I knew you brave, and plain, Strong-sensed, rough-witted, above fear or gain; But nothing further had the gift to espy.
Sudden you reappear.

With wonder I Hear my old friend (turn'd Shakspeare) read a scene Only to _his_ inferior in the clean Passes of pathos: with such fence-like art-- Ere we can see the steel, 'tis in our heart.
Almost without the aid language affords, Your piece seems wrought.

That huffing medium, _words_, (Which in the modern Tamburlaines quite sway Our shamed souls from their bias) in your play We scarce attend to.

Hastier passion draws Our tears on credit: and we find the cause Some two hours after, spelling o'er again Those strange few words at ease, that wrought the pain.
Proceed, old friend; and, as the year returns, Still snatch some new old story from the urns Of long-dead virtue.

We, that knew before Your worth, may admire, we cannot love you more.
* * * * * TO THE AUTHOR OF POEMS, PUBLISHED UNDER THE NAME OF BARRY CORNWALL.
Let hate, or grosser heats, their foulness mask Under the vizor of a borrow'd name; Let things eschew the light deserving blame: No cause hast thou to blush for thy sweet task.
"Marcian Colonna" is a dainty book; And thy "Sicilian Tale" may boldly pass; Thy "Dream" 'bove all, in which, as in a glass, On the great world's antique glories we may look.
No longer then, as "lowly substitute, Factor, or PROCTER, for another's gains," Suffer the admiring world to be deceived; Lest thou thyself, by self of fame bereaved, Lament too late the lost prize of thy pains, And heavenly tunes piped through an alien flute.
* * * * * TO THE EDITOR OF THE "EVERY-DAY BOOK." I like you, and your book, ingenuous Hone! In whose capacious all-embracing leaves The very marrow of tradition's shown; And all that history--much that fiction--weaves.
By every sort of taste your work is graced.
Vast stores of modern anecdote we find, With good old story quaintly interlaced-- The theme as various as the reader's mind.
Rome's lie-fraught legends you so truly paint-- Yet kindly,--that the half-turn'd Catholic Scarcely forbears to smile at his own saint, And cannot curse the candid heretic.
Rags, relics, witches, ghosts, fiends, crowd your page; Our fathers' mummeries we well-pleased behold, And, proudly conscious of a purer age, Forgive some fopperies in the times of old.
Verse-honoring Phoebus, Father of bright _Days_, Must needs bestow on you both good and many, Who, building trophies of his Children's praise, Run their rich Zodiac through, not missing any.
Dan Phoebus loves your book--trust me, friend Hone-- The title only errs, he bids me say: For while such art, wit, reading, there are shown, He swears,'tis not a work of _every day_.
* * * * * TO T.STOTHARD, ESQ.
ON HIS ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE POEMS OF MR.