The babe unborn thy dread intent may rue: "God help thee" SOUTHEY, and thy readers too.*

Next comes the dull disciple of thy school,
That mild apostate from poetic rule,

The simple WORDSWORTH, framer of a lay
As soft as evening in his favourite May,

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Who warns his friend "to shake off toil and trouble, And quit his books for fear of growing double ;"+

* The last line, "God help thee," is an evident plagiarism from the Anti-jacobin to Mr. SOUTHEY, on his Dactylics:

"God help thee silly one."-Poetry of the Anti-jacobin, page 23.

+ Lyrical Ballads, page 4.- "The tables turned."

Stanza 1.

"Up, up my friend, and clear your looks,

"Why all this toil and trouble?

"Up, up my friend, and quit your books,

"Or surely you'll grow double.”

Who, both by precept and example, shows
That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose,
Convincing all by demonstration plain,

Poetic souls delight in prose insane;

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And Christmas stories tortur'd into rhyme,
Contain the essence of the true sublime:
Thus when he tells the tale of Betty Foy,
The idiot mother of " an idiot Boy";
A moon-struck silly lad who lost his way,
And, like his bard, confounded night with day,*

Mr. W. in his preface labours hard to prove that prose and verse are much the same, and certainly his precepts and practice are strictly conformable.

"And thus to Betty's question he
"Made answer, like a traveller bold,
"The cock did crow to-whoo, to-whoo,
"And the sun did shine so cold, &c. &c."

Lyrical Ballads, page 129.

So close on each pathetic part he dwells,
And each adventure so sublimely tells,
That all who view the "idiot in his glory,"
Conceive the Bard the hero of the story.

Shall gentle COLERIDGE pass unnotic'd here,
To turgid ode, and tumid stanza dear?

Though themes of innocence amuse him best,
Yet still obscurity's a welcome guest.
If inspiration should her aid refuse,
To him who takes a Pixy for a Muse,*
Yet none in lofty numbers can surpass
The bard who soars to elegize an ass.
How well the subject suits his noble mind!

"A fellow feeling makes us wond'rous kind."

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* COLERIDGE'S Poems, page 11. Songs of the Pixies, i. e. Devonshire Faries, page 42, we have "Lines to a Young Lady," and page 52, "Lines to a Young Ass."

C

Oh! wonder-working Lewis! Monk, or Bard,
Who fain wouldst make Parnassus a church-yard! 150
Lo! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy brow,
Thy Muse a Sprite, Apollo's sexton thou!
Whether on ancient tombs thou tak'st thy stand,
By gibbering spectres hail'd, thy kindred band;
Or tracest chaste descriptions on thy page,
To please the females of our modest age,
All hail, M. P.!* from whose infernal brain

Thin sheeted phantoms glide, a grisly train;
At whose command, "grim women" throng in crouds,
And kings of fire, of water, and of clouds,

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With small grey men," "wild yagers,”and what-not,
To crown with honour, thee, and WALTER SCOTT:
Again all hail! if tales like thine may please,
St. Luke alone can vanquish the disease;

* "For every one knows little Matt's an M. P."—See a Poem to Mr. LEWIS, in THE STATESMAN, supposed to be written by Mr. JEKYLL.

Even Satan's self with thee might dread to dwell,
And in thy skull discern a deeper hell.

Who in soft guise, surrounded by a choir Of virgins melting, not to Vesta's fire,

With sparkling eyes, and cheek by passion flush'd, Strikes his wild Lyre, whilst listening dames are

hush'd?

'Tis LITTLE! young Catullus of his day,

As sweet, but as immoral in his lay!

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Griev'd to condemn, the Muse must still be just, Nor spare melodious advocates of lust.

Pure is the flame which o'er her altar burns;

From grosser incense with disgust she turns:

Yet, kind to youth, this expiation o'er,

She bids thee, "mend thy line and sin no more."

For thee, translator of the tinsel song, To whom such glittering ornaments belong,

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