As for the smaller fry, who swarm in shoals,
From silly HAFIZ' up to simple Bowles,
Why should we call them from their dark abode,
In broad St Giles's or in Tottenham Road?
Or (since some men of fashion nobly dare

To scrawl in verse) from Eond-street, or the Square?
If things of ton their harmless lays indite,
Most wisely doom'd to shun the public sight,
What harm? in spite of every critic elf,
Sir T. may read his stanzas to himself;
MILES ANDREWS Still his strength in couplets try,
And live in prologues, though his dramas die.
Lords too are bards: such things at times befal,
And 'tis some praise in peers to write at all.
Yet, did or taste or reason sway the times,
Ah! who would take their titles with their rhymes?
ROSCOMMON SHEFFIELD! with your spirits fled,
No future laurels deck a noble head;

No Muse will cheer, with renovating smile,

The paralytic puling of CARLISLE:

The puny school-boy and his early lay
Men pardon, if his follies pass away;

But who forgives the senior's ceaseless verse,
Whose hairs grow hoary as his rhymes grow worse?
What heterogeneous honours deck the Peer!
Lord, rhymester, petit-maitre, pamphleteer!*
So dull in youth, so drivelling in his age,
His scenes alone had damn'd our sinking stage:
But managers for once cried «< hold, enough!»
Nor drugg'd their audience with the tragic stuff.
Yet at their judgment let his lordship laugh,
And case his volumes in congenial calf:
Yes! doff that covering where morocco shines,
And hang a calf-skin3 on those recreant lines.

With you, ye Druids! rich in native lead,
Who daily scribble for your daily bread,
With you I war not: GIFFORD's heavy hand

Has crush'd, without remorse, your numerous band
On « all the Talents» vent your venal spleen,
Want your defence, let Pity be your screen.
Let Monodies on Fox regale your crew,
And Melville's Mantlet prove a Blanket too!
One common Lethe waits each hapless bard,
And peace be with you! 't is your best reward.
Such damning fame as Dunciads only give,
Could bid your lines beyond a morning live;
But now at once your fleeting labours close,
With names of greater note in blest repose.
Far bet from me unkindly to upbraid
The lovely Rosa's prose in masquerade,

↑ What would be the sentiments of the Persian Anarrenn, Hariz, could he rise from his splendid sepul hre at Sheeraz, where he reposes with FERDOUA and SADI, the Oriental HowER and GATULLUS, and bebold his name assumed by one Story of Duomone, the most impudent and execrable of i terary poachers for the daily prints!

2 The Farl of Carlisle has lately published an eighteenpenny pamphlet on the state of the stage, and offers his plan for building a ne theatre it is to be hoped his lordship will be permitted to bring for ward any thing for the stage, except his own tragedies.

1. Doff that hon s bide,

And hang a calf-skin on those terreant limbs.,
Sasks. King John.

Lord C.'s works, most resplendently bound, form a conspicuous ora ment to his book-shelves

The rest is all but leather and prunella..

4 MELVILLE'S Mantle, a parody on Elijah Mantle, a poem.

Whose strains, the faithful echoes of her mind,
Leave wondering comprehension far behind.'
Though CRUSCA's bards no more our journals fill,
Some stragglers skirmish round their columns stil!.
Last of the howling host which once was BELL'S,
MATILDA Snivels yet, and HAFIZ yells;
And MERRY'S metaphors appear anew,
Chain'd to the signature of O. P. Q.3

When some brisk youth, the tenant of a stall,
Employs a pen less pointed than his awl,
Leaves his snug shop, forsakes his store of shoes,

St Crispin quits, and cobbles for the Muse,
Heavens! how the vulgar stare! how crowds applaud!
How ladies read, and literati laud!

If chance some wicked wag should pass his jest,
'Tis sheer ill-nature; don't the world know best?
Genius must guide when wits admire the rhyme,
And CAPEL LOFFT 3 declares 't is quite sublime.
Hear, then, ye happy sons of needless trade!
Swains! quit the plough, resign the useless spade:
Lo! BURNS and BLOOMFIELD, 4 nay, a greater far,
GIFFORD was born beneath an adverse star,
Forsook the labours of a servile state,
Stemm'd the rude storm, and triumpli'd over Fate.
Then why no more? if Phoebus smiled on you,
BLOOMFIELD! Why not on brother Nathan too?
Him too the Mania, not the Muse, has seized;
Not inspiration, but a mind diseased :
And now no boor can seek his last abode,
No common be inclosed, without an ode.
Oh! since increased refinement deigns to smile
On Britain's sons, and bless our genial isle,
Let Poesy go forth, pervade the whole,
Alike the rustic and mechanic soul:
Ye tuneful cobblers! still your notes prolong,
Compose at once a slipper and a song;
So shall the fair your handiwork peruse;
Your sonnets sure shall please-perhaps your shoes.
May Moorland weavers boast Pindaric skill,
And tailors' lays be longer than their bill!
While punctual beaux reward the grateful notes,
And pay for poems-when they pay for coats.

To the famed throng now paid the tribute due,
Neglected Genius! let me turn to you.
Come forth, Oh CAMPBELL!6 give thy talents scope;
Who dares aspire if thou must cease to hope?
And thou, melodious ROGERS! rise at last,
Recal the pleasing memory of the past;

↑ This lovely latle Jess'ca, the daughter of the notci Jev K——. seems to be a follower of the Della Crusca School, and has published two volumes of very respectable absurdities in rhyme, as times go; besides sundry novels in the style of the first edition of the Monk.

* These are the signatures of various worthics who figure in the poetical departments of the newspapers.

› Caru Lorry, Esq. the Mecenas of shoemakers, and Preface-writer general to distressed versemen, a kind of gratis accouchear to these who wish to be delivered of rhyme, bat do not know how to bring fosta

4 Sce NATHANIEL BLOOMFIELD ode, elegy, or whatever be or any one else chooses to call it, on the enclosure of Honington Green. ↑ Vide Recollections of a Weaver in the Moorlands of Stafford•bire.

It would be superf 2004 to recal to the mind of the reader the author of The Pleasures of Memory, and The Pleasures of Hope, the most beautiful didactic poems in our language, if we except Pope Jassy on Man but so many portasters have started up, that even the Dames of CAMPBELL and ROGERS are become strange.

Arise! let blest remembrance still inspire,

And strike to wonted tones thy hallow'd lyre!
Restore Apollo to his vacant throne,
Assert thy country's honour and thine own.
What! must deserted Poesy still weep
Where her last hopes with pious COWPER Sleep?
Unless, perchance, from his cold bier she turns,
To deck the turf that wraps her minstrel, BURNS!
No! though contempt hath mark'd the spurious brood,
The race who rhyme from folly, or for food;
Yet still some genuine sons 't is her's to boast,
Who, least affecting, still affect the most;
Feel as they write, and write but as they feel-
Bear witness, GIFFORD, SOTHEBY, MACNEIL.

Why slumbers GIFFORD?» once was ask'd in vain:2
Why slumbers GIFFORD? let us ask again:
Are there no follies for his pen to purge?

Are there no fools whose backs demand the scourge?
Are there no sius for Satire's Bard to greet?
Striks not gigantie Vice in every street?
Shall peers or princes tread Pollution's path,
And 'scape alike the law's and Muses wrath?
Nor blaze with guilty glare through future time,
Eternal beacons of consummate crime?
Arease thee, GIFFORD! be thy promise claim'd,
Make bad men better, or at least ashamed.

Unhappy WHITE!3 while life was in its spring,
And the young muse just waved her joyous wing,
Tur spoiler came, and all thy promise fair
Has sought the grave, to sleep for ever there.
in what a noble heart was here undone,
When Science self destroy'd her favourite son!
Yes! she too much indulged thy fond pursuit,
The sow d the seeds, but death has reap'd the fruit.
I was thine own genins gave the final blow,
And helpd to plant the wound that laid thee low:
So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
View d his own feather on the fatal dart,
And wing d the shaft that quiver'd in his heart:
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel
He nursed the pinion which impell'd the steel,
While the same plumage that had warm'd his nest
Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast.

There be who say in these enlighten'd days
That splendid lies are all the poet's praise;
That straind invention, ever on the wing,
Alone impels the modern bard to sing:
Tis true that all who rhyme, nay, all who write,
Sariak from that fatal word to genius-trite;

• Girr.. wiher of the Baviad and Mæviad, the first satires of the dar, andt ansiater of JovENAL

Sas, translator of WILLAND's Oberon and Virgil's Georgics, and of road as epic port.

M. work, whme poems are deservedly popular: particularly Scotlands Srana, or the Wars of War, of which ten thousand copies were ar musib

• MY GOPRO promised publicly that the Baviad and Mæviad should not be ha lan eriginal works: let him remember, mox in reluctantes

Hope King WHITE died at Cambridge, in October 1806, in con-qurare of 100 much exertion in the pursuit of studies, that would beve meat syed a mind which disease and poverty could not impair, and Death self destroyed rather than subdued. His poems abound ewart brantes must impress the reader with the liveliest regret fiat es abort a period was allotted to talents which would have digailei, es the sacred functions be was destined to assume.

Yet truth sometimes will lend her noblest fires,
And decorate the verse herself inspires:
This fact in virtue's name let CRABBE attest-
Though nature's sternest painter, yet the best.

And here let SHEE' and genius find a place,
Whose pen and pencil yield an equal grace;
To guide whose hand the sister arts combine,
And trace the poet's or the painter's line;
Whose magic touch can bid the canvas glow,
Or pour the easy rhyme's harmonious flow,
While honours doubly merited attend
The poet's rival, but the painter's friend.

Blest is the man who dares approach the bower Where dwelt the Muses at their natal hour; Whose steps have press'd, whose eye has mark'd afar The clime that nursed the sons of song and war, The scenes which glory still must hover o'er, Ifer place of birth, her own Achaian shore : But doubly blest is he whose heart expands With hallow'd feelings for those classic lands; Who rends the veil of ages long gone by, And views their remnants with a poet's eye! WRIGHT! 't was thy happy lot at once to view Those shores of glory, and to sing them too; And sure no common muse inspired thy pen To hail the land of gods and godlike men.

And you, associate Bards!3 who snatch'd to light Those gems too long withheld from modern sight; Whose mingling taste combined to cull the wreath Where Attic flowers Aonian odours breathe, And all their renovated fragrance flung, To grace the beauties of your native tongue, Now let those minds that nobly could transfuse The glorious spirit of the Grecian muse, Though soft the echo, scorn a borrow'd tone, Resign Achaia's lyre, and strike your own.

Let these, or such as these, with just applause, Restore the Muse's violated laws:

The

But not in flimsy Darwin's pompous chime,
That mighty master of unmeaning rhyme;
Whose gilded cymbals more adorn'd than clear,
eye delighted, but fatigued the ear,
In show the simple lyre could once surpass,
But now worn down, appear in native brass;
While all his train of hovering sylphs around,
Evaporate in similies and sound:

Him let them shun, with him let tinsel die:
False glare attracts, but more offends the eye.4

Yet let them not to vulgar WORDSWORTH stoop,
The meanest object of the lowly group,
Whose verse, of all but childish prattle void,
Seems blessed harmony to LAMBE and LLOYD:5
Let them-but hold, my muse, nor dare to teach
A strain far, far beyond thy humble reach:

Mr Sure, author of Rhymes on Art, and Elements of Art. 2 Mr WRIGHT, late Consul-General for the Seven Islands, is author of a very beautiful poem just published: it is entitled, Horæ Ionica, and is descriptive of the Isles and the adjacent coast of Greece.

The translators of the Anthology have since published separate poems, which eviuce genius that only requires opportunity to attain

36

The native genius with their feeling given
Will point the path, and peal their notes to heaven.

And thou, too, Scorr! resign to minstrels rude
The wilder slogan of a Border feud:

Let others spin their meagre lines for hire-
Enough for genius if itself inspire!

Let Southey sing, although his teeming muse,
Prolific every string, be too profuse;

Let simple WORDSWORTH chime his childish verse,
And brother COLERIDGE lull the babe at nurse;
Let spectre-mongering LEWIS aim at most
To rouse the galleries, or to raise a ghost;

Let MOORE be lewd; let STRANGFORD steal from Moone,
And swear that CAMOENS sang such notes of yore:
Let HALEY hobble on, MONTGOMERY rave,
And godly GRAHAME chaunt a stupid stave;
Let sonnetteering BowLES his strains refine,
And whine and whimper to the fourteenth line ;
Let STOTT, CARLISLE, MATILDA, and the rest
Of Grub-street, and of Grosvenor-Place the best,
Scrawl on, till death release us from the strain,
Or common sense assert her rights again;
But thou, with powers that mock the aid of praise,
Should'st leave to humbler bards ignoble lays:
Thy country's voice, the voice of all the Nine,
Demand a hallow'd harp-that harp is thine.
Say! will not Caledonia's annals yield
The glorious record of some nobler field,
Than the vile foray of a plundering clan,
Whose proudest deeds disgrace the name of man?
Or Marmion's acts of darkness, fitter food
For outlaw'd Sherwood's tales of Robin Hood?
Scotland! still proudly claim thy native bard,
And be thy praise his first, his best reward!
Yet not with thee alone his name should live,
But own the vast renown a world can give;
Be known, perchance, when Albion is no more,
And tell the tale of what she was before;
To future times her faded fame recal,
And save her glory, though his country fall.

By the bye, I hope that in Mr Scorr's next poem his hero or heroine will be less addicted to gramarye, and more to grammar, than the Lady of the Lay, and her bravo, William of Deloraine.

2 It may be asked why I have censured the Earl of CARLISLE, my guardian and relative, to whom I dedicated a volume of puerile poems a few years ago. The guardianship was nominal, at least as far as I have been able to discover; the relationship. I cannot help, and am very sorry for it, but as his lordship seemed to forget it on a very essential occasion to me, I shall not burthen my memory with the recollection. I do not think that personal differences sanction the unjust condemnation of a brothers ribbler, but I see no reason why they should act as a preventive, when the author, noble or ignoble, has for a series of years beguiled a discerning publics (as the advertisements have it) with divers reams of most orthodox, imperial nonsense. Besides I do not step aside to vituperate the Earl; no-bis works come fairly in review with those of other patrician literati. If, before I escaped from my teens, I said any thing in favour of his lordship's paper books, it was in the way of dutiful dedication, and more from the advice of others than my own judgment, and I seize the first opportunity of pronouncing my sincere recantation. I have heard that some persons conceive me to be under obligations to Lord CARLISLE: If so, I shall be most particularly happy to learn what they are, and when conferred, that they may be duly appreciated and publicly acknowledged. What I have bumbly advanced as an opinion on his printed things, I am prepared to support, if necessary, by quotations from elegies, eulogies, odes, episodes, and certain facetious and dainty tragedies, bearing his name and mark!

. What can ennoble knaves or fools, or cowards'
Als' not all the blood of all the Howards'.

So says Port

Amen.

Yet what avails the sanguine poet's hope To conquer ages, and with time to cope? New eras spread their wings, new nations rise, And other victors' fill the applauding skies: A few brief generations fleet along, Whose sons forget the poet and his song: Een now what once-loved minstrels scarce may The transient mention of a dubious name! When Fame's loud trump hath blown its noblest blast, Though long the sound, the echo sleeps at last, And glory, like the phoenix midst her fires, Exhales her odours, blazes, and expires.

claim

Shall hoary Granta call her sable sons,
Expert in science, more expert at puns?
Shall these approach the muse? ah, no! she flies,
And even spurns the great Seatonian prize,
Though printers condescend the press to soil
With rhyme by HOARE, and epic blank by HoYLE:
Not him whose page, if still upheld by whist,
Requires no sacred theme to bid us list.2
Ye who in Granta's honours would surpass,
Must mount her Pegasus, a full-grown ass-
A foal well worthy of her ancient dam,
Whose Helicon is duller than her Cam.
There CLARKE, still striving piteously « to please,»
Forgetting doggrel leads not to degrees,

A would-be satirist, a hired buffoon,
A monthly scribbler of some low lampoon,
Condemn'd to drudge, the meanest of the mean,
And furbish falsehoods for a magazine,
Devotes to scandal his congenial mind-
Himself a living libel on mankind.3
Oh, dark asylum of a Vandal race! 4

At once the boast of learning, and disgrace;
So sunk in dulness and so lost in shame,
That SMYTHE and HODGSON 5 scarce redeem thy fame!
But where fair Isis rolls her purer wave,
The partial muse delighted loves to lave;
On her green banks a greener wreath is wove,
To crown the bards that haunt her classic grove,
Where RICHARDS wakes a genuine poet's fires,
And modern Britons justly praise their sires.6

For me,
who thus unask'd 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.

1 Tollere bumo, victorque virum volitare per ora.-V12614. The Games of Hoyle, well known to the votaries of whist, chess, etc, are not to be superseded by the vagaries of his poetical namesake, whose poem comprised, as expressly stated in the advertisement, all the Plagues of Egypt.

This person who has lately betrayed the most rapid symptoms of confirmed authorship, is writer of a poem denominated the Art of Pleasing, as lucus a non lucendo, containing little pleasantry, and less poetry. He also acts as monthly stipendiary and collector of calumnies for the Satirist. If this unfortunate young man would exchange the magazines for the mathematics, and endeavour to take a decent degree in his university, it might eventually prove more serviceable than his present salary.

4. Into Cambridgeshire the Emperor Probus transported a considerable body of Vandals.--Gibbons De line and Fall, page 83, vol. 2, There is no reason to doubt the truth of this assertion- the breed is still in bigh perfection.

This gentleman's name requires no praise: the man who in translation displays unquestionable genius, may well be expected to excel is criginal composition, of which it is to be boped we shall soon see a splendid specimen.

The Aboriginal Britons, an excellent poem by RICHARD

No just applause her honour'd 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 appear'd in her meridian hour,
Tis thine at once, fair Albion, to have been,
Earth's chief dictatress, Ocean's mighty queen:
But Rome decay'd, and Athens strew'd the plain,
And Tyre's proud piers lie shatter'd in the main:
Like these thy strength may sink in ruin hurl'd,
And Britain fall, the bulwark of the world.
But let me cease, and dread Cassandra's fate,
With warning ever scoffd at, 'till too 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' fills the place of PITT.

Yet once again adieu? ere this the sail
That wafts me hence is shivering in the gale:
And Afric's coast and Calpe's2 adverse height,
And Stamboul's 3 minarets must greet my sight:
Thrace shall I stray through beauty's 4 native clime,
Where haff is clad in rocks, and crown'd with snows
sublime.

fat should I back return, no letter'd rage

Shall drag my common-place book on the stage:

Let vain VALENTIA rival luckless CARR,

And equal him whose work he sought to mar;
Let ABERDEEN and ELGIN? still pursue
The shade of fame through regions of virtu;

| Wiste useless thousands on their Phidian freaks,
Misshapen monuments and maim'd antiques;
And make their grand saloons a general mart
For all the mutilated blocks of art:

Of Dardan tours let dilettanti tell,

I leave topography to classic GELL;8
And quite content, no more shall interpose
To stun mankind with poesy or prose.

Tas far Ive held my undisturb'd career,
Prepared for rancour, steel'd 'gainst selfish fear:
This thing of rhyme I ne'er disdain'd to own-
Though not obtrusive, yet not quite unknown:

* A friend of mine being asked why his Grace of P. was likened to

My voice was heard again, though not so loud;
My page, though nameless, never disavow'd,
And now at once I tear the veil away:
Cheer on the pack! the quarry stands at bay,
Unscared 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 seem imbued with gall,
Nor fools nor follies tempt me to despise
The meanest thing that crawl'd beneath my eyes:
But now, so callous grown, so changed since youth,
I've learned to think and sternly speak the truth;
Learn'd 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, arm'd 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 wrong'd these righteous times, let others say;
This let the world, which knows not how to spare,
Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare.

My northern friends have accused me, with justice, of

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.

1 Published to the Second Edition.

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.

There is a youth yelept Hewson Clarke, (subaudi, Esq.) a sizer of Emanuel College, and I believe a denizen of Berwick upon Tweed, whom I have introduced in these pages to much better company than he has been accustomed to meet: he is, notwithstanding, a very sad dog, and, for no reason that I can discover, except a personal quarrel with a hear, kept by me at Cambridge to sit for a fellowship, and whom the jealousy of his Trinity cotemporaries prevented from success, has been abusing me, and, what is worse, the defenceless innocent above mentioned, in the Satirist, for one year and some months. I am utterly unconscious of having given him any provocation; indeed I am guiltless of having heard his name, till it was coupled with the Satirist. He has therefore no reason to complain, and I dare say that, like Sir Fretful Plagiary, he is rather pleased than otherwise. I have now mentioned all who have done me the honour to notice me and mine, that is, my bear and my book, except the editor of the Satirist, who, it seems, is a gentleman, God wot! I wish he could impart a little of his gentility to his subordinate scribblers. I hear that Mr JERNINGHAM is about to take up the cudgels for his Mæcenas, Lord Carlisle: I hope not; he was one of the few who, in the very short intercourse I had

with him, treated me with kindness when a boy, and whatever he may say or do, «pour on, I will endure.» I have nothing further to add, save a general note of thanksgiving to readers, purchasers, and publisher; and, in the words of SCOTT, I wish

To all and each a fair good night,
And rosy dreams and slumbers light.

The following Lines were written by Mr FITZGERALD, in
a Copy of ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS:-
I find Lord Byron scorns my muse-
Our fates are ill agreed!

His verse is safe-I can't abuse
Those lines I never read.

W. F. F.

His Lordship accidentally met with the Copy, and subjoined the following pungent Reply:-

What's writ on me, cried Fitz, I never read;-
What's wrote by thee, dear Fitz, none will indeed.
The case stands simply thus, then, honest Fitz:-
Thou and thine enemies are fairly quits,
Or rather would be, if, for time to come,
They luckily were deaf, or thou wert dumb—
But, to their pens, while scribblers add their tongues,'
The waiter only can escape their lungs.

↑ Mr FITZGERALD is in the habit of reciting his own poetry.-See note to English Bards, P. 26.

PREFACE.

THE following poem was written, for the most part, amidst the scenes which it attempts to describe. It was begun in Albania; and the parts relative to Spain and Portugal were composed from the author's observations in those countries. Thus much it may be necessary to state for the correctness of the descriptions. The scenes attempted to be sketched are in Spain, Portugal, Epirus, Acaruania, and Greece. There for the present the poem stops: its reception will determine whether the author may venture to conduct his readers to the capital of the East, through Ionia and Phrygia: these two cantos are merely experimental.

A fictitious character is introduced for the sake of giving some connexion to the piece; which, however, makes no pretension to regularity. It has been suggested to me by friends, on whose opinions I set a high value, that in this Getitious character, «Childe Harold,» I may incur the suspicion of having intended some real personage this I beg leave, once for all, to disclaim

Harold is the child of imagination, for the purpose I have stated. In some very trivial particulars, and those merely local, there might be grounds for such a notion, but in the main points, I should hope, none whatever.

It is almost superfluous to mention that the appellation «Childe,» as «Childe Waters,» « Childe Childers.» etc. is used as more consonant with the old structure of versification which I have adopted. The «Good Night,» in the beginning of the first canto, was suggested by «Lord Maxwell's Good Night,» in the Border Minstrelsy, edited by Mr Scott.

With the different poems which have been published on Spanish subjects, there may be found some slight coincidence in the first part, which treats of the peuinsula, but it can only be casual; as, with the exception of a few concluding stanzas, the whole of this poem was written in the Levant.

The stanza of Spenser, according to one of our most successful poets, admits of every variety. Dr Beattie makes the following observation: «Not long ago 1 began a poem in the style and stanza of Spenser, in which I propose to give full scope to my inclination,