Lastly, vouchsafe to observe his hand, Fill'd with a snake-encircled wand,

By classic authors term'd caduceus,

And highly fam'd for several uses;
To wit, most wondrously endu’d,
No poppy-water half so good-
For let folks only get a touch,
Its soporific virtue's such,

Though ne'er so much awake before,
That quickly they begin to snore.
Add, too, what certain writers tell-

With this he drives men's souls to hell.
Now to apply, begin we then:

His wand's a modern author's pen; The serpents round about it twin'd Denote him of the reptile kindDenote the rage with which he writes,

His frothy slaver, venom'd bites;

An equal semblance still to keep,

Alike, too, both conduce to sleep—
This difference only, as the god

Drove souls to Tartarus with his rod,
With his goose-quill the scribbling elf
Instead of others damns himself.

And here my simile almost tripp'd; Yet grant a word by way of postscript. Moreover, Mercury had a failing:

Well! what of that? out with it-stealing;

In which all modern bards agree,

Being each as great a thief as he.

But even this deity's existence
Shall lend my simile assistance:

Our modern bards! why, what a-pox

Are they-but senseless stones and blocks?

II.

"For here, forlorn and lost, I tread

With fainting steps and slow-
Where wilds, immeasurably spread,
Seem lengthening as I go.”

66

III.

Forbear, my son," the hermit cries,

"To tempt the dangerous gloom; For yonder faithless phantom flies

To lure thee to thy doom.

most esteemed pieces of poetry, 1767; with an additional stanza-the 30th-given by the author to Richard Archdal, Esq., from The miscellaneous works, 1801.

This ballad requires no explanation; but, as its originality has been contested, it may be desirable to compare the statements on each side.

In 1767 the author was censured, in an anonymous communication to the printer of the St. James' chronicle, a paper noted for wit and sarcasm, as the inferior copyist of Percy. He thus replied: "SIR,

"A correspondent of yours accuses me of having taken a ballad I published some time ago, from one [The friar of orders gray] by the ingenious Mr. Percy. I do not think there is any great resemblance between the two pieces in question. If there be any, his ballad is taken from mine. I read it to Mr. Percy some years ago, and he as we both considered these things as trifles at best-told

IV.

"Here, to the houseless child of want

My door is open still;

And, though my portion is but scant,

I give it with good will.

V.

"Then turn, to-night, and freely share

Whate'er my cell bestows

My rushy couch and frugal fare,
My blessing and repose.

me, with his usual good humour, the next time I saw him, that he had taken my plan to form the fragments of Shakspere into a ballad of his own. He then read me his little cento, if I may so call it, and I highly approved it. Such petty anecdotes as these are scarce worth printing; and, were it not for the busy disposition of some of your correspondents, the public should never have known that he owes me the hint of his ballad, or that I am obliged to his friendship and learning for communications of a much more important nature. I am," etc.

In 1775 Mr. Percy, on re-editing his Reliques of ancient English poetry, gave this candid rejoinder, in a note to The friar of orders gray:

"As the foregoing song has been thought to have suggested to our late excellent poet, Dr. Goldsmith, the plan of his beautiful ballad of Edwin and Emma [Angelina] first printed [published] in his Vicar of Wakefield, it is but justice to his memory to declare that