My voice was heard again, though not so loud; From lips that now may seem imbued with gall; But now, so callous grown, so changed since I've learn'd to think, and sternly speak the truth; This, let the world, which knows not how to spare, 1 POSTSCRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION. I HAVE been informed, since the present edition went to the press, that my trusty and wellbeloved cousins, the Edinburgh Reviewers, are preparing a most vehement critique on my poor, gentle, unresisting Muse, whom they have already so bedeviled with their ungodly ribaldry: 'Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ:' I suppose I must say of Jeffrey as Sir Andrew Aguecheek saith, An' I had known he was so cunning of fence, I had seen him d-d ere I had fought him.' What a pity it is that I shall be beyond the Bosphorus before the next number has passed the Tweed! But I yet hope to light my pipe with it in Persia. My Northern friends have accused me, with justice, of personality towards their great literary anthropophagus, Jeffrey; but what else was to be done with him and his dirty pack, who feed by lying and slandering,' and slake their thirst by 'evil speaking? I have adduced facts already well known, and of Jeffrey's mind I have stated my free opinion; nor has he hence sustained any injury:--what scavenger was ever soiled by being pelted with mud? It may be said that I quit England because I have censured there' persons of honour and wit about town;' but I am coming back again, and their vengeance will keep hot till my return. Those who know me can testify that my motives for leaving England are very different from fears, literary or personal; those who do not, may one day be convinced. Since the publication of this thing, my name has not been concealed: I have been mostly in London, ready to answer for my transgressions, and in daily expectation of sundry cartels; but, alas!' the age of chivalry is over," or, in the vulgar tongue, there is no spirit now-a-days. There is a youth yclept Hewson Clarke (subaudi Esquire), a sizer of Emanuel College, and I believe a denizen of Berwick-upon-Tweed, whom I have introduced in these pages to much better company than he has been accustomed to meet; he is, notwithstanding, a very sad dog, and for no reason that I can discover, except a personal quarrel with a bear, kept by me at Cambridge to sit for a fellowship, and whom the jealousy of his Trinity contemporaries prevented from success, has been abusing me, and, what is worse, the defenceless innocent above mentioned, in the Satirist, for one year and some months. I am utterly unconscious of having given him any provocation; indeed, I am guiltless of having heard his name till coupled with the Satirist. He has therefore no reason to complain, and I dare say that, like Sir Fretful Plagiary, he is rather pleased than otherwise. I have now mentioned all who have done me the honour to notice me and mine, that is, my bear and my book, except the Editor of the Satirist. who, it seems, is a gentleman-God wot! I wish he could impart a little of his gentility to his subordinate scribblers. I hear that Mr Jerningham is about to take up the cudgels for his Maecenas, Lord Carlisle. I hope not: he was one of the few who, in the very short intercourse I had with him, treated me with kindness when a boy; and whatever he may say or do, pour on, I will endure.' I have nothing further to add, save a general note of thanksgiving to readers, purchasers, and publishers; and, in the words of Scott, I wish To all and each a fair good night, ་ HINTS FROM HORACE: BEING AN ALLUSION IN ENGLISH VERSE TO THE EPISTLE AD PISONES, DE ARTE POETICA, AND INTENDED AS A SEQUEL TO ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS.' ATHENS: CAPUCHIN CONVENT, March 12, 1811. WHO would not laugh, if Lawrence, hired to grace His costly canvas with each flatter'd face, Or low Dubost *-as once the world has seen- Believe me, Moschus, like that picture seems Poets and painters, as all artists know, dams You plan a vase-it dwindles to a pot; [got; Then glide down Grub-street-fasting and for Laugh'd into Lethe by some quaint Review, Whose wit is never troublesome till-true. In fine, to whatsoever you aspire, Let it at least be simple and entire. The greater portion of the rhyming tribe Are led astray by some peculiar lure. (Give ear, my friend, for thou hast been a scribe) One falls while following elegance too fast; I labour to be brief-become obscure; Absurdly varying, he at last engraves Unless your care's exact, your judgment nice, For galligaskins Slowshears is your man ; But coats must claim another artisan.* + Where pure description held the place of sense.'-Pope. I desire to know. * This shall the author choose, or that reject, As well as William Pitt, and Walter Scott? As forests shed their foliage by degrees, And works and words but dwindle to a date. As custom arbitrates, whose shifting sway The immortal wars which gods and angels wage, Blank verse is now, with one consent, allied Or lose one point, because they wrote in verse. Poor virgin! damn'd some twenty times a year! Adapt your language to your hero's state. 'Tis not enough, ye bards, with all your art, If banish'd Romeo feign'd nor sigh nor tear, Are they not shown in Milton's sacred page? The slow, sad stanza will correctly paint Mr Pitt was liberal in his additions to our parliamentary tongue; as may be seen in many publications, particularly the Edinburgh Review. + Old ballads, old plays, and old women's stories, are at present in as much request as old wine or new speeches. In fact, this is the millennium of black letter; thanks to our He bers, Webers, and Scotts! Mac Flecknoe,' the Dunciad,' and all Swift's lampooning ballads. Whatever their other works may be, these originated in personal feelings, and angry retort on unworthy rivals; and though the ability of these satires elevates the poetical, their poignancy detracts from the personal character of the writers. One precept serves to regulate the scene :- If some Drawcansir you aspire to draw, Tis hard to venture where our betters fail, [lead For you, young bard! whom luckless fate may like Difficile est proprie communia dicere: tuque." Mde Awake a louder and a loftier strain,'- And truth and fiction with such art compounds, Dacier, Mde de Sévigné, Boileau, and others, have left their Till time at length the mannish tyro weans, Behold him Freshman! forced no more to Tent ces caractères que tout le monde peut inventer." Mde de Sévigné's opinion and translation, consisting of some thirty pages, I onut, particularly as M. Grouvelle observes, La O'er Virgil's devilish verses and his own ; * ་ chose est bien remarquable, aucune de ces diverses interpret-injuring Mr Townsend's future prospects. Mr Cumberland as ne parait etre la véritable. But, by way of comfort, (whose talents I shall not depreciate by the humble tribute of 2 seems, fifty years afterwards, 'Le lumineux Dumarsais' my praise) and Mr Townsend must not suppose me actuated made his appearance, to set Horace on his legs again, 'dissiper by unworthy motives in this suggestion. I wish the author all tous les nuages, et concilier tous les dissentimens; and some the success he can wish himself, and shall be truly happy to fifty years bence, somebody, still more luminous, will doubtless see epic poetry weighed up from the bathos where it lies san up and demolish Dumarsais and his system on this weighty sunken with Southey, Cottle, Cowley (Mrs or Abraham), afar, as if he were no better than Ptolemy and Tycho, or his Ogilvy, Wilkie, Pye, and all the 'dull of past and present days.' Comments of no more consequence than astronomical calcula- Even if he is not a Milton, he may be better than Blackmore; tions on the present comet. I am happy to say, 'la longueur if not a Homer, an Antimachus. I should deem myself prete la dissertation' of M. D. prevents M. G. from saying any sumptuous, as a young man, in offering advice, were it not re on the matter. A better poet that Boileau, and at least addressed to one still younger. Mr Townsend has the greatest as good a scholar as Sévigné, has said, difficulties to encounter: but in conquering them he will find employment; in having conquered them, his reward. I know too well the scribbler's scoff, the critic's contumely; and I am afraid time will teach Mr Townsend to know them better. Those who succeed, and those who do not, must bear this alike, and it is hard to say which have most of it. I trust that Mr Townsend's share will be from envy; he will soon know mankind well enough not to attribute this expression to malice. 'A little learning is a dangerous thing.' And by this comparison of comments, it may be perceived how a good deal may be rendered as perilous to the proprietors. About two years ago a young man named Townsend was announced by Mr Cumberland, in a review (since deceased), as being engaged in an epic poem to be entitled 'Armageddon.' Harvey, the circulator of the circulation of the blood, The plan and specimen promise much; but I hope neither to used to fling away Virgil in his ecstasy of admiration and say, fend Mr Townsend, nor his friends, by recommending to his the book had a devil. Now, such a character as I am copyAnction the Enes of Horace to which these rhymes allude. ing would probably fling it away also, but rather wish that the 1Mr Townsend succeeds in his undertaking, as there is reason devil had the book; not from dislike to the poet, but a wellto hope, how much will the world be indebted to Mr Cumber- founded horror of hexameters. Indeed, the public school and for bringing him before the public! But, till that event-penance of Long and Short' is enough to beget an antipathy ful day arrives, it may be doubted whether the premature dis- to poetry for the residue of a man's life, and, perhaps, so far ay of his plan (sublime as the ideas confessedly are) has may be an advantage. Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem.' I dare say pot-by raising expectations too high, or diminishing curiosity, by developing his argument,-rather incurred the hazard of Mr Tavell (to whom I mean no affront) will understand ine; Fines, tutors, tasks, conventions threat in vain, sore; Unread (unless, since books beguile disease, The p-x becomes his passage to degrees); Fool'd, pillaged, dunn'd, he wastes his term And unexpell'd, perhaps, retires M.A.; [away, Master of arts! as hells and clubs proclaim,* Where scarce a blackleg bears a brighter name! Launch'd into life, extinct his early fire, Sits in the Senate; gets a son and heir; His son's so sharp-he'll see the dog a peer! frets A halter'd heroine Johnson sought to slay Above all things, Dan Poet, if you can. Where good and evil persons, right or wrong, On whores, spies, singers, wisely shipp'd away. Our giant capital, whose squares are spread Where rustics earn'd, and now may beg, their bread, In all iniquity is grown so nice, Manhood declines-age palsies every limb; He quits the scene-or else the scene quits him; Scrapes wealth, o'er each departing penny And avarice seizes all ambition leaves; [grieves. It scorns amusements which are not of price. Counts cent. per cent. and smiles, or vainly Hence the pert shopkeeper, whose throbbing ear [debts; Aches with orchestras which he pays to hear, Whom shame, not sympathy, forbids to snore, His anguish doubling by his own 'encore;' Squeezed in 'Fop's Alley,' jostled by the beaux, Teased with his hat, and trembling for his toes: Scarce wrestles through the night, nor tastes of O'er hoards diminish'd by young Hopeful's Weighs well and wisely what to sell or buy, Complete in all life's lessons-but to die; Peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to please, Commending every time, save times like these; Crazed, querulous, forsaken, half forgot, Expires unwept-is buried-let him rot! But from the Drama let me not digress, [less. Nor spare my precepts, though they please you Though woman weep, and hardest hearts are stirr'd, When what is done is rather seen than heard, ease, Till the dropp'd curtain gives a glad release: Why this, and more, he suffers-can ye guess ?Because it costs him dear, and makes him dress! So prosper eunuchs from Etruscan schools; Give us but fiddlers, and they're sure of fools! Ere scenes were play'd by many a reverend clerk,+ (What harm, if David danced before the ark?) Improving years, with things no longer known, Irene had to speak two lines with the bow-string round her neck; but the audience cried out "murder!" and she was obliged to go off the stage alive.—Boswell's Johnson. In the postscript to the Castle Spectre, Mr Lewis tells us that though blacks were unknown in England at the period of his action, yet he has made the anachronism to set off the Scene: and if he could have produced the effect by making his heroine blue,-I quote him-blue he would have mace her!' The first theatrical representations, entitled "Mysterio and Moralities," were generally enacted at Christmas, in monks (as the only persons who could read), and latterly by the clergy and students of the universities. The dramatis persc= were usually Adam, Pater Coelestis, Faith, Vice,' &c., & — See Warton's History of English Poetry. § Benvolio does not bet. but every man who maintains race |