Are there no sins for satire's bard to greet?132 16.1]
Stalks not gigantic vice in every street?qarol
Shall peers or princes tread pollution's path,
And 'scape alike the law's and muse's wrath?un 12
Nor blaze with guilty glare through future time,
Eternal beacons of consummate crime?"
Arouse thee, GIFFORD! be thy promise claimed,
Make bad men better, or at least ashamed. 810

Unhappy WHITE!* while life was in its spring,
And thy young muse just waved her joyous wing,
The spoiler came; and all thy promise fair -
Has sought the grave, to sleep for ever there.
Oh! what a noble heart was here undone,"
When science'self destroy'd her favourite son!
Yes, she too much indulged thy fond pursuit,
She sowed the seeds, but death has reaped the
fruit.

'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow,
And helped to plant the wound that laid thee low;
So the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain, 821
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart,
Which winged the shaft that quivered in his heart:
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel
He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel;
While the same plumage that had warmed his nest,
Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast.

There be, who say, in these enlightened days, That splendid lies are all the poet's praise;

d

* Henry Kirke White died at Cambridge, in October, 1806, in consequence of too much exertion in the pursuit of studies that would have matured a mind which disease and poverty could not impair, and which death itself destroyed rather than subdued. His poems abound in such beauties, as must impress the reader with the liveliest regret that so short a period was allotted to ta lents which would have dignified even the sacred functions be was destined to assume.

That strained invention, ever on the wing,
Alone impels the modern bard to sing :

"Tis true, that all who rhyme, nay, all who write,
Shrink from that fatal word to genius-Trite;
Yet Truth sometimes will lend her noblest fires,
And decorate the verse herself inspires:
This fact in virtue's name let CRABBE attest,
Though nature's sternest painter, yet the best.

And here let SHEE and genius find a place,
Whose pen and pencil yield an equal grace;
To guide whose hand the sister arts combine,
And trace the poet's or the painter's line;
Whose magic touch can bid the canvass glow,
Or pour the easy rhyme's harmonious flow;
While honours, doubly merited, attend
The poet's rival, but the painter's friend.

840

Blest is the man who dares approach the bower

Where dwelt the muses at their natal hour; Whose steps have pressed, whose eye has marked 849

afar

The clime that nursed the sons of song and war,
The scenes which glory still must hover o'er;
Her place of birth, her own Achaian shore,
But doubly blest is he, whose heart expands
With hallowed feelings for those classic lands;
Who rends the veil of ages long gone by,
And views their remnants with a poet's eye!
WRIGHT! 'twas thy happy lot at once to view
Those shores of glory, and to sing them too;
And sure no common muse inspired thy pen
To hail the land of gods and godlike men.

860

*Mr. Shee, author of Rhymes on Art,' and ' Elements of Art.' + Mr. Wright, late consul-general for the Seven Islands, is author of a very beautiful poem just published: it is intitled, 'Hora Ionicæ,' and is descriptive of the isles and the adjacent coast of Greece.

And you, associate bards! who snatch'd to light Those gems too long withheld from modern sight; Whose mingling taste combined to cull the wreath Where Attic flowers Aonian odours breathe, And all their renovated fragrance flung, To grace the beauties of your native tongue; Now let those minds, that nobly could transfuse The glorious spirit of the Grecian muse, Though soft the echo, scorn a borrowed tone: Resign Achaia's lyre, and strike your own.

870

Let these, or such as these, with just applause, Restore the muse's violated laws;

But not in flimsy DARWIN'S pompous chime,
That mighty master of unmeaning rhyme;
Whose gilded cymbals, more adorned than clear,
The eye delighted, but fatigued the ear;
In show the simple lyre could once surpass,
But now, worn down, appear in native brass;
While all his train of hovering sylphs around,
Evaporate in similies and sound:

880

Him let them shun, with him let tinsel die :
False glare attracts, but more offends the eye.t
Yet let them not to vulgar WORDSWORTH stoop,
The meanest object of the lowly group,
Whose verse of all but childish prattle void,
Seems blessed harmony to LAMBE and LLOYD:
Let them but hold my muse, nor dare to teach
A strain, far, far beyond thy humble reach:
The native genius with their feeling given,
889
Will point the path, and peal their notes to heaven.

The translators of the Anthology have since published separate poems, which evince genius that only requires opportunity to attain eminence.

The neglect of the Botanic Garden,' is some proof of returning taste: the scenery is its sole recommendation.

Messrs. Lambe and Lloyd, the most ignoble followers of Southey and Co.

And thou, too, SCOTT! resign to minstrels rude

The wilder Slogan of a border feud :

Let others spin their meagre lines for hire;

Enough for genius if itself inspire!

Let SOUTHEY sing, altho' his teeming muse,
Prolific every spring, be too profuse ;

Letsimple WORDSWORTH chime his childish verse,
And brother COLERIDGE lull the babe at nurse;
Let spectre-mongering LEWIS aim, at most,
To rouse the galleries, or to raise a ghost;
Let MOORE be lewd; let STRANGFORD steal from
MOORE,

900

And swear that CAMOENS sang such notes of yore;
Let HAYLEY hobble on: MONTGOMERY rave;
And godly GRAHAME chant a stupid stave;
Let sonnetteering BOWLES his strains refine,
And whine and whimper to the fourteenth line;
Let STOTT, CARLISLE,† MATILDA, and the rest
Of Grub-street, and of Grosvenor-place the best,

By-the-bye, I hope that in Mr. Scott's next poem, his hero or heroine will be less addicted to Gramarye,' and more to grammar, than the Lady of the Lay, and her Bravo William of Deloraine.

+ It may be asked why I have censured the Earl of Carlisle, my guardian and relative, to whom I dedicated a volume of puerile poems a few years ago?—The guardianship was nominal, at least as far as I have been able to discover; the relationship I cannot help, and am very sorry for it; but as his lordship seemed to forget it on a very essential occasion to me, I shall not burden my memory with the recollection. I do not think that personal differences sanction the unjust condemnation of a brother scribbler; but I see no reason why they should act as a preventive, when the author, noble or ignoble, has, for a series of years, beguiled a discerning public' (as the advertisements have it) with divers reams of most orthodox, imperial nonsense. Besides, I do not step aside to vituperate the earl; no-his works come fairly in review with those of other patrician literati. If, before I escaped from my teens, I said any thing in favour of his lordship's paper books, it was in the way of dutiful dedication, and more from the advice of others than my own judgment, and I seize the first opportunity of pronouncing my sincere recantation. I have heard that some persons conceive me to be under obliga

919

Scrawl on, till death release us from the strain,
Or common sense assert her rights again. 910
But thou, with powers that mock the aid of praise,
Shouldst leave to humbler bards ignoble lays;
The country's voice, the voice of all the nine,
Demand a hallowed harp-that harp is thine.
Say! will not Caledonia's annals yield
The glorious record of some nobler field,
Than the vile foray of a plundering clan,
Whose proudest deeds disgrace the name of man?
Or Marmion's acts of darkness, fitter food
For outlawed SHERWOOD's tales of ROBIN HOOD?
Scotland! still proudly claim thy native Bard,
And be thy praise his first, his best reward!
Yet not with thee alone his name should live,
But own the vast renown a world can give;
Be known perchance, when Albion is no more,
And tell the tale of what she was before;
To future times her faded fame recal,
And save her glory, though his country fall.
Yet what avails the sanguine poet's hope
To conquer ages, and with time to cope ?
New eras spread their wings, new nations rise,
And other victors* fill th' applauding skies;
A few brief generations fleet along,
Whose sons forget the poet and his song:

930

H

tions to Lord Carlisle: if so, I shall be most particularly happy to learn what they are, and when conferred, that they may be duly appreciated, and publicly acknowledged. What I have humbly advanced as an opinion on his printed things, I am prepared to support, if necessary, by quotations from elegies, eulogies, odes, episodes, and certain facetious and dainty tragedies bearing his name and mark:

'What can ennoble knaves, or fools, or cowards!
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards!'

So says Pope. Amen!

Tollerc humo, victorque virum volitare per ora.'

Virgil.