Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Tho' enrag'd and revil'd, the old Dowager Drury
Reflected and smil'd, as she fetter'd her fury:
Nor sought by base taunts to condemn or deride,
For her Wit and her Years had corrected her pride:
But feeling compassion, imbitter'd with woe,
Thus bade the sweet streams of experience flow:

Of old, when young ladies offended good manners,
Their peers left their elbows, the men fled their banners;
But, thanks to the impulse of high-born refinement,
Each spinster now laughs at the chains of confinement:
No parents are lab'ring by coercive measures
To fashion the thought, or give laws to their pleasures,
Hence daily the torments Propriety feels,
As tittering girls tread on Decency's heels.—
When I was a virgin, young, callow, and bland,
Then Wisdom and Prudence were known in the land;

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The girls of that æra were beauteous and good,
And drank no French wines to give warmth to their blood:
They knew not the magic that lurks 'neath a sigh,
But trembled at Folly, and blush'd at a lie;
Tho' men were more willing, and husbands more plenty,
We thought not of love 'till at least five and twenty:
But now every minx, when she gets in her teens,
Well knows what the mystical union means,
Rejects the advice of her elders with scorn,
And loves and coquets ere her passions are born.

But, a truce with resentment, our failings we'll smother,
Nor kindle a flame to consume but—each other;
As our interests are mutual, we'll bury our rage,
And strive to restore Common Sense to the stage;
As the Nymph has been banish'd by sturdy Pollution,
Be it ours to raise a renown'd revolution.—

As the kings of the drama Apollo reviews,
He pities mankind, and he mourns for each muse;
From such an assemblage of dolts and deformity,
Can aught be expected but ills and enormity?
Alas! that such follies should riot unchain'd,
Or Ideots rule where a Titus has reign'd:
To shew their base splendor in Reason's despight,
And annoy human kind, they rush forth to the light;
Like the bird of Minerva at Sol's torrid rays,
'Till their sense is oppress'd, and they wink at the blaze:
Thus Pride draws them on, as the scent leads the beagle,
While Scorn draws a line 'twixt the owl and the eagle.

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Mr. SHERIDAN.

The Fates warr'd with Reason when Sheridan rose
From Hibernian loins to correct human woes;
Then Pallas obey'd the command of her sire,
And touch'd his young brain with Athenian fire;
The Pierian maids led the youth in despite
To the hill of Parnassus and font of delight,
Where Phœbus his dogmas was wont to rehearse,
And shew'd him the force and the features of verse;

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Fed his mind with large draughts from their translucent spring,
And taught him those arts which made Sophocles sing—
Tho' a one-headed Cerberus, he's destin'd by Fate
To watch o'er the int'rests of drama and state;
Now Policy, hideous witch, wakes her charms,
To woo the equivocal wight to her arms;
And to cheat the fine sense of her retrograde suitor,
Deceives him with shadows, and points to the future:
Now the Muse spreads, like Phryne, her arts of seduction,
And urges poor Dick for a comic production;
Now he writes bitter anti-amicable hints,
For the Premier's good, in the scandalous prints;
Then fabricates odes for the mad and the stupid,
Then strings pretty verses for Emma Crewe's Cupid,
And lives but a sorrowful standard at best
To prove Genius a bubble, and Wisdom a jest;
A Cameleon statesman, endued with strange powers
To seize every hue, and those hues at all hours;
With talents that call'd human kind to admire,
With morals that slew the behest of his sire;
Like an Epicæne animal form'd for deception,
His worth is an instance that staggers perception.
What he is, or is not, is a point in dispute,
Propose what you will, and 'tis Brinsley can do't:
So fit for all things, yet, alas! fit for none,
Continually doing, yet always undone;
So beckon'd by Hope, yet by Hope so oft cheated,
For ever contending, yet ever defeated;

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By much too sincere for a good politician,
Too eccentric to make a sound mathematician;
Too proud for attendance, too vain to beseech,
Too poor to be happy, too candid to preach:
Thus he swims in a strange indeterminate mean,
Neither hallow'd nor damn'd, but betwixt and between.
When Genius essays to effect his conversion,
Attachments obtrude and defeat the exertion;
Tho' Satire has arm'd him to regulate men,
Young Gratitude draws all the ink from his pen.
If to lacerate Folly he wings the keen dart,
It wounds his best friend in the core of his heart;
If levelling at vice he his archery tries,
By the arrow transfix'd an ex-minister dies,
His fancy's blythe sports o'er our faculties steal,
All poignant as Congreve, as Horace genteel;
But viewing those tablets inwove in his will,
Like the Sybil's black leaves they predict embrio ill,
And his fruitless attemps to make ideots wise,
Resembles Domitian pursuing his flies,
Or stern Dionysius correcting his boys,
Or Britain's Elizabeth sporting with toys.
Like a truant to Fame he has fled from his duty,
To give varlets respect and gaunt Faction a beauty,
His sensible heart seem'd, when Excellence found it,
Like Hermes' Cadeuceus, with reptiles clung round it;
For his manners are spoil'd by the limbs of inferno,
Like Arethuse streams in the lake of Averno;

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Could critical Alchymy mend such base elves,
I'd place their vile dross on Truth's high-valued shelves,
Tho' my deeds, like Caligula's arts, might be crost,
Who, intent to make gold, moan'd the time he had lost;
For Wit and Discretion in amity bound,
Like the circle's quadrature, will never be found.
Generosity's seen on each eye-brow depicted,
His ideas are vast, yet his purse is restricted.
Tho' a minion of Onus he passes his hours
In feats that dishonour his limitless powers,
Defiling the page of loud Rumour with fears
That a chief may have err'd in twice seventeen years.
Like Sallust he's brilliant, and both shone as senators,
Tho' neither by living uprais'd their progenitors.
His brain, like the library of fam'd Pisistratus,
Is so laden with wit we can find no hiatus;
Like Israel's foul children, for Ruin ne'er spar'd him,
He ran from that Canaan which Phœbus prepar'd him.
Fascination with all her best witch'ries has clad him,
For he ne'er ask'd a friend but in asking he had him:
He dignified tumults Expedience made,
And seems, like the lion, superior to aid,
As inordinate gorging at Obloquy's feasts,
Where, alas! he's but first mid confederate beasts,
He speaks to illumine, sublime, and surprise,
As Columbus taught Indians the laws of the skies,
While the national crowds round the wanderer ran
In doubt if the alien was God or a man;

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Tho' Sophistry partially darkens the way,
He beams like the sun, and creates his own day;
Foul Tergiversation shall fashion his history,
For his life, like the Pentateuch's, mark'd by its mystery,
Like the rock-striking Hebrew he marshals his throng,
But the force of his amulet lives in his song.
When he visited Fortune, the wench most uncivil,
Sent him and his suite to Charles Fox or the Devil:
He wept, he beseech'd, he bemoan'd, he lamented,
Till, chill'd by her mien, left the house discontented.
Thus Dick is oppress'd in his efforts to court her,
For the nymph shuts her gates and he can't bribe the porter.
'Tis said that she once lov'd the indirect youth
Ere polluted associates had led him from Truth;
She saw him deluded, and pitied his blindness,
And sooth'd him with smiles, and embrac'd him with kindness;
But he, like a dolt, with her quiet disported,
Abus'd her remonstrance, and scoff'd when she courted;
Till stung and enrag'd, hopeless, mad, and forlorn,
The dignified wench felt the pressure of scorn,
And imbibing that hatred the dramatist taught her,
Consign'd the proud fool to the care of her daughter;
For as ladies forgive not contemptuous slights,
She frowns on his toils if he speaks or indites;
Pre-damns all his essays in verse and in prose,
And yields him a victim to merciless foes:

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Created to live in Society's school
As the mark of perfection, and bane of a fool;
It mads me to see such superlative merit
Metamorphos'd by Pride to a petulant ferret,
Which Fox drags about with a sinister chain,
To drive the political rats from the grain.
Unfortunate Charles! once the inmate of Glory;
Tho' now he's illustrious only in story,
All his splendour's absorb'd by the Minister's ray,
Thus the grandeur of Memphis gave Thebes to Decay.
Thus Satan lay writhing when Michael trod o'er him,
As demons in clusters crept round to deplore him!

The sceptre of Drury has known many masters,
Like the throne of Warsaw, it seems fraught with disasters;
In all points of government weak and defective;
But that realm must decay where the crown is elective;
When brainless musicians can figure in story,
And, like David Rizzo, debase regal glory.

Mrs. ABINGTON.

Led on by Thalia, with dignified mien,
Behold sportive Fashion's superlative queen!
Illustrious Abington stampt at her birth
The touchstone of splendor, and daughter of Mirth;

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A barrier which Elegance rais'd in our days,
To stop the wild progress of barbarous ways;
Like the Belgian dykes, all their force to withstand,
And shut out their ruinous streams from the land.
This nymph, all abundant, has Science supply'd,
For, when God gave her atoms, he gave them with pride;

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And, her frame holds a heart of the noblest texture,
Where Virtue retir'd when Infamy vext her:
As the Phœnix creates when the Phœnix expires,
Thus Abington issued from Woffington's fires!

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Ere Taste can establish her motley dominion,
She resorts to gay Frances to know her opinion,
And supplicates Abington every season,
For her smiles, as a passport, to visit our reason.

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Like a pine, tall and straight, she approaches the skies,
But her height awakes Envy to question her size,
And subjects her form to each poisonous gale
Which escapes the low brambles that creep in the vale.
Like the moon in her orb, she diffuses her light,
To emblazon the scene, and give Beauty to sight;
As venomous reptiles antipathis'd gaze,
And yelp at her splendor, tho' lit by her rays,
But, untouch'd by their breath, of her honors unshorn,
She smiles on their malice with dignified scorn;
That heave of her bosom sweet Sympathy taught,
When Pity assum'd the command of her thought,
And with tender conceits did its tablet impress,
Which lead her to Want, and, when led, bid her bless;
'Tis then that her acting vast benefit draws,
Where the wretched and heaven alone give applause!

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That bard's doubly blest in Elysium's gay bowers,
Whose wit-woven scenes are illum'd by her powers:
There Congreve beholds, proud, elate, and delighted,
New graces beyond what his pen has indited:
Then his wit, like some knives in the Birmingham trade,
Is valued much more for the handle than blade;
And her system of sense makes so pleasing a whole,
That her mind seems divine, and her body all soul.
In arch Estifania, by thinking refin'd,
She moves and attempers the springs of the mind,

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Gives new point to the jest, as it flies on the wing,
Adds force to its vigour, and sharpens its sting.
She spreads comic salt o'er her moods and her tenses,
Which, like spices in soup, hide the meat from our senses;
But our lips hail with rapture such pleasant expedients,
And smack, and re-smack, with the zest of ingredients.
In prating Soubrettes she defies competition;
In the broad paths of fashion adds ease to condition.
From the gay, well-bred Charlotte, in Cibber's light page,
To the pert Roxalana, that gladdens the stage;
From the high-seasoned slices of Beaumont's sirloin,
To the witless bon mots of the studious Burgoyne.
When she sinks into Phillis, her high-polish'd mind,
Seems crampt, and coerc'd, and debas'd, and confin'd:
Like a valuable pearl in the womb of an oyster,
Or Madame Victoire in the cells of a cloister;
Or Alfred when eating his soup with a hind,
Contracting the scale of his patriot mind,

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To hide from the peasant his cares and his crosses;
Or thundering Jove when the guest of poor Baucis:
Or Apollo when scoff'd by the base-born Damætas,
Or the pimp of the skies, when the herd of Admetus.

She gracefully trips on Propriety's toe,
And walks, talks, and triumphs at will comme il faut;
The bosom of Feeling with truth she impresses,
And steals all our senses; but, stealing them, blesses.
Like a wond'rous magician she sports with our being,
And turns into doubt e'en the act that we're seeing;
With poignant impertinence marks her whole face,
And says brilliant nothings with infinite grace!

The vigils of Falshood, and all her base train,
Have fail'd to embitter her moments with pain;
Array'd with the armour of Peace round her heart,
She smiles at Contumely's venomous dart;
Shakes the habits of Hatred with scorn from her mind,
And like Taurus' high forehead looks down on mankind.

It is her's to correct the ill humours of Pride,
And bid all the channels of Weakness subside;
As Virtue's chief minion to blazon her cause,
Enforce her behest, and promulgate her laws.
Like Saint Raphael's gay tints, when he portray'd a story,
Her toils touch the summit of sublunar glory;
Like Sweden's Christina, her honor'd existence,
Has nerv'd female worth against critic resistance:
As Servius Tullus, the flame of Ambition,
Lick'd the nymph when a child, and sublim'd her condition.

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Irresistible Fate, to her character kind,
But steals from her dimples—to add to her mind;
If her beauties recede, yet shall Envy confess,
That to brighten the greater he takes from the less:
So governing Jove calls the streams into motion,
And empties the river, to strengthen the ocean,
Like Ninon de l'Enclos, this elegant dame,
Can charm human-kind by her wit or her frame;
She gracefully parries the evils of Time,
And, the older she grows, is the more in her prime;
For Merit shall court her, and Foplings implore,
When her ringlets are ting'd with the dyes of threescore.

Mrs. CRAWFORD.

In the caves of Neglect see poor Crawford retir'd,
To end a frail being, abridg'd and bemir'd;
Lo! her time-whiten'd head is disrob'd of those bays,
Which solac'd and warm'd her in happier days;

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See the violets droop that once sweeten'd the air,
And the yews mark the place as the den of Despair;
For briars and thorns every avenue closes,
That Nature once dress'd with her myrtles and roses.
Say, what was the cause that, destroying her powers,
Made life's chilly evening imbitter her hours!
It was ill-tim'd Desire gave birth to her pains,
And govern'd the Woman, and liv'd in her veins;
Betray'd her to Sorrow and fell Desperation,
And shook, like an earthquake, her high reputation.
To tell what she was, but offends recollection,
To tell what she is, gives a wound to affection.
Even History shrinks when decreed to portray,
The last hapless moments when Swift met decay;
By the force of free agency Crawford has pin'd,
And, the pressure of Wit cut off Swift from mankind;
Tho' both have been tortur'd by Misery's rod,
The first sunk by Folly, the last by his God.

In the whirlwind of Passion, tho' furious and warm,
The force of her judgment gave laws to the storm;
She rov'd the dominions of human ability,
But stopt on the verge, ere she pass'd possibility:
In piteous Euphrasia she issued her moan,
'Till Melpomene trembled, and wept on her throne;
Commanded the suite of Despair in her face,
And murder'd the tyrant with terrible Grace;
Tho' Siddons' high majesty knew not her mind,
Her action was excellent, just, and refin'd;
With the numbers of Otway extorted our groans,
And wonderful Harmony breath'd in her tones.

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The Siddons, convuls'd with the cause of her sadness,
Made the plaints of the heroine border on madness;
And summon'd Amazement in each studied start,
But Crawford effectually wounded the heart!
The first knock'd its centinels down by surprise,
The last gain'd admittance by—pathos and sighs;
And play'd 'till the tremors increas'd in gradation,
And the frame was an organ of tender vibration;
All the pulses accorded with cold unanimity,
And the nerves carried woe to the fingers' extremity.
Her name was once mighty, e'en still 'tis remember'd,
But the thing and idea are widely dismember'd;
On the historic page it is wond'rously seen,
In the grasp of the eye 'tis weak, shallow, and mean;
By the past and the present wise dogmas are taught,
Like the Tyber in act, and the Tyber in thought.

This nymph never learn'd, by cold Policy bound,
To measure her periods, and weigh ev'ry sound;
But, disdaining the aids of an artful pretence,
Gave Nature the rein, and a loose to her sense;
The meand'rings where subtilty toils after woe,
And the deep from whence classical rivulets flow;
She left for those daughters of Judgment to stem,
Who for Genius substitute fustian and phlegm.
Energetic and dignified, beauteous and charming,
Impressive, impassion'd, or chilling, or warming:
The grave Penseroso bent low to adore her,
And Love and Allegro with joy danc'd before her.

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Tho' her scenic exertions the eye met so gladly,
No theatric nymph drest her person so badly;
Be it mantua, or toga, or cestus, or lace,
'Twas absurdity all, from her heels to her face.

In a moment, when Vehemence fir'd her age,
A florid adventurer tickled her rage;
Like Eve, warm and panting, she met the temptation,
And, laughing, resign'd all her hopes of salvation.

Turn your fancy to Scotia, where rigorous snows
Envelope her rocks, and stern Eolus blows;
There Baddely sleeps on Mortality's bier,
Whose pallid remains claim the kindred tear:
Emaciate and squalid her body is laid,
Her limbs lacking shelter, her muscles decay'd.
Cadaverous, fœtid, despis'd, and deform'd,
Unmantled, scarce pitied, unstrung, and unwarm'd:
An eminent instance of feminine terror,
A public example to keep us from error:

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Voluptuous Bacchants have wept round her pillow,
And strew'd her cold temples with cypress and willow;
The train of Euphrosyne ran from their bowers,
And smooth'd the green turf, and bewail'd her last hours;
See Pan with his rugged libidinous throng,
Bring their reeds to awaken a requiem song:
'Till their lays fright the tenants that gladden the sky,
And the vales of Arcadia in murmurs reply.—

What a lesson is this for the beauteous and vain!
What a beacon to light the abysses of pain!—
Can those be the eyes that once sparkled with fire,
Which Splendor might envy, and Monarchs admire?
Ere the Nymph of her virginal zone was disarm'd,
She look'd and enraptur'd, she spoke and she charm'd;
Unmoan'd by the Worthy, she shudder'd and died,
And the worms loath a frame for which Majesty sigh'd.
—Oh Passion! that ever to weakness inclines,
Thou exquisite tyrant, who damns our designs;
Say, why should you shut us from Fear and Contrition,
Or lead such frail beings from Peace to Perdition!
Can the conquest be envied as hallow'd or glorious,
When angels deplore that the sense is victorious!
Ah me! can this world have a charm for the will,
To justify Guilt in an action of ill?
Should a state so restricted, unblest and uneven,
Impel us to combat the canons of Heaven?
Tho' cherub-fac'd Vice hides a moral infernal,
Her joys are but transient, her stings are eternal.

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But when shall we see female prudence have birth,
To set such a price as they ought on their worth?
When Bamber Gascoyne eats a hare without stuffing,
Or Walcot or Pratt write a treatise 'gainst puffing;
When Gordon's fatigu'd with sedition-fraught clamour,
When simpering Christie pollutes his white hammer:
When Brocklesby's language becomes insincere,
Or he cheats human woe of his purse and a tear.

Mr. MACKLIN.

Revere sturdy Macklin, the dramatic sire,
For nor age nor disease can extinguish his fire;
Like an evergreen sent, as a rare vernal treasure,
Tho' he blooms all the year, all the year gives us pleasure;

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Innately convinc'd of his strength and capacity,
Like a giant mid pigmies, he crushes Audacity;
For pigmies in knowledge this Nestor will deem us,
And roars and corrects like a stage Polyphemus;
Tells the younglings how Roscius excell'd but by rule,
Chalks the outlines of Truth, and defends the old School.

When Macklin was form'd, the Almighty intended,
Human clay with empyreal air should be blended;
Disportive he laughs at the toils of the day,
And doubts if our senses were made to decay:
See rejuvenated and blythsome he stands,
With the drama, as God held the seas in his hands;
If Envy could wield th' artillery of Fate,
He'd still be triumphant, and dare to be great.
Surrounded by shrubs on the theatric bed,
The veteran raises his laurel-bound head;
Like the oak of the forest, he lifts his stern form,
With the brow of a monarch, and smiles at the storm;
Unriv'd by the thunder of Malice or Meanness,
He still is majestic, tho' robb'd of his greenness;
And wounded by many a critical scar,
Like the tempest-torn hulk of an old Man of War.

With singular faculties blest and endued,
The interests of Honor he mark'd and pursued;
For Fate to his wishes indulgently kind,
Infus'd an additional beam in his mind;
Made his ideas vast, comprehensive and clear,
His manners august, and his language sincere;

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He foster'd his aims with particular pride,
As ductile Philosophy walk'd by his side;
The elegant Sciences marshall'd his rage,
And Wit and Vivacity brighten'd his page.
Like brilliant Saint Evremond, lively and gay,
He laughs as the streams of his life flow away;
Illustrates our worth in a being well spent,
And, searching for Truth, gathers bliss and content;
In the niches of second Adolescence plac'd,
By the finger of Heaven his system's new brac'd;
And well he's fulfill'd the intent of the plan,
Who was meant by his God as—the type of a man.
In blood-thirsty Shylock, sublimely infernal,
He bares ghastly Vice, and exposes the kernel;
And so well clears the texts of the moralist's pen,
That the head asks the heart if such villains are men:
So perfect the Actor can damn and dissemble,
Could Shakespeare behold him, e'en Shakespeare would tremble.
Like the Eddystone pillar, his excellence braves
The rude dashing foam of the critical waves;
Uprais'd on a rock for the general good,
To guide the weak bark thro' the dangerous flood;
As his head firm and giddiless keeps its high station,
Emitting new lights on the stage navigation.

Ere he means to resign him to Death's awful sleep,
In the year eighteen hundred he'll first take a peep;
To prune each excrescence of Vice from the nation,
And fix the pursuits of a young generation;

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Introduce them to Fame, shew the false from the true,
And then to the World and its jars bid adieu.

Superior to censure the veteran wrote;
But Censors are things that but cavil and quote;
They torture the truth like the essays of Beattie,
Or Statesmen defining the Methuen treaty;
Hence Shakespeare is mangled by weak commentators,
Who gore his fine form like absurd nomenclators;
And many a blockhead, who breathes but to steal,
Adheres to his name like the fly on the wheel.

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They affix to each page a dull marginal note,
And expound on a text which the bard—never wrote.
But Pride governs all; in their various ways,
'Tis the prejudice speaks, and the prejudice sways:
Men argue and write, as French cooks make their dishes;
And blend fact with falshood, to compass their wishes.

Mr. HOLMAN.

Possessing a clear and a capable head,
With the mien of a gentleman, gay and well-bred;
See Holman quit Science, who calls veni Domine,
To embrace, with young vigour, the charms of Melpomene.
From the fam'd banks of Isis this eleve has stray'd,
To pay his devoirs to the tragical maid;
To forego the dull page of the classical schools,
And enlist in the Drama, and bend to its rules;
Tho' sapient Philosophy thrice call'd his name,
He shut up his ears, and walk'd onward to Fame;

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The deeds of romance fill'd a niche in his brain,
And Hesiod and Eschylus pleaded in vain:
Theology wept o'er his youthful endeavour,
As he left her ador'd Alma Mater for ever.
When Worth call'd him forth to the paths of Contrition,
He experienc'd the joys and the ills of Ambition;
The phantoms of Honour crept round to seduce him,
The offspring of Envy to crush and traduce him:
To the first all the fire of youth gave the rein,
To the last all the traits of the man spoke disdain.

Would he seek for the avenues leading to glory,
That his name might irradiate a theatric story;
He should walk in the path of judicious gradation,
Arranging his passion in subordination:
But the toil will be great, as his genius is such,
Which impels him to give, or too little, or much;
'Tis shackled by obstacles, monstrous, tho' bold,
Intolerant heat, and unnatural cold;
For there are who possess contradictory souls,
High-fraught with the temper of opposite poles.
Bid him seek gentle Nature, unravel her schemes,
For the path of Propriety severs extremes:
She is young, gay, and beautiful, constant, and kind:
Bid him list to her lays, and illumine his mind:
No schismatic dogmas will fall from her tongue,
Impotently grave, or vindictively wrong.
The eloquent lessons that Nature will sing,
Refresh like the Zephyrs, and glad like the Spring.—

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When Roscius first honour'd old Albion's stage,
To dignify mirth, and give reason to rage;
He sought for the nymph, in her sacred cell,
To marshall his thought, and be bound by her spell:
And the canons she taught for the progress of art,
He wrote on the tablets that liv'd in his heart.
She holds up the Stagyrite, Terence, and Plautus,
To regulate errors that Custom had brought us.
There he stole like young Troilus every night,
And ravag'd her treasures, and fed on delight;
He utter'd his plaints at her roseate throne,
'Till he melted the nymph, and his woes were her own.

His words flow too quick to administer pleasure;
In adagio time, and precipitate measure:
Like a torrent that rushes adown a steep hill,
'Till the breath is no longer obedient to skill;
Now it thunders, then roars, as it dashes the stones,
Then recedes from the ear, and we lose half its tones
By degrees; 'till the springs of its violence fail,
And its murmurs decay, and it dies in the vale.

The good-natur'd critic, with pain, takes offence,
When his natural warmth mars his natural sense;
But the sword eats the scabbard—'tis fairly presum'd,
That the seeds of his judgment by heat are consum'd;
But Time an amendment will work by his rigour,
And temper the force of this overstrain'd vigour;

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But the fault is a good one, though yet 'tis a fault,
That leads him on Reason to make an assault.
For a juvenile actor, whose method's too tame,
Will scarce ever mount to the regions of Fame;
In the humaniz'd system e'en casuists confess,
That a fire is harder to raise than suppress:
This want of due force sicklies Middleton's deeds;
Whom Genius approves, and whom Modesty leads.

It pains me to hear a vile animal quote,
Some poignant expressions that Shakespeare has wrote;
And deliver the text with as formal an air,
As the dull, drawling tone of a methodist prayer:

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While Folly attends to the vapid oration,
And Madness mistakes for an apt inspiration.—
There are who Thalia's best heroes engage,
Whose villanous efforts but sully the stage;
With arrogant minds, in presumption o'er-weening,
Rant, laugh, dance, and sing, without—merit or meaning:
Such parrots deny human wit as a master,
For their merit consists in who chatters the faster.

This youth should set bounds to his tragic descanting,
Which sometimes approaches the precincts of ranting:
In gentleman juniors, adjust his proud walk;
And abandon the stare, and Titanian stalk.
That action which Nature involves in her plan,
When dignified Leon's assuming the man,
Would be awkward and stiff in Lothario the rover,
Or volatile Belmont, or Romeo the lover.
A part over-strain'd, damns the aims of Expression,
And gives much offence to Delight and Discretion:
Erecting the body, and bridling the head
In all situations, is vile and ill-bred;
Tis torturing the vertebræ bone of his back,
Till the joints creak with pain, and integuments crack.
But bid him be cautious of too much repentance,
Nor do aught beyond what's prescrib'd by this sentence;
Nor sink in the strife to do right with avidity,
From the heights of young rage—to the vale of torpidity;
Like Kemble with classical trifles affected,
Who fine-draws a point 'till the sense is bisected.

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I would guide him to Truth, but the maid is destroy'd,
And but few mourn her fate, who so many annoy'd:
The meek abject nymph was by myriads assail'd,
And, wounded, she droop'd, undeplor'd and unwail'd;
Resign'd to high Heaven, she gave up her breath,
And fell, like Rome's Cæsar—illustrious in death.

Miss WILKINSON.

With grace see young Wilkinson put in her claim,
Tho' chill'd by cold doubts for the honours of Fame;
In the rays of her virgin timidity basking,
Her heart seems to fear what her wishes are asking:
When she warbles her sonnets with rapture and skill,
'Tis an instance where Nature has triumph'd o'er will.
The force of applause has awaken'd that merit,
Which long lay entranc'd by a timorous spirit:
She saw at a distance the stage, and its terrors,
She felt, and acknowledg'd, the strength of her errors.
To impudent habits a foe and a stranger,
The eye of Conception had magnified danger.
Her colloquy justifies Wisdom's defence,
Her notes gently steal on the fetter-bound sense;

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To glad and improve like the soft southern breeze,
When he fans the rich vallies, and sports 'mid the trees;
By magic like this, mirthful wonders are wrought,
And ivy-bound Joy is made pregnant by Thought;
Who laughs 'mid her labours, at Anguish with scorn,
And the brisk panting Heart feeds the brood that are born.

May no rude blasts of Censure suppress her meek toil,
And wither the plant as it peeps from the soil;
When the genus is tender, and flow'ret is rare,
The well-skill'd Conductor redoubles his care;
Protects it when Boreas wings a rude gale,
But leaves it to Fate when the Zephyrs prevail.

Mr. POPE.

In the African Captive, see Pope wake Surprize,
And call Pity's tears into feminine eyes;
When poor Oroonoko is goaded by foes,
That player outrageously pictures his woes:
Tho' his person is fashion'd and prun'd by Perfection,
His weakness incessantly meets our detection;

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With a fine rounded voice, full of Melody's tones,
He wastes half its compass in sighs and in groans;
And thinks, 'cause the buskin he's ta'n into keeping,
His duty directs he should always be weeping.
—When the tear of a man from his eye-lids will start,
It should seem like a tribute that's wrung from the heart;
As an offering that's paid to the 'cause of a crime,
To woe that's unmeasur'd, and grief that's sublime:
But if they're call'd forth on each trivial occasion,
Their worth is no more, and they lose their persuasion;
Then Ridicule laughs, at the tears as they roll,
To tell us the man has—a half-finish'd soul;
With a dropsical brain, which his fancy dispenses,
To drown his perception, his reason, and senses;
That makes his high judgment for ever caught napping,
And which ne'er can have ease but by constantly tapping.
Tho' his Hotspur's an excellent critical sop,
His Bellamy stalks but a solemnized sop:
As Clarinda steps back with a face fraught with wonder,
When he sues her for pity in accents of thunder.

Tho' his strong understanding is blest with profundity,
His face mars its force by a stupid rotundity;
It was form'd to accomplish less amiable uses,
And wine, by a smile, every maid—but the Muses;
Too fastuous for exquisite passion's digression,
Too fair for a hero, too round for expression;
Like a beggar at law, whom no barrister blesses,
His mind lacks an agent to plead its distresses;

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All his muscles rebel 'gainst judicious controul,
And his face gives the lie to a sensible soul.
His fears to do less than enough, never quit him,
His cloaths in the gentleman ne'er seem to fit him:
With rant he too often disgusts the beholders,
And offends by continually writhing his shoulders.
But his faults like the stones of the pavement decay,
When quick dropping springs wear the surface away.

He has gain'd, as a fence 'gainst the sorrows of life,
An excellent friend in an elegant wife;
By Young's sober Night Thoughts he perfects each plan,
As she re-peruses his—Essay on Man:
Thus jocund, they dignify Hymen's sweet rites,
And the work of each other, each other delights:
But she oft gives his follies a well-manner'd check,
And holds him from ill, with a chain round his neck:
Thus he's kept in a cage, as Dame Fitz keeps her squirrels,
And by wedlock's improv'd—like the blood of the Burrells.

Mrs. BILLINGTON.

Behold a blythe Syren, high priz'd and high finish'd!
Fall back, ye meek songsters, abash'd and diminish'd:
'Tis Billington comes, public praise to implore,
Whom Honor pursues, and the Muses adore!

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Receive her with with homage, ye slaves of Apollo,
As Destiny sent her, for Merit to follow;
To command suppliant throngs, like the tyrant of Delhi,
High charg'd with caprice like renown'd Gabrielli:
With Beauty's soft blandishments arm'd to delight,
Resistless and charming, she bursts on the sight;
From her eyes issue rays of voluptuous mirth,
And she catches applause, ere the judgment has birth.

Had Helen, who set the Greek states in a flame,
Been as lovely in feature, as beauteous in frame;
What man but would combat his legions delighted,
And rush upon Death's ebon spear unaffrighted;
By desparate action amaze human wonder,
And laugh at old Jove, and the point of his thunder!
Were Anacreon living, to brighten these days,
He'd weave her high name in his amorous lays;
And Latian minstrels her gifts would rehearse,
In all the rich splendor of classical verse;

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Her lips red as coral, soft, pulpy and sweet,
For Love's warm embraces, in silence, intreat:
Like the fruit of the vintage, decreed for our use,
They promise, on pressure, an exquisite juice;
The High Priest of Comus gave birth to her wiles,
And Venus corrected her dimples and smiles:
She arm'd her fine eye with that envied ability,
To warm the cold bosom of Insensibility:
Thus she makes greater numbers their liberties yield,
Than Cæsar subdu'd in Pharsalia's field.
As radiant Phœbus, to nymphs ever kind,
With the spirit of harmony, blended her mind;
Illumin'd and lovely the chantress appears,
If cloath'd with ineffable laughter or tears:
The sons of Humanity felt not such glee,
When the regent of Paphos emerg'd from the sea;
And shook from her tresses the drops of the ocean,
And leap'd on the beach, to wake bliss into motion.
Insatiate Attention devours the strains,
And listening wretches forget all their pains:
Like the visits of Peace, to our miseries kind,
She calms those rough tumults which torture the mind.
The wandering Zephyrs creep round when she sings,
To steal her best notes, with aerial wings;
Then leave the gay nymph, of her powers bereft,
And flit o'er the Alps, with the elegant theft;
Where Cecilia descends to unburthen the gales,
As kingdom's applaud in Italia's vales;

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But how great the reduction of eminent skill,
When the graces of Art are o'erthrown by the will!
Should Pride follow Worth, in a constant gradation?
Should Caprice be the offspring of high Reputation?
Philosophy shrinks when bright Genius, inspir'd,
Can forfeit by Pride, what by Worth she acquir'd;
Tho' she breathes her soft notes with a soul-melting thrill
Poor Nature is lost in the triumphs of Skill;
As she courts Affectation to win us and please,
But leaves to her mates, artless manners and ease.
Thus harmoniz'd Reynolds shews part of her power,
As the bud glads the sight before Time opes the flower.

In the lofty bravuras she copies the spheres;
But in madrigal ballads gives pain to our ears;
Her trills, the sweet bosom of Sense never warm,
Tho' her sportive cantabilies win us and charm:
With wonderful art, she can marshal her voice,
And, selecting her airs, makes a judicious choice;
By fine-spun address, gains our plaudits and favour,
And husbands that little which Providence gave her.
She oft wants the gentle assistance of Ease,
And seems more intent to surprise than to please:
Tho' the nymph in Mandane excites admiration,
The wild notes of Catley had more inspiration.

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In songs fraught by Judgment, her powers are plain,
Tho' her tones are confin'd, and her shakes give us pain;
Impressing her stomach, as sick, sore or lame,
She drags up the notes from the caves of her frame;
Opes her mouth like a well, 'till poor Reason flies from it,
And doubts if the nymph means to carol or vomit.

Sweet Harmony, hail! to our miseries given,
As parent of Concord, and daughter of Heaven.
The powers of Music were sent as a blessing,
The evils attendant on mortals redressing:
Like the converse of Beauty, for rapture design'd,
She purifies, softens, and gladdens the mind;
The burthens of Want imperceptibly stealing,
And lightens the dark habitations of Feeling.
Aonian maids croud her fanes in a throng,
Imploring her influence to fashion their song;
The proud and the petulant, poor and the vain,
Who from life's varied weaknesses, shrink and complain;
Intreat all the force of her excellent power,
To wound that despondence which fills up their hour.
By her aid the grim furies could Orpheus quell,
And charm his lost nymph from the torments of hell;
The voice of the minstrel could Fierceness destroy,
And Tartarus blaz'd with a gleam of new joy:
Implacable Dis own'd the charms of his lyre,
And Proserpine waken'd to sigh and admire.
She eases the smart of Affliction's keen rod,
She elevates Sense to the state of a God:

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And the tones from her shell can all beings refine,
'Till the brute leaps in sport, and the man feels divine.

Mr. EDWIN.

See Edwin come forth with a confident air,
As the high priest of Momus, and spoiler of Care;
The dryness of Weston, and Shuter's droll whim,
By Nature were blended, and center'd in him:
Hark! the theatre rings, as the wight makes his entry,
For such men are not born above once in a cent'ry;
Like a watery tabby he sports with his fame,
Which oft changes hue, tho' the texture's the same.
If he errs now and then, and his faults meet detection,
It but proves that the best are not heirs of perfection.

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To debauch Common Sense he takes many a shape,
But we laugh at the crime as a comical rape.
If at Reason's expence he attracts some applause,
Yet his blushes denote he's asham'd of the cause!
If he sometimes should wound the best props of the stage,
'Tis to tickle the lungs of a dissolute age;
But his name is a tower of strength that defies
All the storms which engender in critical skies;
For the interests of Comedy follow his beck,
And the Haymarket Theatre hangs round his neck.

When he first shone in Midas the world was amaz'd,
Admiration pursu'd him, and Excellence gaz'd:
His rival comedians awak'd to explore,
And marvel at graces they ne'er saw before.
His Cambrio Sir Hugh is a true comic test,
Who, like Richard Hill, turns his pray'r to a jest;
With ditties and puns he holds Thought in detention,
With the magic of Mirth charms the public attention:
With nonsense in verse can elate and delight 'em,
And gives them variety ad infinitum:
Burlettas in future, when pregnant with whim,
The bard shall, with pride, dedicate but to him;

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As the God of festivity, foe of Despair,
The beacon of Joy, and assassin of Care.

The irregular movements that mark all his trials
To sing, just resemble the fam'd Seven Dials;
Tho' by various paths the blythe minstrel will enter,
He trips on to Truth which is plac'd in the center;
And none feel alarm'd lest he's out of his way,
As they know where he'll rest at the end of his lay:
Like the mountains of Mourne, though abrupt and alarming,
Their wild inequalities make them more charming.
Tho' he steers near the wind, in a literal sense,
He ne'er lets the helm touch the rocks of offence:
When Decency's drawing her lineaments down,
His wit charms her will, ere they sink to a frown.
Philosophy smiles at his well-manner'd joke,
And Wisdom applauds the exuberant stroke;
To the force of his muscles, and strength of his name,
O'Keefe is in debt for his pence and his fame!
Like chemical liquids creating a pother,
They beautify, strengthen, and brighten each other;

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If diminish'd apart, when their bodies are blended,
Their value is seen, and their virtues are mended;
And a colour's produc'd by the well-temper'd union,
Which deludes, while it charms, like the paste at communion!

O'Keefe is a mortal who lives to o'erthrow
The threat'ning pile of each critical foe;
Like the Anthropophagi in each varied season,
He fattens, he seeds, on the bowels of Reason;
In terrible ruin she bleeds 'neath his knife,
A prey to his works, and abridg'd of her life;
By effect as they call it, by whim, and by pun,
Are our senses debauch'd, and, the drama undone:
Like the wond'rous asbestos his toils we admire,
Whose labours surmount e'en the critical fire:
As the furnace the fossil-fraught drapery whitens,
So public contempt his capacity brightens:
But Harris's pence keep his follies in tune,
And Colman protects the unletter'd buffoon.
He pilfers in cellars the food of his raillery,
And gives the coarse tune to the Gods in the Gallery;

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Who, roaring, exhibit their hoarse approbation,
And shield the base bard from the stings of damnation.

Mrs. BATES.

When Bates in the spleen her fiertè dispenses,
Her angry eloquence jars all the senses;
No delicate springs give a force to her soul,
Or sentiment chains keep her rage in controul:
Untutor'd, ungraceful, unblest, unrefin'd,
With a sonorous voice, and a masculine mind;
Like tempest-fraught furies, whose tongues never cease,
The sound of her lays frright the offspring of Peace;
Like Orion in heaven, her ill-omen'd form
Ne'er bursts on the scene, but it threatens a storm;
And her tones wound the ear, 'till, transfix'd with our wonder,
We all scud aghast, from the feminine thunder.
Her accents are harsh, ill-conceiv'd, and erroneous;
They're sometimes explicit, but never harmonious:
With a terrific tongue to assist a detractress,
They spoilt a good scold when they made her an actress.
No gentle ingredients seem mix'd with her clay,
For the vixen's in front, be the part what it may:

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Her humours are rancid, her lungs are Stentorian,
Her soul seems perturbed, as winds hyperborean:
Like the Lamia 'mid Hebrews, distracted and wild,
She appalls by her ranting, man, woman, and child!

To personate women of fashion she's wrong,
As to her the calm graces did never belong;
'Tis a caricature of original truth,
Like Age mumbling crusts that were destin'd for youth.
'Tis an outrage on Ease, when she labours to smile,
A malevolent grin seems the fruit of the soil;
For the spiteful young congress that play in her eye,
Give the hard-finish'd laugh on her visage the lie.

Her port seems as awkward in high polish'd vanity,
As a lawyer who talks of his God and humanity;
Or a modern dramatist, who prates about wit,
Or an uncarted bawd, when she quotes holy writ;
Or Morgan haranguing on legal ability,
Or Hawkins enforcing the bliss of humility;
Or hallow'd Will Peters when raving 'bout charity,
Or Boydell descanting on feasts and hilarity;
Or Barry when swearing that Fortune a jade is;
Or Johnny Burnell when saluting the ladies.

Mr. HENDERSON.

By the faint gleams of light that irradiate yon gloom,
Behold the pale Muses round Henderson's tomb:

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His eminent name shall exist undefil'd,
Like Pompey's fam'd pillar in Africa's wild;
To chear a wide desart, and solace the plains,
And attract Admiration to view its remains,
Its splendid proportion, its size, and its neatness,
And marks of its vast super-eminent greatness.
It will keep a due sense of ambition alive,
And shew to what heights human art may arrive.

Tho' his forehead resembled old Falstaff's bare knee,
And his eyes seem'd th' incompetent agents of Glee;
Tho' his lips hung like penthouses over his breast,
And his body and limbs seem'd by Awkwardness drest,

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Yet the man in the aggregate wond'rously blaz'd,
Enslav'd us, improv'd us, inform'd, and amaz'd;
And that notion destroy'd of which fools are so fond,
That the soul and the face in all points correspond.
His vocal inflexion was just and extensive,
His mien all commanding, his mind comprehensive;
And he gave the quaint turns of the laugh-loving knight,
With a fatness of tone that was dear to Delight.

In the drama's wide circle he rov'd unconfin'd,
To embellish, with Truth, an original mind;
His compeers from him all their dignity won,
As erratic orbs gather light from the sun:
When he mov'd in the firmament, journeying his way,
The satellites follow'd, to blaze with his ray.
Can we wonder the stage should be dark in these days,
When that sun we lament has withdrawn with those rays?
Now like planets unlit in their orderly race,
They wander at will into infinite space;
Attempt thro' the regions of Science to soar,
When their brains are unhing'd, and their chief is no more;
Conjuring Ambition to guide them to Fame;
But the wench plays the jilt and betrays them to Shame.
Thus Holman and Farren, so forceful their pride is,
Have labour'd to wield the vast club of Alcides;
But fell 'neath the toil with a sigh and a tear,
And one sunk in Benedict, t'other in Lear.

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This chieftain, unblest in his voice and his feature,
Like Sheridan stood, not indebted to Nature;
He pin'd when he knew all the gifts that he wanted,
And his feelings requested what Industry granted.
Tho' the Piedmontese mountain which talks to the skies,
With a lowering brow, human labour defies;
Yet Hannibal smil'd at the frowns of the regions,
And cut, thro' their bosom, a path for his legions.

An integral dramatic performance I ween,
Is what never was, nor will ever be seen;
Some component particle always is wanting,
To perfect the whole, when the muse is descanting:
If the Actor is good, oft the Poet's erroneous,
Who, presuming, is damn'd, like inflated Salmoneus:
When the Author feels all that the Muse can inspire,
The Player wants dignity, pathos, or fire:
Thus Errors change hands, like gay youth in a dance,
And when Judgment's retreating, the Follies advance.
Thus, like strata in mines, the materials lay,
And the ore of high value is mingled with clay.

The theatre now like a desart appears,
And who is amaz'd that the muses shed tears,
Where Garrick and Barry have gladden'd their eyes,
For their thought can give birth but to sadness or sighs?

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It seems like poor Zama when Fortitude fled,
Or Imperial Rome when her Cæsar lay dead.
To compare what once was, with the things that now are,
But plunges each Sense in the deeps of Despair:
Go find me those Richards, Othellos and Pierres,
The Benedicts, Catos, Castalios and Lears!
Who once gave, like Hope, universal delight,
And crept to the heart thro' the medium of sight;
Tho' our modern young Scions oft make an assumption,
The gods have but marr'd them with pride and presumption.
See Grist, Clinch, and Bannister, Dimond, and Farren,
And others who sport in the dramatic warren;
Tho' they all were enlighten'd at Roscius' fam'd School,
And, taught by one master, they all slight his rule:
Like the wandering Amphiscii, whose singular state,
Made sceptics to question the wisdom of Fate;
For, tho' warm'd and supported by one solar blaze,
The shades of their bodies fall contrary ways.

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Miss WHEELER.

See sidling, advancing, now simp'ring, now crying,
This moment in raptures, the next moment sighing;
Egregious Wheeler, whose manners are such,
That her best friends forsake her, as Wit flies the Dutch.
I'm pos'd in what class of strange beings to blend her,
As her humours and passions are known to no gender:
Half Italian, half English, like food for the belly,
When neck of beef 's garnish'd with boil'd vermicelli:
Like Berwick-on-Tweed that divides two great nations;
But unown'd by them both, tho' they both are relations.

When this tittering nymph trod Hibernia's shore,
She was madden'd with praise that she ne'er knew before:
Some credulous friend, by exerting his sway,
Turn'd the keen blasts of Judgment incautious away;
With Jubal's sweet lyre, compar'd her coarse reed,
Fed, propp'd, and protected the musical weed;

155

And, by strangling those facts, which, if known, had disgrac'd her,
Thrust the ideot on Fame, who unwilling embrac'd her:
But 'twas praise ill bestow'd on a reptile so humble,
'Twas an act where his honour was soil'd by a stumble;
'Twas like dressing a fool, in defiance of Fate,
Or moaning for miscreants lying in state;
Like a fête at Bologna, or monkish vagary,
When they cloath a mean wench with the robes of Saint Mary.

I hear Reason question the sense of the nation,
That gave such an awkward young minx toleration:—
But various the arts, in this overgrown town,
By which shadows for substance are ta'en and go down.
The mob weds the dogma, if Fashion has said it,
And nine tenths of men's virtues they take upon—credit.

Mr. FEARON.

Unaccountable Fearon demands my attention;
But defies my best powers, to mark his dimension:

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Like the month of November, that sullies the year,
He's adust, short, and gloomy, black, foul, and severe;
His front, like a fog, brings distress on the mind,
Unwholesome, obnoxious, unblest, and unkind:
His fancy seems choak'd with saturnine ideas,
To lead him to murders like those of Medea's.
In strong trepidation the Sciences fly
From his loud intonation and scowl of his eye:
When he damns, like a chief of the church inquisition,
The oath seems the child of a dark disposition.—
But this is but seeming—what being will scorn him,
When the Duties of Virtue with pleasure adorn him?
To please her he roves, like the tenants of Tartary,
And the milk of humanity flows in each artery.

In Belmont the elder, with rigour imprest,
He chides his gay son, like a butcher well drest;
Disdaining all customs but those of his sires,
Makes the manners of kings bend to meet his desires;
With a sinewy arm, lays Morality's lash on,
And ne'er seems so happy, as—when in a passion.

In Zadan, the captive, his skill bears the test,
For his part, tho' restricted, eclipses the rest;
If he made but few efforts, those efforts were good,
As they warm'd and promoted the course of the blood;
Till the streams of benevolence quicken'd to flow,
And the frame trembled round, with a concord of woe;
Till the ice-temper'd chains of the heart 'gan to melt,
And the tears of rude nature prov'd, savages felt.

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Mrs. INCHBALD.

To mangle poor Decency's breathless remains;
To rob gentle Reason of all her domains;
To give the last blow to expiring Propriety;
To feed a base town with still baser variety—
See delicate Inchbald assume the foul quill;
And satirize Wisdom, by pleasing her will!
Tho' unskill'd in the true fabrication of tenses,
She tickles our weakness, and talks to the senses;
For Venus is titt'ring, and Priapus smiles,
As the Queen of Voluptuousness Nature beguiles;
She canters her steed thro' Parnassian lanes,
Till the blood from her heart has half madden'd her brains:
Then, seizing the standish, writes quaint and uncommon;
As the rake mounts aloft, on—the dregs of the woman.
Contemptuously treating the feminine duties,
Her breast lacks the cambric to cover its beauties.

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With the pages of Sappho her cranium she dresses,
While her smock goes unwash'd, and abandon'd her tresses.
If she caught approbation, she car'd not a jot,
If the plaudits deriv'd from a scholar or sot;
The cause, she imagin'd, was blanch'd by the end;
And, to flatter an ideot, neglected—a friend.
Thus her mind, like clear amber, condens'd by stagnation,
Exhibits the dirt it imbib'd in formation:
Like ungender'd abortions, her plays have annoy'd;
Which are born, see the light, and, when seen, are destroy'd.

To effect the sublime, by an artifice new,
And bring all its majesty forward to view,
She purloin'd the stool on which Kemble had writ,
The choicest morceaus of his Jesuit wit;
A stool far more blest than the harps of old Snowden,
Or the tripod of Delphos, or goblet of Woden.

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Uprais'd on its bosom that simpering child,
Self-complacent created young grins, that half smild:
And penn'd wond'rous odes, and astonishing lays,
As have pos'd all discernment, and beggar'd all praise.
When clos'd in Douay's sacred cells, the meek youth,
Receiv'd the behest of all blessings—but Truth.
High-mounted on that the fair scribbler sits,
To watch as her pulses give strength to her wits;
Like the Pythian priestess, she feels new sensations,
That mount from her seat in divine exhalations:
Then laughs, cries and blots, plunges, ponders and writes,
Faints, screams and looks wild, reconceives and indites;
As Kemble administers truth to the sinner,
'Till his eye-balls grow dim, and the god stirs within her:

From the itch to be witty what miseries flow,
When the toil of the brain but establishes woe!

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Hence Bedlam's drear jaws have been cramm'd to satiety,
Hence maniacs have risen to frighten Propriety;
Hence orthodox ideots perplex our best senses,
Hence Priestley with pride vague opinions dispenses;
And Cumberland's pleas'd that his muse, tho' in years,
Should annual conceive, tho' each brat's born in tears:
Thus Harlots feel happy when pregnant suspected,
Tho' they know the base fruit will be scoff'd and neglected.
But Cowley and Inchbald more mad than their neighbours,
With God and the Devil besprinkle their labours;
Sure the traits of the mind must be oddly directed,
When their bawdry destroys what their morals effected.

But writing and wisdom set each at defiance,
And journey no longer in peace and alliance:
Thus Walpole told Chatterton, speaking of skill,
When the half-famish'd bard rov'd to Strawberry Hill:

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Talk to me, man of genius! why, zounds, 'tis all stuff,
Go write when you're rich, and the thing's well enough:
Will Genius protect you from Want's fell decree?
Then leave bleak Parnassus to Hayley and me;
Books charm by their dress tho' the language is vapoury,
As fools blaze at court by the aid of their drapery.

Mr. JOHNSTONE.

See myrtle-crown'd Johnstone advancing between us,
Like the rover of Troy, or the minion of Venus;
To please and be pleas'd make up all his employment,
The cause and the end of his being's—enjoyment;

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'Mid the fair and the beauteous his handkerchief flies,
And the fair and the beauteous contend for the prize;
'Till glutted from Love's varied banquet he rises,
And like Louis Quatorze even dainties despises.

As Fortune and Fate have peculiarly blest him,
The coxcombs all simper, the men all detest him,
And stirring the atoms of Envy's foul dregs,
Assail his proportions, and sneer at his legs;
But an Irishman's leg is not priz'd for its quickness,
But its strength and its vigour, its nerve, and its thickness:
If it holds the frame firmly, the man wins the day,
For the owners ne'er use them—in running away.

Amid all his failings this sure is the oddest,
That he seems in all character somewhat—too modest;
Rests his head on his chest, like a bawd at a burial,
And looks grave as the guard at the Spanish Escurial;
Or a half witted judge, when our follies reviling,
Tho' his heart and his will are incessantly smiling,
Draws his muscles in order, and, bridling his fury,
Looks just like a culprit when ey'd by his jury;
Then touches his forehead, to wipe off the dew
Of an ideal shame, that his front never knew.

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Like the mermaid, whose figure's in story decided,
His frame and his melody both are divided;
The upper division of each is harmonious,
The lower discordant, ill-form'd, and erroneous;
They clash and contend like two priests for a mitre,
And discolour each other like copper and nitre.
His voice was by Nature so widely bisected,
It ne'er can be rightly by Judgment directed;
For wanting an agent, its beauties to tissue,
They teaze the possessor, but cannot join issue:
It consists of contraries, like punch but half made,
Or Rembrandt's designs of abrupt light and shade:
Like an ill-manag'd concert, without any fiddle,
Or Nobody's person, that lacks all his middle;
If they sport with each other, the junction is ill,
Their bodies may meet, but they meet without will:
Like a Jew or Bramin with Father O'Leary,
Or Gog in a dance with the Corsican fairy:
'Tis a wonderful mixture of whiskey and sack,
One half's Rubinelli, the rest—Paddy Whack.

Yet where shall we find, in these dissonant days,
An opera chief that deserves so much praise?
If he answers not every purpose of merit,
If view'd in all points, he has taste, truth, and spirit.
When we measure his worth by comparative rule,
His claims are gigantic, and shame the whole school:
As his fellow disciples, tho' poison'd with vanity,
Have nothing humane, save the husk of humanity.

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(I except polish'd Kelly, that inmate of Science,
Who treats Competition with haughty defiance.)
Tho' Bowdens and Mahons each other succeeded,
Their lives have been short, and their death is not heeded.
Take his aggregate qualities, voice and exterior,
'Tis a thousand to one if we meet—his superior.
As his person is dignified, graceful, commanding,
And his eyes seem illum'd by a good understanding,
When Music's subdued by his Thalian powers,
His Flaherty and Foigard gladden our hours;
And his brogue no intent of Propriety sunders,
But adds a keen zest to his national blunders.

Mrs. BANNISTER.

See, placid and mild, gentle Bannister roves,
Like Humanity's parent in Eden's blest groves.

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Discreetly, tho' trembling, she met high Ambition,
Uninjur'd in fame by a strong competition;
She ne'er drew applause by incontinent rudeness,
And boasted few charms but—superior goodness.
Celestial Decency led her along,
Corrected her manners, and sweeten'd her song:
She equall'd our wishes in lovely Rosetta,
And oft prov'd the pilot that sav'd a burletta.
She touch'd Passion's chord in the love-stricken Polly,
And tinted the part with a faint melancholy:
With plaintive delight taught her numbers to flow,
As the skill of soft Harmony mellow'd her woe.
Her trills were the purest that e'er met the ear,
Melodious, audible, charming, and clear.
Her habits with pastoral maids claim'd affinity,
And lent polish'd graces to rural virginity.
Like Saint Paul's, Covent Garden, appear'd this bright woman,
Whose aspect is plain, tho' the structure's uncommon;
If the traits of a rude simple skill on its face is,
Examine the pile, and you'll find out new graces;
For the elegant Inigo gewgaws despis'd,
And the building, tho' plain, is but Greatness disguis'd.

166

Tho' she blazon'd to gladden an infamous age,
Conspicuously bland, and allied to the stage;
The white veil of Chastity hung round her action,
And damp'd the approaches of Vice and Detraction;
Like the priests of Marseilles, by the Virtues protected,
She pass'd thro' the ranks of Disease uninfected;
For Heaven's own agents, to Excellence kind,
Preserv'd from contagion the health of her mind.

She has quitted the stage, to fulfil her desire,
And trim Friendship's lamp round her family fire:
To the duties of social life she's retir'd,
Who, private or public, is prais'd and admir'd;
Who gladly proportions her will to her need,
And to bless and be blest makes the whole of her creed:
Thanks the gods that her measure of joy is complete,
As the Tumults of life lye in chains at her feet.

Hail, nuptial felicity! rapturous station!
Which forms the best prop in the strength of a nation.
Blest source, from whence every happiness flows,
That subjugates passion, or conquers our woes!
The connubial twain, whom sweet virtue impresses,
Can draw forth the arrow from human distresses;
Their mutual strife is to banish Despair,
And hide the shorn heart from the pressure of Care;
Like the dreams of an angel, to transport resign'd,
The finger of Peace smoothes the springs of the mind.
As the kindred tie of soft Sympathy moves,
And the organs are tun'd by confederate Loves:

167

A commerce empyreal the senses unite,
To barter for blisses, and feed on delight;
'Till the mind's so high charg'd, it can treasure no more,
But, fill'd with the balm of enjoyment, runs o'er.
From so hallow'd a state can weak nymphs have revolted?
Can the daughters of Guilt boast a joy so exalted,
When a beauteous offspring, surrounding their knees,
Look up with ineffable wishes to please;
In envious rivalry anxious to share
The test of their kindness, and force of their prayer;
To catch ev'ry accent that falls from the tongue,
And echo the song which their parents had sung?
With reciprocal blessings they cheat the sad hours,
Awaking the slumbers of infantine powers;
Correct those ideas which rise in gradation,
And hail innate worth in a young generation;
Explore all those objects that Wisdom has sought,
And polish with care the fine traces of thought;
Guard the void when their earliest pleasantries cease,
Then point out those rocks which have wreck'd human peace;
Impress their white minds with examples of worth,
And prune the weak thought, ere their knowledge has birth!
Thus Art turns the stream with a liberal hand,
To strengthen the sapling, and nourish the land:
On exertions like these e'en the gods look with pleasure,
If their cup lacks a joy, Virtue fills up the measure.

As gladsome they journey down life's steep declivity,
Their toils shall be weaken'd by Mieth and Festivity;

168

Young cherubs press forward to hail and adore 'em,
And the beauties of Paradise open bofore 'em:
Led onward to Heaven by calm Resignation,
They'll wonder and pant on the brink of creation:
Then monarchs might envy their beatify'd lot,
As the world and its vanities all are forgot.
There angels shall fix the last seal to fatality,
And wrap the fond twain into bright immortality.

May the miscreant, who toils with apocryphal art,
To drive by his wiles gentle Peace from the heart;
(Like the reptile who poison'd the organs of Eve,
And abandon'd to ruin, but sung to deceive;)
Evince all those torments that Heaven has deign'd,
To visit the wretch who his mandates prophan'd.
May the ills of Pandora in concert surround him,
May the moans of the damn'd issue forth to confound him:
May he ever reflect, and eternally weep;
May the demons of Thought break the bands of his sleep;
May the agents of Horror his senses enslave,
And his shrieks of Remorse only cease in the grave.
When he mould'ring decays, as humanity must,
And hell drags his being to sully the dust,
May the unction that's meant as a sacred ablution,
Be chang'd by his God to the pass of pollution.

Mr. LEONI.

Neglected, appall'd, sickly, poor, and decay'd,
See Leoni retiring in life's humble shade;

169

'Tis but few little years since the charms of his voice.
Made theatres echo, and thousands rejoice;
When the Sock and the Buskin, depress'd and dismay'd,
From the altars of Music call'd Voice to their aid.
And by walking approv'd thro' the Thespian via,
Tho' a slave to the tribes, prov'd the Drama's Messiah
But, like great Sobieski, the service forgot,
The Pole and the Jew knew a similar lot;
Tho' the first drove the Turk from the gates of Vienna,
And the last banish'd Want when he woo'd the Duenna.

When his talents seduc'd his meek soul into life,
And plac'd him to meet public pleasure and strife,
Like an owl in the sunshine, he met the broad ray,
And winking deplor'd the meridian day.
Unfit for the habits of scenic proficiency,
His song had scarce charms to make up the deficiency.
But cast, like a bark, down the streams of Despair,
A prey to his fortunes, an inmate of Care;

170

All shorn of those honours with which Merit crown'd him,
Bereft of those pence which he once threw around him,
To Abraham's bosom the profligate run,
Imploring relief, like the prodigal son,
Re-wedded his faith, paid his dues unto Cæsar,
And kiss'd the brown children of Nebuchadnezzar.
Digesting those acorns with peace and with pride,
Which his stomach in happier days had deny'd,
By his wand'rings the circumcis'd minstrel has found
That the friendship of Vice is at best but a sound;
That Temp'rance was sent as the handmaid of Health,
That the peace of his mind's the most excellent wealth;
That Pleasure and Sin are inveterate foes,
And that Virtue alone can embalm our repose.

Mr. FARREN.

By much the most ardent among the assuming,
By much most presumptuous amid the presuming;

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Hear Farren affright every muse from his station,
By unqualified rant, and extreme intonation:
Melpomene shrinks from his heroes and Lears,
He debases Thalia's best smiles into sneers!
But why should he walk in the dramatic van,
Who exhibits at best, but the sign of a man?
No min'stry of Art seem to lodge in his scull,
That's inflexibly turgid, and rigidly dull.
By what wond'rous means has he brighten'd his name,
How the deuce has he mixt with the followers of fame?
On the basis of puffs the false pile was erected,
But its durable state has been often suspected.
His glory, like poor Cagliostro's, is built
On the slippery threshold of indirect guilt:
Not like old Erostatus for burning a fane,
Tho' crimes less enormous have made the man vain!
Traducing Will. Shakespeare, and mouthing heroics,
In such a base style as would anger the Stoics:
Like Epiminedes the poet of Crete,
Stupidity binds both his hands and his feet.
If apparent he reasons, the thing does but seem,
For the man is entranc'd, and declaims in a dream;
Hung round with inaptitudes formal and lazy,
Automatical, heavy, dull, sombrous, half crazy;
The husk of vulgarity dims every feature,
Defeats his exertions, and sullies his nature.

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When he labours to waken our praise or our wonder,
He raves like a maniac and roars like stage thunder.

'Tis said that when Thisbe first whisper'd her pains,
By the pale lamp of night on fam'd Babylon's plains,
By the Destinies barr'd from a love-fraught embrace,
The nymph sung her grief to a wall on the place.
Thus Brunton is fated to generate spleen,
When Farren and she fill the void of the scene.
With a gesture of woe, and a high-passion'd tone,
She pours out her plaints to a well-chissel'd stone:
A mass more ignoble than those Sculptors deal in,
That never were damn'd with—the torment of feeling;
Who brings proud Horatius to comic perdition,
And murders the Roman, sans shame or contrition.

173

But Pride's fatal influence, heu quam inglorium,
Has pierc'd the thick membrane and crack'd his sensorium.

Remember poor Hanno of Carthage his fate,
Let him ponder in thought ere he aims to be great;
Bid him read classic lore, and behold how the case is,
Lest the errors of Lear shake him off from your basis.
Tho' his Oakley and Polydore make us not glad,
In the present dull day they're the best mid the bad.

Mrs. CARGILL.

Ah! where is sweet Cargill! to Harmony dear,
Whose worth claims remembrance, that mem'ry a tear?
Gay Truth touch'd the hue of her virgin desires,
Each Muse added strength to her fancy's first fires,
Ev'ry sense was sublim'd by her soul-thrilling tone,
And the fierce ceas'd to say that their hearts were their own.

174

She soften'd the Savage, she dignify'd Love;
As persuasive as Reason, as meek as the dove;
As blythe as our wishes, as roseate as May;
As seducing as Hope, and as gladd'ning as day.
When she grew into life, by its gewgaws allur'd,
Ere her womanhood blaz'd, or her thought was matur'd,
Sly Vanity caught the young minx in her net,
While Honor was lauding the matchless brunette,
And held her in bondage, to Folly resign'd,
Till she jaundic'd the purest conceits of her mind:
Then unpanoply'd loos'd her on Nature's wide field,
Where Guilt trac'd her footsteps, and bade the maid yield;
Tho' her song was complete, yet her minstrelsy fail'd
To charm as of old, ere the demon assail'd.
In Clara she scarce knew applause at her lays-end,
When she caroll'd in Polly, 'twas Polly embrazen'd:
And that syren who once could enchain her beholders,
The Town, half indignant, shook off from its shoulders.
Thus Eloise saw her best wishes miscarry,
Thus Wolsey bemoan'd when he lost the eighth Harry.

With the West of the world, sicken'd, sick'ning, and tir'd,
Unbless'd, unprotected, betray'd, and bemir'd;
The green glassy deep she incontinent crost,
In search of that peace which her frailties had lost.
Where Phœbus gives light an additional gleam,
And darts his intense perpendicular beam

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On the Orient kingdoms, whose fissure rent plains,
Have been tinted and moisten'd by Tyranny's stains;
Where Bramins our moral declension deplore,
And the billows recede hissing hot from the shore;
Where slaves dig for diamonds, which ideots prize,
Tho' their lustre was dimm'd when arrang'd near her eyes.
But Peace was not there!—the mild harbinger vanish'd,
When men became despots, and Equity banish'd;
Her early associate the Wanderer mourn'd,
Re-ascended the bark, and to Europe return'd.
But as Peace wav'd her olive from Britain's extreme,
And the ills of her youth 'gan to fade like a dream;
A wild hurricane burst, and the waves mounted high,
Till the foam of the ocean had dash'd 'gainst the sky!
And cloud-blacken'd cloud bellowing low with fell thunder,
Till the lightning's keen flash tore their bodies asunder,
As her Reason uprose from the weight of her terrors.
Her faculties roam'd 'tween her God and her errors:
Then clasping that infant, Love gave, in her arms,
She indented her bosom, and wept o'er its charms.
Loud shrieking for mercy, half madd'ning, half dead,
But the prayer was dispers'd by the storm round her head,
As its bolt smote the nymph with an aspect forlorn,
Who was plung'd in that sea whence a Nepthe was born.

END OF PART SECOND.