Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have sung, The modern Greek, in tolerable verse; If not like Orpheus quite, when Greece was young, Yet in these times he might have done much worse: His strain display’d some feeling—right or wrong; And feeling, in a poet, is the source Of others’ feeling; but they are such liars, And take all colours—like the hands of dyers. But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think; ’Tis strange, the shortest letter which man uses Instead of speech, may form a lasting link Of ages; to what straits old Time reduces Frail man, when paper—even a rag like this, Survives himself, his tomb, and all that ’s his. And when his bones are dust, his grave a blank, His station, generation, even his nation, Become a thing, or nothing, save to rank In chronological commemoration, Some dull MS. oblivion long has sank, Or graven stone found in a barrack’s station In digging the foundation of a closet, May turn his name up, as a rare deposit. And glory long has made the sages smile; ’Tis something, nothing, words, illusion, wind— Depending more upon the historian’s style Than on the name a person leaves behind: Troy owes to Homer what whist owes to Hoyle: The present century was growing blind To the great Marlborough’s skill in giving knocks, Until his late life by Archdeacon Coxe. Milton ’s the prince of poets—so we say; A little heavy, but no less divine: An independent being in his day— Learn’d, pious, temperate in love and wine; But, his life falling into Johnson’s way, We’re told this great high priest of all the Nine Was whipt at college—a harsh sire—odd spouse, For the first Mrs. Milton left his house. All these are, certes, entertaining facts, Like Shakspeare’s stealing deer, Lord Bacon’s bribes; Like Titus’ youth, and Caesar’s earliest acts; Like Burns (whom Doctor Currie well describes); Like Cromwell’s pranks;—but although truth exacts These amiable descriptions from the scribes, As most essential to their hero’s story, They do not much contribute to his glory. All are not moralists, like Southey, when He prated to the world of ‘Pantisocracy;’ Or Wordsworth unexcised, unhired, who then Season’d his pedlar poems with democracy; Or Coleridge, long before his flighty pen Let to the Morning Post its aristocracy; When he and Southey, following the same path, Espoused two partners (milliners of Bath). Such names at present cut a convict figure, The very Botany Bay in moral geography; Their loyal treason, renegado rigour, Are good manure for their more bare biography. Wordsworth’s last quarto, by the way, is bigger Than any since the birthday of typography; A drowsy frowzy poem, call’d the ‘Excursion.’ Writ in a manner which is my aversion.