reign sway,

Obey'd by all who nought beside obey; When Folly, frequent harbinger of crime, 30 Bedecks her cap with bells of every clime;

When knaves and fools combined o'er all prevail,

And weigh their justice in a golden scale; E'en then the boldest start from public

sneers,

Afraid of shame, unknown to other fears, 35 More darkly sin, by satire kept in awe, And shrink from ridicule, though not from law.

by rote,

With just enough of learning to misquote; A mind well skill'd to find or forge a fault;

A turn for punning, call it Attic salt;1 To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet, 70 His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet:

fame;

The cry is up, and scribblers are my game. 45 Speed, Pegasus!-ye strains of great and small,

Ode, epic, elegy, have at you all!

I too can scrawl, and once upon a time
I pour'd along the town a flood of rhyme,
A school boy freak, unworthy praise or
blame;

50 I printed-older children do the same.
'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in
print;

A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't.

Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a sharper hit; Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit;

Care not for feeling-pass your proper jest,

And stand a critic, hated yet caress'd.

And shall we own such judgment? no

-as soon

Seek roses in December-ice in June;
Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff;
Believe a woman or an epitaph,

Or any other thing that's false, before 80 You trust in critics, who themselves are sore;

Or yield one single thought to be misled By Jeffrey's heart, or Lambe's Baotian head.2

To these young tyrants, by themselves misplaced,

Combined usurpers on the throne of taste; 85 To these, when authors bend in humble

95 If not yet sicken 'd, you can still proceed: Go on; my rhyme will tell you as you

read.

has got,

100 And careless Dryden-"Ay, but Pye has

not:"

1 Ecclesiastes, 1:9.

2 A disease of cows which, when communicated to the human system by vaccination, protects from the small-pox.

3 Metal rods used in treating rheumatism, etc. 4 The use of electric currents for curative purposes.

Laughing gas. All of these "wonders" were quack panaceas of the early 19th century. A reference to Lewis's Tales of Terror (1799) and Tales of Wonder (1800).

A thrust at the new anapestic meters, introduced by Cowper, Coleridge, Southey, Moore, and others.

8 A reference to Scott's The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), which grew out of a suggestion for a ballad on the Border legend of Gilpin Horner.

And goblin brats, of Gilpin Horner's brood,

Decoy young border-nobles through the wood,

And skip at every step, Lord knows how high,

160 And frighten foolish babes, the Lord knows why;

165

While high-born ladies in their magic cell, Forbidding knights to read who cannot spell,

Despatch a courier to a wizard's grave, And fight with honest men to shield a knave.

Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan,

The golden-crested haughty Marmion, Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight,

Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight, The gibbet or the field prepare to grace; 170 A mighty mixture of the great and base. And think'st thou, Scott! by vain conceit perchance,

On public taste to foist thy stale romance, Though Murray with his Miller may combine

An epic scarce ten centuries could claim, While awe-struck nations hail'd the magic

name:

The work of each immortal bard appears The single wonder of a thousand years. 195 Empires have moulder'd from the face of earth,

200

Tongues have expired with those who gave
them birth,

Without the glory such a strain can give,
As even in ruin bids the language live.
Not so with us, though minor bards, con-
tent,

On one great work a life of labor spent:
With eagle pinion soaring to the skies,
Behold the ballad-monger Southey rise!
To him let Camoëns, Milton, Tasso yield,
Whose annual strains, like armies, take the
field.

205 First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance,1

line?

215

The scourge of England and the boast of France!

Though burnt by wicked Bedford for a

witch,

Behold her statue placed in glory's niche;
Her fetters burst, and just released from
A virgin phoenix from her ashes risen.
prison,
Next see tremendous Thalaba come on,
Arabia's monstrous, wild, and wondrous

son;

Domdaniel's dread destroyer, who o'erthrew

More mad magicians than the world e'er
knew.

Immortal hero! all thy foes o'ercome,
Forever reign-the rival of Tom Thumb!
Since startled metre fled before thy face,
Well wert thou doom'd the last of all thy
race!

Well might triumphant genii bear thee
hence,

220 Illustrious conqueror of common sense! Now, last and greatest, Madoc spreads his sails,

Cacique in Mexico, and prince in Wales; Tells us strange tales, as other travellers do,

More old than Mandeville's, and not so