Too low a third crawls on, afraid to fly,
He spins his subject to satiety;

Absurdly varying, he at last engraves

Fish in the woods, and boars beneath the waves !

Unless your care's exact, your judgment nice,
The flight from folly leads but into vice;
None are complete, all wanting in some part,
Like certain tailors, limited in art.

For galligaskins Slowshears is your man ;
But coats must claim another artisan. (1)
Now this to me, I own, seems much the same
As Vulcan's feet to bear Apollo's frame; (2)
Or, with a fair complexion, to expose

Black eyes, black ringlets, but- a bottle nose!

Dear authors! suit your topics to your strength, And ponder well your subject, and its length;

Serpit humi, tutus nimium, timidusque procellæ :
Qui variare cupit rem prodigialiter unam,
Delphinum sylvis appingit fluctibus aprum.

In vitium ducit culpæ fuga, si caret arte.
Emilium circa ludum faber unus et ungues
Exprimet, et molles imitabitur ære capillos;
Infelix operis summa, quia ponere totum
Nesciet. Hunc ego me, si quid componere curem,
Non magis esse velim, quam pravo vivere naso,
Spectandum nigris oculis nigroque capillo.

Sumite materiem vestris, qui scribitis, equam
Viribus;
et versate diu quid ferre recusent

(1) Mere common mortals were commonly content with one tailor and with one bill, but the more particular gentlemen found it impossible to confide their lower garments to the makers of their body clothes. I speak of the beginning of 1809: what reform may have since taken place I neither know, nor desire to know.

(2) [MS. "As one leg perfect, and the other lame."—E.]

Nor lift your load, before you're quite aware

What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear.
But lucid Order, and Wit's siren voice,

Await the poet, skilful in his choice;
With native eloquence he soars along,

Grace in his thoughts, and music in his song.

Let judgment teach him wisely to combine
With future parts the now omitted line:
This shall the author choose, or that reject,
Precise in style, and cautious to select;
Nor slight applause will candid pens afford
To him who furnishes a wanting word.
Then fear not if 'tis needful to produce
Some term unknown, or obsolete in use,
(As Pitt (1) has furnish'd us a word or two,
Which lexicographers declined to do ;)
So you indeed, with care,-(but be content
To take this license rarely)-may invent.

Quid valeant humeri. Cui lecta potenter erit res,
Nec facundia deseret hunc nec lucidus ordo.

Ordinis hæc virtus erit et venus, aut ego fallor,
Ut jam nunc dicat, jam nunc debentia dici
Pleraque differat, et præsens in tempus omittat;
Hoc amet, hoc spernat promissi carminis auctor.
In verbis etiam tenuis cautusque serendis :
Dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbum
Reddiderit junctura novum. Si forte necesse est
Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum,

Fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis

Continget; dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter;

(1) Mr. Pitt was liberal in his additions to our parliamentary tongue; as may be seen in many publications, particularly the Edinburgh Review.

New words find credit in these latter days,
If neatly grafted on a Gallic phrase.
What Chaucer, Spenser did, we scarce refuse
To Dryden's or to Pope's maturer muse.
If you can add a little, say why not,

As well as William Pitt, and Walter Scott?
Since they, by force of rhyme and force of lungs,
Enrich'd our island's ill-united tongues;
'Tis then—and shall be—lawful to present
Reform in writing, as in parliament.

As forests shed their foliage by degrees,
So fade expressions which in season please;
And we and ours, alas! are due to fate,
And works and words but dwindle to a date.
Though as a monarch nods, and commerce calls,
Impetuous rivers stagnate in canals;

Though swamps subdued, and marshes drain'd, sustain
The heavy ploughshare and the yellow grain,
And rising ports along the busy shore
Protect the vessel from old Ocean's roar,

Et nova factaque nuper habebunt verba fidem, si
Græco fonte cadant, parce detorta. Quid autem
Cæcilio Plautoque dabit Romanus, ademptum
Virgilio Varioque? ego cur, acquirere pauca
Si possum, invideor; cum lingua Catonis et Ennî
Sermonem patrium ditaverit, et nova rerum
Nomina protulerit? Licuit, semperque licebit,
Signatum præsente nota producere nomen.

Ut silvæ foliis pronos mutantur in annos;
Prima cadunt: ita verborum vetus interit ætas,
Et juvenum ritu florent modo nata, vigentque.
Debemur morti nos nostraque: sive receptus
Terra Neptunus classes aquilonibus arcet,
Regis opus; sterilisve diu palus, aptaque remis
Vicinas urbes alit, et grave sentit aratrum:

All, all must perish; but, surviving last,
The love of letters half preserves the past.
True, some decay, yet not a few revive; (1)
Though those shall sink, which now appear to thrive,
As custom arbitrates, whose shifting sway
Our life and language must alike obey.

The immortal wars which gods and angels wage, Are they not shown in Milton's sacred page? His strain will teach what numbers best belong To themes celestial told in epic song.

The slow, sad stanza will correctly paint The lover's anguish, or the friend's complaint. But which deserves the laurel - rhyme or blank? Which holds on Helicon the higher rank? Let squabbling critics by themselves dispute This point, as puzzling as a Chancery suit.

Seu cursum mutavit iniquum frugibus amnis,
Doctus iter melius; mortalia facta peribunt:
Nedum sermonum stet honos, et gratia vivax.
Multa renascentur, quæ jam cecidere; cadentque,
Quæ nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus;
Quem penes arbitrium est, et jus, et norma loquendi.
Res gestæ regumque ducumque et tristia bella,
Quo scribi possent numero monstravit Homerus.
Versibus impariter junctis querimonia primum;
Post etiam inclusa est voti sententia compos.
Quis tamen exiguos elegos emiserit auctor,
Grammatici certant, et adhuc sub judice lis est.

(1) Old ballads, old plays, and old women's stories, are at present in as much request as old wine or new speeches. In fact, this is the millennium of black letter : thanks to our Hebers, Webers, and Scotts ! - [There was considerable malice in thus putting Weber, a poor German hack, a mere amanuensis of Sir Walter Scott, between the two other names.-E]

Satiric rhyme first sprang from selfish spleen.

You doubt-see Dryden, Pope, St. Patrick's dean. (1)

Blank verse (2) is now, with one consent, allied To Tragedy, and rarely quits her side.

Though mad Almanzor rhymed in Dryden's days, No sing-song hero rants in modern plays;

Archilocum proprio rabies armavit iambo;
Hunc socci cepere pedem grandesque cothurni,
Alternis aptum sermonibus, et populares
Vincentem strepitus, et natum rebus agendis.

Musa dedit fidibus divos, puerosque deorum,

Et pugilem victorem, et equum certamine primum,
Et juvenum curas et libera vina referre.

(1)" Mac Flecknoe," the "Dunciad," and all Swift's lampooning ballads. Whatever their other works may be, these originated in personal feelings, and angry retort on unworthy rivals; and though the ability of these satires elevates the poetical, their poignancy detracts from the personal character of the writers.-[For particulars of Dryden's feud with his successor in the laureateship, Shadwell, whom he has immortalised under the name of Mac Flecknoe, and also as Og, in the second part of" Absalom and Achitophel;" and for the literary squabbles in which Swift and Pope were engaged, the reader must turn to the lives and works of these three great writers. See also Mr. D'Israeli's painfully interesting book on "The Quarrels of Authors."- - E.]

(2) [Like Dr. Johnson, Lord Byron maintained the excellence of rhyme over blank verse in English poetry. "Blank verse," he says, in his long lost letter to the editor of Blackwood's Magazine, "unless in the drama, no one except Milton ever wrote who could rhyme. I am aware that Johnson has said, after some hesitation, that he could not prevail upon himself to wish that Milton had been a rhymer.' The opinions of that truly great man, whom, like Pope, it is the present fashion to decry, will ever be received by me with that deference which time will restore to him from all; but, with all humility, I am not persuaded that the "Paradise Lost" would not have been more nobly conveyed to posterity, not perhaps in heroic couplets, although even they could sustain the subject, if well balanced, but in the stanza of Spenser, or of Tasso, or in the terza rima of Dante, which the powers of Milton could easily have grafted on our language. The "Seasons" of Thomson would have been better in rhyme, although still inferior to his "Castle of Indolence;" and Mr. Southey's "Joan of Arc" no worse."— E.]