The tea return'd an answer to the hailing
"I'm journeying from the east unto the west,
From China unto Europe's distant land,
Where I'm an article in high demand."
"And I," rejoin'd the sage, "unlike to thee,
Am from the west, and sailing eastwardly
To China, where, for wholesomeness and flavour,
As food or physic, I'm in mighty favour;
For though my countrymen, I blush to say,
My European countrymen, despise
And fling me as a worthless weed away,
The Chinaman is, Heaven be praised! more wise.
He has a sage tooth in his head, and knows
The pleasure and relief my leaf bestows;
In fact, I take precedence over thee,
And hit his taste, friend Tea, unto a T.
"But fare-thee-well! and speed thee with the gale
To Europe, where the tables will be turn'd;
Where young and old will hail thee; and inhale,
And thou wilt be adored as I was spurn'd;
For every nation, howsoever loth
To praise an article of native growth,
Is prompt enough to purchase and applaud
Whatever comes unto it from abroad."
And thus—although I grant that general good
Results from commerce rightly understood,
And that the intercourse of mind with mind,
Like other commerce, should be unconfined—
I blame the man whose scholarship is shown
In every country's authors save his own;
Who prizes, if from Paris or from Rome,
The very talent that he scorns at home;
And, while he overrates Racine or Tasso,
Disdains to read one line of Garcilasso.[1]
XIII. THE OWL; AND
XIV. THE DOG AND THE RAGMAN.
1.
Some critics, of the coward sort,
With mute servility succumb
To living authors; for, in short,
The risk, the fear of a retort
Compels them to be dumb.
2.
But, like the gouls of eastern lore,
These critics batten on the dead;
And when each author is no more
To whom they meanly quail'd of yore,
Attack him without dread.
3.
A story, which in other days
I often heard my grandam tell—
So often, that her rambling phrase
Is printed on my mind portrays
This kind of critics well.
4.
An owl one morn—but, sooth to say,
I am not telling it aright;
For owls are birds that love to stay
Within their secret homes by day,
And only fly by night.—
5.
An owl one night profanely flew
Into a church, and chanced to see
A lamp or lantern—but the two
Are much alike, and one will do,
Whichever it might be.
6.
And yet, methinks, anent the pair,
It was, if I remember well,
- ↑ Garcilasso de la Vega, one of the most celebrated poets of Spain. An elegant translation of his works into English verse, has appeared from the pen of Mr Wiffen.
