and might have produced a second Task. And in our own days, Rogers would case the flea, like his own gnat, in imperishable amber. Leigh Hunt would luxuriate in a fairy poem, fanciful as Drayton's Nymphidia, or in the best style of Herrick. Charles Lamb would crack a joke upon the subject; but then he would lead his readers to think while he was amusing them, make them feel if they were capable of feeling, and perhaps leave them in tears. Southey would give us a strain of scornful satire and meditative playfulness in blank verse of the Elizabethan standard. Wordsworth,—no, Wordsworth would disdain the flea: but some imitator of Wordsworth would enshrine the flea in a Sonnet the thought and diction of which would be as proportionate to the subject matter, as the Great Pyramid is to the nameless one of the Pharaohs for whose tomb it was constructed. Oxford and Cambridge would produce Latin verses, good in their manner as the best of Pasquier's collection, and better in every thing else; they would give us Greek verses also, as many and as good. Landor would prove himself as recondite a Latinist as Scaliger, and a better poet; but his hendecasyllables would not be so easily construed. Cruikshank would illustrate the whole collection with immortal designs, such as no other country, and no other man could produce. The flea would be introduced upon the stage in the next new Pantomime; Mr. Irving would discover it in the Apocalypse; and some preacher of Rowland Hill's school would improve it (as the phrase is) in a sermon, and exhort his congregation to _flee_ from sin. I say nothing of Mr. Moore, and the half dozen Lords who would _mignardise_ the subject like so many Frenchmen. But how would Bernard Barton treat it? Perhaps Friend Barton will let us see in one of the next year's Annuals.