ON THE AUTHOR OF LETTERS ON
LITERATURE.*

THE Genius of the Augustan age
His head among Rome's ruins rear'd,
And, bursting with heroic rage,
When literary Heron appear'd,

Thou hast, he cried, like him of old
Who set the Ephesian dome on fire,
By being scandalously bold,
Attain'd the mark of thy desire.

And for traducing Virgil's name
Shalt share his merited reward;
A perpetuity of fame,

That rots, and stinks, and is abhorr❜d.

THE DISTRESSED TRAVELLERS;

OR, LABOUR IN VAIN.

A New Song, to a Tune never sung before.

I SING of a journey to Clifton,+

We would have performed, if we could;
Without cart or barrow, to lift on

Poor Mary and me through the mud.

Slee, sla, slud,

Stuck in the mud;

Oh it is pretty to wade through a flood!

* Nominally by Robert Heron, been written by John Pinkerton. A village near Olney.

Esq., but supposed to have 8vo. 1785.

Mrs. Unwin.

So away he went, slipping and sliding;
Hop, hop, à la mode de deux frogs;
'Tis near as good walking as riding,
When ladies are dressed in their clogs.
Wheels, no doubt,

Go briskly about,

But they clatter, and rattle, and make such a rout.

DIALOGUE.

SHE.

"Well! now, I protest it is charming;
How finely the weather improves !
That cloud, though 'tis rather alarming,
How slowly and stately it moves."

HE.

"Pshaw! never mind,

'Tis not in the wind,

We are travelling south, and shall leave it behind."

SHE.

"I am glad we are come for an airing,
For folks may be pounded, and penn'd,

Until they grow rusty, not caring
To stir half a mile to an end."

HE.

"The longer we stay,

The longer we may;

It's a folly to think about weather or way."

SHE.

"But now I begin to be frighted,

If I fall, what a way I should roll!
I am glad that the bridge was indicted,
Stay! stop! I am sunk in a hole!"

You'll not be the last, that will set a foot there."

SHE.

"Let me breathe now a little, and ponder
On what it were better to do;

That terrible lane I see yonder,

I think we shall never get through.''

HE.

"So think I:—

But, by the by,

We never shall know, if we never should try."

SHE.

"But should we get there, how shall we get home?
What a terrible deal of bad road we have past!
Slipping, and sliding, and if we should come
To a difficult stile, I am ruined at last!
Oh this lane!

Now it is plain

That struggling and striving is labour in vain."

HE.

"Stick fast there while I

go

and look;

SHE.

"Don't go away, for fear I should fall :"

HE.

"I have examined it, every nook,

And what you see here is a sample of all.
Come, wheel round,

The dirt we have found

Would be an estate, at a farthing a pound."

Now, sister Anne,* the guitar you must take,
Set it, and sing it, and make it a song:
I have varied the verse, for variety's sake,
And cut it off short--because it was long.
'Tis hobbling and lame,

Which critics won't blame,

For the sense and the sound, they say, should be the same.

STANZAS

ON THE LATE INDECENT LIBERTIES TAKEN WITH THE REMAINS OF MILTON.t ANNO 1790.

"ME too, perchance, in future days,
The sculptured stone shall show,
With Paphian myrtle or with bays
Parnassian on my brow.

The late Lady Austen.

The bones of Milton, who lies buried in Cripplegate

"But I, or ere that season come,
Escaped from every care,

Shall reach my refuge in the tomb,
And sleep securely there."*

So

sang,

in Roman tone and style,

The youthful bard, ere long
Ordain'd to grace his native isle
With her sublimest song.

Who then but must conceive disdain,
Hearing the deed unblest

Of wretches who have dared profane
His dread sepulchral rest!

Ill fare the hands that heaved the stones +

Where Milton's ashes lay,

That trembled not to grasp his bones

And steal his dust away!

church, were disinterred; a pamphlet by Le Neve was published at the time, giving an account of what appeared on opening his coffin.

* Forsitan et nostros ducat de marmore vultus Nectens aut Paphia myrti aut Parnasside lauri Fronde comas-At ego secura pace quiescam.

Milton in Manso.

t Cowper, no doubt, had in his memory the lines said to have been written by Shakspeare on his tomb:

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear

To dig the dust inclosed here.

Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones."