You, Bob! are rather insolent, you know,
At being disappointed in your wish
To supersede all warblers here below,
And be the only Blackbird in the dish;
And then you overstrain yourself, or so,
And tumble downward like the flying fish
Gasping on deck, because you soar too high, Bob,
And fall, for lack of moisture quite a-dry, Bob!
IV.
And Wordsworth, in a rather long "Excursion," (I think the quarto holds five hundred pages,) Has given a sample from the vasty version
Of his new system to perplex the sages 'Tis poetry-at least by his assertion,
And may appear so when the dog-star ragesAnd he who understands it would be able To add a story to the Tower of Babel.
• Mr. Coleridge's " Biographia Literaria" appeared in 1817.
You-Gentlemen! by dint of long seclusion
From better company, have kept your own
At Keswick, and, through still continued fusion
Of one another's minds, at last have grown
To deem as a most logical conclusion,
That Poesy hath wreathes for you alone:
There is a narrowness in such a notion,
Which makes me wish you'd change your lakes for
I would not imitate the petty thought,
Nor coin my self-love to so base a vice,
For all the glory your conversion brought,
Since gold alone should not have been its price.
You have your salary; was't for that you wrought?
And Wordsworth has his place in the Excise.
You're shabby fellows-true-but poets still,
And duly seated on the immortal hill.
Your bays may hide the boldness of your brows
Perhaps some virtuous blushes ;-let them go-
To you I envy neither fruit nor boughs-
And for the fame you would engross below,
The field is universal, and allows
Scope to all such as feel the inherent glow: [try Scott, Rogers, Campbell, Moore, and Crabbe will 'Gainst you the question with posterity.
For me, who, wandering with pedestrian Muses, Contend not with you on the winged steed,
I wish your fate may yield ye, when she chooses, The fame you envy, and the skill you need;
• Wordsworth's place may be in the Customs-it is, I think, in that of the Excise-besides another at Lord Lonsdale's table, where this poetical charla, tan and political parasite licks up the crumbs with a hardened alacrity; the converted Jacobin having long subsided into the lownish sycophant of that worst prejudices of the aristocracy.
This was an easy matter with a man
Oft in the wrong, and never on his guard; And even the wisest, do the best they can,
Have moments, hours, and days, so unprepared, That you might "brain them with their lady's fan,” And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard, And fans turn into falchions in fair hands, And why and wherefore no one understands. XXII.
'Tis a pity learned virgins ever wed
With persons of no sort of education,
Or gentlemen who, though well-born and bred,
Grow tired of scientific conversation:
I don't choose to say much upon this head,
I'm a plain man, and in a single station,
But-oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual,
Inform us truly, have they not henpeck'd you all ?
She kept a journal, where his faults were noted,
And open'd certain trunks of books and letters,
All which might, if occasion served, be quoted;
And then she had all Seville for abettors,
Besides her good old grandmother, (who doted;)
The hearers of her case became repeaters,
Then advocates, inquisitors, and judges,
Some for amusement, others for old grudges.
And then this best and meekest woman bore
With such serenity her husband's woes,
Just as the Spartan ladies did of yore,
Who saw their spouses kill'd, and nobly chose
Never to say a word about them more-
Calmly she heard each calumny that rose, And saw his agonies with such sublimity,
Yet Jose was an honorable man,
That I must say, who knew him very well;
Therefore his frailties I'll no further scan,
Indeed there were not many more to tell;
And if his passions now and then outran
Discretion, and were not so peaceable
As Numas's, (who was also named Pompilius,)
He had been ill brought up, and was bilious.
Whate'er might be his worthlessness or worth,
Poor fellow! he had many things to wound him,
Let's own, since it can do no good on earth;
It was, a trying moment that which found him,
Standing alone beside his desolate hearth,
[him;
Where all his household gods lay shiver'd round
No choice was left his feelings or his pride,
That all the world exclaim'd, "What magna- Save death or Doctors' Commons-so he died. nimity!"
No doubt, this patience, when the world is damning Dying intestate, Juan was sole heir
Is philosophic in our former friends;
'Tis also pleasant to be deem'd magnanimous,
The more so in obtaining our own ends;
And what the lawyers call a "malus animus,”
Conduct like this by by no means comprehends;
Revenge in person's certainly no virtue,
But then 'tis not my fault if others hurt you.
To a chancery-suit, and messages, and lands,
Which, with a long minority and care,
Promised to turn out well in proper hands;
Inez became sole guardian, which was fair,
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He died: and most unluckily, because,
According to all hints I could collect
From counsel learned in those kind of laws,
(Although their talk's obscure and circumspect,)
His death contrived to spoil a charming cause;
A thousand pities also with respect
To public feeling, which on this occasion
Was manifested in a great sensation.
XXXIV.
But ah! he died; and buried with him lay
The public feeling and the lawyers' fees:
His house was sold, his servants sent away,
A Jew took one of his two mistresses,
A priest the other at least so they say:
I ask'd the doctors after his disease-
He died of the slow fever called the tertian,
And left his widow to her own aversion.
And answer'd but to nature's just demands;
An only son left with an only mother
Is brought up much more wisely than another.
Sages of women, even of widows, she
Resolved that Juan should be quite a paragon, And worthy of the noblest pedigree,
(His sire was of Castile, his dam from Arragon :) Then for accomplishments of chivalry,
In case our lord the king should go to war again, He learn'd the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery, And how to scale a fortress-or a nunnery.
But that which Donna Inez most desired,
And saw herself each day before all
The learned tutors whom for him she hired,
Was that his breeding should be strictly moral ;
Much into all his studies she inquired,
And so they were submitted first to her, all, Arts, sciences, no branch was made a mystery To Juan's eyes, excepting natural history.
The languages, especially the dead,
The sciences, and most of all the abstruse,
The arts, at least all such as could be said
To be the most remote from common use,
In all these he was much and deeply read;
But not a page of any thing that's loose,
Or hints continuation of the species,
Was ever suffered, lest he should grow vicious.
His classic studies made a little puzzle,
Because of filthy loves of gods and goddesses,
Who in the earlier ages raised a bustle,
But never put on pantaloons or bodices;
His reverend tutors had at times a tussle,
And for their Eneids, Iliads, and Odysseys,
Were forced to make an odd sort of apology,
For Dona Inez dreaded the mythology.
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