SYLPHS. (Their Punishment)'

Whatever spirit, careless of his charge, His post neglects, or leaves the fair at large, Shall feel sharp vengeance soon o'ertake his sins, Be stopp'd in vials, or transfix'd with pins; Or plung'd in lakes of bitter washes lie, Or wedg'd whole ages in a bodkin's eye: Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain, While clogg'd he beats his silken wings in vain : Or alum styptics with contracting pow'r, Shrink his thin essence like a shrivell'd flow'r : Or, as Ixion fix'd, the wretch shall feel The giddy motion of the whirling mill; In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow, And tremble at the sea that froths below.

SYSTEMS. (Makers of, Ridiculed)

Some drill and bore

The solid earth, and from the strata there
Extract a register, by which we learn,
That he who made it, and reveal'd its date
To Mcses, was mistaken in its age.

POPE.

Some, more acute, and more industrious still,
Contrive creation; travel nature up

To the sharp peak of her sublimest height,
And tell us whence the stars; why some are fix'd,
And planetary some; what gave them first
Rotation, from what fountain flow'd their light.
Great contest follows, and much learn'd dust
Involves the combatants; each claiming truth,
And truth disclaiming both. And thus they spend
The little wick of life's poor shallow lamp
In playing tricks with nature, giving laws
To distant worlds, and trifling in their own.
Is't not a pity now that tickling rheums

Should ever tease the lungs, and blear the sight,
Of oracles like these? Great pity too,

That having wielded th' elements, and built
A thousand systems, each in his own way,
They should go out in fume, and be forgot.

TALAVERA. (Battle of)

COWPER.

Hark! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful

note ?

Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath?
Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre smote;

Nor saved your brethren ere they sank beneath
Tyrants and tyrants' slaves ?-The fires of death,
The bale-fires flash on high :—from rock to rock
Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe ;
Death rides upon the sulphury siroc,

Red battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock.

Lo! where the giant on the mountain stands,
His blood-red tresses deep'ning in the sun,
With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands,
And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon;
Restless it rolls, now fix'd, and now anon
Flashing afar,-and at his iron feet

;

Destruction cowers to mark what deeds are done For on this morn three potent nations meet, To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most sweet.

Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice;

Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high;
Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies;
The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, victory!
The foe, the victim, and the fond ally,
That fights for all, but ever fights in vain,
Are met as if at home they could not die-

To feed the crow on Talavera's plain, And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain.

There shall they rot-ambition's honour'd fools! Yes, honour decks the turf that wraps their clay! Vain sophistry! in these behold the tools, The broken tools, that tyrants cast away By myriads, where they dare to pave their way With human hearts-to what ?-a dream alone. Can despots compass aught that hails their sway ? Or call with truth one span of earth their own, Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone. BYRON.

TALE. (What it should be)

A tale should be judicious, clear, succinct ; The language plain, and incidents well link'd; Tell not as new what ev'ry body knows, And, new or old, still hasten to a close ; There, centring in a focus round and neat, Let all your rays of information meet. What neither yields us profit nor delight Is like a nurse's lullaby at night; Guy Earl of Warwick and Fair Eleanore, Or giant-killing Jack, would please me more. COWPER.

TALENTS. (Confined)

Once science only will one genius fit;
So vast is art, so narrow human wit:
Not only bounded to peculiar arts,
But oft in those confin'd to single parts.
Like kings, we lose the conquest gain'd before,
By vain ambition still to make them more :
Each might his servile province well command,
Would all but stoop to what they understand.

POPE.

In various talk the instructive hours they pass'd,
Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last;
One speaks the glory of the British queen,
And one describes a charming Indian screen;
A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes;
At ev'ry word a reputation dies.

Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat;
With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that.

TAM O'SHANTER.

Weel mounted on his grey mare Meg, (A better never lifted leg,)

Tam skelpit on through dub and mire,
Despisin wind, and rain, and fire;

Whyles haudin fast his guid blue bonnet;
Whyles croonin o'er some auld Scots sonnet;
Whyles glow'rin round wi' prudent cares,
Lest bogles catch him unawares :
Kirk-Alloway was drawin nigh,

Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry.-
By this time he was cross the ford,
Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd;
And past the birks and muckle stane,
Whare drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane;
And through the whins, and by the cairn,
Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn ;
And near the thorn, aboon the well,
Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersel.-
When, glimmerin through the groanin trees,
Kirk-Alloway seem'd in a bleeze;

Through ilka bore the beams were glancin,
And loud resounded mirth and dancin.-

And, vow! Tam saw an unco sight!
Warlocks and witches in a dance;

POPE.

Nae cotillon brent new frae France,

But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock-bunker in the east,

There sat Auld Nick, in shape o' beast;
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screw'd the pipes, and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.-
Coffins stood round, like open presses,
That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses;
And by some devilish cantrip slight,
Each in his cauld hand held a light.-
By which heroic Tam was able,
To note upon the haly table,
A murd❜rer's banes in gibbet-airns ;
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns;
A thief, new cutted frae a rape,
Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape;
Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted;
Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted;
A garter, which a babe had strangl'd;
A knife, a father's throat had mangl'd,
Whom his ain son o' life bereft,
The gray hairs yet stack to the heft;
Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu',

Which ev'n to name wad be unlawfu'.

TEARS. (Different Causes of)

BURNS.

Our funeral tears from different causes rise: Of various kinds they flow. From tender hearts, By soft contagion call'd, some burst at once, And stream obsequious to the leading eye. Some ask more time, by curious art distill'd. Some hearts, in secret hard, unapt to melt, Struck by the public eye, gush out amain.