Poems on Several Occasions :: :: University of Virginia Library

Poems on Several Occasions

By David Mallet

Mallet, David (1705?-1765)

[dedication]

TRUTH, IN RHYME:

[section]

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THE DISCOVERY:

Upon reading some Verses, written by a young Lady at a Boarding-School.

Sept. 1760.

Apollo lately sent to know,
If he had any sons below;
For, by the trash he long has seen
In male and female Magazine,
A hundred quires not worth a groat,
The race must be extinct, he thought.

His messenger to court repairs;
Walks softly with the croud up stairs:
But when he had his errand told,
The courtiers sneer'd, both young and old.
Augustus knit his royal brow,
And bade him let Apollo know it,
That from his infancy till now,
He lov'd nor poetry nor poet.

His next adventure was the park,
When it grew fashionably dark:
There beauties, boobies, strumpets, rakes,
Talk'd much of commerce, whist and stakes;
Who tips the wink, who drops the card:
But not one word of verse or bard.

The stage, Apollo's old domain,
Where his true sons were wont to reign,
His courier now past frowning by:
Ye modern Durfeys tell us why.

Slow, to the city last he went:
There, all was prose, of cent per cent.
There, alley-omnium, script, and bonus,
(Latin, for which a Muse would stone us,
Yet honest Gideon's classic stile)
Made our poor Nuntio stare and smile.

And now the clock had struck eleven:
The messenger must back to Heaven;
But, just as he his wings had ty'd,
Look'd up Queen-Square, the North-east side.
A blooming Creature there he found,
With pen and ink and books around,
Alone and writing by a taper:
He red unseen, then stole her paper.

It much amus'd him on his way;
And reaching Heaven by break of day,
He shew'd Apollo what he stole.
The God perus'd, and lik'd the whole:
Then, calling for his pocket-book,
Some right celestial vellum took;
And what he with a sun-beam there
Writ down, the Muse thus copies fair:
“If I no men my sons must call,
“Here's one fair Daughter worth 'em all:
“Mark then the sacred words that follow,
“Sophia's mine”—so sign'd
Apollo.

EPIGRAM:

Written at Tunbridge Wells, 1760.

When Churchill led his legions on,
Success still follow'd where he shone.
And are those triumphs, with the dead,
All from his house, for ever fled?
Not so: by softer surer arms,
They yet survive in beauty's charms;
For, look on blooming Pembroke's face,
Even now he triumphs in his race.

VERSES

Written for, and given in Print, to a BEGGAR.

O Mercy, heaven's first attribute,
Whose care embraces man and brute!
Behold me, where I shivering stand;
Bid gentle Pity stretch her hand
To want and age, disease and pain,
That all in one sad object reign.
Still feeling bad, still fearing worse,
Existence is to me a curse:
Yet, how to close this weary eye?
By my own hand I dare not dy:
And Death, the friend of human woes,
Who brings the last and sound repose;
Death does at dreadful distance keep,
And leaves one wretch to wake and weep!

THE REWARD:

OR, APOLLO's Acknowledgments to CHARLES STANHOPE.

Written in 1757.

Apollo, from the southern sky,
O'er London lately glanc'd his eye.
Just such a glance our courtiers throw
At suiters whom they shun to know:
Or have you mark'd th' averted mien,
The chest erect, the freezing look,
Of Bumbo, when a bard is seen
Charg'd with his dedication-book?

But Gods are never in the wrong:
What then displeas'd the Power of song?

The case was this. Where noble arts
Once florish'd, as our fathers tell us,
He now can find, for men of parts,
None but rich blockheads and mere fellows;
Since drums and dice and dissipation
Have chas'd all taste from all the nation.
For is there, now, one table spred,
Where sense and science may be fed?
Where, with a smile on every face,
Invited Merit takes his place?
These thoughts put Phoebus in the spleen,
(For Gods, like men, can feel chagrin)
And left him on the point to shroud
His head in one eternal cloud;
When lo! his all-discerning eye
Chanc'd one remaining Friena to spy,
Just crept abroad, as is his way,
To bask him in the noon-tide ray.

This Phoebus noting, call'd aloud
To every interposing cloud;
And bade their gather'd mists ascend,
That he might warm his good old friend:
Then, as his chariot roll'd along,
Tun'd to his lyre this grateful song.

“With talents, such as God has given
To common mortals, six in seven;
Who yet have titles, ribbons, pay,
And govern whom they should obey;
With no more frailties than are found
In thousand others, count 'em round;
With much good will, instead of parts,
Express'd for artists and for arts;
Who smiles, if you have smartly spoke;
Or nods applause to his own joke;
This bearded child, this gray-hair'd boy,
Still plays with life, as with a toy;
Still keeps amusement full in view:
Wise? Now and then—but oftner new;
His coach, this hour, at Watson's door;
The next, in waiting on a whore.

Whene'er the welcome tidings ran
Of monster strange, or stranger man,
A Selkirke from his desart-isle,
Or Aligator from the nile;
He saw the monster in it's shrine,
And had the man, next day, to dine.
Or was it an Hermaphrodite?
You found him in a two-fold hurry;

Neglecting, for this he-she-sight,
The single charms of Fanny Murry.
Gathering, from suburb and from city,
Who were, who would be, wise or witty;
The full-wig'd sons of pills and potions;
The bags, of maggot and new notions;
The sage, of microscopic eye,
Who reads him lectures on a fly;
Grave Antiquaries, with their flams;
And Poets, squirting epigrams:
With some few Lords—of those that think,
And dip, at times, their pen in ink:
Nay, Ladies too, of diverse fame,
Who are, and are not, of the game.
For he has look'd the world around,
And pleasure, in éach quarter, found.
Now young, now old, now grave, now gay,
He sinks from life by soft decay;
And sees at hand, without affright,
Th' inevitable hour of night.”

But here, some pillar of the state,
Whose life is one long dull debate;
Some Pedant of the sable gown,
Who spares no failings, but his own,

Set up at once their deep-mouth'd hollow:
Is this a subject for Apollo!
What! can the God of wit and verse
Such trifles in our ears rehearse?

“Know, puppies, this man's easy life,
Serene from cares, unvex'd with strife,
Was oft employ'd in doing good;
A science you ne'er understood:
And Charity, ye sons of pride,
A multitude of faults will hide.
I, at his board, more sense have found,
Than at a hundred dinners round.
Taste, learning, mirth, my western eye
Could often, there, collected spy:
And I have gone well-pleas'd to bed,
Revolving what was sung or said.

“And he, who entertain'd them all
With much good liquor, strong and small;
With food in plenty, and a welcome,
Which would become my Lord of Melcombe ,
Whose soupes and sauces duly season'd,
Whose wit well-tim'd, and sense well reason'd,

Give burgundy a brighter stain,
And add new flavor to champagne—
Shall this man to the grave descend,
Unown'd, unhonor'd as my friend?
No: by my Deity I swear,
Nor shall the vow be lost in air;
While you, and millions such as you,
Are sunk for ever from my view,
And lost in kindred-darkness ly,
This good old man shall never die:
No matter where I place his name,
His love of learning shall be fame.

This Poem was certainly written in 1757; but the reader has only to remember, that Apollo is the God of prophecy as well as of poetry.

TYBURN:

TO THE MARINE-SOCIETY.

It has been, all examples show it,
The privilege of every poet,
From ancient down thro modern time,
To bid dead matter live in rhime;
With wit enliven senseless rocks;
Draw repartee from wooden blocks;
Make buzzards senators of note,
And rooks harangue, that geese may vote.

These moral fictions, first design'd
To mend and mortify mankind,
Old Esop, as our children know,
Taught twice ten hundred years ago.
His fly, upon the chariot-wheel,
Could all a statesman's merit feel;

And, to its own importance just,
Exclaim, with Bufo, What a dust!
His horse-dung, when the flood ran high,
In Colon's air and accent cry,
While tumbling down the turbid stream,
Lord love us, how we apples swim!

But farther instances to cite,
Would tire the hearer's patience quite.
No: what their numbers and their worth,
How these admire, while those hold forth,
From Hide-park on to Clerkenwell,
Let clubs, let coffee-houses tell;
Where England, thro the world renown'd,
In all its wisdom may be found:
While I, for ornament and use,
An Orator of Wood produce.

Why should the gentle reader stare?
Are Wooden Orators so rare?
Saint Stephen's Chapel, Rufus, Hall,
That hears them in the pleader bawl,
That hears them in the patriot thunder,
Can tell if such things are a wonder.
So can Saint Dunstan's in the West,
When good Romaine harangues his best,

And tells his staring congregation,
That sober sense is sure damnation;
That Newton's guilt was worse than treason,
For using, what God gave him, reason.

A pox of all this prefacing!
Smart Balbus cries: come, name the thing;
That such there are, we all agree:
What is this wood? Why—Tyburn-Tree.

Hear then this Reverend Oak harangue;
Who makes men do so, ere they hang.

Patibulum loquitur.

“Each thing whatever, when aggriev'd,
Of right complains, to be reliev'd.
When rogues so rais'd the price of wheat,
That few folks could afford to eat,
(Just as, when doctors' fees run high,
Few patients can afford to die)
The poor durst into murmurs break;
For losers must have leave to speak:
Then, from reproaching, fell to mawling
Each neighbour-rogue they found forestalling.
As these again, their knaves and setters,
Durst vent complaints against their betters;

Whose only crime was in defeating
Their schemes of growing rich by cheating:
So, shall not I my wrongs relate,
An injur'd Minister of state?
The Finisher of care and pain
May, sure, with better grace complain,
For reasons no less strong and true,
Marine Society, of you!
Of you, as every carman knows,
My latest and most fatal foes.

My property you basely steal,
Which even a British Oak can feel;
Feel and resent! What wonder then
It should be felt by British Men,
When France, insulting, durst invade
Their clearest property of trade?
For which both nations, at the bar
Of that supreme tribunal, war,
To show their reasons have agree'd,
And lawyers, by ten thousands, fee'd;
Who now, for legal quirks and puns,
Plead with the rhetoric of great guns;
And each his client's cause maintains,
By knocking out th' opponent's brains:

While Europe all—but we adjourn
This wise digression, and return.

Your rules and statutes have undone me:
My surest cards begin to shun me.
My native subjects dare rebel,
Those who were born for me and hell:
And, but for you, the scoundrel-line
Had, every mother's son, died mine.
A race unnumber'd as unknown,
Whom town or suburb calls her own;
Of vagrant love the various spawn,
From rags and filth, from lace and lawn,
Sons of Fleet-Ditch, of bulks, of benches,
Where peer and porter meet their wenches.
For neither health nor shame can wean us,
From mixing with the midnight-Venus.

Nor let my cits be here forgot:
They know to sin as well as sot.
When night demure walks forth, array'd
In her thin négligée of shade,
Late-risen from their long regale
Of beef and beer, and bawdy tale,
Abroad the common-council sally,
To poach for game in lane or alley;

This gets a son, whose first essay
Will filch his father's Till away;
A daughter that, who may retire,
Some few years hence, with her own sire:
And, while his hand is on her placket,
The filial virtue picks his pocket.
Change-alley, too, is grown so nice,
A broker dares refine on vice:
With lord-like scorn of marriage-vows,
In her own arms he cuckolds spouse;
For young and fresh while he would wish her,
His loose thought glows with K---y F---r;
Or, after nobler quarry running,
Profanely paints her out a G---.

Now these, of each degree and sort,
At Wapping dropp'd, perhaps at Court,
Bred up for me, to swear and lie,
To laugh at hell, and heaven defy;
These, Tyburn's regimented train,
Who risk their necks to spread my reign,
From age to age, by right divine,
Hereditary rogues, were mine:
And each, by discipline severe,
Improv'd beyond all shame and fear,

From guilt to guilt advancing daily,
My constant friend the good Old Baily
To me made over, late or soon;
I think, at latest, once a moon:
But, by your interloping care,
Not one in ten will be my share.

Ere 'tis too late your error see,
You foes to Britain, and to me.
To me: agreed—But to the nation?—
I prove it thus by demonstration.

First, that there is much good in ill,
My great apostle Mandevile
Has made most clear. Read, if you please,
His moral Fable of the Bees.
Our reverend clergy next will own,
Were all men good, their trade were gone;
That were it not for useful vice,
Their learned pains would bear no price:
Nay, we should quickly bid defiance
To their demonstrated alliance.

Next, kingdoms are compos'd, we know,
Of individuals, Jack and Joe.

Now these, our sovereign lords the rabble,
For ever prone to growl and squabble,
The monstrous many-headed beast,
Whom we must not offend, but feast,
Like Cerberus, should have their sop:
And what is that, but trussing up?
How happy were their hearts, and gay,
At each return of hanging-day!
To see Page swinging they admire,
Beyond even Madox on his wire!
No baiting of a bull or bear,
To Perry dangling in the air!
And then, the being drunk a week,
For joy, some Sheppard would not squeak!
But now that those good times are o'er,
How will they mutiny and roar!
Your scheme absurd of sober rules
Will sink the race of men to mules;
For ever drudging, sweating, broiling,
For ever for the public toiling:
Hard masters! who, just when they need 'em,
With a few thistles deign to feed 'em.

Yet more—for it is seldom known
That fault or folly stands alone—
You next debauch their infant-mind
With fumes of honorable wind;
Which must beget, in heads untry'd,
That worst of human vices, pride.
All who my humble paths forsake,
Will reckon, each, to be a Blake!
There, on the deck, with arms a-kimbo,
Already struts the future Bembow!
By you bred up to take delight in
No earthly thing but oaths and fighting.
These sturdy sons of blood and blows,
By pulling Monsieur by the nose,
By making kicks and cuffs the fashion,
Will put all Europe in a passion.
The grand alliance, now quadruple,
Will pay us home, “jusqu' au centuple:”
So the French King was heard to cry—
And can a King of Frenchmen lie?

These and more mischiefs I foresee
From fondling brats of base degree.
As mushrooms that on dunghills rise,
The kindred-weeds beneath despise;

So these their fellows will contemn,
Who, in revenge, will rage at them:
For, thro each rank, what more offends,
Than to behold the rise of friends?
Still when our equals grow too great,
We may applaud, but we must hate.
Then, will it be endur'd, when John
Has put my hempen ribbon on,
To see his antient mess-mate Cloud,
By you made turbulent and proud,
And early taught my tree to bilk,
Pass in another all of silk?

Yet, one more mournful case to put:
A hundred mouths at once you shut!
Half Grub-street, silenc'd in an hour,
Must curse your interposing power!
If my lost sons no longer steal,
What son of hers can earn a meal?
You ruin many a gentle bard,
Who liv'd by heroes that die hard!
Their brother-hawkers too! that sung
How great from world to world they swung;
And by sad sonnets, quaver'd loud,
Drew tears and half-pence from the crowd!

Blind Fielding too—a mischief on him!
I wish my sons would meet and stone him!
Sends his black squadrons up and down,
Who drive my best boys back to town.
They find that travelling now abroad,
To ease rich rascals on the road,
Is grown a calling much unsafe;
That there are surer ways by half,
To which they have their equal claim,
Of earning daily food and fame:
So down, at home, they sit, and think
How best to rob, with pen and ink.

Hence, red-hot letters and essays,
By the John Lilburn of these days;
Who guards his want of shame and sense,
With shield of sevenfold impudence.
Hence cards on Pelham, cards on Pitt,
With much abuse and little wit.
Hence libels against Hardwicke penn'd,
That only hurt when they commend:
Hence oft ascrib'd to Fox, at least
All that defames his name-sake-beast.
Hence Cloacina hourly views
Unnumber'd labors of the Muse,

That sink, where myriads went before,
And sleep within the chaos hoar:
While her brown daughters, under ground,
Are fed with politics profound.
Each eager hand a fragment snaps,
More excrement than what it wraps.

These, singly, contributions raise,
Of casual pudding and of praise.
Others again, who form a gang,
Yet take due measures not to hang,
In Magazines their forces join,
By legal methods to purloin:
Whose weekly, or whose monthly, feat is
First to decry, then steal, your treatise.
So rogues in France perform their job;
Assassinating, ere they rob.

But, this long narrative to close:
They who would grievances expose,
In all good policy, no less,
Should shew the methods to redress.
If commerce, sinking in one scale,
By fraud or hazard comes to fail;

The task is next, all statesmen know it,
To find another where to throw it,
That rising there in due degree,
The public may no loser be.
Thus having heard how you invade,
And, in one way, destroy my trade;
That we at last may part good friends,
Hear how you still may make amends.

O search this sinful town with care:
What numbers, duly mine, are there!
The full-fed herd of money-jobbers,
Jews, Christians, rogues alike and robbers!
Who riot on the poor man's toils,
And fatten by a nation's spoils!
The crowd of little knaves in place,
Our age's envy and disgrace.
Secret and snug, by daily stealth,
The busy vermine pick up wealth;
Then, without birth, control the great!
Then, without talents, rule the state!

Some ladies too—for some there are,
With shame and decency at war;
Who, on a ground of pale threescore,
Still spread the rose of twenty-four,

And bid a nut-brown bosom glow
With purer white than lillies know:
Who into vice intrepid rush;
Put modest whoring to the blush;
And with more front engage a trooper
Than Jenny Jones, or Lucy Cooper.

Send me each mischief-making nibler;
'Tis equal, senator or scribler:
Who on the self-same spot of ground,
The self-same hearers staring round,
Abjure and join with, praise and blame,
Both men and measures, still the same.
Or serve our foes with all their might,
By proving Britons dare not fight:
Slim, flimzey, fiddling, futile elves,
They paint the nation from themselves;
Less aiming to be wise than witty,
And mighty pert, and mighty pretty.

Send me each string—save green and blue—
These, brother Tower-hill, wait for you.
But, Lollius, be not in the spleen;
'Tis only Arthur's Knights I mean—
Not those of old renown'd in fable,
Nor of the round, but gaming table;

Who, every night, the waiters say,
Break every law they make by day;
Plunge deep our youth in all the vice
Attendant upon drink and dice,
And, mixing in nocturnal battles,
Devour each other's goods and chattles;
While from the mouth of magic box,
With curses dire and dreadful knocks,
They fling whole tenements away,
Fling time, health, fame—yet call it play!
Till, by advice of special friends,
The titled dupe a sharper ends:
Or, if some drop of noble blood
Remains, not quite defil'd to mud,
The wretch, unpity'd and alone,
Leaps headlong to the world unknown!

As these are all persons of note, and well known to our readers, we think any more particular mention of them unnecessary.

ZEPHIR:

OR, The STRATAGEM.

Egregiam vero laudem et spolia ampla refertis,
Una dolo Divûm si Foemina victa duorum est.
Virg.

THE ARGUMENT.

A Certain young Lady was surprized, on horse-back, by a violent storm of wind and rain from the South-west; which made her dismount, somewhat precipitately.

The God, in whose gay train appear
Those gales that wake the purple year;
Who lights up health and bloom and grace
In Nature's, and in Mira's face;
To speak more plain, the western Wind,
Had seen this brightest of her kind:
Had seen her oft with fresh surprize!
And ever with desiring eyes!
Much, by her shape, her look, her air,
Distinguish'd from the vulgar fair;
More, by the meaning soul that shines
Thro all her charms, and all refines.
Born to command, yet turn'd to please,
Her form is dignity, with ease:

Then—such a hand, and such an arm,
As age or impotence might warm!
Just such a leg too, Zephir knows,
The Medicéan Venus shows!

So far he sees; so far admires.
Each charm is fewel to his fires:
But other charms, and those of price,
That form the bounds of Paradise,
Can those an equal praise command;
All turn'd by Nature's finest hand?
Is all the consecrated ground
With plumpness, firm, with smoothness, round?

The world, but once, one Zeuxis saw,
A faultless form who dar'd to draw:
And then, that all might perfect be,
All rounded off in due degree,
To furnish out the matchless piece,
Were rifled half the toasts of Greece.
'Twas Pitt's white neck, 'twas Delia's thigh;
'Twas Waldegrave's sweetly-brilliant eye;
'Twas gentle Pembroke's ease and grace,
And Hervey lent her maiden-face.
But dares he hope, on British ground,
That these may all, in one, be found?

These chiefly that still shun his eye?
He knows not; but he means to try.

Aurora rising, fresh and gay,
Gave promise of a golden day.
Up, with her Sister, Mira rose,
Four hours before our London beaus;
For these are still asleep and dead,
Save Arthur's sons—not yet in bed.
A rose, impearl'd with orient dew,
Had caught the passing fair One's view;
To pluck the bud he saw her stoop,
And try'd, behind, to heave her hoop:
Then, while across the daisy'd lawn
She turn'd, to feed her milk-white fawn,
Due westward as her steps she bore,
Would swell her petticoat, before;
Would subtley steal his face between,
To see—what never yet was seen!
“And sure, to fan it with his wing,
No nine-month symptom e'er can bring:
His aim is but the Nymph to please,
Who daily courts his cooling breeze.”

But listen, fond believing Maid!
When Love, soft traitor, would persuade,

With all the moving skill and grace
Of practic'd passion in his face,
Dread his approach, distrust your power—
For oh! there is one shepherd's hour:
And tho he long, his aim to cover,
May, with the friend, disguise the lover,
The sense, or nonsense, of his wooing
Will but adore you into ruin.
But, for those butterflies, the beaus,
Who buzz around in tinsel-rows,
Shake, shake them off, with quick disdain:
Where insects settle, they will stain.

Thus, Zephir oft the Nymph assail'd.
As oft his little arts had fail'd:
The folds of silk, the ribs of whale,
Resisted still his feeble gale.
With these repulses vex'd at heart,
Poor Zephir has recourse to art:
And his own weakness to supply,
Calls in a Brother of the sky,
The rude South-West; whose mildest play
Is war, mere war, the Russian way:
A tempest-maker by his trade,
Who knows to ravish, not persuade.

The terms of their aëreal league,
How first to harrass and fatigue,
Then, found on some remoter plain,
To ply her close with wind and rain;
These terms, writ fair and seal'd and sign'd,
Should Web or Stukely wish to find,
Wise antiquaries, who explore
All that has ever pass'd—and more;
Tho here too tedious to be told,
Are yonder in some cloud enroll'd,
Those floating registers in air:
So let them mount, and read 'em there.

The grand alliance thus agreed,
To instant action they proceed;
For 'tis in war a maxim known,
As Prussia's Monarch well has shown,
To break, at once, upon your foe,
And strike the first preventive blow.
With Toro's lungs, in Toro's form,
Whose very how d'ye is a storm,
The dread South-West his part begun.
Thick clouds, extinguishing the sun,
At his command, from pole to pole
Dark-spreading, o'er the fair One roll;

Who, pressing now her favorite steed,
Adorn'd the pomp she deigns to lead.

O Mira! to the future blind,
Th'insidious foe is close behind:
Guard, guard your treasure, while you can;
Unless this God should be the Man.
For lo! the clouds, at his known call,
Are closing round—they burst! they fall!
While at the Charmer, all-aghast,
He pours whole winter in a blast:
Nor cares, in his impetuous mood,
If navies founder on the flood;
If Britain's coast be left as bare
As he resolves to leave the Fair.
Here, Gods resemble human breed;
The world be damn'd—so they succeed.

Pale, trembling, from her steed she fled,
With silk, lawn, linen, round her head;
And, to the fawns who fed above,
Unveil'd the last recess of love.

Each wondering fawn was seen to bound ,
Each branchy deer o'erleap'd his mound,
At sight of that sequester'd glade,
In all its light, in all its shade,
Which rises there for wisest ends,
To deck the temple it defends.

Lo! gentle tenants of the grove,
For what a thousand Heroes strove,
When Europe, Asia, both in arms,
Disputed one fair Lady's charms.
The war pretended Helen's eyes ;
But this, believe it, was the prize.
This rous'd Achilles' mortal ire,
This strung his Homer's epic lyre;
Gave to the world La Mancha's Knight,
And still makes bulls and heroes fight.

Yet, tho the distant conscious Muse
This airy rape delighted views;
Yet she, for honor guides her lays,
Enjoying it, disdains to praise.
If Frenchmen always fight with odds,
Are they a pattern for the Gods?

Can Russia, can th'ungarian vampire ,
With whom cast in the Swedes and Empire,
Can four such powers, who one assail,
Deserve our praise, should they prevail?
O mighty triumph! high renown!
Two Gods have brought one Mortal down;
Have club'd their forces in a storm,
To strip one helpless female form!
Strip her stark naked; yet confess,
Such charms are Beauty's fairest dress!

But, all-insensible to blame,
The sky-born Ravishers on flame
Enchanted at the prospect stood,
And kiss'd with rapture what they view'd.
Sleek S---r too had done no less;
Would parsons here the truth confess:
Nay, one brisk Peer, yet all-alive,
Would do the same, at eighty-five .

But how, in colors softly-bright,
Where strength and harmony unite,
To paint the limbs, that fairer show
Than Messalina's borrow'd snow;
To paint the rose, that, thro its shade,
With theirs, one human eye survey'd;
Would gracious Phoebus tell me how,
Would he the genuine draught avow,
The Muse, a second Titian then,
To fame might consecrate her pen!

That Titian, Nature gave of old
The Queen of Beauty to behold,
Like Mira unadorn'd by dress,
But all-compleat in nakedness:
Then bade his emulating art
Those wonders to the world impart.
Around the ready Graces stand,
His tints to blend, to guide his hand.
Each heightening stroke, each happy line,
Awakes to life the form divine;
Till rais'd and rounded every charm,
And all with youth immortal warm,

He sees, scarce crediting his eyes,
He sees a brighter Venus rise!
But, to the gentle Reader's cost,
His pencil, with his life, was lost:
And Mira must contented be,
To live by Ramsay, and by Me.

The very day on which the fleet under Admiral Hawke was blown into Torbay.

Immemor herbarum quos est mirata Juvenca. Virg.

Et fuit ante Helenam, &c. Hor.

A certain mischievous demon that delights much in human blood; of whom there are many stories told in Hungary.

We believe there is a mistake in this reading; for the person best informed and most concerned assures, that it should be only seventy-five.

EDWIN, AND EMMA.

Mark it, Cesario, it is true and plain.
The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,
And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,
Do use to chant it. It is silly Sooth,
And dallies with the innocence of love,
Like the old age.
Shakes. Twelfth Night.

I

Far in the windings of a vale,
Fast by a sheltering wood,
The safe retreat of health and peace,
An humble cottage stood.

II

There beauteous Emma florish'd fair,
Beneath a mother's eye;
Whose only wish on earth was now
To see her blest, and die.

III

The softest blush that Nature spreads
Gave color to her cheek:
Such orient color smiles thro heaven,
When vernal mornings break.

IV

Nor let the pride of great ones scorn
This charmer of the plains:
That sun, who bids their diamond blaze,
To paint our lilly deigns.

V

Long had she fill'd each youth with love,
Each maiden with despair;
And tho by all a wonder own'd,
Yet knew not she was fair.

VI

Till Edwin came, the pride of swains,
A soul devoid of art;
And from whose eye, serenely mild,
Shone forth the feeling heart.

VII

A mutual flame was quickly caught:
Was quickly too reveal'd:
For neither bosom lodg'd a wish,
That virtue keeps conceal'd.

VIII

What happy hours of home-felt bliss
Did love on both bestow!
But bliss too mighty long to last,
Where fortune proves a foe.

IX

His Sister, who, like Envy form'd,
Like her in mischief joy'd,
To work them harm, with wicked skill,
Each darker art employ'd.

X

The Father too, a sordid man,
Who love nor pity knew,
Was all-unfeeling as the clod,
From whence his riches grew.

XI

Long had he seen their secret flame,
And seen it long unmov'd:
Then with a father's frown at last
Had sternly disapprov'd.

XII

In Edwin's gentle heart, a war
Of differing passions strove:
His heart, that durst not disobey,
Yet could not cease to love.

XIII

Deny'd her sight, he oft behind
The spreading hawthorn crept,
To snatch a glance, to mark the spot
Where Emma walk'd and wept.

XIV

Oft too on Stanemore's wintry waste,
Beneath the the moonlight-shade,
In sighs to pour his soften'd soul,
The midnight-mourner stray'd.

XV

His cheek, where health with beauty glow'd,
A deadly pale o'ercast:
So fades the fresh rose in its prime,
Before the northern blast.

XVI

The parents now, with late remorse,
Hung o'er his dying bed;
And weary'd heaven with fruitless vows,
And fruitless sorrow shed.

XVII

'Tis past! he cry'd—but if your souls
Sweet mercy yet can move,
Let these dim eyes once more behold,
What they must ever love!

XVIII

She came; his cold hand softly touch'd,
And bath'd with many a tear:
Fast-falling o'er the primrose pale,
So morning dews appear.

XIX

But oh! his sister's jealous care,
A cruel sister she!
Forbade what Emma came to say;
“My Edwin live for me.”

XX

Now homeward as she hopeless wept
The church-yard path along,
The blast blew cold, the dark owl scream'd
Her lover's funeral song.

XXI

Amid the falling gloom of night,
Her startling fancy found
In every bush his hovering shade,
His groan in every sound.

XXII

Alone, appall'd, thus had she pass'd
The visionary vale—
When lo! the death-bell smote her ear,
Sad-sounding in the gale!

XXIII

Just then she reach'd, with trembling step,
Her aged mother's door—
He's gone! she cry'd; and I shall see
That angel-face no more!

XXIV

I feel, I feel this breaking heart
Beat high against my side—
From her white arm down sunk her head;
She shivering sigh'd, and died.

On the DEATH of LADY ANSON.

Addressed to her FATHER.

MDCCLXI.

O Crown'd with honor, blest with length of days,
Thou whom the wise revere, the worthy praise;
Just guardian of those laws thy voice explain'd,
And meriting all titles thou hast gain'd—
Tho still the fairest from Heaven's bounty flow;
For good and great no monarch can bestow:
Yet thus, of health, of fame, of friends possest,
No fortune, Hardwicke, is sincerely blest.
All humankind are sons of sorrow born:
The great must suffer, and the good must mourn.

For say, can Wisdom's self, what late was thine,
Can Fortitude, without a sigh, resign?

Ah no! when Love, when Reason, hand in hand,
O'er the cold urn consenting Mourners stand,
The firmest heart dissolves to softness here:
And Piety applauds the falling tear.
Those sacred drops, by virtuous weakness shed,
Adorn the living, while they grace the dead:
From tender thought their source unblam'd they draw,
By Heaven approv'd, and true to Nature's law.

When his lov'd Child the Roman could not save,
Immortal Tully, from an early grave ,
No common forms his home-felt passion kept:
The sage, the patriot, in the parent, wept.
And O by grief ally'd, as join'd in fame,
The same thy loss, thy sorrows are the same.
She whom the Muses, whom the Loves deplore,
Even She, thy pride and pleasure, is no more:
In bloom of years, in all her virtue's bloom,
Lost to thy hopes and silent in the tomb.

O season mark'd by mourning and despair!
Thy blasts how fatal to the Young and Fair?
For vernal freshness, for the balmy breeze,
Thy tainted winds came pregnant with disease:
Sick Nature sunk before the mortal breath,
That scatter'd feaver, agony, and death!
What funerals has thy cruel ravage spred!
What eyes have flow'd! what noble bosoms bled!

Here let Reflection fix her sober view:
O think, who suffer, and who sigh with you.
See, rudely snatch'd, in all her pride of charms,
Bright Granby from a youthful husband's arms!
In climes far distant, see that husband mourn;
His arms revers'd, his recent laurel torn!
Behold again, at Fate's imperious call,
In one dread instant blooming Lincoln fall!
See her lov'd Lord with speechless anguish bend!
And, mixing tears with his, thy noblest friend,
Thy Pelham turn on heaven his streaming eye:
Again in Her, he sees a Brother die!

And He, who long, unshaken and serene,
Had Death, in each dire form of terror, seen.

Thro worlds unknown o'er unknown oceans tost,
By Love subdu'd, now weeps a Consort lost:
Now, sunk to fondness, all the man appears,
His front dejected, and his soul in tears!

Yet more: nor thou the Muse's voice disdain,
Who fondly tries to soothe a Father's pain—
Let thy calm eye survey the suffering ball:
See kingdoms round thee verging to their fall!
What spring had promis'd and what autumn yields,
The bread of thousands, ravish'd from their fields!
See youth and age, th'ignoble and the great,
Swept to one grave, in one promiscuous fate!
Hear Europe groan! hear all her nations mourn!
And be a private wound with patience borne.

Think too: and Reason will confirm the thought:
Thy cares, for Her, are to their period brought.
Yes, She, fair pattern to a failing age,
With wit, chastis'd, with sprightly temper, sage;
Whom each endearing name could recommend,
Whom all became, wife, sister, daughter, friend,

Unwarp'd by folly, and by vice unstain'd,
The prize of virtue has, for ever, gain'd!
From life escap'd, and safe on that calm shore
Where sin and pain and error are no more,
She now no change, nor You a fear can feel:
Death, to her fame, has fix'd th'eternal seal!

Tullia died about the age of two and thirty. She is celebrated for her filial piety; and for having added, to the usual graces of her sex, the more solid accomplishments of knowledge and polite letters.

A FUNERAL HYMN.

I.

Ye midnight shades, o'er Nature spred!
Dumb silence of the dreary hour!
In honor of th'approaching Dead,
Around your awful terrors pour.
Yes, pour around,
On this pale ground,
Thro all this deep surrounding gloom,
The sobér thought,
The tear untaught,
Those meetest mourners at a tomb.

II.

Lo! as the surplic'd train draw near
To this last mansion of mankind,
The slow sad bell, the sable bier,
In holy musings wrap the mind!

And while their beam,
With trembling stream,
Attending tapers faintly dart;
Each mouldering bone,
Each sculptor'd stone,
Strikes mute instruction to the heart!

III.

Now, let the sacred organ blow,
With solemn pause, and sounding flow:
Now, let the voice due measure keep,
In strains that sigh, and words that weep;
Till all the vocal current blended rowl,
Not to depress, but lift the soaring soul.

IV.

To lift it in the Maker's praise,
Who first inform'd our frame with breath;
And after some few stormy days,
Now, gracious, gives us o'er to Death.
No King of Fears
In him appears,
Who shuts the scene of human woes:
Beneath his shade
Securely laid,
The Dead alone find true repose.

V.

Then, while we mingle dust with dust,
To One, supremely good and wise,
Raise haleluiahs! God is just,
And Man most happy, when he dies!
His winter past,
Fair spring at last
Receives him on her flowery shore;
Where Pleasure's rosé
Immortal blows,
And sin and sorrow are no more!

THE END.