The Works of John Hall-Stevenson :: :: University of Virginia Library

A Long farewell to Hope and Fear;
A restless traveller rests here.
Scrope's weary bones no more shall ake,
His watchful eyes no longer wake.
The head of all these plains, ah, why
Should heads so spiritual die?
(The matter in them is so small
And light, 'tis next to none at all);
Time, envious Time, shorten'd his reign,
And ne'er will shew his like again.
Religious moralist attend,
Here, and here only, toil and grief
Shall find sure comfort and relief,
And every pain and terror end.

175

EPITAPH UPON AN ABBOT.

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TRANSLATED.

Here Martin keeps not to detain you,
For here he cannot entertain you,
A stricter fast than monks in high Lent;
And, stranger still, here Martin's silent.
Here he remains and will remain,
Nor e'er consent to rise again,
Though the last trumpet sounds the alarm,
And angels offer him an arm,
Or a kind Cherub spreads his wings
That like a sky-lark mounts and sings,
Unless, instead of heavenly dews
And manna, only food for Jews,
He finds pure wine, both dry and sweet,
Palpable bread and solid meat.
Freedom of speech without restriction,
Danger, reproof, or contradiction.
To shut one's mouth and hold one's tongue
Who can submit to, old or young?

177

'Tis like a lock'd up candle's end,
That frights no foe, and lights no friend.
If that's the case here he will lie
Rather than sit with mutes on high.
No place like this so well can suit
A moping chartreux, or a mute.

179

EPITAPH UPON A RECTOR.

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TRANSLATED.

He whom no house, no haunt could hold,
Wand'ring like wolves from fold to fold,
Who made each house each hill and dale,
Both an asylum and a jail,
Laid by the heels and caught at last,
Is here confined in durance fast,
By land for ever, on the hoof,
By water, always water-proof.
Jocky, groom, sailor, first of jokers,
And legislator amongst smokers.
Like Moses, wrapt in clouds of smoke,
He laid down laws to hearts of oak;
A sportsman keen by land and water,
Yet never took delight in slaughter;
A fisher, like the pope, of fish,
Who never caught one single dish.
Tender to game of every sort
He shed no harmless blood in sport;

181

No plaintive widow of the wood
Mourn'd for her mate or infant-brood.
Venatic saviour, most deserving,
Not for destroying but preserving.
Not more renown'd for song and pipe
Than for a powerful fist and gripe.
He set the spoiler in the stocks,
And fell'd the poacher like an ox.
Chief of the music of the steeple
A poet amongst tuneful people,
A scribe that never miss'd a mail,
Whose letters flew as thick as hail,
That like the Sybils leaves in air,
He threw at random every where.
All his pursuits were much the same,
Much expectation, and no game:
Like father Time for ever moving,
Never improved, always improving.
All mortals that are made of clay
Proceed exactly on his way.
As anxious children waiting stand,
Then slily creep, with salt in hand,

183

To catch hedge-sparrows, larks, or quails,
If they can lay salt on their tails.
Even so, our measures, schemes, and cares,
Are oft as weak and vain as theirs.
Amongst us all, alas, how few
Have skill to catch what we pursue.

Cetera desunt.

185

EPITAPH UPON A DOCTOR.

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TRANSLATED.

Here end the bleedings and the purgings
Of the ghastliest of doctor surgeons.
Vanpurge lies here, who, on living ground,
So much the shadowy king resembled,
Whene'er death met him in his round
Death turn'd out of the road and trembled;
Or seeing the glancing phantom pass
He thought he saw himself in a glass.
Both of them look'd as if their faces
Were made of weather-beaten stone,
With nought for noses but their bases,
Nought for their cheeks and chin but bone.
Instead of eyes, dark hollow sockets;
Instead of mouths, a horrid grin;
Their inside like a poet's pockets,
Space circumscribed by a leather skin.
Their trade, their instruments, the same;
Alike in all things, but the name.

187

Wonder not at the doctor's age,
Nor that he outlived the long-lived Crow,
Whom Death himself durst not engage,
Lest Death himself he should overthrow.
Death had seen many, in many a shape,
Make their escape out of his jaws,
But never once saw one escape
On whom the doctor laid his paws.

Proof against hunger, ptysick, stone,
And even the pox's poison'd shafts;
Nought could destroy this skeleton,
But his own tools or his own draughts,
Which to himself at last applied,
Vanpurge, like all his patients, died.

189

EPITAPH UPON A GENERAL.

[_]

TRANSLATED.

Here lies, for so the envious Fates decree,
All that remains of general Charles Lee,
General and chieftain, by the Grace of God,
From Thames to Don, and Wolgian Novogrod.
From Danube and the Euxine, to the Straits,
And cross the Atlantic Ocean to Hell gates.
A hardy tribune of the Yanky crew,
The only head, not crack'd entirely through.
Scourged by the Indians, buffeted, reviled,
And then adopted for a heaven-born child.
Silver Heel's son, by him named Boiling water,
Then given in wedlock to his virgin daughter;
Replete with redolent and poignant charms,
A willing captive in a captive's arms,
Loving and kind, as Antony's warm gypsey,
With all her feeling true, sober or typsey.
From their endearments and keen embraces
Were born a pair of lovely copper faces.

191

A princess, ushered by the prince her brother
Twins, like each parent, more than like each other.
Cæsar his mother's, hapless darling once,
His father's awful image, cast in bronze,
Till a vile British harlot, as fame goes,
Destroy'd the likeness, with young Cæsar's nose.
As a stern lion, dauntless from the wood,
Lashing his angry tail in sullen mood,
Surveys his trembling enemies at bay
With foot, deep-rooted, in his breathless prey.
Such was the general, in the embattled field,
The lion's sovereign confidence his shield.
The lion's horrid voice to old and young
Impress'd less terror than his dreadful tongue,
A tongue that flay'd without the least compunction.
And left the bleeding caitiff without unction.
That never lick'd nor healed the wound it gave,
That never hurt the virtuous and brave.
That, like the Russian knout, extorted groans
From bowels, hearts, and hides, as hard as stones.
Sharp as the Roman Lictor's ax and rod,
Rigid as Jove's inexorable nod.

193

He stripp'd the boaster of his borrow'd skin,
And laughing shew'd the dastard ass within,
Nor less to modest right, humane and true,
He gave back injured worth, its plunder'd due.
Him sword, nor plague, nor famine, could consume,
Nor Venus, foaming in a plaguy fume;
Nor all the accumulated rage and might
Of coward treachery and female spight.

Thus sung, exulting with prophetic mirth,
A Cambrian Bard, inspired at Charles's birth:
Intrepid Boy, go wander the world over,
Through paths untrod by any antient rover;
Despise the tyrant wrath of vengeful kings,
The vulgar's worthless praise and Envy's stings.
Like Hercules, immortal, toil through life,
Trust your own strength with all things but a wife.
Tame all, except one monster of your spouse's,
Of aspect mild as any cat that mouses;
Like modest Tabby, sporting with her prey,
Before she draws the vital blood away.

195

A horrid monster that avoids the light,
And, silent as the grave, preys the whole night.
Given first to Omphale when Juno taught her,
To quell and make Alcides weak as water.
From her derived the fatal present came,
To many a jealous wife and virtuous dame.
Dragging his tail, subdued by magic sops,
Cerberus fawn'd, and dropp'd his greedy chops.
No sop, no chain, no lock that you can put on,
Can ever tame the ravenous dumb glutton.

197

EPITAPH UPON A LIVING SUBJECT.

[_]

TRANSLATED.

Here lies the body of John H---,
Entomb'd within this castle-wall;
Impaired by time not overthrown,
Fairly subdued by Sloth alone.
Like one of Virgil's lazy cattle,
Unfit alike for peace or battle.
As snug and totally at rest
As dormice in their dormant nest.
Like souls unborn and unequipp'd,
A blank, of many a passion stripp'd.
That minds as much as these same weak ones
The threats of bishops, priests, and deacons.
And who the promises believes
Of priests and deacons and lawn sleeves,
As much as they themselves believe
All that they teach from morn to eve.
Which they are not to blame for teaching,
But those that pay them for their preaching.

199

When young, by his parish priest's assistance,
He saw great marvels at a distance;
He saw both heaven and hell below,
And also saw in heaven or hell,
But so far off they made no show,
All people that on earth do dwell,
As children lifted by the chin
See London town and all within.

But now shut up and left alone,
Like a poor toad under a stone,
Entrenched up to the teeth and nose,
He sees no more of these fine shows.
Flattering hope and soft belief,
And fear a trembling midnight thief,
From hence, long since are fled and gone,
And love no longer dwells with John.
Like tempests on a desart shore
Unheard the senates thunders roar;
Nor the king's speech, nor king together,
Delight him, he's in such bad luck,

201

More than the bell of a bell-wether,
Or a young calf that wants to suck.
Nor all his peeresses and peers,
And Lady Marys fresh or stale,
No more than wanton mares or steers,
And heifers prurient for a male.
Not even the queen, whom all admire,
Can strike one spark of genial fire.

Something from nothing cannot flow,
As every smatterer must know:
Where there's no subject, there's no story;
No care into his breast can steal,
Neither the love of fame and glory,
Nor such as gentle shepherds feel.
Like Daphne, slumbering in some bower,
Seized and kept under as she lies,
Weighed down by a resistless power,
That will not suffer her to rise;
The helpless and abandon'd virgin
Feels all hopes over of emerging.

203

In such a hopeless forlorn plight
Passive he lies, depress'd at length,
With all the dead incumbent weight,
And energy of inert strength.
Dead to the world, himself, and friend,
And dead in fact world without end,
Unless at last the god of gold,
Storming his castle and strong hold,
Where he in torpid peace within is,
Rouse him with showers and peals of guineas.

205

A ROYAL EPITAPH.

[_]

TRANSLATED.

The champion of scholastic heroes,
Solomon James, foully bewrayed,
Whose mother was as chaste as Nero's,
And fiddling was his father's trade,

Lies here, and with him lie his tools,
His king-craft, and his conjuror's staff;
His logic, chopp'd small, for the schools,
Was blown away before like chaff.

Happy the youths kept far from court,
To virtue trained, by parents fond;
Blest the old women that could sport,
And swim like otters in a pond.

For all young men that came near him
Were spoiled, within that magic ground,
And all old maids that could not swim
Must swim; or else, like cats, be drowned.

207

May he now meet his just reward,
May he each night come from the shades,
And toil all night and labour hard,
An incubus upon old maids.

And when the witches saboth comes,
May he attend the witches call,
Mumbling their spells with toothless gums,
And be the ram that rides them all.

King James, in his Dæmonology, says, that a devil, in the shape of a black ram, performs this office for the witches at their grand assemblies, which he describes with all the minuteness of an eyewitness.

208

EPITAPH FOR HIS GRANDSON, CHARLES II.

Immortal Henry , Great and Good,
The only King by right divine;
One drop of James's wizard blood
Spoiled every generous drop of thine!

Here lies thy grandson's wicked bones,
Never to be restored again;
His brother rests with fainted drones,
And ends, thank heaven, the Stewarts reign.

Henry Fourth, king of France.