And butting all he meets, with awkward pains,
Lay bare his forehead, and expose his brains :
I scarce can rule my spleen-
F. Forbear, forbear;
And what the great delight in, learn to spare.
P. It must not, cannot be; for I was born
To brand obtrusive ignorance with scorn;
On bloated pedantry to pour my rage,
And hiss preposterous fustian from the stage.
LO, DELLA CRUSCA!* In his closet pent,
He toils to give the crude conception vent.

"ON MR. GIFFORD'S MOTTO.

"The following SPIRITED CHASTISEMENT of the vulgar ignorance and malignity in question was sent on Thursday night-but by an accidental error in one of our clerks, or in the servant delivering the copy at the office, it was unfortunately mislaid!"

Why this is as it should be;- the gods take care of Cato! Who sees not that they interfered, and by conveying the copy out of the compositor's way, procured the author of the Mæviad two comfortable nights! But to the spirited chastisement.'

'Nor wool the pig, nor milk the bull produces.' The profundity of the last observation, by-the-by, proves Mr. Parsons to be an accurate observer of nature: and if the three Irishmen who went nine miles to suck a bull, and came back a-dry, had fortunately had the honour of his acquaintance, we should probably have heard nothing of their far-famed expedition

Nor wool the pig, nor milk the bull produces,
Yet each has something for far different uses:

For boars, pardie! have tusks, and bulls have horns.'
Η, Νέμεσις δε κακαν εγραψατο φωναν·

For from that hour scarcely a week, or indeed a day, has elapsed, in which Mr. Parsons has not made himself ridiculous by threatening me in the Telegraph, Oracle, World, &c., with those formidable nonentities.

Well and wisely singeth the poet, non unus mentes agitat furor: yet while I give an involuntary smile to the oddity of Mr. Parsons' disease, I cannot but lament that his friends, (and a gentleman who is said to belong to more clubs than Sir Watkin Lewes must need have friends,) I cannot, I say, but lament, that on the first appearance of these knobs, these 'excrescences,' as I call them, his friends did not have him cut for the simples!

LO, DELLA CRUSCA!

'O thon, to whom superior worth's allied, Thy country's honour, and the muses' pride-' So says Laura Maria

Et solem quis dicere falsum
Audeat?

Of this poem no reader (provided he can read) is at this time ignorant; but as there are various opinions concern. ing it, and as I do not choose, perhaps, to dispute with a lady of Mrs. Robinson's critical abilities, I shall select a few passages from it, and leave the world to judge how truly its author is said to be

"Gifted with the sacred lyre,

Whose sounds can more than mortal thoughts inspire." This supernatural effort of genius, then, is chiefly distinguished by three very prominent features.-Downright nonsense. Downright frigidity. Downright doggrel.Of each of these as the instances occur.

"Hang o'er his eye the gossamery tear. Wreathe round her airy harp the timorous joy.

Abortive thoughts, that right and wrong confound,
Truth sacrificed to letters, sense to sound,
False glare, incongruous images, combine;
And noise and nonsense clatter through the line.
"Tis done. Her house the generous Piozzi lends,
And thither summons her blue-stocking friends;
The summons her blue-stocking friends obey,
Lured by the love of poetry-and tea.

The BARDSteps forth, in birth-day splendour drest,
His right hand graceful waving o'er his breast;
His left extending, so that all may see

A roll inscribed "THE WREATH OF LIBERTY."
So forth he steps, and, with complacent air,
Bows round the circle, and assumes the chair;
With lemonade he gargles next his throat,
Then sweetly preludes to the liquid note:

And now 'tis silence all. "GENIUS OR MUSE"-
Thus while the flowery subject he pursues,

Recumbent eve rock the reposing tide. A web-work of despair, a mass of woes. And o'er my lids the scalding tumour roll." "TUMOUR, a morbid swelling."-Johnson. An excellent thing to roll over an eye, especially if it happen, as in the present case, to be "scalding."

Indeed she says a great deal more; but as I do not found in the compass of half a dozen pages. understand it, I forbear to lengthen my quotation.

Innumerable odes, sonnets, &c. published from time to time in the daily papers, have justly procured this gentleman the reputation of the first poet of the age: but the performance which called forth the high-sounding panegyric above-mentioned is a philosophical rhapsody in praise of the French revolution, called the "Wreath of Liberty."

Their perish'd, proudest pageantry unfold."
"Nothing I descry,

But the bare boast of barren heraldry."
"The huntress queen

Showers her shafts of silver o'er the scene.

To these add," moody monarchs, turgid tyrant, pampered

I popes, radiant rivers, cooling cataracts, lazy Loires, (of which, by-the-by, there are none,) gay Garonnes, gloomy glass, mingling murder, dauntless day, lettered lightnings, delicious dilatings, sinking sorrows, blissful blessings, rich reasonings, meliorating mercies, vicious venalities, sublunary suns, dewy vapours damp, that sweep the silent swamp;" and a world of others, to be

"In phosphor blaze of genealogic line." N. B. Written to "the turning of a brazen candlestick." "O better were it ever to be lost

In blank negation's sea, than reach the coast." "Should the zeal of Parliament be empty words." "Doom for a breath A hundred reasoning hecatombs to death."

A hecatomb is a sacrifice of a hundred head of oxen. Where did this gentleman hear of their reasoning? "A while I'll ruminate on time and fate;

And the most probable event of things"-
EUGE, MAGNE POETA! Well may Laura Maria say,
"That Genius glows in every classic line,

And Nature dictates-every thing that's thine."
"Genius or Muse, whoe'er thou art, whose thrill
Exalts the fancy, and inflames the will,
Bids o'er the heart sublime sensation roll,
And wakes ecstatic fervour in the soul."

See the commencement of the Wreath of Liberty, where our great poet, with a dexterity peculiar to himself, has contrived to fill several quarto pages without a single idea.

*

And Holcroft's Shug-lane cant, and Merry's Moor- That e'en the guilty at their sufferings smile, fields whine ?t

And bless the lancet, though they bleed the while.

Skill'd in one useful science, at the least,

The great man comes and spreads a sumptuous feast:

Then, when his guests behold the prize at stake,
And thirst and hunger only are awake,
My friends, he cries, what think the galleries, pray,
And what the boxes, of my last new play?
Speak freely-tell me all ;-come, be sincere ;
For truth, you know, is music to my ear.
They speak! alas, they cannot. But shall I ?
I, who receive no bribe? who dare not lie?
This, then "That worse was never writ before,
Nor worse will be, till-thou shalt write once more."
Bless'd be "two-headed Janus!" though inclined,
No waggish stork can peck at him behind;
He no wry mouth, no lolling tongue can fear,
Nor the brisk twinkling of an ass's ear:
But you, ye St. Johns, cursed with one poor head,
Alas! what mockeries have not ye to dread!
Hear now our guests.-The critics, sir! they
Merit like yours the critics may defy:
But this, indeed, they say, "Your varied rhymes,
At once the boast and envy of the times,
In every page, song, sonnet, what you will,
Show boundless genius and unrivall❜d skill.

"If comedy be yours, the searching strain Blends such sweet pleasure with corrective pain,

rise,

And ask no culture but what Byshe supplies! cry-Happier the bards, who, write whate'er they will, Find gentle readers to admire them still!

+ Merry's Moorfields whine.-In a most wretched rhapsody of incomprehensible nonsense, addressed by this gentleman to Mrs. Robinson, which she, in her valuable poems, (page 100,) calls a charming composition, abounding in lines of exquisite beauty, is the following

rant:

Conjure up demons from the main, Storms upon storms indignant heap, Bid ocean howl, and nature weep, Till the Creator blush to see How horrible his world can be: While I will glory to blaspheme, And make the joys of hell my theme." The reader, perhaps, wonders what dreadful event gave birth to these fearful imprecations. As far as I can collect from the poem, it was the momentary refusal of the aforesaid Mrs. Robinson-to open her eyes! Surely, it is most devoutly to be wished that these poor creatures would recollect, amidst their frigid ravings and commonplace extravagances, that excellent maxim of POPE

If tragedy, th' impassion'd numbers flow,
In all the sad variety of wo,

With such a liquid lapse, that they betray
The breast unwares, and steal the soul away.'
Thus fool'd, the moon-struck tribe, whose best
essays

* And Holcroft's Shug-lane cant. This is a poor stupid wretch, to whom infidelity and disloyalty have given a momentary notoriety, which has imposed upon the oscitancy of the managers, and opened the theatre to two or three of his grovelling and senseless productions.

Will future ages believe that this facetious triumvirate should think nothing more to be necessary to the construction of a play, than an eternal repetition of some contemptible vulgarity, such as "That's your sort!" "Hey, damme !" What's to pay ?" "Keep moving!" &c. They will; for they will have blockheads of their own, who will found their claims to celebrity on similar follies. What, however, they will never credit is, that these dri--Album, vol. ii. vellings of idiotism, these catchwords, should actually preserve their respective authors from being hooted off the stage. No, they will not believe that an English audience could be so besotted, so brutified, as to receive such senseless exclamations with bursts of laughter, with peals of applause. I cannot believe it myself, though I have witnessed it. Haud credo-if I may reverse the good father's position-haud credo, quia possibile est.

Persist, by nature, reason, taste unawed;
But learn, ye dunces, not to scorn your God."

Sunk in acrostics, riddles, roundelays,
To loftier labours now pretend a call,
And bustle in heroics, one and all.
*E'en Bertie burns of gods and chiefs to sing-
Bertie, who lately twitter'd to the string
His namby-pamby madrigals of love,
In the dark dingles of a glittering grove,
Where airy lays,† woven by the hand of morn,
Were hung to dry upon a cobweb thorn!

Happy the soil, where bards like mushrooms

Some love the verse that like Maria's flows,
No rubs to stagger, and no sense to pose;
Which read, and read, you raise your eyes in doubt,
And gravely wonder-what it is about.
These fancy "BELL'S POETICS" only sweet,
And intercept his hawkers in the street;
There, smoking hot, inhale MIT YENDA'st strains,
And the rank fame of TONY PASQUIN'S brains.§

* E'en Bertie, &c.-For Bertie, (Greathead, I think they call him,) see the Mæviad.

† Where airy lays, &c.

"Was it the shuttle of the morn
That hung upon the cobweb'd thorn
Thy airy lay? Or did it rise,

In thousand rich enamell'd dyes,
To greet the noonday sun?" &c.

MIT YENDA. This is Mr. Tim, alias Mr. Timothy Adney, a most pertinacious gentleman, who makes a conspicuous figure in the daily papers under the ingenious signature above cited; it being, as the reader already sees, his own name read backward. "Gentle dulness ever loves a joke!"

Of his prodigious labours I have nothing by me but the following stanza, taken from what he calls his Poor Man:

Reward the bounty of your generous hand,

Your head each night in comfort shall be laid, And plenty smile throughout your fertile land, While I do hasten to the silent grave."

"Good morrow, my worthy masters and mistresses all, and a merry Christmas to you!"

I have been guilty of a misnomer. Mr. Adney has politely informed me, since the above was written, that his Christian name is not Timothy, but Thomas. The anagram in question, therefore, must be MOT YENDA, omitting the H, euphonia gratia. I am happy in an opportu nity of doing justice to so correct a gentleman, and I pray him to continue his valuable lucubrations.

§ TONY PASQUIN.-I have too much respect for my reader, to affront him with any specimens of this man's poetry, at once licentious and dull beyond example: at the same time I cannot resist the temptation of presenting him with the following stanzas, written by a friend of mine, and sufficiently illustrative of the character in question:

Others, like Kemble, on black-letter pore,
And what they do not understand, adore ;
Buy at vast sums the trash of ancient days,
And draw on prodigality for praise.
These, when some lucky hit, or lucky price,
Has bless'd them with "The Boke of gode Advice,"
For ekes and algates only deign to seek,

And live upon a whilome for a week.

And can we, when such mope-eyed dolts are And call for Mandeville, to ease my head.

placed

O for the good old times! WHEN all was new,
And every hour brought prodigies to view,
Our sires in unaffected language told

By thoughtless fashion on the throne of taste-
Say, can we wonder whence such jargon flows,
This motley fustian, neither verse nor prose,
This old, new language which defiles our page,
The refuse and the scum of every age?

Lo! Beaufoy* tells of Afric's barren sand, In all the flowery phrase of fairy land :

TO ANTHONY PASQUIN, ESQ. "Why dost thou tack, most simple Anthony,

The name of Pasquin to thy ribald strains? Is it a fetch of wit, to let us see,

It has been represented to me, that I should do well to avoid all mention of this man, from a consideration, that one so lost to every sense of decency and shame was a fitter object for the beadle than the muse. This has induced me to lay aside a second castigation which I had prepared for him, though I do not think it expedient to omit what I had formerly written.

Here on the rack of satire let him lie,
Fit garbage for the hell-hound infamy.

Thou, like that statue, art devoid of brains? "But thou mistakest: for know, though Pasquin's head Is not THIS sad?

Be full as hard, and near as thick as thine,
Yet has the world, admiring, on it read

Many a keen gibe, and many a sportive line.
"While nothing from thy jobbernowl can spring
But impudence and filth; for out, alas!
Do what we will, 'tis still the same vile thing,

Within, all brick-dust-and without, all brass.
"Then blot the name of Pasquin from thy page:
Thou seest it will not thy poor riff-raff sell.
Some other would'st thou take? I dare engage

John Williams, or Tom Fool, will do as well."
TONY has taken my friend's advice, and now sells, or
attempts to sell, his "riff-raff" under the name of JOHN
WILLIAMS.

*Lo! Beaufoy, &c.-" The feet are accommodated with shoes, and the head is protected by a-woollen night-cap." -AFRICAN ASSOCIATION, p. 139.

There Fezzan's thrum-capp'd tribes, Turks, Chris-
tians, Jews,

Accommodate, ye gods! their feet with shoes;
There meager shrubs inveterate mountains grace,
And brushwood breaks the amplitude of space.
Perplex'd with terms so vague and undefined,
I blunder on; till 'wilder'd, giddy, blind,
Where'er I turn, on clouds I seem to tread;

"From this scene of gladsome contrast, i. e. from the mountain of Zilau, (p. 288,) whose rugged sides are marked with scanty spots of brushwood, and enriched with stores

Of streams of amber, and of rocks of gold ;
Full of their theme, they spurn'd all idle art;
And the plain tale was trusted to the heart.
Now all is changed! We fume and fret, poor elves,
Less to display our subject than ourselves.
Whate'er we paint-a grot, a flower, a bird,
Heavens, how we sweat! laboriously absurd!
Words of gigantic bulk, and uncouth sound,
In rattling triads the long sentence bound;
While points with points, with periods periods jar,
And the whole work seems one continued war!

1 Shoes. By your leave, master critic, here is a small oversight in your quotation. The gentleman does not say their feet are accommodated with shoes, but with slippers. For the rest, accommodate, as I learn, is a scholar-like word, and a word of exceeding great propriety. "Accommodate! it comes from accommodo: that is, when a man's feet are, as they say, accommodated, or when they are--being-whereby they may be thought to be accommodated: which is an excellent thing!"-Printer's Devil.

F. ""Tis pitiful, heaven knows
"Tis wondrous pitiful." E'en take the prose;
But for the poetry-O, that, my friend,
I still aspire-nay, smile not-to defend.
You praise our sires, but, though they wrote with

force,

Their rhymes were vicious, and their diction coarse ;
We want their strength: agreed; but we atone
For that, and more, by sweetness ALL OUR OWN.
For instance-*" Hasten to the lawny vale,
Where yellow morning breathes her saffron gale,
And bathes the landscape-"

P. Now 'tis plain you sneer, One word more. I am told that there are men so weak For Weston'st self could find no semblance here : as to deprecate this miserable object's abuse, and so vain, so despicably vain, as to tolerate his praise-for such I have nothing but pity;-though the fate of Hastings, see the "Pin-basket to the Children of Thespis," holds out a dreadful lesson to the latter:-but should there be a man or a woman, however high in rank, base enough to purchase the venal pen of this miscreant for the sake of traducing innocence and virtue, then I was about to threaten, but 'tis not necessary: the profligate cowards who employ Anthony can know no severer punishment than the support of a man whose acquaintance is infamy, and whose touch is poison.

P. Pshaw; I have it here.
"A voice seraphic grasps my listening ear;
Wondering I gaze; when lo! methought afar,
More bright than dauntless day's imperial star,
A godlike form advances."

F. You suppose These lines, perhaps, too turgid; what of those "THE MIGHTY MOTHER

""

of water, to the long ascent of the broad rock of Gerdobah, (p. 289,) from whose inflexible barrenness little is to be got-from this scene, I say, of gladsome contrast to the inveterate mountains of Gegogib, &c.

"In the long course of a seven days' passage, the tra veller is scarcely sensible that a few spots of thin and meager brushwood slightly interrupt the vast expanse of sterility, and diminish the amplitude of desolation!!!"

*Hasten, &c.-This and the following quotation are taken from the "Laurel of Liberty," a work on which the great author most justly rests his claim to immortality. See p. 167.

+ Weston. This indefatigable gentleman has been long employed in attacking the moral character of Pope in the Gentleman's Magazine, with all the virulence of Gildon, all the impudence of Smedley, and all the ignorance of Curl and his associates.

What the views of the bland Sylvanus may be, in standing cap in hand, and complacently holding open the door of the temple, for nearly two years, to this "execrable"

1 Such is the epithet applied to Pope by the "virtuous indignation" of this "amiable" traducer of worth and genius!

Weston, who slunk from truth's imperious light,
Swells, like a filthy toad, with secret spite,
And, envying the fame he cannot hope,
Spits his black venom at the dust of Pope.
-Reptile accursed!-O memorable long,
If there be force in virtue or in song,
O injured bard! accept the grateful strain.
Which I, the humblest of the tuneful train,
With glowing heart, yet trembling hand, repay
For many a pensive, many a sprightly lay!
So may thy varied verse, from age to age,
Inform the simple, and delight the sage;
While canker'd Weston, and his loathsome rhymes,
Stink in the nose of all succeeding times!

Enough. But where, (for these, you seem to say, Your fate already I foresee. My lord,
Are samples of the high, heroic lay,)
Where are the soft, the tender strains, which call
For the moist eye, bow'd head, and lengthen'd
drawl?

Erostratus, I know not. He cannot surely be weak
enough to suppose that an obscure scribbler like this
has any charges to bring against our great poet, which
escaped the vigilant malevolence of the Westons of the
Dunciad. Or if ever, from the "natural goodness of his
heart,"
," he cherished so laudable a supposition, he ought
(whatever it may cost him) to forego it when, after
twenty months' preparation, nothing is produced but an
exploded accusation taken from the most common edition
of the Dunciad!

Heavens! if our ancient vigour were not fled,
Could VERSE like this be written? or be read?
VERSE! THAT's the mellow fruit of toil intense,
Inspired by genius, and inform'd by sense;
THIS, the abortive progeny of pride,
And dulness, gentle pair, for aye allied;
Begotten without thought, born without pains,
The ropy drivel of rheumatic brains.

F. So let it be; and yet, methinks, my friend,
Silence were wise, where satire will not mend.
Why wound the feelings of our noble youth,
And grate their tender ears with odious truth?
They cherish Arno* and his flux of song,
And hate the man who tells 'em they are wrong.

* Canst thou, Matilda, &c. vide Album, vol. ii.—Matilda! "Nay then, I'll never trust a madman again." It was but a few minutes since, that Mr. Merry died for the love of Laura Maria; and now is he about to do the same thing for the love of Anna Matilda?

What the ladies may say to such a swain, I know not; but certainly he is too prone to run wild, die, &c. &c. Such, indeed, is the combustible nature of this gentleman, that he takes fire at every female signature in the papers; and I remember, that when Olaudo Equiano, who, for a black, is not ill-featured, tried his hand at a soft sonnet, and by mistake subscribed it Olauda, Mr. Merry fell so desperately in love with him, and "yelled out such syllables of dolour" in consequence of it, that the pitiful-hearted negro was frightened at the mischief he had done, and transmitted in all haste the following correction to the editor-For OlaudA, please to read Olaud 0, the black MAN."

With cold respect, will freeze you from his board;
And his grace cry," Hence with that sapient sneer!
Hence! we desire no currish critic here."

Lo! here- Canst thou, Matilda, urge my fate,
And bid me mourn thee? yes, and mourn too late!
O rash, severe decree! my maddening brain
Cannot the ponderous agony sustain ;
But forth I rush, from vale to mountain run,
And with my mind's thick gloom obscure the Mr. Bell, an admirable judge of these matters, calls a
"very mellifluous one; easy, artless, and unaffected."
"Gently o'er the rising billows

* Of the talents of this spes altera Rome, this second hope of the age, the following stanzas will afford a sufficient specimen. They are taken from a ballad which

sun."

P. Enough. Thank heaven! my error now I see, And all shall be divine, henceforth, for me:

Softly steals the bird of night,
Rustling through the bending willows:
Fluttering pinions mark her flight.
"Whither now in silence bending,

Ruthless winds deny thee rest:
Chilling night-deurs fast descending,
Glisten on thy downy breast.
"Seeking some kind hand to guide thee,
Wistful turns thy fearful eye;
Trembling as the willows hide thee,
Shelter'd from th' inclement sky."

It has been suggested to me, that this nightman of literature designs to reprint as much as can be collected of The story of this poor owl, who was at one and the same the heroes of the Dunciad.-If it be so, the dirty work of time at sea and on land, silent and noisy, sheltered and traducing Pope may be previously necessary; and pre-exposed, is continued through a few more of these "mellijudice itself must own, that he has shown uncommon fluous" stanzas, which the reader, I doubt not, will readily penetration in the selection of the blind and outrageous forgive me for omitting; more especially if he reads the mercenary now so laboriously employed in it. ORACLE, a paper honoured-as the grateful editor very properly has it-by the effusions of this "artless" gentle

man above all others.

N.B. On looking again, I find the owl to be a nightingale!-N'importe.

Whatever be the design, the proceedings are by no means inconsistent with the plan of a work which may not unaptly be styled the charnel-house of reputation, and which, from the days of Lauder to the present, has delighted to asperse every thing venerable among uswhich accused Swift of lust, and Addison of drunkenness! which insulted the ashes of Toup while they were yet warm, and gibbeted poor Henderson alive: which affect ed to idolize the great and good Howard, while idolatry was painful to him: and the moment he fell, gloriously fell, in the exercise of the most sublime virtue, attempted to stigmatize him as a brute and a monster!

It was said of Theophilus Cibber, (I think by Goldsmith,) that as he grew older, he grew never the better. Much the same (mutatis mutandis) may be said of the gentlemen of the Baviad. After an interval of two years, I find the "mellifluous" ARNO celebrating Mrs. Robinson's novel in strains like these.

"For the Oracle.

SONNET TO MRS. ROBINSON,

Upon reading her VANCENZA.

"What never-ceasing music! From the throne
Where sweetest Sensibility enshrined,
Pours out her tender triumphs, all alone,

To every murmuring breeze of passing wind! "O, bless'd with all the lovely lapse of song,

That bathes with purest balm the soften'd breast, I see thee urge thy fancy's course along

The solemn glooms of Gothic piles unbless'd. "Vancenza rises-o'er her time-touch'd spires

Guilt unreveal'd hovers with killing dew, Frustrates the fondness of the Virgin's fires, And bares the murderous casket to her view. "The thrilling pulse creeps back upon each heart, And horror lords it by thy fascinating art."-Arno. Et vitula Tu dignus, et HEC! The novel is worthy of the poetry, the poetry of the novel.