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ADVERTISEMENT FOR A DEDICATEE.

Thy letters have transported me beyond

This ignorant present time; and I feel now
The future in the instant."

Macbeth.

"I will contrive some way to make it known to futurity that had your Lordship for my patron."

SWIFT.

I HAVE just completed an Epic Poem, in twentyfour cantos, constructed as Apelles painted his Venus, by combining all the most distinguishing beauties of my contemporaries, prosaic and poetical, in one ela-. borate and immortal work. It is in the octo-syllabic irregular metre: my hero is a sort of civilized savage, uniting all the bursts of passion and ferocious valour of a barbarian with the refined love and unalterable constancy of a preux chevalier; and after many melting, fierce, and tragical adventures with the heroine, who has a bluish bloom upon her glossy black hair, voluptuous lips, and eyes like the Gazelle, they both finally disappear in a mysterious and unexplained manner; making themselves air, like the witches in Macbeth or the spectral figures of a phantasmagoria. Then I have a supernatural nondescript, in the shape of a crazy beldame, who, however, occasionally assumes the semblance of a deformed imp, or dwarf, seemingly a cross breed between the Pythoness and the Gipsy, or Caliban and a witch, who reads and prophesies in the fustian style of Bobadil or Pistol, and though he, she, or it, have not wit enough to

escape from hunger and rags, is yet gifted with real prescience, made the pivot of the whole plot, all the complications of which are forced to wind and evolve in subserviency to the delirious rhapsodies of this inspired hag, or urchin. The propriety of such a character, in a work professing to be a picture of real life, and founded upon authentic history, as mine is, will not, I think, be questioned by the most hypercritical reader. Moreover, I have a metaphysical muffin-man, who indulges in high and holy musings, philosophises the face of nature, disserts upon the mysteries of creation, delights in the most exalted and profound abstractions, and occasionally rings his bell and cries "Muffins!" with as simple, natural, and penny-beseeching a look, tempered, however, with dignity, as was ever assumed by Belisarius himself. I have also a

; but softly, let me not divulge too much; for in these times of literary competition, a rival author may first steal a hint, and by that means pick my pocket of my whole story, as has already been effected in numerous instances. One may submit to be pillaged by the dead, and in this way it is astonishing what a number of good things I myself have had stolen from me by Shakspeare and others; but this plagiarism by anticipation on the part of the living-this ante-natal robbery, sometimes extending to our very names and attributes, as in the instance of the unfortunate Peter Bell,- loudly calls for legislative interference, or we may all of us have our literary bantlings cut off before they are born, or see them ushered into the world as forgeries

VOL. I.

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of themselves — copied originals-counterfeits of their own identity.

No more glimpses, therefore, no more furtive peeps, will I afford into the penetralia of my poetic temple. Suffice it to proclaim that I may cry, with Archimedes, "Eureka! I have found it," not the problem he was solving, but the road to immortality; and that the "jamque opus exegi," and the "exegi monumentum," and the "one half of round eternity” with which the Classics flattered themselves at the termination of their labours, appear flat and insipid, as having received their accomplishment, when compared with my correspondent auguries which have yet to enjoy the gratification of their fulfilment. I have regularly booked myself as an inside passenger to future ages; but I hate travelling alone: there is room for one more; and as it is customary to advertise for partners in a trip to Paris, Switzerland, or Naples, so I take this public method of announcing that I can accommodate any nobleman or gentleman who is willing to become my Dedicatee, with a conveyance to posterity; and should he be married, I will endeavour to oblige his wife (upon a suitable remuneration) with a seat in the dickey. It may be satisfactory to both parties, before I expound the fare for which I stipulate, that I should say a word or two on the nature of the journey which we are about to undertake, and the advantages which I have to offer to my companion.

First and foremost, I beseech the parties to whom I address myself, to recall the assertion of Horace, that many heroes who lived before Agamemnon died un

celebrated, and have become utterly forgotten for want of a poet to record their achievements. To judge what they have lost, let us contemplate what has been gained by their more fortunate successors who have become immortalized in Homer's Iliad. That poem was written about twenty-eight centuries ago, within which period the Roman Empire was begun, and has utterly passed away! Conceive, for a moment, the innumerable generations of Greeks, Romans, and barbarians, that have disappeared in that time, and "left not a wreck behind;"-the mighty kingdoms that have successively obtained dominion over the earth, and passed away like shadows;—the stupendous temples of marble and granite which have been built and gradually crumbled into dust, while the perishable paper and parchment, rendered buoyant and indestructible by the genius of Homer, has floated down the stream of time unaltered and uninjured. The art of printing has now placed his work beyond the reach of accident, and we may safely predict that it is only in the first infancy of its fame; that when the foot of Time shall have crushed the pyramids into sand, and the wild Arab shall gallop his camel over their site, the poem of Homer will be as popular as it is now; and that it will not finally perish until "the great globe itself and all which it inherit shall dissolve.'

"

Well, my worthy readers, noble or gentle, is it nothing to be one of the company in this insubmergible passage-boat, pleasantly sailing down the stream of time till you are proudly launched upon

the ocean of eternity? Such is the nature of the little jaunt I propose to you, if you accept a place in my epic ark; but I will candidly avow that there is a peculiarity in its structure which may materially affect its durability. Alas! the fame of a modern poem is like the statue set up by Nebuchadnezzar-its feet are of clay. To write in a living language is like tracing figures upon the seashore: the tide of ages renders it soon indistinct, and at last illegible. Only four centuries have elapsed since the death of Chaucer, and he is already obsolete: it is probable that the future changes of our language will not be so rapid, for Shakspeare did much to fix it, and we shall not willingly run away from a standard which he has rendered so delightful; but still it is mortifying to use such mouldering materials, and build upon a quicksand. A living language is as a painting-perpetually changing colour and soon perishing; a dead one is as a marble statue-always the same. What has occasioned the Greek and Roman tongues to be preserved, but the beauties of their authors? and why should not the English of the nineteenth century live as a dead language, after it is dead as a living one, for the sole purpose of handing down my immortal epic? I see nothing improbable in the supposition.

But even a temporary preservation from oblivion is no trifling boon; and it is an instructive proof of the innate superiority of low-born pennyless talent over birth, rank, riches, power, and honour, however grand

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