XIII.

Yes! hard the task, when Britons wield the sword,

To give each chief and every field its fame:

Hark! Albuera thunders Beresford, And red Barosa shouts for daunt

less Græme!

O for a verse of tumult and of flame, Bold as the bursting of their cannon sound,

To bid the world re-echo to their fame!

For never upon gory battle-ground With conquest's well-bought wreath were braver victors crown'd!

XIV.

O who shall grudge him Albuera's bays,

Who brought a race regenerate to the field,

Roused them to emulate their fathers' praise,

Temper'd their headlong rage,

their courage steel'd,

And raised fair Lusitania's fallen shield,

And gave new edge to Lusitania's sword,

And taught her sons forgotten arms to wield!

Shiver'd my harp, and burst its every chord,

If it forget thy worth, victorious Beresford!

THE poem is founded upon a Spanish tradition particularly detailed in the following Notes, but bearing in general that Don Roderick, the last Gothic King of Spain, when the Invasion of the Moors was impending, had the temerity to descend into an ancient vault near Toledo, the opening of which had been denounced as fatal to the Spanish Monarchy. The legend adds that his rash curiosity was mortified by an emblematical representation of those Saracens who, in the year, 714, defeated him in battle, and reduced Spain under their dominion. I have presumed to prolong the vision of the revolutions of Spain down to the present eventful crisis of the Peninsula; and to divide it, by a supposed change of scene, into three periods. The first of these represents the Invasion of the Moors, the defeat and death of Roderick, and closes with the peaceful occupation of the country by the victors. The second period embraces the state of the Peninsula, when the conquests of the Spaniards and Portuguese in the East and West Indies had raised to the highest pitch the renown of their arms,-sullied, however, by superstition and cruelty. An allusion to the inhumanities of the Inquisition terminates this picture. The last part of the poem opens with the state of Spain previous to the unparalleled treachery of Bonaparte; gives a sketch of the usurpation attempted upon that unsuspicious and friendly kingdom, and terminates

NOTE I.

And Cattracth's glens with voice

It

with the arrival of the British succours. may be farther proper to mention that the object of the poem is less to commemorate or detail particular incidents than to exhibit a general and impressive picture of the several periods brought upon the stage.

I am too sensible of the respect due to the public, especially by one who has already experienced more than ordinary indulgence, to offer any apology for the inferiority of the poetry to the subject it is chiefly designed to commemorate. Yet I think it proper to mention that while I was hastily executing a work, written for a temporary purpose, and on passing events, the task was most cruelly interrupted by the successive deaths of Lord President Blair, and Lord Viscount Melville. In those distinguished characters I had not only to regret persons whose lives were most important to Scotland, but also whose notice and patronage honoured my entrance upon active life; and, I may add with melancholy pride, who permitted my more advanced age to claim no common share in their friendship. Under such interruptions the preceding verses, which my best and happiest efforts must have left far unworthy of their theme, have, I am myself sensible, an appearance of negligence and incoherence which in other circumstances I might have been able to remove.

of

triumph rung, And mystic Merlin harp'd, and grey-hair'd Llywarch sung!-P. 591.

THIS locality may startle those readers who do not recollect that much of the ancient

EDINBURGH, June 24, 1811.

poetry preserved in Wales refers less to the

history of the Principality to which that name is now limited, than to events which happened in the north-west of England, and south-west of Scotland, where the Britons for a long time made a stand against the Saxons. The battle of Cattraeth, lamented by the celebrated Aneurin, is supposed, by the