"'Awake a louder and a loftier strain,' And, pray, what follows from his boiling brain? He sinks to S * *'s level in a trice, Whose epic mountains never fail in mice! Not so of yore awoke your mighty sire The tempered warblings of his master lyre; Soft as the gentler breathing of the lute, 'Of man's first disobedience and the fruit' He speaks; but, as his subject swells along, Earth, Heaven, and Hades, echo with the song." The annexed sketch contains some lively touches:-- "Behold him, Freshman!--forced no more to groan O'er Virgil's devilish verses[9], and--his own; Prayers are too tedious, lectures too abstruse, He flies from T----ll's frown to 'Fordham's Mews;' (Unlucky T----ll, doom'd to daily cares By pugilistic pupils and by bears!) Fines, tutors, tasks, conventions, threat in vain, Before hounds, hunters, and Newmarket plain: Rough with his elders; with his equals rash; Civil to sharpers; prodigal of cash. Fool'd, pillaged, dunn'd, he wastes his terms away; And, unexpell'd perhaps, retires M.A.:-- Master of Arts!--as Hells and Clubs[10] proclaim, Where scarce a black-leg bears a brighter name. "Launch'd into life, extinct his early fire, He apes the selfish prudence of his sire; Marries for money; chooses friends for rank; Buys land, and shrewdly trusts not to the Bank; Sits in the senate; gets a son and heir; Sends him to Harrow--for himself was there; Mute though he votes, unless when call'd to cheer, His son's so sharp--he'll see the dog a peer! "Manhood declines; age palsies every limb; He quits the scene, or else the scene quits him; Scrapes wealth, o'er each departing penny grieves, And Avarice seizes all Ambition leaves; Counts cent. per cent., and smiles, or vainly frets O'er hoards diminish'd by young Hopeful's debts; Weighs well and wisely what to sell or buy, Complete in all life's lessons--but to die; Peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to please, Commending every time save times like these; Crazed, querulous, forsaken, half forgot, Expires unwept, is buried--let him rot!" In speaking of the opera, he says:-- "Hence the pert shopkeeper, whose throbbing ear Aches with orchestras which he pays to hear, Whom shame, not sympathy, forbids to snore, His anguish doubled by his own 'encore!' Squeezed in 'Fop's Alley,' jostled by the beaux, Teased with his hat, and trembling for his toes, Scarce wrestles through the night, nor tastes of ease Till the dropp'd curtain gives a glad release: Why this and more he suffers, can ye guess?-- Because it costs him dear, and makes him dress!"