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the shortest letter which man uses

      Instead of speech, may form a lasting link

      Of ages; to what straits old Time reduces

      Frail man, when paper—even a rag like this,

      Survives himself, his tomb, and all that 's his.

      And when his bones are dust, his grave a blank,

      His station, generation, even his nation,

      Become a thing, or nothing, save to rank

      In chronological commemoration,

      Some dull MS. oblivion long has sank,

      Or graven stone found in a barrack's station

      In digging the foundation of a closet,

      May turn his name up, as a rare deposit.

      And glory long has made the sages smile;

      'T is something, nothing, words, illusion, wind—

      Depending more upon the historian's style

      Than on the name a person leaves behind:

      Troy owes to Homer what whist owes to Hoyle:

      The present century was growing blind

      To the great Marlborough's skill in giving knocks,

      Until his late life by Archdeacon Coxe.

      Milton 's the prince of poets—so we say;

      A little heavy, but no less divine:

      An independent being in his day—

      Learn'd, pious, temperate in love and wine;

      But, his life falling into Johnson's way,

      We 're told this great high priest of all the Nine

      Was whipt at college—a harsh sire—odd spouse,

      For the first Mrs. Milton left his house.

      All these are, certes, entertaining facts,

      Like Shakspeare's stealing deer, Lord Bacon's bribes;

      Like Titus' youth, and Caesar's earliest acts;

      Like Burns (whom Doctor Currie well describes);

      Like Cromwell's pranks;—but although truth exacts

      These amiable descriptions from the scribes,

      As most essential to their hero's story,

      They do not much contribute to his glory.

      All are not moralists, like Southey, when

      He prated to the world of 'Pantisocracy;'

      Or Wordsworth unexcised, unhired, who then

      Season'd his pedlar poems with democracy;

      Or Coleridge, long before his flighty pen

      Let to the Morning Post its aristocracy;

      When he and Southey, following the same path,

      Espoused two partners (milliners of Bath).

      Such names at present cut a convict figure,

      The very Botany Bay in moral geography;

      Their loyal treason, renegado rigour,

      Are good manure for their more bare biography.

      Wordsworth's last quarto, by the way, is bigger

      Than any since the birthday of typography;

      A drowsy frowzy poem, call'd the 'Excursion.'

      Writ in a manner which is my aversion.

      He there builds up a formidable dyke

      Between his own and others' intellect;

      But Wordsworth's poem, and his followers, like

      Joanna Southcote's Shiloh, and her sect,

      Are things which in this century don't strike

      The public mind,—so few are the elect;

      And the new births of both their stale virginities

      Have proved but dropsies, taken for divinities.

      But let me to my story: I must own,

      If I have any fault, it is digression—

      Leaving my people to proceed alone,

      While I soliloquize beyond expression;

      But these are my addresses from the throne,

      Which put off business to the ensuing session:

      Forgetting each omission is a loss to

      The world, not quite so great as Ariosto.

      I know that what our neighbours call 'longueurs'

      (We 've not so good a word, but have the thing

      In that complete perfection which ensures

      An epic from Bob Southey every spring),

      Form not the true temptation which allures

      The reader; but 't would not be hard to bring

      Some fine examples of the epopee,

      To prove its grand ingredient is ennui.

      We learn from Horace, 'Homer sometimes sleeps;'

      We feel without him, Wordsworth sometimes wakes,—

      To show with what complacency he creeps,

      With his dear 'Waggoners,' around his lakes.

      He wishes for 'a boat' to sail the deeps—

      Of ocean?—No, of air; and then he makes

      Another outcry for 'a little boat,'

      And drivels seas to set it well afloat.

      If he must fain sweep o'er the ethereal plain,

      And Pegasus runs restive in his 'Waggon,'

      Could he not beg the loan of Charles's Wain?

      Or pray Medea for a single dragon?

      Or if, too classic for his vulgar brain,

      He fear'd his neck to venture such a nag on,

      And he must needs mount nearer to the moon,

      Could not the blockhead ask for a balloon?

      'Pedlars,' and 'Boats,' and 'Waggons!' Oh! ye shades

      Of Pope and Dryden, are we come to this?

      That trash of such sort not alone evades

      Contempt, but from the bathos' vast abyss

      Floats scumlike uppermost, and these Jack Cades

      Of sense and song above your graves may hiss—

      The 'little boatman' and his 'Peter Bell'

      Can sneer at him who drew 'Achitophel'!

      T' our tale.—The feast was over, the slaves gone,

      The dwarfs and dancing girls had all retired;

      The Arab lore and poet's song were done,

      And every sound of revelry expired;

      The lady and her lover, left alone,

      The rosy flood of twilight's sky admired;—

      Ave Maria! o'er the earth and sea,

      That heavenliest hour of Heaven is worthiest

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