THE PERSIAN, THE SUN, AND THE CLOUD. Is there a bard whom genius fires, Whose every thought the god inspires? When Envy reads the nervous lines, She frets, she rails, she raves, she pines; Her hissing snakes with venom swell; She calls her venal train from hell: The servile fiends her nod obey, And all Curl's authors are in pay, Fame calls up calumny and spite.

Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend, the cold, obscure shelter where moult the wings which will bear it farther than suns and stars.