"Beneath the battlements of Holyrood
There never squatted a more sordid brood
Than that which now, across the clotted perch,
Crookens the claw and screams for Court and Church."
Then again at page 12,
"Look behind you, look!
There issues from the Treasury, dull and dry as
The leaves in winter, Gifford and Matthias.
Brighter and braver Peter Pindar started,
And ranged around him all the lighter-hearted,
When Peter Pindar sank into decline,
Up from his hole sprang Peter Porcupine"
All which is nothing to Us, but what does it lead to?
"Him W … son follow'd"—
Why those dots, Mr. Landor?
"Him W … son follow'd, of congenial quill,
As near the dirt and no less prone to ill.
Walcot, of English heart, had English pen,
Buffoon he might be, but for hire was none;
Nor plumed and mounted in Professor's chair
Offer'd to grin for wages at a fair."
The rest is too foul-mouthed for repetition. You are a man of nasty ideas, Mr. Landor. You append a note, in which, without any authority but common rumour, you exhibit the learned Professor as an important contributor to Blackwood, especially in those graces of delicate wit so attractive to his subcribers. You declare, too, that we fight under cover, and only for spite and pay; that honester and wiser satirists were brave, that—
"Their courteous soldiership, outshining ours,
Mounted the engine and took aim from towers;"
But that