Fatal to Goths are Xeres' sunny fields ; '

Why wouldst thou leave calm Hartwell's green Think'st thou to thee Napoleon's victor yields ?

abode, 3 Better reclaim thy deserts, turn thy swords

Apician table, and Horati.ın ode, To ploughsbares, shave and wash thy Bashkir hordes, | To rule a people who will not be ruled, Redeem thy realms from slavery and the knout, And love much rather to be scourged than school'd ? Than follow headlong in the fatal route,

Ah ! thine was not the temper or the taste To infest the clime whose skies and laws are pure For thrones ; the table secs thee better placed ; With thy foul legions. Spain wants no manure : A mild Epicurean, form’d, at best, Her soil is fertile, but she fceds no foe;

To be a kind host and as good a guest, Her vultures, too, were gorged not long ago;

To talk of letters, and to know by heart And wouldist thou furnish them with fresher prey ? One half the poet's, all the gourmand's art; Alas! thou wilt not conquer, but purvey:

A scholar always, now and then a wit, I am Diogenes, though Russ and Hun

And gentle when digestion may permit;
Stand between mine and many a myriad's sun; But not to govern lands enslaved or free;
But were I not Diogenes, I'd wander

The gout was martyrdom enough for thee.
Rather a worm than such an Alexander !
Be slaves wbo will, the cynic shall be free ;

XIII.
His tub hath tougher walls than Sinopé :

Shall noble Albion pass without a phrase Still will he hold his lantern up to scan

From a bold Briton in her wonted praise ? The face of nonarchs for an “ honest man.

“ Arts - arms and George — and glory — and the

isles — XI.

And happy Britain ---Wealtb—and Freedom's smilesAnd what doth Gaul, the all-prolific land

White cliffs, that held Invasion far aloof Of ne plus ultra ultras and their band

Contented subjects, all alike tax-proof Of mercenaries ? and her noisy chambers

Proud Wellington, with eagle beak so curl'd, And tribune, which each orator first clambers

That nose, the hook where he suspends the world ! 4 Before he finds a voice, and when 't is found,

And Waterloo — and trade — and (hush! not yet Hears “ the lie" echo for his answer round ?

A syllable of imposts or of debt). Our British Commons sometimes deign to “ hcar !”

And ne'er (enough) lamented Castlereagh, A Gallic senate hath more tongue than hear;

Whose penknife slit a goose-quill t'other dayEven Constant, their sole master of debate,

And · pilots who have weather'd every storm'sMust fight next day his speech to vindicate.

(But, no, not even for rhyme's sake, name ReBut this costs little to true Franks, who had rather

form)." Combat than listen, were it to their father.

These are the themes thus sung so oft before, What is the simple standing of a shot,

Methinks we need not sing them any more ; To listening long, and interrupting not ?

Found in so many volumes far and near, Though this was not the method of old Rome,

There's no occasion you should find them here. When Tully fulmined o'er cach vocal dome,

Yet something may remain perchance to chime Demosthenes has sanction'd the transaction,

With reason, and, what's stranger still, with rhyme. In saying eloquence meant “ Action, action!”

Even this thy geniu, Canning ! may permit,
XII.

Who, bred a statesmen, still wast born a wit,
But where's the monarch ? hath he dined ? or yet And never, even in that dull House, couldst tame
Groans beneath indigestion's heavy debt ?

To unleaven'd prose thine own poetic flame ; Have revolutionary patés risen,

Our last, our best, our only orator, And turn'd the royal entrails to a prison ?

Even I can praise thee — Tories do no more : Have discontented movements stirr'd the troops ? Nay, not so much; - they hate thee, man, because Or have no movements follow'd traitorous soups ? Thy spirit less upholds them than it awes. Have Carbonaro o cooks not carbonadoed

The hounds will gather to their huntsman's hollo, Each course enough ? or doctors dire discriaded And where he leads the duteous pack will follow; Repletion ? Ah! in thy dejected looks

But not for love mistake their yelling cry; I read all France's treason in her cooks !

Their yelp for game is not an eulogy ; Good classic Louis ! is it, canst thou say,

Less faithful far than the four-footed pack, Desirable to be the Desiré ? ”

A dubious scent would lure the bipeds back.

4

Great by courtesy), when surrounded by the Mussulmans on 3. (Hartwell, in Buckinghamshire- the residence of Louis the banks of the river Pruth.

xvill., during the latter years of the Emigration.] (" Eight thousand men had to Asturias march'd

"Naso suspendit adunco."- Horace. Beneath Count Julian's banner; the remains

The Roman applies it to one who merely was imperious Of that brave army which in Africa

to his acquaintance. So well against the Mussulman made head,

$(" The Pilot that weather'd the storm " is the burthen Till sense of injuries insupportable,

of a song, in honour of Pitt, by Mr. Canning.) And raging thirst of vengeance, overthrew Their leader's noble spirit. To revenge

6 [“ I have never heard any one who fulfilled my ideal of an

orator. Grattan would have been near it, but for his harle. His quarrel, twice that number left their bones, Slain in uunatural battle on the field

quin delivery. Pitt I never heard - Fox but once: and then

he struck me as a debater, which to me seems as different Of Xeres, where the sceptre from the Goths By righteous Hlcaren was reft."-Southcy's Roderick.) Grey is great, but it is not oratory;

from an orator as an improvisatore or a versitier from a poet.

Canning is sometimes ? [According to Botta, the Neapolitan republicans who,

very like one. Whitbread was the Demosthenes of ball taste during the reign of King Joachim, ted to the recesses of the

and vulgar vehemence, but strong, and English. Holland is Abruzzi, and there formed a secret confederacy, were the inpressive from sense and sincerity. Burdett is sweet and first that assumed the designation, since familiar all over silvery as Delial himself, and, I think, the greatest favourite Italy, of“ Carbonari" (colliers).]

in landemonium." - Byron Diary, 1821.]

Thy saddle-girths are not yet quite secure,

They roar'd, they dined, they drank, they swore they Nor royal stallion's feet extremely sure ; 1

meant The unwieldy old white horse is apt at last

To die for England - why then live ? - for rent ! To stumble, kick, and now and then stick fast The peace has made one general malcontent With his great self and rider in the mud;

Of these high-market patriots ; war was rent ! But what of that? the animal shows blood.

Their love of country, millions all mis-spent,

How reconcile ? by reconciling rent!
XIV.

And will they not repay the treasures lent ?
Alas, the country ! how shall tongue or pen

No: down with every thing, and up with rent! Bewail her now uncountry gentlemen ?

Their good, ill, health, wealth, joy, or discontent, The last to bid the cry of warfare cease,

Being, end, aim, religion - rent, rent, rent ! The first to make a malady of peace.

Thou sold'st thy birthright, Esau ! for a mess; For what were all these country patriots born ?

Thou shouldst have gotten more, or caten less ; To hunt, and vote, and raise the price of corn ?

Now thou hast swill'd thy pottage, thy demands But corn, like every mortal thing, must fall,

Are idle ; Israel says the bargain stands. Kings, conquerors, and markets most of all.

Such, landlords ! was your appetite for war, And must ye fall with every ear of grain ?

And, gorged with blood, you grumble at a scar! Why would you trouble Buonaparte's reign ?

What! would they spread their earthquake even o'er He was your great Triptolemus ; his vices

cash ? Destroy'd but realms, and still maintain'd your

And when land crumbles, bid firm paper crash ? prices;

So rent may rise, bid bank and nation fall, He amplified to every lord's content

And found on 'Change a Fundling Hospital ? The grand agrarian alchymy, hight rent.

Lo! Mother Church, while all religion writhes, Why did the tyrant stumble on the Tartars,

Like Niobe, weeps o'er her offspring, Tithes; And lower wheat to such desponding quarters ?

The prelates go to — where the saints have gone, Why did you chain him on yon isle so lone ?

And proud pluralities subside to one ; The man was worth much more upon his throne.

Church, state, and faction wrestle in the dark, True, blood and treasure boundlessly were spilt,

Toss'd by the deluge in their common ark. But what of that ? the Gaul may bear the guilt ;

Shorn of her bishops, banks, and dividends, But bread was high, the farmer paid his way,

Another Babel soars — but Britain ends. And acres told upon the appointed day.

And why? to pamper the self-seeking wants, But where is now the goodly audit ale ?

And prop the hill of these agrarian ants. The purse-proud tenant, never known to fail ?

“ Go to these ants, thou sluggard, and be wise;" The farm which never yet was left on hand ?

Admire their patience through each sacrifice, The marsh reclaim'd to most improving land ?

Till taught to feel the lesson of their pride, The impatient hope of the expiring lease ?

The price of taxes and of homicide; The doubling rental ? What an evil's peace !

Admire their justice, which would fain deny In vain the prize excites the ploughman's skill,

The debt of nations :- pray who made it high?
In vain the Commons pass their patriot bill;
The landed interest (you may understand

XV.
The phrase much better leaving out the land)- Or turn to sail between those shifting rocks,
The land self-interest groans from shore to shore, The new Symplegades — the crushing Stocks,
For fear that plenty should attain the poor.

Where ·Midas might again his wish behold
Up, up again, ye rents ! exalt your notes,

In real paper or imagined gold. Or else the ministry will lose their votes,

That magic palace of Alcina shows And patriotism, so delicately nice,

More wealth than Britain ever had to lose, Her loaves will lower to the market price ;

Were all her atoms of unleaven'd ore, For ah ! " the loaves and fishes," once so high, And all her pebbles from Pactolus' shore. Are gone - their oren closed, their ocean dry, There Fortune plays, while Rumour holds the And nought remains of all the millions spent,

stake, Exccpting to grow moderate and content.

And the world trembles to bid brokers break. They who are not so, had their turn- and turn How rich is Britain ! not indeed in mines, About still flows from Fortune's equal urn;

Or peace or plenty, corn or oil, or wines ; Now let their virtue be its own reward,

No land of Canaan, full of milk and honey, And share the blessings which themselves prepared. Nor (save in paper shekels) rearly money : See these inglorious Cincinnati swarm,

But let us not to own the truth refuse, Farmers of war, dictators of the farm;

Was ever Christian land so rich in Jews ? Their ploughshare was the sword in hireling hands, Those parted with their teeth to good King John, Their fields manured by gore of other lands;

And now, ye kings ! they kindly draw your own; Safe in their barns, these Sabine tillers sent

All states, all things, all sovereigns they control, Their brethren out to battle - why? for rent ! And waft a loan “ from Indus to the pole.” Year after year they voted cent. per cent., (reat! | The banker - broker - baron ?- brethren, speci Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions — why ? for To aid these bankrupt tyrants in their need.

(On the suicide of Lord Londouderry, in August, 1822, Mr. Canning, who had prepared to sail for India as Governor. General, was made Secretary of State for Foreign Affurs, - not much. it was alleged, to the personal satisfaction of George the Fourth, or of the high Tories in the cabinet. He lived to verify some of the predictions of the poet - to

abandon the foreign policy of his predecessor — to break up the Tory party by a coalition with the Whigs- and to prepare the way for Rcform in Parliament.)

? (The head of the illustrious house of Montmorenci has usually been designated "le premier haron Chrétien;" his ancestor having, it is supposed, been the first noble convert

Occasional Pieces.