Original poems on several subjects :: :: University of Virginia Library

Original poems on several subjects

In two volumes. By William Stevenson

Stevenson, William (ca. 1719-1783)

VOLUME I.

II.

VOLUME II.

SATIRES.

ELEGIES.

Epitaphs for a MISER.

A REVERY.

Description of the FACE.

Written in an Arbour at the foot of a Garden.

To Miss J---y ---

To Miss Annie Hamilton.

To a Lady offended at seeing her Verses printed, on account of their being too simple.

On the Death of Mr Allan Ramsay .

Advice to a LADY,

To ---

A Sketch of NOON.

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II. VOLUME II.

Phœbe, fave, novus ingreditur tua templa sacerdos.
Tibull.

SATIRES.

Nil prodest quod non lædere possit idem.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SATIRES.

Addressed to Lord ---

Look with discerning eye around,
What else but vanity is found,
From the imperial palace, down
To the mean cottage of the clown?
Mankind pursue, with endless strife,
Lur'd by false estimates of life,
Those objects which, when they o'ertake,
Them more supremely wretched make.
And why? let all for once attend,
Without the means, we seek the end.
Seek Happiness, but her in vain,
Unknown to Virtue, would attain.
She's paradise, divinely stor'd;
Virtue's, to guard, the flaming sword;
A flaming sword to all who would,
Without her suff'rance, bold intrude.

But who her sacred steps pursue,
Them she conducts, and welcomes too.

But this fine scene for moral wit
Will bards of graver studies fit.
Subjects less solemn far we chuse,
That suit the laughter-loving Muse,
Suit aptly the satiric pen,
The whims and caprices of men.

These gain'd immortal praise to Young,
In his keen pointed numbers sung.
Who would the rash attempt avow,
To pluck the laurels from his brow,
Those subjects, impotent, explore,
Which he exhausted long before?
No; let the passion, love of fame,
Be universal as his name;
While we, self-borne the daring Muse,
No borrow'd wings would meanly use.

What follies yet remain unsung,
From vanity and dulness sprung,
Though oft Pope's justly-kindled rage
Made such the laughter of the age?
A few now would the muse select,
In all their native trappings deckt,

As through life's wayward paths men plod,
Or skip, extravagantly odd.
No characters unknown we draw,
Which mankind living never saw.
Not Nature just in ev'ry part,
But transcripts of the writer's heart.
Vagaries of a troubled brain,
Ineffably absurd and vain.
Wild thoughts, made wilder by his pen,
Stuff'd into characters of men.
As Rome's great satirist describes
A monster form'd from various tribes,
With which his reader's eye he feasts,
Women and fishes, fowls and beasts.
Thus C---'s frantic pencil draws,
Exalts with blame, damns with applause.
Nor strange, himself so little man,
So little human in his plan.
In branding him we break no laws,
But thus assert the public cause.
The public he abuses, who
First fed him, and preserves him so.
With thankless and ungrateful pen,
Styles his supporters worst of men.

As the fell snake that bosom stings
Which it to life and motion brings .
Censure on him we justly call
A panegyric pass'd on all.
Satire should ever build on truth,
Absurd, else, senseless, and uncouth.
Without truth we to gain eclat,
Ourselves, but not mankind, may draw.
Without truth satirists are sure
Deeply to wound, but never cure.

Far other features we would sketch,
Than men from mere idea fetch.
On those alone our numbers flow,
Which from examples well we know,
Living examples, ev'ry where
That boldly in our faces stare.

Authors, among this motly race,
Possess no undistinguish'd place;
Authors, howe'er bred up in schools,
Still of mankind the greatest fools.

Blockheads will ever swarm below,
But why should print proclaim them so?
Reptiles beneath the ground should crawl,
Else trodden under foot by all.

But with disguise's artful veil,
That we may persons still conceal,
No one whole character we chuse,
Though form'd by Nature, not the Muse.
To pick out objects wrong or right,
To show our malice and our spite,
This not, on Satire's lib'ral plan,
Were, Flaccus-like, to laugh at man,
But, for the rag on dunghills roll'd,
Like dainty cinder-wives to scold.
We, in offending justly checkt,
From various characters select,
That, blended artfully, we may
Heighten'd the ridicule survey.
Men, things offensive to the eye
With much disgust, though single, spy;
But, if in heaps collected, who
Would not the strongest loathing show?
These, into parts resolv'd again,
To various owners appertain.

Thus artists show the curious work,
Where springs aud wheels complexly lurk,
Though, as one master's labour shown,
Each claims a workman of its own.
Mankind here, as if call'd by name,
May each his darling foible claim;
Just as the cap befits him, wear,
Nor owning, call the Muse severe.

Nor we less cautious shall describe
That mongrel breed, the author-tribe;
Though small compassion often shown,
No individuals shall be known:
For such, though they impos'd our task,
Humanity implores the mask.
A task, that ever would begin,
Were we to take all rhymers in.
Rhymers, who, for a verse or two,
Think immortality their due.
Vain thought! that words dispos'd to chime,
Should therefore hit the true sublime.
A pigmy, perch'd upon Parnassus,
Still justly for a pigmy passes.
A dunce in numbers, never rose
Above a very dunce in prose.

When will that blissful æra come,
When Dulness shall be ever dumb,
When desks shall authors' works confine,
Immortal there content to shine,
Not for a moment dragg'd to light,
Then plung'd in everlasting night?
Soon Reputation dies; yet man
Would shorten still its narrow span;
Before the spade performs its task,
Or worms their fated banquet ask,
To Fame's bar'd heart the quill apply,
And straight poetically die.
Foul suicide, without dismay
Calm perpetrated ev'ry day!
Gibbets may rot, and axes rust,
If each self-judg'd bravado must,
In bold defiance of all law,
Upon himself in secret draw.

But while, my Lord, the satire hits
Those little rhyme-engender'd wits,
Applied by Candour's voice to you,
It forms but your elogium due;
As objects, when the sun-beam's near,
Some dark, some luminous, appear;

Or as fam'd lanterns, aptly made,
Light here diffuse, and there a shade.
To dumb Oblivion's long long night
To consecrate such bards how right!
For thus, with glory and renown
Unfading we true genius crown.

This, and whatever else occurs relating to a late celebrated bard, was finished a considerable time before his decease: a piece of information the reader may think necessary, to break the force of an obvious remark.

POETICAL CHARACTERISTICS;

OR, An ESTIMATE OF THE ADVANTAGES OF RHYMING.

IN THREE CANTOS.

Navem agere ignarus navis timet: abrotonum ægro
Non audet, nisi qui didicit, dare: quod melicorum est
Promittunt melici: tractant fabrilia fabri:
Scribimus indocti doctique poëmata passim.
Hic error tamen et levis hæc insania quantas
Virtutes habeat, sic collige: vatis avarus
Non temerè est animus; versus amat, hoc studet unum;
Detrimenta, fugas servorum, incendia ridet;
Non fraudem socio, puerove incogitat ullam
Pupillo; vivit siliquis et pane secundo:
Militiæ quanquam piger ac malus, utilis urbi.
Hor.

CANTO I.

While others make strange fuss about
Statesmen with places, or without ,
Damn men and measures, good or bad,
And run politically mad;
While Past'ral Life is taught to rage
With all the rancour of the age,
And C--- meets his match indeed
On his own southern side of Tweed,
(His own blows on himself recoil'd),
By Genius and by Valour foil'd :
Far other subjects offer now,
To fillet round the poet's brow;

The laugh, the banter, or the sneer,
Are the severest things sound here.

Say, Muse, ah! whither art thou fled,
Scarce known save for the mighty dead,
The mighty dead (ye proud, forgive)
That more emphatically live,
Than whom a mere mechanic breath
Grossly distinguishes from death?
Say, gentle native of the skies,
With inspiration-beaming eyes;
With step thy pensive frame that tells,
And brow on which complacence dwells;
In what devout retirement now,
Parent of thought sublime, art thou?
To what sequester'd island hied,
Lash'd by some ocean's ambient tide,
Where Nature wears her gentlest form,
Unconscious of the surly storm;
Where Seasons but of milder sort
On airy roseate pinions sport,
Presenting to the ravish'd sight
Each chosen object of delight:
Where, through the groves and lilied plains,
Simplicity primæval reigns,

Blythe-ey'd Contentment at her side,
And Plenty, like a blooming bride;
Love, with her temples wreath'd with flow'rs,
Sighing in amaranthine bow'rs;
Music, with rapture in her look,
Breathing soft airs beside the brook;
And Contemplation, slowly stept,
In dark-brown shades her dwelling kept.
Where, blended in sweet social cares,
Which each with equal transport shares,
Some happy race, by Heav'n design'd
The full perfection of their kind,
On Nature's gifts spontaneous live,
They grateful, as she free to give.
There, with thy light aëreal train,
That trip with nimble foot the plain;
Explore contemplative the grove,
Or loiter in the green alcove;
In Inspiration's magic cell,
With Silence handmaid meet to dwell.
There, till Britannia learns the art
No more from Nature to depart,
Much shock'd with Vice, and tir'd of Folly,
With meek-ey'd, calm-brow'd Melancholy,

On beds of myrrh, edg'd round with flow'rs,
To pass the pleasure-gliding hours.

How many at thine altars bend,
And much phantastic zeal pretend,
Thou to indulge their fond desire,
To touch their torpid lips with fire;
Then, though unheard they bend the knee,
Dare inspiration boast from thee?
Though thy kind dwelling, now and then,
Among the gentler sons of men,
(Shenstones, whose laurel never dies)
Thy native mansion is the skies.
Angels behold thee, and admire,
Caught from thy living glance their fire.
Tun'd to the majesty of praise,
While millions their loud voices raise,
Trembling beneath thy magic hands
The sapphire harp angelic stands.
Martyrs, and saints, and cherubs throng,
To hear the rapture-warbled song;
Jehovah (all his might proclaim,
August, unnutterable name!)
From his high throne eternal bends,
And to the hymn sublime attends;

Heav'n's battlements re-echo round,
And distant worlds return the sound.
Shall mortals then to thee look up,
Just reeling from the midnight-cup,
Just from the brothel's haunts impure,
Thy aid, O goddess! to procure?
Thy laurels flourish not, but where
They breathe a pure untainted air;
Suck the best juices of the soil,
That fertile bears with little toil.
Wave, Satire, then thy fiercest pen,
To chastise those licentious men;
Send them degraded—to the plough,
The circlet twisted from their brow.

Because some striplings write and read,
A most important brag indeed;
So bearded over is their chin,
That barbers weekly are call'd in;
Because to manhood's size grown up,
To revel o'er the midnight-cup;
Shuffle the cards with much address,
And study—at a game of chess;
Look virgins boldly in the face,
And fearlessly appoint the place:

Because a little dust they raise
At balls, assemblies, routs, and plays;
Fir'd by some fair-one's sparkling eyes,
Say something wit-like by surprise;
Their doughty consequence to show,
For trifles can outrageous grow;
Sneer at the consecrated Book,
And swear with unconfounded look:
Because our classic sons of same
They intimately know—by name,
And haply can, with cadence neat,
A line from Pope or Gay repeat:
Such scholars, gentlemen, and wits,
(And doubtless such it well befits)
Their vanity straight takes the hint,
They write, and must appear in print.
Say, what the subjects most they chuse?
Subjects well worthy of the Muse,
Themselves, their noble selves, that seem
First in their own sublime esteem.
To give invention play uncheck'd,
Thus they the poorest themes select.
To point out Nature's every flaw,
Their own sad flimsy portraits draw,

From whence alone mankind may see,
Eve ate of the forbidden tree.

The freedom of the press we rate
As the Palladium of the state;
That test so much renown'd in story,
That bulwark of Britannia's glory.
But often too its value's paid,
What blockheads hence are daily made;
What rhyming coxcombs, that requir'd
Ere silenc'd ev'n a Pope inspir'd;
Pope, who of dunces stoop'd to sing,
Though borne sublime on Homer's wing.
Thus nought of human good we know
Unmingled with its share of wo.
No blessing but its curse attends,
Mutual to thwart each other's ends.
Alas! Britannia's fairest fame
Is oft converted to her shame!
Her very strength and pow'r betray
Her wants and weakness every day!
What should her throne eternal make,
May it with dire convulsions shake!
But Heav'n, here let our murmurs rest,
Will order all things for the best;

On Wisdom make success attend,
And folly in misfortune end.

To shine a poet, you must be
A critic of no mean degree.
Sense, judgment, learning, knowledge, skill
Should ever wield the mighty quill.
The Muse and Contemplation dwell
In the same foliage-mantled cell;
Ever attach'd to one another,
Who wooes the one must woo the other.
The poet's pencil to employ,
Each should a quick nice taste enjoy;
Deep to discern, not take on trust,
The beautiful, sublime, and just;
With sudden sapient glance, disjoin
The spurious from the current coin;
With Kames's eye Lyncean view,
And pierce all Nature through and through.

Poets should, whether wrong or right,
See things in an uncommon light;
At will, change attitudes, sites, places,
And vary ornaments and graces;
With magic pow'rs (confin'd to them)
Turn the dim pebble to a gem;

In barren tracts bid roses bloom,
And rush-grown marshes breathe perfume;
Bid fairy scenes in deserts rise,
And endless Edens charm the eyes.

To be a poet, we require
The touch electrical of fire,
To vibrate on each tingling sense,
Enthusiastic, quick, intense;
A certain pleasing phrenzy known
To seraphs and the Muse alone.

To form the poet, Fancy ought
To swell and elevate the thought;
Waft us, on her excursive wings,
Above the vulgar range of things.
Who at the Muse's altar kneel,
Should ever exquisitely feel;
Through all Sensation's thrillings know
The keen extremes of bliss and wo.
The bard, in fine, should ever claim
A title to immortal fame,
The utile and dulce hit,
As scholar, gentleman, and wit.

How few, alas! in modern days,
On these erect their deathless praise,

A basis nothing e'er can shake,
Though cities fall, and mountains quake;
Though proud Ambition's trophies sink,
And tumble down Fate's dreadful brink;
Though all the labours of mankind,
And states themselves, a period find!
Thus Homer shot his noon-tide ray,
The sun that rul'd the Grecian day.
Thus, with the moon's auspicious light,
Virgil rose all serenely bright.
Thus Milton shines, beheld from far,
Britannia's first poetic star.

How few take Nature for their guide,
Seduc'd by wantonness and pride!
Boast, yet pathetic all the while,
The simple elegance of style!
That flow of unaffected thought,
Which charms at once, and comes unsought!

To squeeze out lifeless, cold, cold strains,
Through thick, thick skulls, from hard-bound brains;
To rack each faculty and pow'r,
For one stale couplet—in an hour;
(Poor verses that, like man and wife,
Together live in endless strife)

To clap most cruelly in fetters
A set of harmless simple letters,
That had, ah not disgrac'd by those,
Rang'd the extensive fields of prose;
To torture lines, much better single,
That their extremities may jingle;
Like sharp, shrill reed-pipes from the marsh,
To squeak most musically harsh:
Thus to make sounds, with bold pretence,
Pass with the gaping croud for sense,
As, deck'd in plumes of gaudy hue,
The jackdaw would be peacock too;
These patch up (well Reviewers know it)
In hodiernal phrase, a poet.
Thus too, with sacrilegious hands,
Boldly transgressing the commands,
To be in estimation had,
They rob the treasures of the dead.
But sure, of pilferers accurst,
The literary thief's the worst.
Not from mankind alone he steals,
And meanly the base act conceals;
His theft to Heav'n itself extends,
For Genius from the skies descends.

The servile plagiary is then
The robber both of gods and men.

Such rhyming mendicants for fame,
Purloiners of another's name;
Such dwarfs, some men of stature greet,
That hobble on poetic feet;
Such glow-worms, in dark corners met,
That twinkle—when the sun is set;
Harpies, where-e'er the laurel hangs,
Hov'ring around with outstretch'd fangs;
Such reptiles, each hoots as he passes,
Creeping up belly-wise Parnassus;
Such wretched tackers to of verse,
Sacred to man's—celanda pars;
Such poets of mechanic race,
Like locusts swarm in ev'ry place;
Beneath no fear, restraint, or awe,
In spite of common sense and law,
In spight of Nature, Taste, and Kames,
Damn to eternity their names.

Such fancy Poetry a trade,
Like shoes on lasts their verses made;
And, like the coarse ill-fitted shoe,
Indeed most stiff and awkward too.

A trade it is; but to practise,
You must serve 'prentice in the skies.
Else, though together words you link,
Like ill-match'd parish-bells to clink;
(The woful dirge that dreary tolls
Oblivion to such tuneful souls)
Though, now and then, a phrase compound
Lifts up the unmajestic sound;
Though scraps of wit, and shreds of sense,
The reader meets—and knows from whence;
Though Fancy glimmers, here and there,
Like meteors through the troubled air;
Though, half in rubbish hid, a gem
Twinkles—with lustre not from them;
Though, sometimes in a feeble spring,
Imagination spreads her wing;
Though haply, gazing many an hour,
Up starts a solitary flow'r,
Reflecting beauty on the whole,
From Pope or Dryden's garden stole;
Though these as miracles surprise,
And for a moment charm the wise;
Like old cloaths patch'd with purple glare,
And make the idiot rabble stare;

Yet absent Genius, to inspire
With her bright, equal, vital fire,
To wing the Fancy, warm the heart,
And all her magic to impart;
Such as in Gray's chaste finish'd lines,
Or Ogilvie's rich numbers shines;
Such manufacturers of verse
May strut, their betters to asperse;
Such may their maim'd and halting rhyme,
By counting their ten fingers, time;
The Age's standard models be,
For expletive sublimity;
With pretty tinkling, jingling numbers,
Charm the transported soul to—slumbers;
Quite inoffensive cordial strains,
To wakeful wit-molested brains:
But sure they ne'er can poets be,
Till mankind cease to hear and see;
Till Young poetically dead,
And Akenside no longer read.
Vainly we summon pen and ink,
To write, when we neglect to think.
Against the Muse we act high treason,
Nor rhyme our madrigals, nor reason.

Mankind this maxim should behold
Struck out in capitals of gold,
Adopted by Rome's first-rate wit,
Poeta nascitur, non fit.
In phrase vernacular to show it,
A poet must be born a poet.
Because this precept oft forgot,
(Alas! what standard rule is not?)
One might, by trade, on turtles dine,
But chuses starving with the Nine.
Another now of court-suit brags,
Now, struck with rhyme-fits, creeps in rags.
Some lay aside the manly tool,
Made tradesmen by poetic rule.
Some leave the plough, to lose their time,
And oft their senses too, in rhyme.
Others, in sacerdotal gown,
Affect poetical renown;
They prov'd their knowledge in the text,
And thus become mere blockheads next.
Others, beneath the three-tail'd wig
Full-spread, look most profoundly big;
Rostrums had eterniz'd their name,
Not by the Muse condemn'd to fame.

Others, because mankind they save
From fell diseases and the grave,
Think some great freedom they may use,
And murder with their quill the Muse.
Such, set on Pegasus's back,
In modern days a very hack,
As them not Lyttelton can stop,
Soon in oblivion's pit must drop.

The end of the First Canto.

Written in the year 1763.

Alluding to a very elegant little piece under the title of Genius and Valour, written in opposition to the famous Prophecy of Famine.

CANTO II.

Yes; men of fortune, let them rhyme,
Their greatest foe, to murder time.
Time a dead burden on them hangs,
Which they sustain with endless pangs;
And much the Muses oft avail
To lighten it when all things fail.
Satan might else boast some excuse,
His wiles and fiery darts to use.
That state from manly cares exempt,
Is his apology to tempt;
Near too his idleness akin,
And in demerit next, to sin.

The hapless wretch with riches curst,
Is of all menial slaves the worst,
If no ingenious liberal turn
Makes his expanded bosom burn;
If Science, bounteous but to few,
Opes not her treasures to his view;
Who cannot, disengag'd from pelf,
Retire well-pleas'd within himself.

To know, is but to pity him,
A slave to caprice and to whim.
A slave to indolence and sloth,
That eat him up, as cloaths the moth.
A slave to passion and to pride,
That whirl him down their rapid tide.
A slave to discontent and spleen,
With many a rash resolve between.
A slave to every modish folly,
To sullen moppish melancholy.
A most obsequious slave to Vice,
And her attendants, cards and dice,
Whose prize, still fools, or knaves dispute,
The bottle and the prostitute.
Let him then rhyme, and who can tell,
But you may save a soul from hell?

That there are some exceptions we
With you most cordially agree;
As, when the Winter sets in drear,
Haply some ever-greens appear:
Haply, in base and sordid mines,
Some vein of nobler metal shines.
Besides, these slaves of high degree
In many articles are free.

Freedom they nobly boast from both,
As tradesmen feel, their word, and oath;
But honour here, to souls refin'd,
Argues a low plebeian mind;
Though in mere trifles did you doubt them,
Zounds! 's death—they carry swords about them.
A slave in all things else, to be
Is just in some such instance free.

But to destroy that monster, Time,
As they claim privilege to rhyme;
Not freedom here alone they use,
They take much greater with the Muse.
So much averse to be confin'd,
No rule whate'er has force to bind.
For who would be a dupe to schools,
To men, who almost breathe by rules?
Horace of poetry may prate,
Mere Popes alone his maxims rate.
Poetic licence too apart,
Beyond ev'n credible they start.
Thus, faulty in some thing or other,
From one extreme we seek another.
The Stagyrite and Flaccus wrote,
And hence such numbers daily quote,

Because their scanty talents rose
No higher than such rules as those.
Their wit and precepts ne'er dispart,
That cramp'd by Nature, these by Art.
But would our new-light bards invent,
On forms less scrupulously bent,
Maxims that might their genius suit,
Boileau might doubtless then be mute.
For better, to the lib'ral man,
The ample than the bounded plan.
The Gallic critic writes, confin'd
By Nature, to the humankind;
Beyond her bourn our poets soar,
Traverse whole worlds, and ask for more.
Space, matter, time, obey the nod
Of each upstart poetic god.
His mouth each couplet-joiner opes,
And out fly strange unusual tropes,
Such figures, metaphors, and phrases,
As Nature he affronts who praises;
Such imagery, which right to relish,
Though meant to heighten and embellish,
You must, whate'er enjoyment hence is,
Don-Quixote-like, give up your senses;

Or with heroic nonsense burn,
See giants where but windmills turn.
But such employments aptly hit
Our great originals in wit,
Who much affected glee pretend,
That them we ne'er can comprehend.
“The critics ah! how grossly stupid!
“How crawls on earth the vile quadruped,
“While the strong eagle soars sublime,
“True bards but eagles wing'd by rhyme!
“How long will writers bless our land,
“Yet not one reader understand!
“Thy gifts, Heav'n, less to us dispense,
“Till men boast more than common sense.
“Beyond this vulgar test when learn'd,
“Then will our merit be discern'd.
“Ah! why were printing-presses plann'd,
“But mankind's ignorance to brand!
“To nothing doom them, Heav'n, once more,
“Till our scann'd works read o'er and o'er.”

Thus pray our bards, and adepts say,
That they successfully still pray;
We mean such adepts, as could see
Reviewers damn'd, and Dulness free.

But shall the critics them pass o'er,
Umpires decreed of human lore?
No; first let fishes seek the land,
And rivers in their courses stand.
Let needles first their poles reverse,
Nor morning-beams night's shades disperse.
The critic's truest, noblest fame,
Is to admonish and reclaim;
If they in vain this task discharge,
Then excommunicate at large,
Not from the kirk, but, with disdain,
From Immortality's bless'd fane.

That common origin whence springs
The fix'd propriety of things;
That particle of light divine,
By which we Reason would define;
Those ties, in essence and in name,
Which sentiment and language claim,
Objects of sense with thought combin'd,
And matter somehow link'd to mind:
In these the probable and just,
That have subsisted still, and must;
Or, in one word concentred all,
What aptly makind, Nature, call;

Such seems a standard too contracted
For bards, by no set rules directed,
Such rules as all mankind must own
To be supremely—theirs alone.
Nature too unembellish'd lies,
To ravish hypercritic eyes.
Her charms too vulgarly are seen,
Without the optic lens between.
No depths of study are requir'd,
Nor Plato-like to be inspir'd;
A heart's the requisite alone,
That Beauty's touches may be known,
Still faithful, as magnetic steel.
Are we, when Nature bids us feel.
But yet how mean to value that
Which occupies the clown's chit-chat?
Why those ideas entertain,
That ev'n to them appear so plain?
Why own sensations, that must strike
Philosophers and hinds alike?
This would Invention's rambles curb,
And Nature's order quite disturb;
To rustic life would Genius sink,
To such as only—feel and think,

Who, while Ambition's transport glows,
Ne'er nobly venture to—compose.

Hence, to our learned poets, this
Display of parts is all amiss,
Where simple thoughts, in simple phrase,
Support alone our claim to praise.
Where obvious lies to all the sense,
Unkept the judgment in suspense.
Where Commentators have no room,
To twist, conjecture, and presume.
Nature to them's wrapt in disguise,
Her therefore would our bards despise;
Yet a disguise not native to her,
But what absurdly they bestow her.
They seem somehow chagrin'd at Fate,
And would the world anew create.
For sure, their mysteries of strain
To some strange system appertain.
Their modes of thinking too refer,
Else Monthly Critics greatly err,
To some surprising race of men,
That ne'er were taught from Dryden's pen:
And, as all things from chaos rose,
That our vast universe compose;

So, into prompt belief to draw us,
Our bards begin too with a chaos.
Some nobler species (where or when
Are secrets to the sons of men)
May fathom all their depths, and be
More critically learn'd than we.
But here, would Heav'n grant my request,
Would I with ignorance be blest;
Yet thus (what wonders swarm below!)
Like Young, like Pope, like Blacklock, know.

Meantime, advantages accrue
To those their footsteps that pursue.
For thus their various hours ingross'd,
That ah! might otherwise be lost;
Such visits paid by Fancy round
To fairy scenes, and magic ground;
Thus stretch'd Imagination's wing
Beyond immensely—ev'ry thing;
Thus Memory (enrich'd by stealth)
Emptied of all her precious wealth;
Their passions thus by wonders caught,
Whirl'd round in vortices of thought;
Their elemental fire assuag'd,
And restless faculties engag'd:

The Muses—who so kind as they!
How cheated Satan of his prey!
What blessings from the great employ
Does hence Society enjoy!
All negatives we grant indeed,
As Parthians flying oft succeed.

Thus, had the Muse, with aspect bland,
And bays extended in her hand,
At Stella's birth presiding, said,
“Be thou a metre-loving maid,”
Stella had ne'er, to show her sense,
Shone at all womankind's expense;
Expos'd their hours quite run to waste,
Their ignorance, and want of taste;
Their little unaspiring aims,
Content with sorry housewife-names;
Within a narrow roof confin'd
The mighty powers of female mind;
Whose best exertions but imply
A jelly, custard, or a pie;
Mirrours and pictures rightly plac'd,
Or side-boards garnish'd out with taste;
Unknown, though with brocaded suit on,
To Hume, to Hutcheson, and Newton .

But not to Stella's case confin'd
The blessings of the Muses kind;
Around diffusively they spread,
Like currents from the fountain-head.
For some choice topics more, at large
Our task appointed to discharge,
To hail their glorious deeds who—sing,
In our next labour we shall bring;
No fact designedly suppressing,
To prove the Muse a public blessing.
Meantime, each wit of spirit, show it,
Dare to live poor and be a—poet.

The end of the Second Canto.

See the piece called Stella in this volume,

CANTO III.

Would you detain men from the stews?
Let them have commerce with the Muse.
Their passions, that no limits know,
Must ever have some stated flow;
If spent at all, a trifling care,
The manner how, or when, or where.
As ships from rocks secur'd by cables,
To keep mankind from gaming-tables,
Them fasten with poetic fetters,
Link'd from the alphabet of letters.
But that one almost daily views
Murders committed on the Muse,
Many might bid adieu to life,
Stabb'd ruthless by his brother's knife;
Our very roofs secure no more,
Our inmost chambers stain'd with gore.
Yes; at the altar force the Muse,
If she your modest suit refuse;
Then shall our wives and daughters be
From your attempts unhallow'd free.

That robbers may our roads desert,
And from our houses thieves depart;
Let mortals all their cunning use,
Freely to purloin from the Muse:
To rob, on purpose to conceal,
Her sons, is from herself to steal.
By taking thus, unknown they give,
Die faster, as they strive to live;
As, aiming to be more than frog,
Bursts the fam'd monarch of the bog.
Though steel strength from the magnet gains,
The magnet still its pow'r retains.
Yon blossom still remains unsoil'd,
Though haply of its honey spoil'd.

But for the harmless art of rhyming,
Men would be still offending Hymen.
Might stand accus'd (such W---'s use is)
Of some foul capital abuses.
Fly in the face of law and reason,
Guilty of heresy or treason;
Of which in Britain's annals we
So many dire examples see:
As heroes on the public road,
To ease poor misers of their load,

To free their brethren—with a knife,
From all the miseries of life;
Above their fellow-mortals be
Highly exalted—on a tree.

Rhyme on then, mortals; for in numbers
The love of mischief often slumbers;
The wicked thought oft melts away,
Cool-worded in a roundelay.
Obid and Teriff , harmless now,
Had broken else some plighted vow;
Stole from some too kind virgin more
Than they again could e'er restore.
Thank then the Muse, ye lordly brothers,
Ye loving aunts, and tender mothers;
That no fair friend meets a disaster,
Thank not the man, but poetaster.

Rhyme on then, mortals; and in verse
Your thoughts to climes remote disperse;
For, were they not abroad to roam,
What mischief might they do at home!
Had W--- thus, whose far other lass is,
But woo'd the Muse upon Parnassus,

He had preserv'd his wits and sense still,
Undamn'd by H---'s mighty pencil.
To show what lengths the human heart
May ah! from Rectitude depart,
Doom'd to the scorpion lash of fame,
Nor burst with consciousness and shame;
God said, in vengeance to his foes,
Let --- arise, and --- arose.

Rhyme on then, mortals; better rhyme,
Than suffer for some horrid crime.
Better lines meet, and jingle too,
Than muffled bells ding dang for you.
Better to chain a few poor letters,
Than you be clapt in iron fetters.
Better the Muse and you—forgot,
Than in a dungeon you should rot.
Thus, had not C--- spent his ire,
And timely flash'd away his fire;
This self-same C--- might have been
A robber on the highway seen;
A cut-throat, muffled up in gloom,
In some lone corner of a room;
Escaping thus those dreadful pangs
He feels who by his gullet hangs.

Forgive him then, thrice noble B---;
Newgate had claim'd a C--- mute.
Thee he revil'd, else with his fellows
Satan had sent him to the gallows.
Thee he mistook, but not himself,
A very cunning wary elf;
Self-preservation is a rule
First taught us in wise Nature's school;
So, from the halter to be free,
He drew his pen, and libell'd thee.
But censure from his pen we find
Turn'd into praise by all mankind.
Forgive him then, thrice noble B---;
Thou but half-prais'd, had he been mute.

Ryme on then, mortals; better rhyme,
Although you reach not the sublime,
Than at Temptation's mercy lie,
The veriest wretch beneath the sky;
Toss'd to and fro, howe'er you strive,
As whim, caprice, or passion drive.

Such ills had happen'd C---, and O!
The mighty author of Rodondo,
Had they not thus themselves amus'd,
And all their gall in rhyme effus'd.

Like ale in bottles they fermented,
Fate long their bursting kind prevented;
But Politics too fiery grew,
Out cork and froth abruptly flew.
Happy this tempest overblown,
Nought but the cork itself o'erthrown!
C--- mounts Pegasus, and strives
To prove—how fast the devil drives,
Drives on, such Satan's plan to mend all,
Through slander, obloquy, and scandal.
Gross wit's fierce elements engage,
A deep, dark Pitt confines their rage ,
What devastations else had been
In womens fair inclosures seen!

The Muse, in pity to mankind,
Strongly inspir'd each author's mind;
The simple, harmless bosom left,
For theirs of gentleness bereft:
And why? her choice from goodness rose,
Of evils twain the least she chose;
Permitted them to lash a few,
Who but receiv'd, perhaps, their due,
Rather than, from restraints set loose,
Mankind had felt worse than abuse.
Better to suffer from the pen,
Than from the hands of desp'rate men.
Bards rarely deal in swords or knives,
To wound our properties or lives.
The poet's curse, howe'er severe,
Seldom sinks deeper than the ear.

True; no exception here should be,
Let the same censure light on—me.
Thanks to the Muse, so little fame
Can sport malicious with my name,
That, through life's crouded path below,
I almost unobserv'd can go;
Though scarce for good distinguish'd, still,
Not once remarkable for ill.

Though not by infinite so good,
As God and Reason mean I should;
Yet am I not, my conscience clear,
Worse than to mankind I appear.
These, in the same proportion true,
Comprise my shame and glory too.
But, Reader, lest you should declare
Against the prim Confessor's chair;
No more, so your chagrin suspend,
Shall the pert egotist offend.
Yet, haply, men well-pleas'd may see
Their own apt portraitures in me.
For look with moral eye about,
All's mediocrity throughout,
Save, where we only it should find,
When fierce disputes inflame mankind:
When W--- wields his fell pen
O'er a strict set of harmless men,
Puffs, with proud, rage-inflated cheek,
And storms, to prove the spirit meek.

Rhyme on then, mortals; better rhyme,
Than waste in idleness your time;
Or, which is worse, from Discontent,
Your rage and spite on others vent.

Could Zalates employ his pen,
That most sloth-overcome of men;
Did not the chaste and virtuous Muse
To him her visit kind refuse;
Would he be late and early found
A constant plague to all around?
For had she, with auspicious pow'r,
But smil'd upon his natal hour;
His name for worth had been engrav'd,
And, haply, all our labour sav'd.

Each son of metre too may say,
Himself a compliment to pay,
He generously does all he can,
To help a worthy class of men;
Who else, in home-spun russet clad,
Might handle spades for daily bread.
In mines poetic all such [illeg.]ewers
Cut ample work out for Reviewers.
Such take the ready way to starve
Themselves, their—betters to preserve.
For mercy's sake, ye critics, then,
Spare, spare such charitable men!
O! graciously our spirits raise,
And throw us out a little praise,

On which our famish'd souls may live!
Blessed are they that freely give!
And Gratitude demands it too,
You should feed us for feeding you.
Good beef and pudding we afford,
And wines, to decorate your board;
Surely, you should return as good,
Fame, that light elemental food.
Thus mutual giv'n shall mutual last
The eleemos'nary repast.
But this sublime existence gives,
Who eats with faith, immortal lives;
Those grant, with much intestine strife,
Only a temporary life.
Doubtless, we need then no director,
To tell who's most the benefactor.

What complicated good the Muse
Loves through Creation to diffuse!
Not ills alone would she prevent,
To her philanthropy's extent;
But also, to each rank below,
Would blessings positive bestow!
Kings might their drawing-rooms decline,
To pay their visits to the Nine.

Commence for once (unsceptred) men,
And wield in harmless glee their pen.
Such only then would murder time,
With monarchs sure a simple crime;
Not slaughter, for a plume, or gem,
Millions, nor feel one pang for them;
Sprung from one common kindred clay,
Not less divinely form'd than they;
Though accident, mistake, or guilt,
With blood of murder'd thousands spilt,
(Oft for their punishment alone)
Have plac'd such monsters on a throne;
To rule mankind with iron rod,
And personate all things but—God!
The royal sons of Freedom here
Angels in human form appear.
George sills Britannia's throne, to show
Heav'n one anointed boasts below.

Rhyme on then, mortals; for by metre,
Our taste of life becomes the sweeter;
Though to some lowly cottage doom'd,
Unvisited by satraps plum'd,
Where courts the splendid ball ne'er form,
Far from proud grandeur and—the storm.

Each hour on downy pinion hence
Brings some new rapture to the sense.
Objects around we can arrange
Through one eternal joyous change;
Within our closets worlds explore,
And act all mankind o'er and o'er;
Extend life's poor contracted span,
Beyond the common bounds of man;
From sleep's ignoble periods take,
And more than vulgarly awake.
Though our apology how strong,
Howe'er sleep's stupor we prolong;
Since the kind Muse, till Morning beams,
Inspires us with ecstatic dreams,
Ecstatic dreams of—glorious things,
Claret, ragouts, and fiddle-strings!

“But who is this, to merit blind,
“Who dares to satirize mankind?
“What noble lineage can he boast?
“Has he travers'd Europa's coast?
“What mighty duke rang'd states about with,
“To—lose what virtue they set out with?
“In what school academic bred?
“In what fam'd system deeply read?

“Beneath what sophist taught to think,
“And at Pierian font to drink?
“At what Gamaliel's footstool plac'd,
“To learn the principles of taste?
“What fire Promethean has he stole,
“Not one bard-damning, but the whole?
“What critic, at the midnight-lamp,
“Taught him the true sublime to stamp?
“Has he, to be admir'd for art,
“Some rhyming-grammar got by heart?
“Has S---, in transports flung,
“Inform'd him how—to use his tongue?
“Has B---, mechanically fir'd,
“His thoughts possess'd, and brain inspir'd?
“Or W---, whose employ to parse is,
“Told him the secret to make verses?
“Say, what romantic child of fun
“With cobwebs would obscure the sun?”

Thou waspish elf, with spleen o'er-run!
Thou Dennis's poetic son!
Wouldst thou, vile pedant, make me vain?
Curse, arm'd with spectacles, my strain.
An arrow through my liver send?
Snatch quick thy standish, and commend.

That me effectually would raise
To Johnson's excellence of praise;
This would to ---'s bards link me,
Or lower than a Codrus sink me.
If good the verse, no matter though
The author were thyself below.
If bad, no character or station
Can rescue it from swift damnation.

Look round mankind, thou dolt, and see,
What fate waits bards of high degree,
If Genius ne'er effulg'd a ray
Around their laurel'd heads to play.
In what inglorious spot recluse
Now slumbers Dorset's once-fam'd muse?
Gone, Indies could not either save,
To moulder with him in the grave.
But Pope shall in his strains survive,
While taste or sense preserv'd alive;
Shall be—till wit allied to station,
The pride and glory of our nation.
Right facile were the task to show it,
How falsely Rochester dubb'd poet!
Hence, though escutcheons grac'd his name.
Expir'd soon his poetic fame;

Save that some still revere his muse
In that pure font of taste, the—stews.
But of Plebeian race behold,
Seldom oppress'd with too much gold,
Dryden, the standard of the age,
While mankind dotes on Virgil's page.
Though poor in pelf, by wretches sought,
How rich in sentiment and thought!
What veins of genius glorious shine
Through ev'ry massy sterling line!
What rays of wit flash all about!
What flow'rs of fancy bloom throughout!
These shall perpetuate his name,
The true-born son of classic fame,
When Wilmot's is remember'd not,
And Buckingham's himself forgot.

Nor strange thus various the requital
To men without and with a title.
Each son of Genius, nobly born,
Titles conferr'd surveys with scorn;
In Fame's bright lists his name inroll'd,
With all the pomp of letter'd gold,
Would he affect to mould a lord,
In some poor lumber-swept record?

Refrain, thou pseudo-critic, then,
To seek an author's rank with men.
If not in Fame's own temple plac'd,
Vainly his pedigree is trac'd,
Mean, with a coronet though crown'd,
Not with the Muse's laurel bound.
If dull and spiritless his strains,
Though blood of princes swell his veins,
Despis'd like Moevius shall he be,
Nor two full moons revolving see.
If but a spark his verse inspires,
Drawn living from celestial fires,
Though meanest styl'd of Adam's sons,
To whom obscure his lineage runs;
Yet shall the wonders of his rhyme
Triumph o'er dulness, spleen, and time;
Renew'd remembrance be his lot,
When ages have seen thee forgot.

Rhyme on then, mortals; for in measure
The miser may forget his treasure,
Forget his gilded scraps of pelf,
For once to recollect himself.
For what with rust time intersperses,
(Bless'd avarice!) to hoard up verses.

Thus doubly gen'rous, doubly kind,
Surpris'd would we the miser find;
Happy his riches to diffuse,
But parsimonious with his muse.
Better our passions thus transferr'd,
By whose excess men still have err'd,
Than, out of place alike, and time,
To swell into some actual crime.

Rhyme on then, mortals; for the Muse
Can much of sweet content infuse,
Though no phantastic gaudy plume,
Nods in the park, or drawing-room;
The brow from anxious cares unbind,
And throw a languor o'er the mind,
Akin, while fiercer raptures cloy,
To the mild equal touch of joy.
While, hurried on to worse from bad,
The giddy world around runs mad;
From wave to wave of folly tost,
Their helm and anchor, Reason, lost;
Sink down, abandon'd by relief,
O'erwhelm'd in the profound of grief;
On Sense's shallows headlong run,
By Passion's furious blast undone;

Or on the rocks of Anguish dash,
Which black Despair's swoln surges lash:
The Muse's sons, with placid gale,
Safely o'er life's rough ocean fail.
Ye mortals, then, through life that plod,
Whether you eat, or drink, or—nod,
To love or wine devote your time,
Keep the commandments all, and—rhyme.

Yet some slight inconvenience flows
From dealing in poetic—prose.
Some errours in our mode of thinking,
As well alas! as in our clinking.
For say, Mytholius, why so stupid,
Thus still to dote on Pan or Cupid?
To Phoebus still your suit direct,
When you are certain of neglect?
With knee inflected bow to Ceres,
Whose, than to hear, far other care is,
That care expressively we call
The care of millions—none at all?
You cannot guess how great my pain is,
Thus ever paying court to Venus;
A goddess found, nor here, nor there,
Unless, perhaps, found ev'ry where.

She dropt her girdle, which, you know,
Fell to each British fair below.
These gods and goddesses long since,
As Young and Akenside evince,
Have, like fall'n stars, no more to rise,
Resign'd the sceptre of the skies:
Beings that now despotic reign
But o'er the empire of your brain.
Perhaps, you your request prefer,
And trust me, here you cannot err,
As devotees have often ranted,
On purpose it should not be granted.
Nor could you sure, in this respect,
More proper godships e'er select.

But not Mytholius to be hard on,
Such indecorums we shall pardon;
For, without Cupid, Pan, and Phoebus,
What bard were not a downright hebes?
Them from the Pantheon fond they single,
Among their measur'd lines to jingle,
Lest the belief might be imply'd,
They ever pray'd to aught beside.
Fit punishment it seems moreo'er
On these divinities of yore,

Aiding poor brainless couplet-moulders,
To be dragg'd in by head and shoulders;
Dragg'd in, lest simple blame incurr'd,
To make a dull, dull line absurd;
In Heav'n for their long usurpation,
To suffer thus deserv'd damnation.

But other instances remain,
And claim admittance in our strain,
To prove, what ev'ry tyro knows,
From rhyming inconvenience flows.
One shall suffice now from a number,
Lest we our crouded page encumber.
And let that one our song conclude,
As the tir'd critic says it should.
And whom should bards affect to please,
But critics, fond of punch and ease?
Critics and bards, like man and wife,
Should carefully avoid all strife.

Some poets, anxious to be witty,
Only aspire to claim our pity;
For pity sure that man deserves,
Who from good manners grossly swerves.
And why? a genius to commence,
He gives up modesty and sense.

His verse requires (how just the scoff!)
Obscenity to set it off.
To please, howe'er he might intend,
His reader's ear, he must offend.
Such would erect a spotless name
On mankind's nakedness and shame;
On bogs, with impure rubbish fill'd,
A palace or a temple build.
Ingrafted on the bramble low,
Expect to find the nect'rine grow.

That hackney'd Muse is surely jaded,
Nor more by inspiration aided,
Who, to patch up a tatter'd fame,
And save from death a sinking name,
For succour flies to those poor arts
At which offended Virtue starts;
At which, with sweet becoming grace,
Fair Modesty must veil her face.
Genius far other helps requires,
Glowing from her own innate fires;
Still sailing, on no shallows caught,
Her own deep ocean vast of thought.
Oaks, but no support shrubs bestow,
Diffusive spread, majestic grow.

No borrow'd wing the eagle needs,
Self-pois'd to heav'n itself he speeds.
The taste of Britons each mistook,
Whoe'er penn'd an indecent book,
Or, like a mean infected elf,
Thought ev'ry Briton like himself.
Wretch! with foul pencil to abuse
The chastely-sentimental muse!
To pass, with judges too in them,
His paltry pebble for a gem!
Yet, as the bee with occult pow'rs
Sips sweets from amarescent flow'rs;
So in such writers, now and then,
Some rays of wit astonish men;
Astonish men, who seldom view
Dunghills, to meet with diamonds too.

Forgive him, Virtue, spotless dame!
Such write mistakenly for fame;
For fame's dispens'd by thee alone,
Or to the cottage or the throne;
That fame, which never can decay,
Though brazen statues melt away;
Though earth, while all her offspring dies,
Convuls'd from her shook centre flies;

And yonder orbs, that shine so bright,
Are whelm'd in everlasting night.
Shall mortals then, O Virtue, claim
Unknown to thee, thy dowery fame?
Thus some usurper might drag down
His prince enthron'd, and seize his crown.
To love, and to resemble thee,
Is only to immortal be.
Forgive them; their indecent pen
But recommends thee more to men;
As soot, while it offends the sight,
Sets off the snow's unsullied white;
Or as the diamond's brighter made
'Mid the brown darkness of the shade.

The end of the Third and last Canto.

See a piece called, The Poetical Duumvirate.

Alluding to a poem in two Cantos, entitled Rodondo, or, The State-Jugglers, written on the opposite side to Churchill, who, although corporeally dead, may be said still to survive in his works, according to the bold and expressive language of Inspiration, though applied to a far different character, he being dead, yet speaketh. This, with what is intimated in a former note, and the necessity the author was under of keeping his piece unbroken and entire, agreeable to his original plan, will, he flatters himself, sufficiently protect him from the vile opprobrium in the fable, of the ass spurning at the dead lion.

See the next piece but one under this title.

THE MONOPOLIST.

------ omnes
Vicini oderunt, noti, pueri, atque puellæ:
Miraris, quum tu argento post omnia ponas,
Si nemo præstet quem non merearis amorem.
Hor.

Sapo, condemn'd to love of gain,
Tortures for it his little brain;
Just knowing, all his pow'rs implied,
His right hand from his left beside.
His daily unremitted care,
Nor fame nor glory is to share;
But all just boundaries to pass,
Break the twelfth precept, and amass:
No matter how, or where, or when,
If but in lucky hour he can.
His God, his conscience, and his neighbour,
Are all involv'd in this one labour.
His meat, his drink, his sleep, his all,
You fitly may his money call.
He thinks each Christian duty paid,
If he can but enlarge his trade;

His trade, by all mean shifts combin'd,
To pinch, distress, and cheat mankind.
He thinks nought sinful that's conceal'd,
No crime forbidden till reveal'd;
Forgets himself a man, that he
May, fiend-like, from restraints be free:
A plan of action that defies,
At one bold stroke, both earth and skies;
A plan, far from his darling sum,
To damn him in the world to come.

When seasons frown upon mankind,
Against us heav'n and earth combin'd;
When Plenty shuts her bounteous hand,
And Want, dire Want, invades our land;
He steps abroad, with visage drear,
To add fresh horrours to the year;
Amid Despair's surrounding gloom,
To aggravate the general doom;
Assist the vengeance of the skies,
Nor fall himself a sacrifice.
No; God spares Sapo, to fulfil
On base rebellious man his will;
This done, himself unwept shall fall,
The vilest and the worst of all.

No mercy's thus to Sapo shown,
Daily his guilt still deeper grown:
And as his sins rise in degree,
His final punishment shall be.

What! gentle to a wretch whose views
So much insult the heav'n-born Muse!
Insult Humanity's great law,
Without which vainly breath we draw!
Insult Distress's tear-swoln eye!
Insult Misfortune's bursting sigh!
A wretch who, with insidious grin,
An emblem of the fiend within,
Can basely hatch a thousand lies,
If his demands may thereby rise;
Feign scarcity, when through the plains,
In smiles array'd, Abundance reigns:
A wretch, if aught but coward vile,
Trembling if you but cease to smile,
Who had purloin'd his neighbour's coat,
For pelf, or cut his brother's throat!
A wretch, who would exult to find
Heav'n no more gracious to mankind!
Snatch from Omnipotence the rod,
And act a tyrant, for a God!

His Bible's first commands despise,
And, back'd by hell, monopolize!
Mercy were here to worth unkind;
Compassion, littleness of mind.
When snakes untwist their deadly folds,
Who strangely pities that beholds?
When wolves for slaughter lie in wait,
Who careless would brood o'er his fate;
Nor snatch the instrument of death,
And claim the ruffian's forfeit breath?

Rise, Satire, and to gain renown,
Assume the Juvenalian frown;
Rise, in majestic terrour rise,
Darting swift vengeance from thy eyes;
Let torrents dashing down the rock,
Less than thy furious numbers shock:
Be no soft soothing strains thy choice,
But the sonorous thunder's voice.
Quick let the serpent's venom dart,
To reach the inly-quiv'ring heart;
Along each nerve-string let it glow,
And to life's last recesses flow!
Better one his deserts should share,
Than thousands sink in deep despair;

Reduc'd to Hunger's latest throb,
And almost justified to rob.

If those we loudly censure, plac'd
On thrones, by tyrants oft disgrac'd;
Who slaughter with unfeeling hand,
And spread destruction through the land;
Allur'd by Glory's specious call,
And surnam'd heroes if they fall:
How should we execrate the wretch,
Or how his horrid portrait sketch,
Who pleas'd can in cool blood observe
His fellow-men unpitied—starve!
Sport with their hardships; at each shock
Of dire distress, inhuman mock!
Riot on their heart-rending woes,
His gold (curs'd gold!) increas'd with those!
No gilded mite he calls his own,
But cost some guiltless heart a groan:
From Grief's half-dried-up sluices brought
A tear, with many a pang of thought.
That groan, howe'er enlarg'd his purse,
Shall prove his everlasting curse;
That tear, just gushing from the eyes,
Against his crimes in judgment rise.

What covert then shall screen his head
From heav'n's vindictive sentence dread?
Vainly around imploring aid,
What tongue of angels intercede?
What arm, omnipotently great,
Snatch him suspended o'er his fate?
Ten thousand curses must conspire,
To heat eternally his fire;
To twitch him in life's quickest part,
And wreathe like adders round his heart.

Behold! in yonder straw-thatch'd hut,
The door as in despair fast shut,
Around a hearth, where fire once burn'd,
With fix'd eyes on each other turn'd;
Almost by Mercy's self forsook,
Anguish deep stamp'd on every look;
Two wretched parents, ah! behold,
Pallid with want, and pinch'd with cold!
Wretched—not for themselves—alas!
Far deeper rankles their distress:—
Around, while husks would each revive,
Their offspring croud, scarce half alive.
One on the ground all ragged lies,
And staggers, if in act to rise!

Another gaunt, with piercing eye,
Would, famish'd, seize some guardless fly!
A third in fix'd attention dumb,
Rakes the parch'd ashes for a crumb!
Others, scarce, ah! with thought endu'd,
Mangle their very nails for food!
The melting father's forc'd to see
His darling sink upon his knee!
That round the mother's neck's decreed
To die in agony of need!
Deep, grave-like silence reigns about,
All's hopeless solitude throughout;
Save where, on broken rafter set,
Each little prattler's wonted pet,
Waiting his scanty pittance long,
The robin chaunts his doleful song.

What heart, that e'er compunction felt,
Would not o'er such distresses melt?
What but a monster's cas'd in steel,
And form'd incapable to feel?
Shall we to savage-wilds repair,
To find this human monster there?
On some inhospitable shore,
With tygers, wolves, and bears, explore?

No; in Britannia's native streets,
One daily such a monster meets.
Haste, reader, his dread haunts escape,
A vulture for his prey agape.
And Oh! the servile task excuse,
So foul a picture to peruse.
The pen how despicably mean,
To touch a subject so unclean!
That had contended for the bays
In some immortal hero's praise;
Such heroes as Britannia boasts,
The grace and bulwark of her coasts !
How could the numbers condescend
With such a pigmy to contend!
How prostitute their sacred rage,
A worm on dunghills to engage!
Yet, for amends, we next shall add
A character not quite so bad;
So, gentle reader, pray compose
Your ruffled brow, and straight your nose.

Written in the year 1762.

ZALATES.

A MODERN CHARACTER.

Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur.
Hor.

A bard, whose laurel never dies,
To women characters denies.
But, with more justice from his pen,
He might have hence degraded men;
Or chang'd his note, with cadence sad;
Better no characters, than bad.
On Zalates the satire falls,
Him fame here an example calls.
Phantastic humour, oddness, whim,
Are our just character of him.
Bless'd with a fond and virtuous wife,
That first-rate happiness of life;
Esteem'd for prudence, and for sense,
Her love of Virtue no pretence;

In authors just discreetly read,
Agreeable, polite, well-bred;
Whom none behold without respect,
And but a blockhead could neglect:
With this fair, kind companion blest,
He's tasteless—Reader, guess the rest.
Yet, slighted thus his own, he strives
To dote on other people's wives.
So hugely fond would he appear,
He scarce can bear a rival near.
His goddess by the hand to take,
Would all his jealousy awake;
Ruffle his righteous spirit more,
Than if his --- became a ---
The very husband scarce can smile,
If he but present is the while.
Nor need uxorious pride take fire,
Poor Zalates has no desire.
He scarce his tremblings can command,
Only to touch the fair-one's hand.
But thus he well preserves his name,
From sheepish fear, and coward shame.
The blood would his plump cheeks forsake,
Were he a balmy kiss to take;

But here, not Virtue influences,
Nor modesty, his torpid senses.
Some men are good, for reason sad,
They have not courage to be bad;
The will inclines, but in its part,
From downright instinct, fails the heart.
Hence, Zalates can boast no merit,
But mere want of address and spirit.

What happiness, to all around,
In our proud Sultan's favour found!
Thus pleasing but himself, he shows,
The charming art to please he knows.
While he but gratifies his senses,
Joy in proportion he dispenses;
As, fed by juices from the ground,
Oaks spread a kind protection round;
For he, bless'd with his darling fair,
His constant unuxorious care;
Oft from pure gratitude, as due,
Their distant mates obliges too.

You ask if these sultanas are
Charming surpassingly and fair,
Somewhat to justify his taste,
And fondness, so absurdly plac'd!

No; but ineffably outshone
By her whom wedlock makes his own;
Outshone in manners, sense, and wit,
Don Quixote-like were he not smit.
But only novelties are rated,
Clara's long since domesticated.

But let not Clara take amiss
So whimsical a scene as this.
Beneath her own auspicious roof
(How can the Muse refrain reproof?)
Others, though Clara never err'd,
To her romanticly preferr'd.
Thus she escapes much awkward love,
That would almost one's stomach move.
Herself in peace and calm enjoys,
And, as she likes, her time employs.
At all if anxious, hence the smart,
Lest from her mate his whims depart;
When too, with all their vapours on,
Her doughty rivals would be gone.
Ah! what a storm would then break out,
And burst in thunder all about?
Oaths, curses, and I know not what
Of little, dirty, peevish chat;

Though with much modesty we rate,
Enough to outnoise Billingsgate.
In elbow-chair set sulky down,
How would he low'r, and gloom, and frown!
Pout out his lips in sullen mood,
Or bite his nails, or spurn his food!
His voice in perfect fury raise,
Finding gross fault where he should praise!
This servant call, and roundly scold,
Neglecting—what he ne'er was told!
Another and another still,
That he may rant and rave his fill;
Till he has luculently prov'd,
He neither dreaded is, nor lov'd!

How does our mighty 'squire appear,
With twice three thousand pounds a-year?
As void of manners, taste, and sense,
As who but count as many pence.
What value, then, has Fortune's favours,
Unbought by Virtue's fond endeavours?
Yes; God chose Zalates, to show
How he despises wealth below.
See yonder heav'n-protected saint!
He scorns to utter one complaint,

Although (blush! blush! ye scarlet-clad)
He boasts no more than daily bread.
And why? our saint must shortly rise,
To live an angel in the skies.
Gold would pollute him, and debase,
As spots obscure the diamond's blaze.
Oft Fortune makes (fine raree-show!)
A fool more eminently so.
A simple fellow, at the spade,
Passes, as suited to his trade;
But coach'd, and posting to the city,
Could you behold him without pity?
Did Zalates but drive a plough,
Much might he be respected now;
His manners and behaviour pass
Full-well with many a cottier-lass:
But plac'd beneath a lofty roof,
While worthy men must stand aloof;
Set at his table's ample side,
In haughty state and formal pride;
Or lolling in his warm machine,
Loaded with beef-stakes, bile, and spleen;
Who can behold him, damn'd by station,
Without disgust and indignation?

Say not, with half-offended air,
The pointed satire's too severe.
The picture's justly sketch'd, you own,
Yet blame so little mercy shown.
Mercy, or out of mode, or time,
Becomes, in Virtue's eye, a crime.
Improper objects too to chuse,
Is Justice grossly to abuse.
Mercy, to all the species, calls,
When Justice on delinquents falls.
The colours might be deeper still,
Did Candour not restrain the quill.
Only the outlines have we drawn,
Then kindly interpos'd the lawn;
Yet still preserv'd the likeness so,
That he his (better) self may know.
Mankind, if they attentive be,
May likewise some resemblance see.
Hence, haply, the satiric page
May read a lecture to the age;
In one (whom vainly you explore)
Aptly epitomize a score
For Zalates not single stands,
Though singly him the satire brands.

Oft his caprices we may call,
The whims and oddities of all.

Yet him for these we might o'erlook,
Not by good-nature too forsook.
Good-nature many failings hides,
In that soft breast where it resides;
But sure for him one pity feels,
Whose littleness not this conceals.
The whole employment of his life,
Checker'd abundantly with strife,
Is the sublime task—not of thinking,
But eating (like his herds) and drinking.
Saunt'ring among his oaks and elms,
While kindred gloom his soul o'erwhelms;
Gazing whole forenoons on the brook,
With idiot emptiness of look;
Feasting his eye, his smell, his taste,
Amid his spacious orchards plac'd;
Yet hence alone his pleasures strike,
That scarce one neighbour boasts the like:
His neighbour's policy commend,
His fields enlarge, his groves extend;
Increase his rents, augment his dues,
Him (strange!) insultingly you use;

His taste, superiour taste, assert,
You thrust a dagger to his heart.

Behold him next at open'd sash,
To hear the noisy cascade dash;
To see what bounteous Nature yields,
Through his extensive lawns and fields;
But with no sentiment that shows,
A soul struck with what she bestows;
But struck (no mends his virtues make)
That one day he must all forsake;
Die, like his meanest vassal, die,
And close eternally his eye;
While no sad heirs in sorrow weep,
But jubilees unceasing keep.

So little man in him we trace,
He scarce can look you in the face;
So much with boyish shame confus'd,
To manly cares so little us'd.
And whence that dark reserve of look?
(How oft for modesty mistook!)
From some bad consciousness within,
That would in act amount to sin;
Some strange ambiguous cast of thought,
That nothing fears but to be caught;

Dreading lest in his features we
His naked heart detected see.

Silent because he's forc'd to be,
From downright pure—inanity;
Whoe'er the sin of speech commits,
He pouts, he frowns, he coughs, he spits;
Or else exclaims, to vent his spleen,
G---'s curse! what do the babblers mean?
To laugh, though it you fitly time,
With him is to commit a crime.
And why? because the dolt can see,
He has no merit in the glee.
His stoicism's here all spite,
He ne'er could yet a laugh excite;
Unless at ridicule's arch call,
The jest aim'd at himself by all.
He lives, which many years have prov'd,
Scarce once respected, or belov'd;
And, when his latter end draws nigh,
Shall as sure unlamented die.

If these, a large but true account,
With men to character amount,
Then charact'ris'd our hero call,
Although he must be damn'd with all;

Damn'd by the candid, good, and wise,
Till the last spark of virtue dies.

Let mankind then astonish'd be,
Nor fabulous the centaur see.
The keenest pen him mildly uses,
Who grossly all mankind abuses;
Who the foul trump of Slander fills,
Despises the command, and kills.
And why flows scandal from his tongue,
By baneful asps and vipers stung?
Why from the dunghill of his lips,
Whence Malice her black poison sips,
Issues Detraction's venom'd rage?
Hence, he's the vilest of the age;
For meanness unexampled lives,
And merits that abuse he gives;
Would thus, wrapt up in thin disguise,
Divert the world's observing eyes.
Curs'd he, who vile himself and low,
Would have his fellow-mortals so!

Silver'd with years the hoary head,
And near the frontiers of the dead;
Who once the thought can entertain,
An age to have consum'd in vain?

Cast into life (while angels weep)
Most gloriously to—eat and sleep;
Then drop, with carcase amply fed,
Among the reptile-mangled dead!
Scarce spoke one sentence, to reflect
On his surviving name respect!
Scarce done one action to engage
The love of an applauding age!
But in oblivion dread to fall,
Like the dumb tenants of the stall!

Without some sacred fund of bliss,
For other worlds just leaving this;
Something, to give the soul content,
Resulting from a life well-spent;
How less than nothing in our view
Riches appear, and honours too?
What then can sweeten fate's dread cup,
Or keep the sinking spirits up?
When Virtue's absent, what can save
From the black horrours of the grave?
Sunk in the darkness deep of guilt,
Hope on no sure foundation built;
No friends can his afflictions soothe,
Or Death's rough, thorny tramit smoothe:

Left to the torture of his mind,
They shrink unfeeling all behind!
Of manhood, peace, and joy forsook,
With terrour pictur'd in his look,
All doubt, distraction, gloom, despair,
He sinks down, down, he knows not where!
Let Zalates then, ere too late,
Think on this crisis of his fate.
This will the Muse's fee discharge,
For thus describing him at large.
To all too let the hint extend,
Our frailty, and our latter end;
Of higher import to the wise,
Than Newton's theory of the skies;
Beyond, not all ambition gone,
Europa's diadems in one.

“O Thou! who sitt'st above the clouds,
“From mortal eye whom darkness shrouds,
“Yet, to the seraph's dazzled sight,
“Array'd in majesty of light!
“Thou greatest, first, and last, and best!
“O grant me, gracious, my request!
“(If one, great God! so mean as I,
“Dare thy eternal throne draw nigh)

“Not to be rich, see! Lazarus dies,
“Borne by the patriarch to the skies;
“Not great, for Jesus, it is read,
“Had not whereon to lay his head!
“But, praising Thee my latest breath,
“To die the humble Christian's death.
“And oh! thy inspiration give,
“That I his life may previous live.”

Reader, smile not, of all degrees,
To see a poet on his knees;
But rather go well-pleas'd away,
A bard, un-brethren-like, can pray.
And Oh! the Muse's counsel take,
As you have happiness at stake:
Would you be lov'd and honour'd too,
And please yourself upon review?
Act from a downright honest heart,
And ever scorn the dubious part.
Let Nature prompt your actions still,
Direct your choice, inform your will;
Nature we mean, all doubts apart,
Oppos'd to little cunning art.
Be still yourself, nor e'er affect
To ape rank, person, mode, or sect.

Ourselves might oft escape the pen,
Were we not apes of other men.

Did Zalates rate this advice,
By Candour fram'd, at its just price;
Were he but happily endu'd
With the great thirst of doing good;
Virtue herself might condescend
To prize his gold, and style him friend.
For what is wealth heap'd on a few,
To whom by Nature nothing's due?
The means externally design'd
For the joint welfare of mankind.
Hence Indigence in human guise,
Men poor, though destin'd for the skies.
What numbers beg their daily bread,
In tatters cloth'd, by morsels fed;
That those, whose coffers overflow,
Their prompt munificence may show;
And thus, while Pity's hands extend,
In Merit's glorious scale ascend!
By Heav'n the wealthy are decreed,
The poor with liberal hand to feed;
To clothe the naked, and relieve
The heart-felt pangs of those that grieve.

The poor, the naked, and distrest,
Not without gratitude are blest;
To Heav'n their warm petitions rise,
And hence the rich obtain the skies.
Thus, mutual friends to one another,
A clown may style a king his brother.

All men from one first parent came,
Howe'er disjoin'd by rank, or name.
All on a level, as first made,
By eye omniscient are survey'd.
And who can wisdom here impeach?
Like mortal and immortal each.
Riches then no distinction make,
Whate'er bold freedoms rich men take;
Unless, still to augment our charge,
Our spheres of action to enlarge.
If nobly faithful to our trust,
(As all to be acquitted must)
Our debtors then become mankind,
And we in Heav'n shall credit find.
The rich man (but how few practise!)
Is but a factor for the skies;
Accountable, when fates unfold,
Even for his smallest mite of gold,

How then shall Zalates appear?
How pay to Heav'n his vast arrear?
That wealth he fondly calls his own,
Is but assign'd him as a loan,
Which, on some great important day,
He must with all its interest pay.
But if insolvent found, what plea
Can set the judg'd delinquent free?
His pride men cruelly may feed,
But angels call him poor indeed.

Thus has the pencil been employ'd,
(Much with the task its master cloy'd)
To draw that portrait, which requir'd
A genius like a Swift's inspir'd.
O! did it occupy some place,
A Pharos to the human race,
Some station between earth and sky,
To strike the universal eye!
Yet had undrawn the picture been,
A novelty had pass'd unseen;
Had Satire's voice been silent, when
This great original of men
Justly provok'd her honest rage,
And offer'd laurels to the page;

The stones themselves had silence broke,
And, to mankind's amazement, spoke.

Yet, though gall in abundance flows,
No gross abuse the verse bestows.
Though keen its flight the arrow wings,
No poison it from malice brings.
Had the Horatian quill been mine,
Or, Young, thou British Flaccus, thine!
Not Zephyr-like, through osiers wreath'd,
My strains had innocently breath'd,
But loud and terrible, awoke,
And with the voice of thunder spoke;
Sublime on eagle's pinion rose,
Above the grov'ling flights of prose.

THE TRIUMPH OF VICE.

A FRAGMENT.

Addressed to James Stevenson, Esq;

Hoc fonte derivata clades
In patriam populumque fluxit.
Hor.

Not to the flowery margin of a stream,
Where gentle murmurs soothe the anxious thought;
Not to the broider'd vale, the upland glade,
Cool grotto, wide-stretch'd lawn, or rising hill,
The Muse invites; nor philosophic gloom,
Where Contemplation holds her pensive court,
And Philomel her tender throat attunes
To Love's soft languishments: far other scenes,

Far other objects, would engage thy eye,
That eye which will a brother's faults o'erlook,
And spy a beauty where the world sees none:
While others sing of Virtue's godlike charms,
And feel her raptures, while their numbers flow
Harmonious in her praise; mine be the task,
Less-lov'd, to draw her opposite, and thine.

O did the powers of Akenside inspire
My humble pen! his fancy, feeling, taste,
And energy of thought; his manly flow
Of eloquence; his judgment strong, as clear,
Profound, as strong, and as profound, correct!

What emperour on earth can boast a sway
So ample, so uncircumscrib'd, as Vice?
What king so many subjects round his throne,
Or prostrate slaves devoted to his nod?
Few potentates can boast their state secure
From rebels and from traitors, boldly bent
On success to their projects, or a grave;
Dreadful alternative! but she, by all
Her votaries so faithfully obey'd,
Scarce knows an enemy, but domineers,
With lordly rule, and insolence uncheck'd,
Both o'er her subjects properties and lives.

O Vice, how formidable is thy power,
How num'rous, how diversified thy train!
Sloth, with her hair, in dirty uncomb'd lengths,
Loit'ring upon her shoulders, stretching out
Her lazy limbs, with many a gape and yawn,
To push the sluggish current through her veins.
Lust with her wanton leer, and glance obscene,
Her lurid cheek, dim eye, and fœtid breath,
O'er-run with biles impure, and foul disease,
A nausea to herself. Swoln Gluttony,
With pamper'd visage, and foul scarlet nose,
And bloated skin; scarce able to support
His beastly load of fat, gorg'd to the throat
With luscious meats; cadaverous the smell
That from his fungous lungs, through putrid rows
Of crusted teeth, streams suffocating; soon
His well-fed carcase to regale the worm,
The hungry, thankless worm. Set by the bowl
His boon companion, Drunkenness; with voice
Vociferous, and eye that wildly reels
In its broad socket, index to his thoughts:
While horrid oaths and blasphemies burst forth
From falt'ring lips, and paralytic tongue.
Boast, savage, in thy nightly range for blood,

Loud bellowing to the rock's unconscious dells,
Thy reason—man's prerogative no more.

Nor these alone thy minions, that attend
Around thee, caught by thy alluring glance,
And fascinated by thy smile: behold!
What servile crouds officiously demand
Admittance in our song, proud to be rank'd
With thee, and all the vilest of mankind.
Base cowardice, that boldly turns his face
On every thing but danger, never acts
With honesty, but when he runs away.
Corruption, with her base and impious bribe
Extended in her hand, to buy men off
From conscience, duty, loyalty; to sear
The heart against humanity's soft pang,
The liberal hope, and patriotic wish,
The foe of Virtue, Freedom's mortal foe.
Envy, with eye askance, distorted look,
And pining heart; serpents curl'd hissing round
Her squalid locks. Hypocrisy smooth tongu'd,
With lamb-like features, and with dove-like eyes,
Although within a tyger. Mean Deceit,
Malice, Revenge, and Jealousy: Remorse,
Lash'd with a thousand scorpions, at his breast

A thousand vultures gnawing; wild Despair,
On whose dark brow the gloom of midnight lours;
With garments torn, and countenance deep mark'd
With horrour; fixing his determin'd eye
On the drawn dagger, cord, or poison'd cup.
Disease, with wan, emaciated cheek,
Glaz'd, hollow eyes, and flatten'd temples, shrunk
And dwindled to a shadow; gasping hard
For breath, toss'd in deliriums, or o'erwhelm'd
In apoplectic lethargy: hard by
Silent his tread, invisible, pale Death,
Frowning on Time, his ling'ring sands unspent.
O Vice! how formidable is thy pow'r!
How num'rous, how diversified thy train!

How glorious once was Nature! how august
Her works! how exquisite her charms, admir'd
By angels and by gods! ere Pain, and Shame,
And Death, admonish'd mankind of thy birth!
Then Innocence, in snow-white mantle clad,
From Heav'n to Earth a smiling cherub sent,
Attended by her gentle handmaids, Love,
Truth, Friendship, Candour, Equity, Joy, Peace,
Health, with her sparkling eye, her balmy breath,
And Beauty blooming with immortal youth,

Took up her residence with humankind,
Nor wish'd an habitation better form'd
To her peculiar taste, well-pleas'd below
To find that Paradise she left above:
But when the sun, from his celestial height,
Saw thee approach the frontiers of our world,
Hid in delusive form, and usher'd in
By Lucifer, fall'n spirit! hell itself
Freed of its worst inhabitant; behold!
Then Innocence, in snow-white clad,
From Heav'n to Earth a smiling cherub sent,
Attended by her gentle handmaids, Love,
Truth, Friendship, Candour, Equity, Joy, Peace,
Health with her sparkling eye, her balmy breath,
And Beauty blooming with immortal youth;
Bade Earth and its inhabitants adieu,
Happy, abandon'd and despis'd, above
To gain that Paradise she lost below.

Behold her, now, array'd in sweeping robes
Of garter'd statesman, insolent and vain,
With air contemptuous, and with head aloft,
Solemn and grave, affectedly serene,
As if—not a black villain at the heart.
With deep research of thought, sublime resolve,

With Pitt's head furnish'd, but without his heart,
How he the noble, gen'rous scheme conceives,
The patriotic scheme of—growing rich!
What tho' the foe should triumph o'er our fleets,
And Victory desert our dastard arms,
No gallant arm to interpose relief?
Unmov'd he stands, like the storm-beaten rock,
Enjoys our doom, or rises on our fall.
Thus, with small things the greatest to compare,
When rolling flames some wealthy roof assail,
The sons of plunder, exquisitely base,
Calm, unconcern'd, through suffocating fires,
Split rafters, half-burn'd beams, and sinking floors,
Slide, as through chaos hell's arch fiend, to spread
The sheeted conflagration, and to Steal.

The gamester, next, creeps forth at her command,
Till he his fellow meets, some brainless wight,
Unbless'd at home, unbless'd within himself,
Whom Heav'n has curs'd with riches. Lo! they meet,
Robbers of others purses, though forsooth,
Well-bred, polite, and courteous. In his hand,
His hand more learn'd and knowing than his head,
Each, with the matchless wisdom of a Hoyle,
Deals the mysterious pack; or on the board,

100

With ceaseless rattle, and with artful twirl,
Throws the twin spotted dice, on ev'ry cast
Depending—sons and daughters, friends and wives.

But see the duellist, whose poltroon heart
Would quake with terrour, his unmanly knees
Together smite, his hair stand all on end
With fear, his blood creep freezing thro' his veins,
Were he to face the cannon's mouth, or walk
Left by his friend abruptly, in the dark;
See him (a murderer his fitter name)
Impell'd by something foreign to himself,
Hight man of honour, seal the fatal card,
That, haply, sends his soul (O glorious deed!)
His trembling soul, to hell before its time.
Him Vice still keeps industrious in her pay,
Lest her immortal interests might decline;
Lest real Honour might usurp her right,
And noblest friendships influence mankind:
Lest the afflicted parent ne'er should weep
Her son, her hope, her joy, untimely slain;
Children their sire snatch'd from each clasping arm;
A wife her husband torn from her embrace,
By violence and death; thus to provoke
All hell to rage, on mischief ever bent.

101

But now remark her in far other dress,
In the mean peasant's tatter'd garments clad,
Who scarcely by laborious toil acquires
What keeps together soul and body, hides
His shiv'ring limbs from the cold wintry blast.
But though thus wretched in exteriour form,
Not so in thought; ambition swells his breast,
To imitate the follies of the great,
A perfect clown beside, as instanc'd here,
Still something worse. Amid the rustic ring,
He struts, talks big, and swaggers, aims his scoff,
And witty leer, at that old-fashion'd thing
The Bible call'd, swears with outrageous air,
Gets himself drunk, and whores, like any lord.

The Miser too her livery assumes,
His little heart contracted to a point,
A callous point, to every thing but gold,
The god whom he adores. Worn to the bone
With misery and want, he stands confess'd
A breathing type of death. Yet Death anon
Will not his likeness spare, but snatch his soul
To—not to Paradise, for ah! he leaves
His Paradise behind; to—not to hell,
For actual hell were needless, when alone

102

Absence from his beloved gold, were hell,
Heated to all the scorching rage of flame—

Nor shall his brother, his congenial half,
(Detested couple) hight Monopolist,
Unnoted pass. So might a fiend escape,
Sent from Perdition's dungeon, to defraud,
To torture, to distress the sons of men.
Worse than the hurricane that spreads around
Ruin and devastation; than the plague
That sweeps away whole multitudes, and leaves
Cities and provinces one horrid blank;
Worse than the earthquake that expands its jaws,
And swallows millions at one mighty gape;
Worse than the gorg'd volcano, that o'erwhelms
Whole districts in its seas of liquid fire;
Abroad he moves with more than devil's glee,
To deepen human woes, to heighten grief,
Already unsupportable, and add
Anguish to pain, and to dire want despair!
These dreadful judgments incident to man,
(Man buffeted by elements, expos'd
To all Earth's dire convulsions) ne'er imply
Will or intention: his grand scheme of life,
His settled purpose, is, to starve mankind.

103

Rumour! whence comes she, with impatient step,
And attitude of haste? breathless she comes,
Meaning impress'd on each important look.
Thus runs the purport of her ready tale,
“Vice oft assumes the sacerdotal robe,
“And struts beneath the mitre and the vest.”

What! clergymen plead guilty to the charge?
Forbid it, Heaven! blast, celestial Truth!
The bold assertion, if disown'd by thee!
Shall Virtue's ministers, the sacred priests
At chaste Religion's altar, men employ'd
In saving souls, the heralds of the skies,
Ambassadours of Heav'n; shall such forget
Their characters, their office, to attend
The palaces and levees of the great,
To catch a paltry nod, or empty smile;
Who should exhaust the pathos of discourse,
To lessen them in our esteem, and teach
A mind superiour to the pomp of kings?
Shall men of God, with prostituted knee,
Worship at Honour's tinsel shrine? pay court
To Fortune, basking on the topmost point
Of sun-gilt pinnacle, still turning round,
As flows the fickle current of the air?

104

Shall preachers of humility assume
The turgid look, or supercilious air?
Shall messengers of peace, of love, embroil,
And plunge themselves in faction? enter fierce
The hackney'd list of libellers? increase
The public spleen? with random censure blast
The best and fairest characters? foment
The rage of civil discord? fan the fire
Of argument and disputation? all,
—To share a dinner at a patron's board:
Their flocks meantime, no guardian shepherd nigh,
Left and abandon'd to the rude attack
Of Vice and Errour; fatal, as night-wolves,
Or tygers, to the fold. Such better far,
Had serv'd their king and country in the field,
With hat cockaded, and with knotted sword,
A carnal weapon fit for carnal men;
Trench'd in the quirks and subtilties of law,
Wielded their wordy thunder at the bar;
Or with the riban'd cane, and full-spread wig,
Prescrib'd the lancet, julep, or the pill:
Such better had been sons of Traffic, bred
Learn'dly to count and discount at the desk;
Mechanics, fiddlers, players; taught, in fine,

105

To handle spades, tend flocks, or hold the plough;
Than thus our pulpits wretchedly supply'd
With men, whose well-bred fashionable lips
Not, for the world, would purposely accent
That monosyllable of terrour—hell,
Uncouth, as obsolete; afraid to meet
The frown that threatens from a grandee's brow,
Nothing more impotent—except his smile.

Yet, some there are, who in a storm of words,
A cushion-aided eloquence, exhaust
Their own strain'd lungs, and overwhelm the ear
With mere noise, and unsentimental sounds;
Vociferating, with the thunder's voice,
Hell and damnation, all their genius spent
In these tremendous accents, foisted in,
Without grace, meaning, or propriety;
Nor with success; for such command the eye,
Alarm the ear, but never reach the heart.

Ah! how unlike the theologues of old
Our modern parsons! strikingly unlike,
In manners and address! but rarely seen
That plain simplicity of garb, of life
That unaffected innocence; that calm,
That humble, meek deportment, which so well

106

Become our teachers, and examples too!
How many, ah! absurdly think their task
Perform'd, their duty done, but to expound
A solitary text one day in seven;
The rest devoted to the endless round
Of saunt'ring and amusement, sordid cares,
Pursuits and studies, foreign to the gown!
Such may do all mere human laws exact,
To earn a yearly stipend; such may pass
With well-bred patrons, or a noble Lord,
All whose religion, in the aggregate,
Is lolling on a cushion once a-week,
To hear a pray'r pronounc'd, or sermon read:
But Reason thinks her dignity concern'd
In not absolving such; while Conscience joins
Reason in all her scruples; and what both,
According in their sentence, right announce,
Heav'n surely must in equity affirm.

Ah! how unlike the theologues of old
Our modern parsons! strikingly unlike!
Save in some wretched corner of the land,
Where, from hard, blunt necessity, not choice,
In thread-bare suit attir'd, unless perchance,
Half naked, as half-starv'd, some simple wight

107

A curate call'd, is fain to vend his pot
Of nappy ale, or glass of apple-juice,
As if the labourer not worth his hire;
Or, lower still, to enter the foul sty,
With bands and cassock thrown aside, to feed
His bristly hoglings, grunting for their draff.
Yet better scatt'ring acorns here, than pearls
Despis'd, elsewhere, before far other swine.

Thus the poor tatter'd curate spends his days,
Unenvied, yet, perhaps, esteem'd and lov'd;
Toiling in Heav'n's own vineyard, yet no drop
Of the choice vintage to inspire his heart
With gladness; nor needs our Nathanael such
Prelatic, royal comfort, to support him,
His conduct blameless, as his manners chaste,
His mind contented, and his conscience clear;
His Maker's wages these, as that mere man's.
Thus lives our humble curate, far from strife,
Save the illustrious strife of doing good;
Far from his mitred brethren, as remote
Haply, from him, in sense and virtue, they,
Clearness of head, and probity of heart.

But what fine object now attracts the Muse,
Struck with superiour awe? beauteous as Morn,

108

When she the portals of the east expands,
With rosy finger; all divine her form,
In presence like a queen, she moves along
Lovely in ev'ry step, and looking round
Pleasure ineffable; her mien, her air,
Grace, ease, and majesty; her soften'd eye
Bright with the sparkle of a midnight star.
Each lineament Complacence marks serene,
Candour, and Sweetness. On her charming neck,
Her shaded neck, soft as the downy peach,
The virgin snow, with no ignoble pride,
Bestows its purest whiteness, left behind
Its native cold. On every dimpled cheek
Roses emit their bloom, the bloom of youth,
Of innocence, of health; nor here confin'd,
But lavish all their sweets upon her breath
That steals through lips of coral. Furnish'd thus
With graces, airs, and smiles, beyond the touch
Of pencil, or the drapery of words;
Say not that Vice, presumptuous, dare approach
An angel in terrestrial guise, unless
From her fair presence to retire, abash'd
And overaw'd. Let Censure's tongue be mute,
And Slander bite her lips in silent spite.

109

Truth turns aside offended from the tale.
For see how charming looks Camilla, set
Deep in the umbrage of a woodbine bow'r,
Conversing with the learned Dead, who live,
More than mechanically live, beyond
Detraction's reach, safe from the poison'd fangs
Of Calumny, in the immortal page:
Authors, where Virtue shines in native charms
Of chaste simplicity, and undeform'd
With philosophic daub; where manly Wit
Flashes his sprightly sallies, Fancy glows
With all her picturesque descriptive pow'rs,
And force of imagery; such still as charm
In Milton's page sublime, seraphic bard!
In Pope's mellifluous numbers, or in Young's,
That master of the eloquent and grand;
Or flowing Thomson's well-imagin'd strains,
Or Akenside's, or Shenstone's: names inscrib'd
On monuments more permanent than brass.
There, amiable maid! in beauty's bloom,
In youth's, in health's, exemplify'd she shows,
How each exteriour grace, each skin-deep charm,
And elegance of manner, by a mind
Enlarg'd by thought and reading, is improv'd.

110

Behold Dulcissa exquisitely pleas'd,
While she admires the needle's arts display'd
Creative; sees the smooth, or figur'd lawn,
The fine-wrought linen, or soft cambric spun
With all the nicety of spider's web,
Or costly stuffs from Indian climes convey'd,
Chang'd in their texture, form, and surface, now
No more the uniform and simple thread,
But richly vein'd with curious Dresden work,
Or rough with elegant embroidery.
Touch'd by the magic needle in her hand,
What noble figures on the canvas swell,
Tumid with silver, cotton, or with silk!
How accurate that hand, that gentle hand,
Which all their well-conceiv'd proportions fram'd,
With finish'd delicacy, and bestow'd
Their striking statures, colours, and attire!
Well may a new creation of her own
Delight her gazing eye, and heave her breast
With sentimental pride; Almira thus
Still Scipio's noble maxim may adopt,
While objects, wheresoe'er she casts her glance,
Court her survey, and almost seem to breathe.
There Candour, with her open honest face,

111

And eye of soften'd sparkle; Beauty drawn
With more than mortal likeness; Modesty
In virgin white attir'd, and Meekness plac'd
In silent downcast attitude, afraid,
Her look, her air, her gesture might offend.
In vain would Sylvia, self-approv'd, pretend
To rival these bright patterns of her sex;
Sylvia the subject of each coxcomb's lay,
And boast of every fop, howe'er set off
With all the finery of mode and dress,
Her handmaids, Taste and Fancy; underneath
The pomp of silks, and jewels; on light toe
Conscious she moves along, by all admir'd,
In the smooth measures of the minuet-dance;
Or salient trips the floor's elastic board,
With step accordant to the sprightly jigg:
The room all odour'd with the rich perfumes,
That from her shining locks profusely breathe,
Or handkerchief, or bottle's crystal tube,
While to her smell applied, her lovely hand
Displays a white scarce rivall'd by the snow.

Thus, while to courts and levees others croud,
To bask in sunshine of a grandee's smile,
(Short as the glow-worm's twinkle, and as cold)

112

Put on a face occasional, relax'd
And smooth with adulation, to belie
Their lurking hearts; the Muse has turn'd aside
With indignation, to inform mankind
What company there awaits them. But enough
Of Vice, ignoble, and unpleasing theme!
Away, thou monster, since men fell from Heav'n,
Too much admir'd; away from all the haunts
Of humankind, with thy associates dire,
Disease and Infamy—But O! begone
Chiefly from Britain's celebrated isles,
The seat of Empire, Liberty, and Peace,
Of Learning, Commerce, and the Muses.—Vice
May triumph, but let Virtue not despair.

113

To the Honourable ---.

An EPISTLE.

Tell me, dear ---, all impatient grow,
For you perchance alone the secret know;
What climate now a certain bard conceals,
Who writes what others wrote, yet seldom steals;
Who knows to cull, in gardens flush'd with flow'rs,
Each one that fairest smiles, or tallest tow'rs,
Yet, with strange whim, almost beyond compare,
Oddly prefers the lowest, and least fair:
Say, why in silence lies your poet's pen?
Sure bards are rank'd among the first of men—
Else why flow'd music from Pope's tuneful tongue?
Why not forgot that Addison once sung?
Young had not else high-soar'd on wings of fire,
Nor Milton stole from Heav'n a seraph's lyre,

Through all the wide Creation's glorious round,
Is no fit theme to suit his genius found?

114

No Season, to transfer into his page
The grove's soft music, or the tempest's rage?
Can he the world of politics survey,
Or morals, not less circumscrib'd than they;
Hear Fame's loud trumpet sound Britannia's praise,
Nor yet find subjects worthy of his lays?

If blame and odium to excite he's loath,
Let him remain conceal'd, and merit both.
By formal rules Candour's ne'er taught to see,
Hence Learning oft and Candour disagree.
Candour beholds with fair and honest eye,
But through lens optic Learning needs must spy.
Thus faults are magnified beyond their due,
And beauties render'd blemishes oft too.
Thus Fulvia's neck appear like parchment may,
And gems themselves a surface rough betray.
But Nature means her objects to be seen,
No artificial lying glass between;
Through which our eagle-sighted critics look,
When authors they would praise, that is, rebuke.
Yet we confess, what some perfections deem,
As faults to others may as justly seem;
For who expects, as wonders cease to be,
All should in looks, or sentiments agree,

115

Must first reverse Heav'n's universal plan,
And to an angel change the very man.

Fictitious wings o'er streams successful skim,
Inform us then what bait will answer him.
Though the sinn'd victim might from harm have stray'd,
He spies, pursues, he leaps, and is betray'd:
Yet others boldly near the surface swim,
And seize secure the insects as they skim.
But how uncertain oft the trial leaves,
When Nature courts us, or when Art deceives!
Haply of both the specious lure's the same,
The insect's pinion, or the plume of fame;
That hides a point, how fatal to the brook!
A dagger this, oft dreadfully mistook!

Your bard is silent, yet what numbers praise!
But writing would with some his merit raise.
Let him, undazzled by the shine of pelf,
Examine well his motive in himself.
If nothing hence gives vigour to his pen,
Let him remain—the silentest of men.

Say then, dear ---, does the verse invite
The nameless author, or forbid, to write?
The author nameless, though to you well known,
Who for another's beauties slights his own.

116

Builds on foundations laid from others' pelf,
Though few can lay a better than himself;
As yonder sun shines feebly by the moon,
Though he can blaze in majesty at noon.
If you the question can discreetly solve,
Go clear those doubts Time's thickest mists involve.

LAURIA.

At still Night's solitary watch,
Half of mankind sunk in debauch,
While with their gold starv'd misers share
The wakeful agony of care,
And screech-owls, with ill-boding pow'rs,
Hoot through lone walls and haunted tow'rs;
At yonder desk see Lauria sit,
Fond to be styl'd a sister-wit
Her pen and standish wait hard by,
The snowy sheets before her lie,
The snowy sheets (what have they done?)
Soon with foul blots to be o'er-run.

117

How soft she looks in midnight-gown,
Sweeping all negligently down,
The sleeves (quake, insects, for your sins)
In much disorder stuff'd with pins!
Below her chin a nightcap ties,
To shade her features in disguise,
Left she might ever tempted be,
In glass her naked face to see;
For sure we vanity rank in
The meanest acts of venial sin.
A riband, garter-like, around
Keeps her full head-dress fitly bound;
Yet, in despite of all her care,
Oft peeps out rudely straggling hair.
To veil her downy swan-white neck,
The daring footman's gaze to check,
An handkerchief she wraps about,
Of dainty russet, plain and stout:
Tuck'd in the foldings of her gown,
The cross-laid ends hang dangling down.
That nought may incommode the muse,
She slides along in undress-shoes.
Slippers we mean; for always kind,
She hates her guiltless feet to bind,

118

Learn, ye fastidious virgins, hence,
To save each useless vain expense.
How humble Lauria, and how meek,
Though youth still triumphs in her cheek!
Rather than needless trouble give,
She greatly deigns—in dirt to live.

Thus, dress'd in Nature's simple prime,
(Conceit was Lucifer's first crime)
In sweet Humility's plain suit,
Artless, but elegant to boot;
Lauria, in happy mood to think,
Ventures straightway on pen and ink.
Beware, ye bards of low degree,
Her satire points at you and—me.
Lauria is yet a maid; how then
Can she refrain her virgin pen?
Were she arriv'd at full five score,
We might indeed our fears give o'er.
But if not wedlock-join'd till then,
Have mercy on the sons of men!
Lauria unwed, can she refuse
To raise up children to the Muse?
For lo! to thwart eternal fate,
Two females here can procreate;

119

Furnish'd with that fell thing, a pen,
Scorn the virility of men.
Still more, our wonder forth to draw,
Conceive and bear unwed by law.
Nor marvel, Lauria still should prove
Almost unmatch'd in tender love.
Her infants seem, one with another,
All striking transcripts of the mother.
But, to the offspring of her brain,
Begot and born with so much pain,
Since Lauria shows such constant care,
Shows all the softness of the fair;
A prejudice that stands excus'd,
To near and dear connections us'd;
Who would wish Lauria, sane in mind,
A parent of another kind?
Who would not husbands too refuse,
For their espousals with the Muse?
All, she excepted, from mere spite,
Who ev'ry thing can do but—write.

Her needle, no false taste to show,
Lauria abandon'd long ago.
And sure her fame this to disperse is,
Her needle ah! can write no verses.

120

A needle, made of ruthless steel,
Women must hate, while women feel.
It puts one cruelly in mind,
Of murders acted on mankind;
Dreadful, in the same conscious breath,
Alarms with blood, and wounds, and death.
What chillness too it thought brings dire on,
Dozing for ever o'er cold iron!
With quills be female battles fought,
But, brandish steel!—tremendous thought!

“Amid the languid calm of life,
“Hoping one day to be a wife,
“Who, with a soul born to aspire,
“Those cares and duties can admire,
“Though ne'er her temper out of joint,
“Plac'd on a sorry needle's point?
“The task of sewing seems design'd
“For females of the lower kind,
“Of knowledge thus far unbereft,
“To know their right hand from their left;
“Dowdies, that never yet could hit
“On one bright sally of true wit;
“Give a smooth harmonious turn,
“Or with poetic fervour burn;

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“But born eternally to pore,
“And do the same thing o'er and o'er;
“Nor feel, so lifeless the employ,
“One soft thrill of tumultuous joy.
“Who, as a housewife, can pretend
“Her name through distant climes to send?
“Macaulay's palm historic claim,
“Or rise to Sappho's height of fame?
“Give me but paper, pen, and ink,
“And leisure undisturb'd to think;
“Think on a selfish, tasteless age,
“And vent my bitterness and rage;
“To show (what transport it implies!)
“That creature, man, I can despise;
“Give Lauria these, to others then,
“She leaves the task of—nursing men,
“To dull domesticated wives,
“Content with mere existing lives;
“Content to plod on with their spouses,
“And live on frowns within their houses;
“In little, silly, whining chat,
“To praise and censure this, and that;
“Still, still the burden of the song,
“Indeed, my dear, you're in the wrong.

122

Thus Lauria would do all she can
To pour a great revenge on men.
See yon emasculated race,
In each the female you may trace,
So soft, so delicate, so nice,
So mortally afraid of—mice.
If but the winds presume to blow,
They dull and melancholy grow,
Lest on their gentle organs cold
Should through some fatal chink take hold.
If reptiles innocently crawl,
Or from the roof a spider fall;
“Good Heav'n! the death-cold faint's come on!
“The bottle! for my master's gone!”
If thus the masculines in sex
Females become, nor Nature tax;
If thus, with unambitious mind,
Infringe the rights of women-kind;
Lauria's resolv'd revenge to take,
And just the like encroachments make.
To see a thousand victims die,
She scorns on beauty to rely.
Lauria affects much to despise
The fire-wing'd arrows of the eyes.

123

Far other weapons would she chuse,
Prepar'd and sharpen'd by the Muse.
Those of her coward sex she scorns,
Like insects butting with their horns;
But boldly wrests from lordly men
That mighty weapon call'd a pen.
Turn'd on ourseves, can we pretend
E'er to escape our latter end?
No; fall we must, or Heav'n displease,
That is, by nature, or disease.

Hail, Lauria! how sublime thy praise!
Thou heroine of modern days!
Arm'd with a quiver from Parnassus,
The terrour of faint-hearted lasses,
Who thy fierce onset can withstand,
Or shun fate darted from thy hand?
What sevenfold shield protection throw
O'er mortals to avert the blow?
Yes; Prudence interdicts delay,
Gird up your loins and—run away.
How else escape, with lucky star,
A female thunderbolt of war?
You live secure from Lauria's charms,
Not Lauria terrible in arms.

124

How happy Lauria's thus employ'd,
And with the task too overjoy'd?
Else had she wasted endless sighs,
Now the shrin'd Muse's sacrifice,
Of her choice china ware bereft,
Nought but the broken fragments left,
Thrown in a tempest on the floor,
—For Tom forgot to shut the door.
Her little lap-dog else had been
The guiltless object of her spleen,
Poor Cloe, whom, with fond delight,
She in her bosom hugs all night.
And why? no bedfellow she boasts,
And ah! she trembles much for ghosts.
Her bulfinch too had lost his eyes,
Though happier far the finch that dies,
Pierc'd by the execrable wire,
Heated remorseless in the fire.
Hard fate! his anguish to prolong,
And beauty spoil, to mend his song!
Sweet bird! that, ravish'd of his sight,
His dirge had warbled day and night!
But let thy notes in triumph rise,
The Muse redeem'd thy pretty eyes;

125

All Lauria's passions deep engag'd,
That else far otherwise had rag'd;
Allow'd no active thought to be
Unoccupied, to torture thee.

Such ills domestic had arose,
Had Lauria deign'd not to compose;
Had she, in disrespect of men,
Preferr'd her needle to her pen.
Thanks to that dignity of thought,
Vainly with simple housewives sought;
That elegance of taste refin'd,
That delicately-feeling mind;
Which scorn, with much becoming strife,
The female drudgery of life.

STELLA.

Behold! in yonder study plac'd,
Form'd with true principles of taste,
Stella in learn'd retirement sits,
Amid a group of sleeping wits.
Sleeping, but not on down or chaff,
But in a book-case, bound in calf;

126

Cover'd with honourable dust,
As medals spread with precious rust.
Before her still some volume lies,
She studies with quadruple eyes.
Some love-stuff'd comedy perchance,
Or Sophonisba, a romance.
The science of the kitchen taught,
How pasties and confections wrought.
What Tillotson or Barrow wrote,
For modish theologues to quote.
Perhaps, her Pray'r-book, or her Bible,
Which wits and geniuses would libel.
Nay; nothing farther from her study,
Writings, that make one's brains quite muddy,
Or the reverse, and full as bad,
Make wilding Fancy run stark mad.
Earth's smaller wits would she despise,
To soar with Newton to the skies;
Living, cameleon-like, when there,
Most sentimentally on air.
Newton, who, with Lyncean eye,
Travers'd the whole capacious sky;
Who from some angel stole that plan,
Which seems above mere mortal man!

127

That plan, where worlds and systems great
Roll, by fix'd laws, in glorious state.

In her this adage prov'd we find,
“Earth ne'er can satisfy the mind;
“The mind, a stranger to content,
“Beneath the moon ignobly pent.”
Besides, what doth the text require?
“To Heav'n still let the soul aspire.”
For where abides her treasure, she
Thinks there her heart should ever be.
Thus she fulfills—in Newton's school,
Each truly pious, Christian rule.
Nor ask another reason, why
Astronomers affect the sky.
Let others read with head alert,
Stella reads with enlighten'd heart.
Let others chariots gilt admire,
Stella mounts Newton's car of fire;
Not through the Mall, her steeds all foam,
But o'er Heav'n's argent fields to roam.

Thus arguments our fair, mayhap,
“Earth's but a point in Nature's map;
“A little toy to Fortune thrown,
“As from the tube the bubble blown;

128

“In the dimensionless abyss,
“Where one world lost we scarcely miss,
“An atom, till the zephyr fails,
“On which a midge in triumph sails;
“A particle of sand, cast out,
“Through boundless space to roam about;
“Then, from its equilibrium tost,
“In matter's mass collective lost:
“Why then, ambition all forgot,
“Inhabit this poor paltry spot,
“Which meanest reptiles share with us,
“And live, not more a monarch does?”

Of fashions Stella seldom talks,
Of auctions, sales, or public walks,
The ball, assembly, play, or rout,
Which half the sex grow mad about.
These, left to the phantastic lass,
Who can whole days at toilets pass,
The strange task hackney'd o'er and o'er,
To be—less charming than before;
Her only glass, view'd with intense
Survey, the telescopic lens.
On planets, stars, and comets, she
Can scarce one moment silent be;

129

Far other stars than grandee's coat on,
Which only unlearn'd females dote on,
Which such alone fantastic prize,
As Fate ne'er destin'd for the skies.

Newton's arcanas Stella can
Sublimely—trust to learned men;
The laws of Gravity conceive,
While triumphs vast her bosom heave,
Mere household females ey'd with scorn,
Better than thousands—never born;
Or when, sometimes, her passions strong
Would gravitate towards the wrong.
The force centripetal she knows,
That is, when she puts on her cloaths,
That no pin from its hold departs,
Nor from her waist the whalebone starts:
Centrifugal, when from her eye
Sparks of ingenious passion fly;
When words (such sweets no wild bee sips)
Fly off eccentric from her lips.
Thus, without Euclid, Stella shows,
The deep, deep mystery she knows,
What strains it fitly can express?
To speak (astonishing!) and dress.

130

Nor to yon brighten'd fields of air
Soars only our exalted fair,
Whirl'd (no example to her sex ill)
On ev'ry planet's flaming axle;
But condescends, of problems weary,
To lose a thought on Burnet's Theory,
Which doubtless she can understand,
Like any—lady of our land;
Distress'd (the total who can tell huge?)
To find out waters for the deluge;
Doubting, as if a God of fable,
Jehovah to produce them able.

Of thoughts too to improve her stock,
She much affects to dote on Locke;
That mortal pitch'd upon, to show
Reason how near divine below;
Happy, not from the task he shrinks,
But for her most humanely—thinks.
He surely her esteem must share,
Who lightens Stella's heaviest care;
And the esteem of womankind,
Who hence some good will always find;
For busy'd thus, from Stella's lips
Scandal no poison ever sips.

131

ZEPHALINDA.

Yes, Zephalinda fain would wed,
And venture with a man to bed;
If he can make it but appear,
His rent's a thousand pounds a-year;
The more above it still the better,
But nought below it e'er will get her.
Her darling you exact describe,
If you can him with esquires tribe;
Though it is hinted at by some,
Artists succeed might—with a plum.
Her wooer, to successful prove,
Must with his bags in hand make love;
The weightier they, our fair less nice,
Her smiles fastidious bought by price:
A guinea's jingle has more charms,
More moving pow'rs, more soft alarms,

132

Than all the pathos that abounds
In mere articulated sounds:
Alas! your oratorial youth
Speak freely ev'ry thing but—truth.
Come then, for Zephalinda's smile,
Who talk this unaffected style;
Above the vulgar daub of phrase,
Which always want of taste betrays.
Your language, without foreign aid,
Untaught by Johnson, can persuade;
The true Laconic mode of speech,
Which scorns that sniv'ling term, beseech:
Come, to receive, nor ever part,
A Zephalinda's faithful heart;
And sure—till gold and virtue one,
You peace and joy must smile upon.

Nor think our fair sultana can
Impose upon the sons of men.
Who voluntar'ly wears her chains,
Value receiv'd, at least, obtains.
For is she not supremely—witty,
Though blockheads hence her yoke-mate pity?
Who can her beauties half display?
Blithe, courteous, young, polite, and gay.

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What further would Ambition crave?
Come then, and buy the charming slave.

Whether her suitor Whig or Tory,
To our fair maid's a trifling story.
Whether a Methodist, or Quaker,
He (ev'ry Sunday) serves his Maker;
With look demure, or priestly quirk,
Obeys the high church, or the kirk.
Whether, with three-tail'd wig, or bag,
Some learn'd jurisprudential wag;
Who nobly saves, when fools unlock it,
His client's fortune—in his pocket.
Whether a doctor of renown,
Sweeping in sacerdotal gown;
Who knows, to charm the ravish'd fair,
All arts and sciences but—pray'r:
Or, as nice qualms ne'er overstock'd her,
A very downright carnal doctor;
Who, when some malady has spent her,
From death can save her—to torment her.
But chief she likes, to tell the truth,
A dear, dear military youth;
Who never can to her prove cruel,
Unless when he declines a—duel

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These all, if fortune makes them like,
With equal charm of merit strike.
Each thus, though pair'd like heav'n and hell,
Becomes the other's parallel.
Whate'er his colour, fair or brown,
With carriage up, or carriage down;
Whether a coxcomb, fop, or cit,
With, or quite destitute of, wit;
A boor, in fox-chace garments clad,
Or court-spark, perfectly well bred:
Whether a patriot of renown,
In rolls of parliament set down;
Or that fierce vindicator morum,
Some plump-cheek'd justice of the quorum:
In fine, whate'er his birth or rank,
His money landed, or in bank;
Whate'er through life his casual track is,
A rake in theory, or in practice;
If he can but commodious fix
Our charmer in a coach and six,
Such, if but physically man,
Comes up to Zephalinda's plan:
And justly too; for marriage, sure,
Is not Love's, but Ambition's cure.

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Nor rashly Zephalinda blame,
Not anxious more for wealth, than fame,
Who fame's pursuit so far would carry,
As to be wretched, that is, marry.
Say, why the rich man she affects,
And nobly merit poor neglects.
Thus, to evince her Sterling wit,
She greatly dotes on Sacred Writ;
Would have its sayings all fulfill'd,
And all its precepts deep instill'd;
Concern'd, that consecrated book
Should be for pert romance forsook;
(How well she on the sense has stumbled!)
Which says, “The proud man shall be humbled.”

LUCIA.

Fair Lucia, to no fortune born,
Affects all nicety to scorn.
Why should her virtue rigid prove?
Why prove an enemy to love?

136

Since Fortune's favours, ah! denied,
In which such pleasures are implied;
Why not indulge her tender mind
In pleasures of another kind?
Her state dependent cries aloud,
“It ill becomes you to be proud.”
Her wants in the same hint agree,
“You ne'er can too obsequious be.”
Thus, what a vice in others seems,
She in herself a grace esteems.
“Virtue but differs from a crime,
“By certain rules of place and time;
“Morality on mode depends,
“With it declines, with it extends;
“The mode our circumstances make,
“Acting from them we ne'er mistake;
“Our circumstances, right to count,
“To fix'd necessity amount;
“And sure, our inference to draw,
“Necessity's above all law.”
Thus, Lucia, with conviction still,
Waves bold her philosophic quill;
Despises Tillotson and Locke,
And crushes Barrow at one shock.

137

Go on, sweet maid!—O! what delight
To think, “Whatever is, is right!”
That partial ills, well understood,
Will usher in the general good.
Say, can a lovely female err,
Who would to self mankind prefer?
Make mortals happy—if she can,
Quite piteous of the sons of men?
No; while Philanthropy's extoll'd,
And first in Fame's bright lists inroll'd,
Lucia the fair must ever prove
The parmanent rewards of—Love.

FLAVIA.

See, Flavia, marriageable grown,
And with a fortune of her own,
Perhaps, some hundred pounds a-year,
Affects no husband but a peer.
Transporting thought! to be ally'd
To noble blood and—nought beside.

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A Countess, wealthy, rich, and fair!
Death sure a coronet will spare.
Flavia this choice discreetly makes,
Peers ever are the greatest rakes;
And Flavia would do all she can,
But to reform such dear, dear men.
“To turn, while heedless on he strays,
“One from the errour of his ways,
“Is like a star, by will divine,
“In heaven eternally to shine.”
Thus Flavia, with true Christian pride,
Would wed with Scripture on her side;
Acquire, to live renown'd in story,
A coronet, and crown of glory.
Kings but one crown, alas! desire,
She greatly would to twain aspire.

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Early-rising and its Opposite compared.

For want of something else to do,
Some plan of action to pursue,
How many doze away their time,
Nor think they perpetrate a crime!
With bare existence ah! content,
Behold their years and lustrums spent!
If you no glaring sins commit,
Thank not yourselves, but sleep, for it.
Stocks too, and stones, might merit claim,
Were you here to contend for fame.
Howe'er we draw alternate breath,
Sleep's but a temporary death.
The sleeper then, whoe'er he be,
A murderer is in degree;
A murderer of what in vain
We would recall to life again,
Minutes, hours, days, months, years:—alas!
Can man more fatally transgress?
Murder what, were it rightly us'd,
From mean pursuits our passions loos'd,

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Whether late hir'd, or at eleven ,
Our service would reward with Heaven!
Up, sleeper! then; who knows what hour,
God may, omnipotent in pow'r,
Make meritorious (no mean prize)
Of life immortal, and the skies.
If sound in body and in mind,
A state which still the temp'rate find,
Mankind fallaciously would use
The merit ev'n of an excuse.
Nature demands but little rest,
Howe'er with daily toils opprest;
He then that lengthens out repose,
Her into much disorder throws;
O'er the blunt sense a torpor spreads,
Which more than death the wise man dreads;
Unfits us to perform our parts,
With clear prompt heads, and cheerful hearts;
To grace that rank or state, in which
Men to be great affect, or rich;
Unmans the spirit, born to soar
Those heights but Newton soar'd before;

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Unbraces ev'ry nerve of strength,
And quite enfeebles us at length.

Your moralists in theory say,
“Why should the night encroach on day?
“It, sure, looks somehow like a crime,
“To live but half our destin'd time;
“To sleep, each manly care dismist,
“Is not to live, but to exist.
“Life at the best is but a span,
“Yet that how oft curtail'd by man!
“Life's unkind shortness we lament,
“Yet make it shorter by consent;
“Lose hours, and months, and years, in sleep,
“Nor o'er them, like the Roman, weep.
“Can man more foolishly behave,
“Shortly to slumber in the grave,
“Where in dread rueful calm he may
“Ages with reptiles doze away,
“Till both eternally dissever,
“Man rous'd by Fate to wake for ever?
“How worse than madmen we behave,
“Daily our bed to make our grave!

“Nor in this view alone we err,
“While sleeping we to life prefer.

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“Time's a vast loan to mortals lent,
“Which but discreetly should be spent;
“Good works the int'rest Heav'n demands,
“A wakeful eye and active hands:
“He then that slumbers time away,
“Refuses his arrears to pay;
“(Arrears that, with just rigour sought,
“Would make poor mortals worse than nought)
“He obstinately shuts his eyes,
“And wakes a bankrupt to the skies.”

How speciously the story told!
Reverse the medal, and behold!
To rise with the first matin-song,
Is life officious to prolong.
And what is life, in perfect beauty,
A tract of swerving from our duty?
Man then by waking nothing wins,
But swells his catalogue of sins;
Adds deeper crimson to his guilt,
And drives the dagger to the hilt:
For, soon as wakers we commence,
Reason we slight, and live to sense.
Besides, no medium we can keep,
We must be wicked, or must sleep.

143

Soon as Sleep's opiate leaves his eyes,
M---s---n's astir to gain the prize,
The prize, which orphans' tears bedew,
Circled with wreaths of deadly yew;
Where baneful plants and herbs arise,
And the pale wither'd laurel dies;
Which Satan, while base Lucre twines,
For his much honour'd brow designs,
(What earthly master so caressing?)
The prize of pinching and distressing.
Around him misers still we trace,
A bachelor, detested race,
Whom gold makes impotent, by it
For Earth, as well as Heav'n, unfit.
Yet better, from chaste love of pelf,
One sordid wretch should starve himself,
Than likewise with vile, curs'd pretence,
Starve others in a double sense.

Alluding to the celebrated parable in the Gospels.

A noted money-broker in E---; hard, miserable, and wretched to the last degree; whose trade consists in taking the basest and most cruel advantage of peoples distresses and difficulties.

144

Conclusion to the Satires.

Thus has a bold satiric Muse,
Ev'n in the face of three Reviews,
Beneath Hope's trusty helmet stout,
Into the wide, wide world launch'd out.
Ye Critics, use a stranger well,
Mind what the patriarch erst befel.
Barely to give a bard his due,
Though just, is hardly courteous too.
Yet, fairly if adjudg'd to fall,
You punish him, but favour all;
For all the sentence will sustain,
By which pronounc'd the Public gain.
Whether you censure then, or praise,
Him you oblige two sev'ral ways;
His praises on mankind reflect,
Censure on him's to all respect.

Go forth then, bold undaunted page,
Stuff'd with the follies of the age,
(Perhaps the greatest folly thou)
Eternal war with whim to vow,

145

And Dulness, in whatever shape
She genius would absurdly ape.
Haply, to pour revenge on thee,
All ranks thy mortal foes shall be,
Enrag'd to see their foibles lash'd,
Thou in the fire with fury dash'd;
Beneath ingloriously to lie
Some mighty volume of a pye;
Eternally to sleep in dust,
As many a brother-author must;
Dispatch'd, from vile tobacco-shops,
(O foul disgrace!) to beaus and fops;
Dispatch'd to---but, O Silence, come,
Command Conjecture to be dumb.
Yet martyrs to the truth shall claim
Tiaras of immortal fame.
Though but a motley piece at best,
Made up of dry discourse, and jest,
Somewhat obscure, from names unknown,
A veil o'er all industrious thrown,
Unless where the indignant Muse
Greatly disdain'd a mask to use;
Yet, names apart, you, now and then,
May hint a useful truth to men;

146

While Rubbadash, in love with strife,
Falsely arraigns his virtuous wife;
Absurdly thinks from others flow'd
Those blessings Heav'n on him bestow'd,
Though all mankind agree, quam verum
Quod ille est origo rerum.
But Virtue ne'er could worsted be,
Heav'n interpos'd and set her free.

What! trembling thus?—Reviewers threat
Me with no clemency to treat.
For shame!—their stated works survey,
You lash pert Dulness, so do they.
Pursuing thus commutual ends,
You doubtless must be mutual friends.
Hence be encourag'd—up—begone,
With all your resolution on.
But they (mistakes befal the wise)
May call me Dulness in disguise;
Or, fond of Butler's numbers, scorn
His ape, without his genius, born.
Then acquiesce, and kiss the rod,
Nor falsely call such treatment odd.
If dull yourself, you dulness lash,
(As billows empty billows dash)

147

Myself will not ward off each thwack
Justly inflicted on your back.
But though you should escape Reviewers,
Behold still troops of fierce pursuers.
From lions your retreat you make,
But serpents lurk in ev'ry brake.
Yet Genius, through the deathless page,
Shall shine like suns through ev'ry age;
Dulness, illum'd from meteor-light,
Sink deep in everlasting night.
Who once can Nature's order stay,
Make noonday night, or midnight day?

But now our satire's just enough,
With pick-tooth, pipe, and pinch of snuff,
And endless arts to keep awake,
The critic's evening task to make.
Still to protract our song, would steep
His senses all in downright sleep.
Then might his hands forget to gripe
His snuff-box, or his reeking pipe;
And thus some much-deplor'd mishap
Befal his waistcoat, or his lap;
Adown the adust powder spilt,
On sleeve, lapel, and button gilt;

148

Or on the floor, ere sight return'd,
Might fall the kindled leaf half-burn'd,
The carpet catching quick the flame,
That carpet which from Turky came.

But lest we should commit a deed,
Which would make ev'ry heart to bleed,
We now shall stop in happy time,
And, saving critics, save our rhyme.
Save us then too, friends to each other,
As one good deed deserves another.
Far milder pictures of the age
The critic shall anon engage;
Such objects as no mortal fears,
The Muse and Elegy in tears.

149

ELEGIES.

Quid brevi fortes jaculamur ævo
Multa? ------
Hor.

151

AN ELEGY ON THE Cutting down of an Oak.

In Three Parts.

—Lignator agrestis ------
------ Nemorisne sacri vastabit honores,
Facundam violans umbram ------
Nempe focum ut cumulet pretioso robore vilem?
Anon.

I. PART I.

Now pale Aurora, after long delay
From eastern climes to usher in the day,
On Night's dark face reflects a transient glance,
Which scarce perceiv'd spreads through the murk expanse;
Till, from the dewy radiance of her eyes,
Another ray, and yet another, flies.

152

These gradual, from the same effulgent store,
Succeeded still to infinite by more;
Till all the air, unbounded to the sight,
Seems one continu'd stream of orient light.
Meantime, the forest dun, and mountain blue,
Rise in uncouth magnificence to view;
The city next, the villa, cottage, fold,
And landscape, far as eye can well behold;
The cottage, villa, forest, landscape wide,
Stript by the rig'rous North of all their pride.
No jocund call of music loving Spring
As yet invites the feather'd tribe to sing.
Winter his frown delights still to assume,
Wrapt dreary round in congregated gloom.
A sullen stillness universal reigns,
And hushes all the mirth-abandon'd plains.
A lifeless torpor, centre-felt, invades
The woods and groves, unconscious of their shades.
With ev'ry blast unusual coldness chills,
And deep-form'd mists invest the naked hills.

On a fine eminence, of slow ascent,
The landscape round stretch'd to a vast extent;
An ancient Oak its infant juices drew,
And to full majesty of stature grew.

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Of bulk immense crouds yearly flock'd to see
In leafy pomp the celebrated tree;
Charm'd to contemplate Nature's giant-son,
Fed by the genial seasons as they run.

Some tell of elves, and fairy people, seen
Here dancing round their little-bodied queen,
In antic measures and vagaries light,
While conscious shines the kindred orb of night;
Of rites perform'd, with odd romantic signs,
Mysterious circles, and fantastic lines:
Others, of voices heard, and accents strange,
Confus'dly mix'd in busy interchange,
Still render'd stranger by invention's pow'r,
Assisted by the silent, solemn hour.

How proud its summits mount into the sky,
As if the rage of tempests to defy!
The circuit of its branchy arms how wide,
In leafless pomp diffus'd on ev'ry side,
Which now thrice thirty summer-suns have seen,
O'erspread luxuriant with returning green!
Vain ostentation! unavailing state!
Which serve but to accelerate its fate!
The hind, unconscious, from his hostile stand,
Whirls round the guilty hatchet in his hand,

154

Anon to strike the unrelenting blow,
The trunk that severs from its root below.
So, when his stern commission Death receives,
When hope itself the sick man's pillow leaves;
In vain would Fortune her first offers make,
No bribe the king of terrours deigns to take.
The pomp of palaces, the glare of state,
And all the proud regalia of the great,
May add distinction to Death's gloomy hour,
But not prevent the triumph of his power:
His dart once pointed, must unerring fly,
One victim perish, or a thousand die.
As to the prize, his arrows love the dark,
To him alike the mean and noble mark,
The lowly cottage, and the lordly dome,
Which kings or simple peasants make their home.

Now all about the previous circlet made,
Through its firm vitals cuts the keen-edg'd blade;
Or in its side, drawn by alternate toil,
The sharp-tooth'd saw sinks deep with slight recoil.
A thousand echoes, from their slumbers woke,
Lend their reluctant ears to ev'ry stroke;
And mix their voices sad, to tell around
The woods, what means each unaccustom'd sound.

155

The woods throughout return the loud uproar,
By rocks and hills repeated o'er and o'er,
While all abrupt afford it ampler swell,
Struck from each cliff, and shook in every dell.
Each woodland youth the din confus'd enjoys,
And with redoubled pith his axe employs.

Inhuman wretch!—but why this hated name?
Let those receive who justly merit blame—
The plexus spun so admirably fine,
The net-work pipes, and tubes in artful twine,
Through which Earth's vegetative fluids glide,
By heat fermented to a living tide;
The strongly-woven tunics wrapt about,
And exquisite contexture form'd throughout;
These hid from common observation lie,
Nor court the wonder of the vulgar eye.
Few daring minds are born sublime to range
Yon argent fields, where orbs successive change;
On ev'ry planet's fiery axle hurl'd,
To make the tour of the celestial world:
Few chosen spirits form'd divine to know
The secret wonders of our earth below;
Surpassing wonders, wisdom's nicer work,
That through the vegetable kingdom lurk!

156

Next, to the lofty stems the cordage fix'd,
The lofty stems with clouds aspiring mix'd,
To try what strength still unsubdu'd remains,
What vigour swells its yet unmangled veins,
Convuls'd throughout, it totters on its base,
Reluctant to forsake its native place,
That airy station it enjoy'd so long,
A kind asylum to the feather'd throng,
Where ever their Vertumnal strains began,
Safe in its bosom from the grasp of man!
Where oft beneath its mantle hung of green,
From noon's intrusive glance a present screen,
The shepherd wander'd with his fleecy care,
To breathe the cooly fragrance of the air!
Softly to warble, on sylvestran reed,
While round his lambs, as if attentive, feed,
Such simple notes as rural love inspires,
The blooming lass his witless heart admires;
Perhaps, in some close shelter out of sight,
By her regarded with a fond delight.

But what avails this fond indulg'd delay?
Can it the rage of furious axes stay?
Alas! expectant of its speedy doom,
The frighted birds depart with undress'd plume.

157

The cattle fly ingrate the luckless spot,
Their former stated haunts at noon forgot.
Men too predictive prudently withdraw,
Waiting the final stroke with silent awe.
What then remains, abandon'd thus by all,
But a mark'd victim in despair to fall?

Thus on the man, beneath misfortune's frown,
The supercilious eye looks meanly down,
That once (so Fortune's changing wheel requires)
Sparkled with Adulation's partial fires.
Amid the sunshine of a monarch's smile,
While slaves approach'd his seat with fulsome style,
How did each sycophant dance in his train,
Of but a look's unguarded wafture vain!
With what respectful air each dangler trips!
What smooth-form'd speeches flutter on his lips!
How shines each Proteus-feature with esteem!
What he is not the labour great to seem!
But lo! the tide of royal favour ebbs,
A passing breath breaks Grandeur's court-spun webs;
Where now the venal tribe, the courteous race?
Gone to the levee of the next—in place.

With frequent look the workman lifts his eye,
Long anxious the declining top to spy;

158

Nor is his worn-out patience further tried,
The feeble structure seems to lean aside.
From the pent clouds a sudden gust descends,
And full among the boughs its fury spends;
Weak and more weak the wounded fabric grows,
Strong pulls the rope, and blows succeed on blows:
The shock conjoin'd unable to sustain,
It stoops, it groans, it thunders to the plain;
A cumb'rous ruin wide extended lies,
Thrown from the middle region of the skies.

But shall the conscious muse unmov'd remain,
Nor mourn its fate in elegiac strain?
To verse still consecrated trees have stood,
And oaks are styl'd the monarchs of the wood.
Let then in pity her sad numbers flow,
And heave her bosom with ingenuous wo.
Late trembling she essay'd the Dorian lyre ,
By Thomson erst wak'd to unusual fire;
With trembling pencil, caught on Fancy's wing,
Sketch'd an imperfect landscape of the Spring.
Delightful task! to mark the new-blown flow'r,
The fragrant herb, and plant of healing pow'r;

159

The shoot of forward growth, and turgid stem,
Sparkling with dew conglob'd in many a gem;
Prolific clouds in kindly rain dissolv'd,
Soft months return'd, and genial suns revolv'd!
Delightful task! with curious eye to trace
Each change progressive on Creation's face;
In numbers art to make like nature look,
To imitate the murmur of the brook;
The love-sigh wafted through the green alcove,
The zephyr's plaint, and warble of the grove!
Delightful task! attentive to survey
Winter as he from earth directs his way;
To see him all his icy chains unloose,
And lessen his impetuous rains to dews;
To hear his storms, still'd their sonorous roar,
Sink to the breeze that pants along the shore;
To see gay Spring, invok'd long to appear,
Succeed the gloomy tyrant of the year;
Beauty and Youth her handmaids from the sky,
Health in their look, and radiance in their eye:
While sun-warm'd gales shed odours from their wings,
And ev'ry thicket, clad in verdure, sings.
Ah! now, a sad reverse her strain demands,
Not plenty lavish'd with unsparing hands,

160

Not Beauty's touches exquisitely just,
But her first glory levell'd with the dust!

This is a subject unessay'd before,
Catastrophes far other we deplore;
Things animate alone engage our sigh,
Or draw the tear impassion'd to our eye.
Yet shall the Muse a rule establish'd break,
And boldly teach Creation dumb to speak;
Converse with Nature's silent offsprings round,
And tread, though cautious, on forbidden ground.
Nor rashly blame, upon a slight review,
Uncommon things seem censurable too.

O! could I boast his more than mortal art,
To touch the noblest springs that move the heart;
Finely instruction with delight to mix,
Convince the judgment, and the fancy fix;
Who bade, though dead some thousand years before,
Mæonides revive on Albion's shore,
Mæonides, whate'er fam'd test we seek,
Not less renown'd a Briton, than a Greek!
Or could I soar, like his rapt muse sublime,
Unfetter'd by the stiff restraints of rhyme,
Who, with the swell of music on his tongue,
The Pleasures of Imagination sung;

161

And while he sings, displays her finest pow'rs,
Which, tracing out, we wish devoutly ours;
Virtue's own feelings to our sense conveys,
His polish'd diction but his second praise!

Of Virtue too I sing, Celestial Pow'r,
That still befriends us in the pressing hour!
Fir'd by whose beauty, and beneath whose smile,
Would I my thoughts improve, correct my style.
He merits fame, who writes on Virtue's plan,
The friend of Virtue, is the friend of man.
O Virtue! source of chaste refin'd desire,
Thee when I cease to honour and admire;
Cease, though in poor endeavours, to practise
Thy laws, and recommend them to the wise,
Or, when with doubts perplex'd, from Reason stray'd,
Cease to implore thy guidance and thy aid;
May my ungrateful heart forget to throb,
And life end in one agonizing sob!
Shall that vain thankless being be prolong'd,
By whose existence Thou art basely wrong'd?
—But let the elegiac strain begin,
At least the prize of meaning well to win.

Had the dire axe, O much lamented Oak!
That gave thy aged form the mortal stroke,

162

Remain'd yet unattemper'd in the mine,
Unwhetted for so cruel a design;
Far other scenes the Muses now had sung,
To sadness the according lyre unstrung:
Of Nature, form'd in all her works alike
To fix the judgment, and the fancy strike;
Of Merit, plac'd in infinite degrees,
Such as the eye by Truth's fair optics sees;
Of Friendship, manly, gen'rous, and refin'd,
The gentle inmate of the noble mind;
Of Beauty, heighten'd by the blushing charm
Of Modesty, which tyrants must disarm;
Of Fame, dispensing to her votive croud
The laurel crown, with sound of clarions loud.
But though a mangled carcase on the ground,
Thy honours scatter'd in disgrace around;
Immortal shalt thou live, renown'd in song,
If to the verse immortal can belong—
For here the Muse would intermit her grief,
A glorious scene supplies a kind relief.
To Britain sacred be the patriot strain,
And who in Britain's ear would dare complain?

By thee supported, O imperial tree,
Through ev'ry age invincible by thee,

163

Albion the fam'd, the great, the mighty, reigns
Unrivall'd empress of the watery plains;
In floating bulwarks, Freedom's flag unfurl'd,
Points the wing'd thunder, and o'erawes a world.
Hence to her sceptre kings shall subject be,
And haughty tyrants bend on suppliant knee.
Hence shall her empire through the earth extend,
And only with time's latest period end.

O! let Britannia still her oak revere,
Her chief defence should claim her chiefest care.
The naval pillar that her throne supports,
Her wave-built castles, her breeze-wafted forts;
Her magazines of death, with canvas wings,
Should still to Britons be momentous things.
While other nations lie expos'd a prey
To tyrants bent on universal sway;
Nature bestow'd, rais'd at her own expense,
To Britons wooden walls for their defence.
Let Britons then within these walls reside,
Their strength combin'd no factions to divide;
Defend with valour, guard with watchful eye,
As if an angel, beck'ning each, stood by;
Valour with unanimity, that boast
The noblest deeds, where dangers threat the most.

164

Britannia, long superiour to decline,
May with her oak her diadem resign;
As heroes by some vulgar shaft may die,
When, too secure, their armour they lay by;
Fate wills them on each other to depend,
As one at first, to meet one common end.

Illustrious tree! what honours on thee wait,
The sov'reign's safety, and a kingdom's fate;
That glory which prosperity attends,
Which age to age, increasing still, extends!
As thou art timely summon'd to our aid,
Fame's circling laurels bloom afresh, or fade;
The gem in Albion's crown looks doubly bright,
Or foully tarnish'd to the Patriot's sight
Once too, within thy hospitable trunk,
Faint thro' fatigue, and with misfortunes sunk,
A monarch rested, friendless and alone,
A solitary exile from his throne.
A kind retreat thy loyal arms supply,
Where injur'd Majesty secure may lie;
Hither no traitor foe his step directs,
No hostile eye the royal shade suspects.

Ye monarchs, hear! ye scepter'd sons of pride,
Who haughtily Europa's states divide!

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Be the vain competition heard no more,
Your lordly claims, your boasted triumphs o'er,
Whose shall the empire of the ocean be,
Bestow'd on Albion, by divine decree.
And justly too the diadem she craves,
Who dwells, her native clime, amid the waves;
Guarded by rocks projecting o'er the deep,
Banks inaccessible, and mountains steep;
Tremendous bulwarks rear'd by Nature's hand,
Against Ambition's proud assaults to stand;
To check each tyrant's insolent approach,
Who would on Freedom's darling spot encroach;
A spot mark'd out by Heav'n's approving eye,
To share the choicest blessings of the sky;
Albion the just, whom Fate below employs,
To keep the interests of a world in poise;
No diminution e'er her power to know,
Till oaks themselves in forests cease to grow.

Thus on thy fame the Muse would fondly dwell,
Thus would thy praise in faithful numbers tell;
Thy praise, that must descend through ev'ry age,
While British deeds adorn the lib'ral page.
But ah! how short the respite now enjoy'd!
The plaintive lyre must be again employ'd

166

At sight of thee thrown headlong on the plain,
Pity renew'd demands the mournful strain.
For, whether youthful in Vertumnal bloom,
Wisdom solac'd beneath thy solemn gloom;
Or stretch'd the earth, a rootless trunk, along,
Still art thou form'd alike to live in song.

Thus he, deep learn'd in Virtue's sacred lore,
Who practises her precepts o'er and o'er;
Whose bright example daily shows mankind,
How near perfection brought the human mind;
Alive or dead, with equal merit draws,
Claims our esteem, and rivets our applause;
For though depriv'd of temporary breath,
He speaks in silence, and he lives in death.

No more shall Spring thy torpid roots revive,
Pervious thy tubes, thy dormant sap alive.
No more expand thy cold-contracted pores,
Pointing the ray thy freshness that restores.
No more shall moisture through thy bark transude,
Or summer-heats thy infant stems protrude.
No more soft foliage mantle thee around,
To cast refreshing shadows on the ground.
No more the bees thy close recesses haunt,
With honey homeward bound for future want.

167

No Zephyr flutter through thy umbrage dun,
To cool the fervours of the noontide sun.
Music no more attentive nature charms,
From the hid centre of thy circling arms,
While Echo, mindful of the list'ning swain,
Repeats the dying cadence of each strain.
No more the rook, returning home, shall see
Far off her airy build aloft on thee,
Lin'd warm within from incommoding air,
A fit example of parental care;
No more her down-cloth'd young with rapture view,
Agape for food, her labours to renew;
Now, taught their nests instinctive to forsake,
Around its edge the offer'd morsel take;
Now hopping, half afraid, from spray to spray,
Ere through mid-air they dauntless wing their way.
Pattern to man, ere launch'd out any length
In bold designs, to estimate his strength.

Nor let it pique his pride, that tow'rs aloft,
To learn from instinct, though despis'd so oft.
Instinct, howe'er fam'd moralists define,
Is reason, but a little less divine,
More circumscrib'd, or languid in its power,
Though not less steady in the trying hour.

168

For travel its dominion, you will find,
It differs in degree, but not in kind;
As stars, of various distance through the skies,
Or diamonds, not in water, but in size.
Descend then, man, from insolence and scorn,
Reason, your boast, is but the elder born;
One common parent both respective claim,
Alike in nature, though distinct in name;
For though vain man so arrogantly wise,
Instinct itself may reason oft advise.
Nor instinct only, trees may silence break,
And to mankind's confusion learn to speak.

Trees represent the characters of men,
Beyond the vulgar daubings of the pen.
Spread out in full luxuriancy of shade,
Which vainly storms and hurricanes invade,
We in the oak's strong lineaments behold
The brave, unshaken, masculine, and bold.
The flexile, wav'ring, and enervate heart,
Subject at ev'ry accident to start,
At trifles scar'd, as at death's final stroke,
Boast no resemblance to the manly oak.
When the warm sun advances in his signs,
And with invigorating radiance shines;

169

When nipping frosts and blasting winds are gone,
Last of the grove his raiment he puts on;
Or when the lord of day his heat withdraws,
And seasons change by universal laws;
Last of the forest too, with decent pride,
His robes of shining green he lays aside.
Thus he, the rational consistent man,
Who acts on Virtue's fair and steady plan,
Feels no abrupt elation in his mind,
When Fortune, fickle favourite, is kind;
Nor mean depression, though her wheel cast up
Some evil to embitter life's sad cup.
Some men, quite soft and feminine in make,
At common things prophetically quake.
If but disease attacks his neighbour's fold,
Or on his barns the casual flame takes hold;
If an eclipse (foretold) the welkin shrouds,
Or thunders burst from agitated clouds;
If but a meteor shoots across the sky,
Or some untimely funeral passes by:
His mind with omens and forebodings swells,
And ev'ry look his superstition tells.
Such in the Oak no pleasing likeness find,
Foes to themselves, nor friends to humankind.

Alluding to Vertumnus; or, The Progress of Spring.

170

II. PART II.

The grandee from his palace casts his eye,
To view his noble group of objects nigh;
The time-rent ruin, with huge turrets fac'd,
The temple on some elevation plac'd;
The woody lab'rinth planted without bound,
The costly buildings scatter'd all around;
From smoke the city rising by degrees,
The hamlet shaded by surrounding trees;
The lofty bridge, whose arches proudly rise,
The distant ocean mixing with the skies;
The round fir clump, cloth'd in perennial green,
The cloud-topt mountain, through perspective seen;
The gilded steeple far-remote beheld,
The river in broad sheets of water swell'd;
—The well-known oak—but ah! no oak appears,
Beneath the load of venerable years—
“What! gone?—impossible!”—amaz'd he cries,
“Sure some unusual languor dims mine eyes;
“Say not, admir'd but some few hours before,
“The beauty of the landscape is no more.”

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Again, he looks incredulous to all,
Too soon convinc'd of thy untimely fall,
A solitary prospect only left,
Of every wonted ornament bereft.
He shuts his window with indignant haste,
Disgusted at man's poverty of taste;
Whose narrow views still point at sordid pelf,
Of mankind fond, but fonder of himself.

Around this amply-branching shade, how oft
With bended neck, or proud head toss'd aloft,
Has the young steed, of gen'rous birth, regal'd
On succulent repasts that never fail'd?
From hence led forth, obedient to the sign,
To form in rich caparison the line;
Unmov'd from stern disdain and martial pride,
Though cohorns burst in thunder at his side;
The coronet-adorn'd machine to grace,
With lordly port and art-conducted pace;
To run the stated course's crouded round,
Scarce left a foot-track loit'ring on the ground;
Or stretch, o'er yonder heath's unmeasur'd space,
Each swelling muscle in the jovial chace,
While hopes of triumph strange delight impart,
And with big tumults heave his bounding heart.

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But let the muse describe, with grateful strain,
The noblest animal that feeds the plain.
How his brac'd nervous sinews swell with strength!
How graceful in his shape, his height, his length!
How elegantly careless flows his mane!
How sweeps his tail luxuriant on the plain!
How smooth the glossy polish of his skin!
How prompt each various gait he wantons in!
How vigour his broad turgid chest expands!
How swiftly he careers! how firm he stands!
His ears how exquisitely pair'd alike!
How equally his limbs in motion strike!
How from his nostrils, in successive wreaths,
Efflux of life, the fire ethereal breathes!
Beyond whate'er resemblance can imply,
How bright the vital fluid of each eye!
How airy, how vivacious, how alert,
His fearless spirit, and unconquer'd heart!
Ah! now, around the well-remember'd tree,
No more to frisk, from the rude snaffle free!
No more, with heat and food luxurious cloy'd,
Prefer its shade to suns and meads enjoy'd!

Where shall the reapers now their revels hold,
With passions all of one attemper'd mold;

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No more, each with his smirking, red-cheek'd maid,
To feast beneath this hospitable shade;
Where, gather'd in the produce of the soil,
They erst relax'd themselves from annual toil;
Where peals sonorous of broad laughter rung,
Each told his tale, and each his sonnet sung;
Where inoffensive jokes ran quick as thought
From mouth to mouth, as by infection caught;
Where copious draughts dissolv'd each heart in mirth
And gave a thousand pleasing frolics birth:
Where shall the reapers now, at noon, resort,
To share returns of such unenvy'd sport?

Round Celadon, the universal friend
Of all that once to merit could pretend,
(If we may here, licens'd by critic's law,
From things inanimate resemblance draw)
The social circle thus were wont to sit,
Charm'd with his manly eloquence and wit;
To hear him, not like learning's pedant tribe,
Virtue in her own native form describe,
Which ravishes the more, the nearer seen,
No veil scholastic, no disguise between.
With what a graceful ease his language flow'd,
Which not by starts, but uniformly glow'd!

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A nicety those never can practise,
In pomp of words whose only merit lies.
Now all the senses seem an eye ingross'd,
Now in an ear with equal wonder lost.
His style by study haply might be caught,
But not his simple elegance of thought.
There he excell'd, unrival'd and alone,
With fancy, manner, sense, and taste, his own.
He scorn'd that formal disingenuous part,
To point out virtues strangers to his heart.
On those that grac'd his life he only dwelt,
And ev'ry sentiment he painted, felt.
Each fine emotion he judg'd friendship by,
Smil'd in his cheek, or sparkled in his eye.

He that a name for virtue would acquire,
Must do far more than merely to admire.
Fools may admire, but none, except the wise,
Know where the duty, or the merit lies;
And knowing, with refinement shar'd by few,
Perform the one and claim the other too.
He that loves Virtue, for pure Virtue's sake,
Would her prefer, though crowns themselves at stake.
Such more respect by one good action pays,
Than who compiles a volume in her praise.

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To think, and act well, are two distinct things,
That oft from pride, this but from wisdom springs.
A man, by thinking, oft becomes a fool,
With all the boasted learning of the school;
While he whose thoughts but the bare surface skim,
Is justly styl'd a Socrates to him.
Virtue resides not in the head, but heart,
The man of theory loves her but in part,
Or loves, as men love courtiers, for their place,
As on his ethics she confers a grace.
Not for herself does she his value win,
But for the garb his pride arrays her in.
In the profound of thought he loves to sink,
And pities those that tarry on the brink,
He dives for treasure, but his depth exceeds,
And finds himself involv'd in mire and weeds;
While he, who only walks along the shore,
A diamond spies, or meets with golden ore.
The man, whose life's a transcript of his heart;
Acts both a selfish, and a gen'rous part;
Above the bait of honour and of pelf,
He cheats no mortal, nor deceives himself.
Such Celadon, the gentle and the kind,
His morals faultless, as his taste refin'd.

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Him no false lights, no empty theories led
From Virtue's fane, from Wisdom's fountain-head.
By truth's unerring optics still he view'd
The path of life, and viewing it, pursu'd.

But Celadon, though thus admir'd by all,
Got to his native skies an early call.
Merit, or virtue of sublime degree,
Men are below permitted but to see,
Not claim, as property transferr'd to them
Like the rich spotted fur, or costly gem.
So, in the compass of a thousand years,
The comet, glorious stranger, just appears,
Then, on his journey, worlds regret his stay,
Through depths of ether sweeps his dazzling way.
Blessings and talents, of superiour kind,
Seldom for long duration seem design'd;
Angels to such their fond pretensions make,
With mortals here ambitious to partake.
Ah! how unequal, whatsoe'er the prize,
The rival claim between the eath and skies!
Hence Celadon, few thus resign their breath,
Was snatch'd by sudden, not unwelcome death;
Snatch'd to those regions of eternal day,
Where worth and virtue bloom without decay.

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At noon he heard the summons, and obey'd,
Without one murmur, ere the evening-shade;
More hasty not the unexpected blow
That laid this Oak's umbrageous honours low.

No more shall punctual lovers here repair,
The faithful shepherd, nor unconscious fair,
To interchange each other's soft desires,
In accents such as purest love inspires;
To form their tender wishes in a sigh,
To speak the melting language of the eye;
Or sweetly, in alternate measures, sing
That mutual passion whence their transports spring:
While May's gay songsters, with unwearied throats,
Warble their finely-modulated notes;
While gales in scarce-heard whispers fan them round,
Breathing the odours of the flowery ground,
And every moment with unusual speed,
As envious, seems its fellow to succeed.

Hail Love! whose subtile essence can pervade
The deepest solitude and thickest shade;
Like lightning with ethereal swiftness dart
Through the recesses of the human heart,
Each appetite to thy subjection bring,
Guide Life's chief movements, touch its every spring!

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Nor only, in the summer of our days,
Thy active magic its effects displays,
When Youth's keen wishes sparkle in the eye,
And with wild throbs the conscious pulse beats high.
Our Winter owns thy vivifying ray,
When worn-out Nature feels a quick decay.
The frozen current, stagnate in our veins,
A new-excited undulation gains;
Life's half-spent lamp renews its languid fires,
And strange delight each feeble sense inspires.
But for that gentle charm deriv'd from thee,
What perfect savages would mortals be?
Less tame than yonder tenants of the wild,
For beasts themselves by thee are render'd mild;
The lion fierce stills his appalling roar,
And wolves forget to stain their jaws with gore.
Oh! may my bosom still thy transports know,
There may thy milder ardours ever glow,
Free from the torments, nothing can assuage,
Of disappointed hope and jealous rage;
Free from the dry reserve, the cool disgust,
And guilty tumults of licentious lust.
So shall the same kind venerable tree
Of seeming opposites productive be

179

That lambent flame, which it provok'd before,
Now happily refrain, to rise no more.
Thus the same ray, that scorches up the plains,
Cools the thin juices in the melon's veins.
The same kind lunar orb, with occult powers,
Directs the ebbing and the flowing hours.

Ah! hapless tree! each circling season spent,
How many will thy absent shades lament;
Kind refuge to the apprehensive swain,
When thunder-clouds dissolv'd in hasty rain!

So, when some gen'rous guardian of mankind,
Deceas'd, leaves weeping half the world behind;
Our thoughts no other subject can ingross,
We speak but to deplore the general loss.
Time, place, and circumstance, recall to mind
His presence, with officiousness unkind.
Who now like him, benevolent to all,
A friend, a guardian, at soft pity's call,
To screen Misfortune in whatever form,
As once this tree a covert from the storm?
As it the foremost beauty of its kind,
So he the glory of his race design'd.

The youthful shepherd pensive and forlorn,
Long tyrant Love's unworthy shackles worn,

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Henceforth no more, with ready hand, shall mark
The dear initials on thy tender bark;
The dear initials of his charmer's name,
Ah! unaffected by a mutual flame!
Happy, each early morn, or closing eve,
To read the well-known characters, and grieve;
With all his passions melting in his eyes,
The only comfort his hard lot supplies.

No more the sprightly circle shall be seen
Beneath thy shady canopy of green;
Pleas'd to run through, with intermingled glance,
The mazy evolutions of the dance;
While graceful every limb obsequious moves,
As each with self-applauding smile approves;
Pleas'd to detect, what each would fondly hide,
From arch reserve, or bashful maiden pride.
Pleas'd their flush'd charms should have this twain effect,
All to behold, not one the art suspect.
How fresh, how virid look'd thy pensile gloom!
Amongst thy boughs how zephyrs breath'd perfume!
No more in leafy pomp to wave above,
The youthful sports of innocence and love!

What mighty revolutions hast thou seen,
Thy shoot of infancy and fall between,

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While monarchs to inexorable death,
Resign'd at once their sceptre and their breath;
Others advanc'd successive in their room,
Victims ere long to the same common doom.
What changes from unapprehended springs,
What unexpected turns of human things,
While millions of the blust'ring sons of Pride,
That seem'd the world by suffrage to divide,
Strutted with rude insulting air a while,
Then dropt forgot, amid ev'n Fortune's smile?
So insects sport in yonder noontide ray,
Swept by the first inclement blast away.
So painted mushrooms rise with morning-light,
And disappear ere the approach of night.
So bubbles on the pool, beneath a show'r,
Vanish and swell, ten thousand in an hour.
But now with them thy triumph's likewise o'er,
To mark time's strange vicissitudes no more.
To mark the labours of vain plodding man,
The sons to finish what their fires began;
To mark those deep designs late time unfolds,
That daily conflict Vice with Virtue holds,
Though from the field compell'd oft to remove,
Virtue, at last, sole conqueror to prove.

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Such the reflections, at the Muse's call,
That shall, auspicious tree, attend thy fall;
Such moral hints hence in gradation rise,
As school-bred Learning may not blush to prize.

But ah! no swain henceforward shall behold
Thy early summits ting'd with liquid gold,
Propitious sign that, to expecting eyes,
The lord of day will visit soon the skies:
Or when the moon, pale majesty of night,
Effusive spreads abroad her sacred light,
No late-returning hind shall see display'd
In waving silver thy expansive shade;
Kind hint, no longer on vain cares to roam,
But hasten to his wishing consort home.

Thus he whom true philosophy styles wise,
A rational expectant of the skies;
Who walks in Virtue's consecrated ways,
Amid the sunshine of his Maker's praise;
Who earth contemns, and as immortal lives,
Though nearer death each round the dial gives;
Such shines a living proof, some ages past,
No longer this uncertain state shall last;
This state of anarchy, of guilt and doubt,
Where wrapt in night poor mortals grope about,

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Grope round for happiness, but never trace,
Or grasp a lifeless phantom in her place;
Each scene from errour and confusion freed,
Eternal day unclouded shall succeed:
Why Virtue, else, unworthily distress'd,
Worn out with trouble, and with grief oppress'd?
Why still successful and triumphant Vice,
Her very smiles esteem'd at Virtue's price?
To each a friendly warning, to forsake
That course commenc'd from folly or mistake;
From laws of moral force misunderstood,
From false conceptions of the only good;
From voluntary sloth, to guilt akin,
From loose abandon'd principles within;
From prepossession, caprice, or from pride,
That all alike the footsteps turn aside:
By such a noble effort of the mind,
His nature's highest happiness to find;
His wishes bounded by time's narrow span,
To rise an angel, though inhum'd a man.

But did we here that happiness define,
Which best deserves the epithet, divine;
For which mankind ten thousand projects try,
Contented live, and almost bear to die;

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Not at the Cynic's threshold should we stumble,
But call it, in plain language, being humble.
Let empty sophists various styles bestow,
This one word names all happiness below.
Here let the judgment rest, conjecture cease,
And here be ev'ry passion lull'd to peace.
With confidence let man depend alone
Upon himself, and trust his bliss to none.
This reason dictates, prudence recommends,
Prudence and reason ever mutual friends;
This common sense approves, that never looks,
For obvious truths, to colleges or books;
Convinc'd from Nature's fair and ample page,
Not the vain guesses of bewilder'd sage.
Some wits, in letters of gigantic size,
Who view plain things with scientific eyes,
Take mighty pains a needless fact to prove,
Because to wrangle such supremely love;
And still they learn'dly write, as if we doubted,
Till volumes swell, about it and about it.
Such are indeed a harmless set of men,
That wield, but not offensively, the pen.
The injury is to themselves they do,
Theirs is the toil, but not the profit too;

185

Theirs many a restless night, and anxious day,
No laurel crown their service to repay,
For few buy works, conceit with trifling mix'd,
To fix a faith, that never was unfix'd.

III. PART III.

Thus truths, not unimportant to the wise,
From unsuspected sources may arise.
On the bare lonely strand, or rocky height,
A costly diamond oft arrests the sight;
On mountains wild, or desert-tracts below,
Herbs of inestimable virtues grow.
Let none pronounce the subject barren then,
Trees may be taught sometimes to lecture men;
The vegetable world those thoughts inspire
That love from poring sages to retire;
Deride the vaunted knowledge of the age,
Learn'd from conceit, not Nature's sacred page.
These, taught in some sublime didactic lay,
Might mend our manners by the surest way;
Force our tumultuous passions to subside,
And humble the aspiring brow of pride.

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But though enrich'd by these, still in the gross
Our profit's nearly balanc'd by the loss.
No more the youth, by love of science smit,
Shall under thy leaf-wove umbrella sit;
Charm'd with the wide diffusion of thy sprays,
Impervious to the noontide-pointed rays;
No care-form'd wrinkles on his brow imprest,
That mark the anxious thoughts estrang'd to rest;
That mark the inward bias disinclin'd
To study, and the pursuits of the mind;
Those objects that assimilate the taste
To Nature's standard, ever rightly plac'd;
Stamp on the passive heart each soft impress,
And bounds prescribe to ev'ry wrong excess;
Render the thoughts capacious, to extend
Not merely to existence, but the end;
Not to a moment's unsubstantial good,
But lasting, as by Virtue understood.
Distinguish'd thus, the studious youth no more
Shall here advance in Wisdom's hallow'd lore.
No more consult each deeply-labour'd page,
The well-collected knowledge of an age;
Where Nature's grand arcanas lie explain'd,
Where manners glow depicted as they reign'd;

187

Mark'd all the changes of this lower ball,
While in succession empires rise or fall;
Kings are dethron'd, or slaves to monarchs rais'd,
Those lights extinguish'd that superiour blaz'd;
Lights of the church, the cabinet, and field,
Immortal names, that only once could yield!
Lights, far remov'd from Fame's illustrious strife,
That shone in circles of domestic life;
Though fainter their restricted radiance glows,
These not less glorious to a state than those.
No more, with eye elate, and kindled thought,
To relish beauties by example taught,
Shall he in thy romantic gloom peruse
The fine descriptions of the moral muse;
Where wit and humour charm with native ease,
By stealth surprise us, and by magic please;
Where delicately sketch'd each object looks
As drawn from living nature, not from books;
Where fancy's gay ideal pictures shine,
And manly sense inspirits ev'ry line:
While taste, as eyes illuminate the face,
Throws over all an elegance and grace.

In such a shade, still sacred to the Nine,
Was wont the Mantuan poet to recline;

188

While Fancy round spread her aëreal wings,
Fancy to view that earth's each beauty brings,
Howe'er dispers'd, beneath whatever suns,
As each soft smiling month its progress runs.
To shepherds and their flocks his lute he strung,
Of sylvan scenes, of groves, and fountains sung.
Taught husbandmen, in highly-polish'd strains,
How to improve the culture of their plains;
Behold their lusty herds innumerous thrive,
And whence Autumnal treasures to derive.
In such a shade the Caledonian fam'd
Was early by the partial Muses nam'd,
To paint the Seasons, that in turns appear,
To sing the glories of the circling year.
From his fine pen what apt descriptions flow!
What finish'd landscapes from his pencil glow!
The charms of Nature were but rudely known,
Till graceful in his matchless numbers shown:
Scarce fairer they our naked eyes attract,
Than in his soft embellishments when deck'd.

What noble themes the silent gloom inspires,
Genius awake with all her kindred fires!
What visions prompt the bard ecstatic laid
Beneath some full-spread oak's umbrageous shade,

189

Like that the Muse has now essay'd to sing,
No more the boast of Culture and of Spring.

No more to thee, at Evening's wish'd return,
While sacred ardours in her bosom burn,
Shall rapt Philosophy her footsteps bend,
Intent on man, his origin and end;
The glories of his intellectual frame,
Transcendent as that Being whence they came;
That point him out, his fetters left behind,
For Heaven and immortality design'd;
His senses, all the wonders of his make,
That of a nature less sublime partake;
Yet not less necessary, as they tend
To one just, sapient, well-adapted end:
Why sent below, a moment or an age,
To act his part on life's oft-trodden stage;
The appetites and passions in his train,
With dignity the drama to sustain;
With dignity, while Virtue over-rules,
And their internal fire excites or cools;
Then steal behind the scene from human eyes,
The gaze of fools, or wonder of the wise:
What renders him with reptiles on a par,
Reason to instinct oft inferiour far;

190

Or lifts him in the scale of beings high,
Angels his kindred, his retreat the sky,
Fain to secure the harbour of the grave,
Toss'd to and fro on life's tempestuous wave.
Such objects, by thy gloom inspiring caught,
No more rush boundless on her crouded thought.

No more night's solemn birds, at twilight gloom,
Amid thy boughs their doleful notes resume;
That give an irksome melancholy joy
To whom lone Solitude's still cares employ.
Such, musing, as disconsolate deplore
A parent, or a consort, ah! no more;
Or, with remembrance that surpasses all
Distress, a bosom friend's untimely fall!
Whose hopes, pursuits, and wishes were the same,
Honest alike in mutual praise, or blame;
Whose kindred souls bore one impressive stamp,
No sordid strife their social joys to damp;
To disunite that union, which below
None but sublime congenial spirits know.

When, on his mid-day throne, the sun displays
His centre-felt refulgency of blaze,
Attracted by thy moist expanse of shade,
No more beneath the poet shall be laid.

191

To celebrate his Maker's glorious praise,
Whose consummate design each scene displays,
Whether the contemplation-wafted glance
Traverses earth, or yonder blue expanse;
Whose wisdom, goodness, and resistless pow'r,
Shine worthy of the Godhead ev'ry hour;
And all for man, fair offspring styl'd his own,
His image, the free subject of his throne.
No more each season's mild approach to sing,
The sheaf-crown'd Autumn, or the flow'r-wreath'd Spring,
With all the gay attendants in their train,
That jocund trip the cowslip-broider'd plain.
No more, if Love's heart-kindled passion warms,
Inspir'd by Beauty's fascinating charms,
To paint the exquisite sensation felt,
Sigh in soft measure, or in numbers melt.
Hail gen'rous ardour of the soften'd heart,
Which more implies than language can impart;
From whose kind impulse rather than be free,
We had at once much better cease to be;
Relinquish all that mortals good define,
Fame's circling laurel, and the golden mine.

Henceforth no painter, on some hillock plac'd,
Shall view the landscape by thy presence grac'd;

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In deep-green majesty of foliage drest,
On humbler shoots a kind protection cast.
No more his pencil guide the glossy ink,
Hills here to raise, and valleys there to sink;
Transfer thy beauties to his fine-sketch'd view,
To wave in miniature, and bloom anew.
Uncouth would now appear his objects drawn,
Absent thy shades, the glory of the lawn.

Thus, to depaint the manners of the times,
Diversify'd by virtues and by crimes;
Figures in ev'ry attitude beheld,
Persons and things, that variously excell'd,
Assum'd new faces, acted different parts,
Fashions, and humours, policies, and arts;
How naked, how impoverish'd would appear
The awkward portrait of each busy year,
If that fine character which Virtue draws,
Stamp'd with a nation's suffrage of applause,
Did not within the artist's compass fall,
To throw a glow of beauty over all?
For he, the good, the wise, the godlike man,
Who from a worthy, settled, vigorous plan,
Not merely to be popularly great,
Promotes the native welfare of a state;

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He casts a charm o'er the historic page,
A lustre that reflects on every age;
As once these branches venerable threw
A certain grace o'er the surrounding view,

Soon as abroad, the softer season past,
Forth issues winter's unauspicious blast,
The tender shrubs their orphan state bemoan,
Deny'd their wonted shelter round them thrown;
Deny'd thy genial moisture shed about,
When heat unsufferably glows without;
When vegetable life seems half destroy'd,
No cooling breeze, no lenient show'rs enjoy'd.

So mourns the man, with sorrow-streaming eyes,
When his much-honour'd benefactor dies;
Whose bounty, with no mean restrictions shown,
Soften'd his cares scarce sufferable grown;
Bade Plenty smile, each pleasing comfort felt,
Where Want before emaciated dwelt.
Oh! sad reverse! each species of distress
Assails him, now, despairing of redress;
Save from an equal virtuous calm within,
A peaceful conscience unalarm'd by sin.
Nor sinks the noble soul beneath his load,
On whom such liberal blessings are bestow'd.

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An accident may him of wealth deprive,
But not of hopes immortal, still alive.
He ne'er repines for ease enjoy'd erewhile,
But turns the frown of fortune to a smile.

Man seldom with consistent thought attends,
Still on himself how much through life depends,
To find that happiness he would attain;
Hence his laborious search so often vain.
Ten thousand schemes invention fond employs,
We range life's circle of phantastic joys;
Immerge in cares, to distant climates roam,
To seek that treasure, only found at home.
Would you be happy, nor oblig'd to pelf?
Forsake the croud, and live within yourself.
There you a world in miniature will find,
Though not exact in bulk, exact in kind;
The various passions, bred in Wisdom's school,
Or Errour's, that the multitude o'er-rule.
From these then disciplin'd your peace derive,
Nor other means of happiness contrive.
Men take indeed, but rarely men bestow,
As rivers to their springs ne'er backward flow.
From home-set graftures your contentment shoots,
Tho' flourish trees sometimes from borrow'd roots;

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Not so our sturdy oak, aloft it grew,
Nor juices save from native tendrils drew.

Each season, as it runs its destin'd race,
Passing shall miss thee in thy wonted place;
Spring to prepare thy verdant suit, anon
Presented thee by Summer to put on;
Autumn thy little progeny to bid
Cling to each suckling branch, in embryo hid;
Winter, attended by his blasts, to throw
Around thy naked arms his sheets of snow.
The ivy, late thy waist fond clasp'd around,
Shall unambitious creep along the ground,
Till, in her progress, some majestic tree
She haply meets; of tow'ring growth like thee;
To tell, if such her happy fortune spies,
How low reduc'd, and seek his aid to rise.

Thus merit, elevated once on high,
Attracting the fond gaze of every eye;
When by inextricable causes thrown
From that superiour rank where late she shone;
(For errour, doubt, and accident involve
The noblest purpose, and the best resolve)
Passes her days in some sequester'd spot,
Despis'd her former grandeur, or forgot;

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Obscure her home, which trees in friendship hide,
Far from the insolent approach of Pride;
Perhaps beneath the pressure of distress,
Till some reverse of Fortune make it less;
Some cast thrown up on her fantastic wheel,
Whence mortals half their joys and sorrows feel,
Sets her reluctant in her pristine state,
Not likely then more happy, though more great.

But now the Muse too much protracts her song,
To simple themes thoughts simply turn'd belong;
And while on such we brevity preserve,
Haply from critic's precepts less we swerve.
Yet if instruction points the tedious lay,
Why not for once uncensur'd disobey?
If such strict laws utility condemn,
Say, why not decently dissent from them?
Unauthoriz'd by use, though pride of schools,
What merit boasts a set of formal rules?
A clock, with all the workman's finest art,
Finish'd in ev'ry nice-adjusted part,
Without the pendulum, to make it go,
Were but a school-boy's toy, a rareeshow.
To touch the heart's more glorious, reason says,
Than set to work ten learn'd heads in our praise.

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That source of tender feeling, friendship, love,
Where Life's quick subtile springs concenter'd move,
Could but the numbers, with soft impulse, make
To melt in sorrow, or to rapture wake;
Critics unnoted should dispute the causes,
In Learning's court, of syllables and pauses.
From thee then, Oak, though long in ruins sunk,
A sapless, bare, unanimated trunk,
Mankind, with admiration and surprise,
To bind my brows, should see the laurel rise.

Henceforward, at the soft return of Spring,
With frequent chirp, and rapture-quiver'd wing,
No birds conven'd shall croud thy naked boughs,
To interchange their hymeneal vows;
All eager with their fellow-mates to pair,
One common fortune through the year to shate;
In sweet domestic cares, and scenes of joy,
Their task-appointed moments to employ;
No cool reserve, no loud contentious strife,
To mar the comforts of their quiet life.

And shall the feather'd tribe examples prove
To those made one by wedlock—not by love?
Shall such o'erspread the virgin's cheek with shame,
Conscious her words or actions merit blame?

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Shall sullen frowns becloud that beauteous face,
Where we should ever the soft sun-beam trace?
Shall wrath distort those features, moulded smooth
By Nature's hand, to soften and to soothe?
Shall fragrant cherry lips dispart, to show
Teeth clos'd with rage in double ivory row?
Shall eyes, which meekly radiant should be found,
Sparkle with ire, or flash the lightning round?
Shall that inchanting tongue o'erflow with gall,
Whence honey should alone effusive fall?
That dove-like bosom with commotions swell,
Where peace, and joy, and hope should only dwell?
That graceful presence, that angelic form,
Be furious toss'd in passion's self-rais'd storm?

With all the gentle virtues in her train,
That love to give delight, but never pain;
With all the modest ornaments of pride,
Nor to expose her beauties, nor to hide;
With all her charms of manner, form, and mien,
To gain respect, not barely to be seen;
Her sweetness, candour, delicacy, ease,
And graces inexpressible to please;
Woman seems Heaven's first fairest gift to man,
The consummation of her Maker's plan.

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But when fierce passions in her breast engage,
With ev'ry burst of agitated rage;
Throw into ferment her serener frame,
Nor redden once her cheek with conscious shame,
(The maid grown bold to run pert Folly's range)
What bosom sighs not at the striking change?
Now, she appears than mortal somewhat more,
And smiles, that we may Indian-like adore;
Now, in our wonder something less she seems,
While all may pity, but not one esteems.
Would female hearts with true ambition glow,
Know Nature, and still practise what you know.
This will Ardelia's boasted art outvie,
And charm beyond the twinkle of an eye;
This Livia's cheek with finer red will flush,
Than the vain carmine's artificial blush;
This will give native grace to Celia's air,
And make Aminta something more than fair.
To all the charms of person and of face,
Interiour sweetness, and external grace;
Did but the fair endeavour to excell
By thinking justly, whence flows acting well;
How would each youth low paltry pelf contemu,
Possess'd of more than gold, possess'd of them!

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This Lucia finds, a pattern to the fair,
And this will all who her discretion share.

Nor do harsh frowns become his lofty brow
Who fond with her partakes the nuptial vow.
His temper, less by gentle methods rul'd,
Should by reflection be discreetly cool'd.
With headstrong passions, Nature gave him too
Reason their rage licentious to subdue.
Else things inadequate had she bestow'd,
And goodness less than wanton malice show'd.
Though styl'd the lord of earth, with haughty claim,
Of both the just authority's the same;
A right to rule he boasts on no pretence,
Unless from knowledge or superiour sense;
And who would not with promptitude obey,
When wisdom or when virtue bears the sway?

Hail sacred state! where each a treasure finds,
Marriage, thou cement of congenial minds!
Hail fate-tied knot, death can alone undo!
Hail rite mysterious to make one of two!
Pleas'd would the Muse thy mystic charms define,
If not digressive from her main design;
The gloomy Muse, whom elegy detains
In joyless numbers and lugubrious strains.

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Nor tears alone o'erflow her grief-swoln eyes,
When worth deceases, or a Stella dies;
An insect crush'd presented to her eye,
Can lift her tender bosom to a sigh;
The fate untimely of a new-blown flow'r,
Or tree luxuriant that was wont to tow'r.

Ill-fated Oak! could not thy matchless size,
So vast an object to admiring eyes,
Thy knotty firmness opportune have sav'd
Thy form with such pre-eminence that wav'd?
Thou, whose hard sides can forceful balls repel,
Brave the rough wintry surge and tempest fell;
Support the mighty palace, yet at length
Ages to view thee unimpair'd in strength;
What shall a hatchet's momentary blow
Lay all thy proud display of grandeur low?

So have we seen an impious monarch pale,
His courage faint, his limbs beneath him fail;
Seen his teeth chatter, swim his troubled sight,
His looks aghast, his hair on end with fright,
His countenance in dumb amazement fall,
When he beheld the writing on the wall:
The haughty look fled from his princely brow,
His meanest slave seems scarce beneath him now.

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Yet danger he could face, superiour far,
And plunge amid the thickest storms of war;
Without a shrink see Death tremendous slay
His thousands and ten thousands in a day;
The spear extended to destroy oppose,
And meet the arrow pointed by his foes.
But through his vitals dire dismay now reigns,
A gelid torpor creeps along his veins;
Though spirit erst through all his actions ran,
Now he appears an object less than man.

Whate'er the previous trials that befall,
Death, in approach, is terrible to all.
With great or less dismay his arrows strike,
Haply the dread but in degree unlike.
Nature recoils at the severe decree,
Howe'er incurr'd, by which we cease to be;
The brain thought and sensation to convey,
The lungs to vibrate, and the heart to play.

How startled vitious minds with shrouds and urns!
Death the vain boaster to a coward turns.
The impulse of an agitated vein,
Supply'd with sudden transports from the brain;
The start of vengeance, or the flash of ire,
May temporary courage oft inspire;

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When danger lessens to the blinded eye,
And the impassive soul could bear to die:
But let the temper's partial warmth abate,
And coolly gain its ordinary state;
Let the swoln passion's ebulitions sink,
Give leisure to remonstrate, time to think;
Let Silence seem to listen with dread awe,
And Darkness round her midnight curtain draw:
Let Virtue her affronted rights assert,
And conscious guilt sting his detected heart;
How like a poltroon looks the hero fam'd,
His manhood vanish'd, his proud spirit tam'd!

Valour, that no mean diminution knows,
Whate'er camps boast, alone from Virtue flows;
Fix'd, unappal'd, beneath habitual rule,
Ardent as noon, yet as the twilight cool;
Which instant dangers render more alert,
And no cross accidents can disconcert.
No task too complicated to surmount,
Hardships and toils esteem'd of no account;
Or if esteem'd, the prize but to enhance,
Not to retreat incentives, but advance.
Such valour like some wave-unshaken rock,
Bears the approach unmov'd of every shock.

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Firm against fate, in each terrific form,
As forest-oak that scorns the rushing storm.
Ah such wert thou, unrival'd of thy kind,
Whose loss now mourns the flock-entrusted hind,
As by thy ruins he directs his way,
Join'd by the Muse's sympathetic lay!

Thus, in some silent solitary shade,
When moonlight shadows croud the lonely glade,
Bewails the bard, invited by the gloom,
His darling maid cut off in early bloom;
Cut off, her faded honours round her thrown,
Ere youth's fair-opening blossom fully blown;
As yonder lily fades, unkind the skies,
Declines her head, shrinks, languishes, and dies.
Nor let his tears of anguish cease to flow,
His bosom cease from the big swell of wo.
For who would give his gen'rous sorrows o'er,
The first, the best of womankind, no more?
The first in station; but her praise ascends
Above what to the vilest chance intends.
The first in merit, from the heart deriv'd!
Merit, her death seal'd eye-lid that surviv'd!
Merit, by Truth's own signature imprest,
Which few sepulchral honours dare attest!

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Merit, alone by Him distinctly seen,
Who objects views, no medium false between!
Merit, that labours brighter to appear,
As closing life's momentous scene draws near;
Like stars the eye increas'd in lustre sees,
The darker night advances by degrees!

Like yon smooth stream that uniformly glides,
Yon noontide ray no watery medium hides,
Her temper in one happy tenour flow'd,
Her breast with every gentle virtue glow'd;
No sudden flight, beyond cool reason's curb,
Her settled calm of spirit to disturb;
No twitch of envy, no false sting of pride,
Between extremes her passions to divide;
Criterions of a soul ignobly born,
An object, or of pity, or of scorn.
Her heart love's tenderest ardours ever felt,
Form'd exquisitely sensible to melt,
When gentle Nature touch'd, with impulse kind,
Its soften'd springs, to action still inclin'd.
Whom obloquy herself could seldom tax
With vanity, the foible of her sex;
Unless her acts of bounty made her vain,
To soothe affliction, and alleviate pain;

206

Vain, that the blessing heart, and grateful eye,
Could ne'er divine whence each well-tim'd supply.
Can limits grief for such a maid require,
While mankind virgin excellence admire?
Shall Female Virtue draw her latest breath!
Shall Beauty languish in the arms of Death!
Shall Innocence descend to grace the urn!
Shall blooming youth to vulgar dust return!
Shall with Amanda all that's sweet depart!
Nor yet one pang of sorrow pierce the heart!
Yet Elegy the stroke afflictive bear,
With cruel eyes scarce moisten'd with a tear?

What horrours crouded to the lover's thought!
How did he gaze, as to a statue wrought!
What pangs endure, too mighty for relief!
What feelings of unutterable grief!
When, trembling, he her clay-pale cheek beheld,
That once the rose-bud's painted blush excell'd!
Saw her lips fetch the last returns of breath,
And quiver in the agonies of death!
Saw (his full soul elapsive in a sigh)
The heav'nly beam leave her benighted eye!
Expression falters to describe his wo,
Which those who ever felt can only know.

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But whither has the Muse digress'd so long
On subjects that seem foreign to her song?
But why digress'd? thy fate, O luckless tree,
And fair Amanda's, ah too well agree!
Thy fall, by the fix'd mandate of the skies,
Though undiscern'd by superficial eyes,
Is emblematic of that final hour,
When Death exerts—no spot-restricted power,
But universal as existence runs,
Where-ever worlds roll round their central suns.
—But here the thought must not subsist too long,
Again resum'd to close the plaintive song.

Here, of its wonted shade superb bereav'd,
To molehills shall the sordid earth be heav'd;
That earth whose juices, by attraction soft,
Once rose meand'ring to thy stems aloft;
Now to give many a foul production birth,
While Sorrow smooths the dimpled cheek of Mirth;
For thus in dust dissolves the human frame,
Congenial dust, whence it but lately came;
Their fatness hence impov'rish'd soils derive,
Hence worms regale, and vegetables thrive.
Blush, blush! ye sons of levity and mirth!
The monarch's death is but the reptile's birth,

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No plant shall henceforth here her balm bestow,
No herb arise, no root salubrious grow;
No May-flowers, dress'd in suits of virgin gold,
With conscious pride their dew-dropt leaves unfold;
No cowslip ope her bosom to the gale,
No primrose her ambrosial sweets exhale.
From these cut veins shall short-liv'd mushrooms sprout,
Toads loathsome creep, and bloated snails crawl out.
The russian spider here shall fell reside,
With subtile guise along his lines to glide.
Thy sacred root, whence sap concocted flow'd,
And verdure to thy graceful form bestow'd,
Hither from surly Winter to withdraw,
Emmets shall pierce with unrelenting gnaw:
While he, whom vagrant Fancy leads this way,
Shall, with a sudden burst of anguish, say,
“Ah! what a change! how desolate the place,
“Where flourish'd one of Nature's tallest race,
“In verdant Summer's silken livery clad,
“And by the Seasons periodic fed!
“Beneath the covert of whose outstretch'd arms,
“Suckled by Spring in green display of charms,
“Earth's smaller-statur'd sons spontaneous grew,
“Catch'd the live breeze, or sipt the dulcet dew!

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“But whither ah! those lovely objects gone,
“All now a naked waste I tread upon?
“This spot no trace of beauty now retains!
“Nought save the juiceless barren trunk remains,
“Which, with quick lapse, a prey to vermin, must
“Fall to decay, and mix with putrid dust!
“Such characters of death just Heav'n inscribes,
“With deep impress, on all earth's various tribes;
“Such the almighty Fiat of the sky,
“Let all things live in turn, let all things die.”

Thus men, in nonage, infancy, or prime,
By quick disease, or slow-consuming time,
Howe'er high-plac'd on Fortune's partial wheel,
Must Fate's decisive stroke promiscuous feel.
Grandeur's gay plume, the native bloom of health,
The charm of beauty, and the bribe of wealth,
In vain, with all soft eloquence can say,
Solicit Death to turn his dart away.
Monarchs themselves, tho' prostrate at their throne
Obsequious millions their allegiance own;
Though distant regions tremble at their name,
And Parian statues eternize their fame;
From all their arrogated height of pow'r
Must fall, when Heav'n appoints the destin'd hour.

210

Nor kings alone; empires that fix'd we deem,
Beyond Time's utmost reach that vainly seem,
Shall by some hidden spring be overturn'd,
Their basis shaken, and their lords inurn'd.

But why on trifles dwells the local Muse,
Why stoops she small comparisons to use,
As thy misfortune typify'd alone
The downfal of a kingdom, or a throne?
These, though momentous in the lists of Fame,
Of lofty import, of high-sounding name;
Though haughtily enlarg'd from pole to pole,
Are nothing, when contrasted with the whole.
Like thee—no narrow despicable spot,
Seiz'd by Ambition, parcell'd out by lot;
But all Creation shall be overthrown,
And Nature's self heave her expiring groan.

See! from the bosom of a mantling cloud,
A seraph, cloth'd in light, procaims aloud,
Myriads of spirits round, a radiant band,
And Fate's dread book extended in his hand;
“Be life with all its various labours o'er,
“Henceforth for ever time shall be no more.
“Let yonder sun's proud glory cease to blaze,
“In night extinguish'd his officious rays.

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“Cease yonder silver moon full-orb'd to rise,
“Cease every star to twinkle through the skies.
“Beneath my feet, contracted like a scroll,
“Let these expanded heavens together roll.
“To ruin be earth's mighty fabrics hurl'd,
“And raz'd the pillars that support the world.”

Thus, from her silent offsprings, Nature, fond
Her works with human acts should correspond,
With them, our duty fitly understood,
Would teach the truest wisdom, being good,
Or bless'd, for though dissimilar in name,
Wisdom and happiness are still the same;
Nought can divide what Heav'n's fix'd laws connect,
That as the cause, or this as the effect;
Titles or epithets can never change
Objects and things, though they may disarrange:
Not in some fine-spun theory it consists,
Which varies as the writer's fancy lists,
As interest or caprice directs his pen,
The smiles or frowns of fallible, mere men;
Not in the senseless pedantry of schools,
Where men the knack of trifling learn by rules;
Find out the glorious path, with much expense
Of time and brains, that leads from common sense;

212

Not in the idle subtilties of law,
That oft from equity and Nature draw,
The bounds of right and wrong explain away,
Though obvious and distinct as night and day;
Not politics, where most deserve to rise,
That is, rear'd on a gallows, to the skies,
While each, through villany, black crimes, and sins,
Almost a traitor, his fell purpose wins:
But, to comprise the sum of human good,
In Virtue, Virtue rightly understood;
Virtue, not as proud states or courts devise,
But stamp'd with the broad signet of the skies;
Or, as the moon shines by imputed light,
In fair Religion's unstain'd glory bright.

But say what Virtue's sacred name implies,
So much esteem'd and valued by the wise.
A treasure, all should study to obtain,
Rather without it than a sceptre gain;
A treasure riches seldom can procure,
Grandeur monopolize, or fame ensure;
A treasure that outweighs the regal gem,
By clowns possess'd, though kings look down on them;
A treasure, whose intrinsic value lies
Less obvious oft to learn'd, than vulgar eyes.

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Contentment, that forsakes the cloyster'd cell,
With artless pure Simplicity to dwell.
A cordial, that supports us in distress,
Beyond the pride-swoln philosophic guess.
A temper, at each crisis of our fate,
We fond would purchase, whatsoe'er the rate.
A friend, that with us through Life's morning stays,
Nor leaves us in the evening of our days;
But, though of Earth's resplendent orb bereft,
Bids brighter suns arise than that we left,
Kindly from death's surrounding gloom to save,
And gild the dreary mansions of the grave.
A secret, sages never could unfold,
That turns each baser metal into gold;
That sets in motion. Pleasure's finest springs,
Or casts a shade on all sublunar things.

Labour, then, all true Virtue to acquire,
That or to Heaven or happiness aspire.
Thus may a falling tree those rules comprise,
That make us humble, while they make us wise.
Thus shall the Muse attain her noblest aim,
Howe'er low-station'd in the rolls of Fame;
Visit no more with Elegy the urn,
But her sad song to panegyric turn.

214

THE DEIST on a Deathbed .

------ Avidos vicinum funus ut ægros
Exanimat, mortisque metu sibi parcere cogit:
Sic teneros animos aliena opprobria sæpe
Absterrent vitiis ------
Hor.

O'erwhelming sight! life's torpid tide runs cold!
Approach with awe the hopeless bed of death;
A wretched mortal's closing scene behold!
Convulsions seize him each returning breath:
Just on Eternity's tremendous steep,
How he forebodes the horrours of the dreadful deep!

215

No worthy, virtuous actions, to enhance
The peace and transport of his latter end,
Now, with the sunshine of an angel's glance,
Support his spirits, or his pains suspend:
Years, months, ill-spent, with complicated charge,
Rush on his troubled thoughts, and on each crime enlarge.

Gentle repose his anguish'd pillow flies,
Enamour'd of the couch where Virtue leans;
Or, if a transient slumber shuts his eyes,
Not comfort, but exchange of pain, it means:
Restless and toss'd, imploring ease in vain,
Ten thousand wild ideas shock his tortur'd brain.

Wildly he glances round the weeping room,
Tears up his hair, and lacerates his face,
Circled with terrours, envelop'd in gloom,
That on each feature leave their horrid trace:
Keen anguish seizes his astonish'd heart,
And twists its quiv'ring fibres in their tenderest part.

216

Fiends seem to whisper torments in his ear,
And flash their scorching lightnings in his eyes;
His pangs of conscience more than man can bear,
Weak helpless man, abandon'd by the skies;
His life one endless round of daring sins,
Self-judg'd, and self-condemn'd, where-e'er his search begins.

Frantic he raves, he starts, he weeps, he grins,
Convulsive sobs his heaving lungs divide;
“Who,” he exclaims, “will snatch me from my sins?
“Who from a just offended Maker hide?
“Who put aside Death's deep embitter'd cup?
“Or stay Jehovah's arm for vengeance lifted up?

“O screen me from the fierceness of his wrath.
“I see him sitting on his awful throne!
“O stop, thou unrelenting tyrant, Death,
“I hear tormented fiends, and furies groan!
“I hear the rattling chain's infernal clank,
“And see accusing demons clos'd in hostile rank.

217

“O shade, ye mountains, this accursed head,
“Within thy caverns, Earth, let me be lost;
“Receive me, Ocean, to thy watery bed,
“Whelm'd in thy eddies, with thy billows tost:
“No more to see the sun's detested ray,
“But senseless as the stone, or lifeless as the clay.

“Unconsciousness with misery oft joins,
“O were my senses with dead palsies struck—
“Curse on the sire that bore me in his loins,
“The hated breasts that gave me infant suck!
“Curs'd be the guardians of my youthful days,
“Damnation their reward, and infamy their praise!

“Ah! cruel Health, how liberal thy supply
“Through every scene of wickedness and lust!
“Why did not lightnings blast my guilty eye,
“And thunders bruise me level with the dust?
“Ah! why did tygers my warm vitals spare?
“Why did not whirlwinds sweep my atoms through the air?

218

“Come, ye companions of my guilt and shame,
“Did not our bosoms with one ardour burn?
“Our pleasures still, and their alloys, the same,
“What! absent all?—unmanly base return!
“Such are Earth's paltry friendships—smooth disguise,
“To cover meanness, self, ingratitude, and lies.

“O! for some moments interval of time,
“Gracious respite from Heav'n's vindictive blow;
“No more, each brutal vice, each horrid crime,
“Should point me out a spectacle below:
“No more, in all her pride of borrow'd charms,
“Should Pleasure, faithless Siren, court me to her arms.

“To roll in oceans of sulphureous fire,
“Remorse, with each curs'd recollection fraught,
“Still stinging—never—never to expire!—
“Burst, burst, my heart, and end this rack of thought.
“Extinction! come—exert thy instant pow'r,
“And end my pangs and being in one happy hour.

219

“O were the thunder wrested from his hand,
“Who fills the vast expansion of the skies,
“Possess'd (alas!) of uncontrol'd command,
“And quench'd the flaming terrours of his eyes!
“O were Creation vanish'd from the sight,
“And ev'ry thing return'd to chaos and to night!

“But O! dread Sov'reign of the starry frame,
“Is there no hope of mercy from thy throne?
“Sure Mercy is thy chief, thy darling name,
“Hear then a wretched mortal's dying groan:
“Let his accumulated woes assuage
“Thy wrath, tremendous wrath, and pity, ah! engage.

“Didst Thou create a soul to damn and curse,
“With senses only form'd to suffer pain?
“Or, which is still, Eternal Father, worse,
“Shall thy own Son bleed on a cross in vain?
“Why then did life inspire the plastic clay,
“Let not Redeeming Grace its impotence betray.

220

“Presumptuous, bold, unworthy wretch!—below
“The very savage that frequents the wild;
“To Thee shall Heav'n's benign compassion flow,
“So oft rejected and so oft revil'd?
“Devils themselves, with hellish glee, might say,
“Thus pearls were cast to swine, and mercy thrown away.

“Hast thou not vilified that hallow'd Name
“Which prostrate angels worship and adore?
“Without remorse, without one pang of shame,
“Blasphem'd his sacred Cross? could fiends do more?
“From Thee what numbers caught their impious rage!
“Taught from thy foul example to corrupt the age.

“No, die, thou traitor, unlamented die!
“Die, in the view of everlasting pangs;
“While Mercy's self looks with consenting eye,
“And Justice out her equal balance hangs!
“For only thus, while heaven and earth applaud,
“Can Truth itself be Truth, and God himself be God.

221

“What! die?—be damn'd?—for ever mourn?—despair?
“No moment's ease (O heav'ns!) no gleam of hope!
“Shall Hell its dungeons, racks, and flames prepare,
“To give malignant vengeance ample scope?
“Well!—let its dungeons, flames, and racks, torment,
“Till all the red-hot fury of the Godhead spent.—

“But hear, thou Tyrant, whence all beings came,
“Hear this my only, this my last, request;
“When ages I have fed the scorching flame,
“Ten thousand times ten thousand—let me rest:
“When fiends themselves grow tir'd to hear me rave,
“Oh! let me sink for ever in the silent grave.”

Thus, Death's cold falter seizing on his tongue,
With lips that quiver, and with eye-balls fix'd,
His hands in agony together wrung,
His cries ascend, with desperation mix'd.
But ah! no comfort gilds his closing day,
But deep Despair's sad clouds hang thick in black array!

222

A flash of grief, not for a life ill spent,
But present pain, and dread of future wo;
Ah! this is not sincerely to repent,
But formal mock'ry oft, and specious show.
Distress can make quick penitents of all,
But few (how few!) repent at Health's or Pleasure's call!

He stares with grisly terrour in his face,
He heaves, he bounds, he wreaths, he groans, he dies!—
Good God! what horrours hover o'er the place,
Where the poor heav'n-deserted sinner lies!
But let the Muse here all reflections wave,
God, in a moment, both can pardon and can save.

O Virtue! may thy comforts still be mine,
Sister of Wisdom! daughter of the skies!
Whate'er my state below by will divine,
Whether my outward fortunes sink or rise:
Grant me the sunshine of a mind at ease,
Protracted life, or death, then equally will please.

223

Benign Religion, in thy friendly arms,
Howe'er through Folly's paths we trod before,
Howe'er we doted on far other charms,
Gently would we recline, and be no more!
O! at life's solemn period, be thou near,
To smoothe my dying bed, to comfort, and to cheer.

Let Grandeur then avert her scornful eye,
Let Honour frown, and Wealth reject my claim;
I matter not, sure of my native sky,
What though unknown to Glory and to Fame!
Wrote on my tomb, completed life's short span,
“Here lies an humble Christian, and an honest man.”

The Muses never seem so worthily employed as when they are engaged in the cause of Virtue and Religion; and surely both must appear recommended by additional charms, when contrasted with the frightful spectacle exhibited in the following verses; which may serve as the writer's apology for making it public. It is no fiction of the brain, or specimen of poetical licence, but the true representation of an unhappy man in his last moments: A man of rank, learning, and fortune; but alas! during the course of a despicable and inglorious life, addicted to the grossest scenes of vice and impiety.—An obvious difficulty occurred in conducting this most disagreeable subject, viz. how to preserve the dreadful outlines of the picture, without, at the same time, introducing objects quite horrible to imagination, and shocking to humanity itself.—However, as it is, may it excite proper sentiments in the breast of every reader.

224

AN ELEGY Written in a FLOWER-GARDEN.

Addressed to ------

Now, when the lone sequester'd Muse invites,
And westward points the sun his setting ray;
Will Maria, whom the solitude delights,
With her enjoy the faint remains of day?

Music around, where arch'd espaliers wreathe,
Would her fine ear in pleasing wonder fix;
Zephyrs for her their humid odours breathe,
And yonder skies unnumber'd colours mix.

Now, mantled in her suit of sable grey,
Her breeze-fann'd tresses hung with pearls of dew,
Evening arrives; her gentle call obey,
Abroad her darkling footsteps to pursue.

225

How the still silence of embow'ring shades
Transports the mind, urg'd by no fancy'd wants!
Sylvestran scenes, hills, meadows, upland glades,
The cascade's lapse, and wilderness's haunts!

Nor, to the sober ear of Fancy, does
The hooting owl, from antiquated tow'r,
Nor hornet, wheeling round in ceaseless buzz,
Abate the sweetness of the solemn hour:

Nor Philomel, that through the woodbine copse
Pours forth her love-lorn melody of wo;
Kind warbler, when mild Eve her curtain drops,
Whose melting strains no vulgar period know!

Hark! how yon turtle's sadly-pensive notes
The fix'd dull ear of Melancholy soothe!
How gently down the stream each murmur floats,
Care's ruffled brow by magic charm to smoothe!

Not to the wide-stretch'd lawn shall we repair,
Where Beauty's offspring lead ambrosial lives;
Nor sloping hill, from whence, in prospect fair,
An ampler swell the rural scene derives:

226

But where Art's finer imagery is shown,
Her pow'rs of fancy, drapery, and taste;
Amid these ranks of lilies, all full-blown,
Where Nature charms the more, the nearer trac'd.

Let Pride's swoln boasts subside to accents meek,
And Passion lull asleep her self-rais'd storm;
Hence, Mirth loquacious, with sarcastic cheek,
With rolling eye, and agitated form.

Now let the lyre to Elegy be strung,
Obliquely thus to dwell on Maria's praise;
O! would the native music of her tongue
To kindred rapture wake the plaintive lays!

Not the vain-letter'd tomb, or sculptur'd bust,
Shall the sad sympathetic strain suggest;
Riches may moulder in congenial dust,
And humbled Grandeur in oblivion rest:

Let faithful pencils, that in just profile
Would place the human portrait, but outline
The naked Lily, when soft Seasons smile,
Or Winter's frosts the stagnate streams confine.

227

Here then may Elegy her tale begin,
Your taste will polish, what your fancy chose;
In sprighty circles oft the palm you win,
To twine a nobler wreath the Lily grows.

Nor vainly grows, if, while the Muses sing,
The fair will listen to the friendly lay,
And take, as bees sip honey whilst they cling,
The moral with the lighter sound away.

Beneath the kindly nurture of the skies,
The Lily her fair Vestal charms unfolds;
No rival beauty near presumes to rise,
And ev'ry eye is ravish'd that beholds.

The florist takes his eve-invited walk,
And round his painted family surveys;
But none her graceful bend of slender stalk,
Her milk-white bosom, soft as down, displays.

When rosy-featur'd Vesper, from her urn,
The glist'ring dews effusively distills;
The Lily's fragrance welcomes her return,
While she imbibes the moisture's orient rills.

228

To form the Lily fairest flow'r that springs,
A thousand tubes Earth's finest sap convey;
Kind Zephyrs fan her with dew-moisten'd wings,
And day and night their stated turns obey.

The Lily, as in beauty, so in smell,
Claims the first class amongst the flowery tribe;
Singly on either did the numbers dwell,
Scarce would the numbers half her charms describe.

So, for the dew-soft twinkle of an eye,
The bloom of features, or the ease of shape,
In Maria's praise did poets merely vie,
Unnoted would her noblest praise escape.

True, she is lovely, as e'er eye beheld,
Lovely, as Nature paints, or Art adorns;
But, though in beauty half her sex excell'd,
That beauty she still heightens, while she scorns.

Merit that still affects to lie conceal'd,
As diamonds sparkle on some rock unknown,
Like light itself, should be to all reveal'd,
Whether it grace a cottage, or a throne.

229

Lucia the young, the sprightly, blooming fair,
To try how far her lover's praises due,
Would with the Lily's whiteness her's compare,
But finds that false she fondly reckon'd true.

On silken ground would Art attempt to draw
The Lily, with the needle's mimic pow'r;
But who so poor a counterfeit e'er saw,
That e'er beheld a nature-portray'd flow'r?

Dipt in the choice of artificial paint,
The pencil too a like vain task essays;
But how, compar'd, inelegant and faint!
How pigmy Art her littleness betrays!

Want we some softer epithet to name
Native unspotted maiden virtue by,
That turn of thought not Maria's self can blame?
All by the Lily's whiteness we imply.

To give proud Beauty her intrinsic praise,
Nor yet a well-tim'd compliment unpaid;
It the pure ivory's polish scarce conveys,
The Lily's white we summon to our aid.

230

But ah! though dress'd in Beauty's choicest robe,
Though eastern kings less glorious to behold;
When Winter sends his tempests round the globe,
Those graces fade that now so gay unfold.

His ruffian colds her root's soft tendrils seize,
His blasts deep riot on her snowy charms;
Vainly she courts, intent as wont to please,
The dew that moistens, or the ray that warms.

Faded, the eye no virgin whiteness meets,
The sordid weed in beauty rudely vies;
Her breath too loses all its fragrant sweets,
She sinks her head, droops, languishes, and dies.

Just emblem, Maria, though discern'd by few,
Of that soft sex, whose ornament you shine;
This maxim, grav'd on adamant, how true,
“Sure as arise, must Beauty's sun decline!”

To-day, we flourish in vertumnal bloom,
Display'd our blossoms and our foliage gay;
Next, Winter comes, deep-muffled up in gloom,
Tears up our roots, and sweeps our charms away.

231

Not surer Beauty dyes the virgin's lip
In vermile, rich as roses blown enjoy,
Than Death, who loves the fairest buds to nip,
With cold, cold touch, that vermile will destroy.

Let then each Lily youthful Celia views,
How fair remind her, but how fading too;
That, hence, will sweets more exquisite diffuse,
Celia boast charms before she never knew.

For, haply, some sad twilight-vagrant swain
Shall oft revolve, engrav'd, the fair one's doom,
Cut off, the fam'd Monimia of the plain,
In Youth's gay spring, and Health's unsully'd bloom.

Alluding to the elegy under this title.

The EPITAPH.

[Here lies, beneath this moss-encircled stone]

Here lies, beneath this moss-encircled stone,
That form which once the Graces all inspir'd;
In youthful circles joyous oft she shone,
Prais'd by each tongue, by every eye admir'd.

232

The Lily, quicken'd by the breath of Spring,
A fair resemblance of her youth display'd;
A zephyr shook around its balmy wing,
To image health, priz'd by the blooming maid.

But lo! not long the Lily's triumphs last,
The snowy beauty of the flow'ry ground;
Soon sweeps abroad the North's inclement blast,
Shrivels her leaves, and scatters them around.

Soon too the lovely emblem is forgot,
The light vain fair borne on phantastic toe;
That such fine spirits sink, she credits not,
That fades Youth's blossom, or Health's roseate glow.

Deluded maid! a slighted languor caught,
The fever's strong delirium soon acquir'd;
From puny Art relief ah vainly sought!
At Hope's false shrine a victim she expir'd.

Let then the eye a passing tribute pay,
That here all Beauty's ruins shortly croud;
That, like the Lily, youth and health decay,
Laid in the tomb, and mantled in a shroud.

233

On the Death of a beloved Friend cut off in the Prime of Life.

------ Juvenem raptum
Plorat.------
Hor.

The smiling Spring, with all her jocund train,
The brook that glides along the mossy plain;
The birds that warble undisturb'd by care,
The gales that gently agitate the air;
The vista green, and honey-suckle shade,
The flowery meadow, and the sunny glade;
Delight no more: Spring vainly smiles relief
To nicely-feeling hearts o'erwhelm'd with grief.
Ye dreary regions! ye impervious glooms,
Where sickly Fancy uncouth forms assumes,
And, on these ghostly phantoms of her brain,
Muses with pleasure strongly mark'd with pain;
Where Melancholy broods o'er her distress,
Yet strange! half disinclin'd to have it less;
Where death-like Silence fixes her domain,
Save when loud screech-owls dolefully complain;

234

Hither the sullen pensive Muse would fly,
Where tears may flow from Friendship's gushing eye;
Where Echoes, in sad accents like her own,
Give sigh for sigh, and answer groan with groan!

O Life! thou empty, transitory thing!
Thou airy trifle ever on the wing!
Thou bubble dancing on the restless stream!
Thou meteor false! thou unsubstantial dream!
What is it thy vain pageant name implies?
What art thou, glitt'ring phantom, to the wise?
A moment tears thee from thy votary's hold,
Vainly secur'd by honours and by gold.
When such as---from thy scenes withdraw,
His choice according thus with Nature's law,
Ere the fair flow'r of vouth maturely blown,
Thy sweets and vices equally unknown;
Who would affect, with poverty of mind,
In mean pursuits to linger here behind?

Ah! how can mem'ry recognize his name,
Nor yet the song of soft condolence frame!
How can the gentle graces of his mind,
His kind benevolence to humankind;
His temper's cheerful unaffected ease,
His soul's sincere solicitude to please;

235

His tender sensibility of heart,
That with kind pity throbb'd in every part;
Who, the Possessor gone, can these recall
To mind, nor let the tear of anguish fall!
None here in genuine sorrow can exceed,
But he from Friendship's ties, and Nature's, freed.
The noblest minds are most to pity bent,
And gen'rous natures oftenest relent;
The savage spirit, and unsocial heart,
Feel not, O Sympathy! thy pleasing smart.

Dear Youth! companion of the placid hour,
When Friendship call'd forth ev'ry social pow'r;
From thy decease one lesson may I learn,
Which theories vainly teach us to discern;
That to live well, is learning how to die,
And scorning earth, is to possess the sky.
Yonder he sleeps on Death's cold senseless lap,
Death, to the good, is but a peaceful nap,
In which from num'rous ills it shuts his eyes,
Till the last trump invites him to arise.
Behold these smiles o'er all his features spread,
Are smiles the wonted graces of the dead?
No; though depriv'd of mere mechanic breath,
He speaks in silence, and exists in death.

236

To the Memory Of the Reverend Mr John Bonar.

Magnum sui desiderium moriens reliquit.
Hor.

By all the wise admir'd, the good esteem'd,
For what he really was, not barely seem'd;
Form'd upon Virtue's amiable plan,
An honest, upright, candid, worthy man;
Whose conduct not ev'n Slander e'er pursu'd,
Which still the brighter shone, the nearer view'd;
Though plac'd in public life, where, to espy
Each word, each act, is center'd ev'ry eye;
Where trivial slips and blemishes arise
To grossest faults in the stern censor's eyes:
Thus Bonar liv'd; and to life's period brought,
Died, as an humble, modest Christian ought.
O reader, now howe'er your views aspire,
May you with equal dignity retire.

237

On the Death of The Reverend Mr James Hervey.

On vulgar marks Death long had meanly spent
His loaded quiver, and his bow full bent;
Monarchs, who had been great but for a crown,
Statesmen and heroes, sons of high renown;
When lo! in Heav'n this awful mandate past,
“To-morrow's dawn be some fam'd mortal's last.”
The tidings, to our world officious sent,
Through Albion's isles on wing of lightning went:
Impiety, her heart by vipers stung,
Again blasphemes with loud audacious tongue;
Vice stalks abroad, each late retreat forsook,
With all her bold effrontery of look:
But ah! while these malignant triumph show,
Far other bosoms other feelings know!
The Muse in vain conceals her weeping eye,
And each tear Learning answers with a sigh!
Religion starts, though arm'd with tenfold shield,
And Virtue shrinks, though she disdains to yield:
—The arrow sped, Death took his aim too well,
The mitred pontiff liv'd, and Hervey fell.

238

To the Memory of William Shenstone, Esq

Quis desiderio sit pudor, aut modus
Tam chari capitis? ------
Hor.

Ye sacred Pow'rs of Harmony! if such
E'er put the sable robe of mourning on;
Now, when no gen'rous eye can weep too much,
Now shed the plaintive tear, for Shenstone's gone.

Nor fled a kindred spirit to the skies
Lamented more by all the tuneful train!
But him they vain implore, with streaming eyes,
To animate his gentle form again!

Ah! not for this, Death with officious grasp
Seiz'd the strung lyre that trembled in his hand,
While to his breast his arms tenacious clasp,
And angels round but half-consenting stand!

Ah! not for this, the early sudden call,
Some radiant seraph's golden harp to tune,
While humbly he his own on earth let fall,
But ah! Humanity still thinks too soon!

239

For Shenstone gone, while Silence muses round,
Hear the sad Genius of each grove bewail!
Villas return the melancholy sound,
And echoes dwell upon the mournful tale!

Sad murmurs waft it down the gurgling brook!
Sad Zephyrs sigh it through the conscious shade!
To Heav'n when he his blissful journey took,
Few pow'rs of song behind their Shenstone staid.

Shenstone! with what inchanting voice he sung!
How smooth, how chaste, how soft, his numbers flow!
How on each note the ravish'd shepherds hung!
How did their hearts dilate! their bosoms glow!

For oft he fond deceiv'd the lengthen'd hours,
To copy Nature, made immortal hence—
How delicately Love's all-gentle pow'rs
Touch'd into life his nicely-feeling sense!

How few, O Nature, happily excel
In thy prime gifts, simplicity and ease?
Thy careless elegance becomes us well,
If we the ear would captivate, or please.

240

Say, whence the labour'd strains neglected flow,
Tho' haughty Learning boasts each splendid line?
Hence, would the self-proud critic deign to know,
Beyond thy test, O Nature! we refine.

How little Art imparts, when all she gives,
Vainly to rival him by Thee inspir'd,
Let Shenstone tell!—but ah! no Shenstone lives,
Else angels mourn a bard from Heav'n retir'd!

Heav'n claims its bards, a laurel-circled throng,
A few revolving suns to mortals lent;
From Earth, if haply tarrying there too long,
To summon them, Death's on kind message sent.

Thus he, who grew immortal as he sung
The blissful pair in Eden's happy clime;
Rehearses now, with rapture on his tongue,
To gods the wonders of his theme sublime.

Thus, the remembrance all our grief renews,
While we a Pope or Addison deplore;
Thus mourns in elegiac verse the Muse
Britannia's boast, her Shenstone, now no more!

241

But Nature means no triumph o'er her son,
For not unkind she earth of him deprives;
Let then no more our tears officious run,
Shenstone still lives, while she herself survives.

On the Death of Mr Churchill.

Thus runs the motto sculptur'd on each urn,
“Man's sprung from dust, and shall to dust return.”
No rank, no station can exempt from death,
The monarch's life sustain'd but by a breath.
Howe'er we vainly flutter for a while,
And fondly bask in Fortune's flattering smile;
Howe'er we sneer at Virtue's humble sons,
Whose life in one calm modest tenour runs;
Howe'er a puff of fame extolls our parts,
And swells with pride our little empty hearts;
Howe'er beprais'd we wield the author's pen,
And think ourselves hence something more than men;

242

Howe'er a Faction would assert our claim
To the high honours of immortal fame;
Howe'er we strut and swagger, speak and look,
For Valour's sons egregiously mistook;
Death, who despises all this farce of life,
Foe to Pride's triumphs, and Ambition's strife,
Steps in, delay indulg'd on no pretence,
And snatches our astonish'd spirits hence.
No force, no cunning can the stroke repel,
Nor youth, nor strength of limb:—thus Churchill fell.
Vice had not triumph'd, when Fate's arrow flew,
Had Churchill's works been but as mortal too;
He then had prov'd, on Charity's kind plan,
A well-intention'd, harmless, honest man;
A nobler triumph, than the amplest fame
Annex'd to a mere literary name

243

To the Memory Of the Reverend Dr Edward Young.

Non—genus, non te facundia, non te
Restituet pietas ------
Hor.

O death! relentless tyrant of the grave!
Implacable alike to king and slave!
Why hast thou spar'd, at some unlucky hour,
Ambition, on his pinnacle of pow'r;
The traitor, villain, the blasphemer foul,
The drunkard, swearing by the midnight bowl;
The spendthrift, folded in the harlot's arms,
Gazing with fatal ardour on her charms;
Wrapt in wild visions the projector bold,
The miser yawning o'er his heaps of gold;
The robber, sliding through the midnight gloom,
Still deeper guilt to aggravate their doom;
Why spar'd these monsters, yet Young snatch'd away,
Just to evince thy impotence of sway?

244

No conquest here thy vengeful dart can claim,
When Time has vanquish'd thee, to live his name.
Yet had not thy commission'd arrow flown,
Unfill'd in Heav'n had been a seraph's throne.

Hail! hoary bard of night, whose fam'd Complaint
Is now turn'd to the triumphs of the saint;
For nought, a knowing head, and feeling heart,
Virtue and Genius, could in thee dispart!
Ah! how can Recollection these employ,
Nor sink to genuine grief the pulse of joy?
Thy fancy, learning, judgment, wit, and taste,
Ne'er brib'd by Fortune, nor deceiv'd by haste!
Thy love of friendship, harmony, and peace,
Which still thy growing years observ'd increase!
Thy piety, chaste, manly, and sublime,
Uninfluenc'd by modes of place and time!
Thy noble scorn of honours and of pelf,
Which to attain, one must renounce himself!
Ah! how can Recollection these employ,
Nor sink to genuine grief the pulse of joy?

O could I, Young, on the fleet lightning's wing,
To thine and Virtue's orb superiour spring;
Could I, a disembodied spirit, fly
To thee and all the glories of the sky;

245

Pass yonder sun, on his meridian throne,
Array'd in splendours gorgeous as his own;
Pass Heav'n's resplendent gates, thrown open wide,
With thee and kindred angels to reside;
Be ravish'd while some first-rate seraph sings,
And hear and see unutterable things:
On earth no moment should retard my stay,
How like Elijah would I soar away!
But O the pinion aquiline must drop,
And Fancy her aëreal ranges stop.
Alas! like Young, few from life's stage retire,
Few mount his hallow'd vehicle of fire.
But could I claim his Virtues, as below
All ranks on them their lavish praise bestow,
Call his departed excellence my own,
As He from Heav'n the hallow'd mantle thrown;
His merit in another make survive,
Though dead himself, his graces still alive;
These, next to the possession of the skies,
Would give me all that happiness implies,

O had I his seraphic cast of thought,
Unaw'd by tyrant custom, and untaught,
Unpriz'd, unenvy'd should he reign alone,
Who sits a slave imperial on a throne!

246

For what are sceptres, if the princely heart
To bless mankind knows not the godlike art?
Sublime ambition! scarce by that excell'd
(Without their guilt) by which arch-fiends rebell'd:
Crowns, richly set with many a costly gem,
Look pale, if Virtue shuts her eye on them;
The royal laurels languish, if meanwhile
Deny'd the living sunshine of her smile.

By various proofs his usefulness appear'd,
The drooping heart disconsolate he cheer'd;
Supported Merit at his own expense,
And cast round Innocence a firm defence;
Reliev'd the wretch beneath Oppression's stroke,
Worn out with labour, and with hardships broke;
Found Virtue out, howe'er in rags disguis'd,
The wav'ring fix'd, the ignorant advis'd.

Thrice happy shade! late did the sylvan Muse
Thee as the patron of her numbers chuse,
Hoping, beneath the sanction of thy name,
Censure to shun, if not to merit fame;
As oaks, from humbly creeping on the ground,
Raise kindly up the ivy clasp'd around.
But ah! how soon the friend of Virtue fled
To Heaven, through the dark regions of the dead;

247

Dark to the vulgar class of humankind,
That there no torch lit by Religion find;
But gilded, to thy spirit on its way,
With the strong radiance of immortal day.
Yet shall the widow'd verses sacred be
To thy dear memory, that sole pledge of thee.
Howe'er the common run of mean desert
Dies with the feeling brain, and beating heart,
With mere Mortality's abhorr'd remains,
Rots in the grave, where dumb oblivion reigns;
No sordid motive shall eraze thy name,
Alive or dead, thy merit still the same .

The reader may think it superfluous to be informed here, that this alludes to Vertumnus; or, The Progress of Spring, inscribed to the late pious, learned, and ingenious Dr Edward Young; the first volume of these poems, as well as a good part of the second, being printed off before his decease.

248

MONIMIA; OR, THE UNFORTUNATE BEAUTY. ADDRESSED TO MARIA.

[illeg.] facite, et tumulo superaddite carmen.
Virg.

Attend, fair Maria, not averse to hear
A friendly Muse in Elegy complain;
But why brood o'er distress, when Maria's near,
Whose blooming charms inspire the sprightly strain?

Yet, gentle Maid, the tender thrill of thought
Is now implor'd, the sorrow-humid eye;
The melting heart with sweet sensations fraught,
The soften'd aspect, and the heaving sigh.

249

So fine a swell of sentimental grief,
So soft a touch of sympathetic wo,
That seek no vulgar impotent relief;
Virtue alone can boast, or Maria show.

When Pity moves the trembling strings of life,
The quicken'd heart feels exquisite all o'er;
Feels, no rude passions in unfriendly strife,
But pleasure mix'd with sadness please the more.

To pity Worth, is to esteem it too,
Esteem in others, is ourselves to claim;
Pity is Merit's immemorial due,
Thus, then, self-praise and pity are the same.

No heart can Pity's prompt emotions feel,
But that once moulded by Love's gentle hand;
The unrelenting heart's fenc'd round with steel,
Beneath no social Passion's mild command.

Who pities then, a nice-form'd taste declares,
All that is fair or lovely to admire;
A bias soft to Friendship's tender cares,
And all the sweets of elegant desire.

250

Here, as a Lily sunk beneath the storm,
Your beauteous likeness, save in woes, behold;
For manner, sweetness, and exteriour form,
Where charms beyond the vulgar boast unfold.

The breath of Spring, with her selected sweets,
But a faint emblem of her temper give;
How seldom one her fair resemblance meets,
Too excellent to die, too good to live!

But these avail'd not to his ruffian eye,
Who void of all, would meanly all despise;
Ne'er did the gildings of a vernal sky
Prevent the Earthquake's shock, or tempest's rise.

Attend then, Maria, let your candour plead
The Muse's pardon, as your smiles inspire;
And suffer her your lonely steps to lead
Where only Folly's backward to retire.

The rueful vault, the mattock, and the grave,
The bust funereal, and the cypress shade,
That set the monarch level with his slave,
Make only little vulgar minds afraid.

251

Come then, the meek superiour of your sex,
For beauty, though that beauty least your praise;
Behold what ills unnumber'd may perplex
A helpless maid, yet all her virtues raise.

If, from the pure expanse of rural skies,
Where vernal breezes, dews, and sunshine cheer,
Prison'd in rooms, the lily deigns to rise,
How alter'd all her native charms appear!

Diseas'd and languid looks her form throughout,
Which Spring abroad as her first beauty shows,
Less balmy sweets she breathes profuse about,
And all her leaves their glossy whiteness lose.

Just so, to gratify some wretched view,
The little caprice of an abject mind;
What changes in the fair one's looks ensue,
If by severe tyrannic laws confin'd!

The lily, then, on Sorrow's call attends,
In sickly languor o'er her features spread;
Not love-meek Innocence herself befriends,
From each bright eye the living lustre fled!

252

Such was, alas! Monimia's hapless doom,
For shall the Muse the secret deed conceal?
Guilt all would bury in eternal gloom,
But Justice must the direful truth reveal,

This boast of Beauty, and of Virtue twain,
A fatal law Lorenzo forc'd to wed;
He woo'd, not Merit, but vile sordid Gain,
Not for his heart a partner, but his bed.

Those, who assum'd, stretch'd pow'r parental too,
Beyond what God or Nature ever meant;
True; she from them her breath precarious drew,
But not that soul which knows no mean restraint.

Oft on her knees, and with tear-flooded eye,
Would she implore one favour, one alone,
Which pride with meanness only could deny,
Her choice implore, a Man of worth, or none.

“If wed I must, let Theron be the man,
“Whose birth and manners all conspire to please;
“Though not by Fortune fashion'd to your plan,
“Yet at his board sit Plenty, Joy, and Ease.

253

“His form—but not his beauty strikes my eye,
“Yet is he lovely, and from childhood known;
“He hears Distress, but not unpitied, sigh,
“Virtue and he long since familiars grown.

“Yet Theron, and his offers, I resign,
“To purchase all to me, a Parent's smile;
“This be your triumph, as the duty mine,
“But ah! my ruin not your triumph style!

“What though Lorenzo's coffers swell with pelf,
“Still is he wretched, poor, and mean withal;
“His god, his friend, his neighbour, is—himself,
“Malice may blast, he can no lower fall.

“Be his!—O let a prostrate suppliant move!
“This filial tear, this heart-commission'd sigh!
“Command me to respect him, but to love—
“Thine, Theron, must I be—a maid—or die!—”

Sweet injur'd fair!—what, such distress survey,
Hear the fond pleadings of a heart so soft,
Yet Nature's rising impulse disobey!
Oft as the sob recurr'd, suppress'd as oft!

254

Such too, (to blot the annals of mankind,
And blast with infamy those tender names)
Her parents!—Nature them as such design'd,
But she the brutal violence disclaims.

They saw her gentle soul dissolv'd in tears,
And heard the melting arguments she sobb'd;
But with the adder's unrelenting ears,
The eye of savage, of her younglings robb'd!

In words, that on each sense like thunder broke,
Which scarce the Muse repeats unruffled o'er;
Thus they replied, and menac'd as they spoke,
“Lorenzo's your's, or you our child no more.

“Lorenzo!—think what honours grace his name!
“How high thro' times remote runs his descent!
“How vast his riches, which by lineage came!
“Lorenzo slight?—would you too late repent?

O Gold! thou splendid enemy to Love!
What crouds, for thee, to ruin headlong run!
When Merit, Youth, and Beauty fail to move,
For thee we wed, we wed, and are undone!

253

But not thus, in expostulations vain,
They still control'd the freedom of her choice;
By actual force each conquer'd her disdain,
Too mild the threat'nings of a loud-rais'd voice.

They conquer'd? no; superiour to delay,
Monimia chose, though all her scorn alive,
Chose rather certain death, than disobey,
Deeply impress'd, not long she could survive.

But here, let none her sad example prize,
Monimia err'd, howe'er her motive pure;
Nature's first sacred mandate we practise,
When we ourselves from misery secure.

Not so Monimia; she, with great resolve,
Her fate provok'd, her piety to save;
But such excesses few in woes involve,
For Virtue's sake how few prefer the grave!

Who dare the Hymeneal rites profane,
Concord's chaste joys with souls mispair'd to taste?
Justly all such seek happiness in vain,
Winter's chill damps their hopes in blossom waste.

256

“Let two be one,” kind Nature loud proclaims,
But men with sacrilegious hands divide;
The selfish wed, while only Virtue blames,
By scrolls and settlements, not hearts, ally'd.

But let not pert Detraction, foul-mouth'd elf,
Blot the fair transcript of the sex's fame;
Let men caress that bosom-viper, self,
At once their crime, their punishment, and shame.

Let Nature dictate, Prudence fix the choice,
And Love preside, with tender wish, o'er all;
Be then the words pronounc'd with steady voice,
Men must them equal, angels happy call.

But ah! far other sad Monimia's fate,
Born underneath some dark ill-omen'd star!
When Paradise had op'd her blissful gate,
Some dæmon interpos'd a triple bar!

While, in the sunshine of a summer's day,
Through the dun umbrage coo'd the Turtle-dove,
The falcon spy'd his unsuspecting prey,
And to her guiltless heart his talons drove.

257

But be that wretch abandon'd to despair,
From his curs'd roof let Happiness depart,
Who would by base compulsions gain the Fair,
Who would commit an outrage on the heart.

Lorenzo! what black fiend thy breast inspir'd,
To murder Innocence, in horrid glee;
A fair Disconsolate, by all admir'd,
As form'd the exquisite reverse of thee?

Though gibbets rot e'er such fell miscreants die,
Guilt, like some vulture, shall thy heart-strings gnaw;
Dire in thy face shall Hydra terrours fly,
And thou on racks expire, in spite of law.

Monimia trembling to the altar goes,
All speechless, like a lamb to slaughter led!
Warm on her cheek no blush connubial glows,
The lily triumphs in the rose's stead!

Her hand, that hung down lifeless by her side,
The guilty bridegroom seizes as his own;
Scarce her despair and anguish could she hide,
Yet sigh'd not, haply, lest reluctance shown!

258

Oh! had Death's summons all his hopes beguil'd,
And snatch'd her senseless from his horrid arms!
Or had she bloom'd in some far distant wild,
In all her virgin elegance of charms!

There, haply, soon some shepherd swain had stray'd,
His soul all gentle, as unmatch'd his form;
Beheld, admir'd, and woo'd the charming maid,
Each other's star through life's tumultuous storm.

Each other's Heav'n, from rude inspection hid,
Undamp'd by envy, and remote from wo;
Each other's soul of harmony, amid
The bustle of discordant strife below.

Each other's treasure, though no diamonds flame
With lustre of vain glory on their hands;
Though, tack'd fantastic to a paltry name,
No mouldy rent-rolls swell with charter-lands.

Each other's fame, though no loud trumpets blow,
While human ears, as sponges rain, absorb;
Each other's world in miniature, to throw
A shadow of eclipse on Bourbon's orb.

259

Oh! had Monimia, from the tyger's fangs,
Been folded thus in Lov's encircling arms;
No beauteous prey to Sorrow's wasting pangs,
No fiend to riot on an angel's charms!

But how superlative had Virtue shone,
How thus Religion prov'd her birth divine,
Riches uncurs'd, not to Lorenzo thrown,
And thus marr'd Heav'n's just, righteous, good design?

He gain'd Monimia, nor her value knew,
But as the conquest gratified his pride;
Her fortune was the object in his view,
Nor could disguise his low pretensions hide.

Alas! hard is the lot of womankind,
By mercenary traffic bought and sold!
Reason ne'er weighs the beauties of the mind,
If but the sordid balance sinks with gold!

Nor wonder, with the first revolving moon,
Scarce common proofs of tenderness she shar'd;
How much unlike, her fate evinc'd too soon,
An angel and a fiend in union pair'd.

260

As Love no corner of his heart possest,
And all his schemes of vile ambition gain'd;
A jealous frenzy seiz'd his troubled breast,
Though not a thought Monimia's honour stain'd.

But let not Candour varnish o'er the tale,
His jealous qualms were feign'd, the wretch confest,
That the pretext his views might more avail,
And she with seeming justice be distrest.

Conscious how little merit he can claim,
Or to attract, or fix, a female heart,
To lower her's, a base unmanly aim,
He acts the villain's, and detractor's part.

Rudely from all society cut off,
But that abhorr'd, society with him;
She lives a cloister'd object of his scoff,
His hated passion, petulance, and whim.

The tyrant soon he proves, wrapt in disguise,
Veiling his curs'd design with specious art;
Naked before her view at once it lies,
Alarms her fears, and wounds her to the heart.

261

With all Love's tender, meek, persuasive pow'rs,
Would she engage that heart she never priz'd,
While tears escape her in portentous show'rs,
In vain, her soft endearments all despis'd.

Till Cruelty grew weary of restraint,
Some medium still the sly deceiver kept;
Once too, in spite of all the tyrant meant,
Nature relented, and Lorenzo wept.

But not alone avowedly severe,
He treats this matchless wonder of her sex;
His very kindnesses how insincere!
His blandishments themselves all fram'd to vex!

But would Monimia's hardships claim belief,
Varied by ev'ry wicked mean device?
Her gentle spirit sinks beneath her grief,
How could she purchase death, whate'er the price!

Yet so resign'd, so humble in her wo,
Still she possess'd such dignity of thought,
That from her lips no bitter railings flow,
No murmurs with a bold impatience fraught.

262

True; she is wretched, of all hope bereft,
Touch'd in her quickest sense of home-felt smart;
But still uninjur'd Innocence is left,
Not wounded is her conscience, but her heart.

Little reflect the gay fantastic croud,
Whose ev'ry wish its darling object meets,
What numbers would to life prefer the shroud,
Those too whom Folly Fortune's chosen greets.

Within the circle of domestic life
What passes, by the vulgar eye unseen;
Howe'er the sphere of misery and strife,
Affects us coolly, as it ne'er had been.

Boast not those tyrants born of regal line,
Whom crowns protect, howe'er enlarg'd their crimes;
Such milder seem, in caprice and design,
Than each home-thron'd Lorenzo of our times.

Let poets, ne'er to real life confin'd,
Emblazon forth great names whom kings oppress;
Their ranks, but not misfortunes, strike mankind,
These, like their virtues, than Monimia's less.

263

The silent grief, that preys upon the heart,
The inward anguish, and the bosom-pang;
Like deadly serpents twist round life, nor part,
Till Death releases from the poison'd fang.

But O! may happier suns on Maria shine,
In the soft radiance of one cloudless day!
And, at mild Evening's gradual late decline,
May not a shade obscure their setting ray!

May no false traitor, in Love's sacred mask,
Be her's, as once, alas! Monimia's lot;
But He, with whom would please the rural task,
The sylvan banquet, and the shepherd's cot.

Nor scorn that softness, Charmer, to with-hold,
That silent tear, that gently-swelling sigh;
Her ills, howe'er in simple numbers told,
Might melt the flinty heart, and savage eye.

Nature to Man the daring soul assign'd,
At but his Maker's dread rebuke to start;
But, of materials soften'd and refin'd,
To tender feelings form'd the female heart:

264

And while Monimia's sorrows we deplore,
We pay that tribute Virtue styles her own,
A tribute that enriches us the more,
Tears are the debt, and Merit is the loan.

Beyond the maxims of the Stoic page,
Researches vain of metaphysic pride;
Her mournful story may instruct the age,
At once to mend its manners, and deride.

But who would purchase, at Monimia's rate,
The fatal lesson, better ah untaught!
Tho' hence styl'd philosophically great,
And high on Fame's celestial pinion caught?

Who to shine forth, tho' mark'd by Virtue's stamp,
A bright and fair example to mankind,
Would certain hopes of bliss remorseless damp,
Or in Lorenzo's arms them blasted find!

Sure, boding screech-owls hover'd round, to pour,
While Justice equipois'd her balance hangs,
Black frightful omens on his natal hour,
Thrown into life with more than wonted pangs.

265

When births enormous Nature bursts to light,
By previous signals she forewarns mankind;
Lest the fell wonder might o'erwhelm the sight,
And fatally surprise the guardless mind.

Yet, who of Heav'n could once himself persuade,
If no Monimias grac'd our world below?
Their bright example comes to Reason's aid,
When her bewilder'd pow'rs no farther go.

Nor for probation were this life design'd,
Did no Lorenzos on its joys obtrude:
Thus all-wise Providence to humankind,
Ill but permits, as conducive to good.

But now the Muse digresses from her theme,
Fond of a respite from indignant grief;
But ah! Lorenzo, cruel to extreme,
Ne'er knew the art divine to give relief!

Soon on her health his brutal usage preys,
Howe'er a more than female firmness bore;
His merc'less eyes her wasting charms surveys,
As if a smile their lustre would restore.

266

Long tir'd of life, with all its rude alarms,
Its phantom comforts, and substantial ills;
Now but Religion boasts intrinsic charms,
While chaste Devotion all her bosom fills.

Nor did Affliction kindle in her breast
A sacred flame that glow'd not there before;
Her brighter days the same pure flame confest,
Though Virtue, haply, now endear'd the more.

When some distress with hasty step invades,
For aid let cowards to Religion turn;
Their holy fires, but in Grief's sullen shades,
Seldom in Fortune's sunshine, partial burn.

The ray from Fortune vainly shot around,
To throw a splendour on Monimia's fame,
Its ample sphere illum'd already found,
There lost, or back reflected whence it came.

“Let Fortune turn aside, with footstep proud,
“And Fortune's haughty minions, Wealth and Fame,
“And Grandeur, circled by their menial croud,
“Nor waste their honours on Monimia's name:

267

“If fair Religion, with her gentle guests,
“Her cherub train of Graces, scorn her not;
“Unpinion'd from her flight Ambition rests,
“Nor would a crown add splendour to her lot.

“Religion! with what peace, a life well spent,
“For thee employ'd its each returning breath,
“What rapture, words would vainly represent,
“In thy divine embrace we yield to death!

Thus, with an intellectual soar of thought,
Would she her heart's fond wishes oft express;
Nor were those angel inmates vainly sought,
To grace Monimia's dwelling, or to bless.

But ah! such is the dread decree below,
The brightest worth oft-times seems most oppress'd;
That vain short-sighted mortals hence might know,
Life is not her reward, but Virtue's test.

Who, else, could bear the burden of his woes?
Who fight with pain, nor hope a kind discharge?
Monimia, else, had ne'er to angel rose,
Her patience vast, as her misfortunes large.

268

But shall the Muse on her sad story dwell,
To taste the bitter anguish of her fate?
—A victim to his cruelty she fell!
He saw his dreadful errour when too late!

Yet, while eternal slumbers seal'd her eyes,
And thro' each vein Death's freezing chillness ran;
With feeble voice, and falt'ring lips, she cries,
“May mercy and forgiveness meet the man!

“O Love Immortal! thine's the Godlike pow'r,
“And thine alone, to pity and forgive!
“If pardon then awaits my dying hour,
“O may He not that hour unpardon'd live!”

Nor more she utter'd: like the lily pale,
The sweetness of her looks scarce chang'd by death;
While no fierce throbs her tender frame assail,
As saints expire, she draws her latest breath.

Yet though Monimia's sorrows wing'd the dart
That stopt a while her temporary breath;
Her and distress Fate could alone dispart,
Her glory dawn'd amid the shades of death.

269

O'er her decease the Muses love to weep,
Nor from the bier can Friendship lift her eye!
Together both sad mournful vigils keep,
Sighing for man, that such Desert should die!

But who can paint his horrour and surprise,
That conflict of outrageous passions shown,
When he beheld the lustre leave her eyes,
And from her lips the ruby tincture flown?

Too well, alas! she her decline conceal'd,
He but her wonted delicacy blam'd,
Nor dream'd the fatal change, till Death reveal'd;
—Vain, false excuse, howe'er by Candour fram'd.

By slow advance the strings of life unloos'd,
And Beauty gradual sinking to decay,
Silent and calm, no arts officious us'd,
To all appear'd remote Monimia's day.

No sudden change to give the dread alarm,
Unless to Friendship's eye, that ne'er survey'd,
Or mark'd her temper, or defac'd one charm,
Lovely in life's last stage the dying maid.

270

But Oh! one eve, when, to the sad-pleas'd eye,
Her gentle sister, Cynthia, rose serene,
As if to light her passage to the sky;
Monimia fled life's grief-o'erclouded scene.

Who would not like Monimia fall asleep,
Howe'er affliction clos'd her willing eye;
Rather than rush down Fate's tremendous steep,
Or in the pomp of wretched greatness, die?

She fell, but to announce another's lapse
From honour, like a Lucifer of old!
She fell, her certain is the world's perhaps,
That others might the way to rise behold!

She fell, but Virtue saw Monimia's fall,
Above a tear, with triumph in her look!
She fell, but rais'd in excellence by all,
Death gave her more (kind spoiler) than he took!

She fell, but not as angels from the skies,
Their glory lost for ever to condole!
She fell, but with a seraph's wing to rise,
Her flight commenc'd when to the grave she stole!

271

So on the polish'd mirrour falls a ray,
To rise more splendid on the dazzled sight;
So westward sinks the glorious orb of day,
That he may rise in pomp of Eastern light.

Cease then to boast, thou tyrant of the grave,
Whose trophies are the tombs of humankind,
Where from oblivion Art affects to save
Thy deeds, by epitaphs, and busts reclin'd!

Though to the purple canopy of state,
Oft flies thy shaft, wing'd by the dread decree;
Though humbled oft the mighty and the great,
Vaunt not, Monimia triumphs over thee.

Nor here let mere Humanity pretend,
To claim a compliment, far nobler pass'd;
Alas! brought hopeless to our latter end,
How unassisted Nature looks aghast!

To smoothe the frown on Death's tremendous brow,
And blunt the pointed terrours of his sting;
Quick at Religion's altar pay the vow,
The sole resource, whate'er bold poets sing.

272

Let some to Stoic apathy recur,
Others to fine-spun metaphysic schemes;
While some at non-existence scarce demur,
These are Despair's last shifts, fick Fancy's dreams.

Wishes, that mount on Faith's triumphant wings;
Hopes, nought less than Eternity can bound;
Joy, that but from approving Conscience springs;
These are alone our dying cordials found.

When lawless Sense has rioted at large
Through a long period of licentious joys,
As Heav'n can ne'er the mighty debt discharge,
Extinction then the horrid thought employs.

O shame to Reason! shame to manly Sense!
Rank cowardice, and meanness undisguis'd!
To live in anxious torture and suspense,
Then die like brutes, more wretched, more despis'd!

But O, dread arbiter of life and death!
Be Faith's firm hold, be Hope's prompt comforts mine!
Begun to live, when I resign my breath,
Thou my solace, as boundless mercy thine!

273

Thus shall Monimia's fair example live,
Approv'd, admir'd, nor imitated less;
While Candour would Lorenzo half forgive,
Though Justice might the weak design repress.

Ye abject sons of tyranny and pride,
To horrid doubts whom Jealousy inflames;
Hence lay your wretched impious schemes aside,
Monimia's tomb your guilt and doom proclaims.

Virtue, oft-times, howe'er oppress'd she seems,
How few to rescue, though deplor'd by all!
Though Folly's eye the angel vanquish'd deems,
Survives her death, and triumphs in her fall.

Vice, though high swoln in insolence of pow'r,
By some with dread beheld, with plaudits some,
At best but poorly conquers for an hour,
Or in the very conquest is o'ercome.

How strove Lorenzo with avow'd intent,
To sink her virtues level with his own;
But, all his views o'ershot, his malice spent,
Behold! an angel still the more she shone.

274

As Night's surrounding darkness deeper glooms,
Hushes each warbler, and the view confines;
A brighter sparkle ev'ry star assumes,
Till all the firmament illumin'd shines.

Nor be impartial Justice once impeach'd,
Even here Lorenzo meets his righteous doom;
By Heav'n's emphatic vengeance quickly reach'd,
Conviction's deep remorse, despair, and gloom.

With all his anxious efforts to forget,
Her injur'd shade still on his view obtrudes;
Though studious to avoid, indignant yet,
Each fear-ey'd object to her fate alludes.

His disappointed hopes, his broken vows,
His meanness, cunning, cruelty, and pride;
Deep fix in horrour on his down-cast brows,
Or whelm his thoughts in one tumultuous tide.

But when her merit rises to his view,
Her innocence, her unaffected charms,
Which, as her woes increas'd, still brighter grew;
With keener sting his conscious heart alarms.

275

But hold; the moral hence new force deriv'd,
Else had unmark'd Monimia's tyrant pass'd;
Though he that angel Excellence surviv'd,
His peace departed, when she breath'd her last.

Nor scorns the Muse one sacrifice to Truth,
Not to her Worth deceas'd he seem'd unjust;
Though once o'erlook'd her virtues, charms, and youth,
How could he but revere her in—the dust?

Doom'd to the pressure of heart-rending grief,
In marble what remain'd of her he laid;
And, eager to insure a short relief,
These lines inscrib'd, a debt which justice paid.

But be these lines extorted from his pen,
By Worth extorted, on each heart ingrav'd;
A caution of no light import to men,
One ruin'd, that a thousand may be sav'd.

276

The EPITAPH.

Here sleeps, in the still mansion of the grave,
What once was comeliness and virtue twain;
From death could innocence or beauty save,
On Earth's cold lap Monimia had not lain.

All that beheld, for ever lov'd to gaze,
That heard her, could have listen'd without end;
Yet hence was but deriv'd her second praise,
Hence, with a form not Fancy's self could mend.

For friendship form'd, and all life's social joys,
A Friend she sought, but Fate ah disinclin'd!
To Heav'n she fled, where Man no more annoys,
To seek that treasure, here she ne'er could find.

The End of the Elegies.

277

Epitaphs for a MISER.

I. [Others press forward haply Heaven to find]

Others press forward haply Heaven to find,
Alas! the miser leaves his Heaven behind.

II. [Reader, survey this monumental pile]

Reader, survey this monumental pile,
Nor drop a tear of pity all the while.
It rose, enjoin'd by will, at mighty cost,
For dead, by it, the Miser nothing lost.
He died, a victim at the shrine of pelf,
Because, alive, he never lov'd himself.
He died, like him, Fate ne'er could debt forgive,
He died, because he knew not how to live.

III. [This letter'd stone, to mortals kind, conceals]

This letter'd stone, to mortals kind, conceals
A wretch, who from himself no longer steals.
Death, in mere spite, for Death despises pelf,
Stole the astonish'd miser from himself.

278

Himself his friends still in embraces hold,
For (strange) his soul's materializ'd to gold.
Hence, as just Heaven to souls precedence gives,
Though coffin'd here, his nobler half still lives.
Death but destroys the body, not himself,
Mankind do more, destroy his soul, his pelf.
Thus we the stale philosophy renew,
That souls are mortal, and material too.

IV. [A Miser died; some gen'rous friend]

A Miser died; some gen'rous friend
Grac'd with a tomb his latter end,
And wrote, “Beneath lies Nathan Drew,
“Who kindly left me—this to do.”
His heir, one day in passing by,
This short inscription chanc'd to spy,
And, glancing o'er it with surprise,
Exclaim'd, “How much the marble lies!”
Shaking his purse (with transport too)
“Here, here! (quoth he) lies Nathan Drew.”

279

V. [Here rests, beneath this grassy-border'd stone]

Here rests, beneath this grassy-border'd stone,
A miser, who made man's chief good his own.
Hail marble! thus indulg'd with endless fame,
Forgotten else with some faint's half-spelt name;
That else had made the Text some Poet's own,
When, asking bread, he had receiv'd a stone.

VI. [A Miser justly claims these lines ingrav'd]

A Miser justly claims these lines ingrav'd,
Thus from oblivion, not damnation, sav'd;
For He who, by no precepts overaw'd,
Worships an idol, for the one true God;
He too, Lucretius beck'ning from his shelf,
Who with remorseless poniard stabs himself;
By Heaven detested, and despis'd by men,
May plead forgiveness, if a miser can.

VII. [Shrouded beneath this venerable stone]

Shrouded beneath this venerable stone,
Each day he liv'd more self-denied still grown;
Scorning the ease and luxury of pelf,
A martyr lies—a martyr to himself.

280

VIII. [This monument, which bears no vulgar name]

This monument, which bears no vulgar name,
A noted Miser consecrates to fame.
Ye patriot band of old! ye glorious few,
How often prais'd! now imitated too!
Who still, with freedom nothing could conceal,
Preferr'd the general to the private weal!
Give place—nor your deserts misunderstood,
The Miser died, died for the public good.
Hail benefactor of the humankind!
What blessings thy decease confers behind!
For which, through life, each evil was endur'd,
And which by death's effectually secur'd.

IX. [A Miser rots below this mould'ring stone]

A Miser rots below this mould'ring stone,
Who starv'd himself, through spleen, to skin and bone,
Lest worms might riot on his flesh at last,
And boast, what he ne'er could, a full repast.
Such still was his propensity to save,
Not man alone, he would defraud the grave.
But O! could reptiles here in triumph laugh!
On earth's devour'd the Miser's better half.

281

X. Epitaph on Mr ADDISON.

Under this kind protecting yew
A critic lies, and poet too,
That is, the rest to Heav'n remov'd,
So much of each as mortal prov'd.
He, oft as exercis'd his pen,
Gave immortality to men.
But Death could ne'er his pen forgive,
To scorn his pow'r, and make men live.
Yet, though unbrandish'd in his hand,
It vibrates still at Time's command.
Friends Addison and Time thus close,
But Death and He relentless foes.
Victor and vanquish'd in one breath,
Death conquers Him, he conquers Death.
Though gone himself, Time ever kind,
His great avenger's left behind,
Whose dart, mankind amends to make,
Will Death himself at length o'ertake.

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XI. Epitaph for Mr THOMSON's Monument.

Could statues speak, no couplet were requir'd,
How poets liv'd by all mankind admir'd;
But speech deny'd, the letter-titled stone
Must tell of Thomson, what to all is known,
“With Attic fire that Scotia saw him burn,
“His cradle there, in Anglia claim'd his urn.”
Others to marble may their glory owe,
And boast those honours sculpture can bestow;
Short-liv'd renown, that every moment must
Sink with its emblem, and consume to dust;
But Thomson needs no artist to ingrave,
From dumb oblivion no device to save;
Such vulgar aids let names inferiour ask,
Nature for him assumes herself the task;
The Seasons are his monuments of fame,
With them to flourish, as from them it came.

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XII. Epitaph on Sir ---

Calm sleeps the mortal part below
Of one who never had a foe;
A Christian form'd on Reason's plan,
A modest saint, an honest man.
Whose hands a sceptre might have sway'd,
Had Charity not been their trade;
Whom robes imperial might have grac'd,
Had Folly thought them not well plac'd;
His brow with gems had been adorn'd,
But Virtue still the baubles scorn'd.
To Heav'n be songs of praise begun,
For what it gracious has not done.
He dy'd, O reader, so may you,
For he had nothing else to do.

XIII. Epitaph on Dr ---

Here—claims the grateful look,
Whom Death as his best friend mistook,

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And therefore suffer'd him to live,
Till age itself the stroke did give.
Death was beguil'd, since, fond of brothers,
He deem'd this doctor just like others.
Yet, tyrant, boast; for, poor in pelf,
He, saving others, fell himself.
Ah! who a recompense can give?
Though dead, by him a thousand live.

XIV. Epitaph on FANNY ROVER.

This tomb-stone covers Fanny Rover,
Who often read her pray'r-book over,
Yet never thought, till Death stood by,
Alas! alas! that she must die.
“O save me,” says the clay-pale maid,
“Saving,” cries Death, “was ne'er my trade.
“Well I believe it,” said the other,
“But kindly leave me for another;
“O turn your pointed dart away!
“O give me but a single day!

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“Will it diminish aught your pow'r,
“To grant the favour of one hour?
“Only a moment's respite give,
“I'll then, though old, begin to live.”
“Life rather should commence at death,”
He stern reply'd, and stopt her breath.
Virgins, be wise from Fanny Rover,
Act not her life, but death-bed over.

XV. Epitaph on LUCY HAY.

Here lies a senseless lump of clay,
That once envelop'd Lucy Hay,
Next with the sun-beam, and the show'r,
To animate some gentle flow'r;
An emblem, not beyond the truth,
Of Lucy's blooming charms and youth,
Each Season shall see Lucy rise,
And all admire her—but the skies;
For there a welcome spirit gone,
Far other likeness she puts on.

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To one life Death the stroke did give,
But Lucy thus shall doubly live.

XVI. Epitaph on a SLANDERER.

Here moulders one, not worth a sob,
Who all mankind was wont to rob,
Not of their watches, or their purses,
But of their characters, which worse is.
The good he hated (wretched elf)
Because the good unlike himself;
The good, still bound by Candour's laws,
But pity'd him, for the same cause.
Kind Death! to bid his tongue be still,
Commanding, “thou no more shalt kill;”
The slayer I myself have slain,
Never to lie but once again,
“When to his Saviour he shall kneel,
“When saw I thee misfortunes feel,
“In prison, naked, or in want,
“Nor comfort, food, and raiment grant?
“As these ne'er such receiv'd from thee,
“Mortal, such ne'er were offer'd me.”

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XVII. Epitaph on an unhappy young Man.

Refrain, officious reader, to inquire
What virtues once did the deceas'd inspire?
What splendid titles his descent adorn?
What station held he? of what parents born?
Consign'd to dust, nought it avails thee, now,
To be instructed, whither, whence, or how,
He came—he liv'd—is gone—these to conceal,
Kind Death o'er all has spread his friendly veil.
Your curious search let this inscription bound,
On monumental marbles seldom found,
For seldom Truth the scuptor's chissel tries,
A hapless youth here in oblivion lies,
Who sinn'd—so have the worthiest and the best,
His God and Saviour only know the rest.
Whether, O reader, more desert thy share,
And fewer faults, thy tomb-stone will declare.

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XVIII. Epitaph on a BEGGAR.

Some of their ancestors talk loud,
Of ancient blood absurdly proud;
But I can call, nor make a pother,
Adam my sire, and Eve my mother.
Some fam'lies up a cent'ry run,
But mine commenc'd when time begun.
Beggars are then as good as others,
Monarchs and peers themselves but—brothers.

XIX. My own Epitaph.

Let the false marble tell no pompous lie,
In admonition hush'd the flatt'ring strain;
“Rightly to live, is learning how to die;
“And dying well, is but to live again.”

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A REVERY.

Written in the gloomy Recess of a Wood.

The Muses here with Melancholy meet,
Whose looks relax'd a solemn smile dispense;
Something like sorrow, though divinely sweet,
Here gently steals on the half-conscious sense.

The soften'd scenery of declining day,
With clouds of fleecy gold o'erspread the sky,
All earth serene beneath the parting ray,
Who thoughtful e'er beheld, without a sigh?

That sigh, no tribute of unmanly wo,
Affords a proof beyond the ethic page,
That, to conceive the beautiful below,
And to enjoy, transcends the deepest sage.

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Hence too that sigh prophetic to the wise,
Of death, when souls their utmost pow'rs enlarge;
That man immortal's destin'd to the skies,
When Fate all-gracious gives the kind discharge.

Here, no loud clamours of officious Care,
With quick return, upon the ear obtrude;
Scarce mov'd is the surrounding depth of air,
Far distant the approach of footstep rude.

Imagination hence her wing extends,
Beyond the narrow flight of vulgar thought;
The heart with transport beats while she ascends,
Yet whence each quick sensation, idly sought.

With eye elate of rapture and surprise,
Maria each scene, enhanc'd by Eve, surveys;
But, though each look a strange delight implies,
Would she describe it? language disobeys.

The springs of transport exquisitely fram'd,
Nature by magic moves, unknown, though felt;
From Heav'n some secret sudden impulse aim'd,
For eyes suffus'd to flow, and hearts to melt.

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Whether some silent intercourse between
Congenial spirits, on some kind design;
Pure intellectual hints exchang'd unseen,
Mistakes and errours still our search confine.

Without the intervention of the sense,
The apparatus of organic parts,
That human souls can feel, and feel intense,
Reason denies not strictly, nor asserts.

What modes of feeling, consciousness, sense, thought,
Volition, knowledge, loco-motive pow'rs,
With Immaterials reign, are vainly sought,
Howe'er sublime Conjecture's pinion tow'rs.

Nor less perplex'd the anxious human guess,
Whether with man Celestials converse hold,
By means ineffable, thus to impress
Strong proofs of future glories to unfold.

Dreams, when the soul seems to exist apart
From body, motionless, and almost dead,
Save merely the mechanic-beating heart,
Here throw some light through darkness thickly spread.

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When Sleep's strong opiate seals the passive eye,
How disengag'd from flesh the Spirit soars!
With angels, its associates from the sky,
How, quick as thought, all nature it explores!

Time's intervals, and distances of space,
Vainly would interrupt her magic range;
Enormous mountains give, like molehills, place,
And oceans to mere brooks before her change.

Howe'er in mazes infinite involv'd,
Souls hence their native dignity assert,
And independence (else much doubt unsolv'd)
On matter stupid, lifeless, and inert.

But lest our farther search misunderstood,
Maria, thus far the grave dull verse excuse;
Yet Maria oft delights, in pensive mood,
To share retirement with the moral Muse;

And thus, with philosophic cast of thought,
Her sex's endless levity condemns;
By empty forms, and senseless sounds uncaught,
The wave of feathers, and the blaze of gems.

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Try'd by a taste so polish'd and sublime,
Far more than vulgar joys Retirement claims;
When only Wisdom grieves the lapse of time,
And no wish envies what Reflection blames.

Such the calm genial season, to arrive
At somewhat diadems can ne'er bestow,
Though ne'er on Parian marble to survive,
That inward sunshine Vice despairs to know.

When the fond Soul within herself retires,
A little world proud Cæsar ne'er possess'd;
Feels the ecstatic glow of her own fires,
And feasts on pleasures language ne'er express'd.

Say, Maria, what mysterious Pow'r unseen
Acts here? or is it wayward Fancy dreams?
No; Nature here would, by sensations keen,
Awake the soul to great and godlike themes.

Without its cares, its sorrows, and its strife,
Reason would here all mankind should be taught,
To form a proper estimate of life,
A lesson by no dear experience bought.

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Virtue would here, as by ethereal fire,
Touch ev'ry string that vibrates to the heart;
Pity would here with her big woes inspire,
That kindred souls disjoin, and friends dispart.

For what sad eye can glance o'er humankind,
Or the wide world's extensive map survey,
Nor, with the pang of an ingenuous mind,
The frequent debt of manly sorrow pay?

Life's wide horizon one vast cloud o'erspreads,
Through which but seldom shines a kindly ray;
Yon diamonds, that encircle royal heads,
Sparkle so bright, for absent is the day.

Spring clothes the Tulip in her fairest garb,
A blast may her of beauty soon despoil;
Winter disrobes her, like the meanest herb,
Nor knows the florist where she grac'd the soil.

So, youth warm blushes in the virgin's cheek,
But soon these conscious blushes charm no more;
Death, whose untimely visit oft we seek,
Bids Beauty give all her vain triumph o'er.

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But boast not, grave, exult not, tyrant Death,
The soul your utmost reach of pow'r defies;
Your icy hand may stop the fleeting breath,
But not detain the spirit from the skies.

Happy! howe'er vain Fortune's wheel turns round,
Whatever ill on man still presses hard;
Wisdom will ever with success be crown'd,
And Virtue prove her own sublime reward!

Description of the FACE.

Addressed to MARIA.

Nature's more perfect workmanship we trace,
And beautiful contrivance, in the face.
It exquisite she wrought, without allay,
To a consistence of the softest clay;
Surrounded it with graceful shades of hair,
To render every feature doubly fair,

296

Set off each mellow'd beauty to the sight,
In all the soft varieties of light;
With curious organs furnish'd it around,
To relish all the softer modes of sound;
Made it the seat of love's inchanting wiles,
Of artless dimples, languishments, and smiles,
Graces and airs, and blushes, all design'd
To mark the tender bias of the mind.
She gave a waxen polish to the skin,
The sky-blue veins transparent from within;
Rais'd the smooth forehead, set the brows apart,
Thrown into arches with surpassing art;
Touch'd with her pencil, of Carminian dip,
The health-plump cheek and nectar-humid lip;
Bade the full eye revolve its lucid ball,
To cast a mild effulgence over all,
To light up every feature, and display
A countenance, like Maria's, ever gay;
Maria's that can ineffably impart
The softest passions to the feeling heart;
Make every bosom, by some secret charm,
Thrill with delight, and beat a sweet alarm.
Nor of itself alone: with graceful ease
Virtue by it exerts her power to please.

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Each glance, each movement she adopts, and then
Would represent them as her own to men.
Nor can the eye, howe'er exact, pretend
To mark where doth the nice resemblance end.

Not vainly then the lovely portrait made,
Not vainly Nature's plastic skill display'd.
To her, by this her image so endu'd,
What adoration's paid, what rites renew'd!
Nigh on the bended knee of silent awe,
What votive crouds in quick succession draw
Hands lifted up, and eyes to Heaven erect,
In all the ostentation of respect!
While other ardent worshippers in turn,
Their flaming incense on her altars burn;
Or offer up, in censers at her shrine,
Their fervent adulations half divine.
But kept we mediocrity in view,
Men would be men, nor women lose their due;
More reason then had females to be vain,
Though ne'er address'd in the seraphic strain.

What mighty conquests oft a beauteous face
Gains o'er the bravest of the human race!
Not more could Rome's imperial victor boast,
Though his proud trophies grac'd each warlike coast.

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What the bold hero scarcely can perform,
Though battles won, and cities sack'd by storm,
A smile's effusive sunshine can effect,
An eye's moist twinkle, or a look direct.
Women, whate'er disparaging we say,
Maintain o'er man a more than regal sway.
Kings have the pow'r to influence our knee,
But though o'eraw'd it bends, our hearts are free.
Not so, if Beauty challenge our respect,
Our knees express then what our hearts direct.

Knew women each advantage they enjoy,
And it as Nature dictates would employ,
That manner which the most aware beguiles,
Those magazines of glances and of smiles,
Darts lightning-wing'd, not those indulg'd to crowns,
With all their dread artillery of frowns;
What numbers, their appointed doom to meet,
Would fall like vanquish'd heroes at their feet!
As by a look made captive, mute deplor'd,
So by a look to Liberty restor'd.
Some kill by daggers, by the bullet some,
Others by poison Fate's dread prize become,
On racks expire whole multitudes; but still,
Save women, none by words and glances kill.

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Thus Nature wisely knowing, that at length
The rougher sex, presuming on their strength,
Would triumph o'er the gentler female race,
For strength gave women beauty in its place.
Nor this alone; but order'd Virtue too,
And Modesty, if led to public view,
To wait on Beauty with obsequious care,
And be the constant guardians of the fair.
Hence, both equality of power possess,
Or, if unlike, the man's accounted less;
For art discovers how mere strength to fly,
But not the love-beam'd lightning of the eye.

But yet Discretion must, with steady eyes,
Take the sure aim, and mark the lawful prize;
Else will the useless apparatus fail,
No force subdue, no artifice prevail.
Let then the female world from Maria learn,
Each her precise advantage to discern,
Her motive, place, her time, her object know,
Nor further than these authorise her go.

Hence Maria conquers oft'ner with a glance,
Or transient smile, as if by perfect chance,
Than Daphne with her every art display'd,
Her every charm to catch subservient made.

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Hence in her end soon Maria's prospects o'er,
But Daphne's never—till she be threescore.
No epithet of vain hence Maria gains,
Though Daphne scarce another term obtains.
Hence too, though Daphne's spring of beauty past,
Fresh and unsully'd still shall Maria's last.
O! could I gain fair Maria to my arms,
In all her bloom of self-reflected charms;
In all those soft attractions, that conspire
At once to raise and to correct desire;
Daphne should scarce my slightest thought employ,
To wound my peace, or interrupt my joy.

Written in an Arbour at the foot of a Garden.

Time, Morning.

Scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus, ac fugit urbes.
Hor.

Here the wide orchard's bending branches meet,
Loading the zephyr's aromatic wing
With each soft odour, each ambrosial sweet,
That fruit affords, or blossoms in the Spring.

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From hence, a long inclosure leads you o'er
A carpet wove in Summer's softest loom,
Embroider'd with fresh flow'rs, a copious store,
To a vast solemn wood's majestic gloom.

Deep in the green retirements of the shade,
The tenants of the air their concerts hold,
When on the eye the glimm'ring landscapes fade,
Or when Aurora streaks the clouds with gold:

While, standing tip-toe on each airy hill,
Or sitting in her vocal caves around,
Echo, exerting all her mimic skill,
Gives note for note, and answers sound for sound.

This terminates in a wide view of fields,
With cottages and villas interspers'd,
Where Autumn still the golden treasure yields,
And peasants dwell in rural labours vers'd.

Hail, ye inspiring groves! ye pensive shades!
Ye rising hills! ye gently-sinking vales!
Ye limpid fountains, rills, and sunny glades!
Ye cooing doves! ye incense-wafting gales!

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Hail, ye responsive grots, and tuneful birds!
Ye verdant landscapes, and extended views!
Ye shepherds, fleecy flocks, and lowing herds!
Form'd not less to instruct us, than amuse!

He that contemplates Nature, learns the art
Of growing wise, beyond mere common men;
To form the taste, and meliorate the heart,
Without her aid, is more than mortals can.

Happy for us, did we the just result
Of simple, obvious, plain experience know,
Which lies not hid in sciences occult,
Superiour to our reason—nor below!

What charming period can with Morn compare,
In smiles yet soften'd Noon's effulgent blush!
How mild the breeze! how fragrant is the air!
How melody inchants us from each bush!

Where is the heart, to grateful feelings sear'd,
The breast, against each soft sensation steel'd,
Hard as the tyger's, in wild deserts rear'd,
Whom hunger prompts to range the sanguin'd field;

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Where is the tongue, like Winter's icy skies,
To ev'ry exquisite sensation cold;
When songs of praise and swelling anthems rise,
Would its according tribute dare with-hold?

This sweet sequester'd spot, this lone recess,
Not for the palace would the Muse exchange;
The oft'ner we retire, we sin the less,
Vice stalks the royal dome with licens'd range.

The laurel blooming on the victor's brow,
The gem that sparkles on the monarch's crown,
At this important, this endearing now,
Fades on the eye, or melts like dew-drops down.

At such an hour of tranquil, bosom-ease,
How Fancy stretches her excursive wing!
How ev'ry object seems intent to please!
Before her darted glance what Edens spring!

How, ravish'd, to yon solar worlds she flies,
And wanders o'er a shining tract of stars;
Undazzled bears their splendours on her eyes,
Or mounts the axle of their burnish'd cars!

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Struck with the high original of Man,
For whom such bodies roll stupendous round,
Consistent with the grand Contriver's plan,
Diffusing light to nations without bound!

Thus breaking forth in ecstasy of praise,
“Hail, King eternal! hail, Essential Good!
“Jehovah! Lord! Ancient sublime of days!
“How little thy dread essence understood!

“This ample, superb, this resplendent arch,
“How pregnant with august displays of Thee!
“Pregnant, beyond the nicest human search,
“Where thought can pierce, or telescope can see.”

And when for Earth she quits her starry range,
What kindred beauties in succession rise!
Charming vicissitude! delightful change!
The earth no vulgar emblem of the Skies.

But still, the charms of structure, colour, size,
Attract mankind, (what elegant as they?)
Not merely to astonish and surprise,
But useful truths, and noblest hints convey.

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Morning, for this, with rosy hand unbars
The glowing portals of the eastern skies;
While Heav'n's blue vault no longer shines with stars,
That grace the silver Moon's effulgent rise.

Obscurely mantled in her sable robe,
For this still Night her jasper throne ascends,
And scatters poppies round a tranquil globe,
While man in Sleep's soft arms his toil suspends.

For this, those elms in verdant state ascend,
Semblance of true ambition, to the skies;
Those honey-suckles their soft twists extend,
Emblem of faithful Friendship's sacred ties.

How charming is the umbrage these compose,
With osiers, ivy, and espaliers mix'd!
Whose still deep calm seems to resemble those,
Whose minds serene, whose purposes are fix'd.

Here may we study the historic page,
Converse with thousands many ages dead;
The conquerour, the statesman, and the sage,
Acquiring knowledge at the fountain-head.

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In what a glorious light will such appear,
As bravely fought when Liberty inspir'd!
Control'd the Tyrant in his mad career,
By Patriotism's gen'rous ardours fir'd!

How charming here to paint the sylvan scene,
With Hervey, or the deep sequester'd shade;
Paint the vermilion'd morn, or eve serene,
The fretted grotto, or abrupt cascade!

Or, when the landscape fades upon the eye,
And Night o'er all her raven mantle throws;
With him to read the lectures of the sky,
Where ev'ry orb big with instruction glows.

Or, with an eye of scrutiny exact,
The human structure curiously survey;
Each slender nerve, each nice-form'd tube inspect,
What half so exquisitely form'd as they?

Nor fail to wander through the featur'd mind,
Each thought examine, and each motive scan,
Which, as averse to Virtue, or inclin'd,
Prove what an angel, or a fiend, is man.

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Young next might paint that most tremendous scene,
When from their beds of dust mankind shall rise,
With troubled aspect, or with brow serene,
To meet the mighty Judge of earth and skies.

Whether they fill'd a throne, in purple dress'd,
Circled by slaves on prostituted knee;
Or, only of the lowly crook possess'd,
Tended their flocks along the heathy lea.

Or, like some seraph, tune the midnight-song,
While solemn, deep, portentous silence reigns:
Sublimely-soaring bard, to whom belong
Virrue's own feelings, sentiments, and lays!

With Sherlock too, how pleasing to retire
Among the letter'd tomb-stones of the dead!
Gaze—read—pause—sigh and rev'rently inquire,
Not dumb with anguish, but devoutly glad.

Upon the grave the more we calmly think,
And make the shroud familiar to our view,
In Death's cold arms less fearful shall we sink,
And bid Life's empty vanities adieu.

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This moment we inspire the vital breath,
Taste all those pleasures Youth or Health can give;
The next, resign it at the call of death,
Then truly born, eternally to live.

If Virtue in her paths their footsteps led,
If lively Faith beam'd in their closing eyes;
If bless'd Religion smooth'd their dying bed,
They fled but to their mansion in the skies.

But if (O Charity! forgive the thought)
Through Errour's devious tracts they heedless stray'd,
Blind votaries to Vice; then they were caught
From earth, lest their demerit blacker made.

Here too immur'd, how pleasing to forget
That Vice and Errour lord it o'er mankind!
That Virtue has not learn'd to triumph yet,
Nor amongst thousands one true friend can find!

How pleasing to forget, that Merit pines
In poverty and scorn, while titled Pride,
In palaces, with mean Corruption, shines,
By Flattery courted, and with envy ey'd!

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Their chance of Heav'n men barter for a place,
That breach of modes, not laws, provokes offence!
That Nature gives to Affectation place,
And Impudence supplies the room of sense!

As serpents wise, not harmless as the dove,
That only Goodness mankind never charms!
That Gold usurps the tender rights of Love,
Beauty condemn'd to mercenary arms!

That Friendship's a mere sound, that nothing means
But self, poor niggard self, in smooth disguise!
That, while on Pity's breast Misfortune leans,
She falls, her stay withdrawn, no more to rise!

That now Religion little else imports,
But sleeping sound, or ogling, in a pew!
That Adoration now-a-days resorts
But to the play, assembly, or the stew!

Come then, Forgetfulness, whose magic pow'r
Things quick to non-existence can command;
Come, fit companion for the silent hour,
When thought distracts, or ghosts before us stand,

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But oft as this delightful gloom inspires
The virtuous, tender, manly, gen'rous thought,
Which, while the heart it betters, never tires,
Away, by forlorn anxious lovers sought.

To Miss J---y ---

J---y was once the sweetest maid
That grac'd the sprightly dance;
The air how artless she display'd!
How innocent each glance!

But when the senseless fopling tribe
Around her airy tript,
And, J---y's beauties to describe,
Their pens in flattery dipt;

Then all the little shifts of Art
Were practis'd o'er and o'er,
To do, prepost'rously expert,
What Nature did before.

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She still will admiration raise,
Who from its gaze withdraws;
To seem insensible of praise,
Is to deserve applause.

Let not a compliment, that owes
Its merit to a lie,
More kind the censure of your foes,
Gain strength by your reply.

Let no vain, prattling, tinseld youth,
Pert, ignorant, and raw,
Who but, when silent, tells the truth,
Your kind attention draw.

The poor expedients us'd by Art,
Like the cheek's borrow'd dye,
Can never fix the wise man's heart,
Though they may catch his eye.

Your truest graces Virtue sums,
In gentle, soft, and meek;
Disdain, or pride, but ill becomes
The dimply virgin cheek.

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Let J---y then assume that ease
Which charm'd the world before;
The less she anxious strives to please,
She still will please the more.

Of self-complacence O beware!
O listen not to some men,
Who call you most divinely fair,
But wish you less than woman!

And O forgive the bard, the while
Such maxims he lays down;
Though he may J---y wish to smile,
He can survive her frown.

To Miss Annie Hamilton.

Tir'd of the city's splendid shows,
Almira to the country goes;
Happy from noise, sedans, and coaches,
As some pale meagre lord approaches;
From dirty lanes, and crouded streets,
Where villain oft with villain meets;

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From bows and curtseys, without number,
And compliments that but encumber;
From routs and drums, and midnight revels,
The import of our modern travels;
From smoke in many a stagnate wreath,
And vapours that diseases breathe;
From this strange group which some admire,
Happy, thrice happy, to retire;
To feel the cheek with heat suffus'd,
By walks and exercise amus'd;
To suck in health, through rustling trees,
From many an odour-wafting breeze;
To taste those pleasures Silence gives,
To her denied in crouds that lives:
Not with much recollection vain,
That swells regret, and creates pain,
Of town amusements, show, and pomp,
Made for the fop, coquet, and romp;
Like some the conscious verse might name,
Did it not wound the sex's fame.
Nor would Ardelia wish to share,
A fit example to the fair,
A compliment, by her ingross'd
Invidious at the sex's cost.

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To a Lady offended at seeing her Verses printed, on account of their being too simple.

You still, my fair, prepost'rously complain,
Your verses are too simple and too plain,
When, if you mind the critically wise,
Their very beauty in their plainness lies;
As lilies charm in plain and simple white,
But, daub'd with vermile, would disgust the sight;
As the false cheek's vile artificial flush
Can never pass for Nature's roseate blush.
How easy to throw off the tumid phrase,
And interlard with epithets the lays!
But the parade of florid words confounds,
And sentiment is lost in pomp of sounds:
As the fresh landscape's vivid green looks pale,
When noon's strong light and scorching heats prevail.
If suited to the circumstance, and place,
Simplicity is woman's truest grace.
When thoughtless females the reverse prefer,
From Nature they depart, and always err.
Mere Affectation vainly would assert
A steady, lasting empire o'er the heart.

315

Let then, if you expect to be a wife,
Your numbers be an emblem of your life;
Thus, rather than complain with captious voice,
You may have cause to triumph and rejoice.

On the Death of Mr Allan Ramsay .

Written in the year 1758.

Hard by the grassy margin of a stream,
Where zephyrs play'd to cool the sultry beam,
Shedding, conglob'd anon, the vapoury dew,
Or Spring's rich fragrance, from their pinions blue;
Just as the sun from noontide height declin'd,
And through the op'ning trees obliquely shin'd;
A shepherd rested on the flowery ground,
By distant rows of elms encompass'd round.
Pure was his bosom as the stream that flow'd,
Or eastern gale that o'er its surface blow'd.
Gentle his temper as the lenient flow'r,
That spreads its folds to catch the moist'ning show'r.

316

Pleas'd and contented with his humble lot,
His thoughts ne'er soar'd above the crook or cot.
Oft would he softly swell the mellow reed,
Bathe in the flood, or view his lambkins feed;
With simple footstep trip the green along,
Or make lone echoes vocal with his song;
Select rich nosegays, elegantly drest,
To fill, but not adorn, his charmer's breast:
Oft studious pore o'er some fam'd past'ral book,
His plaid thrown by, his flagellet, and crook;
Where rustic love-scenes harmlessly conspire
To melt the tender heart, and fancy fire;
Truth and Simplicity unletter'd shine,
And Innocence embellishes each line.

Above the rest the Gentle Shepherd charm'd,
With hopes and fears alternately alarm'd,
While Patie and while Peggy met to woo,
Almost, so strong the paint, confess'd to view;
With rolling eyes on one another turn'd,
Glancing those fires that in their bosoms burn'd.
Not the soft odours that in violets dwell,
Not the bland honey from the waxen cell;
Not the mild fannings of the southern breeze,
That stir to sighs the not unconscious trees;

317

Not Philomel, first minstrel of the grove,
Warbling in yonder jes'mine-wreath'd alcove;
Not the sweet murmur of descending rills,
Nor low-breath'd coo of fir-immantled hills;
With more of nature exquisitely please
The elegant, chaste taste, and thought at ease.

Such traces the fond numbers leave behind,
Such power have fine descriptions o'er the mind;
Oft to some oak would he his speech address,
In equal warmth his passion to express,
And still, as oft as breezes fann'd the trees,
Fondly concludes an answer he receives:
Till conquer'd by imaginary charms,
Around the trunk he clasps his eager arms,
And, ere his eyes the strange mistake can see,
Imprints warm kisses on the lifeless tree.

Once, as he sat beneath an aged thorn,
To breathe the dewy freshness of the morn;
His ear attentive to the blackbird's lay,
Or tuneful thrush, perch'd on a neighb'ring spray;
A swain, slowly approaching, he espies,
With his spread hand oft lifted to his eyes;
Whose downcast looks seem to implore relief,
As if oppress'd with some o'erwhelming grief.

318

Touch'd with the sudden sympathy of wo,
Yet apprehensive the event to know;
While mix'd surmises all his mind possess,
And various reasons offer to his guess,
Near him with trembling step the shepherd draws,
Eager to ask the melancholy cause:
But all the answer his inquiry gains,
Which yet, alas! too well his grief explains,
These few short, but emphatic, words exprest,
Ramsay is dead—his silence told the rest.

This was forgot to be inserted among the Elegies.

Advice to a LADY,

On an Offer of Marriage.

Take my advice, without delay,
It will prevent a world of sorrow;
What wisely can be done to-day,
Defer not vainly till to-morrow.

Thus, when the ivy would invest
Its kindred tree, if aught divides,
That branch no more for ever prest,
Hence quickly disengag'd it slides.

319

To ---

[Learn a plain lesson from a friend]

Learn a plain lesson from a friend,
Sway'd by no mercenary end;
Never to gratify your wit,
Howe'er by fools admir'd for it,
Your pride, your knowledge, learning, sense,
At blushing Modesty's expense;
Nor, which the worst of tempers shows,
Your neighbour's venial slips expose.
The truest wisdom is, to know
That none are perfect here below;
The noblest candour, to conceal
What Malice only would reveal.

To ---

[If you by all would be belov'd]

If you by all would be belov'd,
By bad men fear'd, by good approv'd,
And live exempt from blame;
O Envy's summons disobey,
That unrelenting bird of prey
Which lives on blasted fame!

320

To others' merit be not blind,
In manners, person, birth, or mind;
Thus you, admiring, may
Assume (a worthy, decent pride,
To candour, taste, and sense allied)
That compliment you pay.

He who still labours all he can,
To leave the common herd of men,
By promptness to oblige;
Him, nor Detraction's poison'd darts,
Malice, with all her hellish arts,
Nor Want, shall e'er besiege.

A Sketch of NOON.

The Sun, with radiant splendours in his eye,
Swift roll'd his fiery chariot up the sky;
And as to zenith altitude he rose,
Bright and more bright his dazzling visage glows;
Till, all-refulgent from meridian height,
He pours a flood of glory on the sight.
Through Nature's depths the mighty radiance felt,
Earth seems to smoke, and rocks themselves to melt;

321

A sickly hue spreads o'er the verdant glade,
And all the landscape's laughing beauties fade;
The languid flow'r reclines its drooping head,
Its fragrant sweets, its deep vermilion fled;
Ev'n Industry, while the strong beam descends,
Faint and relax'd, her half-done task suspends,
And, underneath some lofty range of trees,
Sucks in the vital coolness of the breeze;
The flocks and herds to shelt'ring glooms retreat,
Weary and panting with oppressive heat;
While stretch'd, unactive, on the parch'd-up ground,
His pipe, his crook, his garland, strew'd around;
The sun-burnt shepherd's yielding eyelids close,
And all his senses sink in bland repose:
Silent as death are now the warbling throng,
Not Love itself inspires their various song;
All seek the closest covert of the wood,
Or in cool haunts pick up their scanty food;
Echo too, dormant in her marble grot,
Has half her arts of mimicry forgot;
Ev'n heat-enamour'd swallows quit the air,
And, silent, to their mud-built nests repair:
Nothing is heard but the dull hum of bees,
Or insects buzzing through the blossom'd trees;

322

The chirp of grasshopper amid the brake,
Or sleep-inviting tinkle of the lake;
Nature herself grows faint, with warmth opprest,
And all Creation sinks supine to rest.
Happy the youth, by no false taste betray'd,
Whom Contemplation leads now to the shade;
Who, unseduc'd by the vile love of pelf,
Can courts despise, and venerate himself;
Of more than crowns possess'd, while he can roam
Through Nature's works, nor ever be from home;
The systems of our earth, and yonder skies,
Glories hid, haply, from the monarch's eyes;
Eternal Wisdom's exquisite display,
While heav'n-born Newton leads the radiant way;
Calls forth fair order, harmony, and light,
From the dark womb of anarchy and night!
Thus, for one paltry kingdom, one poor spot
Almost in Nature's boundless scenes forgot,
Without the gilded gewgaw of a throne,
A thousand he may amply call his own.

FINIS