starts the Irish Bard--in vain
I write, 'tis all against the grain:
In vain I talk of smiles or sighs,
The girls all have him in their eyes;
And not a soul--mamma, or miss--
But vows he's the sole Bard of Bliss!

Since first I dipp'd in the romantic,
A hundred thousand have run frantic--
There's not a hideous highland spot,
(Long fallowed to the core by Scott)--
No rill, through rack and thistle dribbling,
But has its deadlier crop of scribbling.
Each fen, and flat, and flood, and fell,
Gives birth to verses by the ell--
There Wordsworth, for his muse's sallies,
Claims all the ponds, the lanes, and alleys--
There Coleridge swears none else shall tune
A bag-pipe to the list'ning moon;
On come in clouds the scribbling columns,
Each prowling for his next three volumes.
I scorn the rascal tribe, and spurn all
The yearly, monthly, and diurnal.

I write the finest things that ever
Made duchess fond, or marquiss clever--
(Although I'd rather half turn Turk,
The thing's such monstrous up-hill work).
My _ton's_ the very cream of fashion,
My passion the sublimest passion,
My rage _satanic_, love the same,
Of all blue flames, the bluest flame--
My piety perpetual matins,
A quaker propp'd on double pattens;
My lovely girls the most precocious,
My beaus delightfully atrocious!
Yet scarcely have I play'd my card,
When up comes politician Ward,
Before my face he trumps my trump,
Sweeps off my honours in the lump,
And never asking my permission,
Talks sermons to the third edition.

Or Boulogne, Highway Byeway, Grattan,
(The Pyrenees begin to flatten,
A feast denied to storm and shower,
The pen's the wonder-working power);
Or Smith, the master of "Addresses,"
Carves history out in modern messes:--
Tells how gay Charles cook'd up his collops,
How fleeced his friends, how paid his trollops--
How pledged his soul, and pawn'd his oath,
'Till none would give a straw for both;
And touching paupers for the Evil,
Touch'd England half way to the devil
Or Hook, picks up my favorite hits,
For when was friendship between wits?
Or Lyster, doubly dandyfied,
Fidgets his donkey by my side;
Or Bulwer rambles back from Greece,
Woolgathering from the Golden fleece--
Or forty volumes, piping hot,
Come blazing from volcano Scott;
When pens like their's play all my game.
The tasteless world must bear the blame.

I had a budget, full of fan,
But here again, I'm lost, undone!
I'm so forestall'd--that faith, I could
Half quarrel