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And MERRY's metaphors appear anew,
Chain'd to the signature of O. P. Q.

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! how
crowds applaud!
literati laud!
wag should pass his
jest,
Tis sheer ill-nature; don't the world know
best?

How ladies read, and
If chance some wicked

Genius must guide when wits admire the

rhyme,

And CAPEL LOFFT declares 'tis quite sublime. 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, Stemm'd the rude storm and triumph'd over Fate:

Then why no more? ifPhœbus 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:
Ye tuneful cobblers! still your notes prolong,
Compose at once a slipper and a song;
So shall the fair your handiwork peruse;
Your sonnets sure shall please perhaps
your shoes.

MayMoorland-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. Come forth, oh CAMPBELL! give thy talents scope;

Who dares aspire if thou must cease to hope?
And thou, melodious ROGERS! rise at last,
Recal the pleasing memory of the past;
Arise! let blest remembrance still inspire,
And strike to wonted tones thy hallow'd 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?

Unless, perchance, from his cold bier sho

turns,

To deck the turf that wraps her minstrel, BURNS!

No! tho' contempt hath mark'd the spurlous brood,

The race who rhyme from folly,or for food Yet still some genuine sons 'tis hers to boast, Who, least affecting, still affect the most Feel as they write, and write but as they feel

Bear witness GIFFORD, SOTHEBY, MAONEIL,

"Why slumbers GIFFORD?"

once was ask'd in vain: Why slumbers GIFFORD? let us ask again; Are there no follies for his pen to purge' Are there no 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 theLaw's and Muse's wrath? Nor blaze with guilty glare through future time,

Eternal beacons of consummate crime? Arouse thee, GIFFORD! be thy promise claim'd,

.

Make bad men better, or at least ashamed.

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 sow'd the seeds, but death has reap'd the fruit.

'Twas thine own Genius gave the final blow, And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low:

So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again,

View'd his own feather on the fatal dart, And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart:

Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel He nursed the pinion which impell❜d the steel,

While the same plumage that had warm'd

his nest

Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding

breast.

There be who say in these enlighten'd days That splendid lies are all the poet's praise;

That strain'd 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:
This fact in Virtue's name let CRABBE attest-
Though nature's sternest painter, yet the best.

Whose gilded cymbals, more adorn'd 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;
While all his strain of hovering sylphs
around,

Evaporate in similies and sound:
Him let them shun, with him let tinsel die:
False glare attracts,but more offends the cye.

Yet let them not to vulgar WORDSWORTH stoop,

And here let SHEE and Genius find a place, Whose pen and pencil yield an equal grace; | The meanest object of the lowly group, To guide whose hand the sister-arts combine, Whose verse,of all but childish prattle void, And trace the poet's or the painter's line; Seems blessed harmony to LAMB and LLOYD: Whose magic touch can bid the canvass Let them -- but hold, my muse, nor dare to glow, teach

Or pour the easy rhyme's harmonious flow,
While honours 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 press'd, whose eye has mark'd afar

The clime that nursed the sons of song and

war,

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 hallow'd 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.

And you, associate Bards! who snatch'd to light Those gems too long withheld from modern sight;

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 borrow'd tone:
Resign Achaia's lyre, and strike your own.

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.

And thou, too, ScorT! resign to minstrels
rude

The wilder Slogan of a Border-fend:
Let others spin their meagre lines for hire—
Enough for genius if itself inspire!
Let SOUTHEY sing, although his teeming

muse,

Prolific every spring, be too profuse;
Let simple WORDSWORTH chime his childish

verse,

And brotherCOLERIDGE lull the babe at nurse;
Let spectre-mongering Lewis aim, at most,
To rouse the galleries, or to raise a ghost;
Let MOORE be lew'd; let STRANGFORD steal
from MOORE,

And swear that CAMOENS sang such notes
of yore;

Let HAYLEY hobble on, MONTGOMERY rave,
And godly GRAHAM chaunt a stupid stave;
Let sonnetteering 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,

Scrawl on, 'till death release us from the strain,

Or common-sense assert her rights again; 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 hallow'd harp-that harp is thine.
Say! will not Caledonia's annals yield

Let these, or such as these, with just The glorious record of some nobler field,

applause,

Restore the Muse's violated laws:
But not in flimsy Darwin's pompous chime,
That mighty master of unmeaning rhyme;

Than the vile foray of a plundering clan, Whose proudest deeds disgrace the name of man?

Or Marmion's acts of darkness, fitter food

For outlaw'd SHERWOOD's tales of Robin To crown the bards that haunt her classic Hood? grove,

Scotland! still proudly claim thy native Where RICHARDS wakes a genuine poet's

Bard,

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fires,

And modern Britons justly praise their sires.

For me, who thus unask'd have dared

to tell

My country what her sons should know
too well,

Zeal for her honour bade me here engage
The host of idiots that infest her age.
No just applause her honour'd 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 appear'd in her meridian hour,
'Tis thine at once, fair Albion, to have been,
Earth's chief dictatress, Ocean's mighty

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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,

PITT.

Not him whose page,if still upheld by whist,
Requires no sacred theme to bid us list.
Ye who in Granta's honours would surpass, | And old dame PORTLAND fills the place of
Must mount her Pegasus, a fullgrown ass-
A foal well worthy of her ancient dam,
Whose Helicon is duller than her Cam.
There CLARKE, still striving piteously "to
please,"

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Yet once again adieu! ere this the sail That wafts me hence is shivering in the gale: And Afric's coast and Calpe's adverse height, And Stamboul's minarets must greet my sight:

Thence shall I stray through beauty's native clime,

Where Kaff is clad in rocks, and crown'd
with snows sublime.
But should I back return, no letter'd 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;
Let ABERDEEN and ELGIN still pursue
The shade of fame through regions of Virtu;
Waste useless thousands on their Phidian.
freaks,

Misshapen monuments and maim'd antiques ;

And make their grand saloons a general | And though I hope not hence unscathed to go,

mart

For all the mutilated blocks of art:
Of Dardan tours let dilettanti tell,
I leave topography to classic GELL;
And quite content, no more shall interpose
To stun mankind with poesy or prose.

Thus far I've held my undisturb'd career, Prepared for rancour, steel'd 'gainst selfish fear:

This thing of rhyme I ne'er disdain'd to

own

Though not obtrusive, yet not quite unknown:

My voice was heard again, though not so loud;

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 crawl'd beneath my eyes:

But now, so callous grown, so changed since youth,

I've learned to think and sternly speak the
truth;

Learn'd to deride the critic's starch decree,
And break him on the wheel he meant for me;
To spurn the rod a scribbler bids me kiss,
Nor care if courts and crowds applaud or
hiss:

Nay, more, though all my rival rhymesters
frown,

My page, though nameless, never disavow'd;
And now at once I tear the veil away:
Cheer on the pack! the quarry stands at bay, I too can hunt a poetaster down ;
Unscared by all the din of MELBOURNE-house, And, arm'd in proof, the gauntlet cast at once
By LAMB's resentment, or by HOLLAND'S To Scotch marauder, and to Southern dunce.
Thus much I've dared to do; how far my lay
By JEFFREY's harmless pistol,HALLAM's rage, | Hath wrong'd these righteous times, let
EDINA'S brawny sons and brimstone page.
others say;
Our men in buckram shall have blows This let the world, which knows not how
to spare,

spouse,

enough,

And feel they too are "penetrable stuff:” Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare.

THE CURSE
CURSE OF MINERVA.

-Pallas te hac vulnere, Pallas
Immolat, et pænam scelerato ex sanguiné sumit.

SLOW sinks, more lovely ere his race

be run,

Along Morea's hills the setting sun:
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light!
O'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he
throws,
Gilds the green wave, that trembles as it
glows:

On old Egina's rock, and Idra's isle,
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O'er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast the mountain-shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulph, unconquer'd Salamis!
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing
glance,

And tenderest tints, along their summits
driven,

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On such an eve, his palest beam he cast, When, Athens! here thy wisest look'd his last:

How watch'd thy better sons his farewell ray,
That closed their murder'd sage's latest day!
Not yet-not yet-Sol pauses on the hill-
The precious hour of parting lingers still:
But sad his light to agonizing eyes,
And dark the mountain's once delightful
dyes;

Gloom o'er the lovely land he seem'd to pour,
The land where Phœbus never frown'd
before;

But ere he sunk below Citharon's head,

The cup of woe was quaff'd—the spirit fled;
The soul of him that scorn'd to fear or fly-
Who lived and died as none can live or die!

Not such as erst, by her divine command,
Her form appear'd from Phidias' plastic
hand;

Gone were the terrors of her awful brow,
Her idle Ægis bore no Gorgon now;

But, lo! from high Hymettus to the plain, | Her helm was deep indented, and her lance Seem'd weak and shaftless, e'en to mortal

glance;

The queen of night asserts her silent reign;
No murky vapour, herald of the storm,
Hides her fair face, nor girds her glowing The olive-branch, which still she deign'd

form:

to clasp,

With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams Shrunk from her touch and wither'd in her

play,

There the white column greets her grateful

ray, And bright around, with quivering beams beset,

grasp:

And,ah! though still the brightest of the sky,
Celestial tears bedimm'd her large blue eye;
Round the rent casque her owlet circled
slow,

And mourn'd his mistress with a shriek
of woe.

Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret:
The groves of olive scatter'd dark and wide
Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide, "Mortal! ('twas thus she spake) that blush
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
of shame
The gleaming turret of the gay Kiosk,
Proclaims thee Briton-once a noble name-
And, dun and sombre mid the holy calm, First of the mighty, foremost of the free,
Near Theseus' fane, yon solitary palm,
Now honour'd less by all-and least by me:
All tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye-Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found:-
And dull were his that pass'd them heed-Seekst thou the cause? O mortal, look

less by.

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AndGlory knew no clime beyond her Greece.
Hours roll'd along, and Dian's orb on high
Had gain'd the centre of her softest sky,
And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod
O'er the vain shrine of many a vanish'd god;
But chiefly, Pallas! thine, when Hecate's
glare,

Check'd by thy columns, fell more sadly fair
O'er the chill marble, where the startling
tread

Thrills the lone heart like echoes from

the dead.
Long had I mused, and measured every trace
The wreck of Greece recorded of her race,
When, lo! a giant-form before me strode,
And Pallas hail'd me in her own abode.
Yes, 'twas Minerva's self, but, ah! how

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Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both!
Survey this vacant violated fane;
Recount the relics torn that yet remain;
These Cecrops placed this Pericles adorn'd—
That Hadrian rear'd when drooping science
mourn'd:

What more I owe let gratitude attest-
Know, Alaric and Elgin did the rest.
That all may learn from whence the plun-
derer came,

Th' insulted wall sustains his hated name.
For Elgin's fame thus grateful Pallas pleads:
Below, his name-above, behold his deeds!
Be ever hail'd with equal honour here
The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer.
Arms gave the first his right—the last had

none,

But basely stole what less barbarians won!
So when the lion quits his fell repast,
Next prowls the wolf-the filthy jackal last :
Flesh, limbs, and blood, the former make
their own;

The last base brute securely gnaws the bone.
Yet still the gods are just, and crimes are

crost

See here what Elgin won, and what he lost!
Another name with his pollutes my shrine,
Behold where Dian's beams disdain to shine!
Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
When Venus half avenged Minerva's shame.”

She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply, To soothe the vengeance kindling in her

eye :

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