Entroductory Lines to Book the First.

TO CAPTAIN B- H—, R.N.
&c. &c.

WHILE Sovereigns-save our royal Sire,
Who justly has become the rage-
Are goods that have begun to tire
The humours of the ripening Age;

While thanks to whiskered peers*—the clown

In print, at least, can play the rover—
Cross seas whose depth can never drown,

And shores untrod-in Truth discover;
While ermined "INFLUENCE" half forsakes
Her flock to no contemn'd attacks;
While Pelham for his boroughs quakes,
And Jersey trembles for 'Almacks';
While thus the old world;-Captain H-
Writes foolish books about the new-
Weeps tears of ink when despots fall,

And damns poor Murray's lost Review.

See a certain speech of Lord Wilton, in which the people are said to owe their knowledge to the Aristocracy. It is very true!-their knowledge of taxes!

*

O! model of the travelling tribe,

Though homage Satire always pays ill, She must, with great respect, inscribe This book to you, Illustrious B—l! the Yankee race—

How well

you scourge

Their codes uncouth, their garbs unsightly ;-
Should Yankees answer,-in their face
You smile your wise contempt politely.*
How well you show, O sapient bore!
The curse from taxes to be free;—
And prop the parsons with " one more
Apt illustration from the sea."+
If he be great who nobly dares

The greatest things with least resources,
Oh! who, most learned H-, compares
With you his courage-and his forces?
You ridicule a mighty state,

Without a grain of wit for satire ; On knottiest points, with ease debate,

Without one just thought on the matter;

* "In short, said I, unable to suppress a smile."-Hall's Travels in North America, vol. iii. p. 411. I merely smiled, and said nothing." "The lady's suspicions instantly took fire, on seeing the expression of my countenance."-Ibid. vol. i. p. 110. A nice, agreeable fellow, for a disputant or a guest!

"To borrow one more illustration from the sea, I should say, that the Established Church may be compared to the rudder, and the country, with its multifarious arrangements of society, to the ship," &c.—Ibid. vol. iii. p. 405.

This charming metaphor occurs in the most entertaining conversation

With scarce the Traveller's art to gaze,
You ape the Sage's to distinguish-
And while dear England's laws you praise,
You quite forget the laws of English.
Ev'n now, while Freedom through the lands
Sweeps gathering on-behold in all
His might-on Murray's counter stands
And fires his popgun-Captain H— !
"Tis said when famed Alcides slew

The Earth's dread son-that Slumber bound him'

The Hero woke-attacked anew

And saw-the tribe of PIGMIES round him!

So Truth some mighty victory gains

And, lo, the Dwarfs rush out to seize her!

The Giant crushed-there still remains

Some tribe of H's that can but teize her ! But from the Traveller now we turn

One moment to address the Reader,

imaginable. Captain H. resolved to prove the blessings of an aristocracy, rotten boroughs, tithes; and lord-I beg pardon-the devil knows what! sets up an unfortunate Yankee, by way of an argumentative nine pin. Away bowls the Captain, blunder after blunder, folly after folly, as glibly as possible; and not a syllable of rational defence, ever by accident, comes out of the mouth of the nine pin. I cannot say whether a full-grown American could have answered Captain H.; but I know, that an English boy of ten years' old, with a tolerable private education would have been a great deal too much for him.

* There is an old tradition, that when Hercules (the great reformer of the ancient world) had conquered the giant Antæus-(a sort of Charles the Tenth)—he fell asleep in the Lybian desert, and was suddenly awakened by an attack of the Pigmies.

To him ev'n Satire's self must learn

To sink the' Accuser-in the Pleader. Forgive a Muse who long hath dwelt

From ladies of her tribe too distant, Nor learnt how like thoughts never felt, To things that never were existent.* She is not privileged to prose

Let finer bards aspire to weary us; Most humbly she resigns to those,

The misanthropic and mysterious.
And if she breathe a truth, at times,

She doth but rarely seek to quarrel;
She strains the Reason through the Rhymes,
And weaves the smile into the moral.

A friend to Wisdom, not to Schools-
Let Dreamers into sects enlist 'em ;
For me at times, if with the fools
"Tis not the folly of a system.†

Be mine to hover round the heart,
To warn to warm you by a word—
And while I mock the Leader's art,-
To shun the livery of the Herd!

* A very clever Author of the day said to me once, speaking of the present character of poetical similies, that they had only one fault— that of comparing what one had never seen, to what one had never heard of.

+ "The most ingenious way of becoming foolish is by a system.”— Shaftesbury, Advice to an Author.