Page:The Scourge - Volume 5.djvu/32

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Southey,


met with more severity on the Hampshire Farmer or. Hog, Cobbett, that egotist, who owes his fame and fortune not so much to talent as to his friend Wyndham, whom he deserted — but desertion was natural to Cobbett —he had been a soldier! The allusion to this fellow's impudent request, when committed' to Newgate for a libel, that the public would buy his Register, we give in the author's own words: " All I ask is, that the door keepers of your playhouse may take all the sets of my Register now on hand, and force everybody who enters?' your doors to buy one."

The Living Lustres, by T. Moore, is an imitation of the rhime, but not of those felicitous thoughts which so peculiarly mark the productions of this poet.

The Re-building, by R. Southey, is just the dull, wild, prosaic, extravagant, senseless jargon of " Thalaba" The Curse of Kehama," and the other absurd and ridiculous efforts of this gentleman's muse. The Fall of Drury-Lane, by Walter Scot, is very well imagined, upon the model of Marmion; it contains some good lines, and may be considered upon the whole as a successful imitation.

Fire and Ale by M. G. Lewis is among the best of the author's satires and is highly ludicrous: it is a very happy burlesque of the singular extravagancies for which this gentleman is so celebrated; it cannot fail of being read with a great deal of pleasure, and with this impression we shall take the liberty of transcribing it.

My palate is parched with Pierian thirst, Away to Parnassus I'm beckoned, List warriors and dames while my lay is rehearsed* I sing of the singe of Miss Drury the First, And the birth of Miss Drury the Second. The Fire King one day rather amorous felt* He mounted his hot Copper filley, His breeches and boots were of tin, and the belt Was made of cast iron for fear it should melt, With the heat of the copper colt's belly.