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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396087" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>English Bards and Scotch Reviewers: A Satire</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">'I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew!<br>Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers'~Shakespeare</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Such shameless bards we have; and yet 'tis true,<br>There are as mad, abandon'd critics too,'~Pope.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Still must I hear? -- shall hoarse Fitzgerald bawl <br>His creaking couplets in a tavern hall, <br>And I not sing, lest, haply, Scotch reviews <br>Should dub me scribbler, and denounce my muse? <br>Prepare for rhyme -- I'll publish, right or wrong: <br>Fools are my theme, let satire be my song. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">O nature's noblest gift -- my grey goose-quill! <br>Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will, <br>Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen, <br>That mighty instrument of little men! <br>The pen! foredoom'd to aid the mental throes <br>Of brains that labour, big with verse or prose, <br>Though nymphs forsake, and critics may deride, <br>The lover's solace, and the author's pride. <br>What wits, what poets dost thou daily raise! <br>How frequent is thy use, how small thy praise! <br>Condemn'd at length to be forgotten quite, <br>With all the pages which 'twas thine to write. <br>But thou, at least, mine own especial pen! <br>Once laid aside, but now assumed again, <br>Our task complete, like Hamet's shall be free; <br>Though spurn'd by others, yet beloved by me: <br>Then let us soar today, no common theme, <br>No eastern vision, no distemper'd dream <br>Inspires -- our path, though full of thorns, is plain; <br>Smooth be the verse, and easy be the strain. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">When Vice triumphant holds her sov'reign sway, <br>Obey'd by all who nought beside obey; <br>When Folly, frequent harbinger of crime, <br>Bedecks her cap with bells of every clime; <br>When knaves and fools combined o'er all prevail, <br>And weigh their justice in a golden scale; <br>E'en then the boldest start from public sneers, <br>Afraid of shame, unknown to other fears, <br>More darkly sin, by satire kept in awe, <br>And shrink from ridicule, though not from law. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Such is the force of wit! but not belong <br>To me the arrows of satiric song; <br>The royal vices of our age demand <br>A keener weapon, and a mightier hand. <br>Still there are follies, e'en for me to chase, <br>And yield at least amusement in the race: <br>Laugh when I laugh, I seek no other fame; <br>The cry is up, and scribblers are my game. <br>Speed, Pegasus! -- ye strains of great and small, <br>Ode, epic, elegy, have at you all! <br>I too can scrawl, and once upon a time <br>I pour'd along the town a flood of rhyme, <br>A schoolboy freak, unworthy praise or blame; <br>I printed -- older children do the same. <br>'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print; <br>A book's a book, although there's nothing in't. <br>Not that a title's sounding charm can save <br>Or scrawl or scribbler from an equal grave: <br>This Lambe must own, since his patrician name <br>Fail'd to preserve the spurious farce from shame. <br>No matter, George continues still to write, <br>Though now the name is veil'd from public sight. <br>Moved by the great example, I pursue <br>The self-same road, but make my own review: <br>Not seek great Jeffrey's, yet, like him, will be <br>Self-constituted judge of poesy. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A man must serve his time to every trade <br>Save censure -- critics all are ready made. <br>Take hackney'd jokes from Miller, got by rote, <br>With just enough of learning to misquote; <br>A mind well skill'd to find or forge a fault; <br>A turn for punning, call it Attic salt; <br>To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet, <br>His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet: <br>Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a sharper hit; <br>Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit; <br>Care not for feeling -- pass you proper jest, <br>And stand a critic, hated yet carress'd. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And shall we own such judgment? no -- as soon <br>Seek roses in December -- ice in June; <br>Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff; <br>Believe a woman or an epitaph, <br>Or any other thing that's false, before <br>You trust in critics, who themselves are sore; <br>Or yield one single thought to be misled <br>By Jeffrey's heart, or Lambe's Boeotian head. <br>To these young tyrants, by themselves misplaced, <br>Combined usurpers on the throne of taste; <br>To these, when authors bend in humble awe, <br>And hail their voice as truth, their word as law -- <br>While these are censors, 't would be sin to spare; <br>While such are critics, why should I forebear? <br>But yet, so near all modern worthies run, <br>'Tis doubtful whom to seek, or whom to shun: <br>Nor know we when to spare, or where to strike, <br>Our bards and censors are so much alike. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then should you ask me, why I venture o'er <br>The path which Pope and Gifford trod before; <br>If not yet sicken'd, you can still proceed; <br>Go on; my rhyme will tell you as you read. <br>'But hold!' exclaims a friend, 'here's come neglect: <br>This -- that -- and t'other line seem incorrect.' <br>What then? the self-same blunder Pope has got, <br>And careless Dryden -- 'Ay, but Pye has not:' -- <br>Indeed! -- 'tis granted, faith! -- but what care I? <br>Better to err with Pope, than shine with Pye. </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: 'Nought beneath the sun <br>Is new'; 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 swoll'n 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 dullness 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 highborn 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 'good night to Marmion.' </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>Dom Daniel'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>'God help thee,' 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 'to shake off toil and trouble, <br>And quit his books, for fear of growing double'; <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 'an idiot boy'; <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 'idiot in his glory' <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 pixey 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">Oh! wonder-working Lewis! monk, or bard, <br>Who fain wouldst make Parnassus a churchyard! <br>Lo! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy brow, <br>Thy muse a sprite, Apollo's sexton thou! <br>Whether on ancient tombs thou tak'st thy stand, <br>By gibb'ring spectres hail'd, thy kindred band; <br>Or tracest chaste descriptions on thy page, <br>To please the females of our modest age; <br>All hail, M.P.! from whose infernal brain <br>Thin-sheeted phantoms glide, a grisly train; <br>At whose command 'grim women' throng in crowds, <br>And kings of fire, of water, and of clouds, <br>With 'small gray men,' 'wild yagers,' and what not, <br>To crown with honour thee and Walter Scott; <br>Again all hail! if tales like thine may please, <br>St. Luke alone can vanquish the disease; <br>Even Satan's self with thee might dread to dwell, <br>And in thy skull discern a deeper hell. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Who in soft guise, surrounded by a choir <br>Of virgins melting, not to Vesta's fire <br>With sparkling eyes, and cheek by passion flush'd, <br>Strikes his wild lyre, whilst listening dames are hush'd? <br>'Tis Little! young Catullus of his day, <br>As sweet, but as immoral, in his lay! <br>Grieved to condemn, the muse must still be just, <br>Nor spare melodious advocates of lust. <br>Pure is the flame which o'er her altar burns; <br>From grosser incense with disgust she turns; <br>Yet kind to youth, this expiation o'er, <br>She bids thee 'mend thy line and sin no more.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">For thee, translator of the tinsel song, <br>To whom such glittering ornaments belong, <br>Hiberian Strangford! with thine eyes of blue, <br>And boasted locks of red or auburn hue, <br>Whose plaintive strain each love-sick miss admires, <br>And o'er harmonious fustian half expires, <br>Learn, if thou canst, to yield thine author's sense, <br>Nor vend thy sonnets on a false pretence. <br>Think'st thou to gain thy verse a higher place, <br>By dressing Camoëns in suit of lace? <br>Mend, Strangford! mend thy morals and thy taste; <br>Be warm, but pure; be amorous, but be chaste; <br>Cease to deceive,: thy pilfer'd harp restore, <br>Nor teach the Lusian bard to copy Moore. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Behold! -- ye tarts! -- one moment spare the text -- <br>Hayley's last work, and worst -- until his next; <br>Whether he spin poor couplets into plays, <br>Or damn the dead with purgatorial praise, <br>His style in youth or age is still the same, <br>For ever feeble and for ever tame. <br>Triumphant first see 'Temper's Triumphs' shine! <br>At least I'm sure they triumph'd over mine. <br>Of 'Music's Triumphs' all who read may swear <br>That luckless music never triumph'd there. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Moravians, arise! bestow some meet reward <br>On dull devotion -- Lo! the Sabbath bard, <br>Sepulchral Grahame, pours his notes sublime <br>In mangled prose, nor e'en aspires to rhyme; <br>Breaks into blank the Gospel of St. Luke, <br>And boldly pilfers from the Pentateuch; <br>And, undisturb'd by conscientious qualms, <br>Perverts the Prophets, and purloins the Psalms. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Hail, Sympathy! thy soft idea brings <br>A thousand visions of a thousand things, <br>And shows, still whimpering through three-score of years, <br>The maudlin prince of mournful sonneteers. <br>Art thou not their prince, harmonious Bowles! <br>Thou first, great oracle of tender souls? <br>Whether thou sing'st with equal ease, and grief, <br>The fall of empires, or a yellow leaf: <br>Whether thy muse most lamentably tells <br>What merry sounds proceed from Oxford bells, <br>Or, still in bells delighting, finds a friend <br>In every chime that jingled from Ostend: <br>Ah! how much juster were thy muse's hap <br>If to thy bells thou wouldst but add a cap! <br>Delightful Bowles! still blessing and still blest, <br>All love thy strain, but children like it best. <br>'Tis thine, with gentle Little's moral song, <br>To soothe the mania of the amorous throng! <br>With thee our nursery damsels shed their tears, <br>Ere miss as yet completes her infant years: <br>But in her teens thy winning powers are vain; <br>She quits poor Bowles for Little's purer strain. <br>Now to soft themes thou scornest to confine <br>The lofty numbers of a harp like thine: <br>'Awake a louder and a loftier strain,' <br>Such as none heard before, or will again! <br>Where all Discoveries jumbled from the flood, <br>Since first the leaky ark reposed in mud, <br>By more or less, are sung in every book, <br>From Captain Noah down to Captain Cook. <br>Nor this alone; but, pausing on the road, <br>The bard sighs forth a gentle episode; <br>And gravely tells -- attend, each beauteous miss! -- <br>When first Madeira trembled to a kiss. <br>Bowles! in thy memory let this precept dwell, <br>Stick to thy sonnets, man! -- at least they sell. <br>But if some new-born whim, or larger bribe, <br>Prompt thy crude brain, and claim thee for a scribe; <br>If chance some bard, though once by dunces fear'd, <br>Now, prone in dust, can only be revered; <br>If Pope, whose fame and genius, from the first, <br>Have foil'd the best of critics, needs the worst, <br>Do thou essay: each fault, each falling scan; <br>The first of poets was, alas! but man. <br>Rake from each ancient dunghill every pearl, <br>Consult Lord Fanny, and confide in Curll; <br>Let all the scandals of a former age <br>Perch on thy pen, and flutter o'er thy page; <br>Affect a candour which thou canst not feel, <br>Clothe envy in the garb of honest zeal; <br>Write, as if St. John's soul could still inspire, <br>And do from hate what Mallet did for hire. <br>Oh! hadst thou lived in that congenial time, <br>To rave with Dennis, and with Ralph to rhyme; <br>Throng'd with the rest around his living head, <br>Not raised thy hoof against the lion dead; <br>A meet reward had crown'd thy glorious gains, <br>And link'd thee to the Dunciad for thy pains. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Another epic! Who inflicts again <br>More books of blank upon the sons of men? <br>Boeotian Cottle, rich Browtowa's boast, <br>Imports old stories from the Cambrian coast, <br>And sends his goods to market -- all alive! <br>Lines forty thousand, cantos twenty-five! <br>Fresh fish from Helicon! who'll buy, who'll buy? <br>The precious bargain's cheap -- in faith, not I. <br>Your turtle-feeder's verse must needs be flat, <br>Though Bristol bloat them with the verdant fat; <br>If Commerce fills the purse, she clogs the brain <br>And Amos Cottle strikes the lyre in vain. <br>In him an author's luckless lot behold, <br>Condemn'd to make the books which once he sold. <br>Oh, Amos Cottle! -- Pheobus! what a name <br>To fill the speaking trump of future fame! -- <br>Oh, Amos Cottle! for a moment think <br>What meagre profits spring from pen and ink! <br>When thus devoted to poetic dreams, <br>Who will peruse thy prostituted reams? <br>Oh! pen perverted! paper misapplied! <br>Had Cottle still adorn'd the counter's side, <br>Bent o'er the desk, or, born to useful toils, <br>Been taught to make the paper which he soils, <br>Plough'd, delved, or plied the oar with lusty limb, <br>He had not sung of Wales, nor I of him. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">As Sisyphus against the infernal steep <br>Rolls the huge rock whose motions ne'er may sleep, <br>So up thy hill, ambrosial Richmond, heaves <br>Dull Maurice all his granite weight of leaves: <br>Smooth, solid monuments of mental pain! <br>The petrifactions of a plodding brain, <br>That, ere they reach the top, fall lumbering back again. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">With broken lyre, and cheek serenely pale, <br>Lo! sad Alcæus wanders down the vale; <br>Though fair they rose, and might have bloom'd at last, <br>His hopes have perish'd by the northern blast: <br>Nipp'd in the bud by Caledonian gales, <br>His blossoms wither as the blast prevails! <br>O'er his lost works let classic Sheffield weep; <br>May no rude hand disturb their early sleep! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet say! why should the bard at once resign <br>His claim to favour from the sacred Nine? <br>For ever startled by the mingled howl <br>Of northern wolves, that still in darkness prowl; <br>A coward brood, which mangle as they prey, <br>By hellish instinct, all that cross their way; <br>Aged or young, the living or the dead, <br>No mercy find -- these harpies must be fed. <br>Why do the injured unresisting yield <br>The calm possession of their native field? <br>Why tamely thus before their fangs retreat, <br>Nor hunt the blood-hounds back to Arthur's Seat? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Health to immortal Jeffrey! once, in name, <br>England could boast a judge almost the same; <br>In soul so like, so merciful, yet just, <br>Some think that Satan has resign'd his trust, <br>And given the spirit to the world again, <br>To sentence letters,as he sentenced men. <br>With hand less mighty, but with heart as black, <br>With voice as willing to decree the rack; <br>Bred in the courts betimes, though all that law <br>As yet hath taught him is to find a flaw; <br>Since well instructed in the patriot school <br>To rail at party, though a party tool, <br>Who knows, if chance his patrons should restore <br>Back to the sway they forfeited before, <br>His scribbling toils some recompense may meet, <br>And raise this Daniel to the judgment-seat? <br>Let Jeffreys' shade indulge the pious hope, <br>And greeting thus, present him with a rope: <br>'Heir to my virtues! man of equal mind! <br>Skill'd to condemn as to traduce mankind, <br>This cord receive, for thee reserved with care, <br>To wield in judgment, and at length to wear.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Health to great Jeffrey! Heaven preserve his life, <br>To flourish on the fertile shores of Fife, <br>And guard it sacred in its future wars, <br>Since authors sometimes seek the field of Mars! <br>Can none remember that eventful day, <br>That ever-glorious, almost fatal fray, <br>When Little's leadless pistol met his eye, <br>And Bow-street myrmidons stood laughing by? <br>Oh, day disastrous! on her firm-set rock, <br>Dunedin's castle felt a secret shock; <br>Dark roll'd the sympathetic waves of Forth, <br>Low groan'd the startled whirlwinds of the north; <br>Tweed ruffled half his waves to form a tear, <br>The other half pursued its calm career; <br>Arthur's steep summit nodded to its base, <br>The surly Tolbooth scarcely kept her place. <br>The Tolbooth felt -- for marble sometimes can, <br>On such occasions feel as much as man -- <br>The Tolbooth felt defrauded of his charms, <br>If Jeffrey died, except within her arms: <br>Nay last, not least on that portentious morn, <br>The sixteenth story, where himself was born, <br>His patrimonial garret, fell to the ground, <br>And pale Edina shudder'd at the sound: <br>Strew'd were the streets around with milk-white reams, <br>Flow'd all the Canongate with inky streams; <br>This of candour seem'd the sable dew, <br>That of his valour show'd the bloodless hue; <br>And all with justice deem'd the two combined <br>The mingled emblems of his mighty mind. <br>But Caledonia's goddess hover'd o'er <br>The field and saved him from the wrath of Moore; <br>From either pistol snatch'd the vengeful lead, <br>And straight restored it to her favourite's head: <br>That head, with greater than magnetic power, <br>Caught it, as Danaë caught the golden shower, <br>And, though the thickening dross will scarce refine, <br>Augments its ore, and is itself a mine. <br>'My son,' she cried, 'ne'er thirst for gore again, <br>Resign the pistol and resume the pen; <br>O'er politics and poesy preside, <br>Boast of thy country, and Britannia's guide! <br>For as long as Albion's heedless sons submit, <br>Or Scottish taste decides on English wit, <br>So long shall last thine unmolested reign, <br>Nor any dare to take thy name in vain. <br>Behold, a chosen band shall aid thy plan, <br>And own thee chieftain of the critic clan. <br>First in the oat-fed phalanx shall be seen <br>The travell'd thane, Athenian Aberdeen. <br>Herbert shall wield Thor's hammer, and sometimes, <br>In graditude, thou'lt praise his rugged rhymes. <br>Smug Sidney too thy bitter page shall seek, <br>And classic Hallam, much renown'd for Greek; <br>Scott must perchance his name and influence lend, <br>And paltry Pillans shall traduce his friend! <br>While gay Thalia's luckless votary, Lambe, <br>Damn'd like the devil, devil-like will damn. <br>Known be thy name, unbounded be thy sway! <br>Thy Holland's banquets shall each toil repay; <br>While grateful Britain yields the praise she owes <br>To Holland's hirelings and to learning's foes. <br>Yet mark one caution ere thy next Review <br>Spread its light wings of saffron and of blue, <br>Beware lest blundering Brougham destroy the sale, <br>Turn beef to bannocks, cauliflowers to kail.' <br>Thus having said, the kilted goddess kiss'd <br>Her son, and vanish'd in a Scottish mist</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then prosper, Jeffrey! pertest of the train <br>Whom Scotland pampers with her fiery grain! <br>Whatever blessing waits a genuine Scot, <br>In double portion swells thy glorious lot; <br>For thee Edina culls her evening sweets, <br>And showers their odours on thy candid sheets, <br>Whose hue and fragrance to thy work adhere -- <br>This scents its pages, and that gilds its rear.<br>Lo! blushing Itch, coy nymph, enamour'd grown, <br>Forsakes the rest, and cleaves to thee alone; <br>And, too unjust to other Pictish men, <br>Enjoys thy person, and inspires thy pen! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Illustrious Holland! hard would be this lot, <br>His hirelings mention'd, and himself forgot! <br>Holland, with Henry Petty at his back, <br>The whipper-in and huntsman of the pack. <br>Blest be the banquets spread at Holland House, <br>Where Scotchmen feed, and critics may carouse! <br>Long, long beneath that hospitable roof <br>Shall Grub-street dine, while duns are kept aloof. <br>See honest Hallam lay aside his fork, <br>Resume his pen, review his Lordship's work, <br>And, grateful for the dainties on his plate, <br>Declare his landlord can at least translate! <br>Dunedin! view thy children with delight, <br>They write for food -- and feed because they write: <br>And lest, when heated with unusual grape, <br>Some glowing thoughts should to the press escape, <br>And tinge with red the female reader's cheek, <br>My lady skims the cream of each critique; <br>Breathes o'er the page her purity of soul, <br>Reforms each error, and refines the whole. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now to the Drama turn -- Oh! motley sight! <br>What precious scenes the wondering eyes invite! <br>Puns, and a prince within a barrel pent, <br>And Dibdin's nonsense yield complete content. <br>Though now, thank Heaven! the Rosciomania's o'er, <br>And full-grown actors are endured once more: <br>Yet what avail their vain attempts to please, <br>While British critics suffer scenes like these; <br>While Reynolds vents his 'dammes!' 'poohs!' and 'zounds!' <br>And common-place and common sense confounds? <br>While Kenney's 'World' -- ah! where is Kenney's wit? -- <br>Tires the sad gallery, lulls the listless pit; <br>And Beaumont's pilfer'd Caratach affords <br>A tragedy complete in all but words? <br>Who but must mourn, while these are all the rage, <br>The degradation of our vaunted stage! <br>Heavens! is all sense of shame and talent gone? <br>Have we no living bard of merit? -- none! <br>Awake, George Colman! Cumberland, awake! <br>Ring the alarum bell! let folly quake! <br>Oh Sheridan! if aught can move they pen, <br>Let Comedy assume her throne again; <br>Abjure the mummery of German schools; <br>Leave new Pizarros to translating fools; <br>Give, as thy last memorial to the age, <br>One classic drama, and reform the stage. <br>Gods! o'er those boards shall Folly rear her head <br>Where Garrick trod and Siddons lives to tread? <br>On those shall Farce display Buffoon'ry's mask, <br>And Hook conceal his heroes in a cask? <br>Shall sapient managers new scenes produce <br>From Cherry, Skeffington, and Mother Goose? <br>While Shakespeare, Otway, Massinger, forgot, <br>On stalls must moulder, or in closets rot? <br>Lo! with what pomp the daily prints proclaim <br>The rival candidates for Attic fame! <br>In grim array though Lewis' spectres rise, <br>Still Skeffington and Goose divide the prize. <br>And sure great Skeffington must claim our praise, <br>For skirtless coats and skeletons of plays <br>Renown'd alike; whose genius ne'er confines <br>Her flight to garnish Greenwood's gay designs; <br>Nor sleeps with 'Sleeping Beauties,' but anon <br>In five facetious acts comes thundering on, <br>While poor John Bull, bewilder'd with the scene <br>Stares, wondering what the devil it can mean; <br>But as some hands applaud, a venal few! <br>Rather than sleep, why John applauds it too. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Such are we now. Ah! wherefore should we turn <br>To what our fathers were, unless to mourn? <br>Degenerate Britons! are ye dead to shame, <br>Or, kind to dullness, do you fear to blame? <br>Well may the nobles of our present race <br>Watch each distortion of a Naldi's face; <br>Well may they smile on Italy's buffoons, <br>And worship Catalani's pantaloons, <br>Since their own drama yields no fairer trace <br>Of wit than puns, of humour than grimace. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then let Ausonia, skill'd in every art <br>To soften manners, but corrupt the heart, <br>Pour her exotic follies o'er the town, <br>To sanction Vice, and hunt Decorum down: <br>Let wedded strumpets languish o'er Deshayes, <br>And bless the promise which his form displays; <br>While Grayton bounds before th' enraptured looks <br>Of hoary marquises and stripling dukes; <br>Let high-born lechers eye the lively Présle <br>Twirl her light limbs, that spurn the needless veil; <br>Let Angiolini bare her breast of snow, <br>Wave the white arm, and point the pliant toe; <br>Collini trill her love-inspiring song, <br>Strain her fair neck, and charm the listening throng! <br>Whet not your scythe, suppressers of our vice! <br>Reforming saints! too delicately nice! <br>By whose decrees, our sinful souls to save, <br>No Sunday tankards foam, no barber's shave; <br>And beer undrawn, and beards unmown, display <br>You holy reverence for the Sabbath-day. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Or hail at once the patron and the pile <br>Of vice and folly, Greville and Argyle! <br>Where yon proud palace, Fashion's hallow'd fane, <br>Spreads wide her portals for the motley train, <br>Behold the new Petronius of the day, <br>Our arbiter of pleasure and of play! <br>There the hired eunuch, the Hesperian choir, <br>The melting lute, the soft lascivious lyre, <br>The song from Italy, the step from France, <br>The midnight orgy, and the mazy dance, <br>The smile of beauty, and the flush of wine, <br>For fops, fools, gamesters, knaves, and lords combine: <br>Each to his humour -- Comus all allows; <br>Champaign, dice, music or your neighbour's spouse. <br>Talk not to us, ye starving sons of trade! <br>Of piteous ruin, which ourselves have made; <br>In plenty's sunshine Fortune's minions bask, <br>Nor think of poverty, except 'en masque,' <br>When for the night some lately titled ass <br>Appears the beggar which his grandsire was. <br>The curtain dropp'd, the gay burletta o'er, <br>The audience take their turn upon the floor; <br>Now round the room the circling dow'gers sweep, <br>Now in loose waltz the thin-clad daughters leap; <br>The first in lengthen'd line majestic swim, <br>The last display the free unfetter'd limb! <br>Those for Hibernia's lusty sons repair <br>With art the charms which nature could not spare; <br>These after husbands wing their eager flight, <br>Nor leave much mystery for the nuptial night. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh! blest retreats of infamy and ease, <br>Where, all forgotten but the power to please, <br>Each maid may give a loose to genial thought, <br>Each swain may teach new systems, or be taught: <br>There the blithe youngster, just return's from Spain, <br>Cuts the light pack, or calls the rattling main; <br>The jovial caster's set, and seven's the nick, <br>Or -- done! -- a thousand on the coming trick! <br>If, mad with loss, existence 'gins to tire, <br>And all your hope or wish is to expire, <br>Here's Powell's pistol ready for your life, <br>And, kinder still, two Pagets for your wife; <br>Fit consummation of an earthly race <br>Begun in folly, ended in disgrace; <br>While none but menials o'er the bed of death, <br>Wash thy red wounds, or watch thy wavering breath; <br>Traduced by liars, and forgot by all, <br>The mangled victim of a drunken brawl, <br>To live, like Clodius, and like Falkland fall. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Truth! rouse some genuine bard, and guide his hand <br>To drive this pestilence from out the land. <br>E'en I -- least thinking of a thoughtless throng, <br>Just skill'd to know the right and choose the wrong, <br>Freed at that age when reason's shield is lost, <br>To fight my course through passion's countless host, <br>Whom every path of pleasure's flowery way <br>Has lured in turn, and all have led astray -- <br>E'en I must raise my voice, e'en I must feel <br>Such scenes, such men, destroy the public weal: <br>Although some kind, censorious friend will say, <br>'What art thou better, meddling fool, than they?' <br>And every brother rake will smile to see <br>That miracle, a moralist in me. <br>No matter -- when some bard in virtue strong, <br>Gifford perchance, shall raise the chastening song, <br>Then sleep my pen for ever! and my voice <br>Be only heard to hail him, and rejoice; <br>Rejoice, and yield my feeble praise, though I <br>May feel the lash that Virtue must apply. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">As for the smaller fry, who swarm in shoals, <br>From silly Hafiz up to simple Bowles, <br>Why should we call them from their dark abode, <br>In broad St. Giles's or in Tottenham-road? <br>Or (since some men of fashion nobly dare <br>To scrawl in verse) from Bond-street or the Square? <br>If things of ton their harmless lays indict, <br>Most wisely doom'd to shun the public sight, <br>What harm? in spite of every critic elf, <br>Sir T. may read his stanzas to himself; <br>Miles Andrews still his strength in couplets try, <br>And life in prologues, though his dramas die: <br>Lords too are bards, such things at times befall, <br>And 'tis some praise in peers to write at all. <br>Yet, did or taste or reason sway the times <br>Ah! who would take their titles with their rhymes? <br>Roscommon! Sheffield! with your spirits fled, <br>No future laurels deck a noble head; <br>No muse will cheer, with renovating smile <br>The paralytic puling of Carlisle. <br>The puny schoolboy and his early lay <br>Men pardon, if his follies pass away; <br>But who forgives the senior's ceaseless verse, <br>Whose hairs grow hoary as his rhymes grow worse? <br>What heterogeneous honours deck the peer! <br>Lord, rhymester, petit-maître, and pamphleteer! <br>So dull in youth, so drivelling in his age, <br>His scenes alone had damn'd our stage; <br>But managers for once cried, 'Hold, enough!' <br>Nor drugg'd their audience with the tragic stuff. <br>Yet at their judgment let his lordship laugh, <br>And case his volumes in congenial calf; <br>Yes! doff that covering, where morocco shines, <br>And hang a calf-skin on those recreant lines. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">With you, ye Druids! rich in native lead, <br>Who daily scribble for your daily bread; <br>With you I war not: Gifford's heavy hand <br>Has crush'd, without remorse, your numerous band. <br>On 'all the talents' vent your venal spleen; <br>Want is your plea, let pity be your screen. <br>Let monodies on Fox regale your crew, <br>And Melville's Mantle prove a blanket too! <br>One common Lethe waits each hapless bard, <br>And, peace be with you! 'tis your best reward. <br>Such damning fame as Dunciads only give <br>Could bid your lines beyond a morning live; <br>But now at once your fleeting labours close, <br>With names of greater note in blest repose, <br>Far be 't from me unkindly to upbraid, <br>The lovely Rosa's prose in masquerade, <br>Whose strains, the faithful echoes of her mind, <br>Leave wondering comprehension far behind. <br>Though Crusca's bards no more our journals fill, <br>Some stragglers skirmish round the columns still; <br>Last of the howling host which once was Bell's, <br>Matilda snivels yet, and Hafix yells; <br>And Merry's metaphors appear anew, <br>Chain'd to the signature of O. P. Q. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">When some brisk youth, the tenant of a stall, <br>Employs a pen less pointed than his awl, <br>Leaves his snug shop, forsakes his store of shoes, <br>St. Crispin quits, and cobbles for the muse, <br>Heavens! how the vulgar stare! how crowds applaud! <br>How ladies read, and literati laud! <br>If chance some wicked wag should pass his jest, <br>'Tis sheer ill-nature -- don't the world know best? <br>Genius must guide when wits admire the rhyme, <br>And Capel Lofft declares 'tis quite sublime. <br>Hear, then, ye happy sons of needless trade! <br>Swains! quit the plough, resign the useless spade! <br>Lo! Burns and Bloomfield, nay, a greater far, <br>Gifford was born beneath an adverse star, <br>Forsook the labours of a servile state, <br>Stemm'd the rude storm, and triumph'd over fate: <br>Then why no more? if Phoebus smiled on you, <br>Bloomfield! why not on brother Nathan too? <br>Him too the mania, not the muse, has seized; <br>Not inspiration, but a mind diseased: <br>And now no boor can seek his last abode, <br>No common be enclosed without an ode. <br>Oh! since increased refinement deigns to smile <br>On Britain's sons, and bless our genial isle, <br>Let poesy go forth, pervade the whole, <br>Alike the rustic, and mechanic soul! <br>Ye tuneful cobblers! still your notes prolong, <br>Compose at once a slipper and a song; <br>So shall the fair your handiwork peruse, <br>Your sonnets sure shall please -- perhaps your shoes. <br>May Moorland weavers boast Pindaric skill, <br>And tailors' lays be longer than their bill! <br>While punctual beaux reward the grateful notes, <br>And pay for poems -- when they pay for coats. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">To the famed throng now paid the tribute due, <br>Neglected genius! let me turn to you, <br>Come forth, oh Campbell give thy talents scope; <br>Who dares aspire if thou must cease to hope? <br>And thou, melodious Rogers! rise at last, <br>Recall the pleasing memory of the past; <br>Arise! let blest remembrance still inspire, <br>And strike to wonted tones thy hallow'd lyre; <br>Restore Apollo to his vacant throne, <br>Assert thy country's honour and thine own. <br>What! must deserted Poesy still weep <br>Where her last hopes with pious Cowper sleep? <br>Unless, perchance, from his cold bier she turns, <br>To deck the turf that wraps her minstrel, Burns! <br>No! though contempt hath mark'd the spurious brood, <br>The race who rhyme from folly, or for food, <br>Yet still some genuine sons 'tis hers to boast, <br>Who, least affecting, still affect the most: <br>Feel as they write, and write but as they feel -- <br>Bear witness Gifford, Sotheby, Macneil. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Why slumbers Gifford?' once was ask'd in vain; <br>Why slumbers Gifford? let us ask again. <br>Are there no follies for his pen to purge? <br>Are there no fools whose backs demand the scourge? <br>Are there no sins for satire's bard to greet? <br>Stalks not gigantic Vice in very street? <br>Shall peers or princes tread pollution's path, <br>And 'scape alike the law's and muse's wrath? <br>Nor blaze with guilty glare through future time, <br>Eternal beacons of consummate crime? <br>Arouse thee, Gifford! be thy promise claim'd, <br>Make bad men better, or at least ashamed. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Unhappy White! while life was in its spring, <br>And thy young muse just waved her joyous wing, <br>The spoiler swept that soaring lyre away, <br>Which else had sounded an immortal lay. <br>Oh! what a noble heart was here undone, <br>When Science' self destroy'd her favourite son! <br>Yes, she too much indulged thy fond pursuit, <br>She sow'd the seeds, but death has reap'd the fruit. <br>'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow, <br>And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low: <br>So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain, <br>No more through rolling clouds to soar again, <br>View'd his own feather on the fatal dart, <br>And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart; <br>Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel <br>He nursed the pinion which impell'd the steel; <br>While the same plumage that had warm'd his nest <br>Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">There be who say, in these enlighten'd days, <br>That splendid lies are all the poet's praise; <br>That strain'd invention, ever on the wing, <br>Alone impels the modern bard to sing: <br>'Tis true, that all who rhyme -- nay, all who write, <br>Shrink from that fatal word to genius -- trite; <br>Yet Truth sometimes will lend her noblest fires, <br>And decorate the verse herself inspires: <br>This fact in Virtue's name let Crabbe attest; <br>Though nature's sternest painter, yet the best. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And here let Shee and Genius find a place, <br>Whose pen and pencil yield an equal grace; <br>To guide whose hand the sister arts combine, <br>And trace the poet's or the painter's line; <br>Whose magic touch can bid the canvas glow, <br>Or pour the easy rhyme's harmonious flow; <br>While honours, doubly merited, attend <br>The poet's rival, but the painter's friend. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Blest is the man who dares approach the bower <br>Where dwelt the muses at their natal hour; <br>Whose steps have press'd, whose eye has mark'd afar, <br>The clime that nursed the sons of song and war, <br>The scenes which glory still must hover o'er, <br>Her place of birth, her own Achaian shore. <br>But doubly blest is he whose heart expands <br>With hallow'd feelings for those classic lands; <br>Who rends the veil of ages long gone by, <br>And views their remnants with a poet's eye! <br>Wright! 'twas thy happy lot at once to view <br>Those shores of glory, and to sing them too; <br>And sure no common muse inspired thy pen <br>To hail the land of gods and godlike men. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And you, associate bards! who snatch'd to light <br>Those gems too long withheld from modern sight; <br>Whose mingling taste combined to cull the wreath <br>Where Attic flowers Aonion odours breathe, <br>And all their renovated fragrance flung <br>To grace the beauties of your native tongue; <br>Now let those minds that nobly could transfuse <br>The glorious spirit of the Grecian muse, <br>Though soft the echo, scorn a borrow'd tone: <br>Resign Achaia's lyre, and strike your own. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Let these, or such as these with just applause, <br>Restore the muse's violated laws; <br>But not in flimsy Darwin's pompous chime, <br>That mighty master of unmeaning rhyme, <br>Whose gilded cymbals, more adorn'd than clear, <br>The eye delighted, but fatigued the ear; <br>In show the simple lyre could once surpass, <br>But now, worn down, appear in native brass; <br>While all his train of hovering sylphs around <br>Evaporate in similes and sound: <br>Him let them shun, with him let tinsel die: <br>False glare attracts, but more offends the eye. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet let them not to vulgar Wordsworth stoop, <br>The meanest object of the lowly group, <br>Whose verse, of all but childish prattle void, <br>Seems blessed harmony to Lamb and Lloyd: <br>Let them -- but hold, my muse, nor dare to teach <br>A strain far, far beyond thy humble reach: <br>The native genius with their being given <br>Will point the path, and peal their notes to heaven. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">And thou, too, Scott! resign to minstrels rude <br>The wilder slogan of a border feud: <br>Let others spin their meagre lines for hire; <br>Enough for genius, if itself inspire! <br>Let Southey sing, although his teeming muse, <br>Prolific every spring, be too profuse; <br>Let simple Wordsworth chime his childish verse, <br>And brother Coleridge lull the babe at nurse; <br>Let spectre-mongering Lewis aim, at most, <br>To rouse the galleries, or to raise a ghost; <br>Let Moore still sigh; let Strangford steal from Moore, <br>And swear that Comoëns sang such notes of yore; <br>Let Hayley hobble on, Montgomery rave, <br>And godly Grahame chant a stupid stave: <br>Let sonneteering Bowles his strains refine, <br>And whine and whimper to the fourteenth line; <br>Let Stott, Carlisle, Matilda, and the rest <br>Of Grub Street, and of Grosvenor Place the best, <br>Scrawl on, till death release us from the strain, <br>Or Common Sense assert her rights again. <br>But thou, with powers that mock the aid of praise, <br>Shouldst leave to humbler bards ignoble lays: <br>Thy country's voice, the voice of all the nine, <br>Demand a hallow'd harp -- that harp is thine. <br>Say! will not Caledonia's annals yield <br>The glorious record of some nobler field, <br>Than the wild foray of a plundering clan, <br>Whose proudest deeds disgrace the name of man? <br>Or Marmion's acts of darkness, fitter food <br>For Sherwood's outlaw tales of Robin Hood? <br>Scotland! still proudly claim thy native bard, <br>And be thy praise his first, his best reward! <br>Yet not with thee alone his name should live, <br>But own the vast renown a world can give: <br>Be known, perchance, when Albion is no more, <br>And tell the tale of what she was before; <br>To future times her faded fame recall, <br>And save her glory, though his country fall. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet what avails the sanguine poet's hope, <br>To conquer ages, and with time to cope? <br>New eras spread their wings, new nations rise, <br>And other victors fill the applauding skies; <br>A few brief generations fleet along, <br>Whose sons forget the poet and his song: <br>E'en now, what once-loved minstrels scarce may claim <br>The transient mention of a dubious name! <br>When fame's loud trump hath blown it noblest blast, <br>Though long the sound, the echo sleeps at last; <br>And glory, like the phoenix midst her fires, <br>Exhales her odours, blazes, and expires. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Shall hoary Granta call her sable sons, <br>Expert in science, more expert at puns? <br>Shall these approach the muse? ah, no! she flies, <br>Even from the tempting ore of Seaton's prize: <br>Though printers condescend the press to soil <br>With rhyme by Hoare, the epic blank by Hoyle: <br>Not him whose page, if still upheld by whist, <br>Requires no sacred theme to bid us list. <br>Ye! who in Granta's honours would surpass, <br>Must mount her Pegasus, a full-grown ass; <br>A foal well worthy of her ancient dam, <br>Whose Helicon is duller than her Cam. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">There Clarke, still striving piteously 'to please', <br>Forgetting doggerel leads not to degrees, <br>A would-be satirist, a hired buffoon, <br>A monthly scribbler of some low lampoon, <br>Condemn'd to drudge, the meanest of the mean, <br>And furbish falsehoods for a magazine, <br>Devotes to scandal his congenial mind; <br>Himself a living libel on mankind. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh! dark asylum of a Vandal race! <br>At once the boast of learning, and disgrace! <br>So lost to Phoebus, that nor Hodgson's verse <br>Can make thee better, nor poor Hewson's worse. <br>But where fair Isis rolls her purer wave, <br>The partial muse delighted loves to lave; <br>On her green banks a greener wreath she wove, <br>To crown the bards that haunt her classic grove: <br>Where Richards wakes a genuine poet's fires, <br>And modern Britons glory in their sires. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">For me, who, thus unask'd, have dared to tell <br>My country what her sons should know too well, <br>Zeal for her honour bade me here engage <br>The host of idiots that infest her age; <br>No just applause her honour'd name shall lose, <br>As first in freedom, dearest to the muse. <br>Oh! would thy bards but emulate thy fame, <br>And rise more worthy, Albion, of thy name! <br>What Athens was in science, Rome in power, <br>What Tyre appear'd in her meridian hour, <br>'Tis thine at once, fair Albion! to have been -- <br>Earth's chief dictatress, ocean's lovely queen: <br>But Rome decay'd, and Athens strew'd the plain, <br>And Tyre's proud piers lie shattered in the main; <br>Like these, thy strength may sink, in ruin hurl'd, <br>And Britain fall, the bulwark of the world. <br>But let me cease, and dread Cassandra's fate, <br>With warning ever scoff'd at, till too late; <br>To themes less lofty still my lay confine <br>And urge thy bards to gain a name like thine. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then, hapless Britain! be thy rulers blest, <br>The senate's oracles, the people's jest! <br>Still hear thy motley orators dispense <br>The flowers of rhetoric, though not of sense, <br>While Canning's colleagues hate him for his wit, <br>And old dame Portland fills the place of Pitt. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet, once again, adieu! ere this the sail <br>That wafts me hence is shivering in the gale; <br>And Afric's coast and Calpe's adverse height, <br>And Stamboul's minarets must greet my sight: <br>Thence shall I stray through beauty's native clime, <br>Where Kaff is clad in rocks, and crown'd with snows sublime.<br>But should I back return, no tempting press <br>Shall drag my journal from the desk's recess; <br>Let coxcombs, printing as they come from far, <br>Snatch his own wreath of ridicule from Carr; <br>Let Aberdeen and Elgin still pursue <br>The shade of fame through regions of virtù; <br>Waste useless thousands on their Phidian freaks, <br>Misshapen monuments and maim'd antiques; <br>And make their grand saloons a general mart <br>For all the mutilated blocks of art; <br>Of Dardan tours let dilettanti tell, <br>I leave topography to rapid Gell; <br>And, quite content, no more shall interpose <br>To stun the public ear -- at least with prose. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus far I've held my undisturb'd career, <br>Prepared for rancour, steel'd 'gainst selfish fear; <br>This thing of rhyme I ne'er disdain'd to own - <br>Though not obtrusive, yet not quite unknown: <br>My voice was heard again, though not so loud, <br>My page, though nameless, never disavow'd; <br>And now at once I tear the veil away: -- <br>Cheer on the pack! the quarry stands at bay, <br>Unscared by all the din of Melbourne House, <br>By Lambe's resentment, or by Holland's spouse, <br>By Jeffrey's harmless pistol, Hallam's rage, <br>Edina's brawny sons and brimstone page. <br>Our men in buckram shall have blows enough, <br>And feel they too are 'penetrable stuff': <br>And though I hope not hence unscathed to go, <br>Who conquers me shall find a stubborn foe. <br>The time hath been, when no harsh sound would fall <br>From lips that now may seem imbued with gall; <br>Nor fools nor follies tempt me to despise <br>The meanest thing that crawl'd beneath my eyes; <br>But now, so callous grown, so changed since youth, <br>I've learn'd to think, and sternly speak the truth; <br>Learn'd to deride the critic's starch decree, <br>And break him on the wheel he meant for me; <br>To spurn the rod a scribbler bids me kiss, <br>Nor care if courts and crowds applaud or hiss: <br>Nay more, though all my rival rhymesters frown, <br>I too can hunt a poetaster down; <br>And, arm'd in proof, the gauntlet cast at once <br>To Scotch marauder, and to southern dunce. <br>Thus much I've dared; if my incondite lay <br>Hath wrong'd these righteous times, let others say; <br>This, let the world, which knows not how to spare, <br>Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare.</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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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396087" data-title="English Bards and Scotch Reviewers: A Satire de Byron" data-description="'I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew!
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers'~Shakespeare

'Such shameless bards we have; and yet 'tis true,
There are as mad, abandon'd critics too,'~Pope.


Still must I hear? -- shall hoarse Fitzgerald baw..."></div>
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