Oh! as I trace again thy winding hill,
Mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still.-

"Hours of Idleness.

With those who, scatter'd far, perchance deplore,
Like me, the happy scenes they knew before:
Oh! as I trace again thy winding hill,

Mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still,
Thou drooping elm! beneath whose boughs I lay,
And frequent mused the twilight hours away;
Where, as they once were wont, my limbs recline,
But ah! without the thoughts which then were mine:
How do thy branches, moaning to the blast,
Invite the bosom to recall the past,

And seem to whisper, as they gently swell,
"Take, while thou canst, a lingering, last farewell!"

When fate shall chill, at length, this fever'd breast,
And calm its cares and passions into rest,
Oft have I thought, 'twould soothe my dying hour,-
If aught may soothe when life resigns her power,-
To know some humbler grave, some narrow cell,
Would hide my bosom where it loved to dwell.
With this fond dream, methinks, 'twere sweet to die-
And here it linger'd, here my heart might lie;
Here might I sleep, where all my hopes arose ;
Scene of my youth, and couch of my repose;
For ever stretch'd beneath this mantling shade,
Press'd by the turf where once my childhood play'd;
Wrapt by the soil that veils the spot I loved,

Mix'd with the earth o'er which my footsteps moved;
Blest by the tongues that charm'd my youthful ear,
Mourn'd by the few my soul acknowledged here;
Deplored by those in early days allied,
And unremember'd by the world beside.

September 2nd, 1807.

LINES INSCRIBED UPON A CUP FORMED FROM A

SKULL.

START not-nor deem my spirit fled:

In me behold the only skull
From which, unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.

I lived, I loved, I quaff'd, like thee:
I died let earth my bones resign:

Fill up-thou canst not injure me;
The worm hath fouler lips than thine.

Better to hold the sparkling grape,

Than nurse the earth-worm's slimy brood;

And circle in the goblet's shape

The drink of gods, than reptile's food.

Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others' let me shine;

And when, alas! our brains are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine?

Quaff while thou canst: another race,
When thou and thine, like me, are sped,
May rescue thee from earth's embrace,
And rhyme and revel with the dead.

Why not-since through life's little day
Our heads such sad effects produce?
Redeem'd from worms and wasting clay,
This chance is theirs, to be of use.

Newstead Abbey, 1808.

ON REVISITING HARROW.*

HERE once engaged the stranger's view,
Young Friendship's record simply traced;
Few were her words, but yet, though few,
Resentment's hand the line defaced.

Deeply she cut-but not erased,

The characters were still so plain,

That Friendship once return'd, and gazed,—
Till Memory hail'd the words again.

Repentance placed them as before;
Forgiveness join'd her gentle name;
So fair the inscription seem'd once more,
That Friendship thought it still the same.

Thus might the record now have been:
But, ah! in spite of Hope's endeavour,
Or Friendship's tears, Pride rush'd between,
And blotted out the line for ever.†

These lines were suggested by finding the names of himself and a friend, which had been cut as a memorial, erased by that friend on account of some offence taken.

"The recording angel dropp'd a tear upon the word as he wrote it, and blotted it out for ever."-Sterne's Story of Lefevre.

ENGLISH BARDS

AND

SCOTCH REVIEWERS:

A SATIRE.

'I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew!

Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers."-SHAKSPEARE.
"Such shameless bards we have; and yet 'tis true,
There are as mad, abandon'd critics too."-Porn

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

ALL my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged me not to publish this satire with my name. If I were to be "turn'd from the career of my humour by quibbles quick, and paper bullets of the brain," I should have complied with their counsel; but I am not to be terrified by abuse, or bullied by reviewers, with or without arms. I can safely say that I have attacked none personally who did not commence on the offensive. An author's works are public property: he who purchases may judge, and publish his opinion if he pleases; and the authors I have endeavoured to commemorate may do by me as I have done by them: I dare say they will succeed better in condemning my scribblings, than in mending their own. But my object is not to prove that I can write well, but, if possible, to make others write better.

As the poem has met with far more success than I expected, I have endeavoured in this edition to make some additions and alterations to render it more worthy of public perusal.

In the first edition of this satire, published anonymously, fourteen lines on the subject of Bowles's Pope were written and inserted at the request of an ingenious friend of mine, who has now in the press a volume of poetry. In the present edition they are erased, and some of my own substituted in their stead; my only reason for this being, that, which I conceive would operate with any other person in the same manner-a determination not to publish with my name any production which was not entirely and exclusively my own composition.

With regard to the real talents of many of the poetical persons whose performances are mentioned, or alluded to, in the following pages, it is presumed by the author that there can be little difference of opinion in the public at large; though, like other sectaries, each has his separate tabernacle of proselytes, by whom his abilities are overrated, his faults overlooked, and his metrical canons received without scruple and without consideration. But the unquestionable possession of considerable genius by several of the writers here censured, renders their mental prostitution more to be regretted. Imbecility may be pitied, or, at worst, laughed at and forgotten; perverted powers demand the most decided reprehension. No one can wish more than the author that some known and able writer had undertaken their exposure; but Mr. Gifford has devoted himself to Massinger, and in the absence of the regular physician, a country practi