A postscript to the new Bath guide :: :: University of Virginia Library

'Tis difficult from Custom to depart,
She tints the will—she clings about the heart:
Parent of Sorrow—relative of Glee,
The Demon's hope—the Fool's apology—
Oh! Habit, Habit! whither wilt thou lead,
While Fame capriciously upholds thy deed;

Our earliest apothegms her sorc'ries blind,
She wars with Wit for empire o'er the mind;
Fights to the last unknowing how to yield,
And inch by inch disputes the mental field.—
How few, like Russia's Lord, dare burst her chain,
Restrict her step, or regulate her reign;
The godlike Peter, all her force beguil'd,
And drove her 'yond the precincts of the wild;
Bade radiant Science 'mid his desarts rise,
Then gave her volumes to a nation's eyes:
The savage struggles of rude judgment fann'd,
And sent her eel meand'ring through the land.

Touch'd by the subject—with its wonders fraught—
I spun this timely issue from my thought:—

An ELEGY written in Soho-Square, on seeing Mrs. Cornelys' House in Ruins.

I

HITHER ye lowly, insolent, and vain,
Whose frantic deeds give Meditation food;
Ye varied tribes, who circle Pleasure's fane,
Ye jocund prodigals of social good:
The fallen fragments of this pile survey,
Then yield to Memory's toils the residue of day,

II

Here civil Phrenzy was approv'd and known,
Here Fashion's tainted stream was taught to flow;
Here Reason left her elevated throne,
To scatter frolickly the seeds of Woe:
The cares of state, the props of general weal,
Sunk 'neath the rapid pressure of the dancer's heel.

III

Here Beauty rov'd triumphant in her charms,
To bear the diadem of Pride away;
Here gallant Fraud assail'd her with his arms,
Waken'd her senses, and embrac'd his prey;
Touch'd by the barb of Grief, the victim fell,
While Desperation's minions rung her virgin knell!

IV

Ah luckless Nymph! that fascinating breast,
(Pure as the whitest of the Alpine snows)
Which heav'd at tales of Excellence distrest,
And lost in others' pangs its own repose:
Bemoan'd the innovations of Decay,
And blaz'd, and wept, and perish'd like the genial day.

V

Here rude Intemperance the meek annoy'd,
Here Habit gave the lesser Evils birth;
With cruel Industry were both employ'd,
To weave their strength and banish modest Worth!
They burst those chords which made the bosom swell,
And trembling mark'd its way to Pity's silent cell.

VI

Here high-swoln Vanity, of motley hue,
Superbly hail'd her congregated fools;
Who scoff'd the Virtues as they rose in view,
And wrote in adamant her baneful rules;
While the seducing Lute's enerving strain
Beguil'd the hood-wink'd throng from intellectual pain.

VII

Here many a heart, for godlike efforts brac'd,
Was riv'd and sully'd by Pollution's breath:
Their generous atoms were by Vice disgrac'd,
They found, alass! the truth of Life—in Death:
Thus hinds are led, when shut from Cynthia's ray,
By brilliant, faithless Gleams, through Ruin's miry way.

VIII

Here calm Philosophy to maniacs bow'd,
Here Rumour's progeny upheld her reign;
Here Science mingled with the babbling crowd,
Whom Rapture beckon'd 'mid Delusion's train;
And Bacchus' goblet with his gifts o'erflow'd,
Till the nectareous juice bestain'd the chequer'd road.

IX

Here oft' the Spendthrift of unvalued hours
Survey'd, with apathy, the ills of Time,
Who, Heav'n-directed, circumscrib'd his powers,
And smote his being ere he knew his prime;
'Till all his honours flitted like a dream,
Melted by recreant Guilt's intolerable beam.

X

Ah! whither are those myriads Taste combin'd,
Who leagu'd the moral canons to destroy?
And where those lawless tumults of the mind,
That Wit call'd madness, and the madd'ning, joy?
All, all are vanish'd from th'astonish'd sight,
Sunk beneath Hope's bright smile, and shrouded by the night.

XI

Those walls which echo'd with a lover's sighs,
And gave responsive many an ideot's tale;
Those gaudy scenes which dazzled magic eyes,
Those pregnant sounds which harmoniz'd the gale;
Are all dismember'd, driven, crush'd, and torn,
Like worthless, weightless chaff, o'er Hyrcan desarts borne.

XII

Voluptuousness no more shall chasten Thought,
Phœbus no more shall on their vigils peep;
Who mis-beheld those ecstasies they sought,
Who violated Peace, who murder'd Sleep.
The rout is o'er, the revelry is done,
And irresistless Fate has clouded Folly's sun!

HORACE PEERY.

York Hotel, Bath, 1789.