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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 http://archive.org/details/englishbardsscot38byro 
 
englist) Uat*t>0, 
 
 AND 
 
 SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 
 
PKIMTKD BT T. COLLINS, HAEVEY's BUILDINGS, STBAKD, LOKBOK. 
 
ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 AND 
 
 SCOTCH REVIEWERS; 
 
 % Mature* 
 
 LORD BYRON. 
 
 I had rather be a kitten, and cry, mew ! 
 Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers. 
 
 Shakspeake. 
 
 Such shameless Bards we have ; and yet 'tis true, 
 There are as mad, abandon'd Critics too. 
 
 Pope. 
 
 FOURTH EDITION. 
 
 Ronton: 
 
 Piuxted for JAMES CAWTHORN, British Library, No. 24, 
 
 COCKSPUR STREET. 
 
 1810. 
 
A-28 
 c.l 
 
 p3 
 
 Preface 
 
 TO THE 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 ALL my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged me 
 not to publish this Satire with my name. If I were to be 
 " turned from the career of my humour by quibbles quick, 
 and paper bullets of the brain," I should have complied 
 with their counsel. But I am not to be terrified by abuse, 
 or bullied by reviewers, ivith or without arms. I can safely 
 say that I have attacked none personally who did not com- 
 mence on the offensive. An Author's works are public pro- 
 perty : he who purchases may judge, and publish his opinion 
 if he pleases ; and the Authors I have endeavoured to com- 
 memorate may do by me as I have done by them : 1 dare say 
 they will succeed better in condemning my scribblings, than 
 in mending their own. But my object is not to prove that 1 
 can write well, but, if possible, to make others write 
 better. 
 
 As the Poem has met with far more success than I ex- 
 pected, I have endeavoured in this Edition to make some 
 
VI PREFACE* 
 
 additions and alterations to render it more worthy of public 
 perusal. 
 
 In the First Edition of this Satire, published anony- 
 mously, fourteen lines on the subject of Bowles's Pope 
 were written and inserted at the request of an ingenious 
 friend of mine, who has now in the press a volume of 
 Poetry. In the present Edition they are erased, and some 
 of my own substituted in their stead; my only reason for 
 this being that, ivhich 1 conceive would operate with any 
 other person in the same manner ; a determination not to 
 publish with my name any production which was not entirely 
 and exclusively my own composition. 
 
 With regard to the real talents of many of the poetical 
 persons whose performances are mentioned, or alluded to, 
 in the following pages, it is presumed by the Author that 
 there can be little difference of opinion in the Public at 
 large; though, like other sectaries, each has his separate 
 tabernacle of proselytes, by whom his abilities are overrated, 
 his faults overlooked, and his metrical canons received with- 
 out scruple and without consideration. But the unques- 
 tionable possession of considerable genius by several of the 
 writers here censured, renders their mental prostitution 
 more to be regretted. Imbecility may be pitied, or, at 
 worst, laughed at and forgotten ; perverted powers demand 
 the most decided reprehension. No one can wish more than 
 the Author, that some known and able writer had under- 
 taken their exposure, but Mr. Giffoed has devoted him- 
 
PREFACE. *U 
 
 self to Massinger, and in the absence of the regular physi- 
 cian, a country practitioner may, in cases of absolute ne- 
 cessity, be allowed to prescribe his nostrum to prevent the 
 extension of so deplorable an epidemic, provided there be no 
 quackery in his treatment of the malady. A caustic is here 
 offered, as it is to be feared nothing short of actual cautery 
 can recover the numerous patients afflicted with the present 
 prevalent and distressing rabies for rhyming. — As to the 
 Edinburgh Reviewers; it would, indeed, require a Hercules 
 to crush the Hydra ; but if the Author succeeds in merely 
 " bruising one of the heads of the serpent, " though his own 
 hand should suffer in the encounter, he will be amply 
 satisfied. 
 
ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 AND 
 
 SCOTCH REVIEWERS, 
 
 Still must I hear ? — shall hoarse Fitzgerald 
 
 bawl 
 His creaking couplets in a tavern hall, 
 And I not sing, lest, haply, Scotch Reviews 
 Should dub me scribbler, and denounce my Muse ? 
 
 * IMITATION. 
 
 ' ' Semper ego auditor tantum ? nunquamne reponam 
 " Vexatus toties rauci Theseide Codri ? 
 
 Juvenal, Satire I. 
 
 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 per- 
 son after the company have imbibed a reasonable quantity of 
 bad port, to enable them to sustain the operation. 
 
 A 2 
 
ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Prepare for rhyme — -I'll publish, right or wrong: 
 Fools are my theme, let satire be my song. 
 
 Oh! Nature's noblest gift — my grey goose- 
 quill ! 
 Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will, 
 Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen, 
 That mighty instrument of little men ! 10 
 
 The pen ! foredoomed to aid the mental throes 
 Of brains that labour, big with Verse or Prose, 
 Though Nymphs forsake, and Critics may deride 
 The lover's solace, and the Author's pride. 
 What Wits! what Poets dost thou daily raise! 
 How frequent is thy use, how small thy praise ! 
 Condemned at length to be forgotten quite, 
 With all the pages which 'twas thine to write. 
 But thou, at least, mine own especial pen ! 
 Once laid aside but now assumed again, 20 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 
 
 Our task complete, like Hamet's* shall be free 4 
 Tho' spurned by others, yet beloved by me.: 
 Then let us soar to-day, no common theme, 
 No Eastern vision, no distempered dream 
 Inspires — our path, though full of thorns, is plain ; 
 Smooth be the verse, and easy be the strain. 
 
 When Vice triumphant holds her sov'reign sway, 
 And men through life her willing slaves obey; 
 When folly, frequent harbinger of crime, 
 Unfolds her motley store to suit the time ; 30 
 When Knaves and Fools combined o'er all prevail, 
 When Justice halts, and Right begins to fail, 
 E'en then the boldest start from public sneers, 
 Afraid of Shame, unknown to other fears, 
 
 * Cid Hamet Benengeli promises repose to his pen in 
 the last chapter of Don Quixote. Oh ! that our volu- 
 minous gentry would follow the example of Cm Hamet 
 Benengeli. 
 
ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 More darkly sin, by Satire kept in awe, 
 
 And shrink from Ridicule though not from Law. 
 
 Such is the force of Wit ! but not belong 
 To me the arrows of satiric song ; 
 The royal vices of our age demand 
 A keener weapon, and a mightier hand. 40 
 
 Still there are follies, e'en for me to chase, 
 And yield at least amusement in the race: 
 Laugh when I laugh, I seek no other fame, 
 The cry is up, and scribblers are my game : 
 Speed Pegasus ! — ye strains of great and small, 
 Ode! Epic! Elegy! — have at you all ! 
 I, too, can scrawl, and once upon a time 
 I poured along the town a flood of rhyme, 
 A school-boy freak, unworthy praise or blame ; 
 I printed — older children do the same. 50 
 
 'Tis pleasant sure to see one's name in print; 
 A Book's a Book, altho' there's nothing in't. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 
 
 Not that a Title's sounding charm can save 
 Or scrawl or scribbler from an equal grave : 
 This Lamb must own, since his Patrician name 
 Failed to preserve the spurious Farce from shame**. 
 No matter, George continues still to writef, 
 Tho' now the name is veiled from public sight. 
 Moved by the great example I pursue 
 The self-same road, but make my own review : 6() 
 Not seek great Jeffrey's, yet like him will be 
 Self-constituted Judge of Poesy. 
 
 A man must serve his time to evVy trade 
 Save Censure, Critics all are ready-made. 
 Take hackneyed jokes from Miller, got by rote, 
 With just enough of learning to misquote; 
 
 * 
 
 * This ingenious youth is mentioned more particularly, 
 with his production, in another place. 
 
 t In the Edinburgh Review. 
 
<S ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 A mind well skilled to find or forge a fault, 
 A turn for punning, call it Attic salt ; 
 To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet, 
 His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet: 70 
 Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a lucky hit, 
 Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit; 
 Care not for feeling — pass your proper jest, 
 And stand a Critic hated yet caressed. 
 
 And shall we own such judgment? no — as soon 
 Seek roses in December — ice in June; 
 Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff, 
 Believe a woman, or an epitaph, 
 Or any other thing that's false before 
 You trust in Critics who themselves are sore ; 80 
 Or yield one single thought to be misled 
 By Jeffrey's heart or Lamb's Boeotian head*. 
 
 * Messrs. Jeffrey and Lamb are the Alpha and Omega, 
 the first and last of the Edinburgh Review ; the others are 
 m entioned hereafter. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 
 
 To these young tyrants*, by themselves misplaced, 
 Combined usurpers on the Throne of Taste: 
 To these when Authors bend in humble awe 
 And hail their voice as Truth, their word as Law 
 While these are Censors, 'twould be sin to spare ; 
 While such are Critics, why should I forbear 3 
 But yet so near all modern worthies run, 
 Tis doubtful whom to seek, or whom to shun ; 90 
 Nor know we when to spare, or where to strike 
 Our Bards and Censors are so much alike. 
 
 t Then should you ask me, why I venture o'er 
 The path that Pope and Gifford trod before? 
 
 * «' Stulta est dementia, cum tot ubique 
 
 '« occurras periturse parcere chartse. 
 
 Juvenal, Sat. 1, 
 
 f IMITATION. 
 
 <f Cur tamen hoc libeat potius decurrere campo 
 " Per quern magnus equos Auruncse flexit alumnus: 
 ■** Si vacat, et placidi rationem admittitis, edam." 
 
 JUVENAL, S. 1. 
 
ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 If not yet sickened, you can still proceed ; 
 Go on; my rhyme will tell you as you read. 
 
 Time was, ere yet in these degenerate days 
 Ignoble themes obtained mistaken praise, 
 When Sense and Wit with Poesy allied, 
 No fabled Graces, flourished side by side, loo 
 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 Dry den poured the tide of song, 
 In stream less smooth, indeed, yet doubly strong. 
 Then Congreve's scenes could cheer, or Otway's 
 
 melt; 
 For nature then an English audience felt. — no 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 
 
 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 labour groans, 
 And Printer's devils shake their weary bones, 120 
 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, 
 What varied wonders tempt us as they pass ! 
 The Cow-pox, Tractors, Galvanism, and Gas 
 
 Ecclesiastes, Cap. 1. 
 
!0 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 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: 130 
 
 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*. 
 
 * Stott, better known in the " Morning Post" by the 
 ■name of Hafiz. This person 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," &c. &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. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 11 
 
 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; 140 
 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 Dullness 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, 
 
 * See the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," passim* Never 
 was any plan so incongruous and absurd as the ground-work 
 of this production. The entrance of Thunder and Lightning 
 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 
 
12 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 While mountain spirits prate to river sprites, 
 That dames may listen to the sound at nights ; 150 
 And goblin brats of Gilpin Horner's brood 
 Decoy young Border-nobles through the wood, 
 
 candid acknowledgement of his independence of the trammels 
 of spelling, although, to use his own elegant phrase, " 'twas 
 his neck-verse athairibee," i, e. the gallows. 
 
 The biography of Gilpin Horner, and the marvellous pe- 
 destrian page, who travelled twice as fast as his master's 
 horse, without the aid of seven-leagued boots, are chef 
 dceuvres in the improvement of taste. For incident we have 
 the invisible, but by no means sparing, box on the ear, be- 
 stowed 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 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. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 13 
 
 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, 
 Dispatch 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, 160 
 
 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 think'st thou, Scott! by vain conceit per- 
 chance, 
 On public taste to foist thy stale romance, 
 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. 170 
 
14 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Let such forego the poet's sacred name, 
 Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame : 
 Low may they sink to merited contempt, 
 And scorn remunerate the mean attempt ! 
 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 : 
 While Milton, Dryden, Pope, alike forgot, 
 Resign their hallowed Bays to Walter Scott. 
 
 The time has been, when yet the Muse was young, 
 When Homer swept the lyre, and Maro sung, 
 
 * " Good night to Marmion" — the pathetic and also 
 prophetic exclamation of Henry Blount, Esquire, on the 
 death of honest Marmion. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 15 
 
 An Epic scarce ten centuries could claim, 
 While awe-struck nations hailed the magic name • 
 The work of each immortal Bard appears 
 The single wonder of a thousand years*. 
 Empires have mouldered from the face of earth, 
 Tongues have expired with those who gave them 
 birth, . j9Q 
 
 Without the glory such a strain can give, 
 As even in ruin bids the language live. 
 Not so with us, though minor Bards content, 
 On one great work a life of labour spent; 
 With eagle pinion soaring to the skies, 
 Behold the Ballad-monger Sodthey rise! 
 
 * As the Odyssey is so closely connected with the story of 
 the Iliad, they may almost be classed as one grand historical 
 poem. In alluding to Milton and Tasso, we consider the 
 '« Paradise Lost," and " Gierusalemme Liberata," as their 
 standard efforts, 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 ? 
 
1 6 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 To him let Camoens, Milton, Tasso, yield, 
 Whose annual strains, like armies, take the field. 
 First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance, 
 The scourge of England, and the boast of France ! 
 Though burnt by wicked Bedford for a witch, 
 Behold her statue placed in Glory's niche; 
 Her fetters burst, and just released from prison, 
 A virgin Phoenix from her ashes risen. 
 Next see tremendous Thalaba come on*, 
 Arabia's monstrous, wild, and wond'rous son ; 
 Domdaniel's dread destroyer, who overthrew 
 More mad magicians than the world e'er knew. 
 Immortal Hero ! all thy foes o'ercome, 
 For ever reign-the rival of Tom Thumb ! 210 
 
 * Thalaba, Mr. Southey's second poem, is written in 
 open defiance of precedent and poetry. Mr. S. wished to 
 prodnce something novel, and succeeded to a miracle. Joan 
 of Arc was marvellous enough, but Thalaba was one of those 
 poems « which," in the words of Porson, « will be read 
 W hen Homer and Virgil are forgotten, but -not till then. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 17 
 
 Since startled metre fled before thy face, 
 Well wert thou doomed the last of all thy race ! 
 Well might triumphant Genii bear thee hence, 
 Illustrious conqueror of common sense ! 
 Now, last and greatest, Madoc spreads his sails, 
 Cacique in Mexico, and Prince in Wales ; 
 Tells us strange tales, as other travellers do, 
 More old than MandevihVs, and not so true. 
 Oh! Southey, Southey*! cease thy varied 
 
 song ! 
 
 A bard may chaunt too often and too long : 220 
 As thou art strong in verse, m mercy spare ! 
 A fourth, alas ! were more than we could bear. 
 
 * We beg' Mr. Southey's pardon: " Madoc disdains the 
 legraded title of Epic.*' See his preface. Why is Epic de- 
 graded? 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 
 :o ask— has he substituted anything better in its stead? or 
 nust he be content to rival Sir Richard Blackmore, in the 
 piantity as well as quality of his verse ? 
 
 B 
 
1 8 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 But if, in spite of all the world can say, 
 Thou still wilt verseward plod thy weary way ; 
 If still in Berkley Ballads most uncivil, 
 Thou wilt devote old women to the devil*, 
 The babe unborn thy dread intent may rue: 
 " God help thee," Southey, and thy readers 
 toof. 
 
 Next comes the dull disciple of thy school. 
 That mild apostate from poetic rule, 230 
 
 The simple Wordsworth, framer of a lay, 
 As soft as evening in his favourite May, 
 
 * See. The Old woman of Berkley, a Ballad, by Mr. 
 Southey, wherein an aged gentlewoman is carried a« ay by 
 Ueeizebub, on a " high trotting horse." 
 
 t The last line, " God help thee," is an evident plagiarism 
 from the Anti-jacobin to Mr. Southey, on his Dactylics : 
 
 •< God help thee, silly one."— Poetry of the Anti-jacobin, 
 page 23. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 19 
 
 Who warns his friend " to shake off toil and 
 
 trouble, 
 And quit his books for fear of growing double* ;" 
 Who, both by precept and example, shows 
 That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose, 
 Convincing all, by demonstration plain, 
 Poetic souls delight in prose insane ; 
 And Christmas stories tortured into rhyme 
 Contain the essence of the true sublime : 240 
 
 Thus, when he tells the tale of Betty Foy, 
 The idiot mother of" an idiot boy ;" 
 
 * Lyrical Ballads, page 4. " The tables turned." 
 
 Mtauza 1. 
 
 •* Up, up my friend, and clear your looks, 
 
 " Why all this toil and trouble ? 
 " Up, up my friend, and quit your books, 
 
 " Or surely you'll grow double." 
 
20 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 A moon-struck silly lad who lost his way, 
 And, like his bard, confounded night with day* ; 
 So close on each pathetic part he dwells, 
 And each adventure so sublimely tells, 
 That all who view the "idiot in his glory," 
 Conceive the Bard the hero of the story. 
 
 Shall gentle Coleridge pass unnoticed here, 
 To turgid ode, and tumid stanza dear? 250 
 
 Though themes of innocence amuse him best. 
 Yet still obscurity's a welcome guest. 
 
 * 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. 
 
 t( And thus to Betty's questions he 
 " Made answer, like a traveller bold, 
 " The cock did crow, to-whoo, to-whoo, 
 " And the sun did shine so cold." &c. &c. 
 
 Lyrical Ballads, page 129. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 21 
 
 If inspiration should her aid refuse, 
 To him who takes a Pixy for a Muse*, 
 Yet none in lofty numbers can surpass 
 The bard who soars to elegize an ass. 
 How well the subject suits his noble mind ! 
 " A fellow feeling makes tas wond'rous kind." 
 
 Oh ! wonder-working Lewis ! Monk or Bard, 
 Who fain wouldst make Parnassus a church-yard ! 
 Lo ! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy brow. 
 Thy Muse a Sprite, Apollo's sexton thou ! 
 Whether on ancient tombs thou tak'st thy stand, 
 By gibb'ring spectres hailed, thy kindred band ; 
 Ortracest chaste descriptions on thy page, 
 To please the females of our modest age, 
 
 * Coleridge's Poems, page 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." 
 
22 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 All hail, M. P.* ! from whose infernal brain 
 Thin sheeted phantoms glide, a grisly train ; 
 At whose command, " grim women" throng in 
 
 crowds, 
 And kings of fire, of water, and of clouds, 270 
 With " small grey men,'* — " wild yagers," and 
 
 what-not, 
 To crown with honour, thee, and Walter Scott ; 
 Again all hail ! if tales like thine may please, 
 St. Luke alone can vanquish the disease ; 
 Even Satan's self with thee might dread to dwell, 
 And in thy skull discern a deeper hell. 
 
 Who in soft guise, surrounded by a choir 
 Of virgins melting, not to Vesta's fire, 
 
 * «* For every one knows little Matt's an M. P." See 
 
 a Poem to Mr. Lewis, in The Statesman, supposed to be 
 written by Mr. Jekyll. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 23 
 
 With sparkling eyes, and cheek by passion flushed, 
 Strikes his wild Lyre, whilst listening dames are 
 hushed ? 280 
 
 'Tis Little ! young Catullus of his day, 
 As sweet, but as immoral in his lay! 
 Grieved to condemn, the Muse must still be just, 
 Nor spare melodious advocates of lust. 
 Pure is the flame, which o'er her altar burns ; 
 From grosser incense with disgust she turns : 
 Yet kind to youth, this expiation o'er, 
 She bids thee " mend thy line and sin no more." 
 
 For thee, translator of the tinsel song, 
 To whom such glittering ornaments belong, 290 
 Hibernian Strangford! with thine eyes of blue*, 
 And boasted locks of red, or auburn hue, 
 
 * The reader, who may wish for an explanation of this, may 
 refer to «« Strangford's Camoens," page 127, note to page 
 56, or to the last page of the Edinburgh Review of Strang- 
 ford's Camoens. 
 
24 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Whose piaintive strain each love-sick Miss admires, 
 And o'er harmonious fustian half expires, 
 Learn, if thou can'st, to yield thine author's sense, 
 Nor vend thy sonnets on a false pretence. 
 Think'st thou Jo gain thy verse a higher place, 
 By dressing Camoens in a suit of lace ? 
 Mend, Strangford ! mend thy morals and thy 
 
 taste ; 
 Be warm, but pure, be amorous, but be chaste : 300 
 Cease to deceive ; thy pilfered harp restore, 
 Nor teach the Lusian Bard to copy Moore. 
 
 In many marble-covered volumes view 
 Hayley, in vain attempting something new: 
 Whether he spin his comedies in rhyme, 
 Or scrawl, as Wood and Barclay walk 'gainst 
 time, 
 
 It is also to be remarked, that the things given to the 
 public as Poems of Camoens, are no more to be found in the 
 original Portuguese, than in the Song of Solomon. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 25 
 
 His style in youth or age is still the same ; 
 For ever feeble and for ever tame. 
 Triumphant first see ** Temper's Triumphs" shine ! 
 At least Fm sure they triumphed over mine. 310 
 Of " Music's Triumphs" all who read may swear 
 That luckless music never triumphed there*. 
 
 Moravians rise ! bestow some meet reward 
 On dull devotion — lo ! the Sabbath Bard, 
 Sepulchral Grahame, pours his notes sublime, 
 In mangled prose, nor e'en aspires to rhyme, 
 Breaks into blank the Gospel of St. Luke, 
 And boldly pilfers from the Pentateuch ; 
 
 * Hayley's two most notorious verse productions, are 
 " Triumphs of Temper," and " Triumphs 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 consider- 
 ation : viz. " to convert his poetiy into prose," which may 
 be easily done by taking away the final syllable of each 
 couplet. 
 
 B 2 
 
26 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 And, undisturbed by conscientious qualms, 
 Perverts the Prophets, and purloinsthe Psalms*.320 
 
 Hail sympathy ! thy soft idea brings 
 A thousand visions of a thousand things, 
 And shows, dissolved in thine own melting tears, 
 The maudlin Prince of mournful sonneteers. 
 And art thou not their Prince, harmonious Bowles! 
 Thou first, great oracle of tender souls ? 
 Whether in sighing winds thou seek'st relief, 
 Or consolation in a yellow leaf ; 
 Whether thy muse most lamentably tells 
 What merry sounds proceed from Oxford bells •}", 330 
 Or, still in bells delighting, finds a friend, 
 In every chime that jingled from Ostend ? 
 
 * Mr, Grahame has poured forth two volumes of Cant, 
 under the name of " Sabbath Walks," and " Biblical Pic_ 
 tures." 
 
 ■f See Bowles's Sonnets, &c. " Sonnet to Oxford," and 
 
 " Stanzas on hearing the Bells of Ostend." 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 27 
 
 Ah ! how much juster were thy Muse's hap, 
 If to thy bells thou would'st but add a cap ! 
 Delightful Bowles ! still blessing and still blest, 
 All love thy strain, but children like it best. 
 'Tis thine, with gentle Little's moral song, 
 To sooth the mania of the amorous throng ! 
 With thee our nursery damsels shed their tears, 
 Ere Miss, as yet, completes her infant years : 340 
 But in her teens thy whining powers are vain ; 
 She quits poor Bowles, for Little's purer strain. 
 Now to soft themes thou scornest to confine 
 The lofty numbers of a harp like thine ; 
 " Awake a louder and a loftier strain*," 
 Such as none heard before, or will again ! 
 
 * " Awake a louder," &c. &c, is the first line in Bowles's 
 " Spirit of Discovery ;" a very spirited and pretty dwarf Epic. 
 Among other exquisite lines we have the following : — 
 
 " A kiss 
 
 " Stole on the list'ning silence, never yet 
 
 ** Here heard ; they trembled even as if the power," &c. &c. 
 
28 > ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Where all discoveries jumbled from the flood, 
 Since first the leaky ark reposed in mud, 
 By more or less are sung in every book, 
 From Captain Noah down to Captain €ook. 350 
 Nor this alone, but pausing on the road, 
 The Bard sighs forth a gentle episode* ; 
 And gravely tells— attend each beauteous Miss I— 
 When first Madeira trembled to a kiss. 
 Bowles ! in thy memory let this precept dwell, 
 Stick to thy Sonnets, man ! at least they sell. 
 But if some new-born whim, or larger bribe 
 Prompt thy crude brain, and claim thee for a scribe, 
 
 That is, the woods of Madeira trembled to a kiss, very 
 much astonished, as well they might be, at such a pheno- 
 menon. 
 
 * The Episode above alluded to, is the story of " Robert a 
 Machin," and " Anna d'Arfet," a pair of constant lovers, who 
 performed the kiss above-mentioned, that startled the woods of 
 Madeira. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 29 
 
 '-»■ — — tr- 
 
 If chance some bard,though once by dunces feared, 
 Now, prone in dust, can only be revered ; aeo 
 If Pope, whose fame and genius from the first 
 Have foiled the best of critics, needs the worst, 
 Do thou essay ; each fault, each failing scan ; 
 The first of poets was, alas ! but man ! 
 Rake from each ancient dunghill ev'ry pearl, 
 Consult Lord Fanny, and confide in Curll*; 
 Let all the scandals of a former age, 
 Perch on thy pen and flutter o'er thy page ; 
 Affect a candour which thou can'st not feel, 
 Clothe envy in the garb of honest zeal : 370 
 
 Write, as if St. John's soul could still inspire, 
 And do from hate, what-f Mallet did for hire. 
 
 * Curll is one of the Heroes of the Dunciad, and was a 
 bookseller. Lord Fanny is the poetical name of Lord Hervey , 
 author of " Lines to the Imitator of Horace." 
 
 t Lord Bolingbrore hired Mallet to traduce Pope 
 after his decease, because the Poet had retained some copies 
 
30 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Oh ! hadst thou lived in that congenial time, 
 To rave with Dennis, and with Ralph to rhyme*, 
 Thronged with the rest around his living head, 
 Not raised thy hoof against the lion dead, 
 A meet reward had crowned thy glorious gains, 
 And linked thee to the Dunciad for thy painsj- . 
 
 Another Epic! who inflicts again 
 More books of blank upon the sons of men ? 380 
 
 of a work by Lord Bolingbroke (the Patriot King), which 
 that splendid, but malignant genius, had ordered to bo de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 * Dennis, the critic, and Ralph, the rhymester. 
 " Silence ye wolves ! while Ralph to Cynthia howls, 
 "■ Making night hideous, answer him ye owls !" 
 
 Dunciad. 
 
 f.See Bowles's late edition of Pope's works, for which he 
 received 300 pounds : thus Mr. B. has experienced how much 
 easier it is to profit by the reputation of another, than to ele- 
 vate his own. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 31 
 
 Boeotian Cottle, rich Bristowa's boast, 
 Imports old stories from the Cambrian coast, 
 And sends his goods to market — all alive ! 
 Lines forty thousand, Cantos twenty-five ! 
 Fresh fish from Helicon ! who'll buy ? who'll buy ? 
 The precious bargain's cheap — in faith, not I. 
 Too much in turtle Bristol's sons delight, 
 Too much o'er bowls of rack prolong the night: 
 If Commerce fills the purse, she clogs the brain, 
 And Amos Cottle strikes the Lyre in vain. 390 
 In him an author's luckless lot behold ! 
 Condemned to make the books which once he sold. 
 Oh ! Amos Cottle ! — Phoebus ! what a name 
 To fill the speaking trump of future fame !— 
 Oh ! Amos Cottle ! for a moment think 
 What meagre profits spring from pen and ink I 
 When thus devoted to poetic dreams, 
 Who will peruse thy prostituted reams ? 
 
32 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Oh ! pen perverted ! paper misapplied ! 
 Had #Cottle still adorned the counter's side, 400 
 Bent o'er the desk, or, born to useful toils, 
 Been taught to make the paper which he soils, 
 Ploughed, delved, or plied the oar with lusty limb, 
 He had not sung of Wales, nor I of him. 
 
 As Sisyphus against the infernal steep 
 Rolls the huge rock, whose motions ne'er may sleep, 
 So up thy hill, ambrosial Richmond ! heaves 
 Dull Maurice^ all his granite weight of leaves : 
 
 * Mr. Cottle, Amos, or Joseph, I don't know which, but 
 one or both, once sellers of books they did not write, and now 
 writers of books that do not sell, have published a pair of Epics. 
 " Alfred,'* (poor Alfred ! PYEhas been at him too I) " Alfred" 
 and the " Fall of Cambria." 
 
 f Mr. Maurice hath manufactured the component parts of 
 a ponderous quarto, upon the beauties of " Richmond Hill," 
 and the like: — it also takes in a charming view of Turnham 
 Green, Hammersmith, Brentford, Old and New, and the parts 
 adjacent. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 33 
 
 Smooth, solid monuments of mental pain ! 
 The petrifactions of a plodding brain, 410 
 
 That ere they reach the top fall Lumbering back 
 again. 
 
 With broken lyre and cheek serenely pale, 
 Lo ! sad Alcaeus wanders down the vale ! 
 Though fair they rose, and might have bloomed 
 
 at last, 
 His hopes have perished by the Northern blast : 
 Nipped in the bud by Caledonian gales, 
 His blossoms wither as the blast prevails ! 
 O'er his lost works let classic Sheffield weep : 
 May no rude hand disturb their early sleep* ! 
 
 * Poor Montgomery ! though praised by every English 
 Review, 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." 
 
34 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Yet, say ! why should the Bard, at once, resign 
 His claim to favour from the sacred Nine ? 
 For ever startled by the mingled howl 
 Of northern wolves that still in darkness prowl ; 
 A coward brood which mangle as they prey, 
 By hellish instinct, all that cross their way: 
 Aged or young, the living or the dead, 
 No mercy find, — these harpies must be fed. 
 Why do the injured unresisting yield 
 The calm possession of their native field ? 
 Why tamely thus before their fangs retreat, 430 
 Nor hunt the bloodhounds back to Arthur's seat ?* 
 
 Health to immortal Jeffrey ! once, in name, 
 England could boast a judge almost the same ; 
 In soul so like, so merciful, yet just, 
 Some think that Satan has resigned his trust, 
 
 * Arthur's seat ; the hill which overhangs Edinburgh. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 35 
 
 And given the Spirit to the world again, 
 
 To sentence Letters, as he sentenced men. 
 
 With hand less mighty, but with heart as black, 
 
 With voice as willing to decree the rack ; 
 
 Bred in the Courts betimes, though all that law 440 
 
 As yet has taught him is to find a flaw. 
 
 Since well instructed in the patriot school 
 
 To rail at party, though a party tool, 
 
 Who knows ? if chance his patrons should restore 
 
 Back to the sway they forfeited before, 
 
 His scribbling toils some recompence may meet 
 
 And raise this Daniel to the Judgment seat. 
 
 Let Jeffrey's shade indulge the pious hope, 
 
 And greeting thus, present him with a rope : 
 
 " Heir to my virtues ! man of equal mind ! 450 
 
 " Skilled to condemn as to traduce mankind, 
 
 " This cord receive ! for thee reserved with care, 
 
 " To wield in judgment, and at length to wear," 
 
36 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Health to great Je ffre y ! Heaven preserve his 
 life, 
 To flourish on the fertile shores of Fife, 
 And guard it sacred in his future wars, 
 Since authors sometimes seek the field of Mars ! 
 Can none .remember that eventful day, 
 That ever glorious, almost fatal fray, 
 When Little's leadless pistol met his eye, 460 
 And Bow-street Myrmidons stood laughing by* ? 
 Oh ! day disastrous I on her firm set rock, 
 Dunedin's castle felt a secret shock ; 
 Dark rolled the sympathetic waves of Forth, 
 Low groaned the startled whirlwinds of the North; 
 
 f In 1806, Messrs. Jeffrey and Moore met at Chaik- 
 Farm. The duel was prevented by the interference of the 
 Magistracy ; and, on examination, the balls of the pistols, 
 like the courage of the combatants, were found to have eva- 
 porated. This incident gave occasion to much waggery in 
 the Daily Prints. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 37 
 
 Tweed ruffled half his waves to form a tear, 
 The other half pursued its calm career * ; 
 Arthur's steep summit nodded to its base, 
 The surly Tolbooth scarcely kept her place ; 
 The Tolbooth felt— for marble sometimes can, 470 
 On such occasions, feel as much as man — 
 The Tolbooth felt defrauded of his charms, 
 If Jeffrey died, except within her arms j* : 
 Nay, last not least, on that portentous morn 
 The sixteenth story where himself was born, 
 
 * The Tweed here behaved with proper decorum; it 
 would have been highly reprehensible in the English half of 
 the River to have shewn the smallest symptom of appre- 
 hension. 
 
 t 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 commend- 
 ed. 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. 
 
38 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 His patrimonial garret fell to ground, 
 And pale Edina shuddered at the sound : 
 Strewed were the streets around with milk-white 
 
 reams, 
 Flowed all the Canongate with inky streams ; 
 This of his candour seemed the sable dew, 480 
 That of his valour shewed the bloodless hue, 
 And all with justice deemed the two combined 
 The mingled emblems of his mighty mind. 
 But Caledonia's Goddess hovered o'er 
 The field, and saved him from the wrath of Moore ; 
 From either pistol snatched the vengeful lead, 
 And strait restored it to her favorite's head. 
 That head, with greater than magnetic power, 
 Caught it, as Danae caught the golden shower, 
 And though the thickening dross will scarce refine, 
 Augments its ore, and is itself a mine. 
 " My son," she cried, " ne'er thirst for gore again, 
 " Resign the pistol, and resume the pen ; 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 39 
 
 " O'er politics and poesy preside, 
 " Boast of thy country, and Britannia's guide ! 
 " For long as Albion's heedless sons submit, 
 " Or Scottish taste decides on English wit, 
 " So long shall last thine unmolested reign, 
 " Nor any dare to take thy name in vain. 
 " Behold a chosen band shall aid thy plan, 500 
 " And own thee chieftain of the critic clan. 
 " First in the ranks illustrious shall be seen 
 " The travelled Thane ! Athenian Aberdeen*. 
 " H ERBERTshall wield T hor's hammerf, and some- 
 times 
 "In gratitude thou'lt praise his rugged rhymes. 
 
 * His Lordship has been much abroad, is a Member of the 
 Lthenian Society, and Reviewer of " Gell's Topography of 
 froy." 
 
 f Mr. Herbert is a Translator of Icelandic and other 
 poetry. One of the principal pieces is a " Song on the Re- 
 
40 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 " Smug Sydney* too thy bitter page shall seek, 
 " And classic HALLAMf much renowned for Greek. 
 
 covery of Thor's Hammer :" the translation is a pleasant 
 chaunt in the vulgar tongue, and endeth thus : — 
 " Instead of money and rings, I wot, 
 " The hammer's bruises were her lot, 
 '*' Thus Odin's son his hammer got." 
 * The Rev. Sydney Smith, the reputed Author of Peter 
 Plymley's Letters, and sundry criticisms. 
 
 f Mr. Halla m 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 ever- 
 lasting monument of Hallam's ingenuity. 
 
 The said Hallam is incensed, because he is falsely ac- 
 cused, 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 I understand his Lordship's feasts are preferable 
 to his compositions. — If he did not review Lord Holland's 
 performance, I am glad, because it 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. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 41 
 
 " ScoTTmayperchancehisnameandinfluencelend, 
 " And paltry Pillans* shall traduce his friend. 
 " While gay Thalia's luckless votary Lambe-|*, 510 
 " As he himself was damned, shall try to damn. 
 " Known be thy name, unbounded be thy sway! 
 f Thy Holland's banquets shall each toil repay; 
 " While grateful Britain yields the praise she owes, 
 " To Hollands hirelings, and to Learning's foes, 
 " Yet mark one caution, ere thy next Review 
 " Spread its light wings of Saffron and of Blue, 
 " Beware lest blundering Brougham % destroy 
 
 " the sale, 
 " Turn Beef to Bannocks, Cauliflowers to Kail." 
 
 * Pillans is a tutor at Eton. 
 
 f The honourable G. Lambe reviewed " Beresfokd's 
 Miseries," and is moreover Author of a Farce enacted with 
 much applause at the Priory, Stanmore ; and damned with 
 great expedition at the late Theatre, Covent-Garden. It 
 was entitled « Whistle for It." 
 
 X Mr. Brougham, in No. XXV. of the Edinburgh Re- 
 view, throughout the article concerning Don Pedro de Cevallos, 
 
 C 
 
42 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Thus having said, the kilted Godd ess kist 520 
 Her son, and vanished in a Scottish mist*. 
 
 has displayed more politics than policy : many of the worthy 
 Burgesses ofEdinbnrgh being so incensed at the infamous 
 principles it evinces, as to have withdrawn their subscrip- 
 tions. 
 
 It seems that Mr. Brougham is not a Pict, as I supposed, 
 but a Borderer, and is name is pronounced Broom, from 
 Trent to Tay :— So be it. 
 
 * I ought to apologize to the worthy Deities for introduc- 
 ing a new Goddess with short petticoats to their notice : but, 
 alas ! what was to be done ? I could not say Caledonia's Ge- 
 nius, it being well known there is no Genius to be found from 
 Clackmannan to Caithness, yet without supernatural agency, 
 how was Jeffrey to be saved ? The national « Kelpies," &c. 
 are too unpoetical, and the « Brownies " and " gude 
 neighbours," (spirits of a good disposition) refused to extri- 
 cate him. A Goddess therefore has been called for the pur- 
 pose, and great ought to be the gratitude of Jeffrey, seeing 
 it is the only communication he ever held, or is likely to 
 hold, with any thing heavenly. 
 

 AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 43 
 
 Illustrious Holland ! hard would be his lot 
 His hirelings mentioned, and himself forgot ! 
 Holland, with Henry Petty at his back, 
 The whipper-in and huntsman of the pack. 
 Blest be the banquets spread at Holland House, 
 Where Scotchmen feed, and Critics may carouse ! 
 Long, long beneath that hospitable roof, 
 Shall Grub-street dine, while duns are kept aloof. 
 See honest Hall am lay aside his fork, 530 
 
 Resume his pen, review his Lordship's work, 
 And grateful to the founder of the feast, 
 Declare his landlord can translate at least* ! 
 Dunedin ! view thy children with delight, 
 They write for food, and feed because they write : 
 And lest, when heated with the unusual grape, 
 Some glowing thoughts should to the press escape, 
 
 * Lord H. has translated some specimens of Lope deVega, 
 inserted in his life of the Author : both are bepraised by his 
 disinterested guests. 
 
 
44 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 And tinge with red the female reader's cheek, 
 My lady skims the cream of each critique; 
 Breathes o'er the page her purity of soul, 540 
 Reforms each error and refines the whole*. 
 
 Now to the Drama turn — oh ! motley sight! 
 What precious scenes the wondering eyes invite! 
 Puns, and a Prince within a barrel pent")-, 
 And Dibdin's nonsense yield complete content. 
 Though now, thank Heaven ! the Rosciomania's 
 
 o'er, 
 And full-grown actors are endured once more ; 
 Yet what avails their vain attempts to please, 
 While British critics suffer scenes like these? 
 
 * Certain it is, her Ladyship is suspected of having dis- 
 played her matchless wit in the Edinburgh Review : however 
 that may be, we know from good authority, that the manu- 
 scripts are submitted to her perusal — no doubt for correction. 
 
 t In the melo-drama of Tekeli, that heroic prince is clapt 
 into a barrel on the stage, a new asylum for distressed heroes. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 45 
 
 While Reynolds vents his " dammes, poohs," and 
 " zounds*," 550 
 
 A nd common place, and common senseconfounds ? 
 While Kenny's World just suffered to proceed, 
 Proclaims the audience very kind indeed? 
 And Beaumont's pilfered Caratach affords 
 A tragedy complete in all but wordsf? 
 Who but must mourn, while these are all the rage, 
 The degradation of our vaunted stage? 
 Heavens ! is all sense of shame, and talent gone ? 
 Have we no living Bard of merit? — none? 
 Awake,GEORGECoLMAN, Cumberland, awake ! 560 
 Ring the alarum bell, let folly quake ! 
 
 * AH these are favourite expressions of Mr. R. and promi- 
 nent in his Comedies, living and defunct. 
 
 f Mr. T. Sheridan, the new Manager of Drury-Lane 
 Theatre, stripped the Tragedy of Bonduca of the Dialogue, 
 and exhibited the scenes as the spectacle of Caractacus. — Was 
 this worthy of his sire ? or of himself ? 
 
46 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Oh ! Sheridan ! if aught can move thy pen, 
 Let Comedy resume her throne again, 
 Abjure the mummery of German schools, 
 Leave new Pizarros to translating fools ; 
 Give as thy last memorial to the age, 
 One classic drama, and reform the stage. 
 Gods ! o'er those boards shall Folly rear her head 
 Where Garrick trod, and Kemble lives to tread ? 
 On those shall Farce display buffoonery's mask, 570 
 And Hook conceal his heroes in a cask ? 
 Shall sapient managers new scenes produce 
 From Cherry, Skeffington, and Mother Goose ? 
 While Shakspeare, Otway, Massinger, forgot, 
 On stalls must moulder, or in closets rot ? 
 Lo ! with what pomp the daily prints proclaim, 
 The rival candidates for Attic fame ! 
 In grim array though Lewis' spectres rise, 
 Still Skeffington arid Goose divide the prize. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 47 
 
 And sure great Skeffington must claim our 
 
 praise, 
 For skirtless coats, and skeletons of plays 
 Renowned alike ; whose genius ne'er confines 
 Her flight to garnish Greenwood's gay designs* 
 Nor sleeps with ■<« Sleeping Beauties/' but anon 
 In five facetious acts comes thundering on,t 
 While poor John Bull, bewildered with the scene, 
 Stares, wondering what the devil it can mean ; 
 But as some hands applaud, a venal few ! 
 Rather than sleep, why John applauds it too. 
 
 Such are we know, ah ! wherefore should we turn 
 To what our fathers were, unless to mourn ? 
 Degenerate Britons ! are ye dead to shame, 
 Or, kind to dullness, do you fear to blame? 
 
 * Mr. Greenwood is, we believe, Scene-Painter to Druiy 
 Lane Theatre-as such, Mr. S. is much indebted to him. 
 
 f Mr. S. is the illustrious author of the « Sleeping Beauty ;" 
 and some Comedies, particularly « Maids and Bachelors :" 
 Baculaurii baculo magis quam lauro digni. 
 
48 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Well may the nobles of our present race 
 Watch each distortion of a Naldi's face, 
 Well may they smile on Italy's buffoons, 
 And worship Catalani's pantaloons*, 
 Since their own Drama yields no fairer trace 
 Of wit than puns, of humour than grimace. 
 
 Then let Ausonia, skilled in every art 600 
 To soften manners, but corrupt the heart, 
 Pour her exotic follies o*er the town, 
 To sanction Vice and hunt decorum down : 
 Let wedded strumpets languish o'er Desha yes, 
 And bless the promise which his form displays ; 
 WhileGAYTONboundsbeforetheenrapturedlooks 
 Of hoary Marquises and stripling Dukes : 
 
 * Naldi andCATALANi 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 La- 
 dy*s appearance in trowsers. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS, 49 
 
 Let high-born letchers eye the lively Presle 
 Twirl her light limbs that spurn the needless veil ; 
 Let Angiolini bear her breast of snow, 6io 
 Wave the white arm and point the pliant toe ; 
 Collini trill her love-inspiring song, 
 Strain her fair neck and charm the listening throng ! 
 Raise not your scythe, Suppressors of our Vice ! 
 Reforming Saints ! too delicately nice ! 
 By whose decrees, our sinful souls to save, 
 No Sunday tankards foam, no barbers shave ; 
 And beer undrawn and beards unmown display 
 Your holy rev'rence for the Sabbath-day. 
 
 Or, hail at once the patron and the pile *620 
 Of vice and folly, Greville and Argyle* ! 
 
 * To prevent any blunder, such as mistaking a street for 
 a man, I beg leave to state, that it is the Institution, and net 
 the Duke of that name, which is here alluded to. 
 
 C 2 
 
50 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Where yon proud palace Fashion's hallowed fane, 
 Spreads wide her portals for the motley train, 
 Behold the new Pethonius* of the day, 
 The Arbiter of pleasure and of play! 
 There the hired Eunuch, the Hesperian choir, 
 The melting lute, the soft lascivious lyre, 
 
 A gentleman, with whom I am slightly acquainted, lost 
 in the Argyle Rooms several thousand pounds at Backgam- 
 mon ; it is but justice to the manager in this instance to say, 
 that some degree of disapprobation was manifested, but why 
 are the implements of gaming allowed in a place devoted to 
 the society of both sexes ? A pleasant thing for the wives 
 and daughters of those who are blest or curst with such con- 
 nections, to hear the billiard- 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 a chance of indictment for riotous behaviour. 
 
 * Petronius " Arbiter elegantiarum" to Nero, " and a 
 very pretty fellow in his day," as Mr. Congreve's Old 
 Bachelor saith. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 5-1 
 
 The song from Italy, the step from France, 
 The midnight orgy, and the mazy dance, 
 The smile of beauty, and the flush of wine, 630 
 For fops, fools, gamesters, knaves, and Lords com- 
 bine; 
 Each to his humour,— Comus all allows; 
 Champaign, dice, music, or your neighbour's 
 
 spouse. 
 Talk not to us, ye starving sons of trade ! 
 Of piteous ruin, which ourselves have made: 
 In Plenty's sunshine Fortune's minions bask, 
 Nor think of Poverty, except " en masque," 
 When for the night some lately titled ass 
 Appears the beggar which his grandsire was. 
 The curtain dropped, the gay Burletta o'er, 640 
 The audience take their turn upon the floor ; 
 Now round the room the circling dow'gers sweep, 
 Now in loose waltz the thin-clad daughters leap; 
 
52 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 The first in lengthened line majestic swim, 
 The last display the free, unfettered limb : 
 Those for Hi hernia's lusty sons repair 
 With art the charms which nature could not spare; 
 These after husbands wing their eager flight, 
 Nor leave much mystery for the nuptial night. 
 
 Oh ! blest retreats of infamy and ease f 650 
 Where, all forgotten but the power to please, 
 Each maid may give a loose to genial thought, 
 Each swain may teach new systems, or be taught: 
 There the blithe youngster, just returned from 
 
 Spain, 
 Cuts the light pack, or calls the rattling main ; 
 The jovial Caster's set, and seven's the nick, 
 Or — done! — a thousand on the coming trick ! 
 If, mad with loss, existence *gins to tire, 
 And all your hope or wish is to expire, 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS, ^ 
 
 Here's Powell's pistol ready for your life, 060 
 
 And, kinder still, a Paget for your wife: 
 
 Fit consummation of an earthly race 
 
 Begun in folly, ended in disgrace, 
 
 While none but menials o'er the bed of death, 
 
 Wash thy redwounds,or watch thy wavering breath ; 
 
 Traduced by liars, and forgot by all, 
 
 The mangled victim of a drunken brawl, 
 
 To live like Clodius, and like Falkland fall. 
 
 * Mutato nomine de te 
 Fabula narratur. 
 f 1 knew the late Lord Falkland well. On Sunday 
 night I beheld 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 sa.lor, 
 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, Ins last 
 moments would have been held up by his countrymen as an 
 example to succeeding heroes. 
 
54 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Truth ! rouse some genuine Bard, and guide 
 his hand 
 To drive this pestilence from out the land. 670 
 Even I— least thinking of a thoughtless throng, 
 Just skilled to knowthe right and chuse the wrong, 
 Freed at that age when Reason's shield is lost 
 Tofight my course though Passion's countless host, 
 Whom every path of pleasure's flowery way 
 Has lured in turn, and all have led astray— 
 E'en I must raise my voice, e'en I must feel 
 Such scenes, such men destroy the public weal : 
 Altho' some kind, censorious friend will say, 
 " What art thou better, meddling fool, than they?" 
 And every Brother Rake will smile to see 
 That miracle, a Moralist in me. 
 No matter — when some Bard in virtue strong, 
 Gifford perchance, shall raise the chastening song, 
 Then sleep my pen for ever ! and my voice 
 Be only heard to hail him and rejoice ; 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 55 
 
 Rejoice, and yield my feeble praise, though I 
 May feel the lash that virtue must apply. 
 
 As for the smaller fry, who swarm in shoals 
 From silly Hafiz* up to simple Bowles 690 
 Why should we call them from their dark abode, 
 In broad St. Giles's, or in Tottenham Road ? 
 Or (since some men of fashion nobly dare 
 To scrawl in verse) from Bond-street or the 
 
 Square ? 
 If things of ton their harmless lays indite, 
 Most wisely doomed to shun the public sight, 
 What harm? in spite of every critic elf, 
 Sir T. may read his stanzas to himself ; 
 
 * What would be the sentiments of the Persian An acreon, 
 H afiz, could he rise from his splendid sepulchre at Sheeraz, 
 where he reposes with Ferdousi and Sadi, the Oriental 
 Homer and Catullus, and behold his name assumed by one 
 Stott of Dromore, the most impudent and execrable ot 
 literary poachers for the Daily Prints. 
 
56 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Miles Andrews still his strength in couplets try, 
 And live in prologues, though his dramas die. 700 
 Lords too are Bards, such things at times befal, 
 And 'tis some praise in Peers to write at all. 
 Yet, did or taste or reason sway the times, 
 Ah ! who would take their titles with their rhymes ? 
 Roscommon! Sheffield! with your spirits fled, 
 No future laurels deck a noble head ; 
 No Muse will cheer with renovating smile, 
 The paralytic puling of Carlisle: 
 The puny Schoolboy and his early lay 
 Men pardon, if his follies pass away ; 710 
 
 But who forgives the Senior's ceaseless verse, 
 Whose hairs grow hoary as his rhymes grow worse ? 
 What heterogeneous honours deck the Peer ! 
 Lord, rhymester, petit-maitre, pamphleteer*! 
 
 * The Earl of Carlisle has lately published an eighteen- 
 penny pamphlet on the state of the Stage, and offers his plan 
 for building a new theatre : it is to be hoped his Lordship 
 will be permitted to bring forward any thing for the Stage, 
 except his own tragedies. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 
 
 57 
 
 So dull in youth, so drivelling in his age, 
 His scenes alone had damned our sinking stage ; 
 But Managers for one cried, " hold, enough !" 
 Nor drugged their audience with the tragic stuff. 
 Yet at their judgment let his Lordship laugh, 
 And case his volumes in congenial calf ; 720 
 
 Yes ! doff that covering where Morocco shines, 
 And hang a calf-skin* on those recreant lines. 
 
 With you, ye Druids ! rich in native lead, 
 Who daily scribble for your daily bread ; 
 With you I war not : Gifford's heavy hand 
 Has crushed, without remorse, your numerous 
 band. 
 
 * " Doff that lion's hide 
 " And hang a calf-skin on those recreant limbs." 
 
 Shak: King John. 
 
 Lord C.'s works most resplendently bound, form a con- 
 spicuous ornament to his book-shelves : 
 
 " The rest is all but leather and prunella." 
 
58 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 On "all the Talents" vent your venal spleen, 
 Want your defence, let Pity be your screen. 
 Let Monodies on Fox regale your crew, 
 And Melville's Mantle* prove a Blanket too 730 
 One common Lethe waits each hapless Bard, 
 And, peace be with you ! 'tis your best reward. 
 Such damning fame as Dunciads only give, 
 Could bid your lines beyond a morning live ; 
 But now at once your fleeting labours close, 
 With names of greater note in blest repose. 
 Far be't from me unkindly to upbraid 
 The lovely Rosa's prose in masquerade, 
 Whose strains, the faithful echoes of her mind, 
 Leave wondering comprehension far behindj\74o 
 
 * Melville's Mantle, a parody on " Elijah's Mantle," 
 a poem. 
 
 t This lovely little Jessica, the daughter of the noted 
 
 Jew K , seems to be a follower of the Delia Crusca 
 
 School, and has published two volumes of very respectable 
 absurdities in rhyme, as times go; besides sundry novels in 
 the style of the first edition of the Monk. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 59 
 
 Though Bell has lost his nightingales and owls, 
 Matilda snivels still, and Hafiz howls, 
 And Crusca's spirit, rising from the dead, 
 Revives in Laura, Quiz, and X. Y. Z .* 
 
 When some brisk youth, the tenant of a stall, 
 Employs a pen less pointed than his awl, 
 Leaves his snug shop, forsakes his store of shoes, 
 St. Crispin quits, and cobbles for the Muse, 
 Heavens! how the vulgar stare! howcroudsapplaud ! 
 How ladies read ! and Literati laud ! 750 
 
 If chance some wicked wag should pass his jest, 
 Tis sheer ill-nature ; don't the world know best? 
 Genius must guide when wits admire the rhyme, 
 ■ And Capel LoFFTt declares 'tis quite sublime. 
 
 * These are the signatures of various worthies who figure 
 in the poetical departments of the newspapers. 
 
 f Capel Lofft, Esq. the Maecenas of shoemakers, and 
 Preface-writer-General to distressed versemen ; a kind of 
 gratis Accoucheur to those who wish to be delivered of rhyme, 
 but do not know how to bring forth. 
 
60 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Hear, then, ye happy sons of needless trade ! 
 Swains ! quit the plough, resign the useless spade ! 
 Lo ! Burns and Bloomfield,* nay, a greater far, 
 Gifford was born beneath an adverse star, 
 Forsook the labours of a servile state, 
 Stemmed the rude storm, and triumphed over Fate: 
 Then why no more? if Phoebus smiled on you, 
 Bloomfield! why not on brother Nathan too? 
 Him too the Mania, not the Muse, has seized; 
 Not inspiration, but a mind diseased: 
 And now no Boor can seek his last abode, 
 No common be enclosed without an ode. 
 Oh ! since increased refinement deigns to smile 
 On Britain's sons and bless our genial Isle, 
 Let Poesy go forth, pervade the whole, 
 Alike the rustic, and mechanic soul : 770 
 
 * See Nathaniel Bloomfield's ode, elegy, or whatever 
 he or any one else chooses to call it, on the enclosure of 
 " Honington Green." 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 61 
 
 Ye tuneful cobblers! still your notes prolong, 
 Compose at once a slipper and a song ; 
 So shall the fair your handy-work peruse, 
 Yoursonnetssureshallplease-perhapsyourshoes. 
 
 May Moorland* weavers boast Pindaric skill, 
 And taylors' lays be longer than their bill! 
 While punctual beaux reward the grateful notes, 
 And pay for poems— when they pay for coats, 
 
 To the famed throng now paid the tribute due, 
 Neglected Genius ! let me turn to you. 780 
 
 Come forth, oh Campbell^ ! give thy talents scope, 
 Who dares aspire, if thou must cease to hope? 
 
 * Vide "Recollections of a Weaver in the Moorlands of 
 Staffordshire." 
 
 + It would be superfluous to recal to the mind of the 
 reader the author 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 names of 
 Campbell and Rogers are become strange. 
 
02 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 And thou, melodious Rogers ! rise at last, 
 Recall the pleasing memory of the past; 
 Arise ! let blest remembrance still inspire, 
 And strike to wonted tones thy hallowed lyre ; 
 Restore Apollo to his vacant throne, 
 Assert thy country's honour and thine own. 
 What ! must deserted Poesy still weep 
 Where her last hopes with pious Cowper sleep ?7qo 
 Unless, perchance, from his cold bier she turns, 
 To deck the turf that wraps her minstrel, Burns! 
 No ! tho' contempt hath marked the spurious brood, 
 The race who rhyme from folly, or for food ; 
 Yet still some genuine sons 'tis her's to boast, 
 Who least affecting, still affect the most ; 
 Feel as they write, and write but as they feel — 
 Bear witness Gifford, Sotheby, Macneil.* 
 
 * Giffoud, author of the Baviad and Majviad, the first 
 satires of the day, and translator of Juvenal. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 63 
 
 "Why slumbers Gifford ?" once was asked in 
 
 vain :* 
 Why slumbers Gifford ? let us ask again. 80 ° 
 Are there no follies for his pen to purge ! 
 Are there n o fools whose backs demand the scourge ? 
 Are there no sins for Satire's Bard to greet ? 
 Stalks not gigantic Vice in every street ? 
 Shall Peers or Princes tread pollution's path, 
 And scape alike the Law's and Muse's wrath ? 
 Nor blaze with guilty glare through future time, 
 Eternal beacons of consummate crime ? 
 
 Sotheby, translator of Wieland's Oberon, and Virgil's 
 Georgics, and author of Saul, an epic poem. 
 
 Macneil, whose poems are deservedly popular : particu- 
 larly "Scotland's Scaith, or the Waes of War," of which 
 ten thousand copies were sold in one month. 
 
 * Mr. Gifford promised publicly that the Baviad and 
 Meviad should not be his last original works : let him re- 
 member, « Mox in reluctantes Dracones." 
 
64 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Arouse thee, Gifford ! be thy promise claimed, 
 Make bad men better, or at least ashamed. 810 
 
 Unhappy White*! while life was in its spring, 
 And thy young Muse just waved her joyous wing, 
 The spoiler came; and all thy promise fair 
 Has sought the grave, to sleep for ever there. 
 Oh ! what a noble heart was here undone, 
 When Science self destroyed her favourite son! 
 Yes, she too much indulged thy fond pursuit, 
 She sowed the seeds, but death has reaped the fruit. 
 'Twas thine own Genius gave the final blow, 
 And helped to plant the wound that laid thee low: 
 
 * Henry Kirke White died at Cambridge in October 
 1 806, in consequence of too much exertion in the pursuit of 
 studies that would have matured a mind which disease and 
 poverty could not impair, and which Death itself destroyed 
 rather than subdued. His poems abound in such beauties as 
 must impress the reader with the liveliest regret that so short 
 a period was allotted to talents, which would have dignified 
 even the sacred functions he was destined to assume. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. f,5 
 
 So the struck Eagle stretched upon the plain, 
 No more through rolling clouds to soar again, 
 Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart, 
 And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart: 
 Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel 
 He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel, 
 While the same plumage that had warmed his 
 
 nest, 
 Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast. 
 
 There be who say, in these enlightened days, 
 That splendid lies are all the poet's praise ; 
 That strained invention, ever on the wing, 
 Alone impels the modern Bard to sing: 
 'Tis true, that all who rhyme, nay, all who write, 
 Shrink from that fatal word to Genius— Trite ; 
 Yet Truth sometimes will lend her noblest fires, 
 And decorate the verse herself inspires ; 
 
 D 
 
06 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 This fact in Virtue's name let Crabbe attest, 
 Though Nature's sternest Painter, yet the best. 
 
 And here let Shee* and Genius find a piace, 
 Whose pen and pencil yield an equal grace ; 840 
 To guide whose hand the sister Arts combine, 
 And trace the Poet's or the Painter's line ; 
 Whose magic touch can bid the canvass glow, 
 Or pour the easy rhymes' harmonious flow, 
 While honour's doubly merited attend 
 The Poet's Rival, but the Painter's friend. 
 
 Blest is the man ! who dares approach the bower 
 Where dwelt the Muses at their natal hour ; 
 Whose steps have pressed, whose eye has marked 
 
 afar, 
 The clime that nursed the sons of song and war, 850 
 
 * Mr. Shee, author of " Rhymes on Art," and " Ele- 
 ments of Art/' 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 67 
 
 The scenes which Glory still must hover o'er ; 
 Her place of birth, her own Achaian shore, 
 But doubly blest is he, whose heart expands 
 With hallowed feelings for those classic lands ; 
 Who rends the veil of ages long gone by, 
 And views their remnants with a poet's eye ! 
 Wright'*! 'twas thy happy lot at once to view 
 Those shores of glory, and to sing them too ; 
 And sure no common Muse inspired thy pen 
 To hail the land of Gods and Godlike men. 860 
 
 And you, associate Bardsf! whosnatched to light 
 Those Gems too long withheld from modern sight , 
 
 * Mr. Wright, late Consul General for the Seven Islands, 
 is author of a very beautiful poem just published : it is en- 
 titled " Horee Ionicae," and is descriptive of the Isles and the 
 adjacent coast of Greece. 
 
 t The translators of the Anthology have since published 
 separate poems, which evince genius that only requires oppor- 
 tunity to attain eminence. 
 
CS ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Whose mingling taste combined to cull the wreath 
 Where Attic flowers Aonian odours breathe, 
 And all their renovated fragrance flung, 
 To grace the beauties of your native tongue; 
 Now let those minds that nobly could transfuse 
 The glorious Spirit of the Grecian Muse, 
 Though soft the echo, scorn a borrowed tone: 
 Resign Achaia's lyre, and strike your own. 870 
 
 Let these, or such as these, with just applause, 
 Restore the Muse's violated laws ; 
 But not in flimsy Darwin's pompous chime, 
 That mighty master of unmeaning rhyme; 
 Whose gilded cymbals more adorned than clear, 
 The eye delighted, but fatigued the ear, 
 In show the simple lyre could once surpass,. 
 But now worn down, appear in native brass ; 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 09 
 
 While all his train of hovering sylphs around, 
 Evaporate in similies and sound: 880 
 
 Him let them shun, with him let tinsel die: 
 False glare attracts, but more offends the eye*. 
 
 Yet let them not to vulgar Wordsworth stoop, 
 The meanest object of the lowly group, 
 Whose verse of all but childish prattle void, 
 Seems blessed harmony to Lambe and Lloyd"]*: 
 Let them — but hold my Muse, nor dare to teach 
 A strain, far, far beyond thy humble reach ; 
 The native genius with their feeling given 
 Will point the path, and peal their notes to 
 heaven. 890 
 
 * The neglect of the " Botanic Garden," is some proof of 
 returning taste : the scenery is its sole recommendation. 
 
 f Messrs. Lambe and Lloyd, the most ignoble followers 
 of Sodthey and Co. 
 
70 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 And thou, too, Scott* ! resign to minstrels rude, 
 
 The wilder Slogan of a Border feud : 
 
 Let others spin their meagre lines for hire : 
 
 Enough for Genius if itself inspire ! 
 
 Let Southey sing, altho* his teeming muse, 
 
 Prolific every spring, be too profuse ; 
 
 Let simple Wordsworth chime his childish verse, 
 
 And brother Coleridge lull the babe at nurse; 
 
 Let Spectre-mongering Lewis aim, at most, 
 
 To rouse the Galleries, or to raise a ghost ; 900 
 
 Let Moore be lewd ; let Strangford steal from 
 
 Moore, 
 And swear that Camoens sang such notes of yore ; 
 Let Hayley hobble on ; Montgomery rave ; 
 And godly Grahame chaunt a stupid stave ; 
 
 * 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. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 71 
 
 Let sonneteering Bowles his strains refine ; 
 And whine and whimper to the fourteenth line ; 
 Let Stott, Carlisle*, Matilda, and the rest 
 Of Grub-street, and of Grosvenor-place the best, 
 
 * 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 occa- 
 sion to me, I shall not burthen my memory with the recol- 
 lection. 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 "dis- 
 cerning 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 any thing 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 pronouncing my 
 
72 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Scrawl on, 'till death release us from the strain, 
 Or common sense assert her rights again ; 910 
 But Thou, with powers that mock the aid of praise, 
 Shouldst leave to humbler Bards ignoble lays : 
 Thy country's voice, the voice of all the Nine, 
 Demand a hallowed harp — that harp is thine. 
 Say ! will not Caledonia's annals yield 
 The glorious record of some nobler field, 
 Than the vile foray of a plundering clan, 
 Whose proudest deeds disgrace the name of man ? 
 
 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 appreciated, and publicly 
 acknowledged. What I have humbly advanced as an opinion 
 on his printed things, I am prepared to support if necessary, 
 by quotations from Elegies, Eulogies, Odes, Episodes, and 
 certain facetious and dainty tragedies bearing his name and 
 mark : 
 
 " What can ennoble knaves, or fools, or cowards ? 
 
 " Alas ! not all the blood of all the Howards !" 
 So says Pope. Amen! 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 73 
 
 Or Mar m ion's acts of darkness, fitter food 
 For outlawed Sherwood's tales of Robin Hood ?920 
 Scotland ! still proudly claim thy native Bard, 
 And be thy praise his first, his best reward ! 
 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 more, 
 And tell the tale of what she was before; 
 To future times her faded fame recal, 
 And save her glory, though his country fall. 
 
 Yet what avails the sanguine Poet's hope? 
 To conquer ages, and with time to cope ! <J3o 
 New eras spread their wings, new nations rise, 
 And other Victors* fill the applauding skies; 
 A few brief generations fleet along, 
 Whose sons forget the Poet and his song : 
 
 * " Tollere humo, victorque virum volitare per ora." 
 
 D 2 Virgii,. 
 
74 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 E'en now, what once-loved Minstrels scarce may 
 
 claim 
 The transient mention of a dubious name ! 
 When Fame's loud trump hath blown its noblest 
 
 blast, 
 Though long the sound, the echo sleeps at last, 
 And glory, like the Phoenix midst her fires, 
 Exhales her odours, blazes, and expires. 940 
 
 Shall hoary Granta call her sable sons, 
 Expert in science, more expert at puns ? 
 Shall these approach the Muse? ah, no! she flies, 
 And even spurns the great Seatonian prize, 
 Though Printers condescend the press to soil . 
 With rhyme by Hoare, and epic blank by Hoyle : 
 Not him whose page, if still upheld by whist, 
 Requires no sacred theme to bid us list*. 
 
 * The " Games of Hoyle," well known to the votaries 
 of Whist, Chess, &c. are not to be superseded by the vagaries 
 of his poetical namesake, whose poem comprised, as express- 
 ly stated in the advertisement, all the " Plagues of Egypt." 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 75 
 
 Ye ! who in Granta's honours would surpass 
 Mast mount her Pegasus, a full-grown ass ; 950 
 A foal well worthy of her ancient dam, 
 Whose Helicon is duller than her Cam. 
 
 There Clarke, still stri vi ng piteously " to please," 
 Forgetting doggrel leads not to degrees, 
 A would-be satirist, a hired Buffoon, 
 A monthly scribbler of some low Lampoon, 
 Condemned to drudge the meanest of the mean, 
 And furbish falsehoods for a magazine, 
 Devotes to scandal his congenial mind ; 
 Himself a living libel on mankind*. 960 
 
 * This person, who has lately betrayed the most rapid symp- 
 toms of confirmed authorship, is writer of a poem denomi- 
 nated the " Art of Pleasing," as " Lucus a non lucendo," 
 containing little pleasantry, and less poetry. He also acts as 
 monthly stipendiary and collector of calumnies for the Satirist. 
 If this unfortunate young man would exchange the magazines 
 
76 # ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Oh dark asylum of a Vandal race*! 
 At once the boast of learning, and disgrace ; 
 So sunk in dullness and so lost in shame 
 That Smythe and HoDGsout scarce redeem thy 
 
 fame ! 
 But where fair Isis rolls her purer wave, 
 The partial Muse delighted loves to lave, 
 On her green banks a greener wreath is wove, 
 To crown the Bards that haunt her classic grove, 
 
 for the mathematics, and endeavour to take a decent degree 
 in his- university, it might eventually prove more serviceable 
 than his present salary. 
 
 * ■" Into Cambridgeshire the Emperor Probus transported 
 a considerable body of Vandals." — Gibbon's Decline and 
 Fall, pag. 83, vol. 2. There is no reason to doubt the 
 truth of this assertion ; the breed is still in high perfection. 
 
 f This gentleman's name requires no praise : the man who 
 in translation displays unquestionable genius, may well be 
 expected to excel in original composition, of which it is to 
 be hoped we shall soon see a splendid specimen. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 77 
 
 Where Richards wakes a genuine poet's fires 
 And modern Britons justly praise their Sires*.97<) 
 
 For me, who thus unasked have dared to tell 
 My country, what her sons should know too well, 
 Zeal for her honour bade me here engage 
 The host of ideots that infest her age. 
 No just applause her honoured name shall lose, 
 As first in freedom, dearest to the Muse. 
 Oh ! would thy Bards but emulate thy fame 
 And rise, more worthy, Albion, of thy name ! 
 What Athens was in science, Rome in power, 
 What Tyre appeared in her meridian hour, 980 
 *Tis thine at once, fair Albion, to have been, 
 Earth's chief dictatress, Ocean's mighty queen: 
 But Rome decayed, and Athens strewed the plain, 
 And lyre's proud piers lie shattered in the main; 
 
 * The " Aboriginal Britons," an excellent poem by 
 Richards. 
 
78 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Like these thy strength may sink in ruin hurled, 
 And Britain fall, the bulwark of the World. 
 But let me cease, and dread Cassandra's fate, 
 With warning ever scoffed at, till too late ; 
 To themes less lofty still my lay confine, 
 And urge thy Bards to gain a name likethine.990 
 
 Then, hapless Britain ! be thy rulers blest, 
 The senate's oracles, the people's jest ! 
 Still hear thy motley orators dispense 
 The flowers of rhetoric, though not of sense, 
 While Canning's colleagues hate him for his wit, 
 And old dame Portland* fills the place of Pitt. 
 
 Yet once again adieu! ere this the sail 
 That wafts me hence is shivering in the gale; 
 
 * A friend of mine being asked why his Grace of P. was 
 likened to an old woman ? replied, " he supposed it was be- 
 cause he was past bearing'." 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 79 
 
 And Afric's coast and Calpe's* adverse height, 
 And Stamboul's f minarets must greet my sight: 
 Thenceshall I stray through beauty's+ native clime, 
 Where Kaff§ is clad in rocks, and crowned with 
 
 snows sublime. 
 But should I back return, no lettered rage 
 Shall drag my common-place book on the stage : 
 Let vain Valentia|| rival luckless Carr, 
 And equal him whose work he sought to mar; 
 
 * Calpe is the ancient name of Gibraltar. 
 
 f Stamboul is the Turkish word for Constantinople. 
 
 X Georgia, remarkable for the beauty of its inhabitants. 
 
 § Mount Caucasus. 
 
 || Lord Valentia (whose tremendous travels are forth- 
 coming with due decorations, graphical, topographical, and 
 typographical) deposed, on Sir John Carr's unlucky suit 
 that Dubois's satire prevented his purchase of the " Stranger 
 in Ireland." — Oh fie, my Lord ! has your Lordship no more 
 feeling for a fellow-tourist r but " two of a trade," they 
 say, &c. 
 
80 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 Let Aberdeen and Elgin* still pursue 
 
 The shade of fame through regions of Virtu ; 
 
 Waste useless thousands on their Phidian freaks, 
 
 Mis-shapen monuments, and maimed antiques ; 
 
 And make their grand saloons a general mart 
 
 For all the mutilated blocks of art; 
 
 Of Dardan tours, Let Dilettanti tell, 
 
 I leave topography to classic GELi/f ; 
 
 And, quite content, no more shall interpose, 
 
 To stun mankind with Poesy, or Prose. 
 
 Thus far I've held my undisturbed career, 
 Prepared for rancour, steeled 'gainst selfish fear: 
 
 * Lord Elgin would fain persuade as that all the figures, 
 with and without noses, in his stone-shop, are the work of 
 Phidias; " Credat Judaeus !" 
 
 f Mr. Gell's Topography of Troy and Ithaca cannot 
 fail to ensure the approbation of every man possessed of clas- 
 sical taste, as well for the information Mr. G. conveys to the 
 mind of the reader, as for the ability and research the respect- 
 ive works display. 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 81 
 
 This thing of rhyme I ne'er disdained to own — 
 Though not obtrusive, yet not quite unknown, . 
 My voice was heard again, though not so loud, 
 My page, though nameless, never disavowed, 
 And now at once I tear the veil away : — 
 Cheer on the pack ! the Quarry stands at bay, 
 Unscared by all the din of Melbourne house, 
 By Lambe's resentment, or by Holland's spouse, 
 By Jeffrey's harmless pistol, Hallam's rage, 
 Edina's brawny sons and brimstone page. 
 Our men in Buckram shall have blows enough, 
 And feel they too are " penetrable stuff :" 1030 
 And though I hope not hence unscathed to go, 
 Who conquers me, shall find a stubborn foe. 
 The time hath been, when no harsh sound would 
 
 fall, 
 From lips that now may seem imbued with gall, 
 Nor fools nor follies tempt me to despise 
 The meanest thing that crawled beneath my eyes; 
 
82 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 But now so callous grown, so changed since youth, 
 Fve learned to think, and sternly speak the truth ; 
 Learned to deride the critic's starch decree, 
 And break him on the wheel he meant for me ;1040 
 To spurn the rod a scribbler bids me kiss, 
 Nor care if courts and crouds applaud or hiss : 
 Nay more, though all my rival rhymesters frown, 
 I too can hunt a Poetaster down : 
 And, armed in proof, the gauntlet cast at once 
 To Scotch marauder, and to Southern dunce. 
 Thus much I've dared to do ; how far my lay 
 Hath wronged these righteous times, let others say : 
 This, let the world, which knows not how to spare, 
 Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare. 1050 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 83 
 
 POSTCRIPT. 
 
 I have been informed, sinee the present edition went to 
 the Press, that my trusty and well-beloved cousins, the 
 Edinburgh Reviewers, are preparing a most vehement critique 
 on my poor, gentle, unresisting Muse, whom they have 
 already so bedeviled with their ungodly ribaldry : 
 
 " Tantsene animis caelestibus Irse !" 
 
 I suppose I must say of Jeffrey as Sir Anthony Ague- 
 cheek saith, "an I had known he was-sp cunning of fence, 
 " I had seen him damned ere I had fought him." What a 
 pity it is that I shall be beyond the Bosphorus, before the 
 next number has passed the Tweed. But I yet hope to light 
 my pipe with it in Persia. 
 
 My Northern friends have accused me, with justice, of 
 personality towards their great literary Anthropophagus, 
 Jeffrey ; but what else was to be done with him and his 
 dirty pack, who feed by " lying and slandering," and slake 
 their thirst by " evil speaking?" I have adduced facts al- 
 
84 ENGLISH BARDS, 
 
 ready well known, and of Jeffrey's mind I have stated my 
 free opinion, nor has he thence sustained any injury ; — what 
 scavenger was ever soiled by being pelted with mud ? It may 
 be said that I quit England because I have censured there 
 " persons of honour and wit about town," but I am coming 
 back again, and their vengeance will keep hot till my re- 
 turn. Those who know me can testify that my motives for 
 leaving England are very different from fears, literary or 
 personal; those who do not, may one day be convinced. 
 Since the publication of this thing, my name has not been 
 concealed; I have been mostly in London, ready to answer 
 for my transgressions, and in daily expectation of sundry 
 cartels; but, alas! "the age of chivalry is over," or, in 
 the vulgar tongue, there is no spirit now-a-days. 
 
 There is a youth ycleped Hewson Clarke (Subaudi, 
 Esquire,) a Sizer of Emanuel College, and I believe a 
 Denizen of Berwick upon Tweed, whom I have introduced 
 in these pages to much better company than he has been ac- 
 customed to meet: he is, notwithstanding, a very sad dog, 
 and for no reason that I can discover, except a personal quarrel 
 with a bear, kept by me at Cambridge to sit for a fellowship, 
 and whom the jealousy of his Trinity cotemporaries prevented 
 from success, has been abusing me, and what is worse, the 
 defenceless innocent above-mentioned, in the Satirist, for 
 one year and some months. I am utterly unconscious of 
 having given him any provocation ; indeed, I am guiltless of 
 having heard his name till coupled with the Satirist. He has 
 
AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 85 
 
 therefore no reason to complain, and I dare say that, like 
 Sir Fretful Plagiary, he is rather pleased than otherwise. 
 I have now mentioned all who have done me the honour to 
 notice me and mine, that is, my Bear and my Book, except 
 the Editor of the Satirist, who, it seems, is a gentleman, 
 God wot ! I wish he could impart a little of his gentility to 
 his subordinate scribblers. I hear that Mr. Jerningham 
 is about to take up the cudgels for his Maecenas, Lord 
 Carlisle; I hope not: he was one of the few, who, in 
 the very short intercourse I had with him, treated me with 
 kindness when a boy, and whatever he may say or do, 
 " pour on, I will endure. 1 ' I have nothing further to add, 
 save a general note of thanksgiving to readers, purchasers, 
 and publisher, and in the words of Scott, I wish 
 
 " To all and each a fair good night, 
 " And rosy dreams and slumbers light." 
 
 FINIS. 
 
BOOKS 
 
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 si It unites much of the judgment of the Essay on Criti- 
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