man who enacts the Champion of England in the Lord Mayor's show, is in some danger of being sneered at by the spectators, even when he paces along with the timidity and sobriety that becomes his condition; but if he were to take it into his head to make serious boast of his prowess, and to call upon the city bards to celebrate his heroic acts, the very apprentices could not restrain their laughter,-and the humorous man' would have but small chance of finishing his part in peace.

Mr Southey could not be ignorant of all this; and yet it appears that he could not have known it all. He must have been conscious, we think, of the ridicule attached to his office, and might have known that there were only two ways of counteracting it, either by sinking the office altogether in his public appearances, or by writing such very good verses in the discharge of it, as might defy ridicule, and render neglect impossible. Instead of this, however, he has allowed himself to write rather worse than any Laureate before him, and has betaken himself to the luckless and vulgar expedient of endeavouring to face out the thing by an air of prodigious confidence and assumption:-and has had the usual fortune of such undertakers, by becoming only more conspicuously ridiculous. The badness of his official productions indeed is something really wonderful,though not more so than the amazing self-complacency and selfpraise with which they are given to the world. With the finest themes in the world for that sort of writing, they are the dullest, tamest, and most tedious things ever poor critic was condemned, or other people vainly invited, to read. They are a great deal more wearisome, and rather more unmeaning and unnatural, than the effusions of his predecessors Messrs Pye and Whitehead; and are moreover disfigured with the most abominable egotism, conceit and dogmatism, that we ever met with in any thing intended for the public eye. They are filled, indeed, with praises of the author himself, and his works, and his laurel, and his dispositions; notices of his various virtues and studies; puffs of the productions he is preparing for the press, and anticipations of the fame which he is to reap by their means, from a less ungrateful age; and all this delivered with such an oracular seriousness and assurance, that it is easy to see the worthy Laureate thinks himself entitled to share in the prerogatives of that royalty which he is bound to extol, and has resolved to make it

- his great example as it is his theme.' For, as sovereign Princes are permitted, in their manifestoes and proclamations, to speak of their own gracious pleasure and royal wisdom, without imputation of arrogance, so, our Laureate has persuaded himself that he may address the subject world

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in the same lofty strains, and that they will listen with as duti-: ful an awe to the authoritative exposition of his own genius, and glory. What might have been the success of the experiment, if the execution had been as masterly as the design is bold, we shall› not trouble ourselves to conjecture; but the contrast between the greatness of the praise and the badness of the poetry in which it is conveyed, and to which it is partly applied, is abundantly decisive of its result in the present instance, as well as in all the others in which the ingenious author has adopted the same style. We took some notice of the Carmen Triumphale, which stood! at the head of the series. But of the Odes which afterwards followed to the Prince Regent, and the Sovereigns and Generals who came to visit him, we had the charity to say nothing; and were willing indeed to hope, that the lamentable failure of that attempt might admonish the author, at least as effectually as any intimations of ours. Here, however, we have him again, with a Lay of the Laureate, and a Carmen Nuptiale, if possible still more boastful and more dull than any of his other celebrations. It is necessary, therefore, to bring the case once more before the Public, for the sake both of correction and example; and as the work is not likely to find many readers, and is of a tenor which would not be readily believed upon any general representation, we must now beg leave to give a faithful: analysis of its different parts, with a few specimens of the taste and manner of its execution..

Its object is to commemorate the late auspicious marriage of the presumptive Heiress of the English crown with the young. Prince of Saxe-Cobourg; and consists of a Proem, a Dream, and an Epilogue-with a L'envoy, and various annotations. The Proem, as was most fitting, is entirely devoted to the praise of the Laureate himself; and contains an account, which cannot fail to be very interesting, both to his Royal auditors and to the world at large, of his early studies and attainments-the excellence of his genius-the nobleness of his views--and the happiness that has been the result of these precious gifts. Then there is mention made of his pleasure in being appointed PoetLaureate, and of the rage and envy which that event excited in all the habitations of the malignant. This is naturally followed up by a full account of all his official productions, and some modest doubts whether his genius is not too heroic and pathetic for the composition of an Epithalamium,-which doubts, however, are speedily and pleasingly resolved by the recollection, that as Spenser made a hymn on his own marriage, so, there can be nothing improper in Mr Southey doing as much on that of the Princess Charlotte. This is the general argument of the Proem. But the reader must know a little more of the details.

In his early youth, the ingenious author says he aspired to the fame of a poet; and then Fancy came to him, and showed him the glories of his future career, addressing him in these encouraging words

• Thou whom rich Nature at thy happy birth
Blest in her bounty with the largest dower
That Heaven indulges to a child of earth'!

Being fully persuaded of the truth of her statements, we have then the satisfaction of learning that he has lived a very happy life; and that, though time has made his hair a little grey, it has only matured his understanding; and that he is still as ha-" bitually cheerful as when he was a boy. He then proceeds to inform us, that he sometimes does a little in poetry still; but that, of late years, he spends most of his time in writing histories-from which he has no doubt that he will one day or another acquire great reputation.

Thus in the ages which are past I live,

And those which are to come my sure reward will give.' Part of his reward, indeed, he says he has got already,-for all the good and wise love and admire him; and moreover, That green wreath which decks the Bard when dead, That laureate garland crowns my living head. '

He then goes on to tell, that he has hitherto worn the said laurel with great honour, and has by no means made a sinecure of the situation-having indited a great variety of official odes since his appointment, the subjects and merits of which are accordingly explained in several sounding stanzas. The enumeration is closed with this strain of ingenuous modesty.

'Such strains beseemed me well. But how shall I
To hymeneal numbers tune the string,' &c.

• Fitter for me the lofty strain severe,

That calls for vengeance for mankind opprest;

Fitter the songs that youth may love to hear.' &c. &c. However, he bethinks him of Spenser, as we have already mentioned; and comforts himself after this fashion

And hast not thou, my Soul, a solemn theme?

I said—and mused until I fell into a dream. '

We come next, of course, to the Dream; and nothing more stupid or heavy, we will venture to say, ever arose out of sleep, or tended to sleep again. The unhappy Laureate, it seems, just saw, upon shutting his eyes, what he might have seen as well if he had been able to keep them open-a great crowd of people and coaches in the street, with marriage favours in their bosoms; church bells ringing merrily, and feux-de-joie firing in all directions. Eftsoons, says the dreaming poet, I came to a great door, where there were guards placed to keep off the mob;

but when they saw my Laurel crown, they made way for me, and let me in!

But I had entrance through that guarded door, In honour to the Laureate crown I wore. When he gets in, he finds himself in a large hall, decorated with trophies, and pictures, and statues, commemorating the triumphs of British valour, from Aboukir to Waterloo. The room, moreover, was filled with a great number of ladies and gentlemen very finely dressed; and in two chairs, near the top, were seated the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold. Hitherto, certainly, all is sufficiently plain and probable ;-nor can the Muse who dictated this to the slumbering Laureate be accused of any very extravagant or profuse invention. We come now, however, to allegory and learning in abundance. In the first place, we are told, with infinite regard to the probability as well as the novelty of the fiction, that in this drawing-room there were two great lions couching at the feet of the Royal Pair; the Prince's being very lean and in poor condition, with the hair rubbed off his neck as if from a heavy collar-and the Princess's in full vigour, with a bushy mane, and littered with torn French flags. Then there were two heavenly figures stationed on each side of the throne, one called Honour, and the other Faith ;-so very like each other, that it was impossible not to suppose them brother and sister. It turns out, however, that they were only second cousins; or so at least we interpret the following precious piece of theogony.

Akin they were,-yet not as thus it seemed,

For he of VALOUR was the eldest son,
From Areté in happy union sprung.

But her to Phronis Eusebeia bore,

She whom her mother Dicé sent to earth;
What marvel then if thus their features wore
Resemblant lineaments of kindred birth?
Dicé being child of Him who rules above,

VALOUR his earth-born son; so both derived from Jove.' p. 29. This, we think, is delicious; but there is still more goodly stuff toward. The two heavenly cousins stand still without doing any thing; but then there is a sound of sweet music, and a whole heavenly company' appear, led on by a majestic female, whom we discover, by the emblems on our halfpence, to be no less a person than Britannia, who advances and addresses a long discourse of flattery and admonition to the Royal bride; which, for the most part, is as dull and commonplace as might be expected from the occasion; though there are some passages in which the author has reconciled his gratitude to his Patron, and his monitory duty to his Daughter, with singular spirit and delicacy. After enjoining to her the observance of all public du

ties, and the cultivation of all domestic virtues, Britannia is made to sum up the whole sermon in this emphatic precept'Look to thy Sire, and in his steady way learn thou to tread.

Now, considering that Mr Southey was at all events incapable of sacrificing truth to Court favour, it cannot but be regarded as a rare felicity in his subject, that he could thus select a pattern of private purity and public honour in the person of the actual Sovereign, without incurring the least suspicion either of base adulation or lax morality.

When Britannia has delivered her lecture, she is succeeded by another venerable personage, whose lineage and office are thus loftily described by the sleeping Laureate.

Of Kronos and the Nymph Mnemosyné

He sprung, on either side a birth divine; Thus to the Olympian Gods allied was he, And brother to the sacred Sisters nine. They called him Praxis in the Olympian tongue, But here on earth EXPERIENCE was his name. p. 35. This Praxis, it seems, is a bookmaker by profession, like the Laureate himself; and contents himself, accordingly, with depositing a presentation copy of his work before the Royal Pair, and only pronouncing, after the manner of the said Laureate, a long eulogium on its beauty and use.

To this succeeds a most clumsy apparition of the Angel of the Church of England,' attended by a considerable party of Saints and Martyrs,-who also pays his compliments to the Princess, and entreats her, in plain and distinct terms, to take care of the English Church, and preserve it from decay;-for which purpose, he is pleased to add, Providence had on former occasions, and

In perilous times, provided female means,

Blessing it beneath the rule of pious Queens.

It is another proof of Mr Southey's singular liberality, and disdain of courtly prejudices, that he has been at pains, at such a moment as the present, to profess his utter abhorrence and detestation of the Catholic religion, and made his Lutheran angel warn the young Princess against any toleration of its monstrous abominations. Think not,' says he

'Think not that lapse of ages shall abate

The inveterate malice of that Harlot old, &c.
For her fierce Beast, whose names are Blasphemy,

The same that was, is still, and still must be.'.

After the Church party have taken their leaves, another celestial monitor advances, who, though he is not directly named