PREFACE.

BY THE EDITOR.

THE Poems which I take the liberty of publishing were never intended by the Author to pass beyond the circle of his friends. He thought, with some justice, that what are called Occasional Poems must be always insipid and uninteresting to the greater part of their readers. The particular situations in which they were written; the character of the author and of his associates; all these peculiarities must be known and felt before we can enter into the spirit of such compositions. This consideration would have always, I believe, prevented Mr LITTLE from submitting these trifles of the moment to the eye of dispassionate criticism: and, if their posthumous introduction to the world be injustice to his memory, or intrusion on the public, the error must be imputed to the injudicious partiality of friendship.

Mr LITTLE died in his one-and-twentieth year; and most of these Poems were written at so early a period, that their errors may claim some indulgence from the critic: their author, as unambitious as indolent, scarce ever looked beyond the moment of composition; he wrote as he pleased, careless whether he pleased as he

inculcates. Few can regret this more sincerely than myself; and if my friend had lived, the judgment of riper years would have chastened his mind, and tempered the luxuriance of his fancy.

Mr LITTLE gave much of his time to the study of the amatory writers. If ever he expected to find in the ancients that delicacy of sentiment and variety of fancy which are so necessary to refine and animate the poetry of love, he was much disappointed. I know not any one of them who can be regarded as a model in that style; Ovid made love like a rake, and Propertius like a schoolmaster. The mythological allusions of the latter are called erudition by his commentators; but such ostentatious display, upon a subject so simple as love, would be now esteemed vague and puerile, and was, even in his own times, pedantic. It is astonishing that so many critics have preferred him to the pathetic Tibullus; but I believe the defects which a common reader condemns have been looked upon rather as beauties by those erudite men, the commentators, who find a field for their ingenuity and research in his Grecian learning and quaint obscurities.

Tibullus abounds with touches of fine and natural feeling. The idea of his unexpected return to Delia, . Tunc veniam subito, etc. is imagined with all the delicate ardour of a lover; and the sentiment of nec te posse carere velim,» however colloquial the expression may have been, is natural and from the heart. But, in my opinion, the poet of Verona possessed more genuine feeling than any of them. His life was, I believe, un

Lib. i. eleg. 3.

fortunate; his associates were wild and abandoned; and the warmth of his nature took too much advantage of the latitude which the morals of those times so criminally allowed to the passions. All this depraved his imagination, and made it the slave of his senses: but still a native sensibility is often very warmly perceptible; and when he touches on pathos, he reaches the heart immediately. They who have felt the sweets of return to a home from which they have long been absent, will confess the beauty of those simple unaffected lines:

O quid solutis est beatius curis ?
Cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino
Labore fessi venimus Larem ad nostrum
Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto.

CARM. XXXII.

His sorrows on the death of his brother are the very tears of poesy; and when he complains of the ingratitude of mankind, even the inexperienced cannot but sympathize with him. I wish I were a poet; I should endeavour to catch, by translation, the spirit of those beauties which I admire so warmly.

It seems to have been peculiarly the fate of Catullus, that the better and more valuable part of his poetry has not reached us; for there is confessedly nothing in his extant works to authorize the epithet doctus» so universally bestowed upon him by the ancients. If time had suffered the rest to escape, we perhaps should have found among them some more purely amatory; but of those we possess, can there be a sweeter specimen of warm, yet chastened description, than his loves of Acme and Septimius? and the few little songs of dalliance to Lesbia are distinguished by such an exquisite playfulness, that they have always been assumed as models by the most elegant modern Latinists. Still, I must confess, in the midst of these beauties,

-Medio de fonte leporum

Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat.

It has often been remarked, that the ancients knew nothing of gallantry; and we are told there was too much sincerity in their love to allow them to trifle with the semblance of passion. But I cannot perceive that they were any thing more constant than the moderns: they felt all the same dissipation of the heart, though they knew not those seductive graces by which gallantry almost teaches it to be amiable. Wotton, the learned advocate for the moderns, deserts them in considering this point of comparison, and praises the ancients for their ignorance of such a refinement; but he seems to have collected his notions of gallantry from the insipid fadeurs of the French romances, which are very unlike the sentimental levity, the grata protervitas,» of a Rochester or a Sedley.

From what I have had an opportunity of observing, the early poets of our own language were the models which Mr LITTLE selected for imitation. To attain their simplicity (ævo rarissima nostro simplicitas) was his fondest ambition. He could not have aimed at a grace more difficult of attainment;3 and his life was of too

In the following Poems, there is a translation of one of his finest Carmina; but I fancy it is only a school-boy's essay, and deserves to be praised for little more than the attempt.

* Lucretius.

It is a curious illustration of the labour which simplicity requires, that the Ramblers of Johnson, elaborate as they appear, were written with fluency, and seldom required revision; while the simple language of Rousseau, which seems to come flowing from the beart, was the slow production of painful labour, pausing on every word, and balancing every sentence.

short a date to allow him to perfect such a taste; but how far he was likely to have succeeded, the critic may judge from his productions.

I have found among his papers a novel, in rather an imperfect state, which, as soon as I have arranged and collected it, shall be submitted to the public eye.

Where Mr LITTLE was born, or what is the genealogy of his parents, are points in which very few readers can be interested. His life was one of those humble streams which have scarcely a name in the map of life, and the traveller may pass it by without inquiring its source or direction. His character was well known to all who were acquainted with him; for he had too much vanity to hide its virtues, and not enough of art to conceal its defects. The lighter traits of his mind may be traced perhaps in his writings; but the few for which he was valued live only in the remembrance of his friends.

TO J. ATK-NS-N, ESQ.

MY DEAR SIR,

T. M.

I FEEL a very sincere pleasure in dedicating to you the Second Edition of our friend LITTLE's Poems. I am not unconscious that there are many in the collection which perhaps it would be prudent to have altered or omitted: and, to say the truth, I more than once revised them for that purpose; but, I know not why, I distrusted either my heart or my judgment; and the consequence is, you have them in their original form :

Non possunt nostros multæ, Faustine, lituræ
Emendare jocos; una litura potest.

I am convinced, however, that though not quite a casuiste relâché, you have charity enough to forgive such inoffensive follies: you know the pious Beza was not the less revered for those sportive juvenilia which he published under a fictitious name; nor did the levity of Bembo's poems prevent him from making a very good cardinal.

Shall
say, while o'er my simple theme
She languishes in Passion's dream,
He was, indeed, a tender soul-
No critic law, no chill control,
Should ever freeze, by timid art,
The flowings of so fond a heart!.
Yes! soul of Nature! soul of Love!
That, hovering like a snow-wing'd dove,
Breathed o'er my cradle warblings wild,
And hail'd me Passion's warmest child!
Grant me the tear from Beauty's eye,
From Feeling's breast the votive sigh;
Oh! let my song, my memory, find
A shrine within the tender mind;
And I will scorn the critic's chide,
And I will scorn the fume of pride
Which mantles o'er the pedant fool,
Like vapour on a stagnant pool!

TO MRS

If, in the dream that hovers
Around my sleeping mind,
Fancy thy form discovers,
And paints thee melting kind;

If joys from sleep I borrow, Sure thou It forgive me this; For he who wakes to sorrow

At least may dream of bliss!

Oh! if thou art, in seeming,

All that I've e'er required: Oh! if I feel, in dreaming,

All that I've e'er desired;

Wilt thou forgive my taking
A kiss, or something more?
What thou deny'st me waking,
Oh! let me slumber o'er!

INCONSTANCY.

AND do I then wonder that Julia deceives me,
When surely there's nothing in nature more common?
She vows to be true, and while vowing she leaves me-
But could I expect any more from a woman?

Oh, woman! your heart is a pitiful treasure;

And Mahomet's doctrine was not too severe, When he thought you were only materials of pleasure, And reason and thinking were out of your sphere.

By your heart, when the fond sighing lover can win it, He thinks that an age of anxiety 's paid;

But, oh! while he 's blest, let him die on the minuteIf he live but a day, he 'll be surely betray'd.

IMITATION OF CATULLUS. '

TO HIMSELF.

Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire, etc.

CEASE the sighing fool to play;
Cease to trifle life away;

Nor vainly think those joys thine own,
Which all, alas! have falsely flown!
What hours, Catullus, once were thine,
How fairly seem'd thy day to shine,
When lightly thou didst fly to meet
The girl, who smiled so rosy sweet—
The girl thou lovedst with fonder pain
Than e'er thy heart can feel again!
You met-your souls seem'd all in one-
Sweet little sports were said and done-
Thy heart was warm enough for both,
And hers indeed was nothing loath.

Such were the hours that once were thine;
But, ah! those hours no longer shine!
For now the nymph delights no more
In what she loved so dear before;
And all Catullus now can do

Is to be proud and frigid too;

Nor follow where the wanton flies,

Nor sue the bliss that she denies.

False maid! he bids farewell to thee,

To love, and all love's misery.
The hey-day of his heart is o'er,
Nor will he court one favour more;
But soon he 'll see thee droop thy head,
Doom'd to a lone and loveless bed,
When none will seek the happy night,
Or come to traffic in delight!
Fly, perjured girl!-but whither fly?
Who now will praise thy cheek and cye?
Who now will drink the syren tone,
Which tells him thou art all his own?
Who now will court thy wild delights,
Thy honey kiss, and turtle bites?

NATURE'S LABELS.

A FRAGMENT.

In vain we fondly strive to trace
The soul's reflection in the face;

In vain we dwell on lines and crosses,
Crooked mouth, or short proboscis;
Boobies have look'd as wise and bright
As Plato or the Stagyrite:

And many a sage and learned skull

Has peep'd through windows dark and dull!
Since then, though art do all it can,
We ne'er can reach the inward man,
Nor inward woman, from without
(Though, ma'am, you smile, as if in doubt),
I think 't were well if Nature could
(And Nature could, if Nature would)
Some pretty short descriptions write,
In tablets large, in black and white,

Which she might hang about our throttles,
Like labels upon physic-bottles.

There we might read of all-But stay-
As learned dialectics say,

The argument most apt and ample
For common use, is the example.
For instance, then, if Nature's care
Had not arranged those traits so fair,
Which speak the soul of Lucy L-nd-n,
This is the label she 'd have pinn'd on.

LABEL FIRST.

Within this vase there lies enshrined
The purest, brightest gem of mind!
Though Feeling's hand may sometimes throw
Upon its charms the shade of woe,
The lustre of the gem, when veil'd,
Shall be but mellow'd, not conceal'd.

Now, sirs, imagine, if you 're able,
That Nature wrote a second label,
They're her own words-at least suppose so-
And boldly pin it on Pomposo.

LABEL SECOND.

When I composed the fustian brain
Of this redoubted Captain Vain,
I had at hand but few ingredients,
And so was forced to use expedients.
I put therein some small discerning,
A grain of sense, a grain of learning;
And when I saw the void behind,
I fill'd it up with-froth and wind!

TO MRS M———. SWEET lady! look not thus again: -Those little pouting smiles recal A maid remember'd now with pain, Who was my love, my life, my all!

Oh! while this heart delirious took

Sweet poison from her thrilling eye, Thus would she pout, and lisp, and look,

And I would hear, and gaze, and sigh!

Yes, I did love her-madly love

She was the sweetest, best deceiver! And oft she swore she 'd never rove!

And I was destined to believe her!

Then, lady, do not wear the smile
Of her whose smile could thus betray:
Alas! I think the lovely wile

Again might steal my heart away.

And when the spell that stole my mind
On lips so pure as thine I see,

I fear the heart which she resign'd
Will err again, and fly to thee!

SONG.

WHY, the world are all thinking about it; And, as for myself, I can swear,

If I fancied that heaven were without it, I'd scarce feel a wish to go there.

If Mahomet would but receive me,
And Paradise be as he paints,
I'm greatly afraid, God forgive me!
I'd worship the eyes of his saints.

But why should I think of a trip
To the Prophet's seraglio above,
When Phillida gives me her lip,

As my own little heaven of love?

Oh, Phillis! that kiss may be sweeter
Than ever by mortal was given;
But your lip, love! is only St Peter,
And keeps but the key to your heaven!

TO JULIA.

Mock me no more with love's beguiling dream,
A dream, I find, illusory as sweet:
One smile of friendship, nay of cold esteem,
Is dearer far than passion's bland deceit!

I've heard you oft eternal truth declare;

Your heart was only mine, I once believed. Ah! shall I say that all your vows were air?

And must I say, my hopes were all deceived?

Vow, then, no longer that our souls are twined, That all our joys are felt with mutual zeal : Julia! 't is pity, pity makes you kind;

You know I love, and you would seem to feel.

But shall I still go revel in those arms

On bliss in which affection takes no part? No, no! farewell! you give me but your charmis, When I had fondly thought you gave your heart.

IMPROMPTU.

Look in my eyes, my blushing fair!
Thou 'It see thyself reflected there;
And, as I gaze on thine, I see
Two little miniatures of me: