O! model of the travelling tribe, Though homage Satire always pays ill, This book to you, Illustrious B-1! The greatest things with least resources, Without a grain of wit for satire ; On knottiest points, with ease debate, Without one just thought on the matter; * "In short, said I, unable to suppress a smile."-Hall's Travels in North America, vol. iii. p. 411. I merely smiled, and said nothing." ** "The lady's suspicions instantly took fire, on seeing the expression of my countenance.”—Ibid. vol. i. p. 110. A nice, agreeable fellow, for a disputant or a guest! I should say, that + "To borrow one more illustration from the sea, the Established Church may be compared to the rudder, and the country, with its multifarious arrangements of society, to the ship," &c.-Ibid. vol. iii. p. 405. This charming metaphor occurs in the most entertaining conversation With scarce the Traveller's art to gaze, "Tis said when famed Alcides slew The Earth's dread son—that Slumber bound him The Hero woke-attacked anew And saw-the tribe of PIGMIES round him! So Truth some mighty victory gains— And, lo, the Dwarfs rush out to seize her! The Giant crushed-there still remains Some tribe of H's that can but teize her! But from the Traveller now we turn One moment to address the Reader, imaginable. Captain H. resolved to prove the blessings of an aristocracy, rotten boroughs, tithes; and lord-I beg pardon-the devil knows what! sets up an unfortunate Yankee, by way of an argumentative nine pin. Away bowls the Captain, blunder after blunder, folly after folly, as glibly as possible; and not a syllable of rational defence, ever by accident, comes out of the mouth of the nine pin. I cannot say whether a full-grown American could have answered Captain H.; but I know, that an English boy of ten years' old, with a tolerable private education would have been a great deal too much for him. * There is an old tradition, that when Hercules (the great reformer of the ancient world) had conquered the giant Antæus-(a sort of Charles the Tenth)—he fell asleep in the Lybian desert, and was suddenly awakened by an attack of the Pigmies. To him ev'n Satire's self must learn To sink the' Accuser-in the Pleader. Forgive a Muse who long hath dwelt From ladies of her tribe too distant, Nor learnt how like thoughts never felt, To things that never were existent.* She is not privileged to prose Let finer bards aspire to weary us; Most humbly she resigns to those, The misanthropic and mysterious. She doth but rarely seek to quarrel; A friend to Wisdom, not to Schools Let Dreamers into sects enlist 'em ; For me at times, if with the fools"Tis not the folly of a system.+ Be mine to hover round the heart, To warn to warm you by a word— And-while I mock the Leader's art, To shun the livery of the Herd! * A very clever Author of the day said to me once, speaking of the present character of poetical similies, that they had only one faultthat of comparing what one had never seen, to what one had never heard of. "The most ingenious way of becoming foolish is by a system."Shaftesbury, Advice to an Author. |