The Age Reviewed A Satire: In two parts: Second edition, revised and corrected [by Robert Montgomery] |
 |
|
| I. |
| II. |
 | The Age Reviewed |  |
Our daily bards, that print their owlish dreams,
Are like the bubbles borne on gurgling streams;
Where, brightly hollow, flutt'ring to be first,
They swell one moment, and the next they burst:—
So the spruce tomes palmed forth hot-press'd and fine,
Where words more glossy than the paper shine;
By critic-grubbers, or by book-learn'd fraud,
Find fools that read, and numskulls that applaud;
Borne on the current praises of a day,
They float awhile, then bubbling sink away!
Are like the bubbles borne on gurgling streams;
Where, brightly hollow, flutt'ring to be first,
They swell one moment, and the next they burst:—
So the spruce tomes palmed forth hot-press'd and fine,
Where words more glossy than the paper shine;
By critic-grubbers, or by book-learn'd fraud,
Find fools that read, and numskulls that applaud;
144
They float awhile, then bubbling sink away!
More than one-half of our ephemeral bards whose names give dignity to “Annuals,” and throw lustre on “Albums,” are indebted to the printer and publisher for their puny popularity, rather than to the actual merits of their volumes. “Every pert young fellow that has a moving fancy, and the least jingle of verses in his head, sets up for a writer of songs, and resolves to immortalize his bottle or his mistress.”
| The Age Reviewed | |