ENGLISH BARDS ANDToo much in turtle Bristol’s sons delight,
Too much o'er bowls of rack prolong the night 1If Commerce tills the purse, she clogs the braiu,And Amos Cottle strikes the lyre in vain.
In him an author's luckless lot behold,
Condemn'd to make the books which once he sold.Oh, Amos Cottle \ —Phcebus! what a name.
To fill the speaking trump of future fame !
Oh, Amos Cottle! for a moment thinkWhat meagre profits spring from pen and ink!When thus devoted to poetic dreams,
Who will peruse thy prostituted reams ?
Oh. pen perverted! paper misapplied!
Had Cottle still adorn’d the counter’s side,* * * §
Bent o’er the desk, or, born to useful toils,
Been taught to make the paper which he soils,Plough’d, delved, or plied the oar with lusty limb,He had not sung of Wales , nor I of him.
As Sisyphus against the infernal steepHolla the huge rock, whose motions no'er maysleep,
So up thy hill, ambrosial Richmond! heavesHull Maurice all his granite weight of leaves :fSmooth, solid monuments of mental pain!
The petrifactions of a plodding brain,
That ere they roach the top fall lumbering backagain.
With broken lyre, and cheek serenely pale,
Lo! sad Alcceus wanders down the vale;
Though fair they rose, and might have bloom’d atlast,
His hopes have perish’d by the northern blast:h’ipp'd in the bud by Caledonian gales,llis blossoms wither as the blast prevails!
O'er his lost works let classic Sheffield weep:
May no rude hand disturb their early sleep \%
Yet, say! why should the bard at once resignIlis claim to favour from the sacred Nino ?
For ever startled by the mingled howlOf northern wolves, that still in darkness prowl;
A. coward brood, which mangle as they prey,
By hellish instinct, all that cross their way;
Aged or young, the living or the dead,
No mercy find—these harpies must bo fed.
Why do the injured unresisting yieldThe calm possession of their native Held?
Why tamely thus beforo their fangs retreat,
Nor hunt tho bloodhounds back to ArthursSeat ?§
SCOTCH REVIEWERS. 1™
Health to immortal Jeffrey! once, in name,England could boast a judge almost the same;
In soul so like, so merciful, yet just,
Some think that Satan has resign’d his trust,
And given the spirit to the world again,
To sentence letters, as he sentenced men.
With hand less mighty, but with heart as black,With voice as willing to decree the rack;
Bred in the courts betimes, though all that law’
As yet hath taught him is to find a flaw.
Since well instructed in the patriot schoolTo rail at party, though a party tool,
Who knows, if chance his patrons should restoreBack to the sway they forfeited before,
His scribbling toils some recompense may meet,And raise this Daniel to the judgment-seatJ.,e5 Jeffries’ shade indulge the pious hope,
And greeting thus, present him with a rope:
“ Heir to my virtues! man of equal mind!
Skill’d to condemn as to traduce mankind.
This cord receive, for thee reserved with care.
To wield in judgment, and at length to wear.”
Health to great Jeffroy! Heaven preserve hislife,
To flourish ou the fertile shores of Fife,
And guard it sacred in its future wars.
Since authors sometimes seek the field of Mars !Can none remember that eventful day,
That ever glorious, almost fatal fray,
When Little's leadless pistol met his eye,
Aud Bow’ Street myrmidons stood laughing by ?‘|Oh, day disastrous! on her firm-set rock,
Dunedin’s castle felt a secret shock :
Dark roll’d the sympathetic w’aves of Forth,
Low groan’d tho startled w’hirhvinds of the north;Tweed ruffled half his waves to form a tear,
The other half pursued its calm career;^
Arthur’s steep summit nodded to its base,
The surly Tolbooth scarcely kept her place ;
The Tolbooth felt—for marble sometimes cau,
Ou such occasions, feel as much as man—
The Tolbooth felt defrauded of his charms,
If Jeffrey died, except within her amis :**
Nay, last, not least, on that portentous morn,
The sixteenth story where himself was born,
Ilis patrimonial garret, fell to ground.
Aud pale Edina shudder’d at the sound:
Strew'd were the streets around with milk-whitoreams,
Flow’d all tho Canongato with inky streams :
* Mr. Cottle, Amos, Joseph, I don’t know which, but ono or both, once sellers of books tboy did notand now writers of books that do not sell, have published a pair of epics. “ Alfred” (poor Alfred!‘Ve has been at him too!) “Alfred ” and the *• Fall of Cambria.”
t Mr. Maurice hath manufactured tho component parts of a ponderous quarto, upon the ' Beauties ofRichmond Ilill.” and the like;—it also takes in a charming view of Turuham Groen, Hammersmith ,Brentford, Old and New, and the parts adjacent . m j ^ t. .
t Poor Montgomery! though praised by every English review’, has been bitterly reviled by the Edin burgh . After all. the bard of Sheffield is a man of considerable genius; his ik Wanderer of Switzer-land” is worth a thousand ‘'Lyrical Ballads,” and at least fifty " degraded epics."
§ Arthur's Seat; the hill which overhangs Edinburgh .
i In 1800. Messrs. Jeffrey and Moore met at Chalk Farm. The duel was prevented by the interference°f the magistracy; aud, on examination, the balls of the pistols, like the courage of the combatants, weroluund to have evaporated. This incident gave occasion to much waggery in tho daily prints.
IT The Tweed here behaved with proper decorum: it would have been highly reprehensible in thoEnglish half of tho river to have shown the smallest symptom of approhension.
** This display of sympathy on the part of the Tolbooth (the principal prison in Edinburgh ), whichJfuly seems to have been most affected on this occasion, is much to be commended. It was to be appre-hended, that the many unhappy criminals executed in the front might have rendered the edifice 11101*6callous. She is said to be of the softer sex, because her delicacy of feeling on this day was truly feminine,though, like most feminine impulses, perhaps a little selfish.