Lucilius, then, by her alone impell'd,
To guilty. Rome the blazing mirror held; 10
Took his firm stand by humble Virtue's side,
And stretch'd his arm 'twixt Poverty and Pride.
With soft, yet poignant vein, next Horace rose,
Hurling her shafts against a host of foes,
And, hapless he, whose name or fault agreed, 15

Nor broke the verse, that endless shame decreed.

PARAPHRASE.

Horace a cette aigreur méla son enjouement.
On ne fut plus ni sat ni sot impunement:
Iot, malheur à tout nom, qui propre à la censure
Pút entrer dans un vers, sans rompre la mesure.
Perse enses vers obscurs, mais serrés et pressans,
Affecta d'enfermer moins de mots que de sens.
Juvenal, elevé dans les cris de l'Ecole,
Poussa jusqu'à l'excessa mordante hyperbole.
Ses ouvrages tout pleins d'affreuses verités

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Boileau, L'Art Poétique, Chant 2.

A Persius, too, endued with all her fire,
Swept, though with hand uncouth, his angry lyre;
Compress'd the efforts of his manly pow'rs,
And gave the thorns, but cast away the flow’rs. 20
Nor less that pupil of the sterner school,
Fraught with hyperbole, and harsh by rule,
Dark deeds of infamy to light exposed,

And frowning Satire's ancient phalanx closed.

I, too, like these, might brand a guilty age, 2.5 And stamp the crimes of Princes on my page;— Might paint the times, when B–j—f—d can clear The price of shame, “three hundred pounds a year;"— When loose adult'ry”, licensed, stalks sublime,

Ev’n from the Bench pronounced “a venial crime;"—

NOTES.

* . . . . . . . . vitio ... potens
Regnat adulter . . . . . . . . . . . .

SENrca: Hyppolitus, Act 3,

When C–m—rs pleads an “ injur'd murd’rer's"
cause,
Defends the guilty, and insults the laws;–
But no!—Uncalled, 'tis not for me to stand
The public Censor of a tainted band;
To place the guilty in a nation's view, 35
Or taunt the many with the worthless few.
These, and ten thousand such (too few to prove
How wide, and ah! how high the vices rove!)
Require, than mine, a bolder, firmer hand,
To sweep “the pestilence from out the land;” 40
A louder voice, a more effectual rod",
To smite the foes of Justice, and of God.
Mine be an humbler task; along the road
That Pope for Dulness and for Dunces trode,

When high the Goddess on her throne he rais'd, 45
And, struck with rapture, crowds admiring gaz'd,
There let me tread; and paint, in easy rhymes,
The Henleys, Cibbers, Ralphs of modern times.
Him let me emulate, the “unknown Bard*,”
Who sought no praise, who sighed for no reward, 50
Save that, which consciousness of right can give

To those, who for the Muse and Virtue strive:

NOTES.

* When I speak of the author of the “Pursuits of Literature,” I cannot help expressing my admiration of a man, whose labours, though anonymous, were always devoted to the cause of religion and virtue. Among the few prejudices discoverable in his excellent work, is a singular dislike of typographical embellishment. “If,” says he, “the present rage for printing on fine, creamy, wire-wove, vellum, hot-pressed paper, be not stopped, the injury done to the eye from reading, and the shameful expense of the books, will, in no very long time, annihilate the desire of reading, and the possibility of purchasing.” But what would he now say,

to see his own poem, containing these very opinions, supported

Him *, too, whos mightier arm hath swept away
The airy flutt’rers of a summer's day,
That, floating round the dim poetic scene, . 55

Sank 'neath the blow, and never more have been.

To thee,_ whose lay in rising youth contemn'd
The venal criticst, and the current stemm’d,
That, rushing wildly as their native “stream #,”

Had smother'd Genius in its early dream: – 60

NOTES. by the “indignant words of Apuleius,” printed on imperial paper, price five guineas in ertra boards; for, “To this complexion is it coine at last!” * Of the Baviad and Macviad it is needless to make an observation, as to its excellence. It would not have been rendered less valuable by omitting to annex the virulent epistle to Peter Pindar, or the tedious “procès verbal" of Anthony Pasquin. t Ille . . . . . . . . . . . . direxit brachia contra Torrentem (et) civiserat quilibera posset Verba animi proferre. JU v. Sat, 4.

† The Frith of Forth.