Luttrell himself could turn a verse, and was no doubt compensed in some degree by the opportunity afforded r airing his talent, owning indeed that "your cook was o dab at her duty," but making the answering line "end ith poetry, friendship, and beauty." And then to increase our delight To a fulness all boundaries scorning, And regaled with your rhymes the next morning. We must go back to an earlier date to find dinners a heerful subject for the poet's muse. When a couple of ishes furnished a table to which it was not unbecoming › invite a lord, Matthew Prior could gayly extemporize n invitation to Harley, with no fears of a contretemps hen a joint of mutton and a ham supplied the board: N EXTEMPORE INVITATION TO THE EARL OF OXFORD, HIGH TREASUrer, 1712. My Lord, Our weekly friends to-morrow meet At Matthew's palace in Duke Street, If, wearied with the great affairs Which Britain trusts to Harley's cares, Crown with thy health the sprightly bowl; Of honor a more glorious proof- 1 Vulgo salary. Take a knuckle of veal- For it maketh things small; Put this pot of Wood's metal Say grace, with your hat off. Will it fill dean and chapter! Copper. The allusion is to Wood, the coiner of Irish halfpence, who fur. nished the text of the Drapier Letters. "Which we suppose to be near four hours." The mention of Twickenham, where Swift was so keenly missed, reminds us of Pope's lines suggested by the vexed question of his descent. Swift in Ireland was contented to be called an Irishman; but the monument he put up to his grandfather in Goodrich (or Gotheridge) Church, to which he also presented a cup, implies, as Pope also took it, a desire to assert his English origin. He had sent a pencilled elevation of the tablet to Mrs. Howard, who returned it with these lines on it scribbled by Pope. The paper was found endorsed in Swift's hand, "Model of a monument to my grandfather, with Mr. Pope's roguery: Jonathan Swift By fatheridge, motheridge, To come from Gotheridge, In this church he has put For England hath its own. " Swift is rarely spoken of in these days but as a misanthrope, abhorring as well as despising his fellow creatures. Misanthrope as he might be towards parties and people he did not like or did not know, he could not live without friends, who were more necessary to him than they are to many philanthropists, and more constantly in his mind for their amusement and his own; and trusting, no doubt, to their immense opinion of his genius, he delighted, among other uses of the "Little language," in stringing together, in a sort of horse-play, jingling rhymes and interminable lines, in bold defiance of metrical rule, like the following, - certainly never designed for the public eye, though they found their way to it : When you have not one friend left in town, or at least no one that 's witty to joke wi' ye?" How he served his friends is shown, in one instance, by Gay's acknowledgments, who attributes to his good offices his appointment to attend Lord Clarendon to the House in capacity of secretary. "I am every day," he writes, "attending my Lord Treasurer for his bounty to help me out, which he hath promised me upon the following petition, which I have sent him by Dr. Arbuthnot: " THE EPIGRAMMATICAL PETITION OF JOHN GAY. One can live without money on plains, But never without it at court. If, when with the swains I did gambol, I arrayed me in silver and blue, When abroad and in courts I shall ramble, Pray, my lord, how much money will do ?" Instead of the terrors of a competitive examination, his wardrobe was obviously Gay's first care on entering the public service: for subdivision of labor is a modern idea. A genius or a clever fellow used to be considered fit, and to hold himself fit, at a moment's warning, for any employment that would bring him an income. A place or an appointment, whatever the duties, was an appropriate recognition of any form of merit or success. Scarcely more than half a century ago, Theodore Hook was made AccountantGeneral to the Mauritius, and treasurer to the colony, for rattling off such verses as these in ridicule of the tag-rag deputations to Queen Caroline : — 'Tis true our Master's temper natural Escaped from their jailors, A Tout of sham sailors As sea-bred as tailors In Shropshire or Wilts, And Mark Oldi's smile, and her's, Half a score Mile-enders It was a fit sequel to such a choice that the luckless treasurer, having got the money affairs of the island into inextricable confusion, was brought back in disgrace, entertaining his custodians, and amusing the tedium of the voyage, by extemporizing songs of which himself and his own predicament was the theme, and denouncing The atrocious, pernicious Scoundrel that emptied the till at Mauritius. But we are digressing, and must not leave the elder generation without one specimen, gathered from his letters, of Swift's graver epistolary style, addressed to the honored friend who was emphatically the poet of the brilliant circle. It is an example of his delightfully easy versification, so peculiarly adapted for familiar uses: DR. SWIFT TO MR. POPE, A while they on each other look, Now backs of letters, though designed Each atom by some other struck, Yet to the Dean his share allot; That without which a thing is not Thus, Pope, in vain you boast your wit; Been for your conversation fit, Of prelate thus for preaching famed Amongst epistolary effusions, Gray's lines to Mason. must find a place. Whether Mason had any idea of editing Shakespeare we cannot now remember, but doubtless Gray had been irritated by a good deal of the criticism laboriously bestowed on the poet by his numerous commentators, and thus expressed his opinion of their value:TO THE REV. WILLIAM MASON. July 16, 1765. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE to MRS. ANNE, regular servant to the Rev. Mr. Precentor of York. A moment's patience, gentle Mistress Anne: Though now a book, and interleaved, you see. Was fashioned fair in meek, dove like guise; Steal to his closet at the hour of prayer; Than thus be patched and cobbled in one's grave. So York shall taste what Clouet never knew, So from our works sublimer fumes shall rise; While Nancy earns the praise to Shakespeare due, For glorious puddings and immortal pies. "Tell me, if you do not like this," writes Gray, "a will send you a worse." We think them good lines to their home only in a letter; and Gray had no eye be his correspondent: and so thought Mason, who writes swer, "As bad as your verses were, they are yours, therefore, when I get back to York, I will paste them fully in the first page of my Shakespeare, for I intend be put in my marriage settlement, as a provision for younger daughters.” Editors have been often provocatives of verse. T Moore has his thoughts on editors, though on differ grounds, but mingled in his case also with good che The following querulous effusion fails to distinguish tween the private, the social, and the public duties of t critic. "I see my Lord Edward,” he writes, “annours as one of the articles in the Quarterly, to be abused course; and this so immediately after my dinings and j ketings with both editor and publisher." Having occasia to write to Murray, he sent him the following squib: THOUGHTS ON EDITORS. No, editors don't care a button What false and faithless things they do; They'll let you come and cut their mutton, And then they 'll have a cut at you. With Barnes I oft my dinner took, Nay, met ev'n Horace Twiss to please him; Yet Mr. Barnes traduced my book, For which may his own devils seize him! With Dr. Bowring I drank tea, Nor of his cakes consumed a particle; And yet th' ungrateful LL. D. Let fly at me next week an article. John Wilson gave me suppers hot, With bards of fame like Hogg and Packwood; A dose of black strap then I got, And after a still worse of Blackwood! Alas! and must I close the list With thee, my Lockhart, of the Quarterly! So kind, with bumper in thy fist With pen, so very gruff and tarterly. Now in thy parlor feasting me, Now scribbling at me from thy garret, Which sourest is, thy wit or claret. Byron never made verse his plaything. Even where it affected to be, it was a weapon which would have alto gether failed of its purpose if it did not find its way and hit far beyond its seeming destination. Self-banished, he felt his exclusion from the intellects of the day, and sought for some medium of communication with them which should not compromise his pride. This medium was his distinguished publisher, at whose house his restless fancy imag ined constant gatherings of wits and poets. To them be sent messages, as it were, to keep his name and fame still in men's mouths - and the fear of him an ence. - influ abiding lively Mr. Murray was thus the depositary of some critiques on men and books, as where Byron supplies him with a civil refusal of the "Medical Tragedy " (Dr. Polidori's), spoken in his (Murray's) own person. We give it as so far to our point that it is verse applied to a personal use, and affecting to be thrown off for the amusement of his correspondent: There's Byron too, who once did better, A sort of it's no more a drama But, to resume: As I was saying, sir, the room The room's so full of wits and bards, Crabbes, Campbells, Crokers, Freres, and Wards, And others, neither bards nor wits. My humble tenement admits His publisher's name suggests other verses in a more genuinely playful vein, as well as more for the individual recipient. He felt Murray the link between him and his country, as apart from a few personal intimacies. His mind, we see, ran on the scene where his name was spoken and his works inquired after. He liked to recall "the table's baize so green," the comings and goings, the literary gossip, and all that was most opposed to the line he had chosen for himself. It associated him with poets, not only of the day, but of the earlier times : — Strahan, Jonson, Lintot of the times, To thee with hope and terror dumb Tours, travels, essays, too, I wist, And Heaven forbid I should conclude Complimentary verses, if premeditated, scarcely come within our subject. Playful they may be, but no style of composition has more severely tasked the faculties of versifiers, or been less congenial to the poet proper. We mean, of course, social verse; for addresses and dedications, profuse of compliment, swell the pages to a very inconvenient extent, of generations of poets. One exception, however, we must make to our exclusion of this vehicle for forced liveliness. What more easy and playful lines can we find than the following, or more suggestive of fun and enjoyment in the writer? and if any question the choice of subject, let them remember the argument of the "Splendid Shilling." Sing, heavenly Muse! Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme, A shilling, breeches, and chimeras dire. These lines were addressed to Mrs. Legh on her weddingday, in reference to a present of a pair of shooting-breeches she had made to Canning while he was a Christ Church undergrad uate: To MRS. LEGH. While all to this auspicious day, Well pleased, their heartfelt homage pay, My muse shall strike her tuneful strings, Soon shall the tailor's subtle art Have made them tight, and spruce, and smart, With twenty thousand stitches; And when, to ease the load of life, I ask not rank or riches; No man that has much in him can write to amuse him self in ever so easy a vein, without telling something that for example, Cowper's song on the History of a Walk in will convey information a hundred years or so after. Take, the Mud. What a picture it raises of the roads and paths of his day! Often it occurs to the reader to speculate on the use that is made of gardens in literature of a former date. How constantly Pepys, e. g., "walks up and down," in discussion! what provision was made for this exercise in all old gardens! A terrace, we see, was no affair of mere state, it was a necessity of health; for if people walk for exercise in narrow bounds, it must be on a straight line, not one winding and turning. A country walk was an adventure for ladies in those days. Witness the immense preparations when the Duchess of Portland on first succeeding to Welbeck wished to walk to Creswell Crag, two miles and a half from the great house. The ladies were accompanied by the steward to show them the way, and two pioneers to level all before them. Paths were cut through thickets and brambles, and bridges made for swampy places. It was an expedition to be proud of. Walking was necessary to Cowper, and a lady companion equally necessary; hence the point he makes of having leave to walk in the Throckmortons' grounds. It is really sad to read (February, 1785), “ Of all the winters we have passed at Olney, this, the seventeenth, has confined us most. Thrice, and but thrice, since the middle of October, have we escaped into the fields for a little fresh air and a little change of motion. The last time it was at some peril we did it, Mrs. Unwin having slipt into a ditch; and, though I performed the part of an active squire upon the occasion, escaped out of it upon her hands and knees." The occasion of the following composition was four years earlier, the Sister Anne addressed at the close being Lady Austen: 9. 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. Southey calls this one of the playfullest and most char acteristic of his pieces. We are glad to have a poet's tes timony to its merits. It is a remarkable example of Cow per's special power of picturesquely reproducing a scene, incident, or situation; and by touches minutely true, play ing with the trivialities of life as an exercise of his apt and choice resources of language. The editors have prob ably thought the subject too trivial, for it has been "over looked" in every edition of his poems that we know of There is a poem of Coleridge's which comes under our class, having been clearly written with friends only in view; but as it is inserted in his works, we will only indicate it by a few lines. It is that Ode to the Rain, com posed in bed on the morning appointed for the departure of a very worthy but not very pleasant visitor, whom it was feared the rain might detain : — ment. But only now, for this one day, O Rain! with your dull twofold round, For days, and months, and almost years O Rain! you will but take your flight, Though you should come again to-morrow, And bring with you both pain and sorrow; Though stomach should sicken and knees should swell, But only now, for this one day, Of all the intellectual gifts bestowed on man, the most intoxicating is readiness the power of calling all the resources of the mind into simultaneous action at a moment's notice. Nothing strikes the unready as so miracu lous as this promptitude in others; nothing.impresses him with so dull and envious a sense of contrast in his own person. To want readiness is to be laid on the shelf, to creep where others fly, to fall into permanent discourage To be ready is to have the mind's intellectual property put out at fifty or a hundred per cent.; to be unready at the moment of trial, is to be dimly conscious of faculties tied up somewhere in a napkin. What an engine - we are speaking of "the commerce of mankind"—is & memory ready with its stores at the first question, words that come at your call, thoughts that follow in unbroken sequence, reason quick at retort! The thoughts we may feel not above our level; the words we could arrange in as har monious order; the memory, only give it time, does not fail us; the repartee is all the occasion called for, if only it had not suggested itself too late, thus changing its nature from a triumph into a regret. It is such comparisons, the painful recollection of panic and disaster, the speech that would not be spoken, the reply that dissolved into incoherence, the ac tion that belied our intention, or, it may be, experience in a humbler field, that gives to readiness such a charm and value. The ready man does seem such a very clever fellow. The poet's readiness does not avail him for such practical uses, and does not contribute to his fame or success at all in the same degree. It is the result the thought, the wit, the sense- not the speed of performance, which determines the worth of his efforts. But we delight in an extempore effusion because of the prestige of readiness called into play in busy life; at least this adds to the pleasure. The poet's best verses are the greatest, least imitable wonder about him; but we are apt to be most surprised when he shows --- is powers under immediate command: and good lines, truck off at a heat, do give us a vivid insight into the -ivacity and energy of the poetical temperament, prompt n its action, ready at a call, and gayly willing to display s mechanical facilities. There is a specimen of Dryden's uency in extempore verse, communicated and authenicated by Malone, which shows that foresight and composite action which a strong imagination seems to possess, ittering what it has prepared, and composing what is to Follow, at one and the same time a habit or faculty bserved in Sir Walter Scott by his amanuenses. This louble action must belong to all rapid complex expression; out the difficulty is enhanced and the feat magnified in proportion when rhythm and rhyme are added to the other equirements. "Conversation one day after dinner at Mrs. Creed's unning upon the origin of names, Mr. Dryden bowed to he good old lady and spoke extempore the following verses: " So much religion in your name doth dwell, My prayers shall be, while this short life endures, Dr. Johnson, readiness itself in his conversation, has left some remarkable examples of the extemporizing power. Mrs. Thrale relates that she went into his room at Streatham on her birthday and complained, "Nobody sends me verses now, because I am five-and-thirty years old; and Stella was fed with them till forty-six, I remember." "My having just recovered from illness will account for the manner in which he burst out suddenly; for so he did without the least previous hesitation whatsoever, and without having entertained the smallest intention towards it half a minute before: Oft in danger, yet alive, We are come to thirty-five; Time his hours should never drive For howe'er we boast and thrive, "And now," said he, as I was writing them down, "you may see what it is to come for poetry to a dictionarymaker; you may observe that the rhymes run in alphabetical order exactly, and so they do." His extempore parodies are by no means feats like this, which is really a bundle of valuable maxims; but how easily flow the lines to Miss Reynolds, in imitation of the Penny Ballads," and how well the rhythm is caught ! I therefore pray thee, Renny dear, That thou wilt give to me, With cream and sugar softened well, Another dish of tea. Nor fear that I, my gentle maid, Shall long detain the cup, When once unto the bottom I Have drunk the liquor up. Yet hear, alas! this mournful truth, Nor hear it with a frown, When it is within your reach,'' and helped himself accordingly, an example which, under such revered sanction, the rest of the party were not slow to follow. The value of all specimens lies a good deal in the assurance of their authenticity as unprepared efforts, sudden plays of humor or ingenuity. The following professes also to be extempore; but there must have been finishing touches, - it surely passes human power to have been hit off in one sustained unbroken flow. That it answers our leading requirement as poet's play work, there can be no doubt. Whitbread, it seems, had perpetrated the unpardonable sin against taste and parliamentary usage, of introducing personal and family matters into his speech on a great public occasion, at a time when party feeling against Lord Melville was carried to a point of savage virulence. It is no wonder his witty friend was inspired by such an opportunity for firing a shot in return. FRAGMENT OF AN ORATION. Part of Mr. Whitbread's speech on the trial of Lord Melville, 1805, put into verse by Mr. Canning at the time it was delivered. I'm like Archimedes for science and skill; It is obvious, on this and other grounds, that our poets at play can include no living brother within their circle. Poets must first be known and valued by their works. They must have done great things before we care for trifles from their hands. But this knowledge once acquired, and an estimate formed, a further intimacy may be promoted by some acquaintance with performances which do not rank among their works. It would be very unjust to measure them by such specimens as we have strung together; but having established their reputation with us, trivialities, like many of these, if they do not contribute to their fame, yet suggest versatility, and commonly add an engaging touch of homely nature to a great name. They are all examples, as we began by saying, of that essential |