 | Poems |  |
Mr. FARREN.
By much the most ardent among the assuming,
By much most presumptuous amid the presuming;
Hear Farren affright every muse from his station,
By unqualified rant, and extreme intonation:
Melpomene shrinks from his heroes and Lears,
He debases Thalia's best smiles into sneers!
But why should he walk in the dramatic van,
Who exhibits at best, but the sign of a man?
No min'stry of Art seem to lodge in his scull,
That's inflexibly turgid, and rigidly dull.
By what wond'rous means has he brighten'd his name,
How the deuce has he mixt with the followers of fame?
On the basis of puffs the false pile was erected,
But its durable state has been often suspected.
His glory, like poor Cagliostro's, is built
On the slippery threshold of indirect guilt:
Not like old Erostatus for burning a fane,
Tho' crimes less enormous have made the man vain!
Traducing Will. Shakespeare, and mouthing heroics,
In such a base style as would anger the Stoics:
Like Epiminedes the poet of Crete,
Stupidity binds both his hands and his feet.
If apparent he reasons, the thing does but seem,
For the man is entranc'd, and declaims in a dream;
Hung round with inaptitudes formal and lazy,
Automatical, heavy, dull, sombrous, half crazy;
The husk of vulgarity dims every feature,
Defeats his exertions, and sullies his nature.
When he labours to waken our praise or our wonder,
He raves like a maniac and roars like stage thunder.
By much most presumptuous amid the presuming;
171
By unqualified rant, and extreme intonation:
Melpomene shrinks from his heroes and Lears,
He debases Thalia's best smiles into sneers!
But why should he walk in the dramatic van,
Who exhibits at best, but the sign of a man?
No min'stry of Art seem to lodge in his scull,
That's inflexibly turgid, and rigidly dull.
By what wond'rous means has he brighten'd his name,
How the deuce has he mixt with the followers of fame?
On the basis of puffs the false pile was erected,
But its durable state has been often suspected.
His glory, like poor Cagliostro's, is built
On the slippery threshold of indirect guilt:
Not like old Erostatus for burning a fane,
Tho' crimes less enormous have made the man vain!
Traducing Will. Shakespeare, and mouthing heroics,
In such a base style as would anger the Stoics:
Like Epiminedes the poet of Crete,
Stupidity binds both his hands and his feet.
If apparent he reasons, the thing does but seem,
For the man is entranc'd, and declaims in a dream;
Hung round with inaptitudes formal and lazy,
Automatical, heavy, dull, sombrous, half crazy;
The husk of vulgarity dims every feature,
Defeats his exertions, and sullies his nature.
172
He raves like a maniac and roars like stage thunder.
'Tis said that when Thisbe first whisper'd her pains,
By the pale lamp of night on fam'd Babylon's plains,
By the Destinies barr'd from a love-fraught embrace,
The nymph sung her grief to a wall on the place.
Thus Brunton is fated to generate spleen,
When Farren and she fill the void of the scene.
With a gesture of woe, and a high-passion'd tone,
She pours out her plaints to a well-chissel'd stone:
A mass more ignoble than those Sculptors deal in,
That never were damn'd with—the torment of feeling;
Who brings proud Horatius to comic perdition,
And murders the Roman, sans shame or contrition.
But Pride's fatal influence, heu quam inglorium,
Has pierc'd the thick membrane and crack'd his sensorium.
By the pale lamp of night on fam'd Babylon's plains,
By the Destinies barr'd from a love-fraught embrace,
The nymph sung her grief to a wall on the place.
Thus Brunton is fated to generate spleen,
When Farren and she fill the void of the scene.
With a gesture of woe, and a high-passion'd tone,
She pours out her plaints to a well-chissel'd stone:
A mass more ignoble than those Sculptors deal in,
That never were damn'd with—the torment of feeling;
Who brings proud Horatius to comic perdition,
And murders the Roman, sans shame or contrition.
173
Has pierc'd the thick membrane and crack'd his sensorium.
Remember poor Hanno of Carthage his fate,
Let him ponder in thought ere he aims to be great;
Bid him read classic lore, and behold how the case is,
Lest the errors of Lear shake him off from your basis.
Tho' his Oakley and Polydore make us not glad,
In the present dull day they're the best mid the bad.
Let him ponder in thought ere he aims to be great;
Bid him read classic lore, and behold how the case is,
Lest the errors of Lear shake him off from your basis.
Tho' his Oakley and Polydore make us not glad,
In the present dull day they're the best mid the bad.
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