But far more dear, to quench the Candle's spark, Not all the treasure his Imperial Slave any but one," said the Prince, "to her indeed he is a most devoted Subject," Regina Pecunia.” * When Pizarro took Atahualpa, the Emperor of Peru, prisoner, he offered, says Dr. Robertson, a ransom for his liberty which astonished the Spauiards, even after all they knew of the opulence of his kingdom, The apartment in which he was confined was twenty-two feet in length, and sixteen in breadth, and he undertook to fill it with vessels of gold as high as he could reach. The Inca actually perfomed his part of the agreement, but the Spaniards most perfidiously deceived him. They seized the treasure of the captive monarch, and still detained him in custody. But they soon proceeded to a much higher act of treachery and injustice; they pretended to bring to a trial, before a tribunal of Spanish Judges, the independent Emperor of Peru, on the ridiculous arraignment that he had rebelled against his lawful Sovereign, the king of Castile, to whom the Pope had granted a right to his dominions! Men who could thus prostitute the forms of law and justice, had resolved to commit murder, and were solicitous only to avoid the infamy of it. The trial accordingly terminated in condemnation, and the unfortunate Atahualpa soon after suffered the death of a criminal! He dared not set that potent Inca free, Think not that I all praise or censure scorn, Ah! Who that hath not felt them, who can tell The fears that sink, the rising hopes that swell His breast, who courts, as yet to fame unknown, The maiden Muse, unfriended* and alone; * What has been said of giving, may be as truly said of approving." Bis laudat, qui cito laudat." "He praised me," said Johnson, "when as yet I was in obscurity, without friends, and without money; and when praise was of service to me." In general, we are afraid to commit ourselves, by praising any thing that is new; we wait for the Public; the Public for the Critics; the Critics for the watchword of their Party; or the nod of their Patron; or the fees of their Pay-masters. A fig for such commendations. Any skirter or babbler can follow the pack, or re-echo the cry; give me the reader, “Acuti naris," who boldly challenges upon the scent, and first and singly announces the game. To bestow praise in the proper place, and to come forward with it in the proper season, requires more taste and more courage than to censure. Any mob can pull down what an architect only could erect. But praise should be the incentive, not the principle; the spur, not the prize; the cordial that refreshes and revives, not the dram that intoxic tes and overcomes. A man may be smother Doomed all the Moor's distrustful pangs to prove, To "doat, yet doubt ;* suspect, yet strongly love.” I scorn myself, when raptured I survey The mighty Masters of th' immortal lay; Thus, one who strives with glance of naked eye, The Pyramids, † their height, and breadth to try, ed in honey, like Voltaire; no less than in gall, like Salmasius. Whoever would persuade us that he is indifferent to the praise of the wise and the virtuous, either will not be believed, or if he saves his veracity, it will be at the cxpense of qualities almost as valuable. "Laudari haud metuam, neque enim mihi cornea fibra est, Sed recti finem extremumque esse recuso, Euge tuum, et belle.” *See Shakespeare's Othello. "Incipit, et dubitat, scribit, damnatque tabellas, †These stupendous monuments of human folly and vanity have been poetical and oratorical property ever since they were built. "In what year of our Lord did that happen?" said my uncle Toby. Ask the critics, I neither know nor care. I have heard that Buonaparte, when first Consul, made the following fine allusion to these monuments of Antiquity, in a speech before the Deputies of the Departments: "France, externally formidable and successful, but internally weak and miserable, wants a peace. She may be compared to those Pyramids I Learns well his own contrasted littleness, Nor seeing, show; * nor, lost in wonder, teach; have lately seen in Egypt; their outward appearance, indeed, fills the mind of the spectator with ideas of their grandeur, strength, and magnificence; but when he enters them, what does be behold? Inanimated ashes, and the silence of the tomb! "Hunc talem nequeo monstrare, et sentio tantum." I am far from thinking what follows a finished Portrait; it is more strictly a rough sketch, nor would it have been exhibited to my readers, at least for the present, and in the crude state in which it is, had not some unforeseen changes taken place in my plan of publication. A partial Jury of a few friends who have seen it, recommended its insertion. Imperfect as this attempt is, it may serve to remind Modern versifiers that the true Poet, from the many rare endowments which must conspire, and co-operate in his formation, cannot be a very common character; and that we may safely walk through the crowded Streets of the Metropolis, and even venture into the Row, without any danger of being jostled by true Poets, even in this rhyming age." Ex quovis Ligno non fit Poeta." An observation I once made to an American of the name of Wood, who showed me some wretched rhymes of his own composing. The Oases are highly fruitful and cultivated spots, green and beautiful as emeralds, which occasionally may be found in the midst of the desert, filling the exhausted traveller with delight and astonishment. He readily ackonwledges them to be THE BARD, Creation's heir, and Fancy's child, Rich as the Vale, and as the Mountain wild; From Critics cold takes not, but gives the rule, Nor floats on common-place, that stagnant pool; * both "rich and " rare," " but "wonders how the devil they got there." * It is notorious that the greatest of the Poets have preceded the Critics of their respective countries; and that the finest productions of the human mind have been finished before the rules for composing them were laid down. Thus Aristotle wrote after Homer; Quintilian and Longinus after Virgil; and in our own country, the very name of a native Critic was hardly known, till long after Shakespeare and Milton were dead." O fortunati nimium!" It appears then that the Critics have not been the Præstolatores, who marching in the van of the Poet, have facilitated his progress, by clearing the undiscovered land of its difficulties and impediments; but that they have been content, like Sutlers, to bring up the rear ; to be the mere proclaimers of the Poet's Victory, or the Pageants of his Triumph. After they have recovered from their astonishment at the marvellous prowess, the "speciosa miracula" displayed by him, they next encumber him with their officious help; or else, like the Rhetorician who undertook to teach Hannibal the art of war, presume to tell him how he might have done better! It has been observed" that there are two periods favourable to Poets, a rude age when a genius may hazard any thing, and when nothing has been forestalled. The other is, when after an age of barbarism, a master or two,as Milton, produce models formed by purity, and taste." But in general that excessive refinement superinduced by a classical education, and an intimacy with the pure models of antiquity, while it sharpens the judgement, has a natural tendency to discourage en |