Apollo no sooner had taken a chair,
And rung for the landlord to order the fare,
Hook, Dibdin and Cherry, Shan't we be merry?" just like a bear up,
Than he heard a strange noise, and a knock from without,
And scraping and bowing, came in such a rout!
There was Reynolds, and Arnold,
All grinning as who should say
And mighty dull Cobb, lumb'ring
And sweet Billy Dimond, a patting his hair up.
The God, for an instant, sat fix'd as a stone,
'Till recov'ring, he said in a good natur'd tone,
< Oh, the waiters, I see-ah, it's all very well;-
Only, one of you'll do just to answer the bell.'
But lord! to see all the great dramatists' faces !
They look'd at each other and made such grimaces!
Then turning about, left the room in vexation;
And one, I'm told, couldn't help mutt'ring Damnation!" 'Twas lucky for Colman he wasn't there too,
For his pranks would have certainly met with their due;
And Sheridan's also, that finish'd old tricker;
But one was in prison, and both were in liquor.
The God fell a laughing to see his mistakę,
But stopp'd with a sigh for poor Comedy's sake;
Then gave mine host orders, who bow'd to the floor,
And presented three cards that were brought to the door.
Apollo just gave them a glance with his eye--
66 Spencer, Rogers,-Montgom'ry"—and putting them by,
Begg'd the landlord to give his respects to all three,
And say he'd be happy to see them to tea.
Your Majesty then,' said the Gaius, don't know
That a person nam'd Crabbe has been waiting below;
He's been looking about him this hour, I dare say.'
'Indeed!' said Apollo: Oh, pray let him stay:
He'll be much better pleas'd to be with 'em down stairs,
And will find ye all out with your cookings and cares;---
But mind that you treat him as well as you're able,
And let him have part of what goes from the table.'
A hem was then heard, consequential and snapping,
And a sour little gentleman walk'd with a rap in ;
Hle bow'd, look'd about him, seem'd cold, and sat down;
And said, 'I'm surpris'd that you'll visit this town;
To be sure, there are two or three of us who know you,
But as for the rest, they are all much below you;
So stupid in gen'ral the natives are grown,
They really prefer Scotch reviews to their own;
So that what with their taste, their reformers, and stuff,
They have sicken'd myself and my friends long enough.'
Yourself and your friends!' cried the God, in high glee;
And pray, my frank visitor, who may you be?'
Who be!' cried the other; why really-this tone-
William Gifford's a name, I think, pretty well known.'
Oh, now I remember,' said Phoebus-ah, true→
My thanks to that name are undoubtedly due:
The rod that got rid of the Cruscas and Lauras...
That plague of the butterflies-sav'd me the horrors;
The Juvenal too stops a gap in one's shelf,
At least, in what Dryden has not done himself;
And there's something, which even distaste must respect,
In the self-taught example that conquer'd neglect.
But not to insist on the recommendations
Of modesty, wit, and a small stock of patience,
My visit, just now, is to poets alone,
And not to small critics, however well known.'
So saying, he rang, to leave nothing in doubt;
And the sour little gentleman bless'd himself out.
Next came Walter Scott, with a look of high meaning, For soon as his visage the tavern was seen in,
The diners and bar-maids all crowded to know him,
And thank him, with smiles, for that sweet pretty poem !' However the moment his senses he found,
He look'd adoration, and bow'd to the ground;
For his host was a God,-what a very great thing!
And what was still greater in his eyes,-a King!*
* Avaş Aπoλλwv, King Apollo, a common title with the old Grecian poets. Of Mr. Walter Scott's innate and trusting reverence for thrones and dominations, the reader may find specimens abundantly nauseous in the edition of Dryden, where he will also be let into the whole art and mystery of his bookmaking, including a Life, or biographical compilation run to seed, idle or redundant notes of all descriptions, and extracts from every possible work which he had an opportunity of quoting. His style in prose, setting aside it's Scotticisms, is very well where he affects nothing beyond a plain statement or a brief piece of criticism; and it is not to be supposed that his critical observations are always destitute of acuteness or even of beauty; but the moment he attempts any thing of particular ease or profundity, he only becomes slovenly in the one instance and poetically pedantic in the other. His politics may be estimated at once by the simple fact, that of all the advocates of Charles the Second, he is the least scrupulous in mentioning his crimes, because he is the least abashed. Other writers have paid decency
Apollo smil'd shrewdly, and bade him sit down,
With, Well, Mr. Scott;-you have manag'd the town;
Now, pray, copy less-have a little temerity;
-Try, if you can't also manage posterity.
-All you add now only lessens your credit;
And how could you think too of taking to edite?
A great deal's endur'd where there's measure and rhyme;
But prose such as your's, is a pure waste of time,—
A singer of ballads subdu'd by a cough,
Who fairly talks on, till his hearers walk off.
Be original, man; study more, scribble less;
Nor mistake present favour for lasting success;
And, remember, if laurels are what you would find,
The crown of all effort is freedom of mind.
the compliment of doubting their extent or of keeping them in the background; but here we have the plainest, tooth-picking acknowledgments that Charles was a pensioner of France, a shameless debauchee, a heartless friend, and an assassinating master, and yet all the while he is nothing but the " gay monarch," the "merry monarch," the "witty monarch," the good-natured monarch;" and Mr. Scott really appears to think little or pothing of all that he says against him. On the other hand, let a villain be but a Whig, or let any unfortunate person, with singular, Southern notions of independence, be but an opposer of Charles's court, and he is sure to meet with a full and crying denunciation of all his offences, with raised hands and lifted eyeballs; nothing can be meaper than his politics, nothing grosser than bis indecency, nothing more cold-blooded than his revenge. The execution of Charles the First, Mr. Scott calls an enormity unequalled in modern history, till the present age furnished a parallel :-massacres, of course, and other trifles of that sort, particularly when kings and courtiers are the actors, fade before it; St. Bartholomew's day deserves to be counted lucky in comparison with it; and princely villains like Henry the Eighth, Ezzeljno, and Borgia, are respectable and conscientious men by the side of the President Bradshaw and his colleagues. At the same time, a king, who by the basest means and for the slightest cause would assassinate a faithful servant in the very act of performing his duty, is only ungenerous,—one of whom the said servant has no small reason to complain. The reader may think this representation exaggerated, but let the author speak for himself, and blush if he can at repeating his wretched words. "His political principles (the Earl of Mulgrave's) were those of a staunch Tory, which he maintained through his whole life; and was zealous for the royal prerogative, although he had no small reason to complain of Charles II., who to avenge himself of Mulgrave for a supposed attachment to the Princess Anne, sent him to Tangiers, at the head of some troops, in a leaky vessel, which it was supposed must have perished in the voyage. Though Mulgrave was apprised of the danger, he scorned to shun, it; and the Eari of Plymouth, a favourite son of the King, generously insisted upon sharing it along with him. This ungenerous attempt to destroy him in the very act of performing his duty, with the refusal of a regiment, made a temporary change in Mulgrave's conduct." Notes on Absalom and Achitophel in Dryden's Works, vol. ix. R. 304.
And here,' cried Apollo, is one at the door,
Who shall prove what I say, or I'm prophet no more.
Ah, Campbell, you're welcome; well, how have you been
Since the last time I saw you on Sydenham Green?
I need not ask after the plans you've in view;
'Twould be odd, 1 believe, if I had'nt 'em too.
But there's one thing I've always forgotten to mention;
Your versification-pray give it invention;
A talent, like your's, to create or combine,
The Goldsmiths and oth rs, at least, should decline;
Their streamlets are sweet; but the true liquid fire
And depth of our English runs backward much higher.'
The poet to this was about to reply,
When Moore, coming in, caught the Deity's eye,
Who gave him his hand, and said, Shew me a sight
That can give a divinity sounder delight,
Or that earth should more prize, from its core to the poles,
Than the self-improv'd morals of elegant souls.
Repentant I speak it,--though when I was wild,
My friends should remember, the world was a child,-
That customs were diff'rent,-and young people's eyes
Had no better examples than those in the skies.
But soon as I learnt how to value these doings,
I've never much favour'd your billings and cooings;
They only make idle the best of my race;
And since my poor Daphne turn'd tree in my face,
There are very few poets, whose caps or whose curls
Have obtain'd such a laurel by hunting the girls.
So it gives me, dear Tom, a delight beyond measure
To find how you've mended your notions of pleasures
For never was poet, whose fanciful hours
Could bask in a richer abstraction of bowers,
With sounds and with spirits, of charm to detain
The wonder-eyed soul in their magic domain:
And never should poet, so gifted and rare,
Pollute the bright Eden Jove gives to his care,
But love the fair Virtue that with it is given,
And keep the spot pure for the visits of heaven,'
He spoke with a warmth, but his accent was bland;
And the poet bow'd down with a blush to his hand;
When all on a sudden there rose on the stairs
A noise as of persons with singular airs;
You'd have thought 'twas the Bishops or Judges a coming,
Or the whole court of Aldermen, bawing and humming,
Or at least my Lord Colley with all his grand brothers,-
But 'twas only Bob Southey and three or four others.
As soon as he saw him, Apollo seem'd pleas'd:
But as he had settled it not to be teaz'd
By all the vain rhymers from bed-room and brook,
He turn'd from the rest without even a look;
For Coleridge had vex'd him long since, I suppose,
By his idling, and gabbling, and muddling in prose;
And as to that Wordsworth he'd been so benurst,
Second childhood with him had come close on the first.
These worthies, however, long us'd to attack,
Were not by contempt to be so driven back,
But follow'd the God up, and shifting their place,
Stood full in his presence, and look'd in his face,
When one began spouting the cream of orations,
In praise of bombarding one's friends and relations,
And t'other some lines he had made on a straw,
Shewing how he had found it, and what it was for,
And how when 'twas balanc'd, it stood like a spell,
And how when 'twas balanc'd no longer, it fell!
A wild thing of scorn, he describ'd it to be-
But said it was patient to heaven's decree :
Then he gaz'd upon nothing, and looking forlorn,
Dropt a natural tear for that wild thing of scorn!
Apollo half laugh'd betwixt anger and mirth,
And cried, Were there ever such asses on earth?'
It is not enough that this nonsense, I fear,
Has half turn'd the fine head of my friend Robert here,
But another bright promise must fairly be lost,
And the gifts of a God by this madman be crost.
What! think ye a hard's a mere gossip who tells
Of the ev'ry-day feelings of ev'ry one else;
And that poetry lies, not in something select,
But in gath'ring the refuse that others reject?
Depart and be modest, ye driv'llers of pen,
My feasts are for masculine tastes, and for men.'
Then turning to Bob, he said, 'Sit down, I beg ;'
But Billy grew sulky and stirr'd not a peg;
While Sam, looking soft and politely dejected,
Confess'd with a tear, that 'twas what he expected,
Since Phoebus had fatally learnt to confide in
Such prosers as Johnson and rhymers as Dryden.'
But wrath seiz'd Apollo, and turning again,
'Whatever,' he cried, were the faults of such men,
Ye shall try, wretched mortals, how well ye can bear
What Dryden has witness'd, unsmote with despair.'
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