And what was yet a greater curse,
Long thinking made his fancy worse."
THE DISTRESSED POET.
Such is the fate of many a miserable scribbler who usurps the sacred name of a poet. Parnassus must be peopled, and the fashionable versifiers that have no other aim than feeding on the mountain have sometimes cropped better pasturage at the foot of the hill than has been found by those hallowed bards who have attained the summit. Of gentle readers that demand the strains of gentle writers, there are in this our city an innumerable host. They are sober and well-disposed persons, good subjects to their king, and useful members of the community; but being by their various avocations confined to a smoky town, are debarred from the cheering prospects of purling streams, waving woods, and shady groves. They have nevertheless great comfort and delectation in reading descriptions of scenes so profusely beautified with the amenities of nature. Happily for such admirers of rural simplicity, there is a band of pastoral poets who make the press groan with description. Seated like this unfortunate labourer of the Muses in their attic storey, and scarcely ever seeing a green tree except in the Moorfields Mall, they daily present the public with amplifications of verdant meads, glistening dew-drops, and liquid rains. In the sublime strains of these gentlemen,
"The misty mountains lift their cloud-capt heads;
The enamell'd mead its velvet carpet spreads;
The groves appear all drest with wreaths of flowers,