demned, by the constitution. This, which was the work of James alone, demands the deepest attention, and ought to be remembered for ever!

James died contemptible to friends and foes; but the evil that he did lived after him. Charles I. was a better man in some respects than his father; but possessed, unfortunately, with just that spirit of pride and obstinacy, which could scarcely fail to lead him on to that desperate consummation of folly which he at length reached. He persisted in mistaking a court-faction for a national party; he outwent all former precedents, even of his father's reign, and publicly declared his intention of ruling without Parliaments, because the Parliaments he called refused to betray their country. He succeeded in this plan for eleven years; and, if Laud and Strafford had not been his friends, he might, perhaps, have continued it longer. But the intemperance of the one, and the tyranny of the other, frustrated this hopeful project; various views, various hopes, and various necessities at length once more compelled the summoning of a Parliament in 1640; the conduct of which is a deep theme of painful meditation, and which ought to be a high and mighty document to be remembered for ever by kings, and churchmen, and people!

A better cause than that of the Parliament, at its commencement, there could not be; profounder heads and braver hearts to maintain it were not wanted. It was literally the cause of the whole nation constitutionally argued against the king as an individual, and a coterie of courtiers and chaplains. At the first Session of the House of Commons, there was not a single voice raised even in palliation of the misdemeanours of the executive government; the representatives of the people were as one man. Some of those who afterwards lost their lives for Charles were amongst the most distinguished speakers and movers, in laying open the accumulated grievances of the kingdom: Lord Digby's speech is upon record. Nothing ever exceeded-once only has a Parliament equalled-the gravity and deliberation of the two Houses in their early proceedings. Grievance after grievance, abuse after abuse, fell with a touch: the maxims of the constitution were vindicated from absurd glosses, and liberticides in church and state were exposed and punished.-Why did a morning so bright and clear end in an evening of storm and tempest?Why did a King and Parliament, professing patriotism, deluge their country with civil blood, and hack and mutilate the constitution, which they mutually swore they were defending, till it fell lifeless and prostrate at the feet of a military usurper?

VOL. II. PART I.

I

A great question opens before us, but our limits imperiously bid us conclude; at another time this subject may perhaps be pursued. It is, in its nature, copious, and cannot be dispatched in a sentence without injustice. The lapse of nearly two centuries should suggest the necessity of caution, and a close examination of evidence; for of all the temptations which beset the path of a writer, or reader of history, there is none so constant and so insidious as the passion of imputing motives, where we happen from other reasons to dislike the conduct of the parties. We grieve, indeed, that the Parliament should have done any thing which could drive from its councils the gifted Digby, the virtuous Falkland, the immortal Clarendon; but shall we, therefore, immediately condemn those who remained? Essex and Brook, Pym and Vane, Selden and Hampden,that monarch of letters,' and that superior pattern of an English gentleman? If names can justify a cause, these should seem enough for a worse one than that of the Parliament. It is a suspicious sign of the present times, of the want of true old English feeling, and the prevalence of a vague cosmopolitan philanthropy so very conspicuous in many of our most eminent men, that the great worthies of our history are so seldom mentioned, so slightly treated; whilst any bloody ruffian of Fructidor or Vendemiaire is upheld as a champion of liberty, or a martyr for truth. Yet no cause should be judged merely by its advocates; for it may easily happen that the cause may be better than the defender, or the defenders blameless, though their cause were founded in error.

6

J. H.

115

LA BELLE TRYAMOUR.

CANTO III.

"Who art thou, pretty one, that usurp'st the place
Of Blanch, the Lady with the peerless grace?"-LAMB.

I.

ARE you a poet, reader?—if you are,
And under twenty, be advised by me;-
Give up the trade in time-you'd better far
Endure disgrace, chains, exile, poverty;-
You'd better die at once, than live to mar

This world's best hopes, in thankless slavery
Grinding your soul, that, ere your bones are rotten,
You may be mock'd, belied, reviled, forgotten.

II.

You'd better turn cosmopolite-or pandar-
Pick pockets-keep a brothel-write John Bull-
Furnish the Morning Chronicle with slander—
Sell heart and head to earn a belly-full-
Sink deeper, if you can, than Lord Leander-

Be any thing that's base, or mean, or dull-
You'd better do all these things-ay, or worse,
Than serve your full apprenticeship to verse.

III.

Why I give this advice is not the question;
Perhaps I've private reasons-never mind ;
I charge you nothing for my bare suggestion,

And though my words are coarse, my meaning's kind;Perhaps I'm rather hipp'd from indigestion,

Which proves, at least, that (though a bard) I've dined— But to return-do any thing you will

But dream of reaching the Castalian rill.

IV.

That is, unless you've blood, and wind, and mettle,

And constant training, and five feeds a day—
"Books, leisure, perfect freedom," and can settle
In rhyme as a profession :-I dare say,
On terms like these, a bard of proper metal

May snap his fingers at the dense array

Of stupid heads, cold hearts, and adverse fortune,
Which mostly make the poet's life a short one.

V.

Go-if you can; for poesy's sweet sake
Renounce all social comforts;-live and die,
A lone enthusiast, near some northern lake,
With your thick-coming thoughts for company;
And if contempt and slander fail to break
Your heart-e'en earn your immortality :
But then the hope of posthumous renown
Is all you'll have to wash life's bitters down.

up your

VI.

Make
mind to be traduced-to quarrel
With your best friends-to be misunderstood-
Pronounced unfeeling, and of course "immoral,"

Because you've felt more deeply than you should-
Bear this and more—and you may wear the laurel ;
And may it do you, for your pains, much good.-
No doubt true fame's an ample compensation
For a life's anguish and a soul's prostration.

VII.

Only don't half and half it—be a poet

Complete, or not at all-the Muse is chary
To mortals of her love, and won't bestow it

On wooers scarce lukewarm, or prone to vary;
If you've another hobby, you must throw it
Away-in this she's downright arbitrary;
And if to her you must devote your heart,
Devote it whole-she won't accept a part.

VIII.

For my part, I can't do it, and I couldn't

Were I ten poets-neither heart nor head
Have I to make a true Parnassian student,
For I must be loved, petted, praised, well-fed,
Or else good night; without these aids, I shouldn't
Write verses fit to be review'd or read;

And, therefore, I'm determined to retire
Before the public ceases to admire.

IX.

This is of small importance; but I know
Some real poets, whom I grieve to see
Wasting, alas! their fancy's summer glow
In cold half-courtship of Calliope.
O! for some less asthmatic lungs to blow
A trumpet to their slumbering vanity,

And make them feel (the blockheads) that they're doing
Precisely what must cause their utter ruin.

X.

Up! W*****!--where the deuce have you been dozing
These six years? Is your Muse effete, or dead,
That you persist in idling, punning, prosing,
Spinning fine cobwebs from your heart and head,
And miscellaneous monthly trash composing
For journals never fated to be read?

For shame--for shame,--if you'd preserve your credit,
Make haste and use some nobler means to spread it.

XI.

The world imagines, (but the world's an ass)
That I, not you, am Mr. Knight's Apollo;
The fame of Tristram doth your fame surpass,
The Troubadour beats poor Gustavus hollow.
You'll hardly save your distance,--though, alas!
'Tis you who ought to lead, and we to follow,-
We're clever fellows, (and, I think, we've shown it,)
But far from first-rate poets,-I must own it.