Let them—but hold, my Muse, nor dare to teach
A strain far, far beyond thy humble reach:
The native genius with their being given
Will point the path, and peal their notes to heaven.910
And thou, too, Scott![1] resign to minstrels rude
The wilder Slogan of a Border feud:
Let others spin their meagre lines for hire;
Enough for Genius, if itself inspire!
Let Southey sing, altho' his teeming muse,[2]
Prolific every spring, be too profuse;
Let simple Wordsworth[3] chime his childish verse,
And brother Coleridge lull the babe at nurse;[4]
Let Spectre-mongering Lewis aim, at most,[5]
- ↑ By the bye, I hope that in Mr. Scott's next poem, his hero or heroine will be less addicted to "Gramarye," and more to Grammar, than the Lady of the Lay and her Bravo, William of Deloraine.
- ↑ Let prurient Southey cease.—[MS. British Bards.]
- ↑ "Unjust."—B., 1816. [In Frost at Midnight, first published in 1798, Coleridge twice mentions his "Cradled infant."]
- ↑
—— still the babe at nurse.—[MS.]
Let Lewis fill our nurseries with alarm
With tales that oft disgust and never charm. - ↑ But thou with powers.—[MS. British Bards.]
Lloyd are classed with Coleridge and Southey as advocates of French socialism:—
"Coleridge and Southey, Lloyd and Lamb and Co.,
Tune all your mystic harps to praise Lepaux."
In later life Byron expressed a very different opinion of Lamb's literary merits. (See the preface to Werner, now first published, Poetical Works, 1901, v. 339.)]
