Arise! let blest remembrance still inspire,
And strike to wonted tones thy hallowed lyre;
Restore Apollo to his vacant throne,
Assert thy country's honour and thine own.
What! must deserted Poesy still weep
Where her last hopes with pious Cowper sleep?810
Unless, perchance, from his cold bier she turns,
To deck the turf that wraps her minstrel, Burns!
No! though contempt hath marked the spurious brood,
The race who rhyme from folly, or for food,
Yet still some genuine sons 'tis hers to boast,
Who, least affecting, still affect the most:[1]
Feel as they write, and write but as they feel—
Bear witness Gifford,[2] Sotheby,[3] Macneil.[4]
- ↑
From Albion's cliffs to Caledonia's coast.
Some few who know to write as well as feel.—[MS.] - ↑ Gifford, author of the Baviad and Mæviad, the first satires of the day, and translator of Juvenal, [and one (though not the best) of the translators of Juvenal.—British Bards.]
- ↑ Sotheby, translator of Wieland's Oberon and Virgil's Georgics, and author of Saul, an epic poem. [William Sotheby (1757-1833) began life as a cavalry officer, but being a man of fortune, sold out of the army and devoted himself to literature, and to the patronage of men of letters. His translation of the Oberon appeared in 1798, and of the Georgics in 1800. Saul was published in 1807. When Byron was in Venice, he conceived a dislike to Sotheby, in the belief that he had made an anonymous attack on some of his works; but, later, his verdict was, "a good man, rhymes well (if not wisely); but is a bore" (Diary, 1821; Works, p. 509, note). He is "the solemn antique man of rhyme" (Beppo, st. lxiii.), and the "Botherby" of The Blues; and in Don Juan, Canto I. st. ccvi., we read—
"Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby's house
His Pegasus nor anything that's his."] - ↑ Macneil, whose poems are deservedly popular, par-
