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But now so callous grown, so changed since youth,
I've learned to think, and sternely speak the truth;
Learned to deride the critic's starch decree,
And break him on the wheel he meant for me;
To 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, armed 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 wronged these righteous times, let others say:
This, let the world, which knows not how to spare,
Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare.

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POSTSCRIPT.

I HAVE been informed, since the present edition went to

the press, that my trusty and well beloved cousins, the Edinburgh Reviewers, are preparing a most vehement critique on my poor, gentle, unresisting Muse, whom they have already so bedeviled with their ungodly ribaldry.

"Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ !"

I suppose I must say of JEFFREY as Sir ANTHONY AGUECHEEK saith: "An I had known he was so cunning of fence, I had seen him damned ere I had fought him." What a pity it is that I shall be beyond the Bosphorus be fore the next number has passed the Tweed. But I yet hope to light my pipe with it in Persia.

My northern friends have accused me with justice, of personality towards their great literary Anthropophagus, JEFFREY; but what else was to be done with him and his dir ty pack, who feed by "lying and slandering," and slake their thirst by "evil speaking?" I have adduced facts alrea dy 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 these 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. 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 ycleped HEWSON CLARKE (subaudi, Esquire) a sizer of Emmanuel 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 ac customed to meet: he is, notwithstanding, a very sad dog, and for no reason that I can discover, except a personal quarrel with a bear, kept by me at Cambridge to sit for a fellowship, and whom the jealousy of his Trinity contemporaries 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 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 bis 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."

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NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

"Expende Annibalem :-quot libras in duce summo

"Invenies?1

JUVENAL, Sat. X.

'TIS done-but yesterday a King!

And arm'd with kings to striveAnd now thou art a nameless thing So abject-yet alive!

Is this the man of thousand thrones,

Who strew'd our earth with hostile bones,

And can he thus survive?

Since he, miscall'd the Morning Star,

Nor man, nor fiend, hath fall'n so far.

II.

Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind
Who bow'd so low the knee?

By gazing on thyself grown blind,
Thou taught'st the rest to see.

With might unquestion'd,-power to save→→
Thine only gift hath been the grave

To those that worshipp'd thee;

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