Page images
PDF
EPUB

st

[blocks in formation]

may see that he has at least a taste for more serious enjoyment.

Should a state of health, not very accommodating, continue to allow him in his imprisonment the use of his pen, it is his intention, by the beginning of next year, to bring out a piece of some length, with which he is varying less agreeable studies, and in which he would attempt to reduce to practice his own ideas of what is natural in style, and of the various and legitimate harmony of the English heroic.

THE

FEAST OF THE POETS.

T'OTHER day, as Apollo sat pitching his darts Through the clouds of November, by fits and by starts, He began to consider how long it had been

Since the bards of Old England had all been rung in. "I think," said the God, recollecting, (and then He fell twiddling a sunbeam as I may my pen,) "I think-let me see-yes, it is, I declare, As long ago now as that Buckingham there :(1) And yet I can't see why I've been so remiss,

Unless it may be-and it certainly is,

That since Dryden's fine verses and Milton's sublime,
I have fairly been sick of their sing song and rhyme.
There was Collins, 'tis true, had a good deal to say;
But the rogue had no industry--neither had Gray:
And l'homson, though best in his indolent fits,
Either slept himself weary, or blated his wits.(2)
But ever since Pope spoil'd the ears of the town
With his cuckoo-song verses, half up and half down,
There has been such a doling and sameness by Jove,
I'd as soon have gone down to see Kemble in love.(3)

« PreviousContinue »