Yes, far from me, whate'er their birth or place,
These long-ear'd judges of the Phrygian race;
Their censure and their praise alike I scorn,
And hate the laurel by their followers worn!
Let such (a task congenial to their powers)
At sales and auctions waste the morning hours,
While the dull noon away in Rumford's fane,
And snore the evening out at Drury-lane.

THE MEVIAD.

Qui BAVIUM non odit, amet tua carmina, Mævi.

INTRODUCTION.

In the INTRODUCTION to the preceding pages, a brief account is given of the rise and progress of that spurious species of poetry which lately infested this metropolis, and gave occasion to the BAVIAD. I was not ignorant of what I exposed myself to by the publication of that work. If abuse could have affected me, I should not probably have made a set of people my enemies, habituated to ill language, and possessed of such convenient vehicles for its dissemination. But I never regarded it from such hands, and, indeed, deprecated nothing but their praise. I respect, in common with every man of sense, the censure of the wise and good; but the angry ebullitions of folly unmasked, and vanity mortified, pass by me "like the idle wind," or, if noticed, serve merely to grace succeeding editions

of the Baviad.

I confess, however, that the work was received more favourably than I expected. Bell, indeed, and a few others, whose craft was touched, vented their indignation in prose and verse; but, on the whole, the clamour against me was not loud, and was lost by insensible degrees in the applauses of such as I was truly ambitious to please.

Thus supported, the good effects of the satire (gloriose loquor) were not long in manifesting themselves. Della Crusca appeared no more in the Oracle, and, if any of his followers ventured to treat the town with a soft sonnet, it was not, as before, introduced by a pompous preface. Pope and Milton resumed their superiority; and Este and his coadjutors silently acquiesced in the growing opinion of their incompetency, and showed some sense of shame.

With this I was satisfied. I had taken up my pen for no other end, and was quietly retiring, with the idea that I had" done the state some service," and purposing to abandon for ever the cæstus, which a respectable critic fancies I wielded" with too much severity," when I was once more called into the

* Most of these fashionable writers were connected with the public prints. Della Crusca was a worthy coadjutor of the mad and malignant idiot who conducted the World. Arno and Lorenz were either proprietors or editors of another paper. Edwin and Anna Matilda were favoured contributors to several; and Laura Maria, from the sums squandered on puffs, could command a corner in all. This wretched woman, indeed, in the wane of her beauty, fell into merited poverty, exchanged poetry for politics, and wrote abusive trash against the government, at the rate of two guineas a week, for the Morning Post.

lists* by the reappearance of some of the scattered enemy.

It was not enough that the stream of folly flowed more sparingly in the Oracle than before; I was determined

"To have the current in that place damm'd up ;" and accordingly began the present poem-for which, indeed, I had by this time other reasons. I had been told that there were still a few admirers of the Cruscan school, who thought the contempt expressed for it was not sufficiently justified by the few passages produced in the Baviad. I thought it best, therefore, to exhibit the tribe of Bell once more; and, as they passed in review before me, to make such additional extractst from their works, as should put their demerits beyond the power of future question.

I remembered that this great critic, in his excellent remarks on the Baviad, had charged the author with "bespattering nearly all the poetical eminence of the day." Anxious, therefore, to do impartial justice, I ran for the ALBUM, to discover who had been spared. Here I read, "In this collection are names whom genius will ever look upon as its best supporters! Sheridan"--what, is Saul also among the prophets!"Sheridan, Merry, Parsons, Cowley, Andrews, Jerningham, Greathead, Topham, Robinson," &c.

Thus furnished with "ALL the poetical eminence of the day," I proceeded, as Mr. Bell says, to bespatter it ; taking, for the vehicle of my design, a satire of Horace-to which I was led by its supplyiug me (amid many happy allusions) with an opportunity of briefly noticing the wretched state of dramatic poetry among us.‡

I hope no one will do me the injustice to suppose that I imagine myself another Hercules contending with hy. dras, &c. Far from it. My enemies cannot well have an humbler opinion of me than I have of myself; and yet, "if I am not ashamed of them, I am a soused gurnet." Mere pecora inertia! The contest is without danger, and the victory without glory. At the same time, I declare against any undue advantage being taken of these concessions. Though I knew the impotence of these literary Askaparts, the town did not; and many a man, who now affects to pity me for wasting my strength upon unresisting imbecility, would, not long since, have heard their poems with applause, and their praises with delight.

It will now be said that I have done it usque ad nauseam. I confess it; and for the reason given above. And yet I can honestly assure the reader, that most, if not all, of the trash here quoted, passed with the authors for superlative beauties, every second word being printed either in italics or capitals.

I know not if the stage has been so low, since the days of Gammer Gurton, as at this hour. It seems as if all the blockheads in the kingdom had started up, and exclaimed, with one voice, Come! let us write for the theatres. In this there is nothing, perhaps, altogether new; the strik ing and peculiar novelty of the times seems to be, that ALL they write is received. Of the three parties concerned in this business, the writers and the managers seem the least culpable. If the town will feed on husks, extraordinary pains need not be taken to find them any thing more palatable. But what shall we say of the people? The lower orders are so brutified by the lamenta

1 I recollect but two exceptions. Merry's idiotical opera, and Mrs. Robinson's more idiotical farce. To have failed where Miles Andrews suc ceeded, argues a degree of stupidity scarcely credible. Surely "ignorance itself is a planet" over the heroes and heroines of the Baviad.

When the MEVIAD, So I call the present poem, was nearly brought to a conclusion, I laid it aside. The times seemed unfavourable to such productions. Events of real importance were momentarily claiming the attention of the public, and the still voice of the muses was not likely to be listened o amid the din of arms. After an interval of two wears, however, circumstances, which it is not material to mention, have induced me to finish, and trust it, without more preface, to the candour to which I am already so highly indebted for the kind reception of the Baviad.

That Arno's " easy strains" were coarse and rough,
And Edwin's "matchless numbers" woful stuff.
And who-forgive, O gentle Bell, the word,
For it must out-who, prithee, so absurd,
So mulishly absurd, as not to join
In this with me, save always THEE and thine?
Yet still, the souL of candour! I allow'd
Their jingling elegies amused the crowd;
That lords hung blubbering o'er each woful line,
That lady-critics wept, and cried, "divine!"
That love-lorn priests reclined the pensive head,
And sentimental ensigns, as they read,
Wiped the sad drops of pity from their eye,
And burst between a hiccup and a sigh.

Yet, not content, like horse-leeches they come,
And split my head with one eternal hum
For" more! more! more!" Away! for should I grant
The full, the unreserved applause ye want,
St. John might then my partial voice accuse,
And claim my suffrage for his tragic muse;
And Greathead,† rising from his short disgrace,
Fling the forgotten "Regent" in my face,

YES, I DID say that Crusca's* "true sublime" Lack'd taste, and sense, and every thing but rhyme; ble follies of O'Keefe, and Cobbe, and Pilon, and I know not who-Sardi venales, each worse than the other-that they have lost all relish for simplicity and genuine humour; nay, ignorance itself, unless it be gross and glaring, cannot hope for "their most sweet voices." And the higher ranks are so mawkishly mild, that they take with a placid simper whatever comes before them; or, if they now and then experience a slight fit of disgust, have not resolution enough to express it, but sit yawning man in the present instances, yet I observe such acuteand gaping in each other's faces for a little encourage-ness of perception in his general criticism, that I should ment in their culpable forbearance.

When this was written, I thought the town had "sounded," as Shakspeare says, "the very bass string of humility;" but it has since appeared, that the lowest point of degradation had not then been reached. The force of English folly, indeed, could go no farther, and so far I was right; but the auxiliary supplies of Germany were at hand, and the taste, vitiated by the lively nonsense of O'Keefe and Co., was destined to be utterly destroyed by successive importations of the heavy, lumbering, monotonous stupidity of Kotzebue and Schiller.

have styled him the "profound" instead of the "gentle"
Bell, if I had not previously applied the epithet to a still
greater man, (absit invidia dicto,) to-Mr. T. Vaughan.
I trust that this incidental preference will create no
jealousy-for though, as Virgil properly remarks, "an
oaken staff EACH merits," yet I need not inform a gentle.
man, who, like Mr. Bell, reads Shakspeare every day
after dinner, that "if two men ride upon a horse, one of
them must ride behind."

*St. John, &c. Having already observed in the Introduction, that the Mæviad was nearly finished two years since, and consequently before the death of this gentle. man, I have only to add here, that though I should not have introduced any of the heroes of the Baviad, quorum Flaminia tegitur cinis, atque Latina, yet I scarcely think it necessary to make any changes for the sake of omitting such as have passed ad plures, in the interval between writing and publishing.

The object of these writers has been detailed with such force and precision in the introduction to" THE ROVERS," that nothing remains to be said on that head-indeed the simple perusal of "The Rovers" would supersede the necessity of any critique on the merits of the German drama in general; since there is not a folly, however gross, an absurdity, however monstrous, to be found in that charming jeu d'esprit, that I would not undertake to parallel from one or other of the most admired works of the German Shakspeares. Why it has not been produced on the stage is to me a matter of astonishment, since it unites the beauties of "The Stranger" and "Pizarro;""recommended to the world" by the monthly reviewers Greathead's Regent.-Of this tragedy, which was and, though perfectly German in its sentiments, is Eng

lish in its language-intelligible English; which is infi-
nitely more than can be said of the translation from
Kotzebue, so maliciously attributed to Mr. Sheridan.
In a word, if you take from the German dramas their
horrid blasphemies, their wanton invocations of the sa-
cred Name, and their minute and ridiculous stage direc-
tions, which seem calculated to turn the whole into a
pantomime, nothing will remain but a caput mortuum, a
vapid and gloomy mass of matter, unenlightened by a
single ray of genius or nature. If you leave them their
blasphemies, &c., you have then a nameless something,
insipid though immoral, tedious though impious, and stu-
pid though extravagant!--so much so, that, as a judicious

writer well observes," it becomes a doubt which are the
greatest objects of contempt and scorn, those who con
ceived and wrote them, or those who have the effrontery
to praise them." Yet" these be thy gods, O Israel!" and
to these are sacrificed our taste, our sense, and our na-
tional honour.

*Crusca's "true sublime." The words between inverted commas in this and the following verses, are Mr. Bell's. They contain, as the reader sees, a short character of the works to which they are respectively affixed. Though I have the misfortune to differ from this gentle

1 So Kotzebue and Schiller are styled by the critical reviewers,

The reader will find, p. 181, another instance of my small pretensions to prophecy, and probably regret it more than the present.

and others, as "the work of a SCHOLAR," I want words to express my just contempt. The plot of it is childish, he conduct absurd, the language unintelligible, the thoughts general style grovelling and base; and, to sum up all in false and unnatural, the metaphors incongruous, the a word, the whole piece the most execrable abortion of stupidity that ever disgraced the stage.

It is to be wished that critics by profession, sensible of the influence which their opinions necessarily have on the public taste, would divest themselves of their partial. ities when they sit down to the execution of, what I hope they consider as, a solemn duty. We should not then applause on works that call for universal reprobation. find them, as in the present instance, prostituting their It is but fair, however, to observe, that Mr. Parsons has added his all-sufficient suffrage to that of the reviewers,

in favour of Mr. Greathead.

"O bard! to whom belongs
Each purest fount of poesy!
Who old Ilyssus' hallow'd dews
In his own Avon dare infuse.
O favour'd clime! O happy age!
That boasts, to save a sinking stage,

When I first read these, and other high sounding praises,
A Greathead!!!"-Gent. Mag.
scattered over reviews, magazines, newspapers, and 1

know not what, I was naturally led to conclude that Mr
G. had succeeded better in his smaller pieces than in his
tragedy, and thus justified in some degree the cry of his
"learning," &c. &c. But no-all was a blank !

Here are a few samples of the "Ilyssean dews infused
by Mr. Greathead into his own Avon"-muddied, I sup-

pose, and debased by the home-bred streamlet of one Shakspeare.

"In fuller presence we descry,
'Mid mountain rocks-a deity
Than eye of man shall e'er behold
In living grace of sculptured gold."1
More matter for a May morning!

"ODE ON APATHY.
"Accursed be dull lethargic Apathy,
Whether at eve she listless ride
In sluggish car by tortoise drawn-
With mimic air of senseless pride,

She feebly throws on all her withering sight,

While too observant of her sway,

Unmark'd her droning subjects lie,
Alike to her who murmur or obey."

I hope the reader understands it.

66 ODE TO DUEL.

"Never didst thou appear

While Tiber's sons gave law to all the world;
Yet much they loved to desolate and slaughter.
Carthage! attest my words.

To glut their sanguinary rage,

Not citizens but gladiators fall.

Slavery and vassalage,

And savage broils 'twixt nobles are no more.
Vanish thou likewise"-

And these are ODES, good heavens! "After the manner of Pindar," I take for granted.

Enough of Mr. Greathead. I have only to add, that I am actuated by no personal dislike; for I can say with truth, (what, indeed, I can of all the heroes of the Mæviad,), that I have not the slightest knowledge of him. But the daws have strutted too long: it is more than time to strip them of their adventitious plumage; and if, in doing it, I should pluck off any feathers which originally belonged to them, they have only to thank their own vanity, or the forwardness of their injudicious friends.

* And more, perhaps, than Jerningham can do. No; Mr. Jerningham has lately written a tragedy and a farce; both extremely well spoken of by the reviewers, and both -gone to the "pastry-cooks."

I once thought that I understood something of faces, but I must read my Lavater again, I find. That a gentleman with the "physiognomie d'un mouton qui rêve" should suddenly start forth a new Tyrtæus, and pour a dreadful note through a cracked war-trump, amazes me.-Well, FRONTI NULLA FIDES shall henceforth be my motto. In the pride of his heart Mr. Jerningham has taken the instrument from his mouth, and given me a smart stroke on the head with it: this is fair,

"Cædimus, inque vicem præbemus crura sagittis." He has also levelled a deadly blow at a gentleman who, most assuredly, never dreamed of having our Drawcansir for an antagonist: this, though not quite so fair, is not altogether unprecedented;

"An eagle, towering in his pride of place, Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at !"

1 "These lines (Mr. Parsons says) are not Greathead's," But they are published with his name in the Album; which, exclusive of their stupidity, is sufficient authority for me. If our doughty critic chooses to take them to buself, I can have no objection; for, after all, pugna est de paupere regno!

'Tis not enough to dole out Ahs! and Ohs! Through Kemble's thorax, or through Bensley's

nose,

To crowd our stage with scaffolds, or to fright
Our wives with rapes, repeated thrice a night;
JUDGES Not such as, self-created, sit
On that TREMENDOUS BENCH* which skirts the pit
Where idle Thespis nods, while Arnot dreams
Of Nereids "purling in ambrosial streams ;"
Where Este in rapture cons fantastic airs,
And Boswell, aping, with preposterous pride,
"Old Pistol new revived" in Topham stares,
Johnson's worst frailties, rolls from side to side,
His heavy head from hour to hour erects,
Affects the fool, and is what he affects.-
JUDGES of truth and sense, yet more demand
That art to nature lend a helping hand!
That fables well devised be simply told,
Correct if new, and probable if old.

When Mason leads Elfrida forth to view,
Adorn'd with virtues which she never knew,
I feel for every tear; while, borne along
By the full tide of unresisted song,

I stop not to inquire if all be just,

But take her goodness, as her grief, on trust,
Till calm reflection checks me, and I see
The heroine as she was, and ought to be;
A bold, bad woman, wading to the throne
Through seas of blood, and crimes till then un
known:

Then, then I hate the magic that deceived,
And blush to think how fondly I believed.§

There is a trait of scholarship in Mr. Jerningham's last poem, which should not be overlooked; more especially as it is the only one. Having occasion to mention "Agave and her infant," he subjoins the following explanation "Alluding to Agave, who in a delirium slew her child. See Ovid." No, I'll take Mr Jerningham's word for it, though I had twenty Ovids before me.

*When this was written, which was while the Opera House was used for plays, the "learned justices" here enumerated, together with the others not yet laken, were accustomed to flock nightly to this BENCH, from which the unlettered vulgar were always scornfully repelled with an ουδεις άμουσος.

I have not heard whether the New Theatre be possessed of such a one; I think not; for critics are no more gregarious than spiders. Like them, they might do great things in concert; but, like them too, they usually end with devouring one another.

+Arno. The dreams of this gentleman, which continue to make their appearance in the Oracle, under the name of Thespis, are not always of Nereids. He dreamed one, night that Mr. Pope played Posthumus with less spirit than usual, and it was Mr. Johnston singing Grammachree! Another night, that the Mourning Bride might have been better cast, and lo! it was the Comedy of Errors that was played.

This was rather unfortunate; but the reader must have already reflected, from the strange occupations of these self-created judges," (here faithfully described,) that sleeping or waking, they were attentive to every thing but what passed before their eyes.

Pauper videri cotta vult, et est pauper!

§ Mr. Parsons' note on this passage is "Did you beLIEVE? could you possibly be so ignorant ?"-Even so, But I humbly conceive that Mr. Mason, who seduced my unsuspecting youth, is equally culpable with myself

1 See his "Peace, Ignominy, and Destruction," p. 15.

Not so, when Edgar,* made, in some strange plot, Forbid it, inspiration! Thus your pain

O voi, che della Crusca vi chiamate,
Come quei che farina non avendo

Di quella a tutto pasto vi saziate!
Lorenzo." A lamentable tragedy by Della Crusca,
mixed full of pleasant mirth." The house laughed a-good
at it, but Mr. Harris cried sadly. Here is another instance,
if it were wanted, of the bad effects of prostitute applause.
Could Mr. Harris, if his mind had not been previously
warped by the eternal puffs of Bell and his followers,
have supposed, for a moment, that a knack of stringing
together "hoar hills," and "rippling rills," and "red skies
glare," and "thin, thin air," qualified a man for writing
tragedy?

Is void, and ye have lived, for them, in vain;
In vain for Crusca and his skipping school,
Cobbe, Reynolds, Andrews, and that nobler fool;
Who naught but Laura's* tinkling trash admire,
And the mad jangle of Matilda's* lyre.

But Crusca still has merit, and may claim
No humble station in the ranks of fame;
He taught us first the language to refine,
To crowd with beauties every sparkling line,
Old phrases with new meanings to dispense,
Amuse the fancy, and confound the sense!
O, void of reason! Is it thus you praise

A linsey-woolsey song, framed with such ease,
Such vacancy of thought, that every line

'Tis just for what three kindred souls have done,
Is most unfairly charged, I ween, on one.
Pardon, my learned friend! With watery eyes,
Thy growing fame to truth I sacrifice;

To many a sonnet call thy claims in doubt,
And," at one entrance, shut thy glory out."
Yet mewl thou still. Shall my lord's dormouse die,
And low in dust without a requiem lie?

No, mewl thou still: and, while thy d-s join

Might tempt e'en Vaughan to whisper, "This is Their melancholy symphonies to thine,
mine!"

My righteous verse shall labour to restore

Vaughan! well remember'd. He, good man, The well earned fame it robb'd them of before:

"My hand, at night's fell noon,
Plucks from the tresses of the moon
A sparkling crown of silvery hue,
Besprent with studs of frozen dew!"

"On the dizzy height inclined,
I listen to the passing wind,
That loves my mournful song to seize,
And bears it to the mountain breeze."

Here we find that listening to the wind, and singing to it,
are one and the same thing; and that-but I can make
nothing of the rest.

"When in black obtrusive clouds

The chilly moon her pale cheek shrouds,
I mark the twinkling starry train

Exulting glitter in her wane,

And proudly gleam their borrow'd light
To gem the sombre dome of night.”

What an admirable observer of nature is this great poetess!
The stars twinkling in a cloudy night, and gleaming
their borrowed lustre, is superlatively good. I had almost
forgot to observe that these and the preceding lines are
taken from the Ode to the Nightingale, so superior, in the
reverend judgment of Dr. Tasker, to one of a Mr. John
Milton on the same subject.

"The lightning's rays

Leap through the night's scarce pervious gloom, Attracted by"- (what! for a ducat ?) "Attracted by the rose's bloom!"

"Let but thy lyre impatient seize

Departing twilight's filmy breeze,

That winds th' enchanting chords among

In lingering labyrinths of song."

"See in the clouds its mast the proud bark laves,
Scorning the aid of ocean's humble waves!"
From this it appears, that Mrs. Cowley imagines proud
barks to float on their masts. It is proper to mention
that the vessel takes such extraordinary state on herself,
because she carries Della Crusca!

-From a young grove's shade,
Whose infant boughs but mock th' expecting glade!
Sweet sounds stole forth, upborne upon the gale,
Press'd through the air, and broke upon the vale;
Then silent walk'd the breezes of the plain,
Or soar'd aloft, and seized the hovering strain."-
Della Crusca.

The force of folly can no farther go!
*Edwin's strains-If the reader will turn to the con.
clusion of the Barad, he will find a delicious EriTaiov
on a tame mou, by this gentleman. As it seemed to
give universal faction, I embrace the opportunity of

Edwin, whatever elegies of wo

Drop from the gentle mouths of Vaughan and Co.,
To this or that, henceforth no more confined,
Shall, like a surname, take in all the kind.

Right! cry the brethren. When the heaven

born muse

Shames her descent, and, for low, earthly views,
Hums o'er a beetle's bier the doleful stave,
Or sits chief mourner at a May-bug's grave,
Satire should scourge her from the vile employ,
And bring her back to friendship, love, and joy.
But spare Cesario,* Carlos,† Adelaide,‡
The truest poetess! the truest maid!

laying before the public another effusion of the same exquisite pen.

It will be found, I flatter myself, not less beautiful than the former; and fully prove that the author, though ostensibly devoted to elegy, can, on a proper occasion, assume an air of gayety, and be "profound" with ease, and instructive with elegance.

Εδουιν προλογίζει.

"On the circumstance of a mastiff's running furiously
(sad dog!) toward two young ladies, and, upon coming
up to them, becoming instantly gentle (good dog!) and
tractable."

Tantum ad narrandum argumentum est benignitas!
"When Orpheus took his lyre to hell,

To fetch his rib away,

On that same thing he pleased so well,
That devils learn'd to play.

"Besides, in books it may be read,

That whilst he swept the lute,
Grim Cerberus hung his savage head,
And lay astoundly mute.

"But here we can with justice say,
That nature rivals art;

He sang a mastiff's rage away,
You look'd one through the heart."
Fecit Edwin.

*Cesario. In the Baviad are a few stanzas of a most
delectable ode to an owl. They were ascribed to Arno;
nor was I conscious of any mistake, till I received a polite
note from that gentleman, assuring me that he was not
only not the author of them, but (horresco referens) that
he thought them "execrable." Mr. Bell, on the other
hand, affirms them to be "admirable."

"Who shall decide when doctors disagree?"
Be this as it may, I am happy to say that I have disco-
vered the true author. They were written by Cesario;
and as I rather incline to Mr. Bell, pace Arno dixerim,
I shall make no scruple of laying the remainder of this
"mellifluous piece" before the reader.

"Slighted love the soul subduing,
Silent sorrow chills the heart,
Treacherous fancy still pursuing,
Still repels the poison'd dart.

† See note †, 1st col. p. 178. + See note, ib