124 A LOGICAL DISQUISITION ON EXALTED GENIUS. 



only grossly absurd in themselves, but absolutely contrary to all good 

 precedent, ancient and modern. Pope was as remarkable for his 

 leanness as his wit; Salmasius reproaches Milton with the same de- 

 fect. Homer must have been thin, as it is fair to infer from his 

 poverty; and, although I cannot aver it as a fact, I would venture to 

 offer a smart wager that Virgil that is to say, Publius Virgilius 

 Maro had not an ounce of good solid flesh upon his back ! Ovid * 

 makes express mention of his being wofully meagre in several parts 

 of his writings, and, if we may trust Warburton (which I am inclined 

 to do), that learned person asserts, from good and sufficient authority, 

 that the minor poets might have been bundled together like matches, 

 or dry stricks : and that the " nine lyrics" did not altogether weigh 

 so much as Robert Southey, Esq., LL.D., and poet-laureat ! This is 

 saying a good deal, but the weight of the doctor of learned literature 

 will, no doubt, bear it very well : for when a man of literature has 

 arrived at such a pitch of real or even imagined excellence as to ask 

 and procure 1000 for an expert biography of the amiable and 

 truly learned poet and patriot, Cowper, it certainly is high time the 

 world should be made sufficiently acquainted with the preponderance 

 of the " negative merits" of such a laureat, 



" Parvum parva decent." 



It may not appear uncandid, in this place, to repeat Lord Byron's 

 " estimate" of Doctor Robert Southey, LL.D., and Poet Laureat, 

 &c., so wonderfully famous for " hexameters" of a murderous 

 growth : his lordship says, " It is remarkable that I should at this 

 moment number among my 'correspondents' those whom I most 

 made the subjects of satire in ' English Bards.' I never retracted 

 my opinions of their works, nor have I a desire now to do so : nor 

 should I wish to blot out the lines 



" O Southey, Southey, cease thy varied song, 

 An ass may bray too often, and too long!" 



I never sought their acquaintance ; but there are, among them, 

 some " noble spirits," men who can forgive and forget. The re- 

 doubtable author of WAT TYLER, the Bristol ultra radical, is not one 

 of that disposition, and exults over the anticipated " death-bed re- 

 pentance" of the objects of his hatred. Finding that his denuncia- 

 tions or panegyrics are of little or no avail here, he indulges himself 

 in a pleasant vision as to what will be their fate hereafter. The third 

 heaven is hardly good enough for a king, and Dante's worst berth 

 in the * Inferno' hardly bad enough for me. My kindness to his 

 brother-in-law might have taught him to be more charitable. I said 

 in a note to ' The two Foscari,' in answer to his vain boasting, that I 

 had done more real good in one year than Mr. Southey in the whole 

 course of his shifting and turn-coat existence, on which he seems to 

 reflect with so much complacency. I did not mean to pride myself 

 on the act to which I have just referred, and should not mention it 



* Vid. Ov. de Art. Amand. et de Fonto. 



