Three English Bards*, with hacknied logic smit, 705 Their native shore resolved for aye to quit; To stem the fury of the winds and waves, For wild Columbia's lakes, and gloomy caves. In sooth, 't were pity, ere the bubble burst, By minds diseas'd and brains disorder'd nurst, They had not flown, and kindly with them ta'en 715 Each silly smatt'rer of the Muse's train: The "Shippe of Foolles" had borne them o'er the floods, To awful wilds, and never ending woods; NOTES. for (their) ardent minds Shaped goodliest plans of happiness on earth, And peace and liberty.-Wild dreams! SOUTHEY. And there, when morn had deck'd the radiant sky, Each, as his Genius prompted him, might fly, 720 In all the charms of Solitude, to rove The wide Savannah, or the shady grove. Southey should roam the Lake's wild banks along, Where Madoc, once, had strayed in fancied song: Some Creek might teach him, ever as he went, 725 Legends and Fancies to his heart's content. NOTES. * Mr. Robert Southey is the most voluminous writer of the day, and Author of Works, Poetical, Political, Historical, Biographical, Epistolary, &c. &c.-He is undoubtedly a Poet; but his genius may be compared to the exuberance of the untrained vine, too extended to produce valuable fruit. He is, perhaps, the most rapid writer of the age, and makes it his boast to have composed one of his Epic tales (for he has written four) in the short space of six weeks. I would my horse had the speed of (his pen), And so good a continuer. Much Ado about Nothing. Then would he need no Brama's sacred lore, Nor ransack India for one Epic more. Coleridge* should mount some rock's o'erjutting height, And tell his tale in accents of delight; 730 NOTES, * Mr. Coleridge is well known as having produced, at divers times, a dainty volume of Poetics, and a Play, which will be honorably mentioned hereafter.. He is also a Lecturer, at the Surrey Institution, on Poetry and "les Belles Lettres." With no very prominent talents, either natural or acquired, for a public Speaker, he endeavours to supply the absence of propriety with pathos, but seldom succeeds in interesting the feelings of his auditors, till he has completely overwhelmed his own; as the following anecdote will prove : In the course of his lecture, one evening, he had wandered from the subject matter to the story of two lovers-in the moon! So completely absorbed was he in their imaginary distresses, that he failed to observe its effect upon his hearers, until bending from his desk to make a last appeal, he saw, as well as he could through eyes suffused with tears, that they were literally laughing at him. Constitit et lacrymans. Fancy his seat" Apollo's forked hill*,” The high tribunal of poetic skill; Or Surrey's chair, in which he toil'd in vain, Wordsworth + should stray adown the fragrant vale, And breathe soft nonsense to the balmy gale; NOTES. * "Proud as Apollo on his forked hill." POPE. The poetical talents of the Founder of the Lake School, which has risen like a Phoenix upon the ashes of the Della Cruscan, have been before visited by the hand of Satire; but there is one point in which something is left even for me to supply. We have the beauties of Johnson, of Addison, of Goldsmith, &c. &c. and why not the beauties of Wordsworth? "Let it be my task then to collect the scattered sweets till their united virtue torture the sense;" and to any ingenious collector who may be so inclined, I make a donation of them, advising Count, as they fell, each blossom of the tree, And cry with rapt'rous joy:-" Lo! one, two, three!" NOTES. him to arrange them under the heads of simple, pathetic, and descriptive. Simplicity. That way look, my infant, lo! What a pretty baby show! See the kitten on the wall Sporting with the leaves that fall; From the lofty Elder tree! My sister Emmeline and I Upon the prey with leaps and springs : I followed on from brake to bush, But she, God love her! feared to brush The dew from off its wings. Pathos (aut Bathos). I grieved for Buonaparte with a vain And an unthinking grief! the vital blood Of that man's mind, what can it be? What food |