"So then--the Vandals of our isle, Sworn foes of sense and law, Have burnt to dust a nobler pile Than ever Roman saw! And Murray sighs o'er Pope and Swift, And many a treasure more, The well-judged purchase, and the gift That graced his letter'd store. Their pages mangled, burnt, and torn, The loss was his alone; But ages yet to come shall mourn The burning of his own." A pleasing and playful epigram on Robert Bloomfield, the author of "The Farmer's Boy," was written by Henry Kirke White:-- "Bloomfield, thy happy omen'd name Ensures continuance of thy fame; Both sense and truth this verdict give, While _fields_ shall _bloom_ thy name shall live." The residences of Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge near the English Lakes suggested the title of lake poets, and of their works the Rev. Henry Townshend wrote:-- "They come from the lakes--an appropriate quarter For poems diluted with plenty of water." Surely Lord Holland was a little wide of the mark when he penned the following epigram, complaining that Southey did not write sufficient laureate poems; the fact is, he wrote too many to sustain his reputation as a poet:-- "Our Laureate Bob defrauds the King-- He takes his cash and will not sing; Yet on he goes, I know not why, Singing for us who do not buy." In the _Diary_ of Thomas Moore, under date of September 4, 1825, it is stated: "Lord H. full of an epigram he had just written on Southey, which we all twisted and turned into various shapes; he is as happy as a boy during the operation. He suggests the following as the last couplet:-- "And for us, who will not buy, Goes singing on eternally." It has been truthfully observed that William Wordsworth "found poetry in the most common-place events of life, and described them in familiar language; he naturally contended that there was little real difference between poetry and prose." Byron thus rallies him on the theory:-- "The simple Wordsworth, framer of a lay As soft as evening in his favourite May, Who warns his friend, 'to shake off toil and trouble, And quit his books, for fear of growing double;' Who, both by precept and example, shows That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose; Convincing all, by demonstration plain, Poetic souls delight in prose inane." Theodore Hook produced some pungent verses; here is a slight example on Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound":-- "Shelley styles his new poem _Prometheus Unbound_, And 'tis like to remain so while time circles round; For surely an age would be spent in the finding A reader so weak as to pay for the binding!"