All hearts you captivate, all tastes you hit,
With Hammond's tenderness, and Prior's wit.
Thus flatter'd by the minions of his board,
Who struts, who swells, who scribbles like My Lord?
And soon he rises in a feverish dream

A first-rate poet-in his own esteem.

"Good Doctor! what a motley tribe
Thy brass has tempted to subscribe,"
(Cry'd Phoebus in amaze ;)

"Pert wits, who murder sense and time,
As Dulness prompts, in prose and rhyme,
For profit, pride, or praise.

"What Mortal ever heard the names
Of Carysfort, or Major James,

Twin brethren of the quill?

Who (harmless scribblers!) strange to tell,
Was never prais'd for writing well,

Or blam'd for writing ill.

"If thou wert bent, with heart so hard,

To crucify the Roman Bard,

And sacrifice his fame,

What need hadst thou, devoid of grace,
To summon all the Grub-street race,
To glory in his shame?

"So Vulcan, in a jealous pet,
Caught Mars and Venus in a net;

Then further mischief brewing;

Invited (rude uncivil bear!)

The gods and goddesses to stare,

And laugh at their undoing."

*

Thurlow (alas! will Thurlow never tire?)

New points his dulness, and new strings his lyre;
That lyre which rang the praises in our ears
Of "godlike" poets, and "transcendent" peers;
With quick dispatch his teeming brain unloads,
Then issue forth Acrostics, Sonnets, Odes;
Loud empty bombast, flights of false sublime,
prose indeed-but tortur'd prose in rhyme.
F. Shall blood Patrician no distinction claim?
Dwell there no virtues in a noble name?

Not

Is Title nothing? Wealth? Pray learn for once One grain of prudence :

P.

To respect a dunce ! Bow, flatter, dedicate, and bend the knee,

A mean dependant-this advice to me?

No, let me rather in affected drawl,

Write hymns with Collyer,+ idiot tales with Ball;‡

* Lord Thurlow, in addressing the Prince Regent, uses the following miraculous ascription

"Thames by thy victories is set on fire!"

+ The following verses are extracted from a book of hymns written by Doctor Collyer:

Turn, Commentator grave, and pore content
To find a meaning where there's nothing meant ;
Than shield from censure undeserving strains,
Because, forsooth, they spring from noble brains.
Not fools alone, as mad examples strike;
This metromania reigns in all alike:

Both wit and dunce the restless muse inspires
With equal rage, though not with equal fires;
Not Byron stands acquitted of the crime,
A promise made in prose, he breaks in rhyme.

"In the shelter of thy side,
Wounded by the cruel spear,

From impending wrath I hide,

Wrath which cannot reach me here.

"From thy head, thy hands, thy feet,
Flows the purifying flood;

See! I plunge-I rise to meet

Justice, reconciled by blood."

How different to this doggerel are the beautiful Lyrics of Watts!

"The Idiot Boy; a Spanish Tale of Pity," written by Mr. Edward Ball.

"O Lady, all the valley sigh

For such a helpless spirit fled,

Who can restrain the humid eye?

Know Clara's Idiot Boy is dead."

Is not this the dramatic Fitz-Ball-an old gentleman of the Dunciad with a new name?

Hark! Printers' Devils say, or seem to say,
"No rest have we, Fitzgerald,* night, or day;
For thee, vain man, a weary watch we keep,
Nor sleep enjoy-although thy readers sleep.
Does Southey pause, or paper-staining Scott
One moment's respite grant, a page to blot;
Thy hobbling Pegasus, a sorry hack,

Still faintly drawls to keep us on the rack.
Should e'er the fates condemn thee for thy crimes,
(For thou to sense art traitor in thy rhymes,)
For paper wasted, ink so idly spilt,

Yet kindly bid thee choose what death thou wilt;
Think, think on Clarence, he (a bold design!)
Resolv'd to perish by his favorite wine;

Thy volumes round thy neck to make thee sink, O! let 'em drown thee in thy favorite ink !"

Where old Blackfriars pours her sable sons, A mingled tribe of Critics, Bards, and Duns, Dwelt Phillips, an industrious, plodding wight, And by the King's good favor dubb'd a Knight; A bookseller was he, and, sooth to say,

* Mr. Fitzgerald is a very loyal, voluminous, and dull writer. He is Prologue-Speaker to the Literary Fund. His principles in this instance are more to be commended than his poetry.

Not Nichols had more authors in his pay.
At verse and prose so ready were the host,
"Twas emulation which should scribble most;

It is with pleasure I behold, in a green old age, one of the last members of the venerable Johnsonian School.— "Fortunate Senex!" the recollection of past days must be peculiarly grateful, when, in the downhill of life, he beholds those bright stars that once illumined the literary horizon, partaking of the immortality which is reserved for genius and virtue.

Mr. Nichols died at Islington on 26th November, 1826, at the patriarchal age of 82. The following tribute to his memory has already appeared in The Gentleman's Maga

zine :

Sov'reign Parent! Holy Earth!
To thy bosom we commend
Nichols, full of years and worth,
Johnson's last surviving friend!

He was of that glorious time,

Of that bright, transcendent age,
When immortal Truth sublime

Dropp'd like manna from the Sage.

Call'd to fill that honour'd chair
Johnson once so nobly grac'd,

He essay'd with pious care

Still to guide the public taste

Attic wit, and sense profound,
And the muse's humbler lay,
Truth divine, with science crown'd,

All their various pow'rs display.