The National Register.
London, England, 1811-02-03 00:00:00

REVIEW OF LITERATURE.
THE BILLER GUN : A POEM IN FOUR CAMP*

4-100'44Mil;•:1
BY JOIIN MAYNE, *1;40 01,
Irktirf, --.;
AUTHOR OP THE POEM OP GLASGOW, ek0t5.41#4,44.
" Great souls 'tis true but peep out once an age.'' .
The gift of poetic inspiration, like the gilt df prophecy, sib
this world but seldom. Tis but once in an age indeed that
heaven drops the divine inspiring mantle among the sons of men.
It falls not upon the shoulders of nobility, but; like the sacred
mantle of Elijah; drops upon ploughmen, or upon those whom

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greatness has not deigned to ennoble with star, nor exalt with
its garter. Poesie is never found under a coronet, nor climbing
Parnassus with lawn sleeves and mitre. She is a chaste damsel,
and disdains to crawl to Courtly honours through the common
sewers of political iniquity. She loves the unbounded range of na-
ture, and glories in soaring between earth and heaven, to behold
the world rolling bc:low her feet, with units changes, from culti-
vation to wilderness, and from savageness to civilization.. it is
probably to this natural propensity of the rouse that we must at-
tribute the author of this immortal poem, being designated in the
title page only asplain " John "Wayne." Neither " Mr." nor "Esq."
nor " Sir." But his great and exalted genius does not stand in need
of those tarnished and gipsey tasselings. It is to this author tl.e
source of honour itself, and rises above all the heiehts to which
courtly ambition could reach it. We say simply 44 Homer's
Iliad," and not " The Iliad, a Poem in- Twenty-four Cantos,
by Daniel or Joseph Homer, Esq. These pretty titles are as
decimal ciphers placed on the left hand, they increase the size
but not the value. When looking, however, to the title-page of
the volume, we see that it has keen published two years ado,
yet the author's name is still unknown. Fame has not clapt the
brazen Parnassian trumpet to her mouth, and made all Europe
ring from side to side.
The Sillcr Gun is an epic poem, full and finished in all its
parts. Yet the modesty of the Author calls it simply " a Poem."
He has left -it to his country to baptize it" An Epic." He has
not, as his forerunner Homer, chosen the most brilliant part of
mortal history to display his powers. Nor like Milton fabricated
revolutions in heaven, creations of worlds, and tenanting lakes
of fire and brimstone with celestial outcasts. He has caught
hold of a story which few know, and which nobody cares about
—disdaining to owe his greatness to his subject, he has sung
what any oilier bard of ancient or modern times would never
have deemed susceptible of poetic elucidation. The seven in-
corporated trades of Dumfries contending as marksmen for a
little tube called " The Silber Gun," Is thesimple foundation
on which is built the fairest structure that" e'er poetic fancy
dreamed of." Sublime soaring of sentiment, breadth and efful-
gence of description, intimate discrimination of character, and
the whole mixed up with sources of inextinguishable laughter,
are the chief characteristics of this admirable bard.
The Poem begins with one of those prophetic sallies which
always belong to the true children of inspiration—
" Dumfries shall live till timebe done."
This line ought to be a warning to all Poets, always to sing
the long life of their subject ; then humbly trust that their Poem
will live along with it. But perchance the Popt,,has, haft this
line as a crust for commentators to gnaw on; whettirr 4 means
Dumfries shall live in good mortar and stow, tpr poly hit inspired
song. Warined with this burst of abrupt proph4y, 4 rushes
on his subject without either invoking lquaes or 9.05, with a
'vigour which astonishes, and tells us his tniqd, ca4ht fire,
and scorns their assistance— zattl
" One summer's morning with the Rin:hiti
This line is what I call one of those symptoms edlo-
,. which are alwa)Ta discoverable in
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