The Poetical Works of Thomas Chatterton :: :: University of Virginia Library

Revolving in their destined sphere,
The hours begin another year,
As rapidly to fly;
Ah! think, Maria, (ere in grey
Those auburn tresses fade away,)
So youth and beauty die.

Though now the captivated throng
Adore with flattery and song,
And all before you bow;
Whilst, unattentive to the strain,
You hear the humble Muse complain,
Or wreath your frowning brow:

Though poor Pitholeon's feeble line,
In opposition to the nine,
Still violates your name:
Though tales of passion, meanly told,
As dull as Cumberland, as cold,
Strive to confess a flame:

Yet, when that bloom and dancing fire
In silvered reverence shall expire,
Aged, wrinkled, and defaced;
To keep one lover's flame alive
Requires the genius of a Clive,
With Walpole's mental taste.

Though rapture wantons in your air,
Though beyond simile you're fair,
Free, affable, serene;
Yet still one attribute divine
Should in your composition shine—
Sincerity, I mean.

Though numerous swains before you fall,
'Tis empty admiration all,
'Tis all that you require;
How momentary are their chains!
Like you, how unsincere the strains
Of those who but admire!

Accept, for once, advice from me,
And let the eye of censure see
Maria can be true:
No more for fools or empty beaux
Heaven's representatives disclose,
Or butterflies pursue;

Fly to your worthiest lover's arms,
To him resign your swelling charms,
And meet his generous breast:
Or, if Pitholeon suits your taste,
His muse, with tattered fragments graced,
Shall read your cares to rest!

D. B.

Jan. 1, 1770.

VERSES WRITTEN BY CHATTERTON, TO A LADY IN BRISTOL.

To use a worn-out simile,
From flower to flower the busy bee
With anxious labour flies,
Alike from scents which give distaste,
By Fancy as disgusting placed,
Repletes his useful thighs.

Nor does his vicious taste prefer
The fopling of some gay parterre,
The mimicry of art,
But round the meadow-violet dwells;
Nature, replenishing his cells,
Does ampler stores impart.

So I, a humble-dumble drone,
Anxious and restless when alone,
Seek comfort in the fair;
And featured up in tenfold brass,
A rhyming, staring, amorous ass,
To you address my prayer.

But ever in my love-lorn flights
Nature untouch'd by art delights—
Art ever gives disgust.
“Why?” says some priest of mystic thought;
The bard alone by nature taught
Is to that nature just.

But ask your orthodox divine,
If he perchance should read the line
Which fancy now inspires:
Will all his sermons, preaching, prayers,
His hell, his heaven, his solemn airs,
Quench nature's rising fires?

In natural religion free,
I to no other bow the knee,
Nature's the God I own:

Let priests of future torments tell,
Your anger is the only hell,
No other hell is known.

I steeled by destiny was born,
Well fenced against a woman's scorn,
Regardless of that hell;
I fired by burning planets came
From flaming hearts to catch a flame,
And bid the bosom swell.

Then catch the shadow of a heart,
I will not with the substance part,
Although that substance burn,
Till as a hostage you remit
Your heart, your sentiment, your wit,
To make a safe return.

A reverend cully-mully puff
May call this letter odious stuff,
With no Greek motto graced,
Whilst you, despising the poor strain,
“The dog's insufferably vain
To think to please my taste!”

This vanity, this impudence
Is all the merit, all the sense
Through which to fame I trod;
These (by the Trinity 'tis true)
Procure me friends and notice too,
And shall gain you, by G*d.

HECCAR AND GAIRA.

AN AFRICAN ECLOGUE.

Jan. 3, 1770.

Where the rough Caigra rolls the surgy wave,
Urging his thunders through the echoing cave;
Where the sharp rocks, in distant horror seen,
Drive the white currents through the spreading green;
Where the loud tiger, pawing in his rage,
Bids the black archers of the wilds engage;
Stretched on the sand, two panting warriors lay,
In all the burning torments of the day.
Their bloody javelins reeked one living steam,
Their bows were broken at the roaring stream;
Heccar, the chief of Jarra's fruitful hill,
Where the dark vapours nightly dews distil,
Saw Gaira, the companion of his soul,
Extended where loud Caigra's billows roll;
Gaira, the king of warring archers found,
Where daily lightnings plough the sandy ground,

Where brooding tempests howl along the sky,
Where rising deserts whirled in circles fly.
HECCAR.
Gaira, 'tis useless to attempt the chace,
Swifter than hunted wolves they urge the race;
Their lessening forms elude the straining eye,
Upon the plumage of macaws they fly.
Let us return, and strip the reeking slain,
Leaving the bodies on the burning plain.

GAIRA.
Heccar, my vengeance still exclaims for blood,
'Twould drink a wider stream than Caigra's flood.
This javelin, oft in nobler quarrels tried,
Put the loud thunder of their arms aside.
Fast as the streaming rain, I poured the dart,
Hurling a whirlwind through the trembling heart:
But now my lingering feet revenge denies,
O could I throw my javelin from my eyes!

HECCAR.
When Gaira the united armies broke,
Death winged the arrow, Death impelled the stroke.
See, piled in mountains on the sanguine sand,
The blasted of the lightnings of thy hand.
Search the brown desert and the glossy green,
There are the trophies of thy valour seen.
The scattered bones mantled in silver white,
Once animated, dared the force in fight.
The children of the wave, whose pallid race

Views the faint sun display a languid face,
From the red fury of thy justice fled
Swifter than torrents from their rocky bed.
Fear with a sickened silver tinged their hue:
The guilty fear, when vengeance is their due.

GAIRA.

Rouse not Remembrance from her shadowy cell,
Nor of those bloody sons of mischief tell.
Cawna, O Cawna! decked in sable charms,
What distant region holds thee from my arms?
Cawna, the pride of Afric's sultry vales,
Soft as the cooling murmur of the gales,
Majestic as the many-coloured snake,
Trailing his glories through the blossomed brake:
Black as the glossy rocks, where Eascal roars,
Foaming through sandy wastes to Jaghir's shores;
Swift as the arrow, hasting to the breast,
Was Cawna, the companion of my rest.

The sun sat lowering in the western sky,
The swelling tempest spread around the eye;
Upon my Cawna's bosom I reclined,
Catching the breathing whispers of the wind.
Swift from the wood a prowling tiger came,
Dreadful his voice, his eyes a glowing flame;
I bent the bow, the never-erring dart
Pierced his rough armour, but escaped his heart;
He fled, though wounded, to a distant waste,
I urged the furious flight with fatal haste;
He fell, he died—spent in the fiery toil,
I stripped his carcase of the furry spoil,
And, as the varied spangles met my eye,

“On this,” I cried, “shall my loved Cawna lie.”
The dusky midnight hung the skies in grey;
Impelled by love, I winged the airy way;
In the deep valley and the mossy plain,
I sought my Cawna, but I sought in vain.
The pallid shadows of the azure waves
Had made my Cawna, and my children, slaves!
Reflection maddens to recal the hour;
The gods had given me to the demon's power.
The dusk slow vanished from the hated lawn,
I gained a mountain glaring with the dawn.
There the full sails, expanded to the wind,
Struck horror and distraction in my mind;
There Cawna, mingled with a worthless train,
In common slavery drags the hated chain.
Now judge, my Heccar, have I cause for rage?
Should aught the thunder of my arm assuage?
In ever-reeking blood this javelin dyed
With vengeance shall be never satisfied;
I'll strew the beaches with the mighty dead
And tinge the lily of their features red!

HECCAR.
When the loud shriekings of the hostile cry
Roughly salute my ear, enraged I'll fly;
Send the sharp arrow quivering through the heart,
Chill the hot vitals with the venomed dart;
Nor heed the shining steel or noisy smoke,
Gaira and Vengeance shall inspire the stroke.

THE CONSULIAD.

AN HEROIC POEM.

Of warring senators, and battles dire,
Of quails uneaten, Muse, awake the lyre!
Where Campbell's chimneys overlook the square,
And Newton's future prospects hang in air;
Where counsellors dispute, and cockers match,
And Caledonian earls in concert scratch;
A group of heroes occupied the round,
Long in the rolls of infamy renown'd.
Circling the table all in silence sat,
Now tearing bloody lean, now champing fat;
Now picking ortolans and chicken slain
To form the whimsies of an à-la-reine;
Now storming castles of the newest taste,
And granting articles to forts of paste;
Now swallowing bitter draughts of Prussian beer;

Now sucking tallow of salubrious deer.
The god of cabinets and senates saw
His sons, like asses, to one centre draw.

Inflated Discord heard, and left her cell,
With all the horrors of her native hell;
She on the soaring wings of genius fled,
And waved the pen of Junius round her head.
Beneath the table, veiled from sight, she sprung,
And sat astride on noisy Twitcher's tongue:
Twitcher, superior to the venal pack
Of Bloomsbury's notorious monarch, Jack;
Twitcher, a rotten branch of mighty stock,
Whose interest winds his conscience as his clock;
Whose attributes detestable have long
Been evident and infamous in song.
A toast's demanded! Madoc swift arose,
Pactolian gravy trickling down his clothes:
His sanguine fork a murdered pigeon prest,
His knife with deep incision sought the breast.
Upon his lips the quivering accents hung,
And too much expedition chained his tongue.
When thus he sputtered: “All the glasses fill,
And toast the great Pendragon of the hill,
Mab-Uther Owein, a long train of kings,
From whom the royal blood of Madoc springs:
Madoc, undoubtedly of Arthur's race,
You see the mighty monarch in his face:
Madoc, in bagnios and in courts adored,
Demands this proper homage of the board.”

“Monarchs!” said Twitcher, setting down his beer,
His muscles wreathing a contemptuous sneer;
“Monarchs—of mole-hills, oyster-beds, a rock—

These are the grafters of your royal stock:
My pony Scrub can sires more valiant trace—”
The mangled pigeon thunders on his face;
His opening mouth the melted butter fills,
And dropping from his nose and chin distils.
Furious he started, rage his bosom warms;
Loud as his lordship's morning dun he storms.
“Thou vulgar imitator of the great,
Grown wanton with the excrements of state,
This to thy head notorious Twitcher sends—”
His shadow body to the table bends,
His straining arm uprears a loin of veal,
In these degenerate days for three a meal;
In ancient times, as various writers say,
An alderman or priest eat three a day.
With godlike strength the grinning Twitcher plies
His stretching muscles, and the mountain flies!
Swift as a cloud that shadows o'er the plain,
It flew, and scatter'd drops of oily rain.
In opposition to extended knives,
On royal Madoc's spreading chest it drives;
Senseless he falls upon the sandy ground,
Pressed with the steamy load that oozed around.
And now Confusion spread her ghastly plume,
And Faction separates the noisy room.
Balluntun, exercised in every vice
That opens to a courtier's paradise,
With Dyson trammelled, scruples not to draw
Injustice up the rocky hill of law:
From whose humanity the laurels sprung,
Which will in George's-Fields be ever young—
The vile Balluntun, starting from his chair,
To Fortune thus addressed his private prayer:

“Goddess of Fate's rotundity, assist
With thought-winged victory my untried fist:
If I the grinning Twitcher overturn,
Six Russian frigates at thy shrine shall burn;
Nine rioters shall bleed beneath thy feet;
And hanging cutters decorate each street.”
The goddess smiled, or rather smoothed her frown,
And shook the triple feathers of her crown;
Instilled a private pension in his soul.
With rage inspired, he seized a Gallic roll;
His bursting arm the missive weapon threw,
High o'er his rival's head it whistling flew;
Curraras, for his Jewish soul renowned,
Received it on his ear, and kissed the ground—
Curraras, versed in every little art,
To play the minister's or felon's part,
Grown hoary in the villanies of state,
A title made him infamously great;
A slave to venal slaves, a tool to tools,
The representative to knaves and fools.
But see commercial Bristol's genius sit,
Her shield a turtle-shell, her lance a spit:
See, whilst her nodding aldermen are spread,
In all the branching honours of the head;
Curraras, ever faithful to the cause,
With beef and venison their attention draws:
They drink, they eat, then sign the mean address;
Say, could their humble gratitude do less?
By disappointment vexed, Balluntun flies,
Red lightnings flashing in his dancing eyes.
Firm as his virtue, mighty Twitcher stands,
And elevates for furious fight his hands:
One pointed fist his shadowed corps defends,

The other on Balluntun's eyes descends:
A darkling, shaking light his optics view,
Circled with livid tinges red and blue.
Now fired with anguish and inflamed by pride,
He thunders on his adversary's side:
With pattering blows prolongs the unequal fight;
Twitcher retreats before the man of might.
But Fortune, (or some higher power or god),
Oblique extended forth a sable rod:
As Twitcher retrograde maintained the fray,
The hardened serpent intercepts his way:
He fell, and falling with a lordly air,
Crushed into atoms the judicial chair.
Curraras, for his Jewish soul renowned,
Arose: but deafened with a singing sound.
A cloud of discontent o'erspread his brows;
Revenge in every bloody feature glows.
Around his head a roasted gander whirls,
Dropping Manilla sauces on his curls;
Swift to the vile Balluntun's face it flies,
The burning pepper sparkles in his eyes:
His India waistcoat, reeking with the oil,
Glows brighter red, the glory of the spoil.

The fight is general; fowl repulses fowl;
The victors thunder, and the vanquished howl.
Stars, garters, all the implements of show,
That decked the powers above, disgraced below.
Nor swords, nor mightier weapons did they draw,
For all were well acquainted with the law.
Let Drap---r to improve his diction fight;
Our heroes, like Lord George, could scold and write.
Gogmagog, early of the jockey club,

Empty as C---br---ke's oratorial tub,
A rusty link of ministerial chain,
A living glory of the present reign,
Versed in the arts of ammunition-bread,
He waved a red-wheat manchet round his head:
David-ap-Howel, furious, wild, and young,
From the same line as royal Madoc sprung,
Occurred, the object of his bursting ire,
And on his nose received the weapon dire:
A double river of congealing blood
O'erflows his garter with a purple flood.
Mad as a bull by daring mastiffs tore,
When ladies scream and greasy butchers roar;
Mad as B---rg---e when, groping through the park,
He kissed his own dear lady in the dark;
The lineal representative of kings
A carving weapon seized, and up he springs:
A weapon long in cruel murders stained,
For mangling captive carcases ordained.
But Fortune, Providence, or what you will,
To lay the rising scenes of horror still,
In Fero's person seized a shining pot,
Where bubbled scrips and contracts, flaming hot,
In the fierce Cambrian's breeches drains it dry:
The chapel totters with the shrieking cry,
Loud as the mob's reiterated yell,
When Sawny rose, and mighty Chatham fell.

Flaccus, the glory of a masquerade,
Whose every action is of trifles made,
At Grafton's well-stored table ever found;
Like Grafton too for every vice renowned:
Grafton, to whose immortal sense we owe

The blood which will from civil discord flow;
Who swells each grievance, lengthens every tax,
Blind to the ripening vengeance of the axe:
Flaccus, the youthful, degagée, and gay,
With eye of pity saw the dreary fray:
Amidst the greasy horrors of the fight,
He trembled for his suit of virgin white.
Fond of his eloquence and easy flow
Of talk verbose, whose meaning none can know:
He mounts the table, but through eager haste
His foot upon a smoking court-pie placed:
The burning liquid penetrates his shoe,
Swift from the rostrum the declaimer flew;
But, learnedly heroic, he disdains
To spoil his pretty countenance with strains.
Remounted on the table now he stands,
Waves his high-powdered head and ruffled hands.
“Friends! Let this clang of hostile fury cease,
Ill it becomes the plenipos of peace;
Shall olios, for internal battle drest,
Like bullets outward perforate the breast?
Shall javelin bottles blood ethereal spill?
Shall luscious turtle without surfeit kill?”
More had he said: when, from Doglostock flung,
A custard pudding trembled on his tongue:
And, ah! misfortunes seldom come alone,
Great Twitcher rising seized a polished bone;
Upon his breast the oily weapon clangs;
Headlong he falls, propelled by thickening bangs.
The prince of trimmers, for his magic famed,
Quarlendorgongos by infernals named,
By mortals Alavat in common styled—
Nursed in a furnace, Nox and Neptune's child—

Bursting with rage, a weighty bottle caught,
With crimson blood and weighty spirits fraught;
To Doxo's head the gurgling woe he sends,
Doxo, made mighty in his mighty friends.
Upon his front the stubborn vessel sounds,
Back from his harder front the bottle bounds:
He fell. The royal Madoc rising up,
Reposed him weary on his painful crup:
The head of Doxo, first projecting down,
Thunders upon the kingly Cambrian's crown:
The sanguine tumour swells; again he falls;
On his broad chest the bulky Doxo sprawls.
Tyro the sage, the sensible, the strong,
As yet unnoticed in the muse-taught song,
Tyro, for necromancy far renowned,
A greater adept than Agrippa found;
Oft as his phantom-reasons intervened,
De Vir is pensioned, the defaulter screened;
Another C[ar]t[ere]t remains in Clare;
In Fletcher, fifty Jefferies appear;
Tyro stood neuter, till the champions tired
In languid attitudes a truce desired.
Long was the bloody fight; confusion dire
Has hid some circumstances from the lyre:
Suffice it, that each hero kissed the ground,
Tyro excepted, for old laws renowned;
Who stretching his authoritative hand,
Loudly thus issued forth his dread command.
“Peace, wrangling senators, and placemen, peace,
In the King's name, let hostile vengeance cease!”
Aghast the champions hear the furious sound,
The fallen unmolested leave the ground.
“What fury, nobles, occupies your breast?

What, patriot spirits, has your minds possessed?
Nor honorary gifts nor pensions please,
Say, are you Covent-Garden patentees!
How? wist you not what ancient sages said,
‘The council quarrels, and the poor have bread.’
See this court-pie with twenty-thousand drest;
Be every thought of enmity at rest:
Divide it, and be friends again,” he said:
The council-god returned; and discord fled.

Bristol, Jan. 4, 1770.

RESIGNATION.

A POEM.

Hail, Resignation! hail, ambiguous dame,
Thou Parthian archer in the fight of fame!
When thou hast drawn the mystic veil between,
'Tis the poor Minister's concluding scene;
Sheltered beneath thy pinions he withdraws,
And tells us his integrity's the cause.
Sneaking to solitude, he rails at state,
And rather would be virtuous than be great;
Laments the impotence of those who guide,

100

And wishes public clamours may subside.
But while such rogues as North or Sandwich steer,
Our grievances will never disappear.

Hail, Resignation! 'tis from thee we trace
The various villanies of power and place;
When rascals, once but infamy and rags,
Rich with a nation's ruin, swell their bags,
Purchase a title and a royal smile,
And pay to be distinguishably vile;
When big with self-importance thus they shine,
Contented with their gleanings, they resign!
When ministers, unable to preside,
The tottering vehicle no longer guide,
The powerful Thane prepares to kick his Grace
From all his glorious dignities of place;
But still the honour of the action's thine,
And Grafton's tender conscience can resign.
Lament not, Grafton, that thy hasty fall
Turns out a public happiness to all;
Still by your emptiness of look appear
The ruins of a man who used to steer;
Still wear that insignificance of face,
Which dignifies you more than power or place.

Whilst now the Constitution tottering stands,
And needs the firm support of able hands,
Your Grace stood foremost in the glorious cause
To shake the very basis of our laws;
But, thanks to Camden and a noble few,
They stemmed Oppression's tide, and conquered you.

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How can your prudence be completely praised
In flying from the storm yourself had raised?
When the black clouds of discord veiled the sky,
'Twas more than prudence in your Grace to fly;
For had the thunders burst upon your head,
Soon had you mingled with the headless dead;
Not Bute, though here the deputy of fate,
Could save so vile a minister of state.

Oft has the Carlton Sibyl prophesied
How long each minister of state should guide,
And from the dark recesses of her cell,
When Bute was absent, would to Stuart tell
The secret fates of senators and peers,
What lord's exalted but to lose his ears,
What future plans the Junto have design'd,
What writers are with Rockingham combined,
Who should accept a privy seal or rod,
Who's lord-lieutenant of the land of Nod,
What pensioned nobleman should hold his post,
What poor dependant scored without his host,
What patriot big with popular applause
Should join the ministry and prop the cause;
With many secrets of a like import,
The daily tittle-tattle of a court,
By common fame retail'd as office news
In coffee-houses, taverns, cellars, stews.
Oft from her secret casket would she draw
A knotty plan to undermine the law;

102

But though the council sat upon the scheme,
Time has discovered that 'tis all a dream;
Long had she known the date of Grafton's power,
And in her tablet mark'd his flying hour;
Rumour reports, a message from her cell
Arrived but just three hours before he fell.
Well knew the subtle minister of state
Her knowledge in the mysteries of fate,
And catching every pension he could find,
Obeyed the fatal summons—and resigned!

Far in the north, amidst whose dreary hills
None hear the pleasant murmuring sound of rills,
Where no soft gale in dying raptures blows,
Or aught which bears the look of verdure grows,
Save where the north wind cuts the solemn yew,
And russet rushes drink the noxious dew—
Dank exhalations drawn from stagnant moors,
The morning dress of Caledonia's shores—
Upon a bleak and solitary plain,
Exposed to every storm of wind and rain,
A humble cottage reared its lowly head,
Its roof with matted reeds and rushes spread.
The walls were osiers daubed with slimy clay,
One narrow entrance opened to the day.
Here lived a Laird, the ruler of his clan,
Whose fame through every northern mountain ran;
Great was his learning, for he long had been
A student at the town of Aberdeen,
Professor of all languages at once;

103

To him, some reckoned Chappelow a dunce.
With happy fluency he learned to speak
Syriac or Latin, Arabic or Greek.
Not any tongue in which Oxonians sing
When they rejoice or blubber with the king,
To him appeared unknown: with sapient look
He taught the highland meaning of each crook.
But often when to pastimes he inclined,
To give some relaxation to his mind,
He laid his books aside, forgot to read,
To hunt wild goslings down the river Tweed,
To chase a starving weasel from her bed,
And wear the spoil triumphant on his head.
'Tis true his rent-roll just maintained his state,
But some, in spite of poverty, are great.
Though famine sunk her impress on his face,
Still you might there his haughty temper trace,
Descended from a catalogue of kings
Whose warlike arts Mac Pherson sweetly sings,
He bore the majesty of monarchs past,
Like a tall pine rent with the winter's blast,
Whose spreading trunk and withered branches show
How glorious once the lordly tree might grow.

Of all the warring passions in his breast,
Ambition still presided o'er the rest;
This is the spur which actuates us all,
The visionary height whence thousands fall,
The author's hobby-horse, the soldier's steed
Which aids him in each military deed,

104

The lady's dresser, looking-glass, and paint,
The warm devotion of the seeming saint.

Sawney, the noble ruler of the clan,
Had numbered o'er the riper years of man,
Graceful in stature, ravishing his mien,
To make a conquest was but to be seen.
Fired by ambition, he resolved to roam
Far from the famine of his native home,
To seek the warmer climate of the south,
And at one banquet feast his eyes and mouth.
In vain the amorous highland lass complained,
The son of monarchs would not be restrained;
Clad in his native many-coloured suit,
Forth struts the walking majesty of Bute.
His spacious sword to a large wallet strung,
Across his broad capacious shoulders hung:
As from the hills the land of promise rose,
A secret transport in his bosom glows:
A joy prophetic, until then unknown,
Assured him all he viewed would be his own.
New scenes of pleasure recreate his sight,
He views the fertile meadows with delight;
Still in soliloquy he praised the view,
Nor was more pleased with future scenes at Kew.
His wonder broke in murmurs from his tongue,
No more the praise of highland hills he sung,
Till now a stranger to the cheerful green
Where springing flowers diversify the scene;
The lofty elm, the oak of lordly look,
The willow shadowing the bubbling brook,
The hedges blooming with the sweets of May
With double pleasure marked his gladsome way.

105

Having through varying rural prospects past,
He reached the great metropolis at last.
Here Fate beheld him as he trudged the street,
Bare was his buttocks and unshod his feet;
A lengthening train of boys displayed him great,
He seemed already minister of state.
The Carlton Sibyl saw his graceful mien,
And straight forgot her hopes of being Queen.
She sighed, she wished; swift virtuous Chudleigh flew
To bring the Caledonian swain to Kew;
Then introduced him to her secret cell,—
What further can the modest numbers tell?
Suffice it that, among the youths of fire
Whom widows strong and amorous dames admire,
None rode the broomstaff with so good a grace,
Or pleased her with such majesty of face;
Enraptured with her incubus, she sought
How to reward his merit as she ought.
Resolved to make him greatest of the great,
She led him to her hidden cave of state;
There spurs and coronets were placed around,
And privy seals were scattered on the ground;
Here piles of honorary truncheons lay,
And gleaming stars made artificial day;
With mystic rods, whose magic power is such
They metamorphose parties with a touch.
Here hung the princely prize of gartered blue,
With flags of all varieties of hue.

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“These,” said the Sibyl, “from this present hour
Are thine with every dignity of power.
No statesman shall be titularly great,
None shall obtain an office in the state
But such whose principles and manners suit
The virtuous temper of the Earl of Bute;
All shall pursue thy interest, none shall guide
But such as you repute are qualified.
No more on Scotland's melancholy plain
Your starving countrymen shall drink the rain,
But hither hasting on their naked feet,
Procure a place, forget themselves, and eat.
No southern patriot shall oppose my will,
If not my look, my Treasurer can kill;
His pistol never fails in time of need,
And who dares contradict my power shall bleed.
A future Barrington will also rise
With blood and death to entertain my eyes.
But this forestalls futurity and fate,
I'll choose the present hour to make thee great.”
He bowed submission, and with eager view
Gazed on the withered oracle of Kew.
She seized a pendant garter, and began
To elevate the ruler of the clan;
Girt round his leg the honoured trifle shone,
And gathered double lustre from the throne;
With native dignity he filled the stall,
The wonder, jest, and enmity of all.
Not yet content with honorary grace,
The Sibyl, busy for the sweets of place,
Kicked out a minister, the people's pride,
And lifted Sawney in his place to guide.
The Leader of the Treasury he rose,

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Whilst fate marked down the nation's future woes.
Mad with ambition, his imperious hand
Scattered oppression through a groaning land;
Still taxes followed taxes, grants supplies,
With every ill resulting from excise.
Not satisfied with this unjust increase,
He struck a bolder stroke, and sold the peace;
The Gallic millions so convinced his mind,
On honourable terms the treaty's signed.

But who his private character can blame,
Or brand his titles with a villain's name?
Upon an estimation of the gains,
He stooped beneath himself to take the reins;
A good economist, he served the crown,
And made his master's interest his own.
His starving friends and countrymen applied
To share the ministry, assist to guide;
Nor asked in vain:—his charitable hand
Made Plenty smile in Scotland's barren land;
Her wandering sons, for poverty renowned,
Places and pensions, bribes or titles found.
Far from the south was humble merit fled,
And on the northern mountains reared her head;
And genius, having ranged beyond the Tweed,
Sat brooding upon bards who could not read;
Whilst courage, boasting of his highland might,
Mentions not Culloden's inglorious flight,
But whilst his lordship fills the honoured stall,
Ample provision satisfies them all.
The genius sings his praise, the soldier swears
To mutilate each murmuring caitiff's ears;

108

The father of his country they adore,
And live in elegance unknown before.

Nor yet unthankful he for power and place,
He praised the Sibyl with distinguished grace.
And oft repairing to [the] cell of hate,
He laid aside the dignity of state;—
And had not virtuous Chudleigh held the door,
She to this moment might have been a whore.
Around this mystic sun of liquid gold
A swarm of planetary statesmen rolled;
Though some have since as ministers been known,
They shone with borrowed lustre not their own:
In every revolution, day and night,
From Bute they caught each particle of light;
He destined out the circles they fulfil,
Hung on the bulky nothing of his will.

How shall I brand with infamy a name
Which bids defiance to all sense of shame?
How shall I touch his iron soul with pain,
Who hears unmoved a multitude complain?
A multitude made wretched by his hand,
The common curse and nuisance of the land.
Holland, of thee I sing—infernal wretch!
Say, can thy power of mischief further stretch?
Is there no other army to be sold,
No town to be destroyed for bribes and gold?
Or wilt thou rather sit contented down,
And starve the subject to enrich the crown?

109

That when the treasury can boast supplies,
Thy pilfering genius may have exercise;
Whilst unaccounted millions pay thy toil,
Thou art secure if Bute divides the spoil;
Catching his influence from the best of kings,
Vice broods beneath the shadow of his wings;
The vengeance of a nation is defied,
And liberty and justice set aside.
Distinguished robber of the public, say,
What urged thy timid spirit's hasty way?
She lived in the protection of a king.
Did recollection paint the fate of Byng?
Did conscience hold that mirror to thy sight,
Or Aylyffe's ghost accompany thy flight?
Is Bute more powerful than the sceptred hand,
Or art thou safer in a foreign land?
In vain, the scene relinquished, now you grieve,
Cursing the moment you were forced to leave
The ruins on the Isle of Thanet built,
The fruits of plunder, villany, and guilt.
When you presume on English ground to tread,
Justice will lift her weapon at your head.
Contented with the author of your state,
Maintain the conversation of the great.
Be busy in confederacy and plot,
And settle what shall be on what is not;
Display the statesman in some wild design,
Foretell when North will tumble and resign,
How long the busy Sandwich, mad for rule,
Will lose his labour and remain a fool.
But your accounts, the subject of debate,

110

Are much beneath the notice of the great.
Let bribed exchequer-tellers find them just,
Which, on the penalty of place, they must;
Before they're seen your honesty is clear,
And all will evidently right appear.

When as a Minister you had your day,
And gather'd light from Bute's superior ray,
His striking representative you shone,
And seem'd to glimmer in yourself alone;
The lives of thousands barter'd for a bribe,
With villanies too shocking to describe.
Your system of oppression testified
None but the conscientious Fox could guide.
As Bute is fixed eternal in his sphere,
And Ministers revolve around in air,
Your infamy with such a lasting ray
Glowed through your orb in one continual day:
Still ablest politicians hold dispute,
Whether you gave or borrowed light from Bute.
Lost in the blaze of his superior parts,
We often have descried your little arts.
But at a proper distance from his sphere
We saw the little villain disappear;
When dressed in titles, the burlesque of place,
A more illustrious rascal shewed his face;
Your destined sphere of Ministry now run,
You dropt like others in the parent sun;
There as a spot you purpose to remain,
And seek protection in the Sibyl's swain.
Grafton his planetary life began,
Though foreign to the system of the clan;
Slowly he rolled around the fount of light,

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Long was his day, but longer was his night.
Irregular, unequal in his course,
Now languid he revolves, now rolls with force;
His scarce-collected light obliquely hurled
Was scattered ere it reached his frozen world.
Through all his under offices of place,
All had conspired to represent his Grace;
Lifeless and dull the wheels of state were driven,
Slow as a courtier on his road to heaven.
If expedition urged the dull machine,
He knew so little of the golden mean,
Swift hurry and confusion wild began
To discompose the Thane's determined plan.
Error, his secretary, lent his aid
To undermine each plot his cunning laid;
He wrote despatches in his Grace's name,
And ruined every project North could frame:
Yet as he blundered through the lengthened night,
He seriously protested all was right.

Since dissipation is thy only joy,
Go, Grafton, join the dance, and act the boy;
'Tis not for fops in cabinets to shine,
And justice must confess that title's thine.
Dress to excess, and powder into fame,
In drums and hurricanes exalt your name.
There you may glitter, there your worth may rise
Above the little reach of vulgar eyes.
But in the high departments of the state
Your talents are too trifling to be great;
There all your imperfections rise to view,
Not Sandwich so contemptible as you.
Bute from the summit of his power descried

112

Your glaring inability to guide,
And mustering every rascal in his gang,
Who might for merit all together hang,
From the black catalogue and worthy crew,
The jesuitical and scheming few,
Selected by the leader of the clan,
Received instructions for their future plan;
And, after proper adoration paid,
Were to their destined sphere of state conveyed,
To shine the Minister's satéllites,
Collect his light, and give his lordship ease,
Reform his crooked politics, and draw
A more severe attack upon the law;
Settle his erring revolutions right,
And give in just proportion day and night.

Alas! the force of Scottish pride is such,
These mushrooms of a day presumed too much;
Conscious of cunning and superior arts,
They scorned the Minister's too trifling parts;
Grafton resents a treatment so unjust,
And damns the Carlton Sibyl's fiery lust,
By which a scoundrel Scot oppressed the realm,
And rogues, below contempt, disgraced the helm.
Swift scandal caught the accents as they fell,
And bore them to the Sibyl's secret cell.
Enraged, she winged a messenger to Bute,
Some minister more able to depute;
Her character and virtue was a jest,
Whilst Grafton was of useless power possessed.
This done, her just desire of vengeance warm,
She gave him notice of the bursting storm;
Timid and dubious, Grafton faced about,

113

And trembled at the thoughts of being out;
But as no laws the Sibyl's power confined,
He dropped his blushing honours, and resigned!

Step forward, North! and let the doubtful see
Wonders and miracles revived in thee.
Did not the living witness haunt the court,
What ear had given faith to my report?
Amidst the rout of ministerial slaves,
Rogues who want genius to refine to knaves,
Who could imagine that the wretch most base
Should fill the highest infamy of place?
That North, the vile domestic of a peer
Whose name an Englishman detests to hear,
Should leave his trivial share of Bedford's gains,
Become a minister, and take the reins;
And from the meanest of the gang ascend
Above his worthy governor and friend?
This wondrous metamorphose of an hour
Sufficiently evinced the Sibyl's power.
To ruin nations, little rogues to raise,
A virtue supernatural displays;
What but a power infernal or divine
Could honour North, or make his Grace resign?

Some superficial politicians tell,
When Grafton from his gilded turret fell,
The Sibyl substituted North, a blank,
A mustered faggot to complete the rank,
Without a distant thought that such a tool
Would change its being and aspire to rule.

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But such the humble North's indulgent fate,
When striding in the saddle of the state,
He caught by inspiration statesmanship,
And drove the slow machine and smacked his whip;
Whilst Bedford, wondering at his sudden skill,
With reverence viewed the packhorse of his will.

His Majesty (the buttons thrown aside)
Declared his fixed intention to preside.
No longer sacrificed to every knave,
He'd show himself discreet as well as brave;
In every cabinet and council-cause
He'd be dictator and enforce the laws;
Whilst North should in his present office stand
As understrapper to direct his hand.

Now, Expectation, now extend thy wing!
Happy the land whose minister's a king;
Happy the king, who, ruling each debate,
Can peep through every roguery of state!
See Hope, arrayed in robes of virgin white,
Trailing an arched variety of light,
Comes showering blessings on a ruined realm,
And shews the crowned director of the helm!
Return, fair goddess, till some future day,
The king has seen the error of his way;
And by his smarting shoulders seems to feel
The wheel of state is not a Catharine wheel.
Wise by experience, general nurse of fools,
He leaves the ministry to venal tools;
And finds his happy talents better suit
The making buttons for his favourite Bute;
In countenancing the unlawful views
Which North, the delegate of Bute, pursues;

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In glossing with authority a train
Whose names are infamy, and objects gain.

Hail, filial duty! great, if rightly used,
How little when mistaken and abused!
Viewed from one point, how glorious art thou seen,
From others, how degenerate and mean!
A seraph or an idiot's head we see:
Often the latter stands the type of thee,
And, bowing at his parent's knee, is drest
In a long hood and many-coloured vest.

The sceptred king, who dignifies a throne,
Should be in private life himself alone;
No friend or mother should his conscience scan,
Or with the nation's head confound the man.
Like juggling Melchi Zadok's priestish plea,
Collected in himself, a king should be.
But truths may be unwelcome, and the lay
Which shall to royal ears such truths convey
The conflagrations of the hangman's ire
May roast, and execute with foreign fire.
The Muse who values safety shall return,
And sing of subjects where she cannot burn.
Continue, North, thy vile burlesque of power,
And reap the harvest of the present hour;
Collect, and fill thy coffers with the spoil,
And let thy gatherings recompense thy toil.
Whilst the rogues out revile the rascals in,
Repeat the proverb, “Let those laugh that win:”
Fleeting and transitory is the date
Of sublunary ministers of state;
Then whilst thy summer lasts prepare thy hay,
Nor trust to autumn and a future day.

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I leave thee now, but with intent to trace
The villains and the honest men of place.
The first are still assisting in thy train
To aid the pillage and divide the gain;
The last, of known integrity of mind,
Forsook a venal party, and resigned!

Come, Satire! aid me to display the first,
Of every honest Englishman accursed;
Come, Truth, assist me to prepare the lays,
Where worth demands, and give the latter praise.
Ingenious Sandwich, whither dost thou fly
To shun the censure of the public eye?
Dost thou want matter for another speech,
Or other works of genius to impeach?
Or would thy insignificance and pride
Presume above thyself and seek to guide?
Pursue thy ignis-fatuus of power,
And call to thy assistance virtuous Gower;
Set Rigby's happy countenance in play
To vindicate whatever you can say.
Then, when you totter into place and fame,
With double infamy you brand your name.
Say, Sandwich, in the winter of your date,
Can you ascend the hobby-horse of state?
Do titles echo grateful in your ear?
Or is it mockery to call you peer?
In fifty's silvered age to play the fool,
And [rest] with rascals infamous a tool,
Plainly denote your judgment is no more;
Your honour was extinguished long before.

Say, if reflection ever blest thy mind,

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Hast thou one rëal friend among mankind?
Thou hadst one once, free, generous, and sincere,
Too good a senator for such a peer;
Him thou hadst offered as a sacrifice
To lewdness, immorality, and vice;
Your patronizing scoundrels set the gin,
And friendship was the bait to draw him in.
What honourable villain could they find
Of Sandwich's latitudinary mind?
Though intimacy seemed to stop the way,
You they employed to tempt him and betray.
Full well you executed their commands,
Well you deserved the pension at their hands.
For you, in hours of trifling, he compiled
A dissertation blasphemous and wild.
Be it recorded, 'twas at your desire
He called for demons to assist his lyre;
Relying on your friendship, soon he found
How dangerous the support of rotten ground.
In your infernal attributes arrayed,
You seized the wished-for poem, and betrayed.

Hail, mighty Twitcher! can my feeble line
Give due reward to merit such as thine?
Not Churchill's keenest satire ever reached
The conscience of the rascal who impeached.
My humble numbers and untutored lay
On such a hardened wretch are thrown away;
I leave thee to the impotent delight
Of visiting the harlots of the night;
Go, hear thy nightingale's enchanting strain,
My satire shall not dart a sting in vain.
There you may boast one sense is entertained,

118

Though age present your other senses pained:
Go, Sandwich, if thy fire of lust compel,
Regale at Harrington's religious cell,
[Resort] of impotence and dire disease;
Exert your poor endeavours as you please,
The jest and bubble of the harlot crew;
What entertained your youth, in age pursue.

When Grafton shook Oppression's iron rod,
Like Egypt's lice, the instrument of God;
When Camden, driven from his office, saw
The last weak efforts of expiring law;
When Bute, the regulator of the state,
Preferred the vicious, to supplant the great;
When rank corruption through all orders ran,
And infamy united Sawney's clan;
When every office was with rogues disgraced,
And the Scotch dialect became the taste,
Could Beaufort with such creatures stay behind?
No, Beaufort was a Briton, and resigned.
Thy resignation, Somerset, shall shine
When time hath buried the recording line,
And, proudly glaring in the rolls of fame,
With more than titles decorate thy name.
Amidst the gathered rascals of the age,
Who murder noble parts, the court their stage,
One nobleman of honesty remains,
Who scorns to draw in ministerial chains;
Who honours virtue and his country's peace,
And sees with pity grievances increase;
Who bravely left all sordid views of place,
And lives the honour of the Beaufort race.

Deep in the secret, Barrington and Gower,

119

Raised upon villany, aspire to power;
Big with importance, they presume to rise
Above a minister they must despise;
Whilst Barrington, as secretary, shows
How many pensions paid his blood and blows.
And Gower, the humbler creature of the two,
Has only future prospects in his view.
But North requires assistance from the great,
To work another button in the state,
That Weymouth may complete the birthday-suit,
Full-trimmed by Twitcher, and cut out by Bute:
So many worthy schemers must produce
A statesman's coat of universal use;
Some system of economy, to save
Another million for another knave;
Some plan to make a duty, large before,
Additionally great, to grind the poor:
For 'tis a maxim with the guiding wise,
Just as the commons sink, the rich arise.

If ministers and privy-council knaves
Would rest contented with their being slaves,
And not with anxious infamy pursue
Those measures which will fetter others too,
The swelling cry of liberty would rest,
Nor Englishmen complain, nor knaves protest.
But courtiers have a littleness of mind,
And, once enslaved, would fetter all mankind.
'Tis to this narrowness of soul we owe
What further ills our liberties shall know;
'Tis from this principle our feuds began,
Fomented by the Scots, ignoble clan:
Strange that such little creatures of a tool,

120

By lust and not by merit raised to rule,
Should sow contention in a noble land,
And scatter thunders from a venal hand.
Gods! that these fly-blows of a stallion's day,
Warmed into being by the Sibyl's ray,
Should shake the constitution, rights, and laws,
And prosecute the Man of Freedom's cause!
Whilst Wilkes to every Briton's right appealed,
With loss of liberty that right he sealed:
Imprisoned and oppressed he persevered,
Nor Sawney or his powerful Sibyl feared.
The hag, replete with malice, from above
Shot poison on the screech-owl of her love;
Unfortunately to his pen it fell,
And flowed in double rancour to her cell;
Madly she raved; to ease her tortured mind,
The object of her hatred is confined:
But he, supported by his country's laws,
Bid her defiance, for 'twas Freedom's cause.
Her Treasurer and Talbot fought in vain,
Though each attain'd his favourite object—gain.
She sat as usual when a project fails,
Damned Chudleigh's phiz, and dined upon her nails.

Unhappy land! whose governed Monarch sees
Through glasses and perspective[s] such as these;
When, juggling to deceive his untried sight,
He views the ministry all trammelled right;
Whilst, to his eye the other glass applied,
His subjects' failings are all magnified.
Unheeded the petitions are received,
Nor one report of grievances believed;
'Tis but the voice of faction in disguise

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That blinds with liberty the people's eyes:
'Tis riot and licentiousness pursues
Some disappointed placeman's private [views].
And shall such venal creatures steer the helm,
Waving Oppression's banners round the realm?
Shall Britons to the vile detested troop,
Forgetting ancient honour, meanly stoop?
Shall we our rights and liberties resign,
To lay those jewels at a woman's shrine?
No: let us still be Britons! Be it known,
The favours we solicit are our own.
Engage, ye Britons, in the glorious task,
And stronger still enforce the things you ask:
Assert your rights, remonstrate with the throne,
Insist on liberty, and that alone.

Alas! America, thy ruined cause
Displays the ministry's contempt of laws.
Unrepresented thou art taxed, excised,
By creatures much too vile to be despised;
The outcast of an ousted gang are sent,
To bless thy commerce with [a] government.
Whilst pity rises to behold thy fate,
We see thee in this worst of troubles great;
Whilst anxious for thy wavering dubious cause,
We give thy proper spirit due applause.
If virtuous Grafton's sentimental taste
Is in his measures or his mistress placed,
In either 'tis originally rare,
One shews the midnight cully, one the peer:
Review him, Britons, with a proper pride,

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Was this a statesman qualified to guide?
Was this the minister whose mighty hand
Has scattered civil discord through the land?
Since smallest trifles, when ordained by fate,
Rise into power and counteract the great,
What shall we call thee, Grafton? Fortune's whip?
Or rather the burlesque of statesmanship:
When, daring in thy insolence of place,
Bold in an empty majesty of face,
We saw thee exercise thy magic rod,
And form a titled villain with a nod;
Turn out the virtuous, airily advance
The members of the council in a dance,
And honouring Sandwich with a serious [air],
Commend the fancy of his solitaire?
These were thy actions, worthy of record,
Worthy the bubbled wretch and venal lord.
Since villainy is meritorious grown,
Step forward, for thy merit's not unknown.
What Mansfield's conscience shuddered to receive,
Thy mercenary temper cannot leave.
Reversions, pensions, bribes and titled views,
What mortal scoundrel can such things refuse?
If Dunning's nice integrity of mind
Will not in pales of interest be confined,
Let his uncommon honesty resign,
And boast the empty pension of the nine:
A Thurlow, grasping every offered straw,
Shines his successor, and degrades the law.
How like the ministry who linked his chains!
His measures tend incessantly to gains.

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If Weymouth dresses to the height of taste,
At once with fifty [venal] places laced,
Can such a summer insect of the state
Be otherwise than in externals great?
Thou bustling marplot of each hidden plan,
How wilt thou answer to the Sibyl's man?
Did thy own shallow politics direct
To treat the Mayor with purposed disrespect;
Or did it come in orders from above,
From her who sacrificed her soul to love?

Rigby, whose conscience is a perfect dice,
A just epitome of every vice,
Replete with what accomplishments support
The empty admiration of a court,
Yet wants a barony to grace record,
And hopes to lose the rascal in the lord.
His wish is granted, and the King prepares
A title of renown, to brand his heirs.
When vice creates the patent for a peer,
What lord so nominally great as Clare?
Whilst Chatham from his coroneted oak
Unheeded shook the senate with his croak,
The minister, too powerful to be right,
Laughed at his prophecy and second sight,
Since Mother Shipton's oracle of state
Forestalled the future incidents of fate.
Grafton might shake his elbows, dance, and dream,
'Twere labour lost to strive against the stream.
If Grafton in his juggling statesman's game
Bubbled for interest, betted but for fame,

124

The leader of the treasury could pay
For every loss in politics and play.

Sir Fletcher's noisy eloquence of tongue
Is on such pliant oily hinges hung,
Turned to all points of politics and doubt,
But though for ever worsted, never out.
Can such a wretched creature take the chair
And exercise his new-made power with air?
This worthy speaker of a worthy crew
Can write long speeches and repeat them too;
A practised lawyer in the venal court,
From higher powers he borrows his report;
Above the scandalous aspersion “tool,”
He only squares his conscience by a rule.
Granby, too great to join the hated cause,
Throws down his useless truncheon and withdraws;
Whilst, unrenowned for military deeds,
A youthful branch of royalty succeeds.

Let Coventry, Yonge, Palmerston, and Brett,
With resignation pay the crown a debt;
If, in return for offices of trust,
The ministry expect you'll prove unjust,
What soul that values freedom could with ease
Stoop under obligations such as these?
If you're a Briton (every virtue dead)
That would upon your dying freedom tread,
List in the gang, and piously procure
To make your calling and election sure:
Go, flatter Sawney for his jockeyship,
Assist in each long shuffle, hedge, and slip;
Thus rising on the stilts of favour, see

125

What Grafton was, and future dukes will be:
How Rigby, Weymouth, Barrington began
To juggle into fame and play the man.

Amidst this general rage of turning out,
What officer will stand, remains a doubt.
If virtue's an objection at the board,
With what propriety the council's stored!
Where could the Caledonian minion find
Such striking copies of his venal mind?
Search through the winding labyrinths of place,
See all alike politically base.
If virtues, foreign to the office, shine,
How fast the prodigies of state resign!
Still as they drop, the rising race begin
To boast the infamy of being in;
And generous Bristol, constant to his friend,
Employs his lifted crutches to ascend.
Look round thee, North! see, what a glorious scene!
O let no thought of vengeance intervene:
Throw thy own insignificance aside,
And swell in self-importance, power, and pride.
See Holland easy with his pilfered store,
See Bute intriguing how to pilfer more,
See Grafton's coffers boast the wealth of place,
A providence reserve to hedge and race.
New to oppressions and the servile chain,
Hark how the wrong'd Americans complain;
Whilst unregarded the petitions lie,
And liberty unnoticed swells her cry.
Yet, yet reflect, thou despicable thing,
How wavering is the favour of a king;

126

Think, since that feeble fence and Bute is all,
How soon thy humbug farce of state may fall;
Then catch the present moment while 'tis thine,
Implore a noble pension, and resign!

FEBRUARY.

AN ELEGY.

Begin, my Muse, the imitative lay,
Aonian doxies sound the thrumming string;
Attempt no number of the plaintive Gay,
Let me like midnight cats, or Collins sing.

If in the trammels of the doleful line
The bounding hail, or drilling rain descend;
Come, brooding Melancholy, power divine,
And every unformed mass of words amend.

Now the rough Goat withdraws his curling horns,
And the cold Waterer twirls his circling mop:
Swift sudden anguish darts through altering corns,
And the spruce mercer trembles in his shop.

127

Now infant authors, maddening for renown,
Extend the plume, and hum about the stage,
Procure a benefit, amuse the town,
And proudly glitter in a title-page.

Now, wrapt in ninefold fur, his squeamish grace
Defies the fury of the howling storm;
And, whilst the tempest whistles round his face,
Exults to find his mantled carcase warm.

Now rumbling coaches furious drive along,
Full of the majesty of city dames,
Whose jewels, sparkling in the gaudy throng,
Raise strange emotions and invidious flames.

Now Merit, happy in the calm of place,
To mortals as a Highlander appears,
And, conscious of the excellence of lace,
With spreading frogs and gleaming spangles glares;

Whilst Envy, on a tripod seated nigh,
In form a shoe-boy, daubs the valued fruit,
And, darting lightnings from his vengeful eye,
Raves about Wilkes, and politics, and Bute.

Now Barry, taller than a grenadier,
Dwindles into a stripling of eighteen;
Or sabled in Othello breaks the ear,
Exerts his voice, and totters to the scene.

Now Foote, a looking-glass for all mankind,
Applies his wax to personal defects;
But leaves untouch'd the image of the mind,
His art no mental quality reflects.

128

Now Drury's potent king extorts applause,
And pit, box, gallery, echo “how divine!”
Whilst, versed in all the drama's mystic laws,
His graceful action saves the wooden line.

Now—but what further can the Muses sing?
Now dropping particles of water fall;
Now vapours, riding on the north wind's wing,
With transitory darkness shadow all.

Alas! how joyless the descriptive theme,
When sorrow on the writer's quiet preys;
And, like a mouse in Cheshire cheese supreme,
Devours the substance of the lessening bays.

Come, February, lend thy darkest sky.
There teach the wintered muse with clouds to soar;
Come, February, lift the number high;
Let the sharp strain like wind through alleys roar.

Ye channels, wandering through the spacious street,
In hollow murmurs roll the dirt along,
With inundations wet the sabled feet,
Whilst gouts, responsive, join th'elégiac song.

Ye damsels fair, whose silver voices shrill
Sound through meandering folds of echo's horn,
Let the sweet cry of liberty be still,
No more let smoking cakes awake the morn.

O, Winter! put away thy snowy pride;
O, Spring! neglect the cowslip and the bell;
O, Summer! throw thy pears and plums aside;
O, Autumn! bid the grape with poison swell.

129

The pensioned muse of Johnson is no more!
Drowned in a butt of wine his genius lies:
Earth! Ocean! Heaven! the wondrous loss deplore,
The dregs of nature with her glory dies.

What iron Stoic can suppress the tear?
What sour reviewer reads with vacant eye?
What bard but decks his literary bier?
Alas! I cannot sing—I howl—I cry—

D. B.

Bristol, Feb. 12, [1770].

ELEGY.

[Haste, haste! ye solemn messengers of night]

Haste, haste! ye solemn messengers of night,
Spread the black mantle on the shrinking plain;
But, ah! my torments still survive the light,
The changing seasons alter not my pain.

Ye variegated children of the spring;
Ye blossoms blushing with the pearly dew;
Ye birds that sweetly in the hawthorn sing;
Ye flowery meadows, lawns of verdant hue;

Faint are your colours, harsh your love-notes thrill,
To me no pleasure Nature now can yield:
Alike the barren rock and woody hill,
The dark-brown blasted heath, and fruitful field.

130

Ye spouting cataracts, ye silver streams,
Ye spacious rivers, whom the willow shrouds,
Ascend the bright-crowned sun's far-shining beams,
To aid the mournful tear-distilling clouds.

Ye noxious vapours, fall upon my head;
Ye writhing adders, round my feet entwine;
Ye toads, your venom in my foot-path spread;
Ye blasting meteors, upon me shine.

Ye circling seasons, intercept the year,
Forbid the beauties of the spring to rise;
Let not the life-preserving grain appear;
Let howling tempests harrow up the skies.

Ye cloud-girt, moss-grown turrets, look no more
Into the palace of the god of day;
Ye loud tempestuous billows, cease to roar,
In plaintive numbers through the valleys stray.

Ye verdant-vested trees, forget to grow,
Cast off the yellow foliage of your pride:
Ye softly tinkling rivulets, cease to flow,
Or, swelled with certain death and poison, glide.

Ye solemn warblers of the gloomy night,
That rest in lightning-blasted oaks the day,
Through the black mantles take your slow-paced flight,
Rending the silent wood with shrieking lay.

Ye snow-crowned mountains, lost to mortal eyes,
Down to the valleys bend your hoary head;
Ye livid comets, fire the peopled skies—
For—lady Betty's tabby cat is dead!

131

THE EXHIBITION;

A PERSONAL SATIRE.

This truth, this mighty truth—if truth can shine
In the smooth polish of a laboured line—
Catcott by sad experience testifies;
And who shall tell a sabled priest he lies?
Bred to the juggling of the specious band
Predestinated to adorn the land,
The selfish Catcott ripened to a priest,
And wore the sable livery of the Beast.
By birth to prejudice and whim allied,
And heavy with hereditary pride,

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He modelled pleasure by a fossil rule,
And spent his youth to prove himself a fool;
Buried existence in a lengthened cave,
And lost in dreams whatever Nature gave.

May 1, 1770.

FRAGMENT.

[Interest, thou universal god of men]

Interest, thou universal god of men,
Wait on the couplet and reprove the pen;
If aught unwelcome to thy ears shall rise,
Hold jails and famine to the poet's eyes,
Bid satire sheathe her sharp avenging steel,
And lose a number rather than a meal.
Nay, prithee, honour, do not make us mad,
When I am hungry something must be had:
Can honest consciousness of doing right
Provide a dinner or a bed at night?
What though Astrea decks my soul in gold,
My mortal lumber trembles with the cold;
Then, cursed tormentor of my peace, begone!
Flattery's a cloak, and I will put it on.

In a low cottage, shaking with the wind,
A door in front, a span of light behind,
Tervono's lungs their mystic play began,
And nature in the infant marked the man.
Six times the youth of morn, the golden sun,
Through the twelve stages of his course had run,

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Tervono rose, the merchant of the plain,
His soul was traffic, his elysium gain;
The ragged chapman found his word a law,
And lost in barter every favourite taw.
Through various scenes Tervono still ascends,
And still is making, still forgetting friends;
Full of this maxim, often heard in trade,
Friendship with none but equals should be made.
His soul is all the merchant. None can find
The shadow of a virtue in his mind.
Nor are his vices reason misapplied;
Mean as his spirit, sneaking as his pride.
At city dinner or a turtle feast
As expeditious as a hungry priest:
No foe to Bacchanalian brutal rites,
In vile confusion dozing off the nights.

Tervono would be flattered; shall I then
In stigmatizing satire shake the pen?
Muse, for his brow the laurel wreath prepare,
Though soon 'twill wither when 'tis planted there.
Come, panegyric; adulation, haste,
And sing this wonder of mercántile taste;
And whilst his virtue rises in my lines,
The patron's happy, and the poet dines.
Some, philosophically cased in steel,
Can neither poverty or hunger feel;
But that is not my case; the Muses know
What water-gruel stuff from Phœbus flow;
Then if the rage of satire seize my brain,
May none but brother poets meet the strain.
May bulky aldermen nor vicars rise,
Hung in terrorem to their brothers' eyes;

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When, lost in trance by gospel or by law,
In to their inward room the senses draw,
There as they snore in consultation deep,
Are by the vulgar reckoned fast asleep.

SUNDAY. A FRAGMENT.

Hervenis, harping on the hackneyed text,
By disquisitions is so sore perplexed,
He stammers,—instantaneously is drawn
A bordered piece of inspiration-lawn,
Which being thrice unto his nose applied,
Into his pineal gland the vapours glide;
And now again we hear the doctor roar
On subjects he dissected thrice before.
I own at church I very seldom pray,
For vicars, strangers to devotion, bray.
Sermons, though flowing from the sacred lawn,
Are flimsy wires from reason's ingot drawn;
And, to confess the truth, another cause
My every prayer and adoration draws:
In all the glaring tinctures of the bow,
The ladies front me in celestial row.
(Though, when black melancholy damps my joys,
I call them nature's trifles, airy toys;
Yet when the goddess Reason guides the strain,
I think them, what they are, a heavenly train.)

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The amorous rolling, the black sparkling eye,
The gentle hazel, and the optic sly;
The easy shape, the panting semi-globes,
The frankness which each latent charm disrobes;
The melting passions, and the sweet severe,
The easy amble, the majestic air;
The tapering waist, the silver-mantled arms,
All is one vast variety of charms.
Say, who but sages stretched beyond their span,
Italian singers, or an unmanned man,
Can see Elysium spread upon their brow,
And to a drowsy curate's sermon bow?

If (but 'tis seldom) no fair female face
Attracts my notice by some glowing grace,
Around the monuments I cast my eyes,
And see absurdities and nonsense rise.
Here rueful-visaged angels seem to tell,
With weeping eyes, a soul is gone to hell;
There a child's head, supported by duck's wings,
With toothless mouth a hallelujah sings:
In funeral pile eternal marble burns,
And a good Christian seems to sleep in urns.
A self-drawn curtain bids the reader see
An honourable Welchman's pedigree;
A rock of porphyry darkens half the place,
And virtues blubber with no awkward grace;
Yet, strange to tell, in all the dreary gloom
That makes the sacred honours of the tomb,
No quartered coats above the base appear,
No battered arms, or golden corsets there. [OMITTED]

136

KEW GARDENS.

Hail Kew! thou darling of the tuneful nine,
Thou eating-house of verse, where poets dine;
The temple of the idol of the great,
Sacred to council-mysteries of state;
Sir Gilbert oft, in dangerous trials known,
To make the shame and felony his own,

137

Burns incense on thy altars, and presents
The grateful sound of clamorous discontents:
In the bold favour of thy goddess vain,
He brandishes his sword and shakes his chain.
He knows her secret workings and desires,
Her hidden attributes and vestal fires;
Like an old oak has seen her godhead fall
Beneath the wild descendant of Fingal,
And happy in the view of promised store
Forgot his dignity and held the door.
--- happy genius, comes along,
Humming the music of a Highland song:
Rough and unpolished in the tricks of state,
He plots by instinct, is by nature great.
Who, not a mantled herald, can dispute
The native grandeur of the house of Bute?
Who, not a Caledonian, can deny
By instinct all its noble branches lie?
'Tis an entailed estate upon the name,
To plunder, plot, and pillage into fame,
To live in splendour, infamy, and pride,
The guiders of the tools who seem to guide;
Or starve on honesty, in state their own,
And marshal sheep unnoticed and unknown.
--- versed in juntos and intrigues,
The fool and statesman in close union leagues;
Sits at the council's head; esteemed at most
An useful kind of circulating post,
Through whose short stage each future measure's laid,
And all the orders of the Thane conveyed.
He gives the written text by fortune wrote,
Sir Gilbert adds his necessary note.

138

Dyson, a plodding animal of state,
Who's classically little, to be great;
An instrument, made use of to record
The future witty speeches of his lord:
To write epistles to his powerful dame,
And in the dark supply his loss of flame;
To sell preferment; grovel in the dust,
The slave of interest and the slave of lust;
To lick his lordship's shoes, and find a flaw
In every statute that opposed his law;
To carry orders to the guiding tool,
To flatter --- with the hopes of rule;
To send congratulations to the man,
Who stands so well affected to the clan—
(To --- whose conscientious mind
Does universal service to mankind,
When, red with justice and the royal cause,
His bloody musket shook with court-applause:
When monarchs, representatives of God,
Honoured the rascal with a gracious nod,
Three ghosts in George's sanguine field were seen,
And two struck horror into Bethnal Green;
Soft Pity's voice, unnoticed by the Crown,
Stole in a murmur through the weeping town;
And Freedom, wandering restless and alone,
Saw no redress expected from the throne,
Then bade remonstrance wear a bolder dress,
And loudly supplicate, and force success:
--- heard, and, resting on his mace,
“The usual fees, my lord, and state the case.”
“Three thousand, and reversion to your son:”
“The seals, my lord, are mine, the matter's done.”
“This house of foolish cits, and drunken boys,

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Offends my ears, like Broderip's horrid noise:
'Tis a flat riot by the statute made,
Destructive to our happiness and trade.”
“Thy action, --- is just in law,
In the defence of ministry I'll draw;
Nor doubt I, when in solemn pomp arrayed,
To act as bravely, be as richly paid.”
So --- spoke, and in his usual way
When giving out his syllables for pay,
With happy fluency he scattered round
His nicely culled varieties of sound,
Unmeaning, unconnected, false, unfair:
All he can boast is modulated air)—
To bribe the common council to protest;
To learn a witless alderman to jest;
The father of the city to deprave,
And add the hummed apostate to the knave,
Who wisely disinherits his first-born,
And doats upon the blossom of his horn;
To fill up places by preferment void,
Is Dyson by the quadruples employed;
He bears the message of the gartered Fate,
The running footman to the favoured great:
When spent with labour, overgrown with spoil,
Some barony or earldom pays his toil.

Whilst two chief actors wisely keep away,
And two before the mystic curtain play;
The goddess, mourning for her absent god,
Approves the flying measures with a nod.
Her approbation, with her power combined,

140

Exalts her tools above the common kind.
She turns the movements of the dark machine,
Nor is her management of state unseen;
Regardless of the world, she still turns round,
And tumbles --- to his native ground.
Great in possession of a mystic ring,
She leads the Lords and Commons in a string.
Where is the modest Muse of Jones retired,
So bashful, so impatiently admired?
Ah! is that noble emulation dead,
Which bade the laurels blossom on his head,
When Kew's enchanting heap of stones was sung
In strains superior to a mortal tongue,
And kitchen-gardens most luxurious glowed
With flowers which ne'er in Mayor's window blowed;
Where cabbages, exotic'ly divine,
Were tagged in feet, and measured with a line?
Ah! what invention graced the happy strain;
Well might the laureate bard of Kew be vain!
Thy Clifton too! how justly is the theme
As much the poet's as his jingling dream.
Who but a Muse inventive, great, like thine,
Could honour Bristol with a nervous line?
What generous, honest genius would have sold
To knaves and catamites his praise for gold?

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To leave alone the notions which disgrace
This hawking, peddling, catamitish place,
Did not thy iron conscience blush to write
This Tophet of the gentle arts polite?
Lost to all learning, elegance, and sense,
Long had the famous city told her pence;
Avarice sat brooding in her white-washed cell,
And pleasure had a hut at Jacob's Well.
Poor Hickey, ruined by his fine survey,
Perpetuates Elton in the saving lay.
A mean assembly-room, absurdly built,
Boasted one gorgeous lamp of copper gilt;
With farthing candles, chandeliers of tin,
And services of water, rum, and gin.
There, in the dull solemnity of wigs,
The dancing bears of commerce murder jigs;
Here dance the dowdy belles of crooked trunk,
And often, very often, reel home drunk;
Here dance the bucks with infinite delight,
And club to pay the fiddlers for the night,
While Broderip's hum-drum symphonies of flats
Rival the harmony of midnight cats.
What charms has music, when great Broderip sweats
To torture sound to what his brother sets!
With scraps of ballad tunes, and gude Scotch sangs,
Which god-like Ramsay to his bagpipe twangs,
With tattered fragments of forgotten plays,
With Playford's melody to Sternhold's lays,
This pipe of science, mighty Broderip, comes,
And a strange, unconnected jumble thrums.
Roused to devotion in a sprightly air,

142

Danced into piety, and jigged to prayer;
A modern hornpipe's murder greets our ears,
The heavenly music of domestic spheres;
The flying band in swift transition hops
Through all the tortured, vile burlesque of stops.
Sacred to sleep, in superstitious key
Dull, doleful diapasons die away;
Sleep spreads his silken wings, and lulled by sound,
The vicar slumbers, and the snore goes round;
Whilst Broderip at his passive organ groans
Through all his slow variety of tones.
How unlike Allen! Allen is divine!
His touch is sentimental, tender, fine;
No little affectations e'er disgraced
His more refined, his sentimental taste:
He keeps the passions with the sound in play,
And the soul trembles with the trembling key.

143

The groves of Kew, however misapplied
To serve the purposes of lust and pride,
Were, by the greater monarch's care, designed
A place of conversation for the mind;
Where solitude and silence should remain,
And conscience keep her sessions and arraign.
But ah! how fallen from that better state!
'Tis now a heathen temple of the great,
Where sits the female pilot of the helm,
Who shakes oppression's fetters through the realm.
Her name is Tyranny, and in a string
She leads the shadow of an infant king;
Dispenses favours with a royal hand,
And marks, like destiny, what lord shall stand;
Her four-fold representative displays
How future statesmen may their fortune raise;
While thronging multitudes their offerings bring,
And bards, like Jones, their panegyrics sing.
The loyal aldermen, a troop alone,
Protest their infamy, to serve the throne;
The merchant-tailor minister declares
He'll mutilate objections with his shears.
Sir Robert, in his own importance big,
Settles his potent, magisterial wig;

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Having another legacy in view,
Accepts the measure and improves it too.
Before the altar all the suppliants bow,
And would repeat a speech if they knew how;
A gracious nod the speaking image gave,
And scattered honours upon every knave.
The loyal sons of Caledonia came,
And paid their secret homage to the dame,
Then swore, by all their hopes of future reign,
Each measure of the junto to maintain,
The orders of the ministry to take,
And honour --- for his father's sake.
Well pleased, the goddess dignified his grace,
And scattered round the benefits of place;
With other pensions blessed his lordship's post,
And smiled on murdered --- injured ghost.
Through all the happy lovers' numerous clan
The inexhausted tides of favour ran:
---, ---, happy in a name,
Emerged from poverty to wealth and fame;
And English taxes paid (and scarcely too)
The noble generosity of Kew.
Kew! happy subject for a lengthened lay,
Though thousands write, there's something still to say;
Thy garden's elegance, thy owner's state,
The highest in the present list of fate,
Are subjects where the muse may wildly range,
Unsatiate, in variety of change;
But hold, my dedication is forgot;
Now—shall I praise some late-ennobled Scot?
Exalt the motto of a Highland lord,

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And prove him great, like Guthrie, by record?
(Though were the truth to all the nobles known,
The vouchers he refers to are his own.)
Shall I trace ---'s powerful pedigree,
Or show him an attorney's clerk, like me?
Or shall I rather give to --- its due,
And to a Burgum recommend my Kew?
Why sneers the sapient Broughton at the man?
Broughton can't boast the merit Burgum can.
How lofty must imagination soar,
To reach absurdities unknown before!
Thanks to thy pinions, Broughton, thou hast brought
From the moon's orb a novelty of thought.

Burgum wants learning—see the lettered throng
Banter his English in a Latin song.
If in his jests a discord should appear,
A dull lampoon is innocently dear:
Ye sage, Broughtonian, self-sufficient fools,
Is this the boasted justice of your schools?
Burgum has parts, parts which will set aside
The laboured acquisitions of your pride;
Uncultivated now his genius lies,
Instruction sees his latent talents rise;
His gold is bullion, yours debased with brass,
Impressed with folly's head to make it pass.
But Burgum swears so loud, so indiscreet,
His thunders echo through the listening street;

146

Ye rigid Christians, formally severe,
Blind to his charities, his oaths you hear;
Observe his actions—calumny must own
A noble soul is in these actions shown:
Though dark this bright original you paint,
I'd rather be a Burgum than a saint.

Hail, Inspiration! whose Cimmerian night
Gleams into day with every flying light:
If Moses caught thee at the parted flood;
If David found thee in a sea of blood;
If Mahomet with slaughter drenched thy soil,
On loaded asses bearing off the spoil;
If thou hast favoured Pagan, Turk, or Jew,
Say, had not Broughton inspiration too?
Such rank absurdities debase his line,
I almost could have sworn he copied thine.
Hail, Inspiration! whose auspicious ray
Immortalized great Armstrong in a day:
Armstrong, whose Caledonian genius flies
Above the reach of humble judgment's ties;
Whose lines prosaic regularly creep,
Sacred to dulness and congenial sleep.
Hail, Inspiration! whose mysterious wings
Are strangers to what rigid [Johnson] sings;
By him thy airy voyages are curbed,
Nor moping wisdom's by thy flight disturbed;
To ancient lore and musty precepts bound,
Thou art forbid the range of fairy ground.
Irene creeps so classical and dry,

147

None but a Greek philosopher can cry;
Through five long acts unlettered heroes sleep,
And critics by the square of learning weep.
Hark! what's the horrid bellowing from the stage?
Oh! 'tis the ancient chorus of the age;
Grown wise, the judgment of the town refines,
And in a philosophic habit shines;
Models each pleasure in scholastic taste,
And heavenly Greece is copied and disgraced.
The False Alarm, in style and subject great,
The mighty Atlas of a falling state,
Which makes us happy, insolent, and free,
O god-like Inspiration! came from thee.
--- whose brazen countenance, like mine,
Scorns in the polish of a blush to shine,
Scrupled to vindicate his fallen Grace,
Or hint he acted right—till out of place.
Why will the lovers of the truth deplore
That miracles and wonders are no more?
Why will the deists, impudently free,
Assert what cannot now, could never be?
Why will religion suffer the reproach,
Since --- dresses well and keeps a coach?
Bristol and --- have bestowed their pence,
And --- after --- echoed sense.
Since --- once by providence, or chance,
Tumbled his lengthening quavers in a dance:
Since Catcott seemed to reason, and display
The meaning of the words he meant to say:
Since Warburton, his native pride forgot,
Bowed to the garment of the ruling Scot;

148

And offered --- ghost (a welcome gift)
And hoped, in gratitude, to have a lift;
An universal primacy, at least,
A fit reward for such a stirring priest:
Since Horne imprudently displayed his zeal,
And made his foe the powerful reasons feel:
Since --- has meaning in his last discourse:
Since --- borrowed honesty by force,
And trembled at the measures of the friend
His infant conscience shuddered to defend:
Since --- in his race of vice outrun,
Scrupled to do what --- since hath done.
Hail, Inspiration! Catcott learns to preach,
And classic Lee attempts by thee to teach;
By inspiration North directs his tools,
And [Bute] above by inspiration rules,
Distils the thistles of the gartered crew,
And drains the sacred reservoirs of Kew.
Inspired with hopes of rising in the kirk,
Here --- whines his Sunday's journey-work;
Soft --- undeniably a saint,
Whimpers in accent so extremely faint,
You see the substance of his empty prayer,
His nothing to the purpose in his air;
His sermons have no arguments, 'tis true,
Would you have sense and pretty figures too?
With what a swimming elegance and ease
He scatters out distorted similes!
It matters not how wretchedly applied,
Saints are permitted to set sense aside:
This oratorial novelty in town
Dies into fame, and ogles to renown;
The dowdy damsels of his chosen tribe

149

Are fee'd to heaven, his person is the bribe;
All who can superficial talk admire,
His vanity, not beauty, sets on fire:
Enough of --- let him ogle still,
Convince with nonsense, and with foppery kill,
Pray for the secret measures of the great,
And hope the Lord will regulate the state:
Florid as Klopstock, and as quick as me
At double epithet or simile;
His despicable talents cannot harm
Those who defy a Johnson's “False Alarm.”
Hail, Inspiration! piously I kneel,
And call upon thy sacred name with zeal;
Come, spread thy sooty pinions o'er my pen,
Teach me the secrets of the lords of men;
In visionary prospects let me see
How [Bute] employs his sense, derived from thee;
Display the mystic Sibyl of the isle,
And dress her wrinkled features in a smile;
Of past and secret measures let me tell,
How [Grafton] pilfered power, and Chatham fell:
Chatham, whose patriotic actions wear
One single brand of infamy—the peer;
Whose popularity again thinks fit
To lose the coronet, revive the Pitt;
And in the upper house (where leading peers
Practise a minuet step, or scratch their ears)
He warmly undertakes to plead the cause
Of injured liberty, and broken laws.

150

Hail, Inspiration! from whose fountain flow
The strains which circulate through all the Row,
With humblest reverence thy aid I ask,
For this laborious and herculean task.
How difficult to make a piece go down
With booksellers, reviewers, and the town;
None with a Christian, charitable love,
A kind and fixed intention to approve,
The wild excursions of the Muse will read.
Alas! I was not born beyond the Tweed!
To public favour I have no pretence,
If public favour is the child of sense:
To paraphrase on Home in Armstrong's rhymes,
To decorate Fingal in sounding chimes,
The self-sufficient Muse was never known,
But shines in trifling dulness all her own.
Where, rich with painted bricks and lifeless white,
Four dirty alleys in a cross unite,
Where avaricious sons of commerce meet
To do their public business in the street;
There stands a dome to dulness ever dear,
Where --- models justice by the square;
Where bulky aldermen display their sense,
And Bristol patriots wager out their pence:
Here, in the malice of my stars confin'd,
I call the Muses to divert my mind;
Come, Inspiration! mysticly instil
The spirit of a --- in my quill,
An equal terror to the small and great,
To lash an alderman or knave of state.

Here --- thundering through the spacious court,
Grounds equity on Jeffries's report;

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And oft, explaining to the lords of trade,
Proves himself right by statutes never made;
In --- able politicians see
Another --- in epitome.
If good Sir --- did not bawl so loud,
What has he else superior to the crowd?
His peruke boasts solemnity of law:
E'en there might counsellors detect a flaw.
But Providence is just, as doctors tell,
That triple mystery's a good sentinel;
Was --- not so noisy, and more wise,
The body corporate would close its eyes.
Useless the satire, stoically wise,
Bristol can literary rubs despise;
You'll wonder whence the wisdom may proceed,
'Tis doubtful if her aldermen can read;
This as a certainty the Muse may tell,
None of her common-councilmen can spell:
Why, busy --- wilt thou trouble ---
Their worships hear, and understand like thee.

Few beings absolutely boast the man,
Few have the understanding of a Spanne;
Every idea of a city mind
Is to commercial incidents confined:
True! some exceptions to this general rule
Can show the merchant blended with the fool.
--- with magisterial air commits;
--- presides the chief of city wits;
In jigs and country-dances --- shines,
And --- slumbers over Mallet's lines:
His ample visage, oft on nothing bent,
Sleeps in vacuity of sentiment.

152

When in the venerable gothic hall,
Where fetters rattle, evidences bawl,
Puzzled in thought by equity or law,
Into their inner room his senses draw;
There, as they snore in consultation deep,
The foolish vulgar deem him fast asleep.

If silent --- senatorial pride
Rose into being as his avarice died,
Scattering his hundreds, rattling in his coach,
What mortal wonders at the fair ---
Though royal horners burn in powdered flames,
When fell the pretty nymph of many names?
Still we behold her fiery virtue stand,
As firm as --- regulating band.
--- within whose sacerdotal face,
Add all the honorary signs of grace;
Great in his accent, greater in his size,
But mightier still in turtle and mince-pies:
Whose entertaining flows of eloquence,
In spite of affectation, will be sense.
Why, patriotic [Johnson], art thou still?
What pensioned lethargy has seized thy quill?
Hast thou forgot the murmurs of applause
Which buzzed about the leader of the cause;
When, dressed in metaphors, the fluent ---
Rose from his chair, and slumbering drawled his speech?
When --- fired with loyalty and place,
Forsook his breeding to defend his Grace:
And saving --- from a furious blow,
Insisted on his plan, a double row.

153

Rise --- bid remonstrance tell the throne,
When freedom suffers, London's not alone:
Take off the load of infamy and shame
Which lies on Bristol's despicable name;
Revive thy ardour for thy country's cause,
And live again in honour and applause.
Alas! the patriot listens to his whore,
And popularity is heard no more;
The dying voice of liberty's forgot,
No more he drinks damnation to the Scot.
--- no longer in his quarrel fights;
No further dulness witty --- writes:
In organs and an organist renowned,
He rises into notice by a sound,
Commemorates his spirit in a tone,
By --- created, rival of a groan:
O be his taste immortal as the lays!
For --- invents and tuneful [Broderip] plays;
And this harmonious jangling of the spheres,
To give the whole connexion, Bristol hears.

Hail, Kew! thy more important powers I sing,
Powers which direct the conscience of a king;
The English number daringly would soar
To thy first power, [the Babylonish whore.]
Come, Newton, and assist me to explain
The hidden meanings of the present reign.
Newton, accept the tribute of a line

154

From one whose humble genius honours thine;
Mysterious shall the mazy numbers seem,
To give thee matter for a future dream;
Thy happy talent, meanings to untie,
My vacancy of meaning may supply;
And where the Muse is witty in a dash,
Thy explanations may enforce the lash.
How shall the line, grown servile in respect,
To North or Sandwich infamy direct?
Unless a wise ellipsis intervene,
How shall I satirize the sleepy dean?
Perhaps the Muse might fortunately strike
A highly finished picture, very like;
But deans are all so lazy, dull, and fat,
None could be certain worthy Barton sat.
Come then, my Newton, leave the musty lines
Where Revelation's farthing-candle shines;
In search of hidden truths let others go—
Be thou the fiddler to my puppet-show.
What are these hidden truths but secret lies,
Which from diseased imaginations rise?
What if our politicians should succeed
In fixing up the ministerial creed,
Who could such golden arguments refuse,
Which melts and proselytes the hardened Jews?
When universal reformation bribes
With words and wealthy metaphors, the tribes,
To empty pews the brawny chaplain swears,
Whilst none but trembling superstition hears.
When ministers, with sacerdotal hands,
Baptize the flock in streams of golden sands,

155

Through every town conversion wings her way,
And conscience is a prostitute for pay.

Faith removes mountains; like a modern dean,
Faith can see virtues which were never seen:
Our pious ministry this sentence quote,
To prove their instrument's superior vote;
Whilst Luttrell, happy in his lordship's voice,
Bids faith persuade us 'tis the people's choice.
This mountain of objections to remove,
This knotty, rotten argument to prove,
Faith insufficient, Newton caught the pen,
And proved by demonstration, one was ten:
What boots it if he reasoned right or no?
'Twas orthodox—the Thane would have it so.
Whoe'er shall doubts and false conclusions draw
Against the inquisition of the law,
With gaolers, chains, and pillories must plead,
And Mansfield's conscience settle right his creed.
“Is Mansfield's conscience then,” will Freedom cry,
“A standard-block to dress our notions by?
Why, what a blunder has the fool let fall!
That Mansfield has no conscience, none at all!”
Pardon me, Freedom, this and something more
The knowing writer might have known before;
But, bred in Bristol's mercenary cell,
Compelled in scenes of avarice to dwell,
What generous passion can my dross refine?
What besides interest can direct the line?

156

And should a galling truth, like this, be told
By me, instructed here to slave for gold,
My prudent neighbours (who can read) would see
Another Savage to be starved in me.
Faith is a powerful virtue everywhere;
By this once Bristol dressed, for Cato, Clare;
But now the blockheads grumble, Nugent's made
Lord of this idol, being lord of trade.
They bawled for Clare, when little in their eyes,
But cannot to the titled villain rise.
This state-credulity, a bait for fools,
Employs his lordship's literary tools;
Murphy, a bishop of the chosen sect,
A ruling pastor of the Lord's elect,
Keeps journals, posts, and magazines in awe,
And parcels out his daily statute-law.
Would you the bard's veracity dispute?
He borrows persecution's scourge of Bute,
An excommunication-satire writes,
And the slow mischief trifles till it bites.
This faith, the subject of a late divine,
Is not as unsubstantial as his line;
Though, blind and dubious to behold the right,
Its optics mourn a fixed Egyptian night,
Yet things unseen are seen so very clear,
She knew fresh muster would begin the year;

157

She knows that North, by Bute and conscience led,
Will hold his honours till his favour's dead,
She knows that Martin, ere he can be great,
Must practise at the target of the state:
If then his erring pistol should not kill,
Why Martin must remain a traitor still.
His gracious mistress, generous to the brave,
Will not neglect the necessary knave;
Since pious Chudleigh is become her Grace,
Martin turns pimp, to occupy her place.
Say, Rigby, in the honours of the door,
How properly a rogue succeeds a whore!
She knows (the subject almost slipt my quill
Lost in that pistol of a woman's will)—
She knows that Bute will exercise his rod,
The worthiest of the worthy sons of God.

Ah! (exclaims Catcott) this is saying much;
The Scripture tells us peace-makers are such.
Who can dispute his title? Who deny
What taxes and oppressions testify?
Who of the Thane's beatitude can doubt?
Oh! was but North as sure of being out!
And (as I end whatever I begin)
Was Chatham but as sure of being in!
Bute, foster-child of fate, dear to a dame
Whom satire freely would, but dare not, name—
(Ye plodding barristers, who hunt a flaw,
What treason would you from the sentence draw?
Tremble, and stand attentive as a dean,
Know, Royal Favour is the dame I mean.
To sport with royalty my Muse forbears,

158

And kindly takes compassion on my ears.
When once Shibbeare in glorious triumph stood
Upon a rostrum of distinguished wood,
Who then withheld his guinea or his praise,
Or envied him his crown of English bays?
But now Modestus, truant to the cause,
Assists the pioneers who sap the laws,
Wreaths infamy around a sinking pen,
Who could withhold the pillory again?)—
Bute, lifted into notice by the eyes
Of one whose optics always set to rise—
Forgive a pun, ye rationals, forgive
A flighty youth, as yet unlearnt to live;
When I have conned each sage's musty rule,
I may with greater reason play the fool;
Burgum and I, in ancient lore untaught,
Are always with our natures in a fault;
Though Camplin would instruct us in the part,
Our stubborn morals will not err by art.
Having in various starts from order strayed,
We'll call imagination to our aid—
See Bute astride upon a wrinkled hag,
His hand replenished with an opened bag,
Whence fly the ghosts of taxes and supplies,
The sales of places, and the last excise!
Upon the ground, in seemly order laid,
The Stuarts stretched the majesty of plaid;
Rich with the peer, dependants bowed the head,

159

And saw their hopes arising from the dead.
His countrymen were mustered into place,
And a Scotch piper rose above his Grace.
But say, astrologers, could this be strange?
The lord of the ascendant ruled the change;
And music, whether bagpipes, fiddles, drums,
All that has sense or meaning overcomes.
See now this universal favourite Scot,
His former native poverty forgot,
The highest member of the car of state,
Where well he plays at blindman's buff with fate;
If fortune condescends to bless his play,
And drop a rich Havannah in his way,
He keeps it, with intention to release
All conquests at the general day of peace:
When first and foremost to divide the spoil,
Some millions down might satisfy his toil;
To guide the car of war he fancied not,
Where honour and no money could be got.
The Scots have tender honours to a man:
Honour's the tie that bundles up the clan:
They want one requisite to be divine,
One requisite in which all others shine;
They're very poor; then who can blame the hand
Which polishes by wealth its native land?
And to complete the worth possessed before,
Gives every Scotchman one perfection more;
Nobly bestows the infamy of place,
And Campbell struts about in doubled lace?
Who says Bute bartered peace, and wisely sold
His king, his unioned countrymen, for gold?

160

When ministerial hirelings proofs deny,
If Musgrave could not prove it, how can I?
No facts unwarranted shall soil my quill,
Suffice it there's a strong suspicion still.
When Bute his iron rod of favour shook,
And bore his haughty temper in his look;
Not yet contented with his boundless sway,
Which all perforce must outwardly obey,
He thought to throw his chain upon the mind;
Nor would he leave conjecture unconfined.
We saw his measures wrong, and yet, in spite
Of reason, we must think those measures right;
Whilst curbed and checked by his imperious reign,
We must be satisfied, and not complain.
Complaints are libels, as the present age
Are all instructed by a law-wise sage,
Who, happy in his eloquence and fees,
Advances to preferment by degrees:
Trembles to think of such a daring step
As from a tool to Chancellor to leap;
But, lest his prudence should the law disgrace,
He keeps a longing eye upon the mace.
Whilst Bute was suffered to pursue his plan,
And ruin freedom as he raised the clan;
Could not his pride, his universal pride,
With working undisturbed be satisfied?
But when we saw the villany and fraud,
What conscience but a Scotchman's could applaud?

161

But yet 'twas nothing—cheating in our sight,
We should have hummed ourselves, and thought him right!
This faith, established by the mighty Thane,
Will long outlive the system of the Dane;
This faith—but now the number must be brief,
All human things are centred in belief;
And (or the philosophic sages dream)
All our most true ideas only seem:
Faith is a glass to rectify our sight,
And teach us to distinguish wrong from right.
By this corrected, Bute appears a Pitt,
And candour marks the lines which Murphy writ;
Then let this faith support our ruined cause,
And give us back our liberties and laws:
No more complain of favourites made by lust,
No more think Chatham's patriot reasons just,
But let the Babylonish harlot see
We to her Baal bow the humble knee.
Lost in the praises of that favourite Scot,
My better theme, my Newton, was forgot:
Blessed with a pregnant wit, and never known
To boast of one impertinence his own,
He warped his vanity to serve his God,
And in the paths of pious Fathers trod.
Though genius might have started something new,
He honoured lawn, and proved his scripture true;
No literary worth presumed upon,
He wrote, the understrapper of St. John;
Unravelled every mystic simile,
Rich in the faith, and fanciful as me;

162

Pulled Revelation's sacred robes aside,
And saw what priestly modesty would hide;
Then seized the pen, and with a good intent
Discovered hidden meanings never meant.
The reader who, in carnal notions bred,
Has Athanasius without reverence read,
Will make a scurvy kind of Lenten feast
Upon the tortured offals of The Beast:
But if, in happy superstition taught,
He never once presumed to doubt in thought;
Like Catcott, lost in prejudice and pride,
He takes the literal meaning for his guide;
Let him read Newton, and his bill of fare:—
What prophecies unprophesied are there!
In explanations he's so justly skilled,
The pseudo-prophet's mysteries are fulfilled;
No superficial reasons have disgraced
The worthy prelate's sacerdotal taste;
No flimsy arguments he holds to view,
Like Camplin, he affirms it, and 'tis true.
Faith, Newton, is the tottering churchman's crutch,
On which our blest religion builds so much;
Thy fame would feel the loss of this support,
As much as Sawney's instruments at court;
For secret services without a name,
And mysteries in religion, are the same.
But to return to state, from whence the Muse
In wild digression smaller themes pursues;
And rambling from his Grace's magic rod,
Descends to lash the ministers of God.

163

Both are adventures perilous and hard,
And often bring destruction on the bard;
For priests, and hireling ministers of state,
Are priests in love, infernals in their hate:
The church, no theme for satire, scorns the lash,
And will not suffer scandal in a dash:
Not Bute so tender in his spotless fame,
Not Bute so careful of his lady's name.

Has sable lost its virtue? Will the bell
No longer scare a straying sprite to hell?
Since souls, when animating flesh, are sold
For benefices, bishoprics, and gold;
Since mitres, nightly laid upon the breast,
Can charm the night-mare conscience into rest;
And learn'd exorcists very lately made
Greater improvements in the living trade;
Since Warburton (of whom in future rhymes)
Has settled reformation on the times;
Whilst from the teeming press his numbers fly,
And, like his reasons, just exist and die;
Since, in the steps of clerical degree,
All through the telescope of fancy see;
(Though Fancy under Reason's lash may fall,
Yet Fancy in Religion's all in all):
Amongst these cassocked worthies, is there one
Who has the conscience to be Freedom's son?
Horne, patriotic Horne, will join the cause,
And tread on mitres to procure applause.
Prepare thy book and sacerdotal dress
To lay a walking spirit of the press,

164

Who knocks at midnight at his lordship's door,
And roars in hollow voice—“a hundred more!”
“A hundred more!” his rising greatness cries,
Astonishment and terror in his eyes;
“A hundred more! by G*d, I won't comply!”
“Give,” quoth the voice, “I'll raise a hue and cry;
On a wrong scent the leading beagle's gone,
Your interrupted measures may go on;
Grant what I ask, I'll witness to the Thane,
I'm not another Fanny of Cock Lane.”
“Enough,” says Mungo, “re-assume the quill;
And what we can afford to give, we will.”

When Bute, the ministry and people's head,
With royal favour pensioned Johnson dead;
His works, in undeserved oblivion sunk,
Were read no longer, and the man was drunk.
Some blockhead, ever envious of his fame,
Massacred Shakespeare in the doctor's name:
The public saw the cheat, and wondered not—
Death is of all mortality the lot.
Kenrick has wrote his elegy, and penned
A piece of decent praise for such a friend;
And universal cat-calls testified
How mourned the critics when the genius died.
But now, though strange the fact to deists seem,
His ghost is risen in a venal theme,
And emulation maddened all the Row
To catch the strains which from a spectre flow,
And print the reasons of a bard deceased,
Who once gave all the town a weekly feast.
As beer, to every drinking purpose dead,

165

Is to a wondrous metamorphose led,
And opened to the actions of the winds,
In vinegar a resurrection finds;
His genius dead, and decently interred,
The clamorous noise of duns sonorous heard,
Soured into life, assumed the heavy pen,
And saw existence for an hour again;
Scattered his thoughts spontaneous from his brain,
And proved we had no reason to complain;
Whilst from his fancy figures budded out,
As hair on humid carcases will sprout.
Horne! set this restless, shallow spirit still,
And from his venal fingers snatch the quill.
If, in defiance of the priestly word,
He still will scribble floridly absurd,
North is superior in a potent charm
To lay the terrors of a “False Alarm:”
Another hundred added to his five,
No longer is the stumbling-block alive;
Fixed in his chair, contented and at home,
The busy “Rambler” will no longer roam.
Released from servitude (such 'tis to think)
He'll prove it perfect happiness to drink:
Once (let the lovers of Irene weep)
He thought it perfect happiness to sleep.
Irene, wondrous composition, came,
To give the audience rest, the author fame;
A snore was much more grateful than a clap,
And pit, box, gallery, proved it in a nap.
Hail Johnson! chief of bards, thy rigid laws
Bestowed due praise, and critics snored applause.

166

If from the humblest station, in a place
By writers fixed eternal in disgrace,
Long in the literary world unknown
To all but scribbling blockheads of its own;
Then only introduced, unhappy fate!
The subject of a satire's little hate;
Whilst equally the butt of ridicule,
The town was dirty, and the bard a fool:—
If from this place, where catamites are found
To swarm like Scots on honorary ground,
I may presume to exercise the pen,
And write a greeting to the best of men:
Health to the ruling minister I send,
Nor has that minister a better friend.
Greater, perhaps, in titles, pensions, place,
He inconsiderately prefers his Grace.
Ah, North! a humble bard is better far,
Friendship was never found near Grafton's star;
Bishops are not by office orthodox:
Who'd wear a title, when they've titled Fox?
Nor does the honorary shame stop here,
Have we not Weymouth, Barrington, and Clare?
If noble murders, as in tale we're told,
Made heroes of the ministers of old,
In noble murders Barrington's divine,
His merit claims the laureated line.
Let officers of train-bands wisely try
To save the blood of citizens, and fly
When some bold urchin beats his drum in sport,
Or tragic trumpets entertain the court;

167

The captain flies through every lane in town,
And safe from danger wears his civic crown:
Our noble Secretary scorned to run,
But with his magic wand discharged the gun.
I leave him to the comforts of his breast,
And midnight ghosts, to howl him into rest.
Health to the minister, of [Bute] the tool,
Who with the little vulgar seems to rule.
But since the wiser maxims of the age
Mark for a noddy Ptolemy the sage;
Since Newton and Copernicus have taught
Our blundering senses ever are in fault;
The wise look further, and the wise can see
The hands of Sawney actuating thee;
The clock-work of thy conscience turns about,
Just as his mandates wind thee in and out.
By this political machine, my rhymes
Conceive an estimation of the times;
And, as the wheels of state in measures move,
See how time passes in the world above:
Whilst tottering on the slippery edge of doubt,
Sir Fletcher sees his train-bands flying out:
Thinks the minority, acquiring state,
Will undergo a change, and soon be great.
North issues out his hundreds to the crew,
Who catch the atoms of the golden dew;
The etiquette of wise Sir Robert takes,
The doubtful stand resolved, and one forsakes;
He shackles every vote in golden chains,
And Johnson in his list of slaves maintains.
Rest, Johnson, hapless spirit, rest and drink,

168

No more defile thy claret-glass with ink:
In quiet sleep repose thy heavy head,
--- disdains to---upon the dead:
Administration will defend thy fame,
And pensions add importance to thy name.
When sovereign judgment owns thy works divine,
And every writer of reviews is thine,
Let busy Kenrick vent his little spleen,
And spit his venom in a magazine.
Health to the minister! nor will I dare
To pour out flattery in his noble ear;
His virtue, stoically great, disdains
Smooth adulation's entertaining strains,
And, red with virgin modesty, withdraws
From wondering crowds and murmurs of applause.
Here let no disappointed rhymer say,
Because his virtue shuns the glare of day,
And, like the conscience of a Bristol dean,
Is never by the subtlest optic seen,
That virtue is with North a priestish jest,
By which a mere nonentity's expressed.
No, North is strictly virtuous, pious, wise,
As every pensioned Johnson testifies.
But, reader, I had rather you should see
His virtues from another than from me:
Bear witness, Bristol, nobly prove that I
By thee or North was never paid to lie.
Health to the minister! his vices known,
(As every lord has vices of his own,
And all who wear a title think to shine
In forming follies foreign to his line;)
His vices shall employ my ablest pen,
And mark him out a miracle of men.

169

Then let the Muse the healing strain begin,
And stamp repentance upon every sin.
Why this recoil?—And will the dauntless Muse
To lash a minister of state refuse?
What! is his soul so black, thou canst not find
Aught like a human virtue in his mind?
Then draw him so, and to the public tell
Who owns this representative of hell:
Administration lifts her iron chain,
And truth must abdicate her lawful reign.

Oh, Prudence! if, by friends or counsel swayed,
I had thy saving institutes obeyed,
And, lost to every love but love of self,
A wretch like Harris, living but in pelf;
Then, happy in a coach or turtle-feast,
I might have been an alderman at least.
Sage are the arguments by which I'm taught
To curb the wild excursive flights of thought:
Let Harris wear his self-sufficient air,
Nor dare remark, for Harris is a mayor;
If Catcott's flimsy system can't be proved,
Let it alone, for Catcott's much beloved;
If Burgum bought a Bacon for a Strange,
The man has credit, and is great on 'change;
If Camplin ungrammatically spoke,
'Tis dangerous on such men to break a joke;
If you from satire could withhold the line,
At every public hall perhaps you'd dine.

170

“I must confess,” exclaims a prudent sage,
“You're really something clever for your age:
Your lines have sentiment, and now and then
A dash of satire stumbles from your pen:
But ah! that satire is a dangerous thing,
And often wounds the writer with its sting;
Your infant Muse should sport with other toys,
Men will not bear the ridicule of boys.
Some of the aldermen, (for some, indeed,
For want of education cannot read;
And those who can, when they aloud rehearse
What Collins, happy genius! 'titles verse,
So spin the strains sonorous through the nose,
The hearer cannot call it verse or prose,)
Some of the aldermen may take offence
At your maintaining them devoid of sense;
And if you touch their aldermanic pride,
Bid dark reflection tell how Savage died!
Go to --- and copy worthy ---
Ah! what a sharp experienced genius that:
Well he prepares his bottle and his jest,
An alderman is no unwelcome guest;
Adulterate talents and adulterate wine
May make another draw[l]ing rascal shine;
His known integrity outvies a court,
His the dull tale, original the port:
Whilst loud he entertains the sleepy cits,
And rates his wine according to his wits,
Should a trite pun by happy error please,

171

His worship thunders at the laughing Mease;
And --- inserts this item in his bill,
Five shillings for a jest with every gill.
How commendable this, to turn at once
To good account the vintner and the dunce,
And, by a very hocus-pocus hit,
Dispose of damaged claret and bad wit,
Search through the ragged tribe who drink small beer,
And sweetly echo in his worship's ear,—
“What are the wages of the tuneful nine,
What are their pleasures when compared to mine?
Happy I eat, and tell my numerous pence,
Free from the servitude of rhyme or sense:
The sing-song Whitehead ushers in the year
With joy to Briton's king and sovereign dear,
And, in compliance to an ancient mode,
Measures his syllables into an ode;
Yet such the sorry merit of his Muse,
He bows to deans and licks his lordship's shoes.
Then leave the wicked, barren way of rhyme,
Fly far from poverty—be wise in time—
Regard the office more—Parnassus less—
Put your religion in a decent dress;
Then may your interest in the town advance,
Above the reach of muses or romance.
Besides, the town (a sober, honest town,
Which smiles on virtue, and gives vice a frown)
Bids censure brand with infamy your name,

172

I, even I, must think you are to blame.
Is there a street within this spacious place
That boasts the happiness of one fair face,
Where conversation does not turn on you,
Blaming your wild amours, your morals too?
Oaths, sacred and tremendous oaths you swear,
Oaths that might shock a Luttrell's soul to hear;
These very oaths, as if a thing of joke,
Made to betray, intended to be broke;
Whilst the too tender and believing maid,
(Remember pretty Fanny) is betrayed;
Then your religion—ah, beware! beware!
Although a deist is no monster here,
Yet hide your tenets—priests are powerful foes,
And priesthood fetters justice by the nose:
Think not the merit of a jingling song
Can countenance the author's acting wrong;
Reform your manners, and with solemn air
Hear Catcott bray, and Robins squeak in prayer.
Robins, a reverend, cully-mully puff,
Who thinks all sermons, but his own, are stuff;
When harping on the dull, unmeaning text,
By disquisitions he's so sore perplexed,
He stammers, instantaneously is drawn
A bordered piece of inspiration-lawn,
Which being thrice unto his nose applied,
Into his pineal gland the vapours glide;
And now we hear the jingling doctor roar
On subjects he dissected thrice before.

173

Honour the scarlet robe, and let the quill
Be silent when old Isaac eats his fill.
Regard thy interest, ever love thyself,
Rise into notice as you rise in pelf;
The Muses have no credit here, and fame
Confines itself to the mercántile name.
Then clip Imagination's wing, be wise,
And great in wealth, to rëal greatness rise.
Or if you must persist to sing and dream,
Let only panegyric be your theme;
With pulpit adulation tickle Cutts,
And wreathe with ivy Garden's tavern-butts;
Find sentiment in Dampier's empty look,
Genius in Collins, harmony in Rooke;
Swear Broderip's horrid noise the tuneful spheres,
And rescue Pindar from the songs of Shears.
Would you still further raise the fairy ground,
Praise Broughton,—for his eloquence profound,
His generosity, his sentiment,
His active fancy, and his thoughts on Lent:
Make North a Chatham, canonize his Grace,
And beg a pension, or procure a place.”

Damned narrow notions! notions which disgrace
The boasted reason of the human race:
Bristol may keep her prudent maxims still,
I scorn her prudence, and I ever will:
Since all my vices magnified are here,
She cannot paint me worse than I appear;

174

When raving in the lunacy of ink,
I catch my pen, and publish what I think.

Damned narrow notions! tending to disgrace
The boasted reason of the human race.
Bristol may keep her prudent maxims still,
But know, my saving friends, I never will.
The composition of my soul is made
Too great for servile, avaricious trade;
When raving in the lunacy of ink,
I catch the pen, and publish what I think.

175

North is a creature, and the king's misled;
Mansfield and Norton came as justice fled;
Few of our ministers are over wise:—
Old Harpagon's a cheat, and Taylor lies.
When cooler judgment actuates my brain,
My cooler judgment still approves the strain;
And if a horrid picture greets your view,
Where it continues still, if copied true.
Though in the double infamy of lawn
The future bishopric of Barton's drawn,
Protect me, fair ones, if I durst engage
To serve ye in this catamitish age,
To exercise a passion banished hence,
And summon satire in to your defence.
Woman, of every happiness the best,
Is all my heaven,—religion is a jest.
Nor shall the Muse in any future book
With awe upon the chains of favour look:
North shall in all his vices be displayed,
And Warburton in lively pride arrayed;
Sandwich shall undergo the healing lash,
And read his character without a dash;
Mansfield, surrounded by his dogs of law,
Shall see his picture drawn in every flaw;
Luttrell (if satire can descend so low)
Shall all his native little vices show;
And Grafton, though prudentially resigned,
Shall view a striking copy of his mind;
Whilst iron Justice, lifting up her scales,
Shall weigh the Princess Dowager of Wales.

176

COLIN INSTRUCTED.

(1770).

Young Colin was as stout a boy
As ever gave a maiden joy;
But long in vain he told his tale
To black-eyed Biddy of the Dale.

“Ah why,” the whining shepherd cried,
“Am I alone your smiles denied?
I only tell in vain my tale
To black-eyed Biddy of the Dale.”

“True, Colin,” said the laughing dame,
You only whimper out your flame;
Others do more than sigh their tale
To black-eyed Biddy of the Dale.”

He took the hint, &c.

A BURLESQUE CANTATA.

(1770).

RECITATIVE.

Mounted aloft in Bristol's narrow streets
Where pride and luxury with meanness meets,
A sturdy collier pressed the empty sack,
A troop of thousands swarming on his back;

177

When sudden to his rapt ecstatic view
Rose the brown beauties of his red-haired Sue
Music spontaneous echoed from his tongue,
And thus the lover rather bawled than sung.

AIR.

Zaunds! Pri'thee, pretty Zue, is it thee!
Odzookers, I mun have a kiss!
A sweetheart should always be free,
I whope you wunt take it amiss.
Thy peepers are blacker than caul,
Thy carcase is sound as a sack,
Thy visage is whiter than ball,
Odzookers, I mun have a smack!

RECITATIVE.

The swain descending, in his raptured arms
Held fast the goddess, and despoiled her charms.
Whilst, locked in Cupid's amorous embrace,
His jetty skinnis met her red bronzed face,
It seemed the sun when labouring in eclipse;
And on her nose he stamped his sable lips,
Pleased[OMITTED]

178

SONG. FANNY OF THE HILL.

1770.

If gentle Love's immortal fire
Could animate the quill,
Soon should the rapture-speaking lyre
Sing Fanny of the Hill.

My panting heart incessant moves,
No interval 'tis still;
And all my ravished nature loves
Sweet Fanny of the Hill.

Her dying soft expressive eye,
Her elegance must kill;
Ye Gods! how many thousands die
For Fanny of the Hill.

A love-taught tongue, angelic air,
A sentiment, a skill
In all the graces of the fair,
Mark Fanny of the Hill.

Thou mighty Power, eternal Fate,
My happiness to fill,
O! bless a wretched lover's state
With Fanny of the Hill.

179

NARVA AND MORED,

AN AFRICAN ECLOGUE.

Recite the loves of Narva and Mored,
The priest of Chalma's triple idol said.
High from the ground the youthful warriors sprung,
Loud on the concave shell the lances rung:
In all the mystic mazes of the dance,
The youths of Bonny's burning sands advance,
Whilst the soft virgin panting looks behind,
And rides upon the pinions of the wind;
Ascends the mountain's brow, and measures round
The steepy cliffs of Chalma's sacred ground:
Chalma, the god whose noisy thunders fly
Through the dark covering of the midnight sky,
Whose arm directs the close-embattled host,
And sinks the labouring vessels on the coast;
Chalma, whose excellence is known from far,
From Lupa's rocky hill to Calabar:
The guardian god of Afric and the isles,
Where nature in her strongest vigour smiles;
Where the blue blossom of the forky thorn
Bends with the nectar of the opening morn:
Where ginger's aromatic, matted root,
Creep through the mead, and up the mountains shoot.

180

Three times the virgin, swimming on the breeze,
Danced in the shadow of the mystic trees:
When, like a dark cloud spreading to the view,
The first-born sons of war and blood pursue;
Swift as the elk they pour along the plain;
Swift as the flying clouds distilling rain.
Swift as the boundings of the youthful roe,
They course around, and lengthen as they go.
Like the long chain of rocks, whose summits rise
Far in the sacred regions of the skies,
Upon whose top the blackening tempest lours,
Whilst down its side the gushing torrent pours;
Like the long cliffy mountains which extend
From Lorbar's cave, to where the nations end,
Which sink in darkness, thickening and obscure,
Impenetrable, mystic, and impure;
The flying terrors of the war advance,
And round the sacred oak repeat the dance.
Furious they twist around the gloomy trees,
Like leaves in autumn twirling with the breeze.
So, when the splendour of the dying day
Darts the red lustre of the watery way,
Sudden beneath Toddida's whistling brink
The circling billows in wild eddies sink,
Whirl furious round, and the loud bursting wave
Sinks down to Chalma's sacerdotal cave,
Explores the palaces on Zira's coast,
Where howls the war-song of the chieftain's ghost;
Where the artificer, in realms below,
Gilds the rich lance or beautifies the bow,
From the young palm-tree spins the useful twine,
Or makes the teeth of elephants divine;
Where the pale children of the feeble sun,

181

In search of gold, through every climate run:
From burning heat to freezing torments go,
And live in all vicissitudes of woe.
Like the loud eddies of Toddida's sea,
The warriors circle the mysterious tree:
Till, spent with exercise, they spread around
Upon the opening blossoms of the ground.
The priestess, rising, sings the sacred tale,
And the loud chorus echoes through the dale.

PRIESTESS.
Far from the burning sands of Calabar;
Far from the lustre of the morning-star;
Far from the pleasure of the holy morn;
Far from the blessedness of Chalma's horn:
Now rest the souls of Narva and Mored,
Laid in the dust, and numbered with the dead.
Dear are their memories to us, and long,
Long shall their attributes be known in song.
Their lives were transient as the meadow-flower,
Ripened in ages, withered in an hour.
Chalma reward them in his gloomy cave,
And open all the prisons of the grave!
Bred to the service of the godhead's throne,
And living but to serve his god alone,
Narva was beauteous as the opening day
When on the spangling waves the sunbeams play,
When the mackaw, ascending to the sky,
Views the bright splendour with a steady eye.
Tall, as the house of Chalma's dark retreat,
Compact and firm, as Rhadal Ynca's fleet,
Completely beauteous as a summer's sun,
Was Narva, by his excellence undone.

182

Where the soft Togla creeps along the meads,
Through scented calamus and fragrant reeds;
Where the sweet Zinsa spreads its matted bed,
Lived the still sweeter flower, the young Mored;
Black was her face, as Togla's hidden cell;
Soft, as the moss where hissing adders dwell.
As to the sacred court she brought a fawn,
The sportive tenant of the spicy lawn,
She saw and loved! and Narva too forgot
His sacred vestment and his mystic lot.
Long had the mutual sigh, the mutual tear,
Burst from the breast and scorned confinement there;
Existence was a torment! O my breast!
Can I find accents to unfold the rest?
Locked in each other's arms, from Hyga's cave
They plunged relentless to a watery grave;
And, falling, murmured to the powers above,
“Gods! take our lives, unless we live to love.”

Shoreditch, May 2, 1770.

A SONG, ADDRESSED TO MISS C---AM, OF BRISTOL.

As Spring now approaches with all his gay train,
And scatters his beauties around the green plain,
Come then, my dear charmer, all scruples remove,
Accept of my passion, allow me to love.

183

Without the soft transports which love must inspire,
Without the sweet torment of fear and desire,
Our thoughts and ideas are never refined,
And nothing but winter can reign in the mind.

But love is the blossom, the spring of the soul,
The frosts of our judgments may check, not control;
In spite of each hindrance, the spring will return,
And nature with transports refining will burn.

This passion celestial by heav'n was designed
The only fixed means of improving the mind;
When it beams on the senses, they quickly display
How great and prolific, how pleasing the ray.

Then come, my dear charmer, since love is a flame
Which polishes nature, and angels your frame,
Permit the soft passion to rise in your breast,—
I leave your good nature to grant me the rest.

Shall the beautiful flow'rets all blossom around,
Shall Flora's gay mantle enamel the ground,
Shall the red-blushing blossom be seen on the tree,
Without the least pleasure or rapture for me?

And yet, if my charmer should frown when I sing,
Ah! what are the beauties, the glories of spring?
The flow'rs will be faded, all happiness fly,
And clouds veil the azure of every bright sky.

London, May 4, 1770.

184

ENQUIRY AFTER HAPPINESS.

Though happiness be each man's darling aim,
Yet folly too, too often plays the game;
To that one centre all our wishes tend,
We fly the means but still pursue the end.
No wonder then we find our hopes were vain;
The wretch who shuns his cure must still complain.
In labyrinths of crooked error lost,
Or on life's sea with raging tempest tossed,
We by no compass steer, but blindly stray,
And, knowing we are wrong, ne'er ask the way.
“How hard, how very hard to walk,” they cry,
“In thorny roads while flowery meads are nigh!”
But know, deluded mortals, virtue's race
Is run in paths of pleasantness and peace;
Though narrow, yet sufficient for the few
Who have this pearl of price alone in view.
“But how,” they ask, “can we this gem obtain?”
Be that thy task, O Lucas, to explain.
As Milton, eyeless bard, has sweetly sung
The fatal course whence all our woes first sprung,
So he has taught, though not in measured phrase,
A lesson which deserves full greater praise;
How man (as once in Eden) may be blest,

185

And paradise be found in every breast.
O! may you find it there, may you obtain
The bliss which too much knowledge rendered vain,
By tasting boldly the fair fruit again.

Lucas like Milton, wondrous bard, was blind,
Like Milton too, illumined was his mind:
Then ask thy Guide, for he who seeks shall find.

D. B.

HAPPINESS.

1770.

Since happiness was not ordained for man,
Let's make ourselves as easy as we can;
Possessed with fame or fortune, friend or w---e,
But think it happiness—we want no more.

Hail, Revelation! sphere-enveloped dame,
To some divinity, to most a name,
Reason's dark-lantern, superstition's sun,
Whose cause mysterious and effect are one—
From thee, ideal bliss we only trace,
Fair as Ambition's dream, or Beauty's face,
But, in reality, as shadowy found
As seeming truth in twisted mysteries bound.
What little rest from over-anxious care
The lords of Nature are designed to share,

186

To wanton whim and prejudice we owe.
Opinion is the only God we know.
Our furthest wish, the Deity we fear,
In different subjects, differently appear.
Where's the foundation of religion placed?
On every individual's fickle taste.

The narrow way the priest-rid mortals tread,
By superstitious prejudice misled.—
This passage leads to heaven—yet, strange to tell!
Another's conscience finds it lead to hell.
Conscience, the soul-chameleon's varying hue,
Reflects all notions, to no notion true.—
The bloody son of Jesse, when he saw
The mystic priesthood kept the Jews in awe,
He made himself an ephod to his mind,
And sought the Lord, and always found him kind:
In murder, horrid cruelty, and lust,
The Lord was with him, and his actions just.

Priestcraft! thou universal blind of all,
Thou idol, at whose feet all nations fall;
Father of misery, origin of sin,
Whose first existence did with fear begin;
Still sparing deal thy seeming blessings out,
Veil thy Elysium with a cloud of doubt.
Since present blessings in possession cloy,
Bid hope in future worlds expect the joy:
Or, if thy sons the airy phantoms slight,
And dawning Reason would direct them right,
Some glittering trifle to their optics hold;
Perhaps they'll think the glaring spangle gold,
And, madded in the search of coins and toys,
Eager pursue the momentary joys.

187

Mercator worships Mammon, and adores
No other deity but gold and w---es.
Catcott is very fond of talk and fame—
His wish, a perpetuity of name;
Which to procure, a pewter altar's made,
To bear his name and signify his trade;
In pomp burlesqued the rising spire to head,
To tell futurity a pewterer's dead.
Incomparable Catcott, still pursue
The seeming happiness thou hast in view:
Unfinished chimneys, gaping spires complete,
Eternal fame on oval dishes beat;
Ride four-inch bridges, clouded turrets climb,
And bravely die—to live in after-time.
Horrid idea! if on rolls of fame
The twentieth century only find thy name,
Unnoticed this, in prose or tagging flower,
He left his dinner to ascend the tower!
Then, what avails thy anxious spitting pain?
Thy laugh-provoking labours are in vain.
On matrimonial pewter set thy hand;
Hammer with every power thou canst command;
Stamp thy whole self, original as 'tis,
To propagate thy whimsies, name, and phiz—
Then, when the tottering spires or chimneys fall,
A Catcott shall remain admired by all.

Eudo, who has some trifling couplets writ,
Is only happy when he's thought a wit—
Thinks I've more judgment than the whole Reviews,
Because I always compliment his Muse.
If any mildly would reprove his faults,
They're critics envy-sickened at his thoughts.

188

To me he flies, his best-belovèd friend,
Reads me asleep, then wakes me to commend.

Say, sages—if not sleep-charmed by the rhyme—
Is flattery, much-loved flattery, any crime?
Shall dragon Satire exercise his sting,
And not insinuating Flattery sing?
Is it more noble to torment than please?
How ill that thought with rectitude agrees!

Come to my pen, companion of the lay,
And speak of worth where merit cannot say;
Let lazy Barton undistinguished snore,
Nor lash his generosity to Hoare;
Praise him for sermons of his curate bought,
His easy flow of words, his depth of thought;
His active spirit, ever in display,
His great devotion when he drawls to pray;
His sainted soul distinguishably seen,
With all the virtues of a modern dean.

Varo, a genius of peculiar taste,
His misery in his happiness is placed;
When in soft calm the waves of Fortune roll,
A tempest of reflection storms the soul;
But what would make another man distressed
Gives him tranquillity and thoughtless rest:
No disappointment can his peace invade,
Superior to all troubles not self-made.
This character let gray Oxonians scan,
And tell me of what species he's a man;
Or be it by young Yeatman criticised,
Who damns good English if not latinized.

189

In Aristotle's scale the Muse he weighs,
And damps her little fire with copied lays!
Versed in the mystic learning of the schools,
He rings bob-majors by Leibnitzian rules.

Pulvis, whose knowledge centres in degrees,
Is never happy but when taking fees.
Blessed with a bushy wig and solemn grace,
Catcott admires him for a fossil face.

When first his farce of countenance began,
Ere the soft down had marked him almost man,
A solemn dulness occupied his eyes,
And the fond mother thought him wondrous wise;—
But little had she read in Nature's book,
That fools assume a philosophic look.

O Education, ever in the wrong,
To thee the curses of mankind belong;
Thou first great author of our future state,
Chief source of our religion, passions, fate:
On every atom of the Doctor's frame
Nature has stamped the pedant with his name;
But thou hast made him (ever wast thou blind)
A licensed butcher of the human kind.

Mouldering in dust the fair Lavinia lies;
Death and our Doctor closed her sparkling eyes.
O all ye Powers, the guardians of the world!
Where is the useless bolt of vengeance hurled?
Say, shall this leaden sword of plague prevail,
And kill the mighty where the mighty fail?
Let the red bolus tremble o'er his head,
And with his cordial julep strike him dead!

190

But to return—in this wide sea of thought,
How shall we steer our notions as we ought?
Content is happiness, as sages say—
But what's content? The trifle of a day.
Then, friend, let inclination be thy guide,
Nor be by superstition led aside.
The saint and sinner, fool and wise attain
An equal share of easiness and pain.

ELEGY.

[Why blooms the radiance of the morning sky?]

Why blooms the radiance of the morning sky?
Why spring the beauties of the season round?
Why buds the blossom with the glossy dye?
Ah! why does nature beautify the ground?

Whilst, softly floating on the zephyr's wing,
The melting accents of the thrushes rise,
And all the heavenly music of the spring,
Steal on the sense, and harmonize the skies;

191

When the racked soul is not attuned to joy,
When sorrow an internal monarch reigns:
In vain the choristers their powers employ,
'Tis hateful music, and discordant strains.

The velvet mantle of the skirted mead,
The rich varieties of Flora's pride,
Till the full bosom is from trouble freed,
Disgusts the eye, and bids the big tear glide.

Once, ere the gold-haired sun shot the new ray
Through the grey twilight of the dubious morn,
To woodlands, lawns, and hills, I took my way,
And listened to the echoes of the horn;

Dwelt on the prospect, sought the varied view,
Traced the meanders of the bubbling stream:
From joy to joy uninterrupted flew,
And thought existence but a fairy dream.

Now through the gloomy cloister's lengthening way,
Through all the terror superstition frames,
I lose the minutes of the lingering day,
And view the night light up her pointed flames.

I dare the danger of the mouldering wall,
Nor heed the arch that totters o'er my head;
O! quickly may the friendly ruin fall,
Release me of my love, and strike me dead.

M---! cruel, sweet, inexorable fair,
O! must I unregarded seek the grave?
Must I from all my bosom holds repair,
When one indulgent smile from thee would save?

192

Let mercy plead my cause; and think, oh! think!
A love like mine but ill deserves thy hate:
Remember, I am tottering on the brink,
Thy smile or censure seals my final fate.

Shoreditch, May 20, [1770].

THE METHODIST.

Says Tom to Jack, “'tis very odd,
These representatives of God,
In colour, way of life, and evil,
Should be so very like the devil.”
Jack, understand, was one of those,
Who mould religion in the nose,
A red-hot methodist; his face
Was full of puritanic grace,
His loose lank hair, his slow gradation,
Declared a late regeneration;
Among the daughters long renowned,
For standing upon holy ground;
Never in carnal battle beat,
Though sometimes forced to a retreat.
But Catcott, hero as he is,
Knight of incomparable phiz,
When pliant doxy seems to yield,
Courageously forsakes the field.

193

Jack, or to write more gravely, John,
Through hills of Wesley's works had gone;
Could sing one hundred hymns by rote,
Hymns which will sanctify the throat:
But some indeed composed so oddly,
You'd swear 'twas bawdy songs made godly.

May, 1770.

THE PROPHECY.
[_]

The attribution of this poem is questionable.

“When times are at the worst they will certainly mend.”

I

This truth of old was Sorrow's friend,
“Times at the worst will surely mend,”
The difficulty's then, to know
How long Oppression's clock can go;
When Britain's sons may cease to sigh,
And hope that their redemption's nigh.

II

When Vice exalted takes the lead,
And Vengeance hangs but by a thread;
Gay peeresses turned out o' doors;
Whoremasters peers, and sons of whores;
Look up, ye Britons! cease to sigh,
For your redemption draweth nigh.

194

III

When vile Corruption's brazen face
At council-board shall take her place,
And lords and commoners resort
To welcome her at Britain's court;
Look up, ye Britons! cease to sigh,
For your redemption draweth nigh.

IV

See Pension's harbour, large and clear,
Defended by St. Stephen's pier!
The entrance safe, by current led,
Tiding round G[rafton]'s jetty-head;
Look up, ye Britons! cease to sigh,
For your redemption draweth nigh.

V

When civil-power shall snore at ease,
While soldiers fire—to keep the peace;
When murders sanctuary find,
And petticoats can Justice blind;
Look up, ye Britons! cease to sigh,
For your redemption draweth nigh.

VI

Commerce o'er bondage will prevail,
Free as the wind that fills her sail;
When she complains of vile restraint,
And power is deaf to her complaint;
Look up, ye Britons! cease to sigh,
For your redemption draweth nigh.

VII

When raw projectors shall begin
Oppression's hedge, to keep her in;

195

She in disdain will take her flight,
And bid the Gotham fools good-night.
Look up, ye Britons! cease to sigh,
For your redemption draweth nigh.

VIII

When tax is laid, to save debate,
By prudent ministers of state;
And what the people did-not give
Is levied by prerogative;
Look up, ye Britons! cease to sigh,
For your redemption draweth nigh.

IX

When popish bishops dare to claim
Authority, in George's name;
By treason's hand set up, in spite
Of George's title, William's right;
Look up, ye Britons! cease to sigh,
For your redemption draweth nigh.

X

When popish priest a pension draws
From starved exchequer, for the cause;
Commissioned proselytes to make
In British realms, for Britain's sake;
Look up, ye Britons! cease to sigh,
For your redemption draweth nigh.

XI

When snug in power, sly recusants
Make laws for British protestants;
And d---g William's revolution,
As justices, claim execution;

196

Look up, ye Britons! cease to sigh,
For your redemption draweth nigh.

XII

When soldiers, paid for our defence,
In wanton pride slay innocence;
Blood from the ground for vengeance reeks,
Till Heaven the inquisition makes;
Look up, ye Britons! cease to sigh,
For your redemption draweth nigh.

XIII

When at Bute's feet poor Freedom lies,
Marked by the priest for sacrifice,
And doomed a victim for the sins
Of half the outs, and all the ins;
Look up, ye Britons! cease to sigh,
For your redemption draweth nigh.

XIV

When stewards pass a boot account,
And credit for the gross amount;
Then, to replace exhausted store,
Mortgage the land to borrow more;
Look up, ye Britons! cease to sigh,
For your redemption draweth nigh.

XV

When scrutineers, for private ends,
Against the vote declare their friends;
Or judge, as you stand there alive,
That five is more than forty-five;

197

Look up, ye Britons! cease to sigh,
For your redemption draweth nigh.

XVI

When George shall condescend to hear
The modest suit, the humble prayer;
A Prince, to purpled pride unknown!
No favourites disgrace the throne!
Look up, ye Britons! sigh no more,
For your redemption's at the door.

XVII

When time shall bring your wish about,
Or seven-years lease, you sold, is out,
No future contract to fulfil;
Your tenants holding at your will;
Raise up your heads! your right demand!
For your redemption's in your hand.

XVIII

Then is your time to strike the blow,
And let the slaves of Mammon know
Briton's true sons a bribe can scorn,
And die as free as they were born.
Virtue again shall take her seat,
And your redemption stand complete.

198

FABLES FOR THE COURT.

Addressed to Mr. Michael Clayfield, of Bristol.

THE SHEPHERDS.

Morals, as critics must allow,
Are almost out of fashion now;
And, if we credit Dodsley's word,
All applications are absurd.
What has the author to be vain in
Who knows his fable wants explaining,
And substitutes a second scene
To publish what the first should mean?
Besides, it saucily reflects
Upon the reader's intellects.
When, armed in metaphors and dashes,
The bard some noble villain lashes,
'Tis a direct affront, no doubt,
To think he cannot find it out.
The sing-song trifles of the stage,
The happy favourites of the age,
Without a meaning crawl along,
And, for a moral, give a song.
The tragic Muse, once pure and chaste,
Is turned a whore, debauched by taste:
Poor Juliet never claims the tear
Till borne triumphant on the bier;

199

And Ammon's son is never great
Till seated in his chair of state.
And yet the harlot scarce goes down,
She's been so long upon the town,
Her morals never can be seen.
Not rigid Johnson seems to mean,
A tittering epilogue contains
The cobweb of a poet's brains.
If what the Muse prepares to write
To entertain the public sight
Should in its characters be known,
The knowledge is the reader's own.
When villany and vices shine,
You won't find Sandwich in the line;
When little rascals rise to fame,
Sir Fletcher cannot read his name;
Nor will the Muse disgressive run
To call the king his mother's son,
But, plodding on the beaten way,
With honest North prepares the lay:
And should the meaning figures please
The dull reviews of laughing ease,
No politician can dispute
My knowledge of the Earl of Bute.

A flock of sheep, no matter where,
Was all an aged shepherd's care;
His dogs were watchful, and he took
Upon himself the ruling crook:
His boys who wattled in the fold
Were never bought and never sold.
'Tis true, by strange affection led,
He visited a turnip-bed;

200

And, fearful of a winter storm,
Employed his wool to keep it warm;
But that, comparatively set
Against the present heavy debt,
Was but a trifling piece of state,
And hardly make a villain great.
The shepherd died—the dreadful toll
Entreated masses for his soul.
The pious bosom and the back
Shone in the farce of courtly black.
The weeping Laureate's ready pen
Lamented o'er the best of men;
And Oxford sent her load of rhyme
In all varieties of chime,
Administering due consolation,
Well seasoned with congratulation.
Cambridge her ancient lumber wrote,
And what could Cambridge do but quote?
All sung, though very few could read,
And none but mercers mourned indeed.
The younger shepherd caught the crook,
And was a monarch in his look.
The flock rejoiced, and could no less
Than pay their duty and address;
And Edinburgh was heard to sing,
“Now heaven be praised for such a king!”
All joined in joy and expectation,
And “Union!” echoed through the nation.
A council called—[OMITTED]

201

THE DEATH OF NICOU.

AN AFRICAN ECLOGUE.

On Tiber's banks, Tiber, whose waters glide
In slow meanders down to Gaigra's side;
And circling all the horrid mountain round,
Rushes impetuous to the deep profound;
Rolls o'er the ragged rocks with hideous yell;
Collects its waves beneath the earth's vast shell:
There for a while in loud confusion hurled,
It crumbles mountains down, and shakes the world,
Till borne upon the pinions of the air,
Through the rent earth the bursting waves appear;
Fiercely propelled the whitened billows rise,
Break from the cavern and ascend the skies:
Then lost and conquered by superior force,
Through hot Arabia holds its rapid course:
On Tiber's banks, where scarlet jasmines bloom,
And purple aloes shed a rich perfume;
Where, when the sun is melting in his heat,
The reeking tigers find a cool retreat,
Bask in the sedges, lose the sultry beam,
And wanton with their shadows in the stream;
On Tiber's banks, by sacred priests revered,
Where in the days of old a god appeared;
'Twas in the dead of night, at Chalma's feast,
The tribe of Alra slept around the priest.
He spoke; as evening-thunders, bursting near,

202

His horrid accents broke upon the ear;
Attend, Alraddas, with your sacred priest!
“This day the sun is rising in the east;
The sun which shall illumine all the earth
Now, now is rising, in a mortal birth.”
He vanished like a vapour of the night,
And sunk away in a faint blaze of light;
Swift from the branches of the holy oak,
Horror, confusion, fear, and torment broke:
And still, when midnight trims her mazy lamp,
They take their way through Tiber's watery swamp.
On Tiber's banks, close ranked, a warring train,
Stretched to the distant edge of Galca's plain:
So, when arrived at Gaigra's highest steep,
We view the wide expansion of the deep,
See, in the gilding of her watery robe,
The quick declension of the circling globe,
From the blue sea a chain of mountains rise,
Blended at once with water and with skies,
Beyond our sight in vast extension curled,
The check of waves, the guardians of the world.
Strong were the warriors as the ghost of Cawn,
Who threw the Hill-of-archers to the lawn,
When the soft earth at his appearance fled,
And rising billows played around his head:
When a strong tempest, rising from the main,
Dashed the full clouds unbroken on the plain.
Nicou, immortal in the sacred song,
Held the red sword of war, and led the strong;
From his own tribe the sable warriors came,
Well tried in battle, and well known in fame.
Nicou, descended from the god of war
Who lived coeval with the morning star:
Narada was his name; who cannot tell

203

How all the world through great Narada fell!
Vichon, the god who ruled above the skies,
Looked on Narada, but with envious eyes:
The warrior dared him, ridiculed his might,
Bent his white bow, and summoned him to fight.
Vichon, disdainful, bade his lightnings fly,
And scattered burning arrows in the sky;
Threw down a star, the armour of his feet,
To burn the air with supernatural heat;
Bid a loud tempest roar beneath the ground;
Lifted the sea, and all the earth was drowned.
Narada still escaped; a sacred tree
Lifted him up, and bore him through the sea.
The waters still ascending fierce and high,
He towered into the chambers of the sky:
There Vichon sat, his armour on his bed,
He thought Narada with the mighty dead.
Before his seat the heavenly warrior stands,
The lightning quivering in his yellow hands.
The god astonished dropped; hurled from the shore,
He dropped to torments, and to rise no more.
Headlong he falls; 'tis his own arms compel,
Condemned in ever-burning fires to dwell.
From this Narada, mighty Nicou sprung;
The mighty Nicou, furious, wild, and young,
Who led th'embattled archers to the field,
And bore a thunderbolt upon his shield:
That shield his glorious father died to gain,
When the white warriors fled along the plain,
When the full sails could not provoke the flood,
Till Nicou came and swelled the seas with blood.
Slow, at the end of his robust array,
The mighty warrior pensive took his way,
Against the son of Nair, the young Rorest,

204

Once the companion of his youthful breast.
Strong were the passions of the son of Nair,
Strong, as the tempest of the evening air;
Insatiate in desire; fierce as the boar;
Firm in resolve as Cannie's rocky shore.
Long had the gods endeavoured to destroy
All Nicou's friendship, happiness, and joy:
They sought in vain, till Vicat, Vichon's son,
Never in feats of wickedness outdone,
Saw Nica, sister to the Mountain-king,
Dressed beautiful, with all the flowers of spring:
He saw, and scattered poison in her eyes;
From limb to limb in varied forms he flies;
Dwelt on her crimson lip, and added grace
To every glossy feature of her face.
Rorest was fired with passion at the sight,
Friendship and honour sunk to Vicat's right;
He saw, he loved, and burning with desire,
Bore the soft maid from brother, sister, sire.
Pining with sorrow, Nica faded, died,
Like a fair aloe in its morning pride.
This brought the warrior to the bloody mead,
And sent to young Rorest the threatening reed.
He drew his army forth: oh! need I tell
That Nicou conquered, and the lover fell:
His breathless army mantled all the plain,
And Death sat smiling on the heaps of slain.
The battle ended, with his reeking dart
The pensive Nicou pierced his beating heart:
And to his mourning valiant warriors cried,
“I, and my sister's ghost are satisfied.”

Brooke Street, Holborn, June 12, 1770.

205

TO MISS BUSH, OF BRISTOL.

Before I seek the dreary shore
Where Gambia's rapid billows roar,
And foaming pour along,
To you I urge the plaintive strain,
And though a lover sings in vain,
Yet you shall hear the song.

Ungrateful, cruel, lovely maid,
Since all my torments were repaid
With frowns or languid sneers;
With assiduities no more
Your captive will your health implore,
Or tease you with his tears.

Now to the regions where the sun
Does his hot course of glory run,
And parches up the ground;
Where o'er the burning cleaving plains,
A long eternal dog-star reigns,
And splendour flames around:

206

There will I go, yet not to find
A fire intenser than my mind,
Which burns a constant flame:
There will I lose thy heavenly form,
Nor shall remembrance, raptured, warm,
Draw shadows of thy frame.

In the rough element, the sea,
I'll drown the softer subject, thee,
And sink each lovely charm:
No more my bosom shall be torn,
No more, by wild ideas borne,
I'll cherish the alarm.

Yet, Polly, could thy heart be kind,
Soon would my feeble purpose find
Thy sway within my breast:
But hence, soft scenes of painted woe!
Spite of the dear delight I'll go,
Forget her, and be blest.

Celorimon.

207

THE REVENGE.

A BURLETTA; Acted at Marylebone Gardens, 1770; with additional Songs.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Jupiter — Mr. Reinhold.
Bacchus — Mr. Bannister.
Cupid — Master Cheney.
Juno — Mrs. Thompson.

Act I.

Scene I.

JUPITER.

Recitative.

I swear by Styx, this usage is past bearing;
My lady Juno ranting, tearing, swearing!
Why, what the devil will my godship do,
If blows and thunder cannot tame a shrew?

How happy the life
Of a governing wife,
How charming, how easy, the swift minutes pass;
Let her do what she will,
The husband is still,
And but for his horns you would think him an ass.

210

How happy the spouse
In his dignified brows;
How worthy with heroes and monarchs to class:
Both above and below,
Experience will shew,
But take off the horns, and each husband's an ass.

JUPITER.

Recitative.

[Aside
Zounds, I'll take heart of grace, and brave her clapper;
And, if my courage holds, egad, I'll strap her:
Through all Olympus shall the thunders roll,
And earth shall echo to the mustard-bowl;
Should she prove sturdy, by the Lord, I'll heave hence,
Down to some brandy shop, this noisy grievance.

Air.

What means this horrid rattle?
And must that tongue of riot
Wage one eternal battle
With happiness and quiet?

JUNO.

Air continued.

What means your saucy question?
D'ye think I mind your bluster?
Your godship's always best in
Words, thunder, noise, and fluster.

JUPITER.

Recitative.

Hence, thou eternal tempest, from our regions,
And yell in concert with infernal legions:
Hence, or be calm—our will is fate—away hence,
Or on the lightning's wings you'll find conveyance.

211

JUNO.

Recitative.

I brave your vengeance—

JUPITER.
Oh! 'tis most provoking!

JUNO.

Should not my spirit better my condition,
I've one way left—remonstrance and petition
To all the gods in senate: 'tis no joking—

Air.

I will never tamely bear
All my wrongs and slights, sir;
Heaven and all the gods shall hear
How you spend your nights, sir:
Drinking, swearing,
Roaring, tearing,
Wenching, roving everywhere;
Whilst poor I
At home must lie,
Wishing, scheming,
Sighing, dreaming,
Grasping nothing but the air.

JUPITER.

Recitative.

O how shall I escape the swelling clatter—
I'll slit her tongue, and make short work o'th' matter.

Air.

Fury, cease,
Give me peace,

212

Still your racket,
Or your jacket
I'll be drubbing,
For your snubbing;
By the gods, you shall knock under.
Must you ever
Thus endeavour,
Rumbling,
Grumbling,
Rowling,
Growling,
To outsound the noisy thunder?

JUNO.

Recitative.

[Aside.
Ah! I'm quite out here—plaguily mistaken—
The man's in earnest—I must save my bacon;
Since scolding but provokes him,
A method I'll pursue.
I'll soothe him, tickle, coax him,
Then I shall have my due.

Air.

Ah, cruel, cruel Jove,
And is it thus a love,
So pure, so chaste, so strong as mine,
Is slighted, disrespected,
Unnoticed and neglected,
Returned with such a love as thine?

JUPITER.

Air.

Did the foolish passion tease ye,
Would you have a husband please ye,

213

Suppliant, pliant, amorous, easy?
Never rate him like a fury:
By experience I'll assure ye,
Kindness, and not rage, must cure ye.

JUNO.

Recitative.

[Aside.
He's in the right on't—hits it to a tittle—
But Juno must display her tongue a little.

Air.

I own my error, I repent;
Let thy sparkling eyes behold me,
Let thy lovely arms infold me;
Let thy stubborn heart relent.

JUPITER.

Recitative.

Egad, why this is more than I desire,
'Tis from the frying-pan to meet the fire;
Zounds, I've no stomach to the marriage-bed;
But something must be either sung or said.

Air.

What is love? the wise despise it;
'Tis a bubble blown for boys:
Gods and heroes should not prize it,
Jove aspires to greater joys.

JUNO.

Air continued.

What is love? 'tis nature's treasure,
'Tis the storehouse of her joys;
'Tis the highest heaven of pleasure,
'Tis a bliss which never cloys.

214

JUPITER.

Air continued.

I brought it to these gardens as imported,
'Tis monstrous strong—you need not twice be courted.
Come drink, my boy—

CUPID.
Hence, monster, hence! I scorn thy flowing bowl,
It prostitutes the sense, degenerates the soul.

BACCHUS.

Gadso, methinks the youngster's woundy moral!
He plays with ethics like a bell and coral.

Air.

'Tis madness to think
To judge ere you drink,—
The bottom all wisdom contains:
Then let you and I
Now drink the bowl dry,
We both shall grow wise for our pains.

CUPID.

Pray keep your distance, beast, and cease your bawling,
Or with this dart I'll send you catterwauling.

Air.

The charms of wine cannot compare
With the soft raptures of the fair:
Can drunken pleasures ever find
A place with love and womankind?

Can the full bowl pretend to vie
With the soft languish of the eye?
Can the mad roar our passions move,
Like gentle breathing sighs of love?

219

BACCHUS.

Go whine and complain
To the girls of the plain,
And sigh out your soul ere she come to the mind;
My mistress is here,
And, faith, I don't fear—
I always am happy, she always is kind.

Air changes.

A pox o' your lasses!
A shot of my glasses
Your arrow surpasses;
For nothing but asses
Will draw in your team;
Whilst thus I am drinking,
My misery sinking,
The cannikin clinking,
I'm lost to all thinking,
And care is a dream.

CUPID.
Provoking insolence!

BACCHUS.
What words it utters!
Alas! poor little creature, how it sputters!

CUPID.
Away, you drunkard wild—

BACCHUS.
Away, you silly child—

CUPID.
Fly, or else I'll wound thy soul.

BACCHUS.
Zounds, I'll drown thee in the bowl!

220

CUPID.
You rascally broacher,
You hogshead of liquor—

BACCHUS.
You shadow, you poacher!
Aha!—bring me a stick here—
I'll give you a trimmer,
You bladder of air—

CUPID.
You soul of a brimmer—

BACCHUS.
You tool of the fair—

CUPID.
You moveable tun,
You tippler, you sot—

BACCHUS.
Nay, then the work's done,
My arrow is shot.

[Bacchus throws the contents of the bowl in Cupid's face, and runs off.

Scene VII.

Cupid.

Recitative.

Kind usage this—it sorely shall befall him—
Here's my best arrow, and, by heaven, I'll maul him.
Revenge! revenge! Oh, how I long to wound him;
Now all the pangs of slighted love confound him!

221

Air.

No more in the bowl
His brutalized soul
Shall find a retreat from the lass:
I'll pay him,
And slay him,
His love shall be dry as his glass.

[Exit.

End of the First Act.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

Bacchus,
with his bowl on his head.

Air.

Alas, alas! how fast
I feel my spirits sinking;
The joys of life are past,
I've lost the power of drinking.
'Egad, I find at last
The heavenly charms of tinking,
And in the sound I cast
The miseries of thinking.

Recitative.

I'm plaguy ill—in devilish bad condition—
What shall I do?—I'll send for a physician:
But then the horrid fees—aye, there's the question—
'Tis losing all a man's estate in jesting,
Whilst nurses and apothecaries pártake—
Zounds, this will never do, 'twill make my heartache.
Come then, ye fiddlers, play up t'other bout,
I've a new nostrum, and I'll sing it out.

Air.

Air.

Happy, happy, happy hour!
Cupid now exalts his power;
In my breast the passion raging,
All my trembling frame engaging,
Sets my every sense on fire;
Let us, Maia, now retire.

JUNO.

Recitative.

But say, should I resign my virgin charms,
Would you be ever constant to my arms?
Would not your Juno rob me of your kindness?
Must you not truckle to her royal highness?

BACCHUS.
No! by the dirty waves of Styx I swear it,
My love is yours—my wife shall never share it.

227

JUNO,
aside.
'Tis a sad compliment, but I must bear it.

BACCHUS.

Air.

Then let's away,
And never delay,
'Tis folly to stay
From rapture and love:
I sicken, I die;
O come, let us fly,
From the blue vaulted sky
To the Paphian Grove.

JUNO.
Then away!
I obey
Love and nature.

BACCHUS.
Since 'tis so,
Let us go,
Dearest creature!

Scene IV.

Juno, Bacchus, Jupiter.
JUPITER.

Recitative.

I heard a voice within, or else I'm tipsy—
Maia, where are you? Come, you little gipsy.

228

BACCHUS.
Maia's with me, sir; who the devil are ye?
Sirrah, be gone; I'll trim you if you tarry.

JUPITER.
Fine lingo this to Jupiter!—why truly
I'm Jove the thunderer—

JUNO.
Out, you rascal, you lie—

BACCHUS.
'Tis I am Jupiter, I wield the thunder!
Zounds, I'll sneak off before they find the blunder.

[Aside.
JUPITER.
Breaking from above, below,
Flow, ye gleams of morning, flow;
Rise, ye glories of the day,
Rise at once with strengthened ray!

[Sudden light; all astonished.
BACCHUS.
Zounds! what can this mean?

JUNO.
I am all confusion!

JUPITER.

Your pardon, Juno, for this rude intrusion.
Insatiate monster! I may now be jealous;
If I've my mistresses, you have your fellows:
I'm now a very husband without doubt,
I feel the honours of my forehead sprout.

229

Air.

Was it for this, from morning to night,
Tempests and hurricanes dwelt on your tongue;
Ever complaining of coldness and slight,
And the same peal was eternally rung?
Was it for this I was stinted of joy,
Pleasure and happiness banished my breast,
Poisoned with fondness which ever must cloy,
Pinned to your sleeve, and denied to be blest?

Recitative.

I swear by Styx, and that's a horrid oath,
I'll have revenge, and that upon you both.

JUNO.
Nay, hear me, Jove, by all that's serious, too,
I swear I took the drunken dog for you.

BACCHUS.
And with as safe a conscience, I can say, as
I now stand here, I thought the chamber Maia's.

JUPITER.

It cannot be—

Air.

I'll not be cheated,
Nor be treated
Like the plaything of your will.

JUNO.
I'll not be slighted,
I'll be righted,
And I'll keep my spirits still.

230

JUPITER.
[To Bacchus.
You pitiful cully—

JUNO AND BACCHUS.
[To Jupiter.
You rakehelly bully,
Your blustering,
Clattering,
Flustering,
Spattering,
Thundering,
Blundering,
I defy.

JUPITER.
Go mind your toping,
Never come groping
Into my quarters, I desire, sir:
Here you come horning,
And adorning—

JUNO.
You are a liar, sir.

BACCHUS.
You lie, sir, you lie.

Scene V.

Juno, Bacchus, Jupiter, Cupid.
CUPID.

Recitative.

Here are the lovers all at clapper-clawing;
A very pretty scene for Collett's drawing.
Oh, oh, immortals, why this catterwauling?
Through all Olympus I have heard your bawling.

231

JUNO.
Ah! Cupid, your fine plotting, with a pox,
Has set [your victims] all in the wrong box.
Unravel quickly, for the Thunderer swears
To pull creation down about our ears.

CUPID.

Air.

Attend! attend! attend!
God, demi-god, and fiend,
Mortals and immortals see,
Hither turn your wondering eyes,
See the rulers of the skies
Conquered all, and slaves to me!

JUPITER.

Recitative.

Pox o' your brawling! haste, unriddle quickly,
Or, by the thunder of my power, I'll tickle ye!

CUPID.
You, Jove, as punctual to your assignation,
Came here, with Maia to be very happy;
But Juno, out of a fond inclination,
Stepped in her room, of all your love to trap ye.
Struck by my power, which the slave dared despise,
Bacchus was wounded too by Maia's eyes,
And hither stealing to appease his love,
Thought Juno Maia; she thought Bacchus Jove.
Here rests the matter:—are you all contented?

JUNO.
No, no! not I—

BACCHUS.
[Aside.
I'm glad I was prevented.

232

JUPITER.
A lucky disappointment, on my life,
All love is thrown away upon a wife:
How sad! my interruption could not please her.
She moves my pity—

CUPID.
Soften, Jove, and ease her.

JUPITER.

Juno, thy hand, the girls no more I'll drive at,
I will be ever thine—or wench more private.

THE HAPPY PAIR.

STREPHON.

Lucy, since the knot was tied,
Which confirmed thee Strephon's bride,
All is pleasure, all is joy,
Married love can never cloy;
Learn, ye rovers, learn from this,
Marriage is the road to bliss.

LUCY.

Whilst thy kindness every hour
Gathers pleasure with its power,
Love and tenderness in thee
Must be happiness to me.
Learn, ye rovers, learn from this,
Marriage is substantial bliss.

BOTH.

Godlike Hymen, ever reign,
Ruler of the happy train,
Lift thy flaming torch above
All the flights of wanton love;
Peaceful, solid, blest, serene,
Triumph in the married scene.

STREPHON.

Blest with thee, the sultry day
Flies on wings of down away.

236

Labouring o'er the yellow plain
Open to the sun and rain,
All my painful labours fly,
When I think my Lucy's nigh.

LUCY.

O my Strephon, could my heart
Happiness to thee impart,
Joy should sing away the hour,
Love should every pleasure shower:
Search my faithful breast, and see,
I am blest in loving thee.

BOTH.

Godlike Hymen, ever reign,
Ruler of the happy train,
Lift thy flaming torch above
All the flights of wanton love;
Peaceful, solid, blest, serene,
Triumph in the married scene.

A BACCHANALIAN.

[_]

SUNG BY MR. REINHOLD.

Bacchus, ever smiling power,
Patron of the festive hour!
Here thy genuine nectar roll
To the wide capacious bowl,
While gentility and glee
Make these gardens worthy thee.

237

Bacchus, ever mirth and joy,
Laughing, wanton, happy boy!
Here advance thy clustered crown,
Send thy purple blessings down;
With the Nine to please conspire,
Wreathe the ivy round the lyre.

THE INVITATION.

[_]

TO BE SUNG BY MRS. BARTHELEMON AND MASTER CHENEY.

Away to the woodlands, away!
The shepherds are forming a ring,
To dance to the honour of May,
And welcome the pleasures of Spring.
The shepherdess labours a grace,
And shines in her Sunday's array,
And bears in the bloom of her face
The charms and the beauties of May.
Away to the woodlands, away!
The shepherds are forming a ring, &c.

Away to the woodlands, away!
And join with the amorous train:
'Tis treason to labour to-day,
Now Bacchus and Cupid must reign.
With garlands of primroses made,
And crowned with the sweet blooming spray,
Through woodland, and meadow, and shade,
We'll dance to the honour of May.
Away, &c.

238

A BACCHANALIAN.

What is war and all its joys?
Useless mischief, empty noise.
What are arms and trophies won?
Spangles glittering in the sun.
Rosy Bacchus, give me wine,
Happiness is only thine!

What is love without the bowl?
'Tis a languor of the soul:
Crowned with ivy, Venus charms;
Ivy courts me to her arms.
Bacchus, give me love and wine,
Happiness is only thine!

THE VIRGIN'S CHOICE.

Young Strephon is as fair a swain
As e'er a shepherd of the plain
In all the hundred round;
But Ralph has tempting shoulders too,
And will as quickly buckle to
As any to be found.

Young Colin has a comely face,
And cudgels with an active grace,
In everything complete;

239

But Hobbinol can dance divine,
Gods! how his manly beauties shine,
When jigging with his feet!

Roger is very stout and strong,
And Thyrsis sings a heavenly song,
Soft Giles is brisk and small.
Who shall I choose? who shall I shun?
Why must I be confined to one?
Why can't I have them all?

240

THE WOMAN OF SPIRIT.

A BURLETTA.

1770.

[_]

Prose speeches have been omitted from this poem and songs in verse have been included as separate poems.

241

Air.

[Away with your maxims, and dull formal rules]

LADY TEMPEST.
Away with your maxims, and dull formal rules,
The shackles of pleasure, and trammels of fools;
For wisdom and prudence I care not a straw,
I'll act as I please, for my will is my law.

Air.

[Passion worse than age will plough]

LATITAT.
Passion worse than age will plough
Furrows on the frowning brow;
Rage and passion will disgrace
Every beauty of the face;
Whilst good-nature will supply
Beauties, which can never die.

243

Air.

[What are all our favourite joys?]

LADY TEMPEST.
What are all our favourite joys?
What are [all] our pleasures? [OMITTED]

244

AN ELEGY, On the Much Lamented Death of William Beckford, Esq.,

Late Lord-Mayor of, and Representative in Parliament for, the City of London. [Died June 21, 1770.]

I

Weep on, ye Britons—give your gen'ral Tear;
But hence, ye Venal—Hence, each titled Slave;
An honest pang should wait on Beckford's Bier,
And patriot Anguish mark the Patriot's Grave.

II

When, like the Roman, to his Field retir'd,
'Twas you, (surrounded by unnumber'd Foes)
Who call'd him forth, his Services requir'd,
And took from Age the Blessing of Repose.

245

III

With Soul impell'd by Virtue's sacred Flame,
To stem the Torrent of corruption's Tide,
He came, heav'n-fraught with Liberty! he came,
And nobly in his Country's Service died.

IV

In the last awful, the departing Hour,
When Life's poor Lamp more faint, and fainter grew;
As Mem'ry feebly exercis'd her Pow'r,
He only felt for Liberty and you.

V

He view'd Death's Arrow with a Christian Eye,
With Firmness only to a Christian known;
And nobly gave your Miseries that Sigh
With which he never gratified his own.

VI

Thou breathing Sculpture, celebrate his Fame,
And give his Laurel everlasting Bloom;
Record his Worth while Gratitude has Name,
And teach succeeding Ages from his Tomb.

246

VII

The Sword of Justice cautiously he sway'd,
His Hand for ever held the Balance right;
Each venial Fault with Pity he survey'd,
But murder found no Mercy in his Sight.

VIII

He knew, when Flatterers besiege a Throne,
Truth seldom reaches to a Monarch's Ear;
Knew, if oppress'd a loyal People groan,
'Tis not the Courtier's Int'rest He should hear.

IX

Hence, honest to his Prince, his manly Tongue
The Public Wrong and Loyalty convey'd,
While Titled Tremblers, ev'ry Nerve unstrung,
Look'd all around, confounded and dismay'd;

X

Look'd all around, astonish'd to behold
(Train'd up to Flatt'ry from their early Youth)
An artless, fearless Citizen unfold
To Royal Ears a mortifying Truth.

XI

Titles to him no Pleasure could impart,
No Bribes his rigid Virtue could controul;
The Star could never gain upon his Heart,
Nor turn the Tide of Honor in his Soul.

XII

For this his Name our Hist'ry shall adorn,
Shall soar on Fame's wide Pinions, all sublime,
'Till Heaven's own bright and never-dying Morn
Absorbs our little Particle of Time.

247

XIII

Far other Fate the venal Crew shall find,
Who sigh for Pomp, or languish after Strings;
And sell their native Probity of Mind,
For Bribes from Statesmen, or for Smiles from Kings.

XIV

And here a long inglorious List of Names
On my disturb'd Imagination croud;
“O! let them perish (loud the Muse exclaims)
Consign'd for ever to Oblivion's Cloud.

XV

“White be the Page that celebrates his Fame,
“Nor let one Mark of Infamy appear;
“Let not the Villain's mingle with his Name,
“Lest Indignation stop the swelling Tear.

XVI

“The swelling Tear should plenteously descend,
“The delug'd Eye should give the Heart Relief;
“Humanity should melt for Nature's Friend,
“In all the richest Luxury of Grief.”

XVII

He, as a Planet with unceasing Ray,
Is seen in one unvaried Course to move,
Through Life pursued but one illustrious Way,
And all his Orbit was his Country's Love.

XVIII

But he is gone!—And now, alas! no more
His generous Hand neglected Worth redeems;
No more around his Mansion shall the Poor
Bask in his warm, his charitable Beams.

248

XIX

No more his grateful Countrymen shall hear
His manly Voice, in martyr'd Freedom's Cause;
No more the courtly Sycophant shall fear
His poignant Lash for violated Laws.

XX

Yet say, Stern Virtue, who'd not wish to die,
Thus greatly struggling, a whole Land to save?
Who would not wish, with Ardor wish to lie,
With Beckford's Honor, in a Beckford's Grave?

XXI

Not Honor, such as Princes can bestow,
Whose breath a Reptile to a Lord can raise;
But far the brightest Honor here below,
A grateful Nation's unabating Praise.

XXII

But see! where Liberty, on yonder Strand,
Where the Cliff rises, and the Billows roar,
Already takes her melancholy Stand,
To wing her Passage to some happier Shore.

XXIII

Stay, Goddess! stay, nor leave this once-bless'd Isle,
So many Ages thy peculiar Care,
O! stay, and cheer us ever with thy Smile,
Lest quick we sink in terrible Despair.

XXIV

And lo! she listens to the Muse's Call;
She comes, once more, to cheer a wretched Land;
Thou, Tyranny, shall tremble to thy Fall!
To hear her high, her absolute Command:—

249

XXV

“Let not, my Sons, the Laws your Fathers bought,
“With such rich Oceans of undaunted Blood,
“By Traitors, thus be basely set at Nought,
“While at your Hearts you feel the purple Flood.

XXVI

“Unite in firm, in honorable Bands;
“Break ev'ry Link of Slav'ry's hateful Chain:
“Nor let your Children, at their Fathers' Hands,
“Demand their Birthright, and demand in vain.

XXVII

“Where e'er the Murd'rers of their Country hide,
“Whatever Dignities their Names adorn;
“It is your Duty—let it be your Pride,
“To drag them forth to universal Scorn.

XXVIII

“So shall your lov'd, your venerated Name,
“O'er Earth's vast Convex gloriously expand;
“So shall your still accumulating Fame
“In one bright Story with your Beckford stand.”

250

THE ART OF PUFFING.

BY A BOOKSELLER'S JOURNEYMAN.

Versed by experience in the subtle art,
The mysteries of a title I impart:
Teach the young author how to please the town,
And make the heavy drug of rhyme go down.
Since Curl, immortal never-dying name!
A double pica in the book of fame,
By various arts did various Dunces prop,
And tickled every fancy to his shop,
Who can, like Pottinger, ensure a book?
Who judges with the solid taste of Cooke?
Villains, exalted in the midway sky,
Shall live again to drain your purses dry:
Nor yet unrivalled they; see Baldwin comes,
Rich in inventions, patents, cuts, and hums:

251

The honourable Boswell writes, 'tis true,
What else can Paoli's supporter do?
The trading wits endeavour to attain,
Like booksellers, the world's first idol—gain.
For this they puff the heavy Goldsmith's line,
And hail his sentiment, though trite, divine;
For this the patriotic bard complains,
And Bingley binds poor liberty in chains:
For this was every reader's faith deceived,
And Edmunds swore what nobody believed:
For this the wits in close disguises fight;
For this the varying politicians write;
For this each month new magazines are sold,
With dullness filled and transcripts of the old.
The “Town and Country” struck a lucky hit,
Was novel, sentimental, full of wit:
Aping her walk the same success to find,
The “Court and City” hobbles far behind.
Sons of Apollo, learn: merit's no more
Than a good frontispiece to grace the door:
The author who invents a title well
Will always find his covered dullness sell:
Flexney and every bookseller will buy—
Bound in neat calf, the work will never die.

Vamp.

July 22, 1770.

University of Virginia Library

III. Poems written in 1770.

THE ADVICE.

ADDRESSED TO MISS M[ARIA] R[UMSEY], OF BRISTOL.

VERSES WRITTEN BY CHATTERTON, TO A LADY IN BRISTOL.

HECCAR AND GAIRA.

AN AFRICAN ECLOGUE.

THE CONSULIAD.

AN HEROIC POEM.

RESIGNATION.

A POEM.

FEBRUARY.

AN ELEGY.

ELEGY.

[Haste, haste! ye solemn messengers of night]

THE EXHIBITION;

A PERSONAL SATIRE.

FRAGMENT.

[Interest, thou universal god of men]

SUNDAY. A FRAGMENT.

KEW GARDENS.

COLIN INSTRUCTED.

A BURLESQUE CANTATA.

RECITATIVE.

AIR.

RECITATIVE.

SONG. FANNY OF THE HILL.

NARVA AND MORED,

AN AFRICAN ECLOGUE.

A SONG, ADDRESSED TO MISS C---AM, OF BRISTOL.

ENQUIRY AFTER HAPPINESS.

HAPPINESS.

ELEGY.

[Why blooms the radiance of the morning sky?]

THE METHODIST.

THE PROPHECY.[_] The attribution of this poem is questionable.

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

FABLES FOR THE COURT.

Addressed to Mr. Michael Clayfield, of Bristol.

THE SHEPHERDS.

THE DEATH OF NICOU.

AN AFRICAN ECLOGUE.

TO MISS BUSH, OF BRISTOL.

THE REVENGE.

A BURLETTA; Acted at Marylebone Gardens, 1770; with additional Songs.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Act I.

Scene I.

Recitative.

Air.

Recitative.

Air.

Recitative.

Scene II.

Recitative.

Air.

Recitative.

Air.

Air continued.

Recitative.

Recitative.

Air.

Recitative.

THE PROPHECY.
[_]

The attribution of this poem is questionable.