MR. MASON having laid aside the more noble subject for a Probationary Ode, viz. the Parliamentary Reform, upon finding that the Rev. Mr. Wyvil had already made a considerable progress in it, has adopted the following.—The argument is simple and interesting, adapted either to the harp of Pindar, or the reed of Theocritus_,_ and as proper for the 4th of June, as any day of the year.

It is almost needless to inform the public, that the University of Oxford has earnestly longed for a visit from their Sovereign, and, in order to obtain this honour without the fatigue of forms and ceremonies, they have privately desired the Master of the Staghounds, upon turning the stag out of the cart, to set his head in as straight a line as possible, by the map, towards Oxford:—which probably, on some auspicious day, will bring the Royal Hunt to the walls of that city. This expedient, conceived in so much wisdom, as well as loyalty, makes the subject of the following,

IRREGULAR ODE,

By MR. MASON.

I.
O! green-rob’d Goddess of the hallow’d shade,
Daughter of Jove, to whom of yore
Thee, lovely maid, Latona bore,
Chaste virgin, Empress of the silent glade!
Where shall I woo thee?—Ere the dawn,
While still the dewy tissue of the lawn
Quivering spangles to the eye,
And fills the soul with Nature’s harmony!
Or ’mid that murky grove’s monastic night,
The tangling net-work of the woodbine’s gloom,
Each zephyr pregnant with perfume——
Or near that delving dale, or mossy mountain’s height,
When Neptune struck the scientific ground.

II.
From Attica’s deep-heaving side,
Why did the prancing horse rebound,
Snorting, neighing all around,
With thund’ring feet and flashing eyes—
Unless to shew how near allied
Bright science is to exercise!

III.
If then the horse to wisdom is a friend,
Why not the hound? why not the horn?
While low beneath the furrow sleeps the corn,
Nor yet in tawny vests delight to bend!
For Jove himself decreed,
That DIAN, with her sandal’d feet,
White ankled Goddess pure and fleet,
Should with every Dryad lead,
By jovial cry o’er distant plain,
To England’s Athens, Brunswick’s sylvan train!

IV.
Diana, Goddess all discerning!
Hunting is a friend to learning!
If the stag, with hairy nose,
In Autumn ne’er had thought of love!
No buck with swollen throat the does
With dappled sides had tryed to move——
Ne’er had England’s King, I ween,
The Muse’s seat, fair Oxford, seen.

V.
Hunting, thus, is learning’s friend!
No longer, Virgin Goddess, bend
O’er Endymion’s roseate breast;——
No longer, vine-like, chastly twine
Round his milk-white limbs divine!——
Your brother’s car rolls down the east—
The laughing hours bespeak the day!
With flowery wreaths they strew the way!
Kings of sleep! ye mortal race!
For George with Dian ’gins the Royal chace!

VI.
Visions of bliss, you tear my aching sight,
Spare, O spare your poet’s eyes!
See every gate-way trembles with delight,
Streams of glory streak the skies:
How each College sounds,
With the cry of the hounds!
How Peckwater merrily rings;
Founders, Prelates, Queens, and Kings—
All have had your hunting-day!—
From the dark tomb then break away!
Ah! see they rush to Friar Bacon’s tower,
Great George to greet, and hail his natal hour!

VII.
Radcliffe and Wolsey, hand in hand,
Sweet gentle shades, there take their stand
With Pomfret’s learned dame;
And Bodely join’d by Clarendon,
With loyal zeal together run,
Just arbiters of fame!

VIII.
That fringed cloud sure this way bends—
From it a form divine descends—
Minerva’s self;—and in her rear
A thousand saddled steads appear!
On each she mounts a learned son,
Professor, Chancellor, or Dean;
All by hunting madness won,
All in Dian’s livery seen.
How they despise the tim’rous Hare!
Give us, they cry, the furious Bear!
To chase the Lion, how they long,
Th’ Rhinoceros tall, and Tyger strong.
Hunting thus is learning’s prop,
Then may hunting never drop;
And thus an hundred Birth-Days more,
Shall Heav’n to George afford from its capacious shore.