P. With 'Squire Jerningham descend To pastry cooks and moths," and there an end!" And cry," For heaven's sweet sake, no more, no O thou, who deign'st this homely scene to share, more !" Thou know'st, when chance (though this indeed be

And Holcroft's Shug-lane cant,* and Merry's Moor- That e'en the guilty at their sufferings smile, fields whine ?t

Skill'd in one useful science, at the least,

The great man comes and spreads a sumptuous
feast:

Then, when his guests behold the prize at stake,
And thirst and hunger only are awake,

My friends, he cries, what think the galleries, pray,
And what the boxes, of my last new play?
Speak freely-tell me all ;-come, be sincere ;
For truth, you know, is music to my ear.
They speak! alas, they cannot. But shall I ?
I, who receive no bribe? who dare not lie?
This, then :-"That worse was never writ before,
Nor worse will be, till-thou shalt write once more."
Bless'd be "two-headed Janus!" though inclined,
No waggish stork can peck at him behind;
He no wry mouth, no lolling tongue can fear,
Nor the brisk twinkling of an ass's ear:

But you, ye St. Johns, cursed with one poor head,
Alas! what mockeries have not ye to dread!
Hear now our guests.-The critics, sir! they cry-
Merit like yours the critics may defy:
But this, indeed, they say, "Your varied rhymes,
At once the boast and envy of the times,
In every page, song, sonnet, what you will,
Show boundless genius and unrivall❜d skill.
"If comedy be yours, the searching strain
Blends such sweet pleasure with corrective pain,

*And Holcroft's Shug-lane cant. This is a poor stupid wretch, to whom infidelity and disloyalty have given a momentary notoriety, which has imposed upon the oscitancy of the managers, and opened the theatre to two or three of his grovelling and senseless productions.

And bless the lancet, though they bleed the

while.

If tragedy, th' impassion'd numbers flow,
In all the sad variety of wo,

With such a liquid lapse, that they betray
The breast unwares, and steal the soul away.'
Thus fool'd, the moon-struck tribe, whose best

essays

Sunk in acrostics, riddles, roundelays,
To loftier labours now pretend a call,
And bustle in heroics, one and all.
*E'en Bertie burns of gods and chiefs to sing-
Bertie, who lately twitter'd to the string
His namby-pamby madrigals of love,
In the dark dingles of a glittering grove,
Where airy lays,† woven by the hand of morn,
Were hung to dry upon a cobweb thorn!

Happy the soil, where bards like mushrooms

rise,

And ask no culture but what Byshe supplies!
Happier the bards, who, write whate'er they will,
Find gentle readers to admire them still!

Some love the verse that like Maria's flows,
No rubs to stagger, and no sense to pose;
Which read, and read, you raise your eyes in doubt,
And gravely wonder-what it is about.
These fancy" BELL'S POETICS" only sweet,
And intercept his hawkers in the street;
There, smoking hot, inhale MIT YENDA'st strains,
And the rank fame of TONY PASQUIN's brains.

* E'en Bertie, &c.-For Bertie, (Greathead, I think they call him,) see the Mæviad.

+ Where airy lays, &c.

"Was it the shuttle of the morn

That hung upon the cobweb'd thorn

Thy airy lay? Or did it rise,
In thousand rich enamell'd dyes,
To greet the noonday sun ?" &c.

Will future ages believe that this facetious triumvirate should think nothing more to be necessary to the construction of a play, than an eternal repetition of some contemptible vulgarity, such as "That's your sort!" "Hey, damme !" "What's to pay ?" "Keep moving!" &c. 799 They will; for they will have blockheads of their own, who will found their claims to celebrity on similar follies. What, however, they will never credit is, that these dri--Album, vol. ii. vellings of idiotism, these catchwords, should actually preserve their respective authors from being hooted off the stage. No, they will not believe that an English audience could be so besotted, so brutified, as to receive such senseless exclamations with bursts of laughter, with peals of applause. I cannot believe it myself, though I have witnessed it. Haud credo-if I may reverse the good father's position-haud credo, quia possibile est. + Merry's Moorfields whine.-In a most wretched rhapsody of incomprehensible nonsense, addressed by this gentleman to Mrs. Robinson, which she, in her valuable poems, (page 100,) calls a charming composition, abounding in lines of exquisite beauty, is the following rant:

Conjure up demons from the main,
Storms upon storms indignant heap,
Bid ocean howl, and nature weep,

Till the Creator blush to see

How horrible his world can be:
While I will glory to blaspheme,
And make the joys of hell my theme."

MIT YENDA. This is Mr. Tim, alias Mr. Timothy Adney, a most pertinacious gentleman, who makes a conspicuous figure in the daily papers under the ingenious signature above cited; it being, as the reader already sees, his own name read backward. "Gentle dulness ever loves a joke!"

Of his prodigious labours I have nothing by me but the following stanza, taken from what he calls his Poor Man:

Reward the bounty of your generous hand,
Your head each night in comfort shall be laid,
And plenty smile throughout your fertile land,
While I do hasten to the silent grace."

"Good morrow, my worthy masters and mistresses all, and a merry Christmas to you!"

I have been guilty of a misnomer. Mr. Adney has politely informed me, since the above was written, that his Christian name is not Timothy, but Thomas. The anagram in question, therefore, must be MOT YENDA, omit. ting the H, euphonia gratia. I am happy in an opportunity of doing justice to so correct a gentleman, and I pray

The reader, perhaps, wonders what dreadful event gave
birth to these fearful imprecations. As far as I can col-him to continue his valuable lucubrations.
leet from the poem, it was the momentary refusal of the
aforesaid Mrs. Robinson-to open her eyes! Surely, it is
most devoutly to be wished that these poor creatures
would recollect, amidst their frigid ravings and common-
place extravagances, that excellent maxim of POPE-
"Persist, by nature, reason, taste unawed;
But learn, ye dunces, not to scorn your God."

§ TONY PASQUIN.-I have too much respect for my reader, to affront him with any specimens of this man's poetry, at once licentious and dull beyond example: at the same time I cannot resist the temptation of presenting him with the following stanzas, written by a friend of mine, and sufficiently illustrative of the character in question:

Others, like Kemble, on black-letter pore,
And what they do not understand, adore ;
Buy at vast sums the trash of ancient days,
And draw on prodigality for praise.
These, when some lucky hit, or lucky price,

Has bless'd them with "The Boke of gode Advice,"
For ekes and algates only deign to seek,
And live upon a whilome for a week.

There Fezzan's thrum-capp'd tribes, Turks, Chris-
tians, Jews,

Accommodate, ye gods! their feet with shoes;
There meager shrubs inveterate mountains grace,
And brushwood breaks the amplitude of space.
Perplex'd with terms so vague and undefined,
I blunder on; till 'wilder'd, giddy, blind,
Where'er I turn, on clouds I seem to tread;

And can we, when such mope-eyed dolts are And call for Mandeville, to ease my head.
placed

By thoughtless fashion on the throne of taste-
Say, can we wonder whence such jargon flows,
This motley fustian, neither verse nor prose,
This old, new language which defiles our page,
The refuse and the scum of every age?

Lo! Beaufoy tells of Afric's barren sand,
In all the flowery phrase of fairy land :

TO ANTHONY PASQUIN, ESQ.
"Why dost thou tack, most simple Anthony,
The name of Pasquin to thy ribald strains?
Is it a fetch of wit, to let us see,

O for the good old times! WHEN all was new,
And every hour brought prodigies to view,
Our sires in unaffected language told
Of streams of amber, and of rocks of gold;
Full of their theme, they spurn'd all idle art;
And the plain tale was trusted to the heart.
Now all is changed! We fume and fret, poor elves,
Less to display our subject than ourselves.
Whate'er we paint-a grot, a flower, a bird,
Heavens, how we sweat! laboriously absurd!
Words of gigantic bulk, and uncouth sound,
In rattling triads the long sentence bound;
While points with points, with periods periods jar,
And the whole work seems one continued war!

Thou, like that statue, art devoid of brains? "But thou mistakest: for know, though Pasquin's head Is not THIS sad?

Be full as hard, and near as thick as thine,
Yet has the world, admiring, on it read

Many a keen gibe, and many a sportive line.
"While nothing from thy jobbernowl can spring
But impudence and filth; for out, alas!
Do what we will, 'tis still the same vile thing,
Within, all brick-dust-and without, all brass.
Then blot the name of Pasquin from thy page:
Thou seest it will not thy poor riff-raff sell.
Some other would'st thou take? I dare engage
John Williams, or Tom Fool, will do as well."
TONY has taken my friend's advice, and now sells, or
attempts to sell, his "riff-raff" under the name of JOHN
WILLIAMS.

It has been represented to me, that I should do well to avoid all mention of this man, from a consideration, that one so lost to every sense of decency and shame was a fitter object for the beadle than the muse. This has induced me to lay aside a second castigation which I had prepared for him, though I do not think it expedient to omit what I had formerly written.

Here on the rack of satire let him lie,

Fit garbage for the hell-hound infamy.

F. "Tis pitiful, heaven knows 'Tis wondrous pitiful." E'en take the prose; But for the poetry-O, that, my friend,

I still aspire-nay, smile not-to defend.

You praise our sires, but, though they wrote with
force,

Their rhymes were vicious, and their diction coarse
We want their strength: agreed; but we atone
For that, and more, by sweetness ALL OUR OWN.
For instance- Hasten to the lawny vale,
Where yellow morning breathes her saffron gale,
And bathes the landscape-"

P. Pshaw; I have it here.
A voice seraphic grasps my listening ear;
Wondering I gaze; when lo! methought afar,
More bright than dauntless day's imperial star,
A godlike form advances."
F. You suppose
These lines, perhaps, too turgid; what of those
"THE MIGHTY MOTHER"
P. Now 'tis plain you sneer,

of water, to the long ascent of the broad rock of Gerdobas, (p. 289,) from whose inflexible barrenness little is to be got-from this scene, I say, of gladsome contrast to the inveterate mountains of Gegogib, &c.

One word more. I am told that there are men so weak For Weston'st self could find no semblance here : as to deprecate this miserable object's abuse, and so vain, so despicably vain, as to tolerate his praise-for such I have nothing but pity;-though the fate of Hastings, see the "Pin-basket to the Children of Thespis," holds out a dreadful lesson to the latter:-but should there be a man or a woman, however high in rank, base enough to purchase the venal pen of this miscreant for the sake of traducing innocence and virtue, then I was about to threaten, but 'tis not necessary: the profligate cowards who employ Anthony can know no severer punishment than the support of a man whose acquaintance is infamy, and whose touch is poison.

* Lo! Beaufoy, &c.-"The feet are accommodated with shoes, and the head is protected by a-woollen night-cap." -AFRICAN ASSOCIATION, p. 139.

"From this scene of gladsome contrast, i. e. from the mountain of Zilau, (p. 288,) whose rugged sides are marked with scanty spots of brushwood, and enriched with stores

1 Shoes. By your leave, master crític, here is a small oversight in your

quotation. The gentleman does not say their feet are accommodated with

shoes, but with slippers. For the rest, accommodate, as I learn, is a

scholar-like word, and a word of exceeding great propriety. "Accommo date! it comes from accomodo: that is, when a man's feet are, as they say, 'accommodated, or when they are-being whereby they may be thought to be accommodated: which is an excellent thing "-Printer's Devil.

"In the long course of a seven days' passage, the traveller is scarcely sensible that a few spots of thin and meager brushwood slightly interrupt the vast expanse of sterility, and diminish the amplitude of desolation !!!"

* Hasten, &c. This and the following quotation are taken from the "Laurel of Liberty," a work on which the great author most justly rests his claim to immortality. See p. 167.

+ Weston. This indefatigable gentleman has been

long employed in attacking the moral character of Pope in the Gentleman's Magazine, with all the virulence of Gildon, all the impudence of Smedley, and all the ignorance of Curl and his associates.

What the views of the bland Sylvanus may be, in standing cap in hand, and complacently holding open the door of the temple, for nearly two years, to this "execrable"

1 Such is the epithet applied to Pope by the "virtuous indignation” of this "amiable" traducer of worth and genius!

Weston, who slunk from truth's imperious light,
Sweils, like a filthy toad, with secret spite,
And, envying the fame he cannot hope,
Spits his black venom at the dust of Pope.
-Reptile accursed!--O memorable long,
If there be force in virtue or in song,
O injured bard! accept the grateful strain,
Which I, the humblest of the tuneful train,
With glowing heart, yet trembling hand, repay
For many a pensive, many a sprightly lay!
So may thy varied verse, from age to age,
Inform the simple, and delight the sage;
While canker'd Weston, and his loathsome rhymes,
Stink in the nose of all succeeding times!
Enough. But where, (for these, you seem to say,
Are samples of the high, heroic lay,)
Where are the soft, the tender strains, which call
For the moist eye, bow'd head, and lengthen'd
drawl?

Lo! here- Canst thou, Matilda, urge my fate,
And bid me mourn thee? yes, and mourn too late!
O rash, severe decree! my maddening brain
Cannot the ponderous agony sustain ;
But forth I rush, from vale to mountain run,
And with my mind's thick gloom obscure

sun."

Heavens! if our ancient vigour were not fled,
Could VERSE like this be written? or be read?
VERSE! THAT's the mellow fruit of toil intense,
Inspired by genius, and inform'd by sense;
THIS, the abortive progeny of pride,
And dulness, gentle pair, for aye allied;
Begotten without thought, born without pains,
The ropy drivel of rheumatic brains.

F. So let it be; and yet, methinks, my friend,
Silence were wise, where satire will not mend.
Why wound the feelings of our noble youth,
They cherish Arno* and his flux of song,
And grate their tender ears with odious truth?
And hate the man who tells 'em they are wrong.
Your fate already I foresee. My lord,
With cold respect, will freeze you from his board;
Hence! we desire no currish critic here."
And his grace cry," Hence with that sapient sneer!

P. Enough. Thank heaven! my error now I see,
And all shall be divine, henceforth, for me:

*Of the talents of this spes altera Roma, this second hope of the age, the following stanzas will afford a sufficient specimen. They are taken from a ballad which the Mr. Bell, an admirable judge of these matters, calls a very mellifluous one; easy, artless, and unaffected." "Gently o'er the rising billows

Erostratus, I know not. He cannot surely be weak enough to suppose that an obscure scribbler like this has any charges to bring against our great poet, which escaped the vigilant malevolence of the Westons of the Dunciad. Or if ever, from the "natural goodness of his beart," he cherished so laudable a supposition, he ought (whatever it may cost him) to forego it: when, after twenty months' preparation, nothing is produced but an exploded accusation taken from the most common edition of the Dunciad!

Softly steals the bird of night,
Rustling through the bending willows:
Fluttering pinions mark her flight.
"Whither now in silence bending,

Ruthless winds deny thee rest :
Chilling night-deuns fast descending,
Glisten on thy downy breast.
"Seeking some kind hand to guide thee,
Wistful turns thy fearful eye;
Trembling as the willows hide thee,

Shelter'd from th' inclement sky,"

The story of this poor owl, who was at one and the same time at sea and on land, silent and noisy, sheltered and

It has been suggested to me, that this nightman of literature designs to reprint as much as can be collected of the heroes of the Dunciad.-If it be so, the dirty work of traducing Pope may be previously necessary; and pre-exposed, is continued through a few more of these "mellijudice itself must own, that he has shown uncommon penetration in the selection of the blind and outrageous mercenary now so laboriously employed in it.

Whatever be the design, the proceedings are by no means inconsistent with the plan of a work which may not unaptly be styled the charnel-house of reputation, and which, from the days of Lauder to the present, has delighted to aspers? every thing venerable among us-which accused Swift of lust, and Addison of drunkenness! which insulted the ashes of Toup while they were yet warm, and gibbeted poor Henderson alive: which affect ed to idolize the great and good Howard, while idolatry was painful to him: and the moment he fell, gloriously fell, in the exercise of the most sublime virtue, attempted to stigmatize him as a brute and a monster!

*Canst thou, Matilda, &c. vide Album, vol. ii.-Matilda! "Nay then, I'll never trust a madman again." It was but a few minutes since, that Mr. Merry died for the love of Laura Maria; and now is he about to do the same thing for the love of Anna Matilda?

What the ladies may say to such a swain, I know not; but certainly he is too prone to run wild, die, &c. &c. Such, indeed, is the combustible nature of this gentleman, that he takes fire at every female signature in the and I remember, that when Olaudo Equiano, who, for a papers; olack, is not ill-featured, tried his hand at a soft sonnet, and by mistake subscribed it Olauda, Mr. Merry fell so desperately in love with him, and "yelled out such syllables of dolour" in consequence of it, that the pitiful-hearted negro was frightened at the mischief he had done, and transmitted in all haste the following correction to the editor-For Olaud A, please to read Olaud0, the black "MAN."

fluous" stanzas, which the reader, I doubt not, will readily forgive me for omitting; more especially if he reads the ORACLE, a paper honoured-as the grateful editor very properly has it-by the effusions of this "artless" gentle

man above all others.

N.B. On Doking again, I find the owl to be a nightingale!-N'importe.

It was said of Theophilus Cibber, (I think by Goldsmith,) that as he grew older, he grow never the better. Much the same (mutatis mutandis) may be said of the gentlemen of the Baviad. After an interval of two years, I find the "mellifluous" ARNO celebrating Mrs. Robinson's novel in strains like these.

"For the Oracle.

SONNET TO MRS. ROBINSON,

Upon reading her VANCENZA.

"What never-ceasing music! From the throne
Where sweetest Sensibility enshrined,
Pours out her tender triumphs, all alone,

To every murmuring breeze of passing wind!
"O, bless'd with all the lovely lapse of song,
That bathes with purest balm the soften'd breast,
I see thee urge thy fancy's course along
The solemn glooms of Gothic piles unbless'd.
"Vancenza rises-o'er her time-touch'd spires
Guill unreveal'd hovers with killing dew,
Frustrates the fondness of the Virgin's fires,
And bares the murderous casket to her view.
"The thrilling pulse creeps back upon each heart,
And horror lords it by thy fascinating art."-Arno.
Et vitula Tu dignus, et Hæc! The novel is worthy of the
poetry, the poetry of the novel.

Yes, Andrews' doggrel, Greathead's idiot line,
And Morton's catchword, all, forsooth, divine!
F. "Tis well. Here let th' indignant stricture
cease,

And LEEDS at length enjoy his fool in peace.

P. Come then, around their works a circle
draw,

And near it plant the dragons of the law,
With labels writ," Critics, far hence remove,
Nor dare to censure what the great approve."
I go. Yet Hall could lash with noble rage
The purblind patron of a former age;
And laugh to scorn th' eternal sonneteer,
Who made goose pinions and white rags so dear.
Yet Oldham, in his rude, unpolish'd strain,
Could hiss the clamorous, and deride the vain,
Who bawl'd their rhymes incessant through the

Prudence, my
friend.
P. What! not deride? not laugh?
Well! thought at least is free-

F. O yet forbear.
P. Nay, then, I'll dig a pit, and bury there
The dreadful truth which so alarms thy fears:
THE TOWN, THE TOWN, GOOD PIT, HAS ASSES'
EARS!

Thou think'st, perhaps, this wayward fancy strange;
So think thou still yet would not I exchange
The secret humour of this simple hit
For all the Albums that were ever writ.
Of this, no more.-O THOU, (if yet there be
One bosom from this vile infection free,)
THOU who canst thrill with joy, or glow with ire,
As the great masters of the song inspire,
Canst bend enraptured o'er the magic page,
Where desperate ladies desperate lords engage,
Gnomes, sylphs, and gods the fierce contention

share,

And heaven and earth hang trembling on a hair:
Canst quake with horror, while Emilia's charms,
Against a brother point a brother's arms;
And trace the fortune of the varying fray,
While hour on hour flits unperceived away-
Approach: 'twixt hope and fear I wait. O deign
To cast a glance on this incondite strain:
Here, if thou find one thought but well express'd,
One sentence higher finish'd than the rest,
Such as may win thee to proceed a while,
And smooth thy forehead with a gracious smile
I ask no more, but far from me the throng
Who fancy fire in Laura's vapid song ;

Who Anna's bedlam rant for sense can take,
And over* Edwin's mewlings keep awake;

* Edwin's mewlings, &c.-We come now to a character of high respect, the profound Mr. T. Vaughan, who, under the alluring signature of Edwin, favours us from time to time with a melancholy poem on the death of a bug, the flight of an earwig, the miscarriage of a cockchaffer, or some other event of equal importance.

His last work was an Emiraptov, (blessings on his learning!) which, I take for granted, means an epitaph, on a mouse that broke her heart: and, as it was a matter of great consequence, he very properly made the introduction as long as the poem itself. Hear how gravely he prologiseth.

"On a tame mouse, which belonged to a lady who saved its life, constantly fed it, and even wept, (poor lady !) at its approaching death. The mouse's eyes actually dropped out of its head (poor mouse!) THE DAY BEFORE IT DIED."

Επιτάφιον.

"This feeling mouse, whose heart was warm'd
By pity's purest ray,

Because her mistress dropt a tear,
Wept both her eyes away.

"By sympathy deprived of light,

She one day darkness tried;
The grateful tear no more could flow,
So liked it not, and died.
"May we, when others weep for us,

The debt with interest pay-
And, when the generous fonts are dry,
Revert to native clay."-Edwin.

Mr. T. Vaughan has asserted that he is not the author of this matchless Extractor with such spirit, and retorted upon one Baviad (whom the learned gentleman takes to be a man) with such strength of argument and elegance of diction, that it would wrong both him and the reader to give it in any words but his own.

"Well said, Baviad the correct!-And so the PROFOUND Mr. T. Vaughan, as you politely style him, writes under the alluring signature of Edwin, does he? and therefore a very proper subject for your satiric malignity!-But suppose for a moment, as the truth and the fact is, that this gentleman never did use that signature upon any occasion, in whatever he may have written: Do not you, the identica! Baviad, in that case, for your unprovoked abuse of him, immediately fall under your own character of that nightman of literature you so liberally assign Weston? And like him, too, if there is any truth in what you say or write, do you not

"Swell like a filthy toad with secret spite ?? "The ayes have it. And should you not be as well versed in your favourite author's fourth satire, as you are in the first, with your leave, I will quote from it two emphatic lines:

"Into themselves how few, how few descend,

And act, at home, the free, impartial friend!
None see their own, but all, with ready eye,
The pendent wallet on a neighbour spy;
And like a Baviad will recount his shame,
Tacking his very errors to his name.'

"Oracle, 12th Jan." And to whose name should they be tacked, but the author's? Let not the reader, however, imagine the absurdity to proceed from Persius, or his ingenious translator. "The truth and the fact is," that our learned brother, having a small change to make in the last two lines, blundered them, with his usual acuteness, into nonsense, He is not much more happy when he accuses me of call ing WESTON "the nightman of literature."-But when a gentleman does not know what he writes, it is a little hard to expect him to know what he reads. After all, Edwin or not, our egregious friend is still the PROFOUND Mr. T. Vaughan.