Where RICHARDS wakes a genuine poet's fires,
And modern Britons justly praise their Sires (1).

For me, who thus unasked have dared to tell
My country what her sons should know too well,
Zeal for her honour bade me here engage
The host of idiots that infest her age.

No just applause her honoured name shall lose,
As first in freedom, dearest to the Muse.
Oh! would thy Bards but emulate thy fame,
And rise, more worthy, Albion, of thy name!
What Athens was in science, Rome in power,
What Tyre appeared in her meridian hour,
'Tis thine at once, fair Albion, to have been,
Earth's chief dictatress, Ocean's mighty queen:
But Rome decayed, and Athens strewed the plain,
And Tyre's proud piers lie shattered in the main :
Like these thy strength may sink in ruin hurled,
And Britain fall, the bulwark of the World.
But let me cease, and dread Cassandra's fate,
With warning ever scoffed at, 'till to late;
To themes less lofty still my lay confine,
And urge thy Bards to gain a name like thine.

Then, hapless Britain! be thy rulers blest !
The senate's oracles, the people's jest!
Still hear thy motley orators dispense
The flowers of rhetoric, though not of sense,
While CANNING's colleagues hate him for his wit,
And old dame PORTLAND (2) fills the place of PITT.

(1) The «< Aboriginal Britons,» an excellent poem by

RICHARDS.

(2) A friend of mine being asked why his Grace of P. was

Yet once again adieu! ere this the sail
That wafts me hence is shivering in the gale :
And Afric's coast, and Calpe's (1) adverse height,
And Stamboul's (2) minarets must greet my sight:
Thence shall I stray through beauty's (3) native clime,
Where Kaff (4) is clad in rocks, and crowned with snows sublime.
But should I back return, no lettered rage

Shall drag my common-place book on the stage:
Let vain VALENTIA (5) rival luckless CARR,
And equal him whose work he sought to mar;
Let ABERDEEN and ELGIN (6) still pursue
The shade of fame through regions of Virtue;
Waste useless thousands on their Phidian freaks,
Mis-shapen monuments and maimed antiques;
And make their grand saloons a general mart
For all the mutilated blocks of art:

likened to an old woman? replied, «he supposed it was because he was past bearing. »

(1) Calpe is the ancient name of Gibraltar.

(2) Stamboul is the turkish word for Constantinople.
(3) Georgia, remarkable for the beauty of its inhabitants.
(4) Mount Caucasus.

(5) Lord VALENTIA (whose tremendous travels are forthcoming with due decorations, graphical, topographical, and typographical) deposed, on Sir JoOHN CARR's unlucky suit, that DUBOIS's satire prevented his purchase of the « Stranger in Ireland. »—Oh fie, my Lord! has your Lordship no more feeling for a fellow-tourist? but « two of a trade, they say, elc.

(6) Lord ELGIN would fain persuade us that all the figures, with and without noses, in his stone-shop, are the work of Phidias! « Credat Judæus! >>

Of Dardan tours let Dilettanti tell,
I leave topography to classic GELL (1);
And, quite content, no more shall interpose
To stun mankind with Poesy or Prose.

Thus far I've held undisturbed career,

my

Prepared for rancour, steeled 'gainst selfish fear:
This thing of rhyme I ne'er disdained to own—
Though not obtrusive, yet not quite unknown,
My voice was heard again, though not so loud,
My page, though nameless, never disavowed,
And now at once I tear the veil
away:
Cheer on the pack! the Quarry stands at bay,
Unscar'd by all the din of MELBOURNE house,
By LAMBE's resentment, or by HOLLAND's spouse,
By JEFFREY'S harmless pistol, HALLAM's rage,
EDINA'S brawny sons and brimstone page.
Our men in Buckram shall have blows enough,
And feel, they too are « penetrable stuff: »
And though I hope not hence unscathed to go,
Who conquers me, shall find a stubborn foe.
The time hath been, when no harsh sound would fall
From lips that now may seen imbued with gall,
Nor fools nor follies tempt me to despise
The meanest thing that crawled beneath my eyes;
But now, so callous grown, so changed since youth,
I've learned to think, and sternly speak the truth;

(1) Mr. GELL'S Topography of Troy and Ithaca cannot fail to ensure the approbation of every man possessed of classical taste, as well for the information Mr. G. conveys to the mind of the reader, as for the ability and research the respective works display.

Learned to deride the critic's starch decree,

And break him on the wheel he meant for me; Το spurn the rod a scribbler bids me kiss, Nor care if courts and crowds applaud or hiss Nay more, though all my rival rhymesters frown, I too can hunt a Poetaster down;

:

And, armed in proof, the gauntlet cast at once
To Scotch marauder, and to Southern dunce.
Thus much I've dared to do; how far my lay
Hath wronged these righteous times let others say;
This, let the world, which knows not how to spare,
Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare.

POSTSCRIPT ().

I have been informed, since the present edition went to the Press, that my trusty and well-beloved 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:

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 damned 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 thence 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.

(1) Published to the Second Edition.