That Smythe and Hodgson 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;
Where Richards wakes a genuine poet's 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 queen:
But Rome decay'd, and Athens strew'd the plain,
And Tyre's proud piers lie shatter'd in the main :
Like these, thy strength may sink, in ruin hurl'd,
And Britain fall, the bulwark of the world.
But let me cease, and dread Cassandra's fate,
With warning ever scoff'd at, till too late;
To themes less lofty still my lay confine,
And urge thy bards to gain a name like thine.
Then, hapless Britain! be thy rulers blest
The senate's oracles, thy 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;
And Afric's coast and Calpe's adverse height, S
And Stamboul's minarets must greet my sight:||
Thence shall I stray through beauty's native clime, T
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 Îuckless Carr,++

Mr Hodgson'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. The "Aboriginal Britons," an excellent poem by Richards.

A friend of mine being asked why his Grace of P. was likened to an old woman? replied, "he supposed it was because he was past bearing." § Calpe is the ancient name of Gibraltar.

Stamboul is the Turkish word for Constantinople.

Georgia, remarkable for the beauty of its inhabitants.

**Mount Caucasus.

tt Lord Valentia, (whose tremendous travels are forthcoming, with due

And equal him whose work he sought to mar;
Let Aberdeen and Elgin still pursue*

The shade of fame through regions of virtù;
Waste useless thousands on their Phidian freaks,
Misshapen monuments and maim'd 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 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,
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,
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:"
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 crawl'd beneath my eyes;
But now, so callous grown, so changed since youth,
I've learn'd 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,
I too can hunt a poetaster down;

And, arm'd 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 wrong'd these righteous times, let others say:
This, let the world, which knows not how to spare,
Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare.

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? "But two of a trade," they say, &c.

* Lord Elgin would fain persuade us that all the figures, with and without noses, in his stone-shop, are the work of Phidias; "Credat Judæus !"

+ Mr Gell's "Topography of Troy and Ithaca" cannot fail to ensure the approbation of every man possessed of classical taste, as well for the information Mr G. conveys to the mind of the reader, as for the ability and research the respective works display.

POSTSCRIPT.

I HAVE been informed, since 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:

"Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ:"

I suppose I must say of Jeffrey as Sir Andrew Aguecheek saith, "An I had known he was so cunning of fence, I had seen him dd 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 already 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 return. 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_yclept 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 accustomed 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 contemporaries 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 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 Mæcenas, 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." 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."

THE WALTZ:

AN APOSTROPHIC HYMN.

"Qualis in Eurotæ ripis, aut per juga Cynthi,
Exercet Diana choros."
VIRGIL.

"Such on Eurotas' banks, or Cynthia's height,
Diana seems: and so she charms the sight,
When in the dance the graceful goddess leads
The quire of nymphs, and overtops their heads."
DRYDEN'S Virgil.

TO THE PUBLISHER.

SIR,-I am a country gentleman of a midland county. I might have been a parliament-man for a certain borough; having had the offer of as many votes as General T. at the general election in 1812.* But I was all for domestic happiness; as, fifteen years ago, on a visit to London, I married a middle-aged maid of honour. We lived happily at Hornem Hall till last season, when my wife and I were invited by the Countess of Waltzaway (a distant relation of my spouse) to pass the winter in town. Thinking no harm, and our girls being come to a marriageable (or, as they call it, marketable) age, and having besides a Chancery suit inveterately entailed upon the family estate, we came up in our old chariot,-of which, by the by, my wife grew so much ashamed in less than a week, that I was obliged to buy a second-hand barouche, of which I might mount the box, Mrs H. says, if I could drive, but never see the inside-that place being reserved for the Honourable Augustus Tiptoe, her partner-general and opera-knight. Hearing great praises of Mrs H.'s dancing, (she was famous for birthnight minuets in the latter end of the last century,) I unbooted, and went to a ball at the Countess's, expecting to see a country dance, or, at most, cotillions, reels, and all the old paces to the newest tunes. But, judge of my surprise, on arriving, to see poor dear Mrs Hornem with her arms half round the loins of a huge hussar-looking gentleman I never set eyes on before: and his, to say truth, rather more than half round her waist, turning round, and round, and round, to a d-d see-saw up-and-down sort of tune, that reminded me of the "Black Joke," only more "affetuoso," till it made me quite giddy with wondering they were not so. By and by they stopped a bit, and I thought they would sit or fall down :-but no; with Mrs

* State of the poll (last day) 5.

H.'s hand on his shoulder, " 'quam familiariter "* (as Terence said when I was at school,) they walked about a minute, and then at it again, like two cock. chafers spitted upon the same bodkin. I asked what all this meant, when, with a loud laugh, a child no older than our Wilhelmina (a name I never heard but in the Vicar of Wakefield, though her mother would call her after the Princess of Swappenbach,) said, "Lord! Mr Hornem, can't you see they are valtzing!" or waltzing (I forget which); and then up she got, and her mother and sister, and away they went, and round-abouted it till suppertime. Now that I know what it is, I like it of all things, and so does Mrs H. (though I have broken my shins, and four times overturned Mrs Hornem's maid, in practising the preliminary steps in a morning.) Indeed, so much do I like it, that having a turn for rhyme, tastily displayed in some election ballads, and songs in honour of all the victories, (but till lately I have had little practice in that way,) I sat down, and with the aid of William Fitzgerald, Esq., and a few hints from Dr Busby, (whose recitations I attend, and am monstrous fond of Master Busby's manner of delivering his father's late successful "Drury Lane Address,") I composed the following hymn, wherewithal to make my sentiments known to the public; whom, nevertheless, I heartily despise, as well as the critics.-I am, Sir, yours, &c. &c.,

HORACE HORNEM.

* My Latin is all forgotten, if a man can be said to have forgotten what he never remembered; but I bought my title-page motto of a Catholic priest for a three-shilling bank token, after much haggling for the even sixpence. I grudged the money to a papist, being all for the memory of Perceval and "No popery," and quite regretting the downfall of the pope, because we can't burn him any more.