the whole Elegiac herd:
This was plain sense in pagan Rome,
Tho' in a christian church absurd.

A pundit in Bengal, or Molavee
May daily see a carcase burn:

But you cant' furnish, for the soul of ye
A dirge sans ashes and an urn."

* Vide Pope's and Gray's Pastorals.

"Cawnpore, 18th November, 1784. "HON'BLE SIR,-I arrived here at 1 P. M. at Mr. Magrath's bungalow, and scribble a copy of the enclosed while dinner is getting ready. In excuse for it I can only say, that I really intended to speak of the learning, the integrity, the virtue, the philosophy and the disinterestedness of Bramins. But that when I came to "sweep the sounding lyre," the devil of one of them could I find-and Mrs. Melpomene or whoever is the proper officer on these occasions obliged me to say what I have said. As a poet I might plead the privilege of fiction. But alas it is all sober fact! and therefore I cannot possibly have hit the sublime. I believe there might have been more of it, but the accursed dawk bearers have obliged me to walk so much (not being able even to drag the palanquin after me in some places,) that I was tempted to bestow all my iambics upon them. I have the honor to remain with the most undeviating respect,

Hon'ble Sir,

You very faithful and devoted, humble servant,
N. B. HALHED.

Shall not stop to visit Col. Ironside.

"Bath, 17th December, 1804.

"MY DEAR HALHED,-Have you any objection to the publication of your lines written in the form of an epitaph on a common prostitute? I ask the question merely, but do not desire your answer to it as an assent to a request; nor if returned in the affirmative, shall I convey it as a favor. In truth, I wish it was printed in capitals, and affixed to every church-porch and market-place in the kingdom. I must add to the former, another question: should you object to your name being put to it, or to its only being known that you were the author of the poem? In truth, any man not absolutely torpid to the world's good will, which I will not believe, nor like to believe, that you are, might be proud to own it. It has been once already published, but carried by the vehicle to which it was committed into oblivion. A stray copy, therefore, may yet fall into worse hands than mine, or rather those to which I should transfer it.

"I am here on a transient visit, and shall return home the day after to-morrow.

"Pray present my respects, and add my affectionate regards to Mrs. Halhed; and receive from me the assurance of my warmest and most sincere attachment.

"I left Mrs. Hastings well. Adieu, my friend.

Yours ever,
WARREN HASTINGS."

"Pall Mall, 20th December, 1804.

"HONOURED SIR,-As Mr. Halhed's thumb is still too bad to hold a pen, he has made me his amanuensis to convey his best thanks for your kind letter this moment received, and as he cannot say nay to you, he is only particularly desirous that the poem alluded to,

when printed, should appear nowhere but upon the church-doors according to your proposal, as it is then not likely to disturb the trade or tranquillity of the survivors of the lady in question, whose ill will, as he does not chose to encounter, he had rather not his name should be held up in reprobation amongst them. Seriously speaking, while he knows your partiality for the Author, he cannot but accuse you of over-rating the merit of the piece, or at least of an exaggerated opinion of its probable effects. So if you really wish it published, he will certainly submit with pleasure to your inclination on the subject, and in return he hopes you will gratify him by suppressing the five particular letters which form the word HALIED, leaving to your option the entire remain of the alphabet, to arrange into any sounds that may be most agreeable.

And now, my dear Sir, I will resume the pen for myself, and only say, that his thumb is as sound as mine, but he says as the rage is for intercepting letters, and publishing private correspon dences, he is determined not to give the chance of any of his falling into such hands, and as long as he will but employ mine, to obey your wishes, I shall endeavour to be as correct a transcriber of his words as my liabilities will allow. The sentiments of his heart are so in union with mine, that I never need apply to him to assure you of the grateful attachment with which it glows; and with what ardour we not only at this season, but at all times, offer up our prayers to the Almighty to pour his choicest blessings on you. And we beg you will present our affectionate respects, and good wishes to Mrs. Hastings, whom we are happy to find you left in good health; and hope you will not have suffered from travelling in this piercing cold, but that you are both as well as we wish you, and that ere long we may have the satisfaction to assure you in person of the respect and attachment with which I subscribe myself,

Honored Sir,

Your grateful and affectionate

LOUISE HALHED.”

"Should you not have an original copy of the poem, command me to transcribe one for you out of my book, which contains all the verses of my good man I could save from the flames, to which he has committed a great number, and excuse this sad scrawl, for I can hardly hold my pen the cold pinches me so."

From Mr. Halhed to Mrs. Hastings on receiving a Christmas Ham.

"MY DEAREST MADAM,-Your very acceptable ham brought me a charming letter, and your very acceptable letter brought me a charming ham, like every thing else at Daylesford. I knew that all the delightful beings of the groves inhabited that blissful spot; that nymphs of every description were to be found there, in all their elysian perfection, and of course the sweetest Hamadryads; and where would be their merits, if they had no hams to dry? When I read those two beautiful lines the other day

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'My next is a villa where grumblers reside,

'And gluttons and cowards in slovenly pride.'

God forgive me, I immediately thought of the party at Stow (which
led me to sty) and very little expected so soon to see so astonishing
a specimen of one of those celebrated gentry. Now my head is so
full of that admirable couplet, that I really wish to be fully certified
this thrice-christian ham is not a morsel of the said pasty, before I
venture to plunge a knife into it. Its intended companion I should
have supposed might once have been a general officer, and a cordon
blew, if you had not obligingly informed me that it was originally
a hen, perhaps one of Monsieur's chickens, as his elder brother does
not deal in the article. Certainly Daylesford must be that very coun-
try of which Rabelais somewhere speaks with so much panegyric,
where he says, the very hogs, God bless us, feed on nothing but my-
robalons, and it seems even the Ham quitted it with great reluctance,
for while Miss Turkey danced hither on her two fair legs a week
ago for our Christmas dinner, my lord ham hoped in leisurely upon
his one stump only last Saturday, consequently a day after the fare; a
pair of them might perhaps have travelled much quicker. I suppose
when alive it must have been an admirable performer on the organ,
for as a very old proverb has long attributed peculiar excellence to the
pigs of Chipping Norton upon that fine instrument, no doubt so very
accomplished a gentleman would not fail to profit by the neighbour-
hood of that suillian academy. The delicious collar of Brawn was to be
sure a vocal member of the same body corporate, and sang perhaps as
divinely as any dying swan at the closing period of its existence;
but whatever might be its melody, nothing could exceed the excel-
lence of its taste. If this were to continue, I must think myself trans-
planted into Africa, and prepare to swear fealty to Isis and Osiris, the
first great monarchs of the land of Ham. Now my dearest bene-
factress, have the compassion to send us up a stomach or two, at
some favourable opportunity. Admit we have swallowed the collar of
Brawn whole, and the turkey ditto, cheese ditto; there are 21 yards
of-ham, equal to 336 ounces, at four ounces a day adequate to the
consumption of twelve weeks ;-but we will cut off a week for the
bone, and there remain eleven! Why it will carry us through the
winter, and we may sing, "A fig for the butcher." O if your hogs
had but come to years of discretion when we saw company!
H. says that we two sitting down to table with that mountain of
ham between us, puts him in mind of the epigram in Martial which
he bids me to copy with a translation annexed.

'Non cœnat nisi apro noster, Line, Coecilianus:
'Bellum Convivam Coecilianus habet!'

There téte á téte we dine the winter through-
And tis a monstrous bore betwixt us two.

Mr.

"So if you will kill us with kindness, who is to pay the apothecary for our dying? for you know very well, we cannot die for nothing in London.

"You see I write in excellent spirits, but it is because in stripping

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