Oh! wonder-working Lewis! monk, or bard,
Who fain wouldst make Parnassus a church-yard!
Lo! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy brow,
Thy muse a sprite, Apollo's sexton thou!
Whether on ancient tombs thou takest thy stand,
By gibb'ring spectres hail'd thy kindred band;
Or tracest chaste description on thy page,
To please the females of our modest age:
All hail, M. P.! from whose infernal brain
Thin sheeted phantoms glide, a grisly train;
At whose command "grim women" throng
crowds,

Whether he spin poor couplets into plays,
Or damn the dead with purgatorial praise,
His style in youth or age is still the same,
For ever feeble and for ever tame.
Triumphant first see "Temper's Triumphs" shine'
At least I'm sure they triumph'd over mine.
Of "Music's Triumphs," all who read my swear
That luckless music never triumph'd there.*

To crown with honor thee and Walter Scott;
Again all hail! if tales like thine may please,
St. Luke alone can vanquish the disease;
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,
With sparkling eyes and check 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,
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."

For thee, translator of the tinsel song,
To whom such glittering ornaments belong,
Hibernian Strangford! with thine eyes of blue,‡
And boasted locks of red or auburn hue,
Whose plaintive strain each love-sick miss admires,
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 Camoens in a suit of lace!
Mend, Strangford! mend thy morals and thy taste;
Be warm, but pure; be amorous, but chaste:
Cease to deceive; thy pilfer'd harp restore,
Nor teach the Lusian bard to copy Moore.

Behold!-ye tarts! one moment spare the text Hayley's last work, and worst-until his next;

"For every one knows little Matt's an M. P."-See a poem to Mr. Lewis, in The Statesman, supposed to be written by Mr. Jekyll. In the original manuscript, "Mend thy life."

The reader, who may wish for an explanation of this, may refer to "Strangford's Camoens," page 127, note to page 56, or to the last page of the Edinburgh Review of Strangford's Camoens.

$ Fustian; in the first edition, nonsense.

It is also to be remarked, that the things given to the public as poems of Camoens are no more to be found in the original Portugese, than in the Songs of Solomon.

Hail, Sympathy! thy soft idea brings

[years.§

A thousand visions of a thousand things,
And shows, still whimpering through threescore of
The maudlin prince of mournful sonneteers.
And art thou not their prince, harmonious Bowles!
Thou first, great oracle of tender souls?

Whether thou sing'st with equal ease, and grief,
The fall of empires, or a yellow leaf;
Whether thy muse most lamentably tells
What merry sounds proceed from Oxford bells.¶
Or, still in bells delighting, finds a friend
In every chime that jingled from Ostend;
Ah! how much juster were thy muse's hap,
If to thy bells thou wouldst but add a cap!
Delightful Bowles! still blessing and still blest,
All love thy strain, but children like it best:
'Tis thine, with gentle Little's moral song,
To soothe the mania of the amorous throng!
With thee our nursery damsels shed their tears,
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
The lofty numbers of a harp like thine,
"Awake a louder and a loftier strain,"**
Such as none heard before, or will again!

"Breaks into mawkish lines each holy book.” Mr. Grahame has poured forth two volumes of cant, under the name of "Sabbath Walks," and "Biblical Pictures."

§ Still whimpering through threescore of years.-Thas altered in the fifth edition. The original reading was,

"Dissolved in thine own melting tears." Whether thou sing'st, &c.-This couplet, in all the editions before da fifth, was printed, "Whether in sighing winds thou seek'st relief, Or consolation in a yellow leaf."

See Bowles's Sonnets, &c.-" Sonnet to Oxford," and "Stands on hearing the Bells of Ostend."

"Awake a louder," &c., &c., is the first line in Bowles's "Spirit of Discovery;" a very spirited and pretty dwarf epic. Among other exquisite lines we have the following:

"A kiss

Stole on the list'ning silence, never yet

Here heard; they trembled even as if the power," &c., &c. That is, the woods of Madeira trembled to a kiss, very much astonished, as well they might be, at such a phenomenon,

[Misquoted and misunderstood by me; but not intentionally. It was noj the "woods," but the people in them who trembled-why, Heaven only knows-unless they were overheard making the prodigious smack.—MS. note by Lord Byron. 1816.

Aged or young, the living or the dead,
No mercy find-these harpies must be fed.
Why do the injured unresisting yield
The calm possession of their native field?
Why tamely thus before their fangs retreat,
Nor hunt the bloodhounds back to Arthur's Seat?*

Health to immortal Jeffrey! once, in name,
England could boast a judge almost the same;
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,
To sentence letters, as he sentenced men.
With hand less mighty, but with heart as black,
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,
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 judgment seat? +
Let Jeffries' shade indulge the pious hope,
And greeting thus, present him with a rope:
"Heir to my virtues! man of equal mind!
Skill'd to condemn as to traduce mankind,
This cord receive, for thee reserved with care,
To wield in judgment, and at length to wear."

Health to great Jeffrey! Heaven preserve his life,
To flourish on the fertile shores of Fife,
And guard it sacred in its future wars,
Since authors sometimes seek the field of Mars!
Can none remember that eventful day,‡
That ever glorious, almost fatal fray,
When Little's leadless pistol met his eye,
And Bow-street myrmidons stood laughing by ? §
Oh, day disastrous! On her firm-set rock,
Dunedin's castle felt a secret shock:
Dark roll'd the sympathetic waves of Forth,
Low groan'd the startled whirlwinds of the north;
Tweed ruffled half his wave to form a tear,
The other half pursued its calm career; ||
Arthur's steep summit nodded to its base,
The surly Tolbooth scarcely kept her place.
The Tolbooth felt-for marble sometimes can,
On such occasions, feel as much as man—.
The Tolbooth felt defrauded of his charms,
If Jeffery died, except within her arms: ¶

• Arthur's seat; the hill which overhangs Edinburgh.

↑ And raise this Daniel to the judgment-seat.-Too ferocious-this is

mere insanity. MS. note by Lord Byron. 1816.

Nay last, not least, on that portentous 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 milk-white
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.
But Caledonia's goddess hover'd o'er

The field, and saved him from the wrath of Moore;
From either pistol snatch'd the vengeful lead,
And straight restored it to her favorite's head:
That head, with greater than magnetic pow'r,
Caught it, as Danae caught the golden show'r,
And, though the thickening dross will scarce refine,
Augments its ore, and is itself a mine.

66 'My son," she cried, "ne'er thirst for gore again,
Resign the pistol, and resume the pen;
O'er politics and poesy preside,

Boast of thy country, and Britannia's guide?
For long as Albion's heedless sons submit,
Or Scottish taste decides on English wit,
So long shall last thine unmolested reign,
Nor any dare to take thy name in vain.
Behold, a chosen band shall aid thy plan,
And own thee chieftain of the critic clan.
First in the oat-fed phalanx shall be seen
The travell'd Thane, Athenian Aberdeen.t
Herbert shall wield Thor's hammer, and sometimes,
In gratitude, thou'lt praise his rugged rhymes.
Smug Sydney § too thy bitter page shall seek,
And classic Hallam,|| much renown'd for Greek;
Scott may perchance his name and influence lend,
And paltry Pillans ¶ shall traduce his friend;
While gay Thalia's luckless votary, Lambe,**
Damn'd like the devil, devil-like will damn.tt
Known be thy name, unbounded be thy sway!
Thy Holland's banquets shall each toil repay;

-Oat-fed phalanx-So altered in the fifth edition. The origina. reading was, "ranks illustrious,"

↑ His lordship has been much abroad, is a member of the Athenian Society, and reviewer of "Gell's Topography of Troy."

Mr. Herbert is a translator of Icelandic and other poetry. One of the principal pieces is a "Song on the Recovery of Thor's Hammer; "the translation is a pleasant chant in the vulgar tongue, and endeth thus:

"Instead of money and rings, I wot, The hammer's bruises were her lot, Thus Odin's son his hammer got."

The Rev. Sydney Smith, the reputed author of Peter Plymley's Letters, and sundry criticisms.

Mr. Hallam reviewed Payne Knight's "Taste," and was exceedingly severe on some Greek verses therein: it was not discovered that the lines

In 1806, Messrs. Jeffrey and Moore met at Chalk-Farm. The duel was prevented by the interference of the magistracy; and, on examination, the balls of the pistols were found to have evaporated. This incident gave Docasion to much waggery in the daily prints.

I am informed that Mr. Moore published at the time a disavowal of the statements in the newspapers, as far as regarded himself; and in Justice to him I mention this circumstance. As I never heard of it before, I cannot Fiate the particulars, and was only made acquainted with the fact very lately.-November 4, 1811.

I The Tweed here behaved with proper decorum; it would have been highly reprehensible in the English half of the river to have shown the mallest symptom of apprehension.

This display of sympathy on the part of the Tolbooth (the principal prison in Edinburgh), which truly seems to have been most affected on this occasion, is much to be commended. It was to be apprehended, that the many unhappy criminals executed in the front might have rendered the edifice more callous. She is said to be of the softer sex, because her delicacy of feeling on this day was truly feminine, though, like most feminine impul ses, perhaps a little selfish.

still stands an everlasting monument of Hallam's ingenuity.

The said Hallam is incensed because he is falsely accused, seeing that he never dineth at Holland House. If this be true, I am sorry-not for having said so, but on his account, as I understand his lordship's feasts are preferable to his compositions.-If he did not review Lord Holland's performance, I arr. glad, because it must have been painful to read, and irksome to praise it. I. Mr. Hallam will tell me who did review it, the real name shall find a place in the text; provided, nevertheless, the said name be of two orthodox musical syllables, and will come into the verse: till then, Hallam must stand for want of a better.

TPillans is a tutor at Eaton,

• The Hon. G. Lambe reviewed "Beresford's Miseries," and is moreover author of a farce enacted with much applause at the Priory, Stanmore; and damned with great expedition at the late theatre, Covent Garden. It was entitled, "Whistle for it."

tt Damn'd like the devil, devil-like wil amn.-The line stood, in all editions before the fifth,

"As he himself was damn'd shall try to damn."

• Hallam's. The tute ended here in the first edition.

While grateful Britain yields the praise she owes
To Holland's hirelings and to learning's foes.
Yet mark one caution, ere thy next Review
Spread its light wings of saffron and of blue,
Beware lest blundering Brougham* destroy the sale,
Turn beef to bannocks, cauliflowers to kail.”
Thus having said, the kilted goddess kist
Her son, and vanished in a Scottish mist.t

Then prosper, Jeffrey! pertest of the train
Whom Scotland pampers with her fiery gain!
Whatever blessing waits a genius Scot,
In double portion swells thy glorious lot;
For thee Edina culls her evening sweets,
And showers their odors on thy candid sheets,
Whose hue and fragrance to thy work adhere-
This scents its pages, and that gilds its 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!

Illustrious Holland! | hard would be his lot,
His hirelings mention'd, and himself forgot!
Holland, with Henry Petty at his back,
The whipper-in and huntsman of the pack.
Blest be the banquets spread at Holland House,
Where Scotchmen feed, and critics may carouse!
Long, long beneath that hospitable roof
Shall Grub street dine, while duns are kept aloof.
See honest Hallam lay aside his fork,
Resume his pen, review his Lordship's work,
TAnd, grateful for the dainties on his plate,
Declare his lordship can at least translate!**
Dunedin! view thy children with delight,
They write for food-and feed because they write;
And lest, when heated with the unusual grape,
Some glowing thoughts should to the press escape,
And tinge with red the female reader's cheek,
My lady skims the cream of each critique;

• Mr. Brougham, in No. XXV. of the Edinburgh Review, throughout the article concerning Don Pedro de Cevallos, has displayed more politics than policy; many of the worthy burgesses of Elingburgh being so incensed at the infamous principles it evinces, as to have withdrawn their subsbriptions."

It seems that Mr. Brougham is not a Pict, as I supposed, but a Borderer, and his nume is pronounced Broom, from Trent to Tay :-So be it.

↑ I ought to apologize to the worthy deities for introducing a new goddess with short petticoats to their notice: but als! what was to be done? I could not say Caledonia's genius, it being well known there is no such genius to be found from Clackmannan to Cathness; yet without supernatural agency, how was Jeffrey to be saved? The national "kelpies" are too unpoetical, and the "brownies," and "gude neighbors" (spirits of a good dispostion) refused to extricate him. A goddess, therefore, has been called for the purpose; and great ought to be the gratitude of Jellrey, seeing it is the only communication he ever held, or is likely to hold, with any thing heavenly.

Then prosper, Jeffrey! &c.-This paragraph was introduced in the fifth didon.

1

See the color of the back binding of the Edingburgh Review.

Illustrious Holland! hard would be his lot,
His hirelings mention'd, and himself forgot!

Bad enough, and on mistaken grounds too.-MS. note by Lord Byron. 1816. And, grateful for the dainties, &c.-In all editions before the fifth, this touplet was printed,

"And grateful to the founder of the fenɛt,

Declare his landlord can translate at least."

• Lord Holland has translated some specimens of Lope de Vega, inserted in his life of the author? both are bepraised by his disinterested guests.

• Their subscriptions.-Here followed in the first edition, "The name of inis personage is pronounced Broom in the south, but the truly northern and musical pronunciation is Brougham, in two syllables.”

Breathes o'er the page her purity of soul, Reforms each error, and refines the whole.

Now to the drama turn-oh! motley sight!
What precious scenes the wondering eyes invite!
Puns, and a prince within a barrel pent,†
And Dibdin's nonsense yield complete content.
Though now, thank Heaven! the Rosciomania's o'er
And full-grown actors are endured once more;
Yet what avail their vain attempts to please,
While British critics suffer scenes like these?
While Reynolds vents his "dammees!" "poohs!"
and" zounds!"‡

And common-place and common sense confounds? While Kenny's "World"-ah! where is Kenny's wit?

Tires the sad gallery, lulls the listless pit; }
And Beaumont's pilfer'd Caratach affords
A tragedy complete in all but words? ||

Who but must mourn, while these are all the rage,
The degradation of our vaunted stage!
Heavens! is all sense of shame and talent gone?
Have we no living bard of merit ?-none!
Awake, George Colman! Cumberland, awake!
Ring th' alarum bell! let folly quake!
Oh, Sheridan! if aught can move thy pen.
Let Comedy assume her throne again;
Abjure the mummery of German schools;
Leave new Pizarros to translating fools;
Give, as thy last memorial to the age,
One classic drama, and reform the stage.
Gods! o'er those boards shall Folly rear her head,
Where Garrick trod, and Siddons lives to tread¶
On those shall Farce display buffoon'ry's mask,
And Hook conceal his heroes in a cask?
Shall sapient managers new scenes produce
From Cherry, Skeffington, and Mother Goose,
While Shakspeare, Otway, Massinger, forgot,
On stalls must moulder, or in closets rot?
Lo! with what pomp the daily prints proclaim
The rival candidates for Attic fame!
In grim array though Lewis' spectres rise,
Still Skeffington and Goose divide the prize.
And sure great Skeffington must claim our praise,
For skirtless coats and skeletons of plays
Renown'd alike; whose genius ne'er confines
Her flight to garnish Greenwood's gay designs;
Nor sleeps with "Sleeping Beauties," but anon
In five facetious acts comes thundering on,tt

• Certain it is, her ladyship is suspected of having displayed her mazka wit in the Edinburgh Review. However that may be, we know, from good authority, that the manuscripts are submitted to her perusal—no doubt, for our rection.

In the melo-drama of Tekeli, that heroic prince la clapt into a barrel on the stage; a new asylum for distressed heroes.

All these are favorite expressions of Mr. Reynolds, and prominent in bis comedies, living and defunct.

"While Kenny's "World,"-ah! where is Kenny's wit ?—
Tires the sad gallery, lulls the listless påt."

Thus corrected in the fifth edition. The lines were originally printed,
"While Kenny's "World," Just suffered to proceed,
Proclaims the audience very kind indeed."

Mr. T. Sheridan, the new manager of Drury-lane theatre, stripped the tragedy of Bonduca of the dialogue, and exhibited the scenes as the spectacio of Caractacus.--Was this worthy of his sire, or of himself?

Siddons lives to tread.-In all editions previous to the fifth, "Kemble lives to tread."

• Mr. Greenwood is, we believe, scene-painter to Drury-lane theatresuch, Mr. Skeffington is much indebted to hirn.

adition.

culo magis quam lauro digni.

Then let Ausonia, skill'd in every art
To soften manners, but corrupt the heart,
Pour her exotic follies o'er the town,

To sanction vice, and hunt decorum down:
Let wedded strumpets languish o'er Deshayes,
And bless the promise which his form displays;
While Gayton bounds before th' enraptured looks
Of hoary marquises and stripling dukes:
Let high-born lechers eye the lively Presle

The song from Italy, the step from France,
The midnight orgy, and the mazy dance,
The smile of beauty and the flush of wine, [bine
For fops, fools, gamesters, knaves, and lords com
Each to his humor-Comus all allows;
Champagne, dice, music, or your neighbor's spouse.
Talk not to us, ye starving sons of trade!
Of piteous ruin, which yourselves have made;
In Plenty's sunshine Fortune's minions bask,
Nor think of poverty, except "en masque,"
When for the night some lately titled ass
Appears the beggar which his grandsire was.
The curtain dropp'd, the gay burletta o'er,
The audience take their turn upon the floor;
Now round the room the circling dow'gers sweep,
Now in loose waltz the thin-clad daughters leap;
The first in lengthen'd line majestic swim,
The last display the free unfetter'd limb!
Those for Hibernia's lusty sons repair

With art the charms which nature could not spare;
These after husbands wing their eager flight,
Nor leave much mystery for the nuptial night

Oh! blest retreats of infamy and case,
Where, all forgotten but the power to please,

Let Angiolini bare her breast of snow,
Wave the white arm, and point the pliant toe;
Collini trill her love-inspiring song,

Strain her fair neck, and charm the listening throng!
Whet not your scythe, suppressors of our vice!
Reforming saints! too delicately nice!
By whose decrees, our sinful souls to save,
No Sunday tankards foam, no barbers shave;
And beer undrawn, and beards unmown, display
Your holy reverence for the Sabbath-day.

Or hail at once the patron and the pile
Of vice and folly, Greville and Argyle!||
Where yon proud palace, Fashion's hallow'd fane,
Spreads wide her portals for the motley train,
Behold the new Petronius of the day,
Our arbiter of pleasure and of play!

There the hired eunuch, the Hesperian choir,
The melting lute, the soft lascivious lyre,

• "Stares;" first edition, "keepa."

+ Nakili and Catalina require little notics-for the visage of the one, and the

zalary of the other, will enable us long to recollect these amusing vagabonds. Besides, we are still lack and blue from the squeeze on the first night of the

lady's appearance in trousers.

Whet not your scythe. From Lord Byron's correction in 1816. In the former editions, “Raise not your, scythe." Against the six concluding lines of this paragaph the author has written-"Good."

Or hail at once the patron and the pile.-The following seventy lines to

"as for the smaller fry," &c., were first inserted in the second edition.

To prevent any blunder, such as mistaking a street for a man, I beg leave to state, that it is the institution, and not the duke of that name, which is here alluded to. A gentleman, with whom I am slightly acquainted, lost In the Argyle Rooms several thousand pounds at backgammon. It is Lut Justice to the managers in this instince to say, that some degree of disapproltion was manifested: but why are the implements of gaming allowed in a place devoted to the society of both sexes? A pleasant thing for the wives or daughters of those who are blest or cursed with such connections, to hear the billard-tables rattling in one room, and the dice in another! That this is the ense I myself can testify, as a late worthy member of an institution which ma terially affects the morals of the higher orders, while the lower may not even nove to the sound of a tabor and fiddle without a chance of indictment for riotous behavior.

Each swain may teach new systems, or be taught;
There the blithe youngster, just return'd from Spain,
Cuts the light pack, or calls the rattling main;
The jovial caster's set, and seven 's the nick,
Or-done!-a thousand on the coming trick!
If, mad with loss, existence 'gins to tire,
And all your hope or wish is to expire,
Here's Powell's pistol ready for your life,
And, kinder still, two Pagets for your wife:*
Fit consummation of an earthly race

Begun in folly, ended in disgrace;

While none but menials o'er the bed of death,
Wash thy red wounds, or watch thy wavering breath;
Traduced by liars, and forgot by all,

The mangled victim of a drunken brawl,
To live like Clodius,† and like Falkland fall.

Truth! rouse some genuine bard, and guide his hand
To drive this pestilence from out the land.
Even I-least thinking of a thoughtless throng,
Just skill'd to know the right and choose the wrong,
Freed at that age when reason's shield is lost,
To fight my course through passion's countless host.
Whom every path of pleasure's flow'ry way
Has lured in turn, and all have led astray-
E'en I must raise my voice, e'en I must feel
Such scenes, such men, destroy the public weal,
Although some kind, censorious friend will say,
"What art thou better, meddling fool,|| than they?"

I knew the late Lord Falkland well. On Sunday night I beheld him presiding at his own table, in all the honest pride of hospitality; on Wednes day morning, at three o'clock, I saw stretched before me all that remained o courage, feeling, and a host of passions. He was a gallant and successful officer: his faults were the faults of a sailor-as such, Eritous will forgive him. He died like a brave man in a better cause: for had he fallen in like manner on the deck of the frigate to which he was just appointed, his last

• True. It was Billy Wy who lost the money. I knew him, and was

a subscriber to the Argyle at the time of the event.-MS. note by Lord Byron.

1916.

succeeding heroes.

§ To fight my course through passion's countless host.-Yes: and a precious chase they led me.-MS. note by Lord Byron. 1816.

What art thou better, meddling foo!?-Fool enough, certainly then, and no wiser since.-MS. note by Lord Byron. 1816.