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,

6

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,'

Ile 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, hawing and humming,

Or

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,

6

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 bard'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.?

6

He

He said; and the place all seem'd swelling with light;
While his locks and his visage grew awfully bright;
And clouds, burning inward, roll'd round on each side
To encircle his state as he stood in his pride;
Till at last the full Deity put on his rays,

And burst on the sight in the pomp of his blaze!
Then a glory beam'd round as of fiery rods,
With the sound of deep organs and chorister gods;
And the faces of bards, glowing fresh from their skies,
Came thronging about with intentness of eyes;
And the Nine were all heard, as the harmony swell'd;
And the spheres pealing in, the long rapture upheld;
And all things, above, and beneath, and around,
Seem'd a world of bright vision, set floating in sound.

That sight and that music might not be sustain'd
But by those, who a glory like Dryden's had gain'd;
And even the four, who had graciousness found,
After gazing a while, bow'd them down to the ground.
What then could remain for that feeble-ey'd crew?

Through the door in an instant they rush'd and they flew,
They rush'd and they dash'd, and they scrambled and stumbled,
And down the round staircase like lunatics tumbled,
And never once thought which was head or was feet,
And slid through the hall, and fell plump in the street.
So great was the panic they struck with their fright,
That of all who had come to be feasted that night,
Not one ventur'd up, or would stay near the place;
Even Croker declin'd, notwithstanding his face;
And old Peter Pindar turn'd pale, and suppress'd,
With a death-bed sensation, a blasphemous jest.
But Wordsworth can scarcely yet manage to speak;
And Coleridge, they say, is excessively weak;
Indeed he has fits of the painfulest kind:

He stares at himself and his friends, till he's blind;
Then describes his own legs, and claps each a long stilt on
And this he calls lect'ring on "Shakspeare and Milton."

But Phoebus no sooner had gain'd his good ends,
Than he put off his terrors, and rais'd up his friends,
Who stood for a moment, entranc'd to behold
The glories subside, and the dim-rolling gold;
And listen'd to sounds, that with ecstacy burning
Seem'd dying far upward, like heaven returning,
Then Come,' cried the God in his elegant mirth,
Let us make us a heav'n of our own upon earth,

6

And

And wake with the lips that we dip in our bowls
That divinest of music,-congenial souls.'
So saying, he led through the dining-room door,
And, seating the poets, cried, Laurels for four !'
No sooner demanded, than lo! they were there;
And each of the bards had a wreath in his hair.

6

Tom Campbell's with willow and poplar was twin'd,
And Southey's with mountain-ash, pluck'd in the wind;
And Scott's with a heath from his old garden stores,

And with vine-leaves and Jump-up-and-kiss-me,* Tom Moore'
Then Apollo put his on, that sparkled with beams;
And rich rose the feast as an epicure's dreams;
Not epicure civic, or grossly inclin❜d,
But such as a poet might dream ere he din'd:
For the God had no sooner determin'd the fare,
Than it turn'd to whatever was racy and rare.
The fish and the flesh, for example, were done,
On account of their fineness, in flame from the sun;
The wines were all nectar of different smack,
To which Muskat was nothing, nor Virginis Lac;
No, nor Lachryma Christi, though clearly divine,
Nor Montepulciano, though king of all wine.t
Then, as for the fruits, you might garden for ages,
Before you could raise me such apples and gages;
And all on the table no sooner were spread,

Than their cheeks next the God blush'd a beautiful red.

'Twas

The brilliant little tri-coloured violet, commonly known by the name of Heart's-ease.

+I do not profess to have tasted these foreign luxuries, except in the poetry of their admirers. Virgin's Milk and Christ's Tears are names given to two favourite wines by the pious Italians, whose familiarity with the objects of their worship is as well known as it is natural. The former appears to be a white wine; the latter is of a deep, blood-red colour.Muskat or Moscadell is so called from the odour of it's grape; and is enthu siastically praised, among a number of other Tuscan wines, by Redi in his Bacco in Toscana. His favourite however seems to have been Montepul. ciano, which at the conclusion and climax of the poem is pronounced by Bacchus himself, in his hour of transport, to be the sovereign liquor.

Onde ognun che di Lieo
Riverente il nome adora,

Ascolti questo altissimo decreto,

Che Bassareo pronunzia, e gli dia fe,—
Montepulciano d'ogni vino è il Re.

Then all who bow down to the nod

Of the care-killing vintager God,

Give ear and give faith to his edict divine,

That Montepulciano's the King of all Wine.

'Twas magic in short and deliciousness all;
The very men-servants grew handsome and tall;
To velvet-hung iv'ry the furniture turn'd;
The service with opal and adamant burn'd ;
Each candlestick chang'd to a pillar of gold,

While a bundle of beams took the place of the mould;
The decanters and glasses pure diamond became,
And the corkscrew ran solidly round into flame.
In a word, so completely forestall'd were the wishes,
Ev'n harmony struck from the noise of the dishes.

It can't be suppos'd I should think of repeating
The fancies that flow'd at this laureat meeting;
I haven't the brains, and besides was not there;
But the wit may be easily guess'd, by the chair.
Suffice it to say that 'twas keen as could be;
Though it soften'd to prettiness rather at tea.
I must mention, however, that during the wine,
The mem'ry of Shakspeare was toasted with nine;
To Chaucer were five, and to Spenser one more,
And Milton had seven, and Dryden had four ;
Then follow'd the names, in a cursory way,
Of Fletcher, of Otway, of Collins, and Gray,
Of Cowley, Pope, Thomson, and Cowper, and Prior,
And one or two more of a genuine fire.

Then says Bob, If the chair will not think me a gander,
I'll give a great genius-one Mr. Landor;"

ܙ܂

And

* Mr. Walter Savage Landor, a very worthy person, I believe, and author of an epic piece of gossiping called Gebir, upon the strength of which Mr. Southey has dedicated to him his Curse of Kehama. There is one really good passage in Gebir about a sea-shell; and the author is one of those dealers in eccentric obscurity, who might excite reasonable expectations, if they were boys-but the school of vulgar simplicity no longer consists of children; they are now spoiled men, too old and too stubborn to alter; and the good reasoning that has been wasted upon them must be changed for that indignation and contempt, which their bad example and pertinacious childishness ought to excite in every sound lover of poetry.—Que word more to the better part of them, on a different subject. The best feature in their character, till of late years, has been their high spirit of integrity; and some of them who possess a reputation for it still, enjoy a proportionate degree of respect; but in others, the maudlin German cant which first infected their muse has at last infected their manners, and being a jargon adapted to every sort of extreme, has enabled them to change their free opinions for slavish ones without altering the cast of their language; while others again, whose manners are not so infected, have nevertheless quite lost the bloom of their political character, and to the great sorrow of those whose expectations yet lingered about them, have degenerated like the former into servile place-hunters and gross editorial puffers of themselves. Such