ect of the poetical candidate, in like manner, is to produce, not a
good poem, but a poem of that exact degree of frigidity or bombast which
may appear to his censors to be correct or sublime. Compositions thus
constructed will always be worthless. The few excellences which they may
contain will have an exotic aspect and flavour. In general, prize sheep
are good for nothing but to make tallow candles, and prize poems are
good for nothing but to light them.

The first subject proposed by the Society to the poets of England was
Dartmoor. I thought that they intended a covert sarcasm at their own
projects. Their institution was a literary Dartmoor scheme;--a plan
for forcing into cultivation the waste lands of intellect,--for raising
poetical produce, by means of bounties, from soil too meagre to have
yielded any returns in the natural course of things. The plan for the
cultivation of Dartmoor has, I hear, been abandoned. I hope that this
may be an omen of the fate of the Society.

In truth, this seems by no means improbable. They have been offering for
several years the rewards which the king placed at their disposal, and
have not, as far as I can learn, been able to find in their box one
composition which they have deemed worthy of publication. At least no
publication has taken place. The associates may perhaps be astonished
at this. But I will attempt to explain it, after the manner of ancient
times, by means of an apologue.

About four hundred years after the Deluge, King Gomer Chephoraod reigned
in Babylon. He united all the characteristics of an excellent sovereign.
He made good laws, won great battles, and white-washed long streets.
He was, in consequence, idolised by his people, and panegyrised by many
poets and orators. A book was then a sermons undertaking. Neither paper
nor any similar material had been invented. Authors were therefore under
the necessity of inscribing their compositions on massive bricks. Some
of these Babylonian records are still preserved in European museums; but
the language in which they are written has never been deciphered. Gomer
Chephoraod was so popular that the clay of all the plains round the
Euphrates could scarcely furnish brick-kilns enough for his eulogists.
It is recorded in particular that Pharonezzar, the Assyrian Pindar,
published a bridge and four walls in his praise.

One day the king was going in state from his palace to the temple of
Belus. During this procession it was