“‘Whoe’er ye are, all hail!—whether the skill Of youthful CANNING guides the ranc’rous quill; With powers mechanic far above his age, Adapts the paragraph and fills the page; Measures the column, mends whate’er’s amiss, Rejects THAT letter, and accepts of THIS; Or HAMMOND, leaving his official toil, O’er this great work consume the midnight oil— Bills, passports, letters, for the Muses quit, And change dull business for amusing wit.’ “After referring to ‘the poetic sage, who sung of Gallia in a headlong rage,’ _The Epistle_ proceeds:— “‘I swear by all the youths that MALMESBURY chose,[2] By ELLIS’ sapient prominence of nose— By MORPETH’S gait, important, proud and big— _By Leveson Gower’s crop-imitating wig_, That, could the pow’rs which in those numbers shine, Could that warm spirit animate my line, Your glorious deeds which humbly I rehearse— Your deeds should live immortal as my verse; And, while they wonder’d whence I caught my flame, Your sons should blush to read their fathers’ shame’. “Happily the eminent and accomplished sons of these fathers will smile, rather than blush, at this allusion to their sires, and smile the more when they remember from which side the attack proceeded. It is clear from the Answer, that, whilst the band were not a little ruffled, they had not the remotest suspicion that their assailant was a youth in his nineteenth year. Amongst other prefatory remarks they say:— “‘We assure the author of the epistle, that the answer which we have here the honour to address to him, contains our genuine and undisguised sentiments upon the merits of the poem. “‘Our conjectures respecting the authors and abettors of this performance may possibly be as vague and unfounded as theirs are with regard to the EDITORS of _The Anti-Jacobin_. We are sorry that we cannot satisfy their curiosity upon this subject—but we have little anxiety for the gratification of our own. “‘It is only necessary to add, what is most conscientiously the truth, that this production, such as it is, is _by far the best_ of all the attacks that the combined wits of the cause have been able to muster against _The Anti-Jacobin_.’ “The Answer opens thus:— “‘BARD of the borrow’d lyre! to whom belong The shreds and remnants of each hackney’d song; Whose verse thy friends in vain for wit explore, And count but _one good line_, in eighty-four! Whoe’er thou art, all hail! Thy bitter smile Gilds our dull page, and cheers our humble toil!’ “The ‘one good line’ was ‘By Leveson Gower’s crop-imitating wig,’ but the Epistle contains many equally good and some better. The speculations as to its authorship afforded no slight amusement to the writer and his friends....