THE PUFFIAD.

PART II.

"Puff him up with glory, till it swell

And break him.”

Denham,

"Quid referam, quantâ siccum jecur ardeat irâ, Quum populum-premit hic spoliator,"—Juv. 1.

THUS having mark'd the morals of the time, The trot of Dulness and the march of Crime, Fountain of Puffs! to thee-to thee belong The flaming wonders of our future song.

And what a man of privilege art thou !

Come forth, my hero! rear thy brazen brow:

While peerless Scott, whose vast Shakspearian mind

Like a new world hath open'd on mankind,

Is forced to sound the caverns of his soul,
Ere the charm'd Age adore its grand control,-

Thou, in thy happier rank, at ease can rule,

And turn the reading herd one mighty fool!
Free from thy pen the sibyl periods fall,

Doom'd to attract, and triumph over all;
Touch'd by thy genius' titillating ray,

See the great master-passion faint away !
Yes! six short lines from thy magnetic quill
Both sage and dunce with longing fancies fill,-
The pockets jingle-lies nor sense restrain,—

And Puff retires to chuckle o'er his gain!

Close to that street where noontide puppies haste,

To pull the whisker and to sport the waist,

Where, long and lean, an apish concourse meet,

And scent, like civet cats, the crowded street,
One dome there is, where manuscripts abound,
Turn into print, and spread pollution round:
Here authors, shirtless, hatless, of all hues,
From volume-hacks to grubbers for reviews,
Thick as the blights on wintry trees, resort,
As to one common, all-directing court;

Hence Ramsgate tourists, full of far renown,
With greasy quartos stuff the stupid town!

Noticula Quædam.

* “ Ambubaiarum collegia, pharmacopolæ,

Mendici, mimæ, balatrones, hoc genus omne."-Hor.

Hence novel-vampers, fraught with lackey lore,

Supply St. James's with their kitchen store;

Hence reminiscent rubbish, picked from brains

Addled and heavy with their rakish pains,

In fat octavos pester all the isle

With slip-slop, nasty, venomous, and vile;

Hence hungry hermits, Bow-Street blackguards, all

Book-vamping reptiles in this earthly ball,

In fetid volumes on the world intrude,

Spurr'd by the vulgar wish of getting food.

To this book-ars'nal, all who want a name,
And sweat along the dusty road to Fame,
All they who pant to buzz about the town.
With simp❜ring consciousness of small renown,

Resort, and in an antechamber sit,

Their inky stuff, all duly smug and fit ;

The glass door opes-a well-bred tool appears, With smiles that shuffle from his mouth to ears;

A nimble one, and nicely formed to be

A pliant piece of snug duplicity ;

No shop-bred pertness, or buffoon grimace,
Flutters and flashes o'er his busy face;

More courtly he! unlike that lump of →→
Once's bulldog,-vicious-minded ------ :

True to the trade, his tact determines well,
What trash may not, and what is sure to sell;
And when poor Merit pleads her modest due,—
"Forgive me, sir, I'll keep the cash in view."

D 5