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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396086" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (excerpt)</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Time was, ere yet in these degenerate days <br> Ignoble themes obtain'd mistaken praise, <br> When sense and wit with poesy allied, <br> No fabl'd graces, flourish'd side by side; <br> From the same fount their inspiration drew, <br> And, rear'd by taste, bloom'd fairer as they grew. <br> Then, in this happy isle, a Pope's pure strain <br> Sought the rapt soul to charm, nor sought in vain; <br> A polish'd nation's praise aspir'd to claim, <br> And rais'd the people's, as the poet's fame. <br> Like him great Dryden pour'd the tide of song, <br> In stream less smooth, indeed, yet doubly strong. <br> Then Congreve's scenes could cheer, or Otway's melt-- <br> For nature then an English audience felt. <br> But why these names, or greater still, retrace, <br> When all to feebler bards resign their place? <br> Yet to such times our lingering looks are cast, <br> When taste and reason with those times are past. <br> Now look around, and turn each trifling page, <br> Survey the precious works that please the age; <br> This truth at least let satire's self allow, <br> No dearth of bards can be complain'd of now. <br> The loaded press beneath her labour groans, <br> And printers' devils shake their weary bones; <br> While Southey's epics cram the creaking shelves, <br> And Little's lyrics shine in hot-press'd twelves. <br> Thus saith the Preacher: &quot;Nought beneath the sun <br> Is new&quot;; yet still from change to change we run: <br> What varied wonders tempt us as they pass! <br> The cow-pox, tractors, galvanism and gas, <br> In turns appear, to make the vulgar stare, <br> Till the swoln bubble bursts--and all is air! <br> Nor less new schools of Poetry arise, <br> Where dull pretenders grapple for the prize: <br> O'er taste awhile these pseudo-bards prevail; <br> Each country book-club bows the knee to Baal, <br> And, hurling lawful genius from the throne, <br> Erects a shrine and idol of its own; <br> Some leaden calf--but whom it matters not, <br> From soaring Southey down to grovelling Stott. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Behold! in various throngs the scribbling crew, <br> For notice eager, pass in long review: <br> Each spurs his jaded Pegasus apace, <br> And rhyme and blank maintain an equal race; <br> Sonnets on sonnets crowd, and ode on ode; <br> And tales of terror jostle on the road; <br> Immeasurable measures move along; <br> For simpering folly loves a varied song, <br> To strange mysterious dulness still the friend, <br> Admires the strain she cannot comprehend. <br> Thus Lays of Minstrels--may they be the last!-- <br> On half-strung harps whine mournful to the blast. <br> While mountain spirits prate to river sprites, <br> That dames may listen to the sound at nights; <br> And goblin brats, of Gilpin Horner's brood, <br> Decoy young border-nobles through the wood, <br> And skip at every step, Lord knows how high, <br> And frighten foolish babes, the Lord knows why; <br> While high-born ladies in their magic cell, <br> Forbidding knights to read who cannot spell, <br> Despatch a courier to a wizard's grave, <br> And fight with honest men to shield a knave. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan, <br> The golden-crested haughty Marmion, <br> Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight, <br> Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight, <br> The gibbet or the field prepar'd to grace; <br> A mighty mixture of the great and base. <br> And think'st thou, Scott! by vain conceit perchance, <br> On public taste to foist thy stale romance, <br> Though Murray with his Miller may combine <br> To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line? <br> No! when the sons of song descend to trade, <br> Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade. <br> Let such forego the poet's sacred name, <br> Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame: <br> Still for stern Mammon may they toil in vain! <br> And sadly gaze on gold they cannot gain! <br> Such be their meed, such still the just reward <br> Of prostituted muse and hireling bard! <br> For this we spurn Apollo's venal son, <br> And bid a long &quot;good night to Marmion.&quot; </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> These are the themes that claim our plaudits now; <br> These are the bards to whom the muse must bow; <br> While Milton, Dryden, Pope, alike forgot, <br> Resign their hallow'd bays to Walter Scott. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> The time has been, when yet the muse was young, <br> When Homer swept the lyre, and Maro sung, <br> An epic scarce ten centuries could claim, <br> While awe-struck nations hail'd the magic name; <br> The work of each immortal bard appears <br> The single wonder of a thousand years. <br> Empires have moulder'd from the face of earth, <br> Tongues have expir'd with those who gave them birth, <br> Without the glory such a strain can give, <br> As even in ruin bids the language live. <br> Not so with us, though minor bards, content <br> On one great work a life of labour spent: <br> With eagle pinion soaring to the skies, <br> Behold the ballad-monger Southey rise! <br> To him let Camoëns, Milton, Tasso yield, <br> Whose annual strains, like armies, take the field. <br> First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance, <br> The scourge of England and the boast of France! <br> Though burnt by wicked Bedford for a witch, <br> Behold her statue plac'd in glory's niche; <br> Her fetters burst, and just releas'd from prison, <br> A virgin phoenix from her ashes risen. <br> Next see tremendous Thalaba come on, <br>Arabia's monstrous, wild and wondrous son: <br>Domdaniel's dread destroyer, who o'erthrew <br> More mad magicians than the world e'er knew. <br> Immortal hero! all thy foes o'ercome, <br> For ever reign--the rival of Tom Thumb! <br> Since startled metre fled before thy face, <br> Well wert thou doom'd the last of all thy race! <br> Well might triumphant genii bear thee hence, <br> Illustrious conqueror of common sense! <br> Now, last and greatest, Madoc spreads his sails, <br> Cacique in Mexico, and prince in Wales; <br> Tells us strange tales, as other travellers do, <br> More old than Mandeville's, and not so true. <br> Oh Southey! Southey! cease thy varied song! <br> A bard may chant too often and too long: <br> As thou art strong in verse, in mercy, spare! <br> A fourth, alas! were more than we could bear. <br> But if, in spite of all the world can say, <br> Thou still wilt verseward plod thy weary way; <br> If still in Berkley ballads most uncivil, <br> Thou wilt devote old women to the devil, <br> The babe unborn thy dread intent may rue: <br> &quot;God help thee,&quot; Southey, and thy readers too. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Next comes the dull disciple of thy school, <br> That mild apostate from poetic rule, <br> The simple Wordsworth, framer of a lay <br> As soft as evening in his favourite May, <br> Who warns his friend &quot;to shake off toil and trouble, <br> And quit his books, for fear of growing double&quot;; <br> Who, both by precept and example, shows <br> That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose; <br> Convincing all, by demonstration plain, <br> Poetic souls delight in prose insane; <br> And Christmas stories tortur'd into rhyme <br> Contain the essence of the true sublime. <br> Thus, when he tells the tale of Betty Foy, <br> The idiot mother of &quot;an idiot boy&quot;; <br> A moon-struck, silly lad, who lost his way, <br> And, like his bard, confounded night with day; <br> So close on each pathetic part he dwells, <br> And each adventure so sublimely tells, <br> That all who view the &quot;idiot in his glory&quot; <br> Conceive the bard the hero of the story. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"> Shall gentle Coleridge pass unnotic'd here, <br> To turgid ode and tumid stanza dear? <br> Though themes of innocence amuse him best, <br> Yet still obscurity's a welcome guest. <br> If Inspiration should her aid refuse <br> To him who takes a pixy for a muse, <br> Yet none in lofty numbers can surpass <br> The bard who soars to elegize an ass. <br> So well the subject suits his noble mind, <br> He brays the laureat of the long-ear'd kind.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Byron">Byron</a><div class=q>
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 Ignoble themes obtain'd mistaken praise, 
 When sense and wit with poesy allied, 
 No fabl'd graces, flourish'd side by side; 
 From the same fount their inspiration drew, 
 And, rear'd by taste, bloom'..."></div>
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