He prints the thing which Edwin calls an ode.*
How Laura smiles! What less can Laura do?
It gives her beauties that she never knew.
'Tis so pathetic! who unmov'd can read?
Melissa faintly whispers, "Sad, indeed!"
In ecstasies Lucretia dies away,

And Edwin grows immortal-for a day!

And is not now the author truly blest,

To paper Thomas puts his pen,
He teaches best, to people's thinking,
His more congenial Art of Sinking!

By auctions, and by arts enrich'd,
Behold Tom newly cropp'd and breech'd-
He ambles, struts, and sports the dibs,
No longer Tom-but Mister Tibbs !-
Yet more to shake the town with laughter,
By the "All Hail! (Tom Tibbs) Hereafter!"
Dan Momus paints a vision fair,

Of scarlet gown and civic chair;

And bids him sit Lord Midas there!"

* The following sonnet is written in humble emulation of the modern school of Poetry :

Highgate! romantic spot! of old renown
(About a mile from Kentish Town),

Oft have I pac'd thee, pensive, pale, and lorn,
Pilgrim of every valley, hill, and grange;
What time the city coachman winds his horn

By critics flatter'd, by the fair caress'd?

Shall not his praise by future bards be sung, When envious death has stopp'd his tuneful tongue?

F. By trade a censor, and resolv'd to sneer, You drive the jest too far; 'tis too severe To brand a blockhead in your angry strains, For what he cannot help-his want of brains! P. Be answer'd thus-his itching after fame, His bold obtrusive vanity I blame ;

(Music unmeet for solitude, and strange!) To rouse the sons of Mammon, moping souls, From tea and coffee, toast and butter'd rolls, To mount "The Royal Adelaide," that whirls (Cramm'd with puff'd cits, and roof'd with pretty girls!) To Lloyd's, the Bank, the Alley, Mart, Exchange.

And, Hampstead! fair twin sister! on whose heath

Health, gay enchantress, sports, and fancy dwells; Thou, too, hast crown'd thy bard with laurel wreath,

Pluck'd from th' Arcadian bow'rs of Kilburn WellsWhere, box'd in woodbine arbour, nymph and swain, Escap'd awhile from turmoil, smoke, and gas, Pour forth th' impassion'd vow, the vocal strain,

Warm with the inspiration of the glass!

How short the date of human bliss, alas!

For hark, with sound discordant, deep, and sad,

Harsh, and hoarse murmʼring to the whistling wind,

Rolls the huge rumbling Omnibus-the Cad

With liquor, dust, half drunk, half-chok'd, half-blind, Roars, with Stentorian voice, " Jump up, my lad! Room for the Lady-hip! hold fast behind!"

Not the true dulness that inspires his lays,
But the false pride that makes him covet praise.

F. Then censure all mankind, for who is free? The flame that warms their bosoms dwells with thee.

In search of fame the soldier travels far,
The smirking lawyer courts it at the bar,
Th' intrepid seaman wins it at his post,
The man of virtue-

P.

When he shuns it most!

F. The anxious poet claims it as his due, And (pr'ythee speak with candour) so do you. P. Thus candid, I reply—if now and then Success attend the labours of my pen,

If those who buy my works, and those who read,
Applaud-and that's a rarity indeed!

I'm not so proud, so squeamishly severe,
But honest Fame is pleasing to mine ear.
But that I write for that short-liv'd renown
Which Fashion gives the vot'ries of the town,
I cannot grant-for mark! the gift divine
Was Darwin's once, and, Busby, may be thine.

Athirst for fame, which Magazines, Reviews, Too coy, deny the labours of his Muse; My Lord (what will not vanity afford?) Invites a host of Critics to his board;

Some creeping, slip-shod hirelings of the day, Whom Colburn treats with "double pots and pay."

"My friends," he cries, "speak freely, tell me

plain,

What say the public to my epic strain ?"
Will they speak truth, too poor to be sincere?
But I may surely whisper in thine ear,
I who abhor a bribe;-then this-thy rhymes
In dulness rival past and present times;
So lame the weary audience think they see
Old Settle's doggerel new revived by thee;
So bad that worse will ne'er be seen again
Unless thou should'st resume thy scribbling vein.

From such pursuits 'twould turn thy trifling mind,
Had'st thou but, Janus-like, a face behind;
To mark the lolling tongue, the side-long leer,
The pointed finger, the contemptuous sneer,
And all the silent mock'ries of the town
That ridicule thy title to renown:

But thou must feast on flatt'ry all thy days,
And be the dupe of ev'ry blockhead's praise.*

* Doctor Busby is very complimentary to those Poetasters who subscribed to his English Lucretius: we have names "unknown to Phoebus" enumerated for a whole page together. Lord Thurlow's "Hermilda in Palestine" is said to have afforded much pleasure to the lovers of fine

For mark their judgment, hear their quaint reply—

-When genius rears its head shall slander die ? A brother's fame what brother bard endures ? Thus envy follows merit great as yours. You try the epic strain-in colours true A second Homer rises forth to view!

poetry; and Major James (a minor scribbler) has a long paragraph dedicated to his poetical talents! Next to the celebrated Martinus Scriblerus, Doctor Busby is the most profound explorer of the Bathos; take the following as a specimen

"From her this first, this sov'reign rule I bring,
All nature's substances from substance spring,
The gods from nothing ne'er made any thing."

But the most transcendent effort of all, is the Doctor's account of "Atoms"-" These, (the atoms) moving from all eternity through immeasurable space; meeting, concussing, rebounding, combining, amassing according to their smooth, round, angular, and jagged figures, have produced all the compound bodies of the universe, animate and inanimate. The more clearly and compactly they lie, the more the body they form approximates to perfect solidity; as the condition is less intimate, it will be more vacuous and rare," &c. &c.

The following Impromptu was written on reading Doctor Busby's list of subscribers to his Lucretius:

"Homunculi quanti sunt, cum recogito!"

Plautus.

Now I recollect, how considerable are these little men!