While high-born ladies in their magic cell,
Forbidding knights to read who cannot spell,⚫
Despatch a courier to a wizard's grave,
And fight with honest men to shield a knave.
Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan,
The golden-crested haughty Marmion,
Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight,
Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight,
The gibbet or the field prepared to grace;
A mighty mixture of the great and base.
And think'st thou, Scott! by vain conceit per-
On public taste to foist thy stale romance,
Though Murray with his Miller may combine
To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line?
No! when the sons of song descend to trade,
Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade.
Let such forego the poet's sacred name,
Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame:
Still for stern Mammon may they toil in vain!
And sadly gaze on gold they cannot gain!
Such be their meed, such still the just reward
Of prostituted muse and hireling bard!
For this we spurn Apollo's venal son,
And bid a long 'good-night to Marmion."
These are the themes that claim our plaudits
These are the bards to whom the muse must bow; While Milton, Dryden, Pope, alike forgot, Resign their hallow'd bays to Walter Scott.
The time has been, when yet the muse was young,
When Homer swept the lyre, and Maro sung,
An epic scarce ten centuries could claim,
While awe-struck nations hail'd the magic name:
The work of each immortal bard appears
The single wonder of a thousand years.+
Empires have moulder'd from the face of earth,
Tongues have expired with those who gave them
birth,
Without the glory such a strain can give,
As even in ruin bids the language live.
Not so with us, though minor bards content,
On one great work a life of labour spent:
With eagle pinion soaring to the skies,
Behold the ballad-monger Southey rise!
To him let Camoëns, Milton, Tasso yield,
Whose annual strains, like armies, take the field.
First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance,
The scourge of England, and the boast of France!
Though burnt by wicked Bedford for a witch,
Behold her statue placed in glory's niche;
Her fetters burst, and just released from prison,
A virgin phoenix from her ashes risen.
Next see tremendous Thalaba come on,"
Arabia's monstrous, wild, and wondrous son;
Domdaniel's dread destroyer, who o'erthrew
More mad magicians than the world e'er knew.
Immortal hero! all thy foes o'ercome,
For ever reign-the rival of Tom Thumb!
Since startled metre fled before thy face,
Well wert thou doom'd the last of all thy race!
Well might triumphant genii bear thee hence,
Illustrious conqueror of common sense!
Now, last and greatest. Madoc spreads his sails,
Cacique in Mexico, and prince in Wales;
Tells us strange tales, as other travellers do,
More old than Mandeville's, and not so true.
O! Southey! Southey! cease thy varied song t
A bard may chant too often and too long:
As thou art strong in verse, in mercy spare!
A fourth, alas, were more than we could bear.
But if, in spite of all the world can say,
Thou still wilt verseward plod thy weary way;
If still in Berkley ballads most uncivil,
Thou wilt devote old women to the devil, +
The babe unborn thy dread intent may rue:
'God help thee,' Southey, and thy readers too.§
Next comes the dull disciple of thy school
The simple Wordsworth, franier of a lay
That mild apostate from poetic rule,
Who warns his friend to shake off toil and
As soft as evening in his favourite May,
trouble,
[ble: f
And quit his books, for fear of growing dou-
Who, both by precept and example, shows
That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose:
Convincing all, by demonstration plain,
Poetic souls delight in prose insane;
And Christmas stories tortured into rhyme
Contain the essence of the true sublime.
Thus, when he tells the tale of Betty Foy,
The idiot mother of an idiot boy;"
A moon-struck, silly lad, who lost his way,
And, like his bard, confounded night with day
Thalaba, Mr Southey's second poem, is written in open defiance of precedent and poetry. Mr S. wished to produce something novel, and succeeded to a miracle. Joan f Arc was marvellous enough, but Thalaba was one of these peeILLS which, in the words of Porson, will be read when Homer and Virgil are forgotten, but-not till then.
↑ We beg Mr Southey's pardon; Madoc disdains the degraded title of epic.' See his preface. Why is epic degraded? and by whom? Certainly the late romaunts of Masters Cottle, Laureat Pye, Ogilvy, Hole, and gentle Mistress Cowley, lave not exalted the epic muse; but as Mr Southey's poem “dis dains the appellation,' allow us to ask-Has he substituted anything better in its stead? or must he be content to rival Sir Richard Blackmore in the quantity as well as quality of his verse?
See The Old Woman of Berkley, a ballad by Mr Southey. wherein an aged gentlewoman is carried away by Beckzet-b on a high trotting horse."
The last line, God help thee,' is an evident plagiarisa from the Anti-Jacobin' to Mr Southey, on his Dactybos Good-night to Marmion-the pathetic and also pro-God help thee, silly one.'-Poetry of the Anti-Jacobs, phetic exclamation of Henry Blount, Esquire, on the death of honest Marmion.
As the Odyssey is so closely connected with the story of the Iliad, they may almost be classed as one grand historical poem. In alluding to Milton and Tasso, we consider the Paradise Lost and Gierusalemme Liberata as their standard efforts; since neither the Jerusalem Conquered of the Italian, nor the Paradise Regained of the English bard, obtained a proportionate celebrity to their former Doems. Query: Which of Mr Southey's will survive?
Lyrical Ballads, page 4.-The Tables Turned, Stanza L
Up, up, my friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
Up, up, my friend, and quit your books,
Or surely you'll grow double.'
¶ Mr W., in his preface, labours hard to prove that prest and verse are much the same: and certainly his precepts wit practice are strictly conformable:
So close on each pathetic part he dwells,
And each adventure so sublimely tells,
That all who view the 'idiot in his glory,'
Conceive the bard the hero of the story.
Shall gentle Coleridge pass unnoticed here,
To turgid ode and tumid stanza dear?
Though themes of innocence amuse him best,
Yet still obscurity's a welcome guest.
If Inspiration should her aid refuse
To him who takes a pixy for a muse,
Yet none in lofty numbers can surpass
The bard who soars to elegise an ass.
So well the subject suits his noble mind,
He brays the laureat of the long-ear'd tribe.
Oh! wonder-working Lewis! monk, or bard,
Who fain wouldst make Parnassus a churchyard!
Lo! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy brow,
Thy muse a sprite, Apollo's sexton thou!
Whether on ancient tombs thou tak'st thy stand,
By gibb'ring spectres hail'd, thy kindred band;
Or tracest chaste descriptions on thy page,
To please the females of our modest age;
All hail, M.P. !+ from whose infernal brain
Thin-sheeted phantoms glide, a grisly train;
At whose command grim women' throng in
crowds,
And kings of fire, of water, and of clouds,
With small grey men,' 'wild yagers,' and what
To crown with honour thee and Walter Scott;
Again, all hail! if tales like thine may please,
S Luke alone can vanquish the disease;
Even Satan's self with thee might dread to dwell,
And in thy skull discern a deeper hell.
Who in soft guise, surrounded by a choir
Of virgins melting, not to Vesta's fire, [flush'd,
With sparkling eyes, and cheek by passion
Strikes his wild lyre, whilst listening dames are
"Tis Little! young Catullus of his day, [hush'd?
As sweet, but as immoral, in his lay!
Grieved to condemn, the muse must still be just,
Nor spare melodious advocates of lust.
Pure is the flame which o'er her altar burns ;
From grosser incense with disgust she turns :
Yet kind to youth, this expiation o'er,
She bids thee 'mend thy line and sin no more.
For thee, translator of the tinsel song,
To whom such glittering ornaments belong,
Hibernian Strangford! with thine eyes of blue,+
And boasted locks of red or auburn hue,
And thes to Betty's question he
Made answer, like a traveller bold,
The cock did crow to whoo, to-whoo,
And the sun did shine so cold.' &c., &c.-
Lyrical Ballads, page 129.
• Coleridge's Poems, page 11, Songs of the Pixies, i. e. Tevonshire fairies; p. 42, we have Lines to a Young Lady; ad1 52 Lines to a Young Ass.
For every one knows little Matt's an M. P.-See a Poem Mr Lewis, in the Statesman, supposed to be written by M. Jekyll
The reader who may wish for an explanation of this, may der to Strangford's Camoens, p. 127, note to page 56, or to The list page of the Edinburgh Review, of Strangford's
Whose plaintive strain each love-sick miss ad-
mires,
And o'er harmonious fustian half expires,
Learn, if thou canst, to yield thine author's
Nor vend thy sonnets on a false pretence.
Think'st thou to gain thy verse a higher place,
By dressing Camoëns in a suit of lace?*
Mend, Strangford! mend thy morals and thy
Be warm, but pure; be amorous, but be chaste;
Cease to deceive; thy pilfer'd harp restore,
Nor teach the Lusian bard to copy Moore.
Behold!-ye tarts! one moment spare the text,
Hayley's last work, and worst—until his next ;
Whether he spin poor couplets into plays,
or damn the dead with purgatorial praise,
His style in youth or age is still the same,
For ever feeble and for ever tame.
Triumphant first see Temper's Triumphs shine!
At least I'm sure they triumph'd over mine.
Of Music's Triumphs, all who read may swear
That luckless music never triumph'd there.t
Moravians, rise! bestow some meet reward
On dull devotion-Lo! the Sabbath bard,
Sepulchral Grahame, pours his notes sublime
Breaks into blank the Gospel of St Luke,
In mangled prose, nor e'en aspires to rhyme ;
And, undisturb'd by conscientious qualms,
And boldly pilfers from the Pentateuch;
Perverts the Prophets, and purloins the Psalms.‡
Hail, Sympathy! thy soft idea brings
A thousand visions of a thousand things,
And shows, still whimpering through three-
The maudlin prince of mournful sonneteers.
score of years,
And art thou not their prince, harmonious
Bowles!
Thou first, great oracle of tender souls?
The fall of empires or a yellow leaf;
Whether thou sing'st with equal ease and griet,
Whether thy muse most lamentably tells
What merry sounds proceed from Oxford bells; §
Or, still in bells delighting, finds a friend
In every chime that jingled from Ostend;
Ah! how much juster were thy muse's hap,
If to thy bells thou wouldst but add a cap;
Delightful Bowles! still blessing and still blest,
All love thy strain, but children like it best.
"Tis thine, with gentle Little's moral song,
To soothe the mania of the amorous throng!
It is also to be remarked, that the things given to the public as Poems of Camoëns, are no more to be found in the original Portuguese than in the Song of Solomon.
Triumphs of Temper and Triumphs of Music. He has also
Hayley's two most notorious verse productions are
written much comedy in rhyme, epistles, &c., &c. As he is
mend Pope's advice to Wycherley to Mr H.'s consideration,
rather an elegant writer of notes and biography, let us recom
viz. to convert his poetry into prose,' which may easily be
done by taking away the final syllable of each couplet.
the name of Sabbath Walks and Biblical Pictures.
Mr Grahame has poured forth two volumes of cant, under
§ See Bowles's Sonnets, &c.-Sonnet to Oxford, and Stanies on hearing the Bells of Ostend.
Another epic! Who inflicts again
More books of blank upon the sons of men?
With thee our nursery damsels shed their tears,
Ere miss as yet completes her infaut years;
But in her teens thy whining powers are vain-Boeotian Cottle, rich Bristowa's boast,
She quits poor Bowles for Little's purer strain.
Now to soft themes thou scornest to confine
The lofty numbers of a harp like thine;
'Awake a louder and a loftier strain,'
Such as none heard before, or will again;
Where all Discoveries jumbled from the flood,
Since first the leaky ark reposed in mud,
By more or less, are sung in every book,
From Captain Noah down to Captain Cook.
Nor this alone; but, pausing on the road,
The bard sighs forth a gentle episode; +
And gravely tells-attend, each beauteous
miss!-
Imports old stories from the Cambrian coast,
And sends his goods to market-all alive!
Lines forty thousand, cantos twenty-five?
Fresh fish from Helicon! who'll buy, who'll
buy?
When first Madeira trembled to a kiss.
Bowles in thy memory let this precept dwell,
Stick to thy sonnets, man!-at least they sell.
But if some new-born whim, or larger bribe,
Prompt thy crude brain, and claim thee for a
scribe;
[fear'd,
If chance some bard, though once by dunces
Now, prone in dust, can only be revered ;
If Pope, whose fame and genius from the first
Have foil'd the best of critics, needs the worst,
Do thou essay; each fault, each failing scan;
The first of poets was, alas! but man.
Rake from each ancient dunghill ev'ry pearl,
Consult Lord Fanny, and confide in Curll; ‡
Let all the scandals of a former age
Perch on thy pen, and flutter o'er thy page;
Affect a candour which thou canst not feel,
Clothe envy in the garb of honest zeal ;
Write, as if St John's soul could still inspire,
And do from hate what Mallet did for hire.§
Oh! hadst thou lived in that congenial time,
To rave with Dennis, and with Ralph to rhyme;||
Throng'd with the rest around his living head,
Not raised thy hoof against the lion dead;
A meet reward had crown'd thy glorious gains,
And link'd thee to the Dunciad for thy pains.¶
Awake a louder,' &c., &c., is the first line in Bowles's
Spirit of Discovery, a very spirited and pretty dwarf epic.
Among other exquisite lines we have the following:
'A kiss
Stole on the list'ning silence, never yet
Here heard; they trembled even as if the power,' &c. That is, the woods of Madeira trembled to a kiss, very much astonished, as well they might be, at such a phenomenon.
The episode here alluded to is the story of Robert a Machin' and 'Anna d'Arfet, a pair of constant lovers, who performed the kiss above mentioned, that startled the woods
Curll is one of the heroes of the Dunciad, and was a bookseller. Lord Fanny is the poetical name of Lord Hervey, author of Lines to the Imitator of Horace.
Lord Bolingbroke hired Mallet to traduce Pope after his decease, because the poet had retained some copies of a work by Lord Bolingbroke (the Patriot King), which that splendid but malignant genius had ordered to be destroyed.
Dennis the critic, and Ralph the rhymester:
Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls,
Making night hideous; answer him, ye owls-'
See Bowles's late edition of Pope's Works, for which he received 300%; thus Mr B. has experienced how much easier it is to profit by the reputation of another than to elevate
The precious bargain's cheap-in faith, not I.
Your turtle-feeder's verse iust needs be flat,
Though Bristol bloat him with the verdant fat;
If Commerce fills the purse, she clogs the brain,
And Amos Cottle strikes the lyre in vain.
In him an author's luckless lot behold, [sold.
Condemn'd to make the books which once he
Oh, Amos Cottle !-Phoebus! what a name
To fill the speaking trump of future fame!—
Oh, Amos Cottle! for a moment think
What meagre profits spring from pen and ink!
When thus devoted to poetic dreams,
Who will peruse thy prostituted reams?
Oh! pen perverted! paper misapplied!
Had Cottle still adorn'd the counter's side,
Bent o'er the desk, or, born to useful toils,
Been taught to make the paper which he soils,
Plough'd, delved, or plied the oar with lusty
limb,
He had not sung of Wales, nor I of him.
As Sisyphus against the infernal steep
Rolls the huge rock, whose motions ne'er may
sleep,
So up thy hill, ambrosial Richmond, heaves
Dull Maurice all his granite weight of leaves: +
Smooth, solid monuments of mental pain!
The petrifactions of a plodding brain,
That, ere they reach the top fall lumbering
back again.
With broken lyre, and cheek serenely pale,
Lo! sad Alcæus wanders down the vale;
Though fair they rose, and might have bloom'd
His hopes have perish'd by the northern blast:
Nipp'd in the bud by Caledonian gales,
His blossoms wither as the blast prevails!
O'er his lost works let classic Sheffield weep:
May no rude hand disturb their early sleep!
Yet, say! why should the bard at once resign
His claim to favour from the sacred Nine?
For ever startled by the mingled howl
of northern wolves, that still, in darkness prowl:
Mr Cottle, Amos, Joseph, I don't know which, but one or both, once sellers of books they did not write, and now waters of books that do not sell, have published a pair of epacs Alfred-poor Alfred! Pye has been at him tool)-difred and the Fall of Cambria.
Mr Maurice hath manufactured the component parts of a ponderous quarto, upon the Beauties of Richmond H and the like: it also takes in a charming view of Turnha Green, Hammersmith, Brentford, Old and New, and the pan adjacent.
Poor Montgomery, though praised by every English Re view, has been bitterly reviled by the Edinburgh. After at the bard of Sheffield is a man of considerable gentis: Wanderer of Switzerland is worth a thousand Lyrical Ballads, and at least fifty 'degraded epics.'
A coward brood, which mangle as they prey,
By hellish instinct all that cross their way;
Aged or young, the living or the dead,
No mercy find these harpies must be fed.
Why do the injured unresisting yield
The calm possession of their native field?
Why tamely thus before their fangs retreat,
Nor hunt the bloodhounds back to Arthur's
Seat ?*
Health to immortal Jeffrey ! once, in name,
England could boast a judge almost the same;
In soul so like, so merciful, yet just,
Some think that Satan has resign'd his trust,
And given the spirit to the world again,
To sentence letters as he sentenced men.
With hand less mighty, but with heart as black,
With voice as willing to decree the rack;
Bred in the courts betimes, though all that law
As yet hath taught him is to find a flaw;
Since well instructed in the patriot school
To rail at party, though a party tool,
Who knows, if chance his patrons should restore
Back to the sway they forfeited before,
His scribbling toils some recompense may meet,
And raise this Daniel to the judgment-seat?
Let Jeffreys' shade indulge the pious hope,
And greeting thus, present him with a rope :
Heir to my virtues! man of equal mind!
Skill'd to condemn as to traduce mankind,
This cord receive, for thee reserved with care,
To wield in judgment, and at length to wear.
Health to great Jeffrey! Heaven preserve his
To flourish on the fertile shores of Fife, [life
And guard it sacred in its future wars,
Since authors sometimes seek the field of Mars!
Can none remember that eventful day,
That ever-glorious, almost fatal fray,
When Little's leadless pistol met his eye,
Nay, last, not least, on that portentous morn,
The sixteenth storey, where himself was born,
His patrimonial garret, fell to ground,
And pale Edina shudder'd at the sound:
Strew'd were the streets around with milk-white
reams,
Flow'd all the Canongate with inky streams;
This of his candour seem'd the sable dew,
That of his valour show'd the bloodless hue;
And all with justice deem'd the two combined
The mingled emblems of his mighty mind.
But Caledonia's goddess hover'd o'er [Moore;
The field, and saved him from the wrath of
From either pistol snatch'd the vengeful lead,
And straight restor'd it to her favourite's head;
That head, with greater than magnetic power,
Caught it, as Danae caught the golden shower,
And, though the thickening dross will scarce
refine,
Augments its ore, and is itself a mine.
My son' she cried, 'ne'er thirst for gore again,
Resign the pistol and resume the pen;
O'er politics and poesy preside,
Boast of thy country, and Britannia's guide!
For long as Albion's heedless sons submit,
Or Scottish taste decides on English wit,
So long shall last thine unmolested reign,
Nor any dare to take thy name in vain.
Behold, a chosen band shall aid thy plan,
And own thee chieftain of the critic clan.
First in the oat-fed phalanx shall be seen
The travell'd thane, Athenian Aberdeen.*
Herbert shall wield Thor's hammer,† and
sometimes,
In gratitude, thou'lt praise his rugged rhymes.
And classic Hallam, § much renown'd for Greek;
Smug Sydney, too, thy bitter page shall seek,
Scott may perchance his name and influence lend,
And paltry Pillans || shall traduce his friend;
And Bow-Street myrmidons stood laughing by ?t executed in the front might have rendered the edifice more
Oh, day disastrous! on her firm-set rock,
Dunedin's castle felt a secret shock;
Dark roll'd the sympathetic waves of Forth,
Low groan'd the startled whirlwinds of the north;
Tweed ruffled half his waves to form a tear,
The other half pursued its calm career; ‡
Arthur's steep summit nodded to its base,
The surly Tolbooth scarcely kept her place.
The Tolbooth felt-for marble sometimes can,
On such occasions, feel as much as man-
The Tolbooth felt defrauded of his charms,
If Jeffrey died, except within her arms: §
Arthur's Seat, the hill which overhangs Edinburgh. In 12 Messrs Jeffrey and Moore met at Chalk Farm. The duel was prevented by the interference of the magistracy: eat, ca examination, the balls of the pistols, like the courage f the combatants, were found to have evaporated. This sacaduat gave occasion to much waggery in the daily prints. The Tweed here behaved with proper decorum; it i have been highly reprehensible in the English half the river to have shown the smallest symptom of appreThis display of sympathy on the part of the Tolbooth me principal prison in Edinburgh), which truly seems to have not affected on this occasion, is much to be commended. It was to be apprehended that the many unhappy criminals
callous. She is said to be of the softer sex, because her delicacy of feeling on this day was truly feminine, though, like most feminine impulses, perhaps a little selfish.
His Lordship has been much abroad, is a member of the Athenian Society, and Reviewer of Gell's Topography of + Mr Herbert is a translator of Icelandic and other poetry. One of the principal pieces is a Song on the Recovery of Thor's Hammer: the translation is a pleasant chant in the vulgar tongue, and endeth thus:
'Instead of money and rings, I wot,
The hammer's bruises were her lot:
Thus Odin's son his hammer got."
The Reverend Sydney Smith, the reputed author of
Peter Plymley's Letters, and sundry criticisms.
§ Mr Hallam reviewed Payne Knight's Taste, and was exceedingly severe on some Greek verses therein: it was not discovered that the lines were Pindar's till the press rendered it impossible to cancel the critique, which still stands an everlasting monument of Hallam's ingenuity.
The said Hallam is incensed, because he is falsely accused, seeing that he never dineth at Holland House. If this be true, I am sorry-not for having said so, but on his account, as I understand his Lordship's feasts are preferable to his compositions. If he did not review Lord Holland's performance. I am glad, because it must have been painful to read, and irksome to praise it. If Mr Hallam will tell me who did review it, the real name shall find a place in the text; provided, nevertheless, the said name be of two orthodox musical syll.cles, and will come into the verse; till then, Hallam must stand for want of a better.
Pillans was a tutor at Eton.
While gay
Thalia's luckless votary, Lambe,*
Damn'd like the devil, devil-like will damn.
Known be thy name, unbounded be thy sway!
Thy Holland's banquets shall each toil repay;
While grateful Britain yields the praise she owes
To Holland's hirelings and to learning's foes.
Yet mark one caution, ere thy next Review
Spread its light wings of saffron and of blue,
Beware lest blundering Brougham+ destroy the
sale,
Turn beef to bannocks, cauliflowers to kail.'
Thus having said, the kilted goddess kiss'd
Her son, and vanish'd in a Scottish mist.+
Then prosper, Jeffrey ! pertest of the train
Whom Scotland pampers with her fiery grain!.
Whatever blessing waits a genuine Scot,
In double portion swells thy glorious lot;
For thee Edina cuils her evening sweets,
And showers their odours on thy candid sheets,
Whose hue and fragrance to thy work adhere-
This scents its pages, and that gilds its rear.§
Lo! blushing Itch, coy nymph, enamour'd
Forsakes the rest, and cleaves to thee alone;
And, too unjust to other Pictish men,
Enjoys thy person, and inspires thy pen!
Illustrious Holland! hard would be his lot.
His hirelings mentioned, and himself forgot!
Holland, with Henry Petty at his back,
The whipper-in and huntsman of the pack.
Blest be the banquets spread at Holland House,
Where Scotchmen feed, and critics may carouse!
Long, long beneath that hospitable roof,
Shall Grub Street dine, while duns are kept aloof.
See honest Hallam lay aside his fork,
Resume his pen, review his Lordship's work,
And, grateful for the dainties on his plate,
Declare his landlord can at least translate! T
Dunedin ! view thy children with delight,
They write for food-and feed because they
write :
• The Honourable G. Lambe reviewed Beresford's Miseries, and is, moreover, author of a farce enacted with much ap. plause at the Priory, Stanmore; and damned with great expedition at Covent Garden. It was entitled Whistle for It.
Mr Brougham, in No. xxv. of the Edinburgh Review, throughout the article concerning Don Pedro de Cevallos, has displayed more politics than policy; many of the worthy burgesses of Edinburgh being so incensed at the infamous principles it evinces, as to have withdrawn their subscriptions,
And lest, when heated with the unusual grape,
Some glowing thoughts should to the press
And tinge with red the female reader's cheek,
My lady skims the cream of each critique;
Breathes o'er the page her purity of soul,
Reforms each error, and refines the whole.*
Now to the Drama turn-Oh! motley sight!
What precious scenes the wondering eyes invite!
Puns, and a prince within a barrel pent,+
And Dibdin's nonsense, yield complete content.
thank Heaven! the Rosciomania's
Though now,
o'er, §
And full-grown actors are endured once more;
Yet what avail their vain attempts to please,
While British critics suffer scenes like these;
While Reynolds vents his 'Dammes !''Poohs!"
and Zounds !' ||
[founds?
While Kenny's ¶ World,-ah ! where is Ken-
And common-place and common sense con-
ny's wit?
And Beaumont's pilfer'd Caratach affords
Tires the sad gallery, lulls the listless pit;
A tragedy complete in all but words ?**
Who but must mourn, while these are all the
The degradation of our vaunted stage!
Heavens is all sense of shame and talent gone?
Have we no living bard of merit ?-none!
Awake, George Colman ! Cumberland, awake!
Ring the alarum-bell! let folly quake!
Oh, Sheridan! if aught can move thy pen,
Let Comedy assume her throne again;
Abjure the mummery of the German schools:
Leave new Pizarros to translating fools;
Give, as thy last memorial to the age,
One classic drama, and reform the stage.
Gods! o'er those boards shall Folly rear her
head,
Where Garrick trod, and Siddons lives to tread ?
On those shall Farce display Buffoon' ry's mask,
And Hook conceal his heroes in a cask?
Shall sapient managers new scenes produce
From Cherry, Skeffington, and Mother Goose?
While Shakespeare, Otway, Massinger, forgot,
On stalls must moulder, or in closets rot?
Lo! with what pomp the daily prints proclaim
The rival candidates for Attic fame!
In grim array though Lewis' spectres rise,
Still Skeffington and Goose divide the prize.
Certain it is, her Ladyship is suspected of having dis I ought to apologize to the worthy deities for introducing played her matchless wit in the Edinburgh Review. a new goddess with short petticoats to their notice; but, alas, ever that may be, we know from good authority that the what was to be done? I could not say Caledonia's genius, it manuscripts are submitted to her perusal-no doubt for cer being well known there is no genius to be found from Clack-rection.
mannan to Caithness; yet without supernatural agency, how In the melodrama of Tekeli, that heroic prince is chapt was Jeffrey to be saved? The national 'kelpies,' &c., are too into a barrel on the stage-a new asylum for distressed her unpoetical, and the brownies and 'gude neighbours' (spirits of a good disposition) refused to extricate him. A goddess therefore has been called for the purpose; and great ought to be the gratitude of Jeffrey, seeing it is the only communication he ever held, or is likely to hold, with anything heavenly.
§ See the colour of the back binding of the Edinburgh Review.
Thomas Dibdin, author of The Cabinet, English Fleet, Mother Goose, &c., and son of the great English lyrist § The performances of a child called the young Koscius, his name was Betty. [EDIT]
All these are favourite expressions of Mr Reynolds, and prominent in his comedies, living and defunct. Author of the farce of Raising the Wind, and other pieces. ** Mr T. Sheridan, the new manager of Drury Lane Theat Lord H. has translated some specimens of Lope de Vega, stripped the tragedy of Bonduca of the dialogue, ant Inserted in his life of the author: both are bepraised by his dis-hibited the scenes as the spectacle of Caractacus. interested guests. worthy of his sire? or of himself?
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