When sense and wit with poesy allied,

No fabled graces, flourished side by side;
From the same fount their inspiration drew,
And, reared by taste, bloomed fairer as they grew.
Then, in this happy isle, a Pope's pure strain
Sought the rapt soul to charm, nor sought in vain;
A polished nation's praise aspired to claim,
And raised the people's, as the poet's fame.
Like him great Dryden poured the tide of song,
In stream less smooth, indeed, yet doubly strong.
Then Congreve's scenes could cheer, or Otway's
For nature then an English audience felt. [melt-
But why these names, or greater still, retrace,
When all to feebler bards resign their place?
Yet to such times our lingering looks are cast,
When taste and reason with those times are past.
Now look around, and turn each trifling page,
Survey the precious works that please the age;
This truth at least let satire's self allow,
No dearth of bards can be complained of now.*
The loaded press beneath her labor groans,
And printers' devils shake their weary bones;
While Southey's epics cram the creaking shelves,
And Little's lyrics shine in hot-pressed twelves.
Thus saith the preacher: "Nought beneath the sun
Is new;" yet still from change to change we run:

*["One of my notions is, that the present is not a high age of English poetry. There are more poets (soi-disant) than ever there were, and proportionably less poetry. This thesis I have maintained for some years; but, strange to say, it meeteth not with favor from my brethren of the shell.”—Byron's Diary, 1821.]

What varied wonders tempt us as they pass!
The cow-pox, tractors, galvanism, and gas,
In turns appear, to make the vulgar stare,
Till the swoln bubble bursts and all is air!
Nor less new schools of Poetry arise,

Where dull pretenders grapple for the prize:
O'er taste awhile these pseudo-bards prevail;
Each country book-club bows the knee to Baal,
And, hurling lawful genius from the throne,
Erects a shrine and idol of its own;* *

Some leaden calf-but whom it matters not,
From soaring Southey down to grovelling Stott.

赛

["With regard to poetry in general, I am convinced that we are all upon a wrong revolutionary poetical system, not worth a damn in itself, and from which none but Rogers and Crabbe are free. I am the more confirmed in this by having lately gone over some of our classics, particularly Pope, whom I tried in this way: I took Moore's poems, and my own, and some others, and went over them side by side with Pope's, and I was really astonished and mortified at the ineffable distance, in point of sense, learning, effect, and even imagination, passion, and invention, between the little Queen Anne's man, and us of the Lower Empire. Depend upon it, it is all Horace then, and Claudian now, among us; and if I had to begin again, I would mould myself accordingly.". · Byron's Diary, 1817.]

↑ 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 Stott's beginning thus:- Stott loquitur quoad Hibernia.—

"Princely offspring of Braganza,

Erin greets thee with a stanza," etc.

Also a Sonnet to Rats, well worthy of the subject, and a most, thundering Ode, commencing as follows:

Behold! in various throngs the scribbling crew, For notice eager, pass in long review:

Each spurs his jaded Pegasus apace,

And rhyme and blank maintain an equal race;
Sonnets on sonnets crowd, and ode on ode;
And tales of terror jostle on the road;
Immeasurable measures move along;
For simpering folly loves a varied song,
To strange mysterious dulness still the friend,
Admires the strain she cannot comprehend.
Thus Lays of Minstrels *

may they be the last!. On half-strung harps whine mournful to the blast.

"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.

* 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 Lightning, prologuizing 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 independence 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 seven-leagued boots, are chefs-d'œuvre 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

While mountain spirits prate to river sprites,
That dames may listen to the sound at nights;
And goblin brats, of Gilpin Horner's brood,
Decoy young border-nobles through the wood,
And skip at every step, Lord knows how high,
And frighten foolish babes, the Lord knows why;
While high-born ladies in their magic cell,
Forbidding knights to read who cannot spell,
Despatch a courier to a wizard's grave,
And fight with honest men to shield a knave.

Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan, The golden-crested haughty Marmion, Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight, Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight, The gibbet or the field prepared to grace; A mighty mixture of the great and base. And thinkest thou, Scott!* by vain conceit perOn public taste to foist thy stale romance,

[chance,

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 sum 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 genius, 'which is undoubtedly great, by a repetition of black-letter ballad imitations.

* ["When Byron wrote his famous satire, I had my share of flagellation among my betters. My crime was having written a poem for a thousand pounds; which was no otherwise true, than

Though Murray with his Miller may combine
To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line?
No! when the sons of song descend to trade,
Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade.
Let such forego the poet's sacred name,
Who rack their brains for lucre,* not for fame:
Still for stern Mammon may they toil in vain!
And sadly gaze on gold they cannot gain!
Such be their meed, such still the just reward
Of prostituted muse and hireling bard!
For this we spurn Apollo's venal son,

And bid a long "good night to Marmion."†

These are the themes that claim our plaudits now; These are the bards to whom the muse must bow;

that I sold the copyright for that sum. Now, not to mention that an author can hardly be censured for accepting such a sum as the booksellers are willing to give him, especially as the gentlemen of the trade made no complaints of their bargain, I thought the interference with my private affairs was rather beyond the limits of literary satire. I was, however, so far from having any thing to do with the offensive criticism in the Edinburgh, that I remonstrated against it with the editor, because I thought the "Hours of Idleness" treated with undue severity. They were written, like all juvenile poetry, rather from the recollection of what had pleased the author in others, than what had been suggested by his own imagination; but, nevertheless, I thought they contained passages of noble promise.". WALTER SCOTT.]

SIR

*[Byron set out with the determination never to receive money for his writings. This notion however he soon got rid of.] "Good night to Marmion". -the pathetic and also prophetic exclamation of Henry Blount, Esquire, on the death of honest Marmion.