Though it is the custom of our modern poets to publish a new epic every year, the ancients by no means did so. And though the poet laureat, who is so great an enemy to annual parliaments, is the friend of annual poems, Horace and Virgil, who will not be forgotten till Mr. Southey undertakes to write his poems in verse, are in favor of long meditation. In imitation of them, the author of the ROLLIAD, with prudent deliberation, having been silent thirty and odd years, has taken advantage of the present rebellion in Devonshire, to court his muse anew. And though the muse does not approve an old lover as well as a young, yet she has in some sort favored his addresses. Not to detain our readers, we give him the lines in which our author falls at once, being too old to waste time in prologues, on the hero of his poem.

See ROLLO seated in his country seat,
Enjoying ease with dignified retreat;
With old philosophy (not modern) great,
He does not care a pin for public hate:
With all success may his desires be crown'd,

For he gave Bastard clear ten thousand pound.

Nothing can be finer than this climax, 610,000, being a vast, and consequently a sublime idea. Die k The author then goes on to mention the other subscriptions to Bastard, and to depreciate the offers of the freeholders to pay for bringing up Lord Ebrington's voters. For, says he,

If thus all-Devon, Freeholders,subscribe, fotod Is it not offering themselves a bribe? Delers Te And he proposes to prosecute them accordingly.o-pr Coming next to Sir T. Acland, he ingeniously proves, that the subscriptions for him are greater

than for either of the other two, for his supporters in fact subscribe a tenth of their incomes.

For neither Nic nor Tommy will relax;

And we shall soon enjoy an income tax—

Then correcting himself, and recollecting it was called a property-tax by ministers, he says,Or rather property-and if it thrives

Nic soon will lay a tax upon our lives.

Upon this he falls into great rapture on the subject of the said tax, recollecting thirty millions of subsidy in three years, the Austrian Loan, &c, But we will quote his own words':--'

Blest tax! with thee what glorious loans we made,
Loans which indeed will never be repaid!
Blest tax with thee what subsidies we gave,
Which rendered even Portugueses brave!
Blest tax with thee we squander'd full a million
In adding caps and bells to the Pavilion!
Blest tax! with thee we paid the Irish joker
"War salary of Secretary Croker.”

It is well known that this ill-used gentleman has
at present only £3000 a year. He ends pathetically—
Tax under which our backs e'en yet would groan,
Had not the Commons wish'd to ease their own.

This alludes to the ever-memorable declaration of Lord Castlereagh, the day after the vote against the property-tax, by that vote parliament had relieved itself. He said he meant it not invidiously; our author knows better,

न

No. II. I
'I

The truly creative genius of our author is never exhausted in praising his great hero." Though he wrote a whole poem in his praise before, he praises him afresh with as much zeal, discrimination, and patience as ever. It is true that the mighty ROLLE has had, since the publication of the ROLLIAD, many

new occasions of distinguishing himself, and proving the firmness of his character. Since that time he has volunteered the militia which he commanded to Ireland, without their consent; adopting stat pro ratione voluntas for his own motto, and volontaires sans volonté for theirs. Since that time, too, he has started the ministerial member for Dartmouth as the independent member for the county; and in the course of the canvass, it has been sworn, by affidavit, that the pious clergyman, the Rev. Mr. J-hn R--ss-ll, in company with the upright magistrate Mr. T--ck-d, threatened an innkeeper with the loss of his licence if he did not vote as he wished.

But why to commoners our praise control?
Rise honest muse, and sing of courtly Rolle!
Pleas'd Torridge echoes thro' her winding bounds,
And Bicton's groves in hoarse applauds resounds.
Who hung with silver crowns yon Bastard's brow?
From the lock'd chest who bade the monies flow?
Not to base Whigs in useless torrents tost,
Or in proud balls magnificently lost;
But sunooth and shining, pouring o'er the plain,
Sweet bribes, and promis'd riches to the swain.
Whose soldiers past the vale with glitt'ring rows?
Whose tents the weary volunteer repose?
Who taught you heav'n-directed flag to rise?
The man of Cash, each lisping babe replies..
Behold the market place with voters spread,

: The Man of Cash there shews his well stor'd head.
He feeds yon Bastard, neat, yet void of state,
And Dartmouth's choice sits smiling in his gate.
Him drivling T-ck-d, turncoat R-ss-II blest,
.The servile magistrate, the treach rous guest.
Are Tories poor? the Man of Cash reheves,
Consoles, attends, the drafts prescribes and gives.
Does a Whig trespass? Enter but his grounds,
Flush'd are the courts, and Steven's voice resounds.

* Vide Torrington.

0

Despairing freemen fly his crimson face,
And patriots all, are deem'd a noxious race.
Thrice happy man! enabled to pursue
What all so wish, but want the pow'r to do.
say what sums that monstrous hand supply,
What mines to swell that boundless charity?
Of bribes, of taxes, wife, reg'mentals clear,
This man possesses
"God knows what" a year!
Blush Fortescue! proud peer withdraw your blaze!
Ye little Whigs hide your diminish'd rays!

This is a good deal in the style of Pope, and puts us somewhat in mind of the Man of Ross. But that cannot be considered by any one as taking away from our author's merit. Virgil imitated Homer, Tasso imitated Virgil, Pope imitated Virgil and Tasso, and our poet imitates all four. Then say the cavillers, he is not an original poet. They might as well say, a beggar never has a new coat. Let us follow our author in his phrases, "Who hung with silver crowns?" In this passage, relating to the subscription from our hero, the author has evidently Virgil in his eye, donatque coroná, and by a happy use of the trope called a pun the passage also alludes to five shilling pieces. "Drafts prescribes and gives" is another of these happy equivoques. Scriblerus alter remarks, that the author seems to delight in puns, as no doubt the patient did in the drafts-not of drachms, not of ounces, but of thousands of pounds each. In the verse, "Does a Whig trespass?" the author alludes to a transaction which happened at Bicton, relative to the protection of game. In the "monstrous hand" he has evidently copied from Suetonius, who says of, I forget which Emperor-Forma grandis, puiula in primis manus. Had this hand been held up on the day of nomination, the Whigs would have been confounded. Having given a passage in which our author imitates Pope, we may here set down another in which the actually copies him. It is in speaking of a certain sum of money sent from

a well-known banker to Dawlish, we know not for what purpose. In speaking of it our author begins → Blest paper credit! last and best supply,

Which lends corruption lighter wings to fly!

In the same manner the poet Beattie copies Milton, with just such an alteration as to change the sense, which he probably did not understand:

66

And every shepherd tells his tender tale."

..

In this poem the present worthy members for Devon, or rather late and future members, are properly spoken of. Nothing can be more spirited than the following invocation in the author's usual punning style:

Bastard! although thy name some shame import,
Of kings legitimate the just support :

Whether they rule upon the banks of Seine,

Or hold in Bicton's groves their peaceful reign?

Having said thus much, our author says no more of Mr. Bastard, and most unaccountably falls into a digression on the use of thick brown paper in patching broken windows against

The blast of boreas, or a rush of rain.

But this parsimony of praise to Mr. Bastard is to be accounted for on the rule which the author has observed since the beginning of his career, of always giving the most praise to those who obtain the least from the public. In this manner he equalizes the general balance, and leaves no one quite in beggary of fame. For this reason, finding Mr. Bastard commonly well spoken of, he directs the great body of his applause to Sir Thomas, who has become so very noxious to the whole county; and indeed he presses his Pegasus upon this theme as fast as if he were steeple-hunting. He devotes five hundred verses to the eulogy of this great character, in which, as we might expect, he goes through his whole political life. His speech in favor of the hospitality of the Norwe