I must’nt forget though, that Bob, like a gander, '. .
Would give " a great genius,"-one Mr. Landor ;26 ..
And Walter look'd up too, and begg'd to propose ?
A particular friend of his--one Mr. Rose :27.
But the God look’dat Southey, and shrugging his shoulder,
Cried, “When, my good friend, will you try to grow older ?
Then nodding to Scott, he said, “ Pray be as portly
And rich as you please, but a little less courtly.'
So, changing the subject, he call'd upon Moore,
Who sung such a song, that they shouted Encore !
And the God was so pleas'd with his taste and his tone,
He obey'd the next call, and gave one of his own,
At which you'd have thought,-(“twas so witching a warble)
The guests had all turn'd into listening marble ;
The wreaths on their temples grew brighter of bloom,
As the breath of the Deity circled the room ;
And the wine in the glasses went rippling in rounds, , **
As if followd and fånn'd by the soft-winged sounds. ,.5

Thus chatting and singing they sat till eleven, .!
When Phoebus shook hands, and departed for heaven ;
• For poets," he said, “who would cherish their powers,"
And hop'd to be deathless, must keep to good hours.???:

So off he betook him the way that he came,
And shot up the north, like an arrow of flame;
For the Bear was his inn ; and the comet, they say,
Was his tandem in waiting to fetch him away.

The others then parted, all highly delighted;
And so shall I be, when you find me invited.

NOTES

ON THE

FEAST OF THE POETS.

* I think,let me see-yes, it is, I declare,

As long ago now as that Buckingham there. SHEFFIELD, Duke of Buckinghamshire, one of the licentious dabblers in wit, who were educated in the court of Charles the Second. It would have appeared a great piece of insolence to this flimsy personage, who in a posthumous edition of his works is recommended to the care of “Time, Truth, and Posterity," to be told, that at the distance of a hundred years, it would be nécessary to say who he was. His Grace, it is true, by favour of long standing, and of the carelessness or ignorance of compilers, still keeps his place in those strange medleys of good and bad, called collections of the English Poets; but very few persons know any thing of him; and they who do, will hardly object to the tone of contempt with which Apollo speaks of a grave coxcomb, who affected to care nothing for the honours of either literatụre or the world, when he was evidently ambitious of both. In his election of a Poet Laureat, where Pope, Prior, and others, are among the candidates, he thus modestly introduces himself:

When Buckingham came, he scarce car'd to be seen,
Till Phæbus desir'd his old friend to walk in;
But a laureat peer had never been known,
The commoners claim'd that place as their own.

Yet if the kind God had been ne'er so inclined

To break an old rule, yet he well knew his mind, • Who of such preferment would only make sport,

And laugh'd at all suitors for places at court.

I may here, by the way, take notice of a strange piece of carelessness, which has escaped Mr. Walter Scott in his edition of Dryden, and which, unless he had made eighteen volumes of it; might be construed