PHYSIC FOR THE CRITICS,

OR,

Poctical Anodynes from the album.

Dum relego scripsisse pudet.

N.B. When at the instigation of mine host of Llanwrda, I first undertook the editorship of his Album, I expressly stipulated that it should contain no verses; for after my conversion to the true faith, under the guidance of that spiritual and spirituous pastor, Mr. Damon Damn'emall, Field Preacher and Brandy Merchant, I rightly opined that the cultivation of poesy was nothing more or less than the cultivation of an acquaintance with Sathanas. “ Verses; Sir," said Mr. Damn’emall, in his usual blunt manner, “ are all lies, and Beelzebub being the father of falsehoods, must of

of necessity be the patron of Poets.” No reasoning could be more logically acute than this; so I returned to my landlord of the Nanny Goat and Nine-Pins, with the devout stipulation that I have mentioned above.

But what are the good intentions of man? The Inn-keeper on my hinting the proviso, cunningly allured me into his little back parlour, where he placed before my optics, a most seductive jug of Welch ale, and after divers touching enquiries concerning my wife and eleven babes, (the handsomest of whom, he had heard was as like his father as he could stare,) argued with me on the folly of such a stipulation, and concluded by reading a line or two from a vituperative ode to the Devil. This quieted my scruples, for the man, thought I, who bruises the head of the serpent, will run no risk of bruising the holiness of devotion, and I forth with conceded to his request, after finishing another jug in compliment to my sagacity.

When the matter was thus definitively settled, the poesy was put into my hands, and I have here arranged it for publication. It is evidently the work of many writers, as indeed the original MSS. in the Album betokens. The lines alluding to local topics, appear noted down from the impulse of the moment, which I am grieved to assert is their

Y

sole claim to popularity. This opinion, however, (for by the blessing of God, I am as far removed from being a poet as I am from heaven,) was given to me by an old fat gentleman in a tie-wig, whom I have sometimes met at the Nanny Goat and Nine-Pins, and with whom I have held logical ratiocination on the subject. He informed me that on perusing the Album MSS. he had not found a single stop, and that poetry and punctuation both beginning with a P. must consequently belong to the same family. From this, he very acutely observed, that where there were no stops, there could be no poetry; and then shook his head in a way which proved that he knew more about the matter, than he chose to communicate. “The Village Girl" he called execrable, and indeed I am pretty much of the same opinion, for on an accurate inspection of the MSS. I found that all the t's were left uncrossed; that the i's were without a night cap on their heads, and the 's were sometimes unlooped, and sometimes looked as if fattened with the corpulence of parturition. Bad, however, as it is, I am compelled to publish it ; instigated thereto by the minaceous exhortations of the Inn-keeper, in whose books I am five fathom deep. Should the reader, therefore, find fault with the poetical portion, or indeed with any other of the manifold wickednesses

of this volume, I beseech him to remember that I am a poor Welch author, with a sturdy spouse, eleven thick babes, and only three pair of breeches between them : that I am pressed, as it were, into the service of an editor, without either knowledge or experience to support the title, and that in my poverty, and not my will consents."

W. F. D.

short,

LINES SUGGESTED BY THE PORTRAIT OF

« THE DYING MOTHER."

She smiles--but in that smile of beauteousness
A sorrow lurks, like thunder in the cloud
Ting'd with its doubtful sunshine, happiness
Is dead to her; but from it's mantling shroud
The melancholy phantom speaks aloud,
In the lone spirit of departed hours.-
She hears the voice of death, while sorrows crowd

Upon her brain, and with refreshing show'rs
Invigorate awhile affection's withered flow'rs.

Her cheek is pale—her eye is dim with weeping,
And in the hollowness of that shrunk form,
Death, like a snake within bis cave, is sleeping
Triumphant e'en in rest; his canker-worm
Twines round each chord with youth with feeling warm,
Curdling to ice the blood ; wbile day by day,
Some particle of life, some once prized charm,

Goes from her, 'till the whole is swept away,
Like twilight into gloom, with dark but sure decay.

Ob! God, that such a beautiful girl must go
So young into the tomb ; but it must be-
Time, rolling time, must have his ebb and flow,
And we who sit upon his bank, must see
Each victim fade like bubbles o'er the sea
Of life, while we are powerless to save:
And we must hear the night wind shudderingly

Breathe it's wild dirge, and stormy billows rave,
As if they mourn'd for one, lone silent in the grave.

We weep when age sinks calmly in the tomb,
And grey heads wither that have loved us well-
We weep, for long-past recollections come,
Saddening the soul like beauty's passing knell;
But oh! what thoughts embitter the farewell,