Let hate, or grosser heats, their foulness mask Under the vizor of a borrowed name; Let things eschew the light deserving blame: No cause hast thou to blush for thy sweet task. "Marcian Colonna" is a dainty book; And thy "Sicilian Tale" may boldly pass; Thy "Dream" 'bove all, in which, as in a glass, On the great world's antique glories we may look. No longer then, as "lowly substitute, Factor, or PROCTOR, for another's gains," Suffer the admiring world to be deceived; Lest thou thyself, by self of fame bereaved, Lament too late the lost prize of thy pains, And heavenly tunes piped through an alien flute. TO R.[J.]S. KNOWLES, ESQ. _On his Tragedy of Virginius_ (1820) Twelve years ago I knew thee, Knowles, and then Esteemed you a perfect specimen Of those fine spirits warm-soul'd Ireland sends, To teach us colder English how a friend's Quick pulse should beat. I knew you brave, and plain, Strong-sensed, rough-witted above fear or gain; But nothing further had the gift to espy. Sudden you re-appear. With wonder I Hear my old friend (turn'd Shakspeare) read a scene Only to _his_ inferior in the clean Passes of pathos: with such fence-like art-- Ere we can see the steel, 'tis in our heart. Almost without the aid language affords, Your piece seems wrought. That huffing medium, _words_, (Which in the modern Tamburlaines quite sway Our shamed souls from their bias) in your play We scarce attend to. Hastier passion draws Our tears on credit: and we find the cause Some two hours after, spelling o'er again Those strange few words at ease, that wrought the pain. Proceed, old friend; and, as the year returns, Still snatch some new old story from the urns Of long-dead virtue. We, that knew before Your worth, may admire, we cannot love you more. TO THE EDITOR OF THE "EVERY-DAY BOOK" (1825) I like you, and your book, ingenuous Hone! In whose capacious all-embracing leaves The very marrow of tradition's shown; And all that history--much that fiction--weaves. By every sort of taste your work is graced. Vast stores of modern anecdote we find, With good old story quaintly interlaced-- The theme as various as the reader's mind. Rome's life-fraught legends you so truly paint-- Yet kindly,--that the half-turn'd Catholic Scarcely forbears to smile at his own saint, And cannot curse the candid heretic.