There needy scribes, whose trade is to abuse,

Forge lies and scandal for the next day's news;

There Whig and Tory wrangle, blockheads twain,

word Berley And Vetus drops th' abortions of his brain; an excellehere sits Britannicus and heaves a groan

For England's debts, unmindful of his own; man whoThere party-drudges for their party scrawl, And baser hirelings who are slaves to all; There whines Morality, a canting monk, There roars Reform, heroically drunk ;

never in:

curred.

debt he de tern Patriotism tries new schemes to find

To serve his country, and to cheat mankind;
There the vile Quack invents his pois'nous pill,
By royal patent privileg'd to kill;

And there the Atheist's nightly thunders roll,
That to destroy the body, this the soul.

Hail, happy days! when all shall equal be, And man and master shall alike go free; This land, created by the Spencean charm, The people's birthright, and the nation's farm! When those who toil, and those who labor not, Blest intercourse! partake one common lot; When nature's nymphs enjoy true past'ral lives; Glad, teeming mothers all-though none are wives! This aims at many I Go die in

* A nonsensical Letter-writer in the "Times" newspaper, when Doctor Slop was Lord of the ascendant.

Coder Stop aleas Doctor Stoddart

ripe scholar, and

excellent and conscientious

and an

1 kind = hearted
hearted man!

THE MODERN DUNCIAD.

Bright era! that shall banish all our fears,
And chain down order for a thousand years!
Treason shall walk abroad with giant stride,
And murder prowl, with rapine by his side;
Curs'd infidelity, and deep despair,
And anarchy, dire fiend! shall revel there.
Down with yon sacred altars! useless blocks!
Detested relics! -e'en vindictive Knox*

cise lines.

Shall rise from hell's dark caves with furious joy,'
And breathe again his spirit to destroy.

life

Then ask no more—yet if a doubt remain, istir Why thus to Satire I devote my strain;

With this reply be satisfied at once,

While Bowles † exists, can Satire want a Dunce?/or Bowles who hath cherish'd as a costly pearl,

accomplished

* Doctor Johnson hearing the question asked where the cruel fanatic John Knox was buried, exclaimed, "I hope

+ It would be a work of no small labour and little profit,

hinder than

to wade through the various productions of the Rev. Wil-, K 13
liam Lisle Bowles. Odes, Epics, and Sonnets innumerable,
"pass in long review." A poem called "Time's Holiday,'

did not affords a beautiful specimen of rural simplicity: erat in his

"Golden lads and lasses gay,
Now is life's sweet holiday;

time, and as

Time shall lay by his scythe for you,

torbeing a

And joy the valley with fresh violets strew."

dunce Next comes a description of Loutherbourg's scene in France,

the successful opponent of Byron telerary controver

importance could sear deserve to be so entitled

ико

Bowles & poetry always above mediocrity and often exceedingly tender and hathelnicy of Pracaulay

THE MODERN DUNCIAD.

The horse-play, dull obscenity of Curll;
accumulated trash of Smedley's page,

inhes Essa on add more thas it

or why?—to vent on Pope his puny rage.
Is it not hard, (my Friend) nay, doubly hard,
A sorry critic, and more sorry bard,

confirms.

Whose jaded Pegasus, 'yclept divine,

all he harries out for quarter at the fourteenth line,

Should for base lucre (Oh, how vilely won!)

vaid of Complete what Ralph and Dennis left undone? Thus urg'd, thus prompted by the warm desire Pope.. To vindicate the genius I admire ;

must have bur come personal

where Mr. Bowles, in making an attempt to be witty, is

on only profane :

"And sure none ever saw a landscape shine,
in beams of such a sun as thine,

редис
the part of
of Basking
the Satirest But felt

And panting cried, "Oh Lord, how hot it is!"

66

to have We have “skiey blue,” bluey fading hills," and "The

Provoke Sylph of Summer, or Air," being part of a projected poem

on the Elements. All this might be forgiven; but why

take up his pen against Pope? what service could he

so sweeprender literature, by defaming one of its brightest ornaments?... But enough of Mr. Bowles. We may excuse and dunce "that little dares and little means;" but not one that dares much and means nothing.

Mr. Bowles has lately published a poem called “ The Missionary," (Corpus sine pectore!) full of his usual affecacation, and prettiness... We read of one John Taylor, the Water-Poet; Mr. Bowles may be christened the " Here apor Milk and Water Poet.

an

sky-blue,"

exechere Mr Daniel would

seem to have coped Byron rather than thought for or himself.

To add at least my humble meed of praise,
To names rever'd in Britain's brighter days;
To strip the poet of his false sublime,

(Then, Bowles, the Lord have mercy on thy rhyme!) And shew that critics may at times appear In praise too cold, in censure too severe; I take my pen-when Folly met his eye, Democritus would laugh-and so must I.* But Demoon lus had a to. laugh.

t

much better

Now to begin-nor distant need we roam,
Kind fate hath sent us Fools enough at home;
Our modern Poets, bounteous in th' extreme,
Rhyme on, and make waste paper by the ream.
Five thousand Lines compos'd-a modest stint !
Next Westall must design, and Bulmer print:
Then bound with care, and hot-press'd ev'ry sheet,
The wonder-working Quarto shines complete!
Behold a gaping crowd that never tire!
See Busby, worthy Son of such a Sire,

(For truth must own, when all is said and done,
!

* "The Queen of Midas slept, and so may I." Pope.
+ Mr. George Frederick Busby, son of the renowned
Doctor, notorious for publickly reciting his father's trans-
lation of Lucretius to the nobility and gentry, and playing
the mountebank on a well-known occasion at Drury Lane.
It has been announced that Master George is about to
inflict upon the public a translation of the "Thebaid of
Statius."

fifly

times before.

and has been better sai

it ll this is witched slug

Surely the Authors of the picted leddresses had

said all that wine to be vard of the Busbys.

What rubbish this is. Even the spite is second hand, and the whole diluted from Byron

ind

the

Who

by or his 4000?

The Father's pertness centres in the Son :)
Straining with all his might 'gainst mood and tense,

To make the Doctor's fustian sound like sense.

He views the audience with theatric stare,
His hands with equal motion saw the air;
His voice in dulcet cadence taught to float,
Seems the shrill pipings of an eunuch's throat:
Assembled thus, our sapient nobles sit
To hear how Busby, not Lucretius, writ.
If now and then a sentiment exprest
In language more indecent than the rest,
Strike the attentive ear;-with fond regard,
A hundred hands are rais'd to clap the Bard:
The Marchioness adores the charming man,
Fitzherbert leers, and Jersey flirts her fan;
While doting Headfort, tickled to the core,
Starts

up entranc'd, and ambles at threescore.

Ms I was a highly respectable woma

Vain Scribbler! and is this, this all thy aim,
Art thou content with transitory fame;

Fame, that shall haunt thee living, d―n thee dead?
Thus dost thou feed our ears, thus art thou fed?

But what avails, if faithless to my trust,
I hide (you cry) my talent in the dust?

Why am I learn'd? Why-Stop this vaunting tone!
Is learning nothing then, till fairly known?