commencement of the Ode is as follows, and it continues throughout much as it begins : "In happy hour doth he receive The Laurel, meed of famous bards of yore, To raise the exultant hymn for victory, Mr. Southey has not exactly followed the suggestion of an ingenious friend, to begin his poem with the appropriate allusion, "Awake, my sack-but!" The following rhymes are the lamest we observed. He says, speaking of the conflict between the Moors and Spaniards, "Age after age, from sire to son, The hallowed sword was handed down; Until the work was done." Indeed, if Mr. S. can do no better than this, in his drawingroom verses, he should get some contributor to the Lady's Magazine to polish them for him. We have turned over the Ode again, which extends to twenty pages, in the hope of finding some one vigorous or striking passage for selection, but in vain. The following is the most likely to please in a certain quarter: The yoke is broken now!-a mightier hand To meet her princes, the delivered land The happy bells, from every town and tower, Roll their glad peals upon the joyful wind; And from all hearts and tongues, with one consent, The high thanksgiving strain is sent Glory to God! Deliverance to mankind!" In various stanzas, Bonaparte is called an upstart, a ruffian, &c. We confess, we wish to see Mr. Southey, like Virgil, in his Georgics," scatter his dung with a grace." We do not intend to quarrel with our Laureat's poetical politics, but the conclusion is one which we did not anticipate from the author. We have always understood that the Muses were the daughters of Memory! "And France, restored and shaking off her chain, Shall join the Avengers in the joyful strain Glory to God! Deliverance for mankind!" The poem has a few notes added to it, the object of which seems to be to criticise the political opinions of the Edinburgh Reviewers with respect to Spain, and to prove that the author is wiser after the event than they were before it, in which he has very nearly succeeded. Mr. Southey announces a new volume of Inscriptions, which must furnish some curious parallelisms. DOTTREL-CATCHING. TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE. Jan. 27, 1814. SIR, THE method of taking this bird is somewhat singular, and is described in an old book in the following terms: "The Dottrel is a foolish bird of the crane species, very tall, awkward, and conceited. The Dottrel-catcher, when he has got near enough, turns his head round sideways, and makes a leg towards him the bird, seeing this, returns the civility, and makes the same sidelong movement. These advances are repeated with mutual satisfaction, till the man approaches near enough, and then the bird is taken." A poet-laureat or a treasury sophist is often taken much in the same way. Your Opposionist, Sir, was ever a true gull. From the general want of sympathy, he sets more store by it than it is worth; and for the smallest concession, is prevailed upon to give up every principle, and to surrender himself, bound hand and foot, the slave of a party, who get all they want of him, and then -"Spunge, you are dry again!" A striking illustration of the common treatment of political drudges has lately occurred in the instance of a celebrated writer, whose lucubrations are withheld from the public, because he has declared against the project of restoring the Bourbons. As the court and city politicians have spoken out on this subject, permit me, Sir, to say a word in behalf of the country. I have no dislike whatever, private or public, to the Bourbons, except as they may be made the pretext for mischievous and impracticable schemes. At the same time I have not the slightest enthusiasm in their favour. I would not sacrifice the life or limb of a single individual to restore them. I have very nearly the same feelings towards them which Swift has expressed in his account of the ancient and venerable race of the Struldbruggs. It is true, they might in some respects present a direct contrast to Bonaparte. A tortoise placed on the throne of France would do the same thing. The literary sycophants of the day, Sir, are greatly enamoured (from some cause or other) with hereditary imbecility and native want of talent. They are angry, not without reason, that a Corsican upstart has made the princes of Europe look like wax-work figures, and given a shock to the still life of kings. They wish to punish this unpardonable presumption, by establishing an artificial balance of weakness throughout Europe, and by reducing humanity to the level of thrones. We may perhaps in time improve this principle of ricketty admiration to Eastern perfection, where every changeling is held sacred, and that which is the disgrace of human intellect is hailed as the image of the Divinity! It is said that in France the old royalists and the revolutionary republicans are agreed in the same point. Bonaparte is the point of union between these opposite extremes, the common object of their hate and fear. I can conceive this very possible from what I have observed among ourselves. He has certainly done a great deal to mortify the pride of birth in the one, and the vanity of personal talents in the others. This is a very sufficient ground of private pique and resentment, but not of national calamity or eternal war. I am, Sir, your humble servant, EICONOCLASTES SATYRANE. THE BOURBONS AND BONAPARTE. Dec. 6, 1813. THE following paragraph in a daily paper is equally worthy of notice for magnificence of expression and magnanimity of sentiment: "When or under what circumstances the great Commander may think fit to carry his forces against the large military or commercial depôts of the south of France, we do not pretend to form conjectures. We are confident, that as nothing will disturb the calm and meditative prudence of his plans, so nothing will arrest the rapidity of their execution. We trust alike in his caution and in his resolution: but, perhaps, there may be in store for him a higher destination than the capture of a town or the reduction of a province. What if the army opposed to him should resolve to avenge the cause of humanity, and to exchange the bloody and brutal tyranny of a Bonaparte for the mild paternal sway of a Bourbon? Could a popular French general open to himself a more glorious career at the present moment, than that which Providence seemed to have destined to the virtuous Moreau? Or is it possible that any power now existing in France could stop such a general and such an army, supported by the unconquered Wellington and his formidable legions, if they were to resolve boldly to march to Paris, and bring the usurper to the block! Every disposable soldier in France is on the Adour, or on the Rhine. In the case we are supposing, there would be no enemy to encounter, unless the northern frontier were at once denuded of troops, and the road to Paris on that side laid open to the allies. This is no question of the attachment of the French nation to one dynasty or to another: it is a question of military enterprise, in the minds of military adventurers. The simple possibility, not to say the high moral probability, that in a moment of general defection, an army which has so much in its hands may run with the stream of popular feeling throughout Europe, is enough to make the Tyrant tremble on his throne. Lord Wellington is doubtless prepared to take advantage of so desirable an occurrence, in case it should happen without his previous interference: but we wish him to interfere; we wish that he were authorised plainly and openly to offer his mighty co-operation to any body of men who would shake off the Tyrant's yoke in France, as has been done in Italy, in Germany, and in Holland !" This is a fair specimen of that kind of declamation which has for a long time swayed the affairs of Europe, and which, if the powers of Europe are wise by experience, will not influence them much longer. It is this spirit of treating the French people as of a different species from ourselves-as a monster or a non-entityof disposing of their government at the will of every paragraphmonger of arming our hatred against them by ridiculous menaces and incessant reproaches of supposing that their power was either so tremendous as to threaten the existence of all nations, or so contemptible that we could crush it by a word, it is this uniform system, practised by the incendiaries of the press, of inflaming our prejudices and irritating our passions, that has so often made |