University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

The Park. Fungus reading a pamphlet.
Enter Philus and the Keeper.
Phi.
Good-day, my lord; what subject is't you read?
I fear, I bother you.

Fun.
You do indeed.

Phi.
Friend, leave us to ourselves; we must confer.

[Exit Keeper.
Fun.
I owe you nothing; what 's your business, sir?

Phi.
Suspicion haunts the guilty, like a ghost,
He sees a bailiff in each painted post.

Fun.
Where guilt without controlment, holds his sway,
And steals a rival's patronage away,
An editor might fear each post a Turk;
And I, proprietor of one sweet work,
Have now the fatal object in my eye,
Who caused my periodical to die.

Phi.
Why, what a dunce was Æsop's bird of night,
To ape the eagle in his mid-day flight,
Till Sol's bright rays did all his powers confound,
And so, for all his wings, the fool was drowned.
Thou shouldst have been content as carrier, sir,
And not aspired to be an editor.
With a poor, frothy brain, half-crazed with rhyming,
Nor broken thus thy neck with foolish climbing.

Fun.
Hadst broken thine, when first thou chased a bubble,
It might have saved Jack Ketch a little trouble;
But thou wast born to edify mankind,
Amuse the ladies, and improve their mind;
To reach the top of fame and fortune's ladder,
While I, beneath its foot, have played the adder.
How many love-sick lines and maiden sighs
Hast thou to answer for! how many eyes
Of liquid blue hast thou gemmed round with pearls
Bright as thy wit; how many lovely girls
Will bless the hour that gave thy Mirror birth!
The tuneful cricket chirruped in the hearth;
The mocking-bird sung, a plagiaristic sign,
Foreboding many a sweet, but stolen line;
Æolian harps were heard upon the breeze,
And, though 't was August, blossoms decked the trees;
The kittens gambolled in their frolic play,
And thrilling expectation held its sway;
Canaries warbled with their sweetest glee,
And currant tarts were all the rage for tea;
More than a printer's pains thy printer took,
(Thy types were not by Connor nor by Cooke,)
Yet brought forth less of hope—I mean in size,
Mottoes it had, and Algebra sublime,
With much of Woodworth's amatory rhyme;
Types in its head, like German text appeared,
And if the rest be true, that I have heard,
It came into the world—

Phi.
I'll hear no more.
Take this bank-note, and pay thy paper score;
I'll puff thy work; my censures were but feigned;
For this, among the rest, was I ordained.

Fun.
Oh! and for much more generous acts than this,
Just Heaven reward thee with a life of bliss!

Phi.
What! shall the aspiring hopes of talent sink,
Which should have mounted? see what tears of ink,
My pen shall shed in sympathy for him,
Who sought the Mirror's downfall; he shall swim;
And, if a doubt remain, thy hopes to wither,
Down, down to Wall street, say I sent thee thither;
Cash it—'t is genuine.
[Exit Fungus.
Indeed, 't is true,
What Fungus told me of; our work, when new,
Came forth into the world with some acclaim,
For all admired the Mirror and its frame;
The men all wondered, and the female tribe
Cried, “Heaven bless us, let us all subscribe!”
And so they did, which plainly showed they prized it,
And, till this hour they've always patronized it.
Stay, let me see—the eleventh volume 's done,
No sharing spoils before the field is won.
I'll quickly sell each copy that remains;
When they are gone, then must I count my gains.

[Exit.