For prudent men who keep the power God men and true-we care not. GENIUS AND CRITICISM. Scripsi quidem fata, sed sequitur.- Seneca. Or old, the Sultan Genius reigned As Nature meant-supreme, alone; With mind unchecked, and hands unchained, His views, his conquests were his own. But power like his, that digs its grave With its own sceptre, could not last; So Genius' self became the slave Of laws that Genius' self had passed. As Jove, who forged the chain of Fate, Was ever after doomed to wear it; His nods, his struggles, all too late 'Qui semel jussit, semper paret.' To check young Genius' proud career, The slaves, who now his throne invaded, Made Criticism his Prime Vizir, And from that hour his glories faded. Tied down in Legislation's school, Afraid of even his own ambition, His very victories were by rule, And he was great but by permission. His most heroic deeds-the same That dazzled, when spontaneous actions Now, done by law, seemed cold and tame, And shorn of all their first attractions. If he but stirred to take air, Instant the Vizir's Council sat Reviewers, kuaves in brown, or blue Turned up with yellow-chiefly Scotchmen To dog his footsteps all about, Like those in Longwood's prisongrounds, Who at Napoleon's heels rode out, For fear the Conqueror should break bounds. Oh, for some champion of his power, To vindicate his ancient line, The first, the true, the only one Of Right eternal and divine That rules beneath the blessed sun!To crush the rebels, that would cloud His triumphs with restraint or blame, And, honouring even his faults, aloud Re-echo Vive le Roi! quand même -? HUMOROUS AND SATIRICAL POEMS. FIR Hudson Lowe, Sir Hudson Low, (By name, and ah! by nature so) As thou art fond of persecutions, Perhaps thou'st read, or heard repeated, How Captain Gulliver was treated When thrown among the Lilliputians. They tied him down-these little men did And having valiantly ascended Upon the Mighty Man's protuberance, They did so strut!-upon my soul, It must have been extremely droll To see their pigmy pride's exuberance! And how the doughty mannikins Amus'd themselves with sticking pins, And needles in the great man's breeches : And how some very little things, Alas, alas! that it should happen tions; For Gulliver, there, took the nap, While, here the Nap, oh sad mishap, Is taken by the Lilliputians! FRAGMENT OF A CHARACTER. HERE lies Factotum Ned at last; Long as he breath'd the vital air, Nothing throughout all Europe pass'd, In which he hadn't some small share.! Whoe'er was in, whoe'er was out, 'Twas all, at least, contriv'd by Ned. With NAP, if Russia went to war, 'Twas owing, under Providence, To certain hints Ned gave the Czar(Vide his pamphlet-price, sixpence). If France was beat at Waterloo As all but Frenchmen think she wasTo Ned, as Wellington well knew, Was owing half that day's applause. Then for his news-no envoy's bag E'er pass'd so many secrets through it; Scarcely a telegraph could wag Its wooden finger, but Ned knew it. Such tales he had of foreign plots, With foreign names, one's ear to buzz in ! From Russia, chefs and ofs in lots, From Poland, owskis by the dozen. When George, alarm'd for England's creed, Turn'd out the last Whig ministry, And men ask'd Who advis'd the deed? Ned modestly confess'd 'twas he. For though, by some unlucky miss, He had not downright seen the King, He sent such hints through Viscount This, To Marquis That, as clench'd the thing. The same it was in science, arts, The Drama, Books, MS. and printedKean learn'd from Ned his cleverest parts, And Scott's last work by him was hinted. Childe Harold in the proofs he read, And, here and there, infus'd some soul in't BUT whither have these gentle ones, 1 I promised that I would give the remainder of this poem; but as my critics do not seem to relish the sublime learning it contains, they shall have no more of it. With a view, however, to the edification of these gentlemen, i have prevailed on an industrious friend of mine, who has read a great number of unnecessary books, to illuminate the extract with a little of his precious erudition. 2 Bombastus was one of the names of that scholar and quack Paracelsus. Philippus Bombastus latet sub splendido tegmine Aureoli Theophrasti Paracelsi,' says Stadelius de Circumforaneâ Literatorum Vanitate. He used to fight the devil every night with a broadsword, to the no small terror of his pupil, Oporinus, who has recorded the circumstance. Paracelsus had but a poor opinion of Galen. 'My very beard,' (says he, in his "Paragrænum ") has more learning in it than either Galen or Avicenna,' 3 The angel, who scolded St. Jerome for reading Cicero, as Gratian tells the story in his 'Concordantia discordantium Canonum,' and says, that for this reason bishops were not allowed to read the Classics: Episcopus The angel's were on Hieronymus, Saying, 'twas just as sweet to kiss her oh! Far more sweet than reading Cicero ! Gentilium libros non legat.'-Distinct. 37. But Gratian is notorious for lying-besides, angels have got no tongues, as the illustrious pupil of Pantenus assures us. Ovx' is nμiv Tα wrα, ούτως εκείνοις ή γλωττα ουδ' αν οργανα τις δω porns ayyedois.--Clem. Alexand. Stromat. How an angel could scold without a tongue, I leave the angelic Mrs. to determine. The idea of the Rabbins, respecting the origin of woman, is singular. They think that man was originally formed with a tail, like a monkey, but that the Deity cut off this appendage, and made woman of it. Upon this extraordinary supposi tion the following reflection is founded:If such is the tie between women and men, For he takes to his tail like an idiot again, The ninny who weds is a pitiful elf, And thus makes a deplorable ape of himself. Yet, if we may judge as the fashions prevail, Every husband remembers th' original plan, And, knowing his wife is no more than his tail, Why he leaves her behind him as much as he can. A branch of Dagon's family 4 1 Scaliger. de Emendat. Tempor.-Dagon was thought by others to be a certain sea-monster, who came every day out of the Red Sea to teach the Syrians husbandry.-See Jacques Gaffarel ('Curiosités Inouïes,' chap. i.), who says he thinks this story of the sea-monster carries little show of probability with it.' 2 I wish it were known with any degree of certainty whether the Commentary on Boethius' attributed to Thomas Aquinas be really the work of this Angelic Doctor. There are some bold assertions hazarded in it: for instance, he says that Plato kept school in a town called Academia, and that Alcibiades was a very beautiful woman whom some of Aristotle's pupils fell in love with: Alcibiades mulier fuit pulcherrima, quam videntes quidam discipuli Aristotelis, &c.See Freytag Adparat. Litterar. art. 86, tom. i. 3 The following compliment was paid to Laurentius Valla, upon his accurate knowledge of the Latin language: Nunc postquam manes defunctus Valla petivit, Non audet Pluto verba Latina loqui. Since Val arrived in Pluto's shade, His nouns and pronouns all so pat in, To ask even what's o'clock ?' in Latin! These lines may be found in the Auctorum Censio of Du Verdier (page 29), an excellent critic, if he could have either felt or understood any one of the works which he criticises. It is much to be regretted that Martin Luther, with all his talents for reforming, should yet be vulgar enough to laugh at Camerarius for writing to him in Greek. 'Master Joachim (says And never paid a bill or balance Say, to be At-tick's to be on tick! At once upon the hip he had you right! Sweet blooming girl, whose name was Oft, when his heart was in a merry key, he) has sent me some dates and some raisins, and has also written me two letters in Greek. As soon as I am recovered, I shall answer them in Turkish, that he too may have the pleasure of reading what he does not understand.'-'Græca sunt, legi non possunt,' is the ignorant speech attributed to Accursius, but very unjustly. Far from asserting that Greek could not be read, that worthy jurisconsult upon the Law 6. D. de Bonor. possess. expressly says, 'Græcæ litera possunt intelligi et legi.' (Vide Nov. Libror. Rarior. Collection. Fascicul. IV.)-Scipio Carteromachus seems to think that there is no salvation out of the pale of Greek literature: Via prima salutis Graia pandetur ab urbe.' And the zeal of Laurentius Rhodomannus cannot be suffi ciently admired, when he exhorts his countrymen, 'per gloriam Christi, per salutem patriæ, per reipublicæ decus et emolumentum,' to study the the excellent Bishop of Nocera, who, careless of Greek language. Nor must we forget Phavorinus, all the usual commendations of a Christian, required no further eulogium on his tomb than Here lieth a Greek Lexicographer.' 5 'OHANY.-The introduction of this language into English poetry has a good effect, and ought to be more universally adopted. A word or two of Greek in a stanza would serve as ballast to the most 'light o' love' verses. Ausonius, among the ancients, may serve as a model: Ου γαρ μοι θεμις εστιν in hac regione μενοντι Αξιον ab nostris επιδευεα csse καμήναις. Ronsard, the French poet, has enriched his sonnets and odes with many an exquisite morsel from the Lexicon. His Cère Entelechie, in addressing his mistress, is admirable, and can be only matched by Cowley's Antiperistasis. How far their zeal let him and her go Our chronicles do not determine us; But, as for all your warbling Delias, He owned he thought them much surpassed By that redoubted Hyaloclast,3 Likewise to show his mighty knowledge, he, On things unknown in physiology, fair hints Respecting their first sinful parents; 'Oh Eve!' exclaimeth little madam, While little master cries, 'Oh Adam! 4 The first figure of simple syllogisms, to which Barbara belongs, together with Celarent, Darii, and Ferio. 2 Because the three propositions in the mood of Barbara are universal affirmatives.-The poet borrowed this equivoque upon Barbara from a curious Epigram which Menckenius gives in a note upon his Essays de Charlataneria Eruditorum. In the Nuptia Peripatetica of Caspar Barlæus, the reader will find some facetious applications of the terms of logic to matrimony. Crambe's Treatise on Syllogisms, in Martinus In point of science astronomical, Yet leave her Virgo, as he found her! He held that sunshine passes quicker To steady light and pure reflection, mon, on, As a more rare and rich phenomenon! In many an optical proceeding, For instance, when we ogle women Of all omnigenous omnisciency, 3 Or Glass Breaker.-Morhofius has given an account of this extraordinary man, in a work published 1682. De vitreo scypho fracto,' etc. This is translated almost literally from a passage in Albertus de Secretis, etc.-I have not the book by me, or I would transcribe the words. 5 Alluding to that habitual act of the judg ment, by which, notwithstanding the inversion of the image upon the retina, a correct impression of the object is conveyed to the sensorium. |