A fourth, alas! were more than we could 265 bear. But if, in spite of all the world can say, 230 Thou still wilt verseward plod thy weary way;1 If still in Berkley ballads most uncivil, rue: "God help thee,'' Southey, and thy 270 readers too. 235 Next comes the dull disciple of thy school, That mild apostate from poetic rule, The simple Wordsworth, framer of a lay 240 And quit his books for fear of growing Who, both by precept and example, shows prose; Oh! wonder-working Lewis! monk, or bard, Who fain wouldst make Parnassus a churchyard! Lo! wreaths of yew,1 not laurel, bind thy brow, Thy muse a sprite, Apollo's sexton thou! Whether on ancient tombs thou tak'st thy stand, By gibb'ring spectres hail 'd, thy kindred Or tracest chaste descriptions on thy page, Thin-sheeted phantoms glide, a grisly 275 At whose command "grim women" throng in crowds, 6 Yet still obscurity's a welcome guest. If Inspiration should her aid refuse 260 To him who takes a pixy for a muse, Yet none in lofty numbers can surpass The bard who soars to elegize an ass." So well the subject suits his noble mind, He brays the laureat of the long-ear'd kind. 1 See Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, 3 (p. 59). 2 In Southey's ballad The Old Woman of Berkeley, the old woman is carried away by the devil. Quoted from the last line of a poem written by Gifford as a parody on Southey's dactylics and published in Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, 32 (1854 ed.). Southey had used the phrase in his The Soldier's Wife, 3. The Tables Turned, 1-4 (p. 232). 5 In The Idiot Boy. A reference to Coleridge's Songs of the Pixies (Devonshire fairies). A reference to Coleridge's To a Young Ass (p. 328). And kings of fire, of water, and of clouds, With "small 99 gray men,' "wild yagers, 4 and what not, To crown with honor thee and Walter Scott;5 Again all hail! if fales like thine may please, St. Luke alone can vanquish the disease;o Even Satan's self with thee might dread to dwell, And in thy skull discern a deeper hell. Who in soft guise, surrounded by a choir Of virgins melting, not to Vesta's fire, 285 With sparkling eyes, and chcek by passion flush'd, Strikes his wild lyre, whilst listening dames are hush'd? 'Tis Little! young Catullus of his day, As sweet, but as immoral, in his lay! Grieved to condemn, the muse must still be just, 290 Nor spare melodious advocates of lust. Pure is the flame which o'er her altar burns; From grosser incense with disgust she turns: Yet kind to youth, this expiation o'er, She bids thee "mend thy line and sin no more. 1 The yew is an emblem of mourning; it is a common tree in graveyards. 2 Lewis's The Monk was condemned for its indecency. 3 Lewis was a Member of Parliament from 1796 to 1802. 4huntsmen Scott contributed The Fire King, Glenfinlas, The Wild Huntsman, and other poems to Lewis's Tales of Wonder. Southey contributed The Old Woman of Berkeley and other poems. H. Bunbury contributed The Little Gray Man. St. Luke was traditionally regarded as a physician. 295 For thee, translator of the tinsel song, And shows, still whimpering through To whom such glittering ornaments be long, Hibernian Strangford! with thine eyes of blue, And boasted locks of red or auburn hue, Whose plaintive strain each love-sick miss admires, 300 And o'er harmonious fustian half expires, Learn, if thou canst, to yield thine author's sense, Nor vend thy sonnets on a false pretence. Think'st thou to gain thy verse a higher place, By dressing Camoëns in a suit of lace? 305 Mend, Strangford! mend thy morals and thy taste; three-score of years, 330 The maudlin prince of mournful son 335 Be warm, but pure; be amorous, but be 340 chaste; Cease to deceive; thy pilfer'd harp re Ere miss as yet completes her infant years: But in her teens thy whining powers are vain; She quits poor Bowles for Little's purer strain. Now to soft themes thou scornest to confine 350 The lofty numbers of a harp like thine; "Awake a louder and a loftier strain,''3 Such as none heard before, or will again! Where all Discoveries jumbled from the flood, 320 On dull devotion-Lo! the Sabbath bard, Sepulchral Grahame, pours his notes sub- 355 lime In mangled prose, nor e'en aspires to rhyme; Breaks into blank the Gospel of St. Luke, Hail, Sympathy! thy soft idea brings 2 The pastry cooks used the pages of unsold books to line tins for cooking. See Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, II, 1. 23 ff.; also Byron's The Blues, 1, 14-21, and Pope's The Dunciad, 1, 155-56. Since first the leaky ark reposed in mud, Nor this alone; but, pausing on the road, When first Madeira trembled to a kiss. dwell, 1 Among the poems of Bowles are The Fall of Empires, To a Withered Leaf, At Oxford, and The Bells; Ostend (p. 164). A cap and bells constituted the head-dress worn by court fools and professional jesters. 3 Bowles, The Spirit of Discovery by Sea, 1. 4A reference to the story of two lovers in The Spirit of Discovery by Sea, whose kiss made the woods of Madeira tremble. Another epic! Who inflicts again 410 Though Bristol bloat him with the verdant fat; If Commerce fills the purse, she clogs the brain, And Amos Cottle strikes the lyre in vain. In him an author's luckless lot behold, Condemn'd to make the books which once he sold. Oh, Amos Cottle!-Phoebus! what a name To fill the speaking trump of future fame! Oh, Amos Cottle! for a moment think What meagre profits spring from pen and ink! When thus devoted to poetic dreams, Who will peruse thy prostituted reams? Oh! pen perverted! paper misapplied!Had Cottle still adorn'd the counter's side, Bent o'er the desk, or, born to useful toils, Been taught to make the paper which he soils, Plough'd, delved, or plied the oar with lusty limb, He had not sung of Wales, nor I of him. As Sisyphus against the infernal steep Rolls the huge rock whose motions ne'er may sleep, So up thy hill, ambrosial Richmond, heaves Dull Maurice all his granite weight of leaves: 415 Smooth, solid monuments of mental pain! The petrifactions of a plodding brain, That, ere they reach the top, fall lumbering back again. With broken lyre and cheek serenely pale, Lo! sad Alcæus wanders down the vale; More books of blank upon the sons of 420 Though fair they rose, and might have men? Baotian Cottle, rich Bristowa's boast, Imports old stories from the Cambrian coast, And sends his goods to market-all alive! 390 Lines forty thousand, cantos twenty-five? bloom'd at last, His hopes have perish'd by the northern blast: Nipp'd in the bud by Caledonian gales, His blossoms wither as the blast prevails! O'er his lost works let classic Sheffield weep; Fresh fish from Hippocrene! who'll buy, 425 May no rude hand disturb their early who'll buy? The precious bargain's cheap-in faith, not I. Your turtle-feeder's verse must needs be flat, 1 Mallet was hired by Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke, to defame Pope, after his death, because he had kept some copies of The Patriot King, a work by Bolingbroke, which Bolingbroke himself had ordered destroyed. sleep! Yet say why should the bard at once resign His claim to favor from the sacred nine?1 1 The Muses. 430 A coward brood, which mangle as they 465 That ever-glorious, almost fatal fray, prey, By hellish instinct, all that cross their way; Aged or young, the living or the dead, No mercy find-these harpies must be fed. Why do the injured unresisting yield 435 The calm possession of their native field? Why tamely thus before their fangs retreat, Nor hunt the blood-hounds back to Arthur's Seat? Health to immortal Jeffrey! once, in name, England could boast a judge almost the same;1 440 In soul so like, so merciful, yet just, Some think that Satan has resign'd his trust, And given the spirit to the world again, 445 With voice as willing to decree the rack; Bred in the courts betimes, though all that law As yet hath taught him is to find a flaw; Since well instructed in the patriot school To rail at party, though a party tool, 450 Who knows, if chance his patrons should restore Back to the sway they forfeited before, His scribbling toils some recompense may meet, And raise this Daniel to the judgmentseat?2 470 When Little's leadless pistol met his eye,1 And Bow-Street myrmidons2 stood laugh ing by? Low groan'd the startled whirlwinds of the north; Tweed ruffled half his waves to form a tear, The other half pursued its calm career; Arthur's steep summit nodded to its base, 475 The surly Tolbooth scarcely kept her place. The Tolbooth felt-for marble sometimes morn, The sixteenth story, where himself was born, His patrimonial garret, fell to ground, And pale Edina shudder'd at the sound: Strew'd were the streets around with milkwhite reams, Flow'd all the Canongate with inky streams; This of his candor seem'd the sable dew, That of his valor show'd the bloodless hue; And all with justice deem'd the two combined The mingled emblems of his mighty mind. Yet mark one caution ere thy next Review Spread its light wings of saffron and of blue,1 Beware lest blundering Brougham destroy the sale, 525 Turn beef to bannocks,2 cauliflowers to kail.''3 Thus having said, the kilted goddess kiss'd Her son, and vanish'd in a Scottish mist. Then prosper, Jeffrey! pertest of the train Whom Scotland pampers with her fiery grain! 530 Whatever blessing wait a genuine Scot, In double portion swells thy glorious lot; For thee Edina culls her evening sweets, And showers their odors on thy candid sheets, 1 The colors in which the volumes of The Edinburgh Review were bound. A kind of unleavened oatmeal cake. A kind of cabbage. Bannocks and kail were common articles of Scotch diet. rear. Lo! blushing Itch, coy nymph, enamor'd grown, Forsakes the rest, and cleaves to thee alone; And, too unjust to other Pictish men, Enjoys thy person, and inspires thy pen! 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?1 And thou, melodious Rogers! rise at last, Recall the pleasing memory of the past;2 805 Arise! let blest remembrance still inspire, And strike to wonted tones thy hallow'd lyre; 810 Restore Apollo to his vacant throne, Assert thy country's honor and thine own. What! must deserted Poesy still weep Where her last hopes with pious Cowper sleep? Unless, perchance, from his cold bier she turns, To deck the turf that wraps her minstrel, Burns! No! though contempt hath mark'd the spurious brood, The race who rhyme from folly, or for food, 815 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, Macneil. "Why slumbers Gifford?" once was ask'd in vain; 820 Why slumbers Gifford? let us ask again.3 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? 825 Shall peers or princes tread pollution's path, 1 A reference to Campbell's The Pleasures of Hope (p. 417). 2A reference to Rogers's The Pleasures of Memory (p. 207). 3 Gifford had announced that The Baviad (1794) and The Maviad (1795) would not be his last original works. |