words, as a memorial. Afterwards, on receiving some real or imagined injury, the author destroyed the frail record before he left Harrow. On revisiting the place in 1807, he wrote under it these stanzas. Page 48, col. 1. "WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOS TO ARYDOS."] On the 3rd of May, 1810, while the Salsette (Captain Bathurst) was lying in the Dardanelles, Lieutenant Ekenhead, of that frigate, and the writer of these rhymes, swam from the European shore to the Asiaticby the by, from Abydos to Sestos would have been more correct. The whole distance, from the place whence we started to our landing on the other side, including the by those on board the frigate at upwards of four English miles, though the actual breadth is barely one. The rapidity of the current is such that no boat can row directly across, and it may, in some measure, be estimated from the circumstance of the whole distance being accomplished by one of the parties in an hour and five, and by the other in an hour and ten minutes. The water was extremely cold, from the melting of the mountain snows. About three weeks before, in April, we had made an attempt; but, having ridden all the way from the Troad the same morning, and the water being of an icy chiliness, we found it necessary to postpone the completion till the frigate anchored below the castles, when we swam the straits, as just stated, entering a considerable way above the European, and landing below the Asiatic, fort. Chevalier says that a young Jew swam the same distance for his mistress; and Oliver mentions its having been done by a Neapolitan; but our consul, Tarragona, remembered neither of these circumstances, and tried to dissuade us from the attempt. A number of the Salsette's crew were known to have accomplished a greater distance; and the only thing that surprised me was that, as doubts had been entertained of the truth of Leander's story, no traveller had ever endeavoured to ascertain its practicability. length we were carried by the current, was computed Page 48, col. 1. “ Ζώη μου, σὰς ἀγαπῶ."] Romaic expression of tenderness: If I translate it, I shall affront the gentlemen, as it may seem that I supposed they could not; and if I do not, I may affront the ladies. For fear of any misconstruction on the part of the latter, I shall do so, begging pardon of the learned. It means, "My life, I love you!" which sounds very prettily in all languages, and is as much in fashion in Greece at this day as, Juvenal tells us, the two first words were amongst the Roman ladies, whose erotic expressions were all Hellenised. "Turning rivers into blood."] See Rev. chap. viii. ver. 7, &c. The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood," &c. Ver. 8, "And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea; and the third part of the sea became blood," &c. Ver. 10, And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp: and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters." Ver. 11, "And the nanie of the star is called. Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters because they were made bitter." Page 68, col. 2. Mr. Fitzgerald, facetiously termed by Cobbett the "Small-Beer Poet," inflicts his annual tribute of verse on the Literary Fund: not content with writing, he spouts in person, after the company have imbibed a reasonable quantity of bad port, to enable them to sustain the operation. Page 92, col. 1. "Our task complete, like Hamet's shall be free." Cid Hamet Benengeli promises repose to his pen, in the last chapter of Don Quixote. Oh that our voluminous gen. try would follow the example of Cid Hamet Benengeli! Page 92, col. 1. "Fail'd to preserve the spurious farce from shame."] This ingenious youth is mentioned more particularly, with his production, in another place. Page 92, col. 1. "No matter, George continues still to write."] In the Edinburgh Review. Page 92, col. 2. "By Jeffrey's heart, or Lambe's Baotian head."] Messrs. Jeffrey and Lambe are the alpha and omega, the first and last, of the Edinburgh Review; the others are mentioned hereafter. Page 92, col. 2. "While these are censors, 't would be sin to spare."] IMIT. "Stulta est Clementia, cum tot ubique -occurras perituræ parcere chartæ." Page 92, col. 2. Juv. Sat. I. "Then should you ask me, why I venture o'er."] IMIT. "Cur tamen hoc libeat potius decurrere campo Per quem magnus equos Aurunca flexit alumnus: Si vacat, et placidi rationem admittitis edam" Jur. Sat. I. Page 93, col. 1. "From soaring Southey down to grovelling Stott."] Stott, better known in the" Morning Post "by the name of Hafiz. This personage is at present the most profound explorer of the bathos. I remember, when the reigning family left Portugal, a special Ode of Master Stout's, beginning thus:-(Stoll loquitur quoad Hibernia)— "Princely offspring of Braganza, Erin greets thee with a stanza," &c. Also a Sonnet to Rats, well worthy of the subject, and a most thundering Ode, commencing as follows:- "Oh! for a Lay! loud as the surge That lashes Lapland's sounding shore." Lord have mercy on us! the "Lay of the Last Minstrel " was nothing to this. Page 93, col. 1. "Thus Lays of Minstrels-may they be the last!"See the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," passim. Never was any plan so incongruous and absurd as the groundwork of this production. The entrance of Thunder and Light ning, prologuising to Bayes' tragedy, unfortunately takes away the merit of originality from the dialogue between Messieurs the Spirits of Flood and Fell in the first canto. Then we have the amiable William of Deloraine, "a stark moss-trooper," videlicet, a happy compound of poacher, sheep-stealer, and highwayman. The propriety of his magical lady's injunction not to read can only be equalled by his candid acknowledgment of his independ ence of the trammels of spelling, although, to use his own elegant phrase, "t was his neck-verse at Harribee," i. e. the gallows. The biography of Gilpin Horner, and the marvellous pedestrian page, who travelled twice as fast as his master's horse, without the aid of sevEDleagued boots, are chefs-d'aurre in the improvement of taste. For incident we have the invisible, but by no means sparing, box on the ear bestowed on the page, and the entrance of a knight and charger into the castle, under the very natural disguise of a wain of hay. Marmion, the hero of the latter romance, is exactly what William of Deloraine would have been, had he been able to read and write. The poem was manufactured for Messrs. Constable, Murray, and Miller, worshipful booksellers in consideration of the receipt of a suni of money; and truly, considering the inspiration, it is a very creditable production. If Mr. Scott will write for hire, let him do his best for his paymasters, but not disgrace his geulas, which is undoubtedly great, by a repetition of blackletter ballad imitations. Page 93, col. 2. "And bid a long 'good night to Marmion.'"] "Good night to Marmion "-the pathetic and also prophetic exclamation of Henry Blount, Esquire, on the death of honest Marmion. Page 93, col. 2. "The single wonder of a thousand years."] As the Odyssey is so closely connected with the story of the Iliad, they may almost be classed as one grand historical pem. In alluding to Milton and Tasso, we consider the Paradise Lost," and "Gierusalemme Liberata," as their standard efferts; since neither the "Jerusalem Conquered" of the Italian, nor the "Paradise Regained" of the English bard, obtained a proportionate celebrity to their former poems. Query: Which of Mr. Southey's will survive? Page 93, col. 2. "Next see tremendous Thalaba come on."] "Thalaba," Mr. Southey's second poem, is written in open defiance of precedent and poetry. Mr. S. wished to produce something novel, and succeeded to a miracle. "Joan of Are" was marvellous enough, but "Thalaba" was one of those poems "which," in the words of Porson, "will be read when Homer and Virgil are forgotten, but -not till then." Page 93, col. 2. "Oh, Southey! Southey! cease thy varied song!" We beg Mr. Southey's pardon: "Madoc disdains the degrading title of epic." See his preface. Why is epic degraded? and by whom? Certainly the late romaunts of Masters Cottle, Laureat Pye, Ogilvy, Hole, and gentle Mistress Cowley, have not exalted the epic muse; but, as Mr. Southey's poem "disdains the appellation," allow us to ask-- has he substituted anything better in its stead? or must he be content to rival Sir Richard Blackmore in the quantity as well as quality of his verse? Page 93, col. 2. "Thou wilt devote old women to the devil."] See "The Old Woman of Berkeley," a ballad, by Mr. Southey, wherein an aged gentlewoman is carried away by Beelzebub, on a "high-trotting horse." Page 93, col. 2. "God help thee,' Southey, and thy readers too." The last line, "God help thee," is an evident plagiarism from the Anti-jacobin to Mr. Southey, on his Dactylics. Page 93, col. 2. "And quit his books, for fear of growing double."] Lyrical Ballads, p. 4.-"The Tables Turned." Stanza 1. "Up, up, my friend, and clear your looks; Up, up, my friend, and quit your books, Page 94, col. 1. "And like his bard, confounded night with day."] Mr. W. in his preface labours hard to prove, that prose and verse are much the same; and certainly his precepts and practice are strictly conformable : "And thus to Betty's questions he Made answer, like a traveller bold, And the sun did shine so cold," &c. &c., p. 129. "To him who takes a pixy for a muse."] Coleridge's Poems, p. 11, "Songs of the Pixies, i. e. Devonshire Fairies: p. 42 we have "Lines to a young Lady;" and p. 52,"lines to a young Ass." Page 94, col. 2. "That luckless music never triumph'd there."] Hayley's two most notorious verse productions are "Triumphs of Temper," and "The Triumph of Music." He has also written much comedy in rhyme, epistles, &c. &c. As he is rather an elegant writer of notes and biography, let us recommend Pope's advice to Wycherley to Mr. H.'s consideration, viz. "to convert poetry into prose," which may be easily done by taking away the final syllable of each couplet. "Had Cottle still adorn'd the counter's side."] Mr. Cottle, Amos, Joseph, I don't know which, but one or both, once sellers of books they did not write, and now writers of books they do not sell, have published a pair of epics-"Alfred," (poor Alfred! Pye has been at him too!)" Alfred," and the "Fall of Cambria." Page 95, col. 1. "Dull Maurice all his granite weight of leaves!"] Mr. Maurice hath manufactured the component parts of a ponderous quarto, upon the beauties of "Richmond lill," and the like:- it also takes in a charming view of Turnham Green, Hammeremith, Brentford, Old and New, and the parts adjacent. Page 95, col. 1. "May no rude hand disturb their early sleep!"] Poor Montgomery, though praised by every English Keview, 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." Page 95, col. 2. "Nor hunt the blood-hounds back to Arthur's seat?"] Arthur's Seat; the hill which overhangs Edinburgh. Page 95, col. 2. "When Little's leadless pistol met his eye."] 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 were found to have evaporated. This incident gave occasion to much waggery in the daily prints. Page 95, col. 2. "The other half pursued its calm career."] 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. Page 95, col. 2. "If Jeffrey died, except within her arms."] 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. "Herbert shall wield Thor's hammer, and sometimes."] 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, and endeth thus: "Instead of money and rings, I wet, "Smug Sydney too thy bitter page shall seek." The Rev. Sydney Smith, the reputed author of Peter Plymley's Letters, and sundry criticisms. Page 96, col. 1. "And classic Hallam, much renown'd for Greek."] 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.-Note added to second edition. The said HalJam 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 1 understand his lordship's feasts are preferable to his compositions. If he did not review Lord Holland's performance, I am glad; because 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. "Beware lest blundering Brougham destroy the sale."] Mr. Brougham, in No. XXV. of the Edinburgh Review, throughout the article concerning Don Pedro de Cevallos, has displayed more politics than policy; many of the worthy burgesses of Edinburgh being so incensed at the infamous principles it evinces, as to have withdrawn their subscriptions.-Here followed in the first on,-"The name of this personage is pronounced in the south, but the truly northern and musical ation is BROUGH-AM, In two syllables;" but for this, Lord B. substituted in the second edition :-"It seems that Mr. Broughamn is not a Plet, as I supposed, but a Borderer, and his name is pronounced Broom from Trent to Tay-so be it." Page 96, col. 1. "Her son, and vanish'd in a Scottish mist." I ought to apologise to the worthy deities for introducing a new goddess with short petticoats to their notice: but, alas! what was to be done? 1 could not say Caledonia's genius, it being well known there is no such genius to be found from Clackmannan to Caithness; yet, without supernatural agency, how was Jeffrey to be saved? The national "kelpies" are too unpoetical, and the "brownies" and "gude neighbours" (spirits of a good disposi tion) refused to extricate him. A goddess, therefore, has been called for the purpose; and great ought to be the gratitude of Jeffrey, seeing it is the only communication he ever held, or is likely to hold, with anything heavenly. Page 96, col. 1. "This scents its pages, and that gilds its rear."] Sce the colour of the back binding of the Edinburgh Review. Page 96, col. 2. "Declare bis landlord can at least translate!" Lord Holland has translated some specimens of Lope de Vega, inserted in his life of the author. Both are bepraised by his disinterested guests. Page 96, col. 2. "Reforms each error, and refines the whole." Certain it is, her ladyship is suspected of having displayed her matchless wit in the Edinburgh Review. llowever that may be, we know from good authority that the manuscripts are submitted to her perusal-no doubt, for correction. Page 96, col. 2. "And worship Catalani's pantaloons."] Naldi and Catalani require little notice for the visage of the one, and the salary of the other, will enable us long to recollect these amusing vagabonds. Besides, we are still black and blue from the squeeze on the first night of the lady's appearance in trousers. Page 97, col. 1. "Of vice and folly, Greville and Argyle!"] To pre vent any blunder, such as mistaking a street for a man, I beg leave to state that it is the institution, and not the Duke of that name, which is here alluded to. A gentle man, with whom I am slightly acquainted, lost in the Argyle Rooms several thousand pounds at backgammon It is but justice to the manager in this instance to say, that some degree of misapprobation was manifested: but why are the implements of gaming allowed in s place devoted to the society of both sexes? A pletant thing for the wives and daughters of those who are blest or cursed with such connexions, to hear the Liliard tables rattling in one room, and the dice in another! That this is the case I myself can testify, as a late unworthy member of an institution which materially affects the morals of the higher orders, while the lower may not even move to the sound of a tabor and fiddle without s chance of indictment for riotous behaviour. Page 97, col. 2. "To live like Clodius, and like Falkland fall."] I knew the late Lord Falkland well. On Sunday night I behield him presiding at his own table, in all the honest pride of hospitality; on Wednesday morning, at three o'clock, I saw stretched before me all that remained of courage, feeling, and a host of passions. He was a gallant and successful officer: his faults were the faults of a sailor (those of dissipation]-as such, Britons will forgive them. He died like a brave man in a better cause; for had he fallen in like manner on the deck of the frigate to which he was just appointed, his last moments would have been held up by his countrymen as an example to succeeding heroes. Page 97, col. 2. "Bloomfield! why not on brother Nathan too?" Sce Nathaniel Bloomfield's ode, clegy, or whatever he or one else chooses to call it, on the enclosures of "Honington Green." any Page 99, col. 1. "May Moorland weavers boast Pindaric skill."] Vide Recollections of a Weaver in the Moorlands of Staffordshire." Page 98, col. 2. "Recall the pleasing memory of the past."] It would be superfluous to recall to the mind of the reader the authors of "The Pleasures of Memory" and "The Pleasures of Hope," the most beautiful didactic poems in our language, if we except Pope's "Essay on Man:" but so many poetasters have started up, that even the Lames of Campbell and Rogers are become strange. Page 98, col. 2. Bear witness, Gifford."] Gifford, author of the Baviad and Mæviad, the first satires of the day, and translator of Juvenal. Page 98, col. 2. "Sotheby." Sotheby, translator of Wieland's Oberon and Virgil's Georgics, and author of "Saul," an epic Page 98, col. 2. poem. "Macneil."] Macneil, whose poems are deservedly popular, particularly "Scotland's Scaith," and the "Wacs of War," of which ten thousand copies were sold in one month. "Wright! 'twas thy happy lot at once to view."] Walter Rodwell Wright, late consul-general for the Seven Islands, is author of a very beautiful poem, just published: it is entitled "Hora Ionica," and is descriptive of the isles and the adjacent coast of Greece. Page 99, col. 1. "And you, associate bards! who snatch'd to light."] The translators of the Anthology, Bland and Merivale, have since published separate poems, which evince genius that only requires opportunity to attain eminence. Page 99, col. 1. "False glare attracts, but more offends the eye."] The neglect of the "Botanic Garden" is some proof of re turning taste. The scenery is its sole recommendation. Page 99, col. 1. "Seems blessed Messrs. Lamb and Southey and Co. harmony to Lamb and Lloyd."] Lloyd, the most ignoble followers of Page 99, col. 1. "And thou, too, Scott! resign to minstrels rude." By the bye, I hope that in Mr. Scott's next poem, his hero or heroine will be less addicted to "Gramarye, and more to grammar, than the Lady of the Lay and her bravo, William of Deloraine. Page 99, col. 2. "Let Stott, Carlisle, Matilda, and the rest." It may be asked, why I have censured the Earl of Carlisle, my guardian and relative, to whom I dedicated a volume of puerile poems a few years ago?-The guardianship was nominal, at least as far as I have been able to discover; the relationship I cannot help, and am very sorry for it; but as his lordship seemed to forget it on a very essential occasion to me, I shall not burden my memory with the recollection. I do not think that personal differences sanction the unjust condemnation of a brother scribbler; but I see no reason why they should act as a preventive, when the author, noble or ignoble, has, for a series of years, beguiled a "discerning public (as the advertisements have it) with divers reams of most orthodox, imperial nonsense. Besides, I do not step aside to vituperate the earl: no-his works come fairly in review with those of other patrician literati. If, before I escaped from my teens, I said anything in favour of his lordship's paper books, it was in the way of dutiful dedication, and more from the advice of others than my own judgment, and I seize the first opportunity of pronounc ing my sincere recantation. I have heard that some persons conceive me to be under obligations to Lord Carlisle: if so, I shall be most particularly happy to learn what they are, and when conferred, that they may be duly ap preciated and publicly acknowledged. What I have |