The Poetical Works of Robert Lloyd :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Poetical Works of Robert Lloyd

... To Which is Prefixed an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author. By W. Kenrick ... In Two Volumes

Lloyd, Robert (1733-1764)

VOL. I.

II.

VOL. II.

A DIALOGUE

THE POET.

THE TWO RUBRIC POSTS.

SONG.

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO J.B. ESQ.

THE MILK-MAID.

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE,

THE NEW-RIVER HEAD.

A FAMILIAR LETTER OF RHIMES

THE COBLER OF TISSINGTON'S LETTER

THE COBLER OF CRIPPLEGATE'S LETTER

ON RHYME.

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE.

THE CANDLE AND SNUFFERS.

THE TEMPLE OF FAVOUR.

THE SPIRIT OF CONTRADICTION.

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO ---

PART OF HOMER'S HYMN TO APOLLO.

FROM CATULLUS.

THE FIRST BOOK OF THE HENRIADE.

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VOL. II.

A DIALOGUE

BETWEEN THE AUTHOR AND HIS FRIEND.

FRIEND.
You say, “it hurts you to the soul
To brook confinement or controul.”
And yet will voluntary run
To that confinement you would shun,
Content to drudge along the track,
With bells and harness on your back.
Alas! what genius can admit
A monthly tax on spendthrift wit,
Which often flings whole stores away,
And oft has not a doit to pay!
—Give us a work, indeed—of length—
Something which speaks poetic strength;
Is sluggish fancy at a stand?
No scheme of consequence in hand?

I, nor your plan, nor book condemn,
But why your name, and why A, M?

AUTHOR.
Yes—it stands forth to public view,
Within, without, on white, on blue,
In proper, tall, gigantic Letters,
Not dash'd—emvowell'd—like my betters.
And though it stares me in the face,
Reflects no shame, hints no disgrace.
While these unlaboured trifles please,
Familiar chains are worn with ease.
—Behold! to yours and my surprize,
These trifles to a Volume rise.
Thus will you see me, as I go,
Still gath'ring bulk like balls of snow,
Steal by degrees upon your shelf,
And grow a giant from an elf.
The current studies of the day,
Can rarely reach beyond a Play:
A Pamphlet may deserve a look,
But Heav'n defend us from a Book!
A Libel flies on Scandal's wings,
But works of length are heavy things.
—Not one in twenty will succeed—
Consider, sir, how few can read.

FRIEND.
I mean a work of merit—

AUTHOR.
True.

FRIEND.
A man of Taste must buy.

AUTHOR.
Yes;—You
And half a dozen more, my friend,
Whom your good Taste shall recommend.
Experience will by facts prevail,
When argument and reason fail;
The Nuptials now—

FRIEND.
Whose nuptials, sir?—

AUTHOR.

A Poet's—did that poem stir?
No—fixt—tho' thousand readers pass,
It still looks through its pane of glass,
And seems indignant to exclaim
Pass on ye Sons of Taste, for shame!

While duly each revolving moon,
Which often comes, God knows too soon,
Continual plagues my soul molest,
And Magazines disturb my rest,

While scarce a night I steal to bed,
Without a couplet in my head,
And in the morning, when I stir,
Pop comes a Devil, “Copy sir.”
I cannot strive with daring flight
To reach the bold Parnassian Height;
But at its foot, content to stray,
In easy unambitious way,
Pick up those flowers the muses send,
To make a nosegay for my friend.
In short, I lay no idle claim
To genius strong, and noisy fame.
But with a hope and wish to please,
I write, as I would live, with ease.

FRIEND.
But you must have a fund, a mine,
Prose, poems, letters

AUTHOR.
Not a line.
And here, my friend, I rest secure;
He can't lose much, who's always poor.
And if, as now, thro' numbers five,
This work with pleasure kept alive,
Can still its currency afford,
Nor fear the breaking of its hoard,

Can pay you, as at sundry times,
For self per Mag, two thousand Rhimes,
From whence should apprehension grow,
That self should fail, with richer Co?

No doer of a monthly grub,
Myself alone a learned club,
I ask my readers to no treat
Of scientifick hash'd-up meat,
Nor seek to please theatric friends
With scraps of plays, and odds and ends.—

FRIEND.
Your method, sir, is plain enough;
And all the world has read your Puff.
Th' allusion's neat, expression clean,
About your travelling Machine,
But yet—it is a Magazine.

AUTHOR.
Why let it be, and wherefore shame?
As Juliet says, what's in a name?
Besides it is the way of trade,
Through which all science is convey'd,

Thus knowledge parcels out her shares;
The Court has hers, the Lawyers theirs.
Something to Scholars sure is due,—
Why not one Magazine for You?

FRIEND.
That's an Herculean task, my friend,
You toil and labour—to offend.
Part of your scheme—a free translation,
To Scholars is a profanation;
What! break up Latin! pull down Greek!
(Peace to the soul of sir John Cheeke!
And shall the gen'rous liquor run,
Broach'd from the rich Falernian tun?
Will you pour out to English swine,
Neat as imported, old Greek wine?
Alas! such beverage only fits
Collegiate tastes, and classic wits.

AUTHOR.
I seek not, with satyric stroke,
To strip the pedant of his cloak;
No—let him cull and spout quotations,
And call the jabber, demonstrations;
Be his the great concern to shew,
If Roman gowns were tied or no;

Whether the Grecians took a slice
Four times a-day, or only twice,
Still let him work about his hole,
Poor, busy, blind, laborious mole;
Still let him puzzle, read, explain,
Oppugn, remark, and read again.

Such, though they waste the midnight oil
In dull, minute, perplexing toil,
Not understanding, do no good,
Nor can do harm, not understood.

By scholars, apprehend me right,
I mean the learned, and polite,
Whose knowledge unaffected flows,
And sits as easy as their cloaths;
Who care not though an ac or sed
Misplac'd, endanger Priscian's head;
Nor think his wit a grain the worse,
Who cannot frame a Latin verse,
Or give the Roman proper word
To things the Romans never heard.

'Tis true, except among the Great,
Letters are rather out of date,

And quacking genius more discerning,
Scoffs at your regulars in learning.
—Pedants, indeed, are learning's curse,
But Ignorance is something worse:
All are not blest with reputation,
Built on the want of Education,
And some, to letters duly bred,
Mayn't write the worse, because they've read.
Though books had better be unknown,
Than not one thought appear our own;
As some can never speak themselves,
But through the authors on their shelves,
Whose writing smacks too much of reading,
As affectation spoils good breeding.

FRIEND.
True; but that fault is seldom known,
Save in your bookish college drone,
Who, constant (as I've heard them say)
Study their fourteen hours a-day,
And squatting close, with dull attention,
Read themselves out of apprehension;
Who scarce can wash their hands or face,
For fear of losing time, or place,
And give one hour to meat and drink,
But never half a one to think.

AUTHOR.
Lord! I have seen a thousand such,
Who read, or seem to read, too much.
So have I known, in that rare place,
Where Classics always breed disgrace,
A wight, upon discoveries hot,
As whether flames have heat or not,
Study himself, poor sceptic dunce,
Into the very fire at once,
And clear the philosophic doubt,
By burning all ideas out.
With such, eternal books successive
Lead to no sciences progressive,
While each dull fit of study past,
Just like a wedge drives out the last.

From these I ground no expectation
Of genuine wit, or free translation;
But you mistake me, friend. Suppose,
(Translations are but modern cloaths)
I dress my boy—(for instance sake
Maintain these children, which I make)
I give him coat and breeches—

FRIEND.
True—
But not a bib and apron too!

You would not let your child be seen,
But drest consistent, neat, and clean.

AUTHOR.
So would I cloath a free translation,
Or as Pope calls it, imitation;
Not pull down authors from my shelf,
To spoil their wit, and plague myself,
My learning studious to display,
And lose their spirit by the way.

FRIEND.
Your Horace now—e'en borrow thence
His casy wit, his manly sense,
But let the Moralist convey
Things in the manners of to-day,
Rather than that old garb assume,
Which only suits a man at Rome.

AUTHOR.
Originals will always please,
And copies too, if done with ease.
Would not old Plautus wish to wear,
Turn'd English host, an English air,
If Thornton, rich in native wit,
Would make the modes and diction fit?
Or, as I know you hate to roam,
To fetch an instance nearer home;

Though in an idiom most unlike,
A similarity must strike,
Where both of simple nature fond,
In art and genius correspond;
And naive both (allow the phrase
Which no one English word conveys)
Wrapt up their stories neat and clean,
Easy as—

FRIEND.
Denis's you mean.
—The very man—not mere translation,
But La Fontaine by transmigration.

AUTHOR.
Authors, as Dryden's maxim runs,
Have what he calls poetic sons.
Thus Milton, more correctly wild,
Was richer Spenser's lawful child.
And Churchill, got on all the nine,
Is Dryden's heir in ev'ry line.
Thus Denis proves his parents plain,
The child of Ease, and La Fontaine.

FRIEND.
His muse, indeed, the work secures,
And asks our praise as much as yours;
For, if delighted, readers too
May pay their thanks, as well as you.

But You, my friend (so folks complain)
For ever in this easy vein,
This prose in verse, this measur'd talk,
This pace, that's neither trot nor walk,
Aim at no flights, nor strive to give
A real poem fit to live.

AUTHOR.
(To critics no offence, I hope)
Prior shall live as long as Pope,
Each in his manner sure to please,
While both have strength, and both have ease;
Yet though their various beauties strike,
Their ease, their strength is not alike.
Both with consummate horseman's skill,
Ride as they list, about the hill;
But take, peculiar in their mode,
Their favourite horse, and favourite road.

For me, once fond of author-fame,
Now forc'd to bear its weight and shame,
I have no time to run a race,
A traveller's my only pace.
They, whom their steeds unjaded bear
Around Hyde-park, to take the air,
May frisk and prance, and ride their sill,
And go all paces which they will;

We, hackney tits—nay, never smile,
Who trot our stage of thirty mile,
Must travel in a constant plan,
And run our journey, as we can.

FRIEND.
A critic says, upon whose sleeve
Some pin more faith than you'll believe,
That writings which as easy please,
Are not the writings wrote with ease.
From whence the inference is plain,
Your friend Mat Prior wrote with pain.

AUTHOR.
With pain perhaps he might correct,
With care supply each loose defect,
Yet sure, if rhime, which seems to flow,
Whether its master will or no,
If humour, not by study sought,
But rising from immediate thought,
Are proofs of ease, what hardy name
Shall e'er dispute a Prior's claim!

But still your critic's observation
Strikes at no Poet's reputation,
His keen reslection only hits
Your rhiming fops, and pedling wits.

As some take stiffness for a grace,
And walk a dancing-master's pace,
And others, for familiar air
Mistake the slouching of a bear;
So some will finically trim,
And dress their lady-muse too prim,
Others, mere slovens in their pen
(The mob of Lords and Gentlemen)
Fancy they write with ease and pleasure,
By rambling out of rhime and measure.
And, on your critic's judgment, these
Write easily, and not with Ease.

There are, indeed, whose wish pursues,
And inclination courts the muse;
Who, happy in a partial fame,
A while possess a poet's name,
But read their works, examine fair,
—Shew me invention, fancy there,
Taste I allow; but is the flow
Of genius in them? Surely, no.
'Tis labour from the classic brain.
Read your own Addison's Campaign.

E'en he, nay, think me not severe,
A critic fine, of Latin ear,

Who toss'd his classic thoughts around
With elegance on Roman ground,
Just simmering with the muse's flame
Woos but a cool and sober dame;
And all his English rhimes express
But beggar-thoughts in royal dress.
In verse his genius seldom glows,
A Poet only in his prose,
Which rolls luxuriant, rich, and chaste,
Improved by Fancy, Wit, and Taste.

FRIEND.
I task you for yourself, my friend,
A subject you can ne'er defend,
And you cajole me all the while
With dissertations upon stile.
Leave others wits and works alone,
And think a little of your own,
For Fame, when all is said and done,
Tho' a coy mistress, may be won;
And half the thought, and pains, and time,
You take to jingle easy rhime,
Would make an Ode, would make a Play,
Done into English, Malloch's way,
—Stretch out your more Heroic feet,
And write an Elegy complete.

Or, not a more laborious task,
Could not you pen a Classic Masque?

AUTHOR.
With will at large, and unclogg'd wings,
I durst not soar to such high things.
For I, who have more phlegm than fire,
Must understand, or not admire,
But when I read with admiration,
Perhaps I'll write in Imitation.

FRIEND.
But business of this monthly kind,
Need that alone engross your mind.
Assistance must pour in a-pace,
New passengers will take a place,
And then your friends—

AUTHOR.
Aye, they indeed,
Might make a better work succeed,
And with the helps which they shall give,
I and the Magazine shall live.

FRIEND.
Yes, live, and eat, and nothing more.

AUTHOR.
I'll live as—Authors did before.

See a Poem, called the Puff, in the first Volume of Mr. Lloyd's Magazine.

The first restorer of Greek learning in England.

See Sigonius and Manutius.

THE POET.

ANEPISTLE TO C. CHURCHILL.

Well—shall I wish you joy of fame,
That loudly echoes Churchill's name,
And sets you on the Muses' throne,
Which right of conquest made your own?
Or shall I (knowing how unfit
The world esteems a man of wit,
That wheresoever he appears,
They wonder if the knave has ears)
Address with joy and lamentation,
Condolance and Congratulation,
As colleges, who duly bring
Their mess of verse to every king,
Too œconomical in taste,
Their sorrow or their joy to waste;
Mix both together, sweet and sow'r;
And bind the thorn up with the flow'r?

Sometimes 'tis Elegy, or Ode.
Epistle now's your only mode.
Whether that style more glibly hits,
The fancies of our rambling wits,

Who wince and kick at all oppression,
But love to straggle in digression;
Or, that by writing to the Great
In letters, honours, or estate,
We slip more easy into fame,
By clinging to another's name,
And with their strength our weakness yoke,
As ivy climbs about an oak;
As Tuft-Hunters will buzz and purr
About a Fellow-Commoner,
Or Crows will wing a higher flight,
When sailing round the floating kite.

Whate'er the motive, 'tis the mode,
And I will travel in the road.
The fashionable track pursue,
And write my simple thoughts to You,
Just as they rise from head or heart,
Not marshall'd by the herald Art.

By vanity or pleasure led,
From thirst of fame, or want of bread,
Shall any start up sons of rhime
Pathetic, Easy, or Sublime?
—You'd think, to hear what Critics say,
Their labour was no more than play:

And that, but such a paultry station
Reflects disgrace on education,
(As if we could at once forsake
What education helps to make)
Each reader has superior skill,
And can write better when he will.

In short, howe'er you toil and drudge,
The world, the mighty world, is judge,
And nice and fanciful opinion
Sways all the world with strange dominion;
Opinion! which on crutches walks,
And sounds the words another talks.

Bring me eleven Critics grown,
Ten have no judgment of their own:
But, like the Cyclops watch the nod
Of some informing master god.
Or as, when near his latest breath,
The patient fain would juggle death,
When Doctors sit in Consultation
(Which means no more than conversation,
A kind of comfortable chat
'Mongst social friends, on This and That,
As whether stocks get up or down,
And tittle-tattle of the town;

Books, pictures, politics, and news,
Who lies with whom, and who got whose)
Opinions never disagree,
One doctor writes, all take the see.

But eminence offends at once
The owlish eye of critic dunce.
Dullness alarm'd, collects her Force,
And Folly screams till she is hoarse.
Then far abroad the Libel flies
From all th' artillery of lies,
Malice, delighted, flaps her wing,
And Epigram prepares her sting.
Around the frequent pellets whistle
From Satire, Ode, and pert Epistle;
While every blockhead strives to throw
His share of vengeance on his foe:
As if it were a Shrove-tide game,
And cocks and poets were the same.

Thus should a wooden collar deck
Some woe-full 'squire's embarrass'd neck,
When high above the croud he stands
With equi-distant sprawling hands,
And without hat, politely bare,
Pops out his head to take the air;

The mob his kind acceptance begs
Of dirt, and stones, and addle-eggs.

O Genius! tho' thy noble skill
Can guide thy Pegasus at will,
Fleet let him bear thee as the wind—
Dullness mounts up and clings behind,
In vain you spur, and whip, and smack,
You cannot shake her from your back.

Ill-nature springs as merit grows,
Close as the thorn is to the rose.
Could Herculaneum's friendly earth
Give Mævius' works a second birth,
Malevolence, with lifted eyes,
Would sanctify the noble prize.
While modern critics should behold
Their near relation to the old,
And wondring gape at one another,
To see the likeness of a brother.

But with us rhiming moderns here,
Critics are not the only fear;
The poet's bark meets sharper shocks
From other sands, and other rocks.

Not such alone who understand,
Whose book and memory are at hand,
Who scientific skill profess,
And are great adepts—more or less;
(Whether distinguish'd by degree,
They write A. M. or sign M. D.
Or make advances somewhat higher
And take a new degree of 'Squire.)
Who read your authors, Greek and Latin,
And bring you strange quotations pat in,
As if each sentence grew more terse,
From odds and ends, and scraps of verse;
Who with true poetry dispense,
So social sound suits simple sense,
And load one Letter with the labours,
Which should be shar'd among its neighbours.
Who know that thought produces pain,
And deep reflection mads the brain,
And therefore, wise and prudent grown,
Have no ideas of their own.
But if the man of Nature speak,
Advance their Bayonets of Greek,
And keep plain sense at such a distance,
She cannot give a friend assistance.
Not these alone in judgment rise,
And shoot at genius as it flies,

But those who cannot spell, will Talk,
As women scold, who cannot walk.

Your man of habit, who's wound up
To eat and drink, and dine and sup,
But has not either will or pow'r
To break out of his formal hour;
Who lives by rule, and ne'er outgoes it;
Moves like a clock, and hardly knows it;
Who is a kind of breathing being,
Which has but half the pow'r of seeing;
Who stands for ever on the brink,
Yet dare not plunge enough to think,
Nor has one reason to supply
Wherefore he does a thing, or why,
But what he does proceeds so right,
You'd think him always guided by't;
Joins poetry and vice together
Like sun and rain in April weather,
Holds rake and wit as things the same,
And all the difference but a Name.

A Rake! Alas! how many wear
The brow of mirth, with heart of care!
The desperate wretch reslection flies,
And shuns the way where madness lies,

Dreads each increasing pang of grief,
And runs to Folly for relief.
There, 'midst the momentary joys
Of giddy mirth and frantic noise,
Forgetfulness, her eldest born,
Smooths the World's hate, and blockhead's scorn,
Then Pleasure wins upon the mind,
Ye Cares, go whistle to the wind;
Then welcome frolic, welcome whim!
The world is all alike to him.

Distress is all in apprehension;
It ceases when 'tis past prevention:
And happiness then presses near,
When not a hope's left, nor a fear.
—But you've enough, nor want my preaching,
And I was never form'd for teaching.

Male prudes we know, (those driv'ling things)
Will have their gibes, and taunts, and flings.
How will the sober Cit abuse,
The sallies of the Culprit muse;
To her and Poet shut the door—
And whip the beggar, with his whore?

Poet!—a Fool! a Wretch! a Knave!
A mere mechanic dirty slave!
What is his verse, but cooping sense
Within an arbitrary fence?
At best, but ringing that in rhime,
Which prose would say in half the time?
Measure and numbers! what are those
But artificial chains for prose?
Which mechanism quaintly joins
In parallels of see-saw lines.
And when the frisky wanton writes
In Pindar's (what d'ye call 'em)—flights
Th' uneven measure, short and tall,
Now rhiming twice, now not at all,
In curves and angles twirls about,
Like chinese railing, in and out.

Thus when you've labour'd hours on hours,
Cull'd all the sweets, cull'd all the flow'rs,
The churl, whose dull imagination
Is dead to every fine sensation,
Too gross to relish nature's bloom,
Or taste her simple rich perfume,
Shall cast them by as useless stuff,
And fly with keeness to his—snuff.

Look round the world, not one in ten
Thinks Poets good, or honest men.

'Tis true their conduct, not o'er nice,
Sits often loose to easy vice.
Perhaps their Temperance will not pass
The due rotation of the glass;
And gravity denies 'em pow'r
T' unpeg their hats at such an hour.

Some vices must to all appear
As constitutional as Fear;
And every Moralist will find
A ruling passion in the mind:
Which, tho' pent up and barricado'd
Like winds, where Æolus bravado'd;
Like them, will sally from their den,
And raise a tempest now and then;
Unhinge dame Prudence from her plan,
And ruffle all the world of man.

Can authors then exemption draw
From nature's, or the common law?
They err alike with all mankind,
Yet not the same indulgence find.

Their lives are more conspicuous grown,
More talk'd of, pointed at, and shewn,
Till every error seems to rise
To Sins of most gigantic size.

Thus fares it still, however hard,
With every wit, and ev'ry bard.
His publick writings, private life,
Nay more, his mistress, or his wife,
And ev'ry social, dear connection,
Must bear a critical dissection;
While friends connive, and rivals hate,
Scoundrels traduce, and blockheads bait.
Perhaps you'll readily admit
There's danger from the trading wit,
And dunce and fool, and such as those,
Must be of course the poet's foes:
But sure no sober man alive,
Can think that friends would e'er connive.

From just remarks on carliest time,
In the first infancy of rhime,
It may be fairly understood
There were two sects—the Bad, the Good.
Both fell together by the ears,
And both beat up for volunteers.

By interest, or by birth allied,
Numbers flock'd in on either side.
Wit to his weapons ran at once,
While all the cry was “down with Dunce!”
Onward he led his social bands,
The common cause had join'd their hands.
Yet even while their zeal they show,
And war against the gen'ral foe,
Howe'er their rage flam'd fierce and cruel,
They'd stop it all to fight a duel.
And each cool wit would meet his brother,
To pink and tilt at one another.

Jealous of every puff of fame,
The idle whist'ling of a name,
The property of half a line,
Whether a comma's yours or mine,
Shall make a Bard a Bard engage,
And shake the friendship of an age.
But diffident and modest wit
Is always ready to submit;
Fearful of press and publication,
Consults a brother's observation,
Talks of the maggot of his brains,
As hardly worth the critic pains;

“If ought disgusts the sense or ear,
“You cannot, sir, be too severe.
“Expunge, correct, do what you will,
“I leave it to superior skill;
“Exert the office of a friend,
“You may oblige, but can't offend.”

This Bard too has his private clan,
Where He's the great, the only man.
Here, while the bottle and the bowl
Promote the joyous flow of soul,
(And sense of mind, no doubt, grows stronger
When failing legs can stand no longer)
Emphatic judgment takes the chair,
And damns about her with an air.
Then each, self-puff'd, and hero grown,
Able to cope with hosts alone,
Drawcansir like, his murders blends,
First slays his foes, and then his friends.

While your good word, or conversation,
Can lend a brother reputation;
While verse or preface quaintly penn'd,
Can raise the consequence of friend,
How visible the kind affection!
How close the partial fond connection!

Then He is quick, and I'm discerning,
And I have wit, and He has learning,
My judgment's strong, and His is chaste,
And Both—ay Both, are men of taste.

Should you nor steal nor borrow aid,
And set up for yourself in trade,
Resolv'd imprudently to show
That 'tis not always Wit and Co.
Feelings, before unknown, arise,
And Genius looks with jealous eyes.
Tho' thousands may arrive at fame,
Yet never take one path the same.
An Author's vanity or pride
Can't bear a neighbour by his side,
Altho' he but delighted goes
Along the track which nature shows,
Nor ever madly runs astray,
To cross his brother in his way.
And some there are, whose narrow minds,
Center'd in self, self always blinds,
Who, at a friends re-echoed praise,
Which their own voice conspir'd to raise,
Shall be more deep and inly hurt,
Than from a foe's insulting dirt.

And some, too timid to reveal
That glow of heart, and forward zeal,
Which words are scanty to express,
But friends must feel from friends' success,
When full of hopes and fears, the Muse,
Which every breath of praise pursues,
Wou'd open to their free embrace,
Meet her with such a blasting face,
That all the brave imagination,
Which seeks the sun of approbation,
No more its early blossoms tries,
But curls its tender leaves, and dies.

Is there a man, whose genius strong,
Rolls like a rapid stream along,
Whose Muse, long hid in chearless night,
Pours on us like a flood of light,
Whose acting comprehensive mind
Walks Fancy's regions, unconfin'd;
Whom, nor the surly sense of pride,
Nor affectation, warps aside;
Who drags no author from his shelf,
To talk on with an eye to self;
Careless alike, in conversation,
Of censure, or of approbation;

Who freely thinks, and freely speaks,
And meets the Wit he never seeks;
Whose reason calm, and judgment cool,
Can pity, but not hate a fool;
Who can a hearty praise bestow,
If merit sparkles in a foe;
Who bold and open, firm and true,
Flatters no friends—yet loves them too:
Churchill will be the last to know
His is the portrait, I would show.

THE TWO RUBRIC POSTS.

A DIALOGUE.

In Russel-sireet, ensued of late,
Between two posts a strange debate.
—Two posts—aye posts—for posts can speak,
In Latin, Hebrew, Frencb or Greek,
One Rubric thus address'd the other:
“—A noble situation, brother,
“With authors lac'd from top to toe,
“Methinks we cut a taring show,
“The Dialogues of famous dead,
“You know how much they're bought and read.
“Suppose again we raise their ghosts,
“And make them chat through us two posts;
“A thing's half finish'd well begun,
“So take the authors as they run.
“The list of names is mighty fine,
“You look down this, and I that line.
“Here's Pope and Swift, and Steele and Gay,
“And Congreve, in the modern way.
“Whilst you have those, I cannot speak,
“But sound most wonderful in Greek.

“—A Dialogue—I should adore it,
“With such a show of names before it.”

“Modern, your judgment wanders wide,”
The antient Rubric strait reply'd.
“It grieves me much, indeed, to find
“We never can be of a mind,
“Besore one door, and in one street,
“Neither ourselves nor thoughts can meet,
“And we, as brother oft with brother,
“Are at a distance from each other.
“Suppose among the letter'd dead,
“Some author should erect his head,
“And starting from his Rubric, pop
“Directly into Davies' shop,
“Turn o'er the leaves, and look about
“To find his own opinions out;
“D'ye think one author out of ten
“Would know his sentiments agen?
“Thinking your authors differ less in
“Than in their manner of expressing.
“'Tis stile which makes the writer known,
“The mark he sets upon his own.
“Let Congreve speak as Congreve writ,
“And keep the ball up of his wit;

“Let Swift be Swift, nor e'er demean
“The sense and humour of the Dean.
“E'en let the antients rest in peace,
“Nor bring good folks from Rome or Greece
“To give a cause for past transactions,
“They never dreamt of in their actions.
“I can't help quibbling, brother post,
“'Twere better we should lay the ghost,
“But 'twere a task of real merit
“Could we contrive to raise their Spirit.

“Peace, brother, peace, tho' what you say,
“I own has reason in its way,
“On Dialogues to bear so hard,
“Is playing with a dang'rous card;
“Writers of rank are sacred things,
“And crush like arbitrary kings.
“Perhaps your sentiment is right,
“Heav'n grant we may not suffer by't.
“For should friend Davies overhear,
“He'll publish ours another year.”

SONG.

[Though winter its desolate train]

Though winter its desolate train
Of frost and of tempest may bring,
Yet Flora steps forward again,
And nature rejoices in spring.

Though the sun in his glories decreast,
Of his beams in the evening is shorn,
Yet he rises with joy from the east,
And repairs them again in the morn.

But what can youth's sunshine recall,
Or the blossoms of beauty restore?
When its leaves are beginning to fall,
It dies, and is heard of no more.

The spring-time of love then employ,
'Tis a lesson that's easy to learn,
For Cupid's a vagrant, a boy,
And his seasons will never return.

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO J.B. ESQ.

Shall i, from worldly friends estrang'd,
Embitter much, but nothing chang'd
In that Affection firm and true,
Which Gratitude excites to You;
Shall I indulge the Muse, or stifle
This meditation of a trifle?

But you, perhaps, will kindly take
The trifle for the Giver's sake,
Who only pays his grateful Mite,
The just acknowledgment of Right,
As to the Landlord duly sent
A pepper-corn shall pass for rent.

Yet Trifles often shew the Man,
More than his settled Life and Plan:
These are the starts of inclination;
Those the mere gloss of Education,
Which has a wond'rous knack at turning
A Blockhead to a man of Learning;
And, by the help of form and place,
The child of Sin to babe of Grace.

Not that it alters Nature quite,
And sets perverted Reason right,
But, like Hypocrisy, conceals
The very passions which she feels;
And claps a Vizor on the face,
To hide us from the World's disgrace,
Which, as the first Appearance strikes,
Approves of all things, or dislikes.
Like the fond fool with eager glee,
Who sold his all, and put to sea,
Lur'd by the calm which seemed to sleep
On the smooth surface of the Deep;
Nor dreamt its waves could proudly rise,
And toss up mountains at the skies.

Appearance is the only thing,
A King's a Wretch, a Wretch a King.
Undress them both—You King, suppose
For once you wear the beggar's cloaths;
Cloaths that will take in every air;
—Bless me! they sit you to a hair.
Now you, Sir Vagrant, quickly don
The robes his Majesty had on.
And now, O World, so wond'rous wise,
Who see with such discerning eyes,

Put observation to the Stretch,
Come—which is King, and which is Wretch?

To cheat this World, the hardest task
Is to be constant to our Mask.
Externals make direct impressions
And masks are worn by all Professions.

What need to dwell on topics stale?
Of Parsons drunk with wine or ale?
Of Lawyers, who with face of brass,
For learned Rhetoricians pass?
Of Scientific Doctors big,
Hid in the pent-house of their wig?
Whose conversation hardly goes
Beyond half words, and hums! and Oh's!
Of Scholars, of superior taste,
Who cork it up for fear of waste,
Nor bring one bottle from their shelves,
But keep it always for themselves?

Wretches like these, my Soul disdains,
And doubts their hearts as well as brains.
Suppose a Neighbour should desire
To light a candle at your fire,

Would it deprive your flame of Light,
Because another profits by't?

But Youth must often pay its court,
To these great Scholars, by report,
Who live on hoarded reputation,
Which dares no risque of Conversation,
And boast within a store of Knowledge,
Sufficient, bless us! for a College,
But take a prudent care, no doubt,
That not a grain shall straggle out;
And are of Wit too nice and fine,
To throw their Pearl and gold to Swine;
And therefore, to prevent deceit,
Think every Man a Hog they meet.

These may perhaps as Scholars shine,
Who hang themselves out for a Sign.
What signifies a Lion's skin,
If it conceals an Ass within?
If thou'rt a Lion, prithee roar:
If Ass—bray once, and stalk no more.
In Words as well as Looks be wise,
Silence is Folly in Disguise;
With so much wisdom bottled up,
Uncork, and give your friends a sup.

What need your nothings thus to save?
Why place the Dial in the Grave?
A fig for Wit and Reputation,
Which sneaks from all Communication.
So in a post-bag, cheek by jole,
Letters will go from pole to pole,
Which may contain a wond'rous deal;
But then they travel under seal,
And though they bear your Wit about,
Yet who shall ever find it out,
Till trusty Wax forgoes its use,
And sets imprison'd meaning loose?

Yet idle Folly often deems
What Man must be from what He seems;
As if, to look a dwelling o'er,
You'd go no farther than the Door.

Mark yon round Parson, fat and sleek,
Who preaches only once a Week,
Whom Claret, Sloth, and Ven'son join
To make an orthodox Divine;
Whose Holiness receives its beauty
From Income large, and little Duty;
Who loves the Pipe, the Glass, the Smock,
And keeps—a Curate for his Flock.

The world, obsequious to his nod,
Shall hail this oily man of God,
While the poor priest, with half a score
Of prattling infants at his Door,
Whose sober Wishes ne'er regale
Beyond the homely jug of Ale,
Is hardly deem'd companion fit
For Man of Wealth, or Man of Wit,
Though learn'd perhaps and wise as He
Who signs with staring S. T. P.
And full of sacerdotal Pride,
Lays God and Duty both aside.

“This Curate, say you, learn'd and wise!
“Why does not then this Curate rise?

This Curate then, at forty-three,
(Years which become a Curacy)
At no great mart of Letters bred,
Had strange odd notions in his head,
That Parts, and Books, and Application,
Furnish'd all means of Education;
And that a pulpiteer should know
More than his gaping flock below;
That Learning was not got with pain,
To be forgotten all again;

That Latin words, and rumbling Greek,
However charming sounds to speak,
Apt or unapt in each Quotation,
Were insults on a Congregation,
Who could not understand one word
Of all the learned stuff they heard;
That something more than preaching fine,
Should go to make a sound divine;
That Church and Pray'r, and holy Sunday,
Were no excuse for sinful Monday;
That pious doctrine, pious Life,
Should both make one, as Man and Wife.

Thinking in this uncommon Mode,
So out of all the priestly road,
What Man alive can e'er suppose,
Who marks the way Preferment goes,
That she should ever find her way
To this poor Curate's house of clay?

Such was the Priest, so strangely wise!
He could not bow—How should He rise?
Learned He was, and deeply read;
—But what of that?—not duly bred.
For he had suck'd no grammar rules
From Royal founts, or Public schools,

Nor gain'd a single Corn of Knowledge
From that vast Granary—a College.
A Granary, which food supplies
To vermin of uncommon Size.

Aye, now indeed the Matter's clear,
There is a mighty error here.
A public school's the place alone,
Where Talents may be duly known.
It has, no doubt, its imperfections,
But then, such Friendships! such connections!
The Parent, who has form'd his Plan,
And in his Child consider'd Man,
What is his grand and golden Rule,
“Make your connections, Child, at School.
“Mix with your Equals, fly inferiors,
“But follow closely your Superiors,
“On Them your ev'ry Hope depends,
“Be prudent, Tom, get useful Friends;
“And therefore like a spider wait,
“And spin your Web about the great.
“If my Lord's Genius wants supplies,
“Why—You must make his Exercise.
“Let the young Marquis take your Place,
“And bear a whipping sor his Grace.
“Suppose (such Things may happen once)
“The Nobles Wits, and You the Dunce,

“Improve the means of Education,
“And learn commodious Adulation.
“Your Master scarcely holds it sin,
“He chucks his Lordship on the Chin,
“And would not for the World rebuke,
“Beyond a pat, the school-boy Dake.
“The Pastor there, of—what's the Place?
“With smiles eternal in his Face,
“With dimpling cheek, and snowy hand,
“That shames the whiteness of his band;
“Whose mincing Dialect abounds
“In Hums and Hahs, and half-form'd sounds;
“Whose Elocution, fine and chaste,
“Lays his commainds with Judgment vaist;
“And lest the Company should hear,
“Whispers his Nothings in your Ear,
“Think you 'twas Zeal, or Virtue's Care
“That placed the smirking Doctor there.
“No—'twas Connections form'd at School
“With some rich Wit, or noble Fool,
“Obsequious Flattery, and Attendance,
“A wilful, useful, base dependance;
“A supple bowing of the Knees
“To any human God you please.
“(For true good-breeding's so polite,
“'Twould call the very Devil white)

“'Twas watching others shifting Will,
“And veering to and fro with Skill:
“These were the means that made him rise,
“Mind your connections, and be wise.”

Methinks I hear son Tom reply,
I'll be a Bishop by and by.

Connections at a public School
Will often serve a wealthy Fool,
By lending him a letter'd Knave
To bring him Credit, or to save;
And Knavery gets a profit real,
By giving parts and worth ideal.
The child that marks this slavish Plan,
Will make his Fortune when a Man.
While honest Wit's ingenuous Merit
Enjoys his pittance, and his Spirit.

The Strength of public Education
Is quick'ning Parts by Emulation;
And Emulation will create
In narrow minds a jealous state,
Which stifled for a course of Years,
From want of Skill or mutual Eears,

Breaks out in manhood with a zeal,
Which none but rival Wits can feel.
For when good people Wits commence,
They lose all other kind of sense;
(The maxim makes you smile, I see,
Retort it when you please on me)
One writer always hates another,
As Emperors would kill a brother,
Or Empress Queen to rule alone,
Pluck down a Husband from the throne.

When tir'd of Friendship and alliance,
Each side springs forward to defiance,
Inveterate Hate and Resolution,
Faggot and Fire and Persecution,
Is all their aim, and all their Cry,
Though neither side can tell you why.
To it they run like valiant Men,
And flash about them with their Pen.

What Inkshed springs from Altercation!
What loppings off of Reputation!
You might as soon hush stormy Weather,
And bring the North and South together,
As reconcile your letter'd foes,
Who come to all things but dry blows.

Your desperate lovers wan and pale,
As needy culprits in a jail,
Who muse and doat, and pine, and die,
Scorch'd by the light'ning of an eye,
(For ladies' eyes, with fatal stroke,
Will blast the veriest heart of oak)
Will wrangle, bicker, and complain,
Merely to make it up again.
Though swain look glum, and miss look fiery,
'Tis nothing but amantium iræ,
And all the progress purely this—
A frown, a pout, a tear, a kiss.
Thus love and quarrels (April weather)
Like vinegar and oil together,
Join in an easy mingled strife,
To make the sallad up of life.
Love settles best from altercation,
As liquors after fermentation.

In a stage-coach, with lumber cramm'd,
Between two bulky bodies jamm'd,
Did you ne'er writhe yourself about,
To find the seat and cushion out?
How disagreeably you sit,
With b—m awry, and place unsit,

Till some kind jolt o'er ill-pav'd town,
Shall wedge you close, and nail you down,
So fares it with your fondling dolts,
And all love's quarrels are but jolts.

When tiffs arise, and words of strife
Turn one to two in man and wife,
(For that's a matrimonial course
Which yoke-mates must go through perforce,
And ev'ry married man is certain
T'attend the lecture call'd the curtain)
Tho' not another word is said,
When once the couple are in bed:
There things their proper channel keep,
(They make it up, and go to sleep)
These fallings in and fallings out,
Sometimes with cause, but most without,
Are but the common modes of strife,
Which oil the springs of married life,
Where sameness would create the spleen,
For ever stupidly serene.

Observe yon downy bed—to make it,
You toss the feathers up, and shake it.
So fondness springs from words and scusfling,
As beds lie smoothest after shuffling.

But authors wranglings will create
The very quintessence of hate;
Peace is a fruitless vain endeavour,
Sworn foes for once, they're foes for ever.

—Oh! had it pleas'd my wiser betters
That I had never tasted letters,
Then no Parnassian maggots bred,
Like fancies in a madman's head,
No graspings at an idle name,
No childish hope of future fame,
No impotence of wit had ta'en
Possession of my muse-struck brain.

Or had my birth, with fortune fit,
Varnish'd the dunce, or made the wit;
I had not held a shameful place,
Nor letters paid me with disgrace.

—O! for a pittance of my own,
That I might live unsought, unknown!
Retir'd from all this pedant strife,
Far from the cares of bust'ling life;
Far from the wits, the fools, the great,
And all the little world I hate.

THE MILK-MAID.

Whoe'er for pleasure plans a scheme,
Will find it vanish like a dream,
Affording nothing sound or real,
Where happiness is all ideal;
In grief, in joy, or either state,
Fancy will always antedate,
And when the thoughts on evil pore,
Anticipation makes it more.
Thus while the mind the future sees,
It cancels all its present ease.

Is Pleasure's scheme the point in view;
How eagerly we all pursue!

Well—Tuesday is th'appointed day;
How slowly wears the time away!
How dull the interval between,
How darken'd o'er with clouds of spleen,
Did not the mind unlock her treasure,
And fancy feed on promis'd pleasure.

Delia surveys, with curious eyes,
The clouds collected in the skies;

Wishes no storm may rend the air,
And Tuesday may be dry and fair;
And I look round, my boys, and pray,
That Tuesday may be holiday.
Things duly settled—what remains?
Lo! Tuesday comes—alas! it rains;
And all our visionary schemes
Have died away, like golden dreams.

Once on a time, a rustic dame,
(No matter for the lady's name)
Wrapt up in deep imagination,
Indulg'd her pleasing contemplation;
While on a bench she took her seat,
And plac'd the milk-pail at her feet,
Oft in her hand she chink'd the pence,
The profits which arose from thence;
While fond ideas fill'd her brain,
Of layings up, and monstrous gain,
Till every penny which she told,
Creative fancy turn'd to gold;
And reasoning thus from computation,
She spoke aloud her meditation.

“Please heav'n but to preserve my health,
“No doubt I shall have store of wealth;

“It must of consequence ensue
“I shall have store of lovers too.
“Oh! how I'll break their stubborn hearts,
“With all the pride of female arts.
“What Suitors then will kneel before me!
“Lords, Earls, and Viscounts shall adore me.
“When in my gilded coach I ride,
“My Lady at his Lordship's side,
“How will I laugh at all I meet
“Clatt'ring in pattins down the street!
“And Lobbin then I'll mind no more,
“Howe'er I lov'd him heretofore;
“Or, if he talks of plighted truth,
“I will not hear the simple youth,
“But rise indignant from my seat,
“And spurn the lubber from my feet.
Action, alas! the speaker's grace,
Ne'er came in more improper place,
For in the tossing forth her shoe,
What fancied bliss the maid o'erthrew!
While down at once, with hideous fall,
Came lovers, wealth, and milk, and all.
Thus fancy ever loves to roam,
To bring the gay materials home;
Imagination forms the dream,
And accident destroys the scheme.

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE,

FROM THE REV. MR. HANBURY'S HORSE, TO THE REV. MR. SCOT.

Amongst you bipeds, reputation
Depends on Rank and Situation;
And men increase in fame and worth,
Not from their merits, but their Birth.
Thus he is born to live obscure,
Who has the sin of being poor;
While wealthy dullness lolls at ease,
And is—as witty as you please.
—“What did his Lordship say?—O! fine!
“The very Thing! Bravo! Divine!”
And then 'tis buzz'd from Route to Route,
While ladies whisper it about,
“Well, I protest, a charming hit!
“His Lerdship has a deal of wit.
“How elegant that double sense!
“Perdigious! vaistly fine! Immense!
When all my lord has said or done,
Was but the letting off a pun.

Mark the fat Cit, whose good round sum,
Amounts at least to half a Plumb;
Whose chariot whirls him up and down
Some three or four miles out of town;
For thither sober folks repair,
To take the Dust, which they call air.
Dull folly (not the wanton wild
Imagination's younger child)
Has taken lodgings in his face,
As finding that a vacant place,
And peeping from his windows, tells
To all beholders, where she dwells.
Yet once a week, this purse-proud cit,
Shall ape the sallies of a wit,
And after ev'ry Sunday's dinner,
To priestly saint, or city sinner,
Shall tell the story o'er and o'er,
H'as told a thousand times before;
Like gamesters, who, with eager zeal,
Talk the game o'er between the deal.

Mark! how the fools and knaves admire
And chuckle with their Sunday 'squire:
While he looks pleas'd at every guest,
And laughs much louder than the rest;

And cackling with incessant grin,
Triples the Double of his chin.

Birth, rank, and wealth, have wond'rous skill;
Make Wits and Statesmen when they will;
While genius holds no estimation,
From luckless want of Situation;
And, if through clouded scenes of life,
He takes dame poverty to wife,
Howe'er he work and teize his brain,
His pound of wit scarce weighs a grain;
While with his Lordship it abounds,
And one light grain swells out to pounds.

Receive, good sir, with aspect kind,
This wanton gallop of the mind;
But, since all things encrease in worth,
Proportion'd to their rank and birth;
Lest you should think the letter base,
While I supply the poet's place,
I'll tell you whence and what I am,
My Breed, my Blood, my Sire, my Dam.

My Sire was Pindar's Eagle, son
Of Pegasus of Helicon;

My Dam, the Hippogryph, which whirl'd
Astolpho to the lunar world.
Both high-bred things of mettled blood,
The best in all Apollo's stud.

Now Critics here would bid me speak
The old horse language, that is Greek;
For Homer made us talk, you know,
Almost three thousand years ago;
And men of Taste and Judgment fine,
Allow the passage is divine.
They were fine mettled things indeed,
And of peculiar strength and breed;
What leaps they took, how far and wide!
—They'd take a country at a stride.
How great each leap, Longinus knew,
Who from dimensions ta'en of two,
Affirms, with equal ardour whirld,
A third, good lord! would clear the world.

But till some learned wight shall shew
If Accents must be us'd, or no,
A doubt, which puzzles all the wise
Of giant and of pigmy size,
Who waste their time, and fancies vex
With asper, lenis, circumflex,

And talk of mark and punctuation,
As 'twere a matter of salvation;
For when your pigmies take the pen
They fancy they grow up to Men,
And think they keep the world in awe
By brandishing a very Straw.
Till they have clear'd this weighty doubt,
Which they'll be centuries about,
As a plain nag, in homely phrase,
I'll use the language of our days;
And, for this first and only time,
Just make a trot in easy rhime.

Nor let it shock your thought or sight,
That thus a quadruped should write;
Read but the papers, and you'll see
More prodigies of wit than me;
Grown men and Sparrows taught to dance,
By monsieur Passerat from France;
The learned dog, the learned mare,
The learned bird, the learned hare;
And all are fashionable too,
And play at cards as well as you.

Of paper, pen, and ink posscss'd,
With saculties of writing blest,

Why should not I then, Hownnyhwm bred
(A word that must be seen, not said)
Rid you of all that anxious care,
Which good folks feel for good and fair,
And which your looks betray'd indeed,
To more discerning eyes of steed;
When in the shape of useful hack,
I bore a poet on my back?

Know, safely rode my master's bride,
The bard before her for my guide.
Yet think not, sir, his awkward care
Ensur'd protection to the fair.
No—conscious of the prize I bore,
My wayward footsteps slipt no more.
For though I scorn the Poet's skill,
My mistress guides me where she will.

Abstract in wond'rous speculation,
Lost in laborious meditation,
As whether 'twould promote Sublime
If Silver could be pair'd in rhime;
Or, as the word of sweeter Tune,
Month might be clink'd instead of moon:
No wonder poets hardly know
Or what they do, or where they go.

Whether they ride or walk the street,
Their heads are always on their feet;
They now and then may get astride
Th' ideal Pegasus, and ride
Prodigious journeys—round a room,
As boys ride cock-horse on a broom.

Whether Acrostics teize the brain,
Which goes a hunting words in vain,
(For words most capitally sin,
Unless their letters right begin.)
Since how to man or woman's name,
Could you or I Acrostic frame.
Or make the staring letters join,
To form the word, that tells us thine,
Unless we'ad right initials got,
S, C, O, T, and so made Scot?
Or whether Rebus, Riddle's brother
(Both which had Dullness for their mother)
Employ the gentle poet's care,
To celebrate some town or fair,
Which all ad libitum he slits
For you to pick it up by bits,
Which bits together plac'd, will frame
Some city's or some lady's name;

As when a worm is cut in twain,
It joins and is a worm again;
When thoughts so weighty, so intense,
Above the reach of common sense,
Distract and twirl the mind about,
Which fain would hammer something out;
A kind discharge relieves the mind,
As folks are eas'd by breaking wind;
Whatever whims or maggots bred
Take place of sense in poet's head,
They fix themselves without controul,
Where'er its seat is on the soul.
Then, like your heathen idols, we
Have eyes indeed, but cannot see.
(We, for I take the poet's part,
And for my blood, am Bard at heart)
For in reflection deep immerst,
The man muse-bitten and be-verst,
Neglectful of externals all,
Will run his head against a wall,
Walk thro' a river as it flows,
Nor see the bridge before his nose.

Are things like these equestrians fit
To mount the back of mettled tit?

Are—but farewell, for here comes Bob,
And I must serve some hackney job;
Fetch letters, or, for recreation,
Transport the bard to our Plantation.

Robert joins compts with Burnam Black.
Your humble servant Hanbury's hack.

THE NEW-RIVER HEAD.

A TALE.

ATTEMPTED IN THE MANNER OF MR. C. DENIS.

INSCRIBED TO JOHN WILKES, ESQ

Labitur & labetur in omne volubilis ævum.
Hor.

Dear Wilkes, whose lively social Wit
Disdains the prudish Affectation
Of gloomy Folks, who love to sit
As Doctors should at Consultation,
Permit me, in familiar Strain,
To steal you from the idle hour
Of combating the Northern Thane,
And all his puppet tools of Pow'r.

Shame to the Wretch, if sense of shame
Can ever touch the miscreant's breast,
Who dead to virtue as to fame,
(A Monster whom the Gods detest)

Turns traitor to himself, to court
Or Minister or Monarch's smile;
And dares, in insolence of sport,
Invade the Charter of our Isle.

But why should I, who only strive
By telling of an easy tale,
To keep attention half alive
'Gainst Bolgolam and Flimnap rail?
For whether England be the name,
(Name which we're taught no more to prize)
Or Britain, it is all the same,
The Lilliputian Statesmen rise
To malice of gigantic size.
Let them enjoy their warmth a while,
Truth shall regard them with a smile,
While you, like Gulliver, in sport
Piss out the fire, and save the Court.
But to return—The tale is old;
Indecent, truly none of mine—
What Beroaldus gravely told;
I read it in that sound divine.
And for indecency, you know
He had a fashionable turn,
As prim observers clearly shew
In t'other Parson, Doctor Sterne.

Yet Pope denies it all defence,
And calls it, bless us! Want of sense.
But e'en the decent Pope can write
Of bottles, corks, and maiden sighs,
Of charming beauties less in sight,
Of the more secret precious hair,
“And something else of little Size,
You know where.”
If such Authorities prevail,
To varnish o'er this petty sin,
I plead a pardon for my tale,
And having hemm'd and cough'd—begin.

A Genius (one of those I mean,
We read of in th' Arabian nights;
Not such as every day are seen
At Bob's or Arthur's, whilom White's;
For howsoe'er you change the name,
The Clubs and Meetings are the same;
Nor those prodigious learned solks,
Your Haberdashers of stale Jokes,
Who dress them up so neat and clean
For News-paper or Magazine;

But one that could play wond'rous tricks,
Changing the very course of Nature,
Not Asmodeus on two sticks
Or sage Urganda could do greater.)

Once on a time incog came down
From his equivocal dominions,
And travell'd o'er a country town
To try folks tempers and opinions.
When to accomplish his intent
(For had the cobler known the king,
Lord! it would quite have spoil'd the thing)
In strange disguise he slily went
And stump'd along the high-way track,
With greasy knapsack at his back;
And now the night was pitchy dark,
Without one star's indulgent spark,
Whether he wanted sleep or not,
Is of no consequence to tell;
A bed and lodging must be got,
For geniuses live always well.

At the best house in all the town,
(It was th' attorney's you may swear)
He knock'd as he'd have beat it down,
Knock as you would, no entrance there.

But from the window cried the dame,
Go, sirrah go, from whence you came.
Here, Nell, John, Thomas, see who knocks,
Fellow, I'll put you in the stocks.
Be gentle ma'm, the Genius cried;
Have mercy on the wand'ring poor,
Who knows not where his head to hide,
And asks a pittance at your door.
A mug of beer, a crust of bread—
Have pity on the houseless head;
Your husband keeps a lordly table,
I ask but for the offal crumbs,
And for a lodging—barn or stable
Will shroud me till the morning comes.

'Twas all in vain; she rang the bell,
The servants trembl'd at the knell;
Down flew the maids to tell the men,
To drive the vagrant back agen.

He trudg'd away in angry mind,
And thought but cheaply of mankind,
Till thro' a casement's dingy pane,
A rush-light's melancholy ray,
Bad him e'en try his luck again;
Perhaps beneath a house of clay

A wand'ring passenger might find,
A better friend to human kind,
And far more hospitable fare,
Tho' not so costly, nice, or rare,
As smokes upon the silver plate
Of the luxurious pamper'd great.

So to this cot of homely thatch,
In the same plight the genius came:
Down comes the dame, lifts up the latch;
What want ye sir?
God save you, dame.
And so he told the piteous tale,
Which you have heard him tell before;
Your patience and my own would fail
Were I to tell it o'er and o'er.
Suffice it, that my goody's care
Brought forth her best, tho' simple fare,
And from the corner-cupboard's hoard,
Her stranger guest the more to please,
Bespread her hospitable board
With what she had—'twas bread and cheese.

'Tis honest tho' but homely cheer;
Much good may't do ye, eat your fill,
Would I cou'd treat you with strong beer,
But for the action take the will,

You see my cot is clean, tho' small,
Pray heav'n encrease my slender stock!
You're welcome, friend, you see my all;
And for your bed, Sir, there's a flock.

No matter what was after said,
He eat and drank and went to bed.

And now the cock his mattins sung,
(Howe'er such singing's light esteem'd,
'Tis precious in the Muses' tongue
When sung rimes better than he scream'd)
The dame and pedlar both arose,
At early dawn of rising day,
She for her work of folding cloaths,
And He to travel on his way;
But much he thought himself to blame,
If, as in duty surely bound,
He did not thank the careful dame
For the reception he had found.
Hostess, quoth He, before I go,
I thank you for your hearty Fare;
Would it were in my pow'r to pay
My gratitude a better way;
But money now runs very low,
And I have not a doit to spare;

But if you'll take this piece of Stusf—
—No, quoth the dame, I'm poor as you,
Your kindest wishes are enough,
You're welcome, friend, farewell—Adieu.
But first reply'd the wand'ring guest,
For bed and board and homely dish,
May all things turn out for the best,
So take my blessing and my wish.
May what you first begin to do,
Create such profit and delight,
That you may do it all day through,
Nor finish till the depth of night.

Thank you, she said, and shut the door,
Turn'd to her work, and thought no more.
And now the napkin which was spread
To treat her guest with good brown bread,
She folded up with nicest care;
When lo! another napkin there!
And every folding did beget
Another and another yet.
She folds a shift—by strange encrease,
The remnant swells into a piece.
Her Caps, her Laces, all the same,
Till such a quantity of Linen,
From such a very small beginning,

Flow'd in at once upon the Dame,
Who wonder'd how the deuce it came,
That with the drap'ry she had got
Within her little shabby cot,
She might for all the town provide,
And break both York-street and Cheapside.

It happen'd that th' attorney's wife,
Who, to be sure, took much upon her,
As being one in higher Life,
Who did the Parish mighty honour,
Sent for the Dame, who, poor and willing,
Would take a job of charing work,
And sweat and toil like any Turk,
To earn a sixpence or a shilling.

She could not come, not she indeed!
She thank'd her much, but had no need.

Good news will fly as well as bad,
So out this wond'rous story came,
About the Pedlar and the Dame,
Which made th' Attorney's wife so mad,
That she resolv'd at any rate,
Spite of her pride and Lady airs,
To get the Pedlar tâte-à-tête,
And make up all the past affairs,

And tho' she wish'd him at the devil,
When he came there the night before,
Determin'd to be monstrous civil,
And drop her curtsie at the door.

Now all was racket, noise and pother,
Nell running one way, John another,
And Tom was on the coach-horse sent,
To learn which way the Pedlar went.
Thomas return'd;—the Pedlar brought.
—What could my dainty Madam say,
For not behaving as she ought,
And driving honest folks away?

Upon my word, it shocks me much,
—But there's such thieving here of late—
Not that I dream'd that you were such,
When you came knocking at my gate.
I must confess myself to blame,
And I'm afraid you lately met
Sad treatment with that homely dame,
Who lives on what her hands can get.
Walk in with me at least to-night,
And let us set all matters right.
I know my duty, and indeed
Would help a friend in time of need.

Take such refreshment as you find,
I'm sure I mean it for the best,
And give it with a willing mind
To such a grave and sober guest.

So in they came, and for his picking,
Behold the table covers spread,
Instead of Goody's cheese and bread,
With tarts, and fish, and flesh, and chicken.
And to appear in greater state,
The knives and forks with silver handles,
The candlesticks of bright (French) plate
To hold her best mould (tallow) candles,
Were all brought forth to be display'd,
In female housewifry parade.
And more the Pedlar to regale,
And make the wond'rous man her friend,
Decanters foam'd of mantling ale,
And port and claret without end;
They hobb'd and nobb'd, and smil'd and laugh'd,
Touch'd glasses, nam'd their toasts, and quaff'd;
Talk'd over every friend and foe,
Till eating, drinking, talking past,
The kind house-clock struck twelve at last.
When wishing Madam bon repos,
The Pedlar pleaded weary head,
Made his low bow, and went to bed.

Wishing him then at perfect ease,
A good soft bed, a good sound sleep,
Now, gentle reader, if you please,
We'll at the Lady take a peep.
She could not rest, but turn'd and toss'd,
While Fancy whisper'd in her brain,
That what her indiscretion lost,
Her art and cunning might regain.
Such Linen to so poor a dame!
For such coarse fair! perplex'd her head,
Why might not she expect the same,
So courteous, civil, and well-bred?

And now she reckon'd up her store
Of Cambricks, Hollands, Muslins, Lawns,
Free gifts, and Purchases, and Pawns,
Resolv'd to multiply them more,
Till she had got a Stock of Linen,
Fit sor a Dowager to sin in.

The morning came, when up she got,
Most ceremoniously inclin'd
To wind up her sagacious plot,
With all that civil stuff we find
'Mongst those who talk a wond'rous deal
Of what they neither mean nor feel.

How shall I, Ma'm, reply'd the Guest,
Make you a suitable return,
For your attention and concern,
And such civilities exprest
To one, who must be still in debt
For all the kindness he has met?
For this your entertainment's sake,
If ought of good my wish can do,
May what you first shall undertake,
Last without ceasing all day through.

Madam, who kindly understood
His wish effectually good,
Strait dropp'd a curtsie wond'rous low,
For much she wanted him to go,
That she might look up all her store,
And turn it into thousands more.
Now all the maids were sent to look
In every cranny, hole and nook,
For every rag which they could find
Of any size, or any kind.
Draw'rs, Boxes, Closets, Chests and Cases
Were all unlock'd at once to get
Her Point, her Gawz, her Prussia-net,
With fifty names of fifty kinds,
Which suit variety of minds.

How shall I now my tale pursue,
So passing strange, so passing true?

When every bit from every hoard,
Was brought and laid upon the board,
Lest some more urgent obligation
Might interrupt her pleasing toil,
And marring half her application,
The promis'd hopes of profit spoil,
Before she folds a single rag,
Or takes a cap from board or bag,
That nothing might her work prevent,
(For she was now resolv'd to labour,
With earnest hope and full intent
To get the better of her neighbour)
Into the garden she would go
To do that necessary thing,
Which must by all be done, you know,
By rich and poor, and high and low,
By Male and Female, Queen and King,
She little dream'd a common action,
Practis'd as duly as her pray'rs,
Should prove so tedious a transaction,
Or cost her such a sea of cares.

In short the streams so plenteous flow'd,
That in the dry and dusty weather,
She might have water'd all the road
For ten or twenty miles together.
What could she do? as it began,
Th' involuntary torrent ran.
Instead of folding Cap or Mob,
So dreadful was this distillation,
That from a simple watering job,
She fear'd a general Inundation.
While for her Indiscretion's crime,
And coveting too great a store,
She made a river at a time,
Which sure was never done before.

Rape of the Lock.

Pope's Letters.

A FAMILIAR LETTER OF RHIMES

TO A LADY.

Yes—I could rifle grove and bow'r
And strip the beds of every flow'r,
And deck them in their fairest hue,
Merely to be out-blush'd by you.
The lily pale, by my direction,
Should fight the rose for your complexion;
Or I could make up sweetest posies,
Fit fragrance for the ladies' noses,
Which drooping, on your breast reclining,
Should all be withering, dying, pining,
Which every songster can display,
I've more authorities than Gay;
Nay, I could teach the globe its duty
To pay all homage to your beauty,
And, wit's creative pow'r to show,
The very fire should mix with snow;
Your eyes, that brandish burning darts
To scorch and singe our tinder hearts,
Should be the lamps for lover's ruin,
And light them to their own undoing;

While all the snow about your breast
Should leave them hopeless and distrest.

For those who rarely soar above
The art of coupling love and dove,
In their conceits and amorous fictions,
Are mighty fond of contradictions,
Above, in air; in earth, beneath;
And things that do, or do not breathe,
All have their parts, and separate place,
To paint the fair one's various grace.

Her cheek, her eye, her bosom show
The rose, the lily, diamond, snow.
Jet, milk, and amber, vales and mountains,
Stars, rubies, suns, and mossy fountains,
The poet gives them all a share
In the description of his fair.
She burns, she chills, she pierces hearts,
With locks, and bolts, and flames, and darts.
And could we trust th' extravagancy
Of every poet's youthful fancy,
They'd make each nymph they love so well,
As cold as snow, as hot as——

—O gentle lady, spare your fright,
No horrid rhime shall wound your sight.
I would not for the world be heard,
To utter such unseemly word,
Which the politer parson fears
To mention to politer ears.

But, could a female form be shown,
(The thought, perhaps, is not my own)
Where every circumstance should meet
To make the poet's nymph compleat
Form'd to his fancy's utmost pitch,
She'd be as ugly as a witch.

Come then, O muse, of trim conceit,
Muse, always fine, but never neat,
Who to the dull unsated ear
Of French or Tuscan Sonneteer,
Tak'st up the same unvaried tone,
Like the Scotch bagpipe's favourite drone,
Squeezing out thoughts in ditties quaint,
To poet's mistress, whore, or saint;
Whether thou dwell'st on ev'ry grace,
Which lights the world from Laura's sace,
Or amorous praise expatiates wide
On beauties which the nymph must hide;

For wit affected, loves to show
Her every charm from top to toe,
And wanton fancy oft pursues
Minute description from the muse,
Come and pourtray, with pencil fine,
The poet's mortal nymph divine.

Her golden locks of classic hair,
Are nets to catch the wanton air;
Her forehead ivory, and her eyes
Each a bright sun to light the skies,
Orb'd in whose centre, Cupid aims
His darts, protect us! tipt with flames;
While the sly god's unerring bow
Is the half circle of her brow.
Each lip a ruby, parting, shews
The precious pearl in even rows,
And all the loves and graces sleek
Bathe in the dimples of her cheek.
Her breasts pure snow, or white as milk,
Are ivory apples, smooth as silk,
Or else, as fancy trips on faster,
Fine marble hills or alabaster.

A figure made of wax wou'd please
More than an aggregate of these,

Which though they are of precious worth,
And held in great esteem on earth,
What are they, rightly understood,
Compar'd to real flesh and blood?

And I, who hate to act by rules
Of whining, rhiming, loving fools,
Can never twist my mind about
To find such strange resemblance out,
And simile that's only fit
To shew my plenteous lack of wit.
Therefore, omitting flames and darts,
Wounds, sighs and tears, and bleeding hearts,
Obeying, what I here declare,
Makes half my happiness, the Fair,
The favourite subject I pursue,
And write, as who would not, for you.

Perhaps my muse, a common curse,
Errs in the manner of her verse,
Which, slouching in the doggrel lay,
Goes tittup all her easy way.
Yes—an Acrostic had been better,
Where each good-natured prattling letter,
Though it conceal the writer's aim,
Tells all the world his lady's name.

But all Acrostics, it is said,
Shew wond'rous pain of empty head,
Where wit is cramp'd in hard confines,
And fancy dare not jump the lines.

I love a fanciful disorder,
And straggling out of rule and order;
Impute not then to vacant head,
Or what I've writ, or what I've said,
Which imputation can't be true,
Where head and heart's so full of you.

Like Tristram Shandy, I could write
From morn to noon, from noon to night,
Sometimes obscure, and sometimes leaning
A little sideways to a meaning,
And unfatigu'd myself, pursue
The civil mode of teazing you.
For as your folks who love the dwelling
On circumstance in story telling,
And to give each relation grace,
Describe the time, the folks, the place,
And are religiously exact
To point out each unmeaning fact,
Repeat their wonders undesired,
Nor think one hearer can be tired;

So they who take a method worse,
And prose away, like me, in verse,
Worry their mistress, friends or betters,
With satire, sonnet, ode, or letters,
And think the knack of pleasing follows
Each jingling pupil of Apollo's.
—Yet let it be a venial crime
That I address you thus in rhime.
Nor think that I am Phœbus' bit
By the Tarantula of wit,
But as the meanest critic knows
All females have a knack at prose,
And letters are the mode of writing
The ladies take the most delight in;
Bold is the man, whose saucy aim
Leads him to form a rival claim;
A double death the victim dies,
Wounded by wit as well as eyes.

—With mine disgrace a lady's prose,
And put a nettle next a rose?
Who would so long as taste prevails,
Compare St. James's with Versailles?
The nightingale, as story goes,
Fam'd for the music of his woes,

In vain against the artist try'd,
But strain'd his tuneful throat—and died.

Perhaps I sought the rhiming way,
For reasons which have pow'rful sway.
The swain, no doubt, with pleasure sues
The nymph he's sure will not refuse,
And more compassion may be found
Amongst these goddesses of sound,
Than always happens to the share
Of the more cruel human fair;
Who love to fix their lover's pains,
Pleas'd with the rattling of their chains,
Rejoicing in their servant's grief,
As 'twere a sin to give relief.
They twist each easy fool about,
Nor let them in, nor let them out,
But keep them twirling on the fire
Of apprehension and desire,
As cock-chafers, with corking pin
The school-boy stabs, to make them spin.

For 'tis a maxim in love's school,
To make a man of sense a fool;
I mean the man, who loves indeed,
And hopes and wishes to succeed;

But from his fear and apprehension,
Which always mars his best intention,
Can ne'er address with proper ease
The very person he would please.

Now poets, when these nymphs refuse,
Strait go a courting to the muse.
But still some difference we find
'Twixt goddesses and human kind;
The muses' favours are ideal,
The ladies' scarce, but always real.
The poet can, with little pain,
Create a mistress in his brain,
Heap each attraction, every grace
That should adorn the mind or face,
On Delia, Phyllis, with a score
Of Phyllisses and Delias more.
Or as the whim of passion burns,
Can court each frolic muse by turns;
Nor shall one word of blame be said,
Altho' he take them all to bed.
The muse detests coquettry's guilt,
Nor apes the manners of a jilt.

Jilt! O dishonest hatesul name,
Your sex's pride, your sex's shame,

Which often bait their treacherous hook
With smile endearing, winning look,
And wind them in the easy heart
Of man, with most ensnaring art,
Only to torture and betray
The wretch they mean to cast away.
No doubt 'tis charming pleasant angling
To see the poor fond creatures dangling,
Who rush like gudgeons to the bait,
And gorge the mischief they should hate.
Yet sure such cruelties deface
Your virtues of their fairest grace.
And pity, which in woman's breast,
Should swim at top of all the rest,
Must such insidious sport condemn,
Which play to you, is death to them.

So have I often read or heard,
Though both upon a trav'llers word,
(Authority may pass it down,
So, vide Travels, by Ed. Brown)
At Metz, a dreadful engine stands,
Form'd like a maid, with folded hands,
Which finely drest, with primmest grace,
Rcceives the culprit's sirst embrace;

But at the second (dismal wonder!)
Unfolds, clasps, cuts his heart asunder.

You'll say, perhaps, I love to rail,
We'll end the matter with a tale.

A Robin once, who lov'd to stray,
And hop about from spray to spray,
Familiar as the folks were kind,
Nor thought of mischief in his mind,
Slight favours make the bold presume,
Would flutter round the lady's room,
And careless often take his stand
Upon the lovely Flavia's hand.
The nymph, 'tis said, his freedom sought,
—In short, the trifling fool was caught;
And happy in the fair one's grace,
Would not accept an Eagle's place.
And while the nymph was kind as fair,
Wish'd not to gain his native air.
But thought he bargain'd to his cost,
To gain the liberty he lost.

Till at the last, a fop was seen,
A parrot, dress'd in red and green,

Who could not boast one genuine note,
But chatter'd, swore and ly'd—by rote.
“Nonsense and noise will oft prevail,
“When honour and affection fail.”
The lady lik'd her foreign guest,
For novelty will please the best;
And whether it is lace or fan,
Or silk, or china, bird or man,
None sure can think it wrong, or strange,
That ladies should admire a change.
The Parrot now came into play,
The Robin! he had had his day,
But could not brook the nymph's disdain,
So fled—and ne'er came back again.

THE COBLER OF TISSINGTON'S LETTER

TO DAVID GARRICK, ESQ. 1761.

My predecessors often use
To coble verse as well as shoes;
As Partridge (vide Swift's disputes)
Who turned Bootes into boots,
Ah!—Partridge!—I'll be bold to say
Was a rare scholar in his day;
He'd tell you when t'wou'd rain, and when
The weather would be fine agen;
Precisely when your bones should ache,
And when grow sound, by th' almanack.
For he knew ev'ry thing, d'ye see,
By what d'ye call't, astrology,
And skill'd in all the starry system,
Foretold events, and often mist'em.
And then it griev'd me sore to look
Just at the heel-piece of his book,
Where stood a man, Lord bless my heart!
(No doubt by matthew maticks art,)

Naked, expos'd to public view,
And darts stuck in him through and through.
I warrant him some hardy fool,
Who scorn'd to follow wisdom's rule,
And dar'd blasphemously despise
Our doctor's knowledge in the skies.
Full dearly he abides his laugh,
I'm sure 'tis Swift, or Bickerstaff.

Excuse this bit of a digression,
A cobler's is a learn'd profession.
Why may not I too couple rhimes?
My wit will not disgrace the times;
I too, forsooth, among the rest,
Claim one advantage, and the best,
I scarce know writing, have no reading,
Nor any kind of scholar breeding;
And wanting that's the sole foundation
Of half your poets' reputation.
While genius, perfect at its birth,
Springs up, like mushrooms from the earth.

You know they send me to and fro
To carry messages or so;
And tho' I'm somewhat old and crazy,
I'm still of service to the lazy.

For our good squire has no great notion
Of much alacrity in motion,
And when there's miles betwixt, you know
Would rather send by half, than go;
Then I'm dispatch'd to travel hard,
And bear myself by way of card.
I'm a two-legg'd excuse to show
Why other people cannot go;
And merit sure I must assume,
For once I went in Garrick's room.

In my old age, 'twere wond'rous hard
To come to town, as trav'lling card,
Then let the post convey me there,
The clerk's direction tell him where,
For, tho' I ramble at this rate
He writes it all, and I dictate;
For I'm resolv'd—by help of neighbour,
(Who keeps a school, and goes to labour)
To tell you all things as they past;
Coblers will go beyond their last,
And so I'm told will authors too,
—But that's a point I leave to you;
Cobling extends a thousand ways,
Some coble shoes, some coble plays;

Some—but this jingle's vastly clever,
It makes a body write for ever.
While with the motion of the pen,
Method pops in and out agen,
So, as I said, I thought it better,
To set me down and think a letter,
And without any more ado,
Seal up my mind, and send it you.
You'll ask me, master, why I chuse
To plague your worship with my muse?
I'll tell you then—will truth offend?
Tho' cobler, yet I love my friend.
Besides, I like you merry folks,
Who make their puns, and crack their jokes;
Your jovial hearts are never wrong,
I love a story, or a song;
But always feel most grievous qualms,
From Westley's hymns, or Wisdom's psalms.

My father often told me, one day
Was for religion—that was Sunday,
When I should go to prayers twice,
And hear our parson battle vice;
And dress'd in all my finest cloaths,
Twang the psalmoddy thro' my nose.

But betwixt churches, for relief,
Eat bak'd plumb-pudding, and roast-beef;
And chearful, without sin, regale
With good home-brew'd, and nappy ale,
But not one word of fasting greetings,
And dry religious singing meetings.
But here comes folks a-preaching to us
A saving doctrine to undo us,
Whose notions fanciful and scurvy,
Turn old religion topsy-turvy.
I'll give my pleasure up for no man,
And an't I right now, master Show-man?
You seem'd to me a person civil,
Our parson gives you to the devil;
And says, as how, that after grace,
You laugh'd directly in his face;
Ay, laugh'd out-right (as I'm a sinner)
I should have lik'd t' have been at dinner,
Not for the sake of master's fare,
But to have seen the doctor stare.
Odzooks, I think, he's perfect mad,
Scar'd out of all the wits he had,
For wheresoe'er the doctor comes,
He pulls his wig, and bites his thumbs,
And mutters, in a broken rage,
The Minor, Garrick, Foote, the Stage;

(For I must blab it out—but hist,
His reverence is a methodist)
And preaches like an errant fury,
'Gainst all your show folks about Drury,
Says actors all are hellish imps,
And managers the devil's pimps.
He knows not what he sets about;
Puts on his surplice inside out,
Mistakes the lessons in the church,
Or leaves a collect in the lurch;
And t'other day—God help his head,
The gard'ner's wife being brought to bed,
When sent for to baptize the child
His wig awry, and staring wild,
He laid the prayer-book flat before him,
And read the burial service o'er him.
—The folks must wait without their shoes,
For I must tell you all the news.
For we have had a deal to do,
Our squire's become a show-man too!
And horse and foot arrive in flocks,
To see his worship's famous rocks,
Whilst, he with humorous delight,
Walks all about and shews the sight,
Points out the place, where trembling you
Had like t' have bid the world adieu;

It bears the sad remembrance still,
And people call it Garrick's Hill.
The goats their usual distance keep,
We never have recourse to sheep;
And the whole scene wants nothing now,
Except your ferry-boat and cow.
I had a great deal more to say,
But I am sent express away,
To setch the squire's three children down
To Tissington from Derby town;
And Allen says he'll mend my rhime,
When e'er I write a second time.

THE COBLER OF CRIPPLEGATE'S LETTER

TO ROBERT LLOYD, A. M.

Unus'd to verse, and tir'd, Heav'n knows,
Of drudging on in heavy prose,
Day after day, year after year,
Which I have sent the Gazetteer;
Now, for the first time, I essay
To write in your own easy way.
And now, O Lloyd, I wish I had,
To go that road your ambling pad,
While you, with all a poet's pride,
On the great horse of verse might ride.
You leave the road that's rough and stoney,
To pace and whistle with your poney;
Sad proof to us you're lazy grown,
And fear to gall your huckle-bone.
For he who rides a nag so small,
Will soon, we fear, ride none at all.

There are, and nought gives more offence,
Who have some fav'rite excellence,

Which evermore they introduce,
And bring it into constant use.
Thus Garrick still in ev'ry part
Has pause, and attitude, and start:
The pause, I will allow, is good,
And so, perhaps, the attitude;
The start too's fine: but if not scarce,
The tragedy becomes a farce.

I have too, pardon me, some quarrel,
With other branches of your laurel.
I hate the stile, that still defends
Yourself, or praises all your friends,
As if the club of wits was met
To make eulogiums on the Set;
Say, must the town for ever hear,
And no Reviewer dare to sneer,
Of Thornton's humour, Garrick's nature,
And Colman's wit, and Churchill's satire?
Churchill, who—let it not offend,
If I make free, tho' he's your friend,
And sure we cannot want excuse,
When Churchill's nam'd, for smart abuse—
Churchill! who ever loves to raise
On slander's dung his mushroom bays:

The priest, I grant, has something clever,
A something that will last for ever.
Let him, in part, be made your pattern,
Whose muse, now queen, and now a slattern,
Trick'd out in Rosciad rules the roast,
Turns trapes and trollop in the Ghost,
By turns both tickles us, and warms,
And, drunk or sober, has her charms.

Garrick, to whom with lath and plaister
You try to raise a fine pilaster,
And found on Lear and Macbeth,
His monument e'en after death,
Garrick's a dealer in grimaces,
A haberdasher of wry faces,
A hypocrite, in all his stages,
Who laughs and cries for hire and wages;
As undertakers' men draw grief
From onion in their handkerchief,
Like real mourners cry and sob,
And of their passions make a job.

And Colman too, that little sinner,
That essay-weaver, drama-spinner,
Too much the comic Sock will use,
For 'tis the law must find him Shoes.

100

And tho' he thinks on fame's wide ocean
He swims, and has a pretty motion,
Inform him, Lloyd, for all his grin
That Harry Fielding holds his chin.

Now higher soar, my muse, and higher,
To Bonnel Thornton, hight Esquire!
The only man to make us laugh,
A very Peter Paragraph;
The grand conducter and adviser
In Chronicle, and Advertiser,
Who still delights to run his rig
On Citizen and Periwig!
Good sense, I know, tho' dash'd with oddity,
In Thornton is no scarce commodity:
Much learning too I can descry,
Beneath his periwig doth lie.—
—I beg his pardon, I declare,
His grizzle's gone for greasy hair,
Which now the wag with ease can scrue,
With dirty ribband in a queue—
But why neglect (his trade forsaking
For scribbling, and for merry-making,)
With tye to overshade that brain,
Which might have shone in Warwick-Lane?

101

Why not, with spectacles on nose,
In chariot lazily repose,
A formal, pompous, deep physician,
Himself a Sign-post exhibition?

But hold, my Muse! you run a-head:
And where's the clue that shall unthread
The maze, wherein you are entangled?
While out of tune the bells are jangled
Thro' rhimes rough road that serve to deck
My jaded Pegasus his neck.
My muse with Lloyd alone contends:
Why then fall foul upon his friends?
Unless to shew, like handy-dandy,
Or Churchill's Ghost, or Tristram Shandy,
Now here, now there, with quick progression,
How smartly you can make digression:
Your rambling spirit now confine,
And speak to Lloyd in ev'ry line.

Tell me then, Lloyd, what is't you mean
By cobbling up a Magazine?
A Magazine, a wretched Olio
Purloin'd from quarto and from folio,
From Pamphlet, News-paper, and Book;
Which tost up by a monthly cook,

102

Borrows fine shapes, and titles new,
Of fricasee and rich ragoût,
Which dunces dress, as well as you.

Say, is't for you, your wit to coop,
And tumble thro' this narrow hoop?
The body thrives, and so the mind,
When both are free and unconfin'd;
But harness'd in like hackney tit,
To run the monthly stage of wit,
The racer stumbles in the shaft,
And shews he was not meant for draft.
Pot-bellied gluttons, slaves of taste,
Who bind in leathern belt their waist,
Who lick their lips at ham or haunch,
But hate to see the strutting paunch,
Full often rue the pain that's felt
From circumscription of the belt.
Thus women too we ideots call,
Who lace their shapes too close and small.
Tight stays, they find, oft end in humps,
And take, too late, alas! to jumps.
The Chinese ladies cramp their seet,
Which seem, indeed, both small and neat,
While the dear creatures laugh and talk,
And can do ev'ry thing—but walk;

103

Thus you, “who trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe,”
And in the Ring are ever seen,
Or Rotten-Row of Magazine,
Will cramp your muse in four-foot verse,
And find at last your ease your curse.
Cllo already humbly begs
You'd give her leave to stretch her legs,
For tho' sometimes she takes a leap,
Yet quadrupeds can only creep.

While Namby-Pamby thus you scribble,
Your manly genius a mere fribble,
Pinn'd down, and sickly, cannot vapour,
Nor dares to spring, or cut a caper.

Rouse then, for shame, your ancient spirit!
Write a great work! a work of merit!
The conduct of your friend examine,
And give a Prophecy of Famine;
Or like yourself, in days of yore,
Write Actors, as you did before:
Write what may pow'rful friends create you,
And make your present friends all hate you.
Learn not a shuffling, shambling, pace,
But go erect with manly grace;

104

For Ovid says, and pr'ythee heed it,
Os homini sublime dedit.
But if you still waste all your prime
In spinning Lilliputian rhyme,
Too long your genius will lie fallow,
And Robert Lloyd be Robert Shallow.

105

ON RHYME.

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO A FRIEND.

Bring paper, Ash, and let me send
My hearty service to my friend.

How pure the paper looks and white!
What pity 'tis that folks will write,
And on the face of candour scrawl
With desperate ink, and heart of gall!
Yet thus it often fares with those
Who, gay and easy in their prose,
Incur ill-nature's ugly crime,
And lay about 'em in their rhyme.

No man more generous, frank and kind,
Of more ingenuous social mind,
Than Churchill, yet tho' Churchill hear,
I will pronounce him too severe,
For, whether scribbled at or not,
He writes no name without a blot.

Yet let me urge one honest plea,
Say, is the Muse in fault or He?

106

The man, whose genius thirsts for praise,
Who boldly plucks, not waits the bays;
Who drives his rapid car along,
And feels the energy of song;
Writes, from the impulse of the Muse,
What sober reason might refuse.

My Lord, who lives and writes at ease,
(Sure to be pleas'd, as sure to please)
And draws from silver-stand his pen,
To scribble sonnets now and then;
Who writes not what he truly feels,
But rather what he slily steals,
And patches up, in courtly phrase,
The manly sense of better days;
Whose dainty Muse is only kist;
But as his dainty Lordship list,
Who treats her like a Mistress still,
To turn her off, and keep at will;
Knows not the labour, pains, and strife,
Of him who takes the Muse to Wife.
For then the poor good-natur'd man
Must bear his burden as he can;
And if my lady prove a shrew,
What would you have the husband do?

107

Say, should he thwart her inclination
To work his own, and her vexation?
Or, giving madam all her rein,
Make marriage but a silken chain?
Thus we, who lead poetic lives,
The hen-peck'd culls of vixen wives,
Receive their orders, and obey,
Like husbands in the common way:
And when we write with too much phlegm,
The fault is not in us, but them:
True servants always at command,
We hold the pen, they guide the hand.

Why need I urge so plain a fact
To you who catch me in the act?
And see me, (ere I've said my grace,
That is, put Sir in proper place,
Or with epistolary bow,
Have prefac'd, as I scarce know how.)
You see me, as I said before,
Run up and down a page or more,
Without one word of tribute due
To friendship's altar, and to you.
Accept, then, in or out of time,
My honest thanks, tho' writ in rhyme.

108

And these once paid (to obligations
Repeated thanks grow stale vexations,
And hurt the liberal donor more
Than all his lavish gifts before)
I skip about, as whim prevails,
Like your own frisky goats in Wales,
And follow where the Muse shall lead,
O'er hedge and ditch, o'er hill or mead.

Well might the Lordly writer praise
The first inventor of Essays,
Where wanton fancy gaily rambles,
Walks, paces, gallops, trots, and ambles;
And all things may be sung or said,
While drowsy Method's gone to bed.
And blest the poet, or the rhymist,
(For surely none of the sublimest)
Who prancing in his easy mode,
Down this epistolary road;
First taught the Muse to play the fool,
A truant from the pedant's school,
And skipping, like a tasteless dunce,
O'er all the Unities at once;

109

(For so we keep but clink and rhyme,
A fig for Action, Place, and Time.)

But critics (who still judge by rules,
Transmitted down as guides to fools,
And howsoe'er they prate about 'em,
Drawn from wise folks who writ without 'em)
Will blame this frolic, wild excursion,
Which fancy takes for her diversion,
As inconsistent with the law,
Which keeps the sober Muse in awe,
Who dares not for her life dispense,
With such mechanic chains for sense.

Yet men are often apt to blame
Those errors they'd be proud to claim,
And if their skill, of pigmy size,
To glorious darings cannot rise,
From critic spleen and pedant phlegm,
Would make all genius creep with them.

Nay, e'en professors of the art,
To prove their wit betray their heart,
And speak against themselves, to show,
What they would hate the world shou'd know.

110

As when the measur'd couplets curse,
The manacles of Gothic verse,
While the trim bard in easy strains,
Talks much of fetters, clogs, and chains;
He only aims that you should think,
How charmingly he makes them clink.
So have I seen in tragic stride,
The hero of the Mourning Bride,
Sullen and sulky tread the stage,
Till, fixt attention to engage,
He flings his fetter'd arms about,
That all may find Alphonso out.

Oft have I heard it said by those,
Who most shou'd blush to be her foes,
That rhyme's impertinent vexation,
Shackles the brave imagination,
Which longs with eager zeal to try
Her trackless path above the sky,
But that the clog upon her feet,
Restrains her flight, and damps her heat.

From Boileau down to his translators,
Dull paraphrasts, and imitators,
All rail at metre at the time
They write and owe their sense to rhyme.

111

Had he so maul'd his gentle foe,
But for that lucky word Quineaut?
Or had his strokes been half so fine,
Without that closing name Cotin?
Yet dares He on this very theme,
His own Apollo to blaspheme,
And talk of wars 'twixt rhyme and sense,
And murders which ensu'd from thence,
As if they both resolv'd to meet,
Like Theban sons, in mutual heat,
Forgetful of the ties of brother,
To maim and massacre each other.

'Tis true, sometimes to costive brains,
A couplet costs exceeding pains;
But where the fancy waits the skill
Of fluent easy dress at will,
The thoughts are oft, like colts which stray
From fertile meads, and lose their way,
Clapt up and fasten'd in the pound
Of measur'd rhyme, and barren sound.

—What are these jarring notes I hear,
Grating harsh discord on my ear!
How shrill, how coarse, th' unsettl'd tone,
Alternate 'twixt a squeak and drone,

112

Worse than the scrannel pipe of straw,
Or music grinding on a saw!
Will none that horrid fiddle break?
—O spare it for Giardini's sake.
'Tis His, and only errs by chance,
Play'd by the hand of ignorance.

From this allusion I infer,
'Tis not the art, but artists err,
And rhyme's a fiddle, sweet indeed,
When touch'd by those who well can lead,
Whose varied notes harmonious flow,
In tones prolong'd from sweeping bow;
But harsh the sounds to ear and mind,
From the poor fidler lame and blind,
Who begs in music at your door,
And thrums Jack Latin o'er and o'er.

Some Milton-mad (an affectation
Glean'd up from college education)
Approve no verse, but that which flows
In epithetic measur'd prose,
With trim expressions gaily drest
Stol'n, misapply'd, and not confest,
And call it writing in the stile
Of that great Homer of our isle.

113

Whilom, what time, eftoons and erst,
(So prose is oftentimes beverst)
Sprinkled with quaint fantastic phrase,
Uncouth to ears of modern days,
Make up the metre, which they call
Blank, classick blank, their All in All.

Can only blank admit sublime?
Go, read and measure Dryden's rhyme.
Admire the magic of his song,
See how his numbers roll along,
With ease and strength and varied pause,
Nor cramp'd by sound, nor metre's laws.

Is harmony the gift of rhyme?
Read, if you can, your Milton's chime;
Where taste, not wantonly severe,
May find the measure, not the ear.

As rhyme, rich rhyme, was Dryien's choice,
And blank has Milton's nobler voice,
I deem it as the subjects lead,
That either measure will succeed.
That rhyme will readily admit
Of fancy, numbers, force and wit;

114

But tho' each couplet has its strength,
It palls in works of epic length.

For who can bear to read or hear,
Tho' not offensive to the ear,
The mighty Blackmore gravely sing
Of Arthur Prince, and Arthur King,
Heroic poems without number,
Long, lifeless, leaden, lulling lumber;
Nor pity such laborious toil,
And loss of midnight time and oil?
Yet glibly runs each jingling line,
Smoother, perhaps, than yours or mine,
But still, (tho' peace be to the dead,)
The dull, dull poems weigh down lead.

So have I seen upon the road,
A waggon of a mountain's load,
Broad-wheel'd, and drawn by horses eight,
Pair'd like great folks who strut in state:
While the gay steeds, as proud as strong,
Drag the slow tottering weight along,
Each as the steep ascent he climbs,
Moves to his bells, and walks in chimes.

115

The Muses dwelt on Ovid's tongue,
For Ovid never said, but sung,
And Pope (for Pope affects the same)
In numbers lisp'd, for numbers came.
Thus, in historic page I've read
Of some queen's daughter, fairy-bred,
Who could not either cough or spit,
Without some precious slow of wit,
While her fair lips were as a spout,
To tumble pearls and diamonds out.

Yet, tho' dame nature may bestow
This knack of verse, and jingling flow:
(And thousands have that impulse felt,
With whom the Muses never dwelt)
Tho' it may save the lab'ring brain
From many a thought-perplexing pain,
And while the rhyme presents itself,
Leaves Bysshe untouch'd upon the shelf;
Yet more demands the critic ear,
Than the two catch-words in the rear,
Which stand like watchmen in the close,
To keep the verse from being prose.
But when reflexion has refin'd
This boist'rous bias of the mind,

116

When harmony enriches sense,
And borrows stronger charms from thence,
When genius steers by judgment's laws,
When proper cadence, varied pause
Shew nature's strength combin'd with art,
And thro' the ear possess the heart;
Then numbers come, and all before
Is bab, dab, scab—mere rhymes—no more.

Some boast, which none could e'er impart,
A secret principle of art,
Which gives a melody to rhyme
Unknown to Bards in antient time.
And Boileau leaves it as a rule
To all who enter Phoebus' school,
To make the metre strong and fine,
Poets write first your second line.
'Tis folly all—No poet flows
In tuneful verse, who thinks in prose;
And all the mighty secret here
Lies in the niceness of the ear.

E'en in this measure, when the muse,
With genuine ease, her way pursues,
Tho' she affect to hide her skill,
And walks the town in deshabille,

117

Something peculiar will be seen
Of air, or grace, in shape or mien,
Which will, tho' carelesly display'd,
Distinguish Madam from her maid.

Here, by the way of critic sample,
I give the precept and example.
Four feet, you know, in ev'ry line
Is Prior's measure, and is mine;
Yet Taste wou'd ne'er forgive the crime
To talk of mine with Prior's rhyme.

Yet, take it on a Poet's word,
There are who foolishly have err'd,
And marr'd their proper reputation,
By sticking close to imitation.
A double rhyme is often sought
At strange expence of time and thought;
And tho' sometimes a lucky hit
May give a zest to Butler's wit;
Whatever makes the measure halt
Is beauty seldom, oft a fault.
For when we see the wit and pains,
The twisting of the stubborn brains,
To cramp the sense within the bound
Of some queer double treble sound.

118

Hard is the Muse's travail, and 'tis plain
'Tis pinion'd sense, and Ease in Pain;
'Tis like a foot that's wrapt about
With flannel in the racking gout.
But here, methinks, 'tis more than time
To wave both simile and rhyme;
For while, as pen and Muses please,
I talk so much of ease and ease,
Tho' the words mention'd o'er and o'er,
I scarce have thought of yours before.

'Tis true, when writing to one's friend,
'Tis a rare science when to end,
As 'tis with wits a common sin
To want th' attention to begin.
So, Sir, (at last indeed) adieu,
Believe me, as you'll find me, true;
And if henceforth, at any time,
Apollo whispers you in rhyme,
Or Lady Fancy should dispose
Your mind to sally out in prose,
I shall receive, with hallow'd awe,
The Muse's mail from Flexney's draw.

Shaftsbury.

119

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE.

TO A FRIEND WHO SENT THE AUTHOR A HAMPER OF WINE.

Decipit Exemplar vitiis imitabile.
Hor.

Fond of the loose familiar vein,
Which neither tires, nor cracks the brain,
The Muse is rather truant grown
To buckram works of higher tone;
And tho' perhaps her pow'rs of rhyme,
Might rise to fancies more sublime,
Prefers this easy down-hill road,
To dangerous leaps at five-barr'd Ode,
Or starting in the Classic race
Jack-booted for an Epic chace.

That Bard, as other Bards, divine,
Who was a sacris to the Nine,
Dan Prior I mean, with natural ease,
(For what's not nature cannot please)
Would sometimes make his rhyming bow,
And greet his friend as I do now;

120

And, howsoe'er the critic train
May hold my judgment rather vain,
Allow me one resemblance true,
I have my friend, a Sheperd too.

You know, dear Sir, the Muses nine,
Tho' sober Maids are wooed in wine,
And therefore, as beyond a doubt,
You've found my dangling foible out,
Send me nectareous Inspiration,
Tho' others read Intoxication.
For there are those who vainly use
This grand Elixir of the Muse,
And fancy in their apish fit,
And idle trick of maudlin wit,
Their genius takes a daring flight,
'Bove Pindus, or Plinlimmon's height.
Whilst more of madman than of poet,
They're drunk indeed, and do not know it.

The Bard, whose charming measure flows
With all the native ease of prose,
Who, without flashy vain pretence,
Has best adorn'd Eternal Sense,
And, in his chearful moral page,
Speaks to mankind in every age;

121

Tells us, from folks whose situation
Makes them the mark of observation,
Example oft gives Folly rise,
And Imitation clings to Vice.

Ennius could never write, 'tis said,
Without a bottle in his head;
And your own Horace quaff'd his wine
In plenteous draughts at Bacchus' shrine;
Nay, Addison would oft unbend,
T'indulge his genius, with a friend;
(For fancy, which is often dry,
Must wet her wings, or cannot fly)
What precedents for fools to follow
Are Ben, the Devil and Apollo!
While the great gawky Admiration,
Parent of stupid Imitation,
Intrinsic proper worth neglects,
And copies Errors and Defects.

The man, secure in strength of Parts,
Has no recourse to shuffling Arts,
Seeks not his nature to disguise,
Nor heeds the people's tongues, or eyes,
His wit, his faults at once displays,
Careless of envy, or of praise;

122

And soibles, which we often find
Just on the suface of the mind,
Strike common eyes, which can't discern
What to avoid, and what to learn.

Errors in wit conspicuous grow,
To use Gay's words, like specks in snow;
Yet it were kind, at least, to make
Allowance for the merit's sake;
And when such beauties fill the eye,
To let the blemishes go by.
Plague on your philosophic sots!
I'll view the sun without its spots.

Wits are peculiar in their mode;
They cannot bear the hackney road
And will contract habitual ways,
Which sober people cannot praise,
And fools admire: Such fools I hate;
—Begone, ye slaves, who imitate.

Poor Spurius! eager to destroy
And murder hours he can't enjoy,
The last of witlings, next to dunce,
Would fain turn Genius all at once,

123

But that the wretch mistakes his aim,
And thinks a Libertine the same.
Connected as the hand and glove,
Is Madam Poetry and Love.
Shall not He then possess his Muse,
And fetch Corinna from the stews,
The burthen of his amorous verse,
And charming melter of his purse,
While happy Rebus tells the name
Of His and Drury's common Flame?
How will the wretch at Bacchus' shrine,
Betray the cause of wit and wine,
And waste in bawdy, port, and pun,
In taste a very Goth or Hun,
Those little bours, of value more
Than all the round of time before;
When fancy brightens with the flask,
And the heart speaks without a mask?

Must Thou, whose genius, dull and cool,
Is muddy as the stagnant pool;
Whose torpid soul and sluggish brains,
Dullness pervades, and Wine disdains;
Must Tbou to nightly taverns run,
Apollo's guest, and Jonson's son?

124

And in thy folly's beastly fit,
Attempt the sallies of a wit?
Art thou the child of Phoebus' choir?
Think of the Adage—Ass and Lyre

If thou wouldst really succeed,
And be a mimic wit indeed,
Let Dryden lend thee Sheffield's blows,
Or like Will. Davenant lose your nose.

O Lucian, Sire of antient wit,
Who wedding, Humour, didst beget
Those doctors in the laughing school,
Those Giant sons of Ridicule,
Swift, Rab'lais, and that favourite Child,
Who, less excentrically wild,
Inverts the misanthropic Plan,
And hating vices, hates not Man:
How do I love thy gibing vein!
Which glances at the mimic train
Of sots, who proud as modern beaus
Of birth-day suits, and tinsel cloaths,

125

Affecting cynical grimace
With philosophic stupid face,
In dirty hue, with naked seet,
In rags and tatters, strole the street,
Ostensively exceeding wise;
But Knaves, and Fools, and walking Lies,
External Mimicry their plan,
The monkey's copy after Man.

Wits too possess this affectation,
And live a life of imitation,
Are Slovens, Revellers and Brutes,
Laborious, absent, prattlers, Mutes,
From some example handed down
Of some great Genius of Renown.

If Addison, from habit's trick,
Could bite his fingers to the quick,
Shall not I nibble from design,
And be an Addison to mine?
If Pope most feelingly complains
Of aching head, and throbbing pains.
My head and arm his posture hit,
And I already acbe for wit.
If Churchill, following nature's call,
Has bead tbat never acbes at all,

126

With burning brow, and heavy eye,
I'll give my looks and pain the Lye.

If huge tall words of termination,
Which ask a Critic's explanation,
Come rolling out along with thought,
And seem to stand just where they ought;
If language more in grammar drest,
With greater emphasis exprest,
Unstudied, unaffected flows,
In some great Wit's conversing prose;
If from the tongue the period round
Fall into style, and swell to sound,
'Tis nature which herself displays,
And Johnson speaks a Johnson's phrase.

But can you hear, without a smile,
The formal coxcomb ape his style,
Who, most dogmatically wise,
Attempts to censure, and despise,
Affecting what he cannot reach,
A trim propriety of speech?
What tho' his pompous Language wear
The grand decisive solemn Air,
Where quaint Antithesis prevails,
And Sentences are weighed in scales,

127

Can you bow down with reverend awe
Before this puppet king of straw?
Or hush'd in mute attention sit,
To hear this Critic, Poet, Wit,
Philosopher, all, all at once,
And to compleat them all, this—Dunce?
—All this you'll say is mighty fine,
But what has this to do with Wine?

Have patience and the Muse shall tell
What you, my friend, know full as well.
Vices in Poets, Wits and Kings,
Are catching imitable things;
And frailties standing out to view,
Become the objects fools pursue.
Thus have I pictures often seen,
Where features neither speak nor mean,
Yet spite of all the Face will strike,
And mads us that it should be like,
When all the near resemblance grows,
From scratch or pimple on the Nose.

To Poets then (I mean not here
The scribling Drudge, or scribling Peer,
Nor those who have the monthly fit,
The Lunatics of modern Wit)

128

To Poets Wine is inspiration,
Blockheads get drunk in lmitation.

As different Liquors different ways
Affect the body, sometimes raise
The fancy to an Eagle's flight,
And make the heart feel wondrous light;
At other times the circling mug,
Like Lethe's draught, or opiate drug,
Will strike the senses on a heap,
When Folks talk wise, who talk asleep;
A whimsical imagination,
Might form a whimsical relation,
How every Author writes and thinks
Analagous to what he drinks,
While quaint Conjecture's lucky hit,
Finds out his bev'rage in his Wit.

Ye goodly dray-nymph Muses, hail!
Mum, Porter, Stingo, Mild and Stale,
And chiefly thou of boasted fame,
Of Roman and Imperial name.
O Purl! all hail! thy vot'ry steals,
His stockings dangling at his heels,
To where some pendent head invites
The Bard to set his own to rights,

129

Who seeks thy influence divine,
And pours libations on thy shrine,
In wormwood draughts of inspiration,
To whet his soul for defamation.

Hail too, your Domes! whose Masters skill,
Takes up illustrious folks at will,
And careless or of place or name,
Bebeads and bangs to public fame
Fine garter'd Knights, blue, red, or green,
Lords, Earls and Dukes, nay King, or Queen,
And sometimes pairs them both together,
To dangle to the wind and weather;
Or claps some mighty General there,
Who has not any head to spare.
Or if it more his fancy suit,
Pourtrays or fish, or bird, or brute,
And lures the gaping, thirsty guest,
To Scott's entire, or Trueman's best.

Ye cbequer'd Domes thrice hail! for hence
The fire of Wit, the froth of Sense,
Here gentle Puns, ambiguous Joke,
Burst forth oracular in smoke,
And Inspiration pottle deep,
Forgets her sons, and falls asleep.

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Hence issue Treatses and Rhymes,
The Wit and Wonder of the Times,
Hence Scandal, Piracies and Lies,
Defensive Pamphlets on Excise,
The murd'rous Articles of News,
And pert Theatrical Reviews.
Hither, as to their Urns, repair,
Bard, Publisher, and minor Play'r,
And o'er the Porter's foaming head
Their venom'd malice nightly shed,
And aim their batteries of dirt
At Genius, which they cannot hurt.

Smack not tbeir works, if verse or prose
Offend your eye, or ear, or nose,
So frothy, vapid, stale, hum drum,
Of Stingo, Porter, Purl and Mum?
And when the muse politely jokes,
Cannot you find the Lady smokes?
And spite of all her inspiration,
Betrays her alchouse education?

Alas! how very few are found,
Whose style tastes neat and full and sound!
In Willmot's loose ungovern'd vein
There is, I grant, much burnt Champaign

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And Dorset's lines all palates hit,
The very Burgundy of wit.
But when, obedient to the mode
Of panegyric, courtly ode,
The bard bestrides his annual hack,
In vain I taste, and sip and smack,
I find no flavour of the Sack.
But while I ramble and refine
On flavour, Style, and Wit and Wine,
Your Claret, which I would not waste,
Recalls me to my proper taste;
So ending, as 'tis more than time,
At once my Letter, glass and rhyme,
I take this bumper off to you,
'Tis Sheperd's health—dear friend, adieu.

Asinus ad Lyram

The late inimitable Henry Fielding, Efq.

132

THE CANDLE AND SNUFFERS.

A FABLE.

No author ever spar'd a brother:
“Wits are game cocks to one another.”
But no antipathy so strong,
Which acts so fiercely, lasts so long
As that which rages in the breast
Of critic, and of wit profest:
When, eager for some bold emprize,
Wit, Titan-like, affects the skies,
When, full of energy divine,
The mighty dupe of all the nine,
Bids his kite soar on paper wing,
The critic comes, and cuts the string;
Hence dire contention often grows
'Twixt man of verse, and man of prose;
While prose-man deems the verse-man fool,
And measures wit by line and rule,
And, as he lops off fancy's limb,
Turns executioner of whim;
While genius, which too oft disdains
To bear e'en honourable chains;

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(Such as a sheriff's self might wear,
Or grace the wisdom of a may'r)
Turns rebel to dame reason's throne
And holds no judgment like his own.

Yet while they spatter mutual dirt,
In idle threats that cannot hurt,
Methinks they waste a deal of time,
Both fool in prose, and fool in rhyme.
And when the angry bard exclaims,
And calls a thousand paltry names,
He doth his critic mighty wrong,
And hurts the dignity of song.

The prefatory matter past
The tale, or story comes at last.

A candle stuck in flaring state
Within the nozel of French plate,
Tow'ring aloft with smoaky light,
The snuff and flame of wondrous height,
(For, virgin yet of amputation,
No force had check'd its inclination)
Sullen address'd with conscious pride,
The dormant snuffers at its side.

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“Mcan vulgar tools, whose envious aim
“Strikes at the vitals of my flame,
“Your rude assaults shall hurt no more,
“See how my beams triumphant soar!
“See how I gayly blaze alone
“With strength, with lustre all my own.

“Lustre, good sir!” the snuffers cried,
“Alas! how ignorant is pride!
“Thy light which wavers round the room,
“Shews as the counterfeit of gloom,
“Thy snuff which idly tow'rs so high
“Will waste thy essence by and by,
“Which, as I prize thy lustre dear
“I fain would lop to make thee clear.
“Boast not, old friend, thy random rays,
“Thy wasting strength, and quiv'ring blaze,
“You shine but as a beggar's link,
“To burn away, and die in stink,
“No merit waits unsteady light,
“You must burn true as well as brigbt.

Poets like candles all are puffers,
And critics are the candle snuffers.

135

THE TEMPLE OF FAVOUR.

Tho' pilot in the ship no more,
To bring the cargo safe to shore;
Permit, as time and place afford,
A passenger to come aboard.

The shepherd who survey'd the deep,
When all its tempests were asleep,
Dreamt not of danger; glad was he
To sell his flock, and put to sea.
The consequence has Æsop told,
He lost his venture, sheep and gold.
So fares it with us sons of rhyme,
From doggrel wit, to wit sublime;
On ink's calm ocean all seems clear,
No sands affright, no rocks appear;
No lightnings blast, no thunders roar;
No surges lash the peaceful shore;
Till, all too vent'rous from the land,
The tempests dash us on the strand:
Then the low pirate boards the deck,
And sons of thest enjoy the wreck.

136

The harlot muse so passing gay,
Bewitches only to betray;
Tho' for a while, with easy air,
She smooths the rugged brow of care,
And laps the mind in flow'ry dreams,
With fancy's transitory gleams.
Fond of the nothings she bestows,
We wake at last to real woes.

Thro' ev'ry age, in ev'ry place,
Consider well the poet's case;
By turns protected and caress'd,
Defam'd, dependant, and distress'd;
The joke of wits, the bane of slaves,
The curse of fools, the butt of knaves;
Too proud to stoop for servile ends,
To lacquey rogues, or flatter friends;
With prodigality to give,
Too careless of the means to live:
The bubble fame intent to gain,
And yet too lazy to maintain;
He quits the world he never priz'd,
Pitied by few, by more despis'd;
And lost to friends, oppress'd by foes,
Sinks to the nothing whence he rose.

137

O glorious trade, for wit's a trade,
Where men are ruin'd more than made.
Let crazy Lee neglected Gay,
The shabby Otway, Dryden grey,
Those tuneful servants of the nine,
(Not that I blend their names with mine)
Repeat their lives, their works, their fame,
And teach the world some useful shame.
At first the Poet idly strays
Along the greensward path of praise,
Till on his journies up and down,
To see, and to be seen, in town,
What with ill-natur'd flings and rubs
From flippant bucks, and backney scrubs,
His toils thro' dust, thro' dirt, thro' gravel,
Take off his appetite for travel.

Transient is fame's immediate breath,
Thought it blows stronger after death;
Own then, with Martial, after fate
If glory comes, she comes too late.
For who'd his time and labour give
For praise, by which he cannot live?

But in Apollo's court of fame
(In this all courts are much the same)

138

By Favour folks must make their way,
Favour, which lasts, perhaps, a day,
And when you've twirl'd yourself about
To wriggle in, you're wriggled out.
'Tis from the sunshine of her eyes
Each courtly insect lives or dies;
'Tis she dispenses all the graces
Of prosits, pensions, honours, places;
And in her light capricious fits
Makes wits of fools, and fools of wits,
Gives vices, folly, dullness birth,
Nay stamps the currency on worth;
'Tis she that lends the muse a spur,
And even Kissing goes by Her.

Far in the sea a temple stands
Built by dame Error's hasty hands,
Where in her dome of lucid shells
The visionary goddess dwells.
Here o'er her subject sons of earth
Regardless or of place, or worth,
She rules triumphant; and supplies
The gaping world with hopes and lies.
Her throne, which weak and tott'ring seems,
Is built upon the wings of dreams;

139

The fickle winds her altars bear
Which quiver to the shifting air;
Hither hath Reason seldom brought
The child of Virtue or of Thought,
And Justice with her equal face,
Finds this, alas! no throne of Grace.

Caprice, Opinion, Fashion wait,
The porters at the temple's gate,
And as the fond adorers press
Pronounce fantastic happiness;
While Favour with a Syren's smile,
Which might Ulysses self beguile,
Presents the sparkling bright libation,
The nectar of intoxication;
And summoning her ev'ry grace
Of winning charms, and chearful face,
Smiles away Reason from his throne,
And makes his votaries her own:
Instant resounds the voice of fame,
Caught with the whistlings of their name,
The fools grow frantic, in their pride
Contemning all the world besinde:
Pleas'd with the gewgaw toys of pow'r,
The noisy pageant of an hour,

140

Struts forth the statesman, haughty vain,
Amidst a supple servile train,
With shrug, grimace, nod, wink, and stare,
So proud, he almost treads in air;
While levee-fools, who sue for place,
Crouch for employment from his Grace,
And e'en good Bishops, taught to trim,
Forsake their God to bow to him.

The Poet in that happy hour,
Imagination in his pow'r,
Walks all abroad, and unconfin'd,
Enjoys the liberty of mind:
Dupe to the smoke of flimsy praise,
He vomits forth sonorous lays;
And, in his fine poetic rage,
Planning, poor soul, a deathless page,
Indulges pride's fantastic whim,
And all the World must wake to him.

A while from fear, from envy free,
He sleeps on a pacific sea;
Lethargic Error for a while
Deceives him with her specious smile,
And flatt'ring dreams delusive shed
Gay gilded visions round his head.

141

When, swift as thought, the goddess lewd
Shifts the light gale; and tempests rude,
Such as the northern skies deform,
When fell Destruction guides the storm,
Transport him to some dreary isle
Where Favour never deign'd to smile.
Where waking, helpless, all alone,
'Midst craggy steeps and rocks unknown;
Sad scenes of woe his pride confound,
And Desolation stalks around.
Where the dull months no pleasures bring,
And years roll round without a spring;
Where He all hoeless, lost, undone,
Sees chearless days that know no sun;
Where jibing Scorn her throne maintains
Midst mildews, blights, and blasts, and rains.

Let others, with submissive knee,
Capricious goddess! bow to Thee;
Let them with fixt incessant aim
Court fickle favour, faithless fame;
Let vanity's fastidious slave
Lose the kind moments nature gave,
In invocations to the shrine
Of Phœbus and the fabled Nine,

142

An author, to his latest days,
From hunger, or from thirst of praise,
Let him thro' every subject roam
To bring the useful morsel home;
Write upon Liberty opprest,
On happiness, when most distrest,
Turn bookseller's obsequious tool,
A monkey's cat, a mere fool's fool;
Let him, unhallow'd wretch! profane
The muse's dignity for gain,
Yield to the dunce his sense contemns,
Cringe to the knave his heart condemns,
And, at a blockhead's bidding, force
Reluctant genius from his course;
Write ode, epistle, essay, libel,
Make notes, or steal them, for the bible;
Or let him, more judicial, sit
The dull Lord Cbief, on culprit wit,
With rancor read, with passion blame,
Talk high, yet fear to put his name,
And from the dark, but useful shade,
(Fit place for murd'rous ambuscade,)
Weak monthly shafts at merit hurl,
The Gildon of some modern Curl.

143

For me, by adverse fortune plac'd
Far from the colleges of taste,
I jostle no poetic name;
I envy none their proper fame;
And if sometimes an easy vein,
With no design, and little pain,
Form'd into verse, hath pleas'd a while,
And caught the reader's transient smile,
My muse hath answer'd all her ends,
Pleasing herself, while pleas'd her friends;
But, fond of liberty, disdains
To bear restraint, or clink her chains;
Nor would, to gain a Monarcb's favour,
Let dulness, or her sons, enslave her.

These two last lines were added by the Editor; to whom the piece was originally addressed on a particular occasion.

144

THE SPIRIT OF CONTRADICTION.

A TALE.

The very silliest things in life
Create the most material strife.
What scarce will suffer a debate,
Will oft produce the bitterest hate.
It is, you say; I say 'tis not
—Why you grow warm—and you are hot.
Thus each alike with passion glows,
And words come first, and, after, blows.

Friend Jerkin had an income clear,
Some fifteen pounds, or more, a year,
And rented, on the farming plan,
Grounds at much greater sums per ann.
A man of consequence, no doubt,
'Mongst all his neighbours round about;
He was of frank and open mind,
Too honest to be much refin'd,
Would smoke his pipe, and tell his tale,
Sing a good song, and drink his ale.

145

His wife was of another mould;
Her age was neither young nor old;
Her features strong, but somewhat plain;
Her air not bad, but rather vain;
Her temper neither new nor strange,
A woman's, very apt to change;
What she most hated was conviction,
What she most lov'd, flat Contradiction.

A charming housewife ne'ertheless;
—Tell me a thing she could not dress,
Soups, hashes, pickles, puddings, pies,
Nought came amiss—she was so wise.
For she, bred twenty miles from town,
Had brought a world of breeding down,
And Cumberland had seldom seen
A farmer's wife with such a mein;
She could not bear the sound of Dame;
—No—Mistress Jerkin was her name.

She could harangue with wond'rous grace
On gowns and mobs, and caps and lace;
But tho' she ne'er adorn'd his brows,
She had a vast contempt for spouse,
As being one who took no pride,
And was a deal too countrified.

146

Such were our couple, man and wife;
Such were their means and ways of life.

Once on a time, the season fair
For exercise and chearful air,
It happen'd in his morning's roam,
He kill'd his birds, and brought them home.
—Here, Cicely, take away my gun—
How shall we have these starlings done?
Done! what my love? Your wits are wild;
Starlings, my dear; they're thrushes child.
Nay now but look, consider, wife,
They're starlings—No—upon my life:
Sure I can judge as well as you,
I know a thrush and starling too.
Who was it shot them, you or I?
They're starlings—thrushes—zounds you lie.
Pray, Sir, take back your dirty word,
I scorn your language as your bird;
It ought to make a husband blush,
To treat a wife so 'bout a thrush.
Thrush, Cicely!—Yes—a starling—No,
The lie again, and then a blow.
Blows carry strong and quick conviction,
And mar the pow'rs of contradiction.

147

Peace soon ensued, and all was well:
It were imprudence to rebel,
Or keep the ball up of debate
Against these arguments of weight.

A year roll'd on in perfect ease,
'Twas as you like, and what you please,
'Till in its course and order due,
Came March the twentieth, fifty two.
Quoth Cicely, this is charming life,
No tumults now, no blow, no strife.
What fools we were this day last year!
Lord, how you beat me then, my dear!
—Sure it was idle and absurd
To wrangle so about a bird;
A bird not worth a single rush—
A starling—no, my love, a thrush,
That I'll maintain—that I'll deny.
—You're wrong, good husband—wife, you lie.

Again the self-same wrangle rose,
Again the lye, again the blows.
Thus every year (true man and wife)
Ensues the same domestic strife.

148

Thus every year their quarrel ends,
They argue, fight, and buss, and friends;
'Tis starling, thrush, and thrush and starling;
You dog, you b—; my dear, my darling.

149

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO ---

What, three months gone, and never send
A single letter to a friend?
In that time, sure, we might have known
Whether you fat or lean was grown;
Whether your host was short or tall,
Had manners good, or none at all;
Whether the neighb'ring squire you found
As mere a brute as fox or hound;
Or if the parson of the place
(With all due rev'rence to his grace)
Took much more pains himself to keep,
Than to instruct and feed his sheep;
At what hour of the day you dine;
Whether you drink beer, punch, or wine;
Whether you hunt, or shoot, or ride;
Or, by some muddy ditch's side,
Which you, in visionary dream,
Call bubbling rill, or purling stream,
Sigh for some aukward country lass,
Who must of consequence surpass
All that is beautiful and bright,
As much as day surpasses night;

150

Whether the people eat and drink,
Or ever talk, or ever think;
If, to the honour of their parts,
The men have heads, the women hearts;
If the moon rises and goes down,
And changes as she does in town;
If you've returns of night and day,
And seasons varying roll away;
Whether your mind exalted wooes
Th' embraces of a serious muse;
Or if you write, as I do now,
The L—d knows what, the L—d knows how.—
These, and a thousand things like these,
The friendly heart are sure to please.

Now will my friend turn up his eyes,
And look superlatively wise;
Wonder what all this stuff's about,
And how the plague I found him out!
When he had taken so much pains,
In order to regale his brains
With privacy and country air,
To go, no soul alive knew where!
Besides, 'tis folly to suppose
That any person breathing goes

151

On such a scheme, with a design
To write or read such stuff as mine,
And idly waste his precious time
In all th' impertinence of rhyme.

My good, wise, venerable sir!
Why about nonsense all this stir!
Is it, that you would stand alone,
And read no nonsense but your own;
Tho' you're (to tell you, by the bye)
Not half so great a fool as I;
Or is it that you make pretence,
Being a fool, to have some sense?

And would you really have my muse
Employ herself in writing news,
And most unconscionably teize her
With rhyming to Warsaw and Weser;
Or toss up a poetic olio,
Merely to bring in Marshal Broglio?
Should I recite what now is doing,
Or what for future times is brewing,
Or triumph that the poor French see all
Their hopes defeated at Montreal,
Or should I your attention carry
To Fred'rick, Ferdinand, or Harry,

152

Of flying Russian, dastard Swede,
And baffled Austria let you read;
Or gravely tell with what design
The youthful Henry pass'd the Rhine?
Or should I shake my empty head,
And tell you that the king is dead,
Observe what changes will ensue,
What will be what, and who'll be who,
Or leaving these things to my betters,
Before you set the state of letters?
Or should I tell domestic jars,
How author against author wars,
How both with mutual envy rankling,
Fr—k—ng damns M—rp—y, M—rp—y Fr—k—ng?
Or will it more your mind engage
To talk of actors and the stage,
To tell, if any words could tell,
What Garrick acts still, and how well,
That Sheridan with all his care
Will always be a labour'd play'r,
And that his acting at the best
Is all but art, and art consest;
That Bride, if reason may presume
To judge by things past, things to come,
In future times will tread the stage,
Equally form'd for love and rage,

153

Whilst Pope for comic humour fam'd,
Shall live when Clive no more is nam'd.

Your wisdom I suppose can't bear
About dull pantomime to hear;
Nor would you have a single word
Of Harlequin, and wooden sword,
Of dumb shew, fools tricks, and wry faces,
And wit which lies all in grimaces,
Nor should I any thing advance
Of new invented comic dance.

Callous, perhaps, to things like these,
Would it your worship better please,
That I, more loaden than the camels,
Should crawl in philosophic trammels?
Should I attack the stars, and stray
In triumph o'er the milky way,
And like the Titans try to move
From seat of empire royal Jove,
Then spread my terrors all around,
And his Satellites confound,
Teach the war far and wide to rage,
And ev'ry star by turns engage?
The danger we should share between us,
You fight with Mars and I with Venus.

154

Or should I rather, if I cou'd,
Talk of words little understood,
Centric, eccentric, epicycle,
Fine words the vulgar ears to tickle!
A vacuum, plenum, gravitation,
And other words of like relation,
Which may agree with studious men,
But hurt my teeth, and gag my pen;
Things of such grave and serious kind
Puzzle my head and plague my mind;
Besides in writing to a friend
A man may any nonsense send,
And the chief merit to impart,
The honest feelings of his heart.

155

CHARITY.

A FRAGMENT.

INSCRIBED TO THE REV. MR. HANBURY.

Worth is excis'd, and Virtue pays
A heavy Tax for barren praise.

A friend to universal Man,
Is universal good your plan?
God may perhaps your project bless,
But man shall strive to thwart success.
Tho' the grand scheme thy thoughts pursue,
Bespeak a noble generous view,
Where Charity o'er all presides,
And Sense approves what Virtue guides,
Yet wars and tumults will commence,
For Rogues hate virtue, Blockheads sense.

Believe me, Opposition grows
Not always from our real foes,
But (where it seldom ever ends)
From our more dangerous seeming friends.
I hate not foes, for they declare,
'Tis War for War, and dare who dare;

156

But your sly, sneaking, worming souls,
Whom Friendship scorns, and Fear controuls,
Who praise, support, and help by halves,
Like Heifers, neither Bulls nor Calves;
Who, in Hypocrisy's disguise,
Are truly as the Serpent wise,
But cannot All the precept love,
And be as harmless as the Dove.
Who hold each charitable meeting,
To mean no more than good sound eating,
While each becomes a hearty fellow
According as he waxes mellow,
And kindly helps the main design,
By drinking its success in wine;
And when his feet and senses reel,
Totters with correspondent zeal;
Nay, would appear a patron wise,
But that his wisdom's in disguise,
And would harangue, but that his mouth,
Which ever hates the sin of drowth,
Catching the full perpetual glass,
Cannot afford a word to pass.

Such, who like true Churchwardens eat,
Because the Parish pays the treat,

157

And of their bellyful secure,
O'ersee, or over-look the poor,
Who would no doubt be wond'rous just,
And faithful Guardians of their trust,
But think the deed might run more clever
To them and to their Heirs for ever,
That Charity, too apt to roam,
Might end, where she begins, at home;
Who make all public good a trade,
Benevolence a mere parade,
And Charity a cloak for sin,
To keep it snug and warm within;
Who flatter, only to betray,
Who promise much and never pay,
Who wind themselves about your heart
With hypocritic, knavish art,
Tell you what wond'rous things they're doing,
And undermine you to your ruin;
Such, or of low or high estate,
To speak the honest truth, I hate:
I view their tricks with indignation,
And loath each fulsom protestation,
As I would loath a whore's embrace,
Who smiles, and smirks, and stroaks my face,
And all so tender, fond and kind,
As free of body, as of mind,

158

Affects the softness of the Dove,
And p—xes me to shew her Love.

The Maiden wither'd, wrinkled pale,
Whose charms, tho' strong, are rather stale,
Will use that weapon call'd a tongue,
To wound the beauteous and the young.
—What, Delia handsome!—well!—I own
I'm either blind or stupid grown.
—The girl is well enough to pass,
A rosy, simple, rustic lass;
—But there's no meaning in her face,
And then her air, so void of grace!
And all the world, with half an eye,
May see her shape grows quite awry.
—I speak not from an ill design,
For she's a favourite of mine,
—Tho' I could wish that she would wear
A more reserved becoming air;
Not that I hear of indiscretions,
Such folks, you know, make no confessions,
Tho' the World says, that Parson there,
That smock-fac'd Man, with darkish hair,
He who wrote verses on her bird,
The simplest things I ever heard,

159

Makes frequent visits there of late,
And is become exceeding great;
This I myself aver is true,
I saw him lead her to his pew.

Thus scandal, like a false quotation,
Misrepresents in defamation;
And where she haply cannot spy
A loop whereon to hang a lye,
Turns every action wrong side out
To bring her paultry tale about.

Thus Excellence of every kind,
Whether of body or of mind,
Is but a mark set up on high,
For knaves to guide their arrows by,
A mere Scotch Post for public itch,
Where Hog, or Man, may scrub his breech.

But thanks to nature, which ordains
A just reward for all our pains,
And makes us stem, with secret pride,
Hoarse Disappointment's rugged tide,
And like a lordly ship, which braves
The roar of winds, and rush of waves,

160

Weather all storms, which jealous Hate
Or frantic Malice may create.
'Tis Conscience, a reward alone,
Conscience, who plac'd on Virtue's throne,
Eyes raging men, or raging seas,
Undaunted, firm, with heart at ease.

From her dark Cave, tho' Envy rise
With hollow cheeks, and jaundic'd eyes,
Tho' Hatred league with Folly vain,
And Spleen and Rancour join the train;
Shall Virtue shrink, abash'd, afraid,
And tremble at an idle shade?
Fear works upon the Fool, or Knave,
An honest man is always brave.
While Opposition's fruitless aim
Is as the bellows to the flame,
And, like a Pagan persecution,
Enforces Faith and Resolution.

Tho' Prejudice in narrow minds,
The mental eye of reason blinds;
Tho' Wit, which not e'en friends will spare,
Affect the sneering, laughing air,
Tho' Dullness, in her monkish gown,
Display the Wisdom of a frown,

161

Yet Truth will force herself, in spite
Of all their efforts, into light.

See Bigot Monks in Spain prevail,
See Galilæo dragg'd to gaol:
Hear the grave Doctors of the schools,
The Golgotha of learned Fools,
As damnable and impious brand
That art they cannot understand,
And out of zeal pervert the Bible,
As if it were a standing Libel,
On every good and useful plan
That rises in the brain of man.

O Bigotry! whose frantic rage
Has blotted half the classic page,
And in Religion's drunken fit,
Murder'd the Greek and Roman wit;
Who zealous for that Faith's encrease,
Whose ways are righteousness and peace,
With rods and whips, and sword, and axe,
With prisons, tortures, flames and racks;
With persecution's fiery goad,
Enforcing some new-fangl'd mode,
Wouldst pluck down Reason from her throne
To raise some fantom of thy own;

162

Alas! thy fury undiscerning,
Which blasts, and stunts, and hews up Learning,
Like an ill-judging zealous friend,
Blasphemes that Wisdom you defend.

Go, kick the prostituted whores,
The nine stale virgins out of doors;
For let the Abbess beat her drum,
Eleven thousand troops shall come;
All female forms, and virgins true,
As ever Saint or Poet knew.
And glorious be the honour'd name
Of Winifrede, of sainted fame,
Who to the Church like light'ning sped,
And ran three miles without her head;
(Well might the modest Lady run,
Since 'twas to keep her maiden one)
And when before the congregation
The Prince fell dead for reparation,
Secure of Life as well as Honour,
Ran back with both her heads upon her.

No matter of what shape or size,
Gulp down the Legendary Lies,
Believe, what neither God ordains,
Nor Christ allows, nor sense maintains;

163

Make Saint of Pope, or Saint of Thief,
Believe almost in unbelief;
Yet with thy solemn priestly air,
By book and bell, and candle swear,
That God has made his own elect
But from your stem and savorite sect;
That He who made the world, has blest
One part alone, to damn the rest,
As if th' Allmerciful and Just,
Who form'd us of one common dust,
Had rendered up his own decree,
And lent his attributes to thee.

Thus his own eyes the Bigot blinds,
To shut out light from human minds,
And the clear truth (an emanation
From the great Author of creation,
A beam transmitted from on high,
To bring us nearer to the sky,
While ev'ry path by science trod,
Leads us with wonder up to God)
Is doom'd by Ignorance to make
Atonement at the Martyr's stake;
Tho', like pure gold, th' illustrious dame,
Comes forth the brighter from the flame.

164

No persecution will avail,
No inquisition racks, nor gaol;
When Learning's more enlight'ned ray
Shall drive these sickly fogs away;
A thankful age shall pay her more,
Than all her troubles hurt before.
See Shame and Scorn await on those
Who poorly dar'd to be her foes,
But will the grateful voice of fame
Sink Truth, and Galilæo's name?

How wilful, obstinate and blind,
Are the main herd of human kind!
Well said the Wit, who well had tried
That malice which his Parts defied;
When merit's sun begins to break,
The Dunces stretch, and strive to wake,
And amity of Dunce with Dunce,
Fingers out Genius all at once.
As you may find the honey out,
By seeing all the flies about.
All ugly Women hate a toast;
The goodliest fruit is pick'd the most;
The ivy winds about the oak,
And to the fairest comes the smoke.

165

Escap'd the dangers of the deep,
When Gulliver fell fast asleep,
Stretch'd on the Lilliputian strand,
A Giant in a pigmy Land;
Watchful against impending harms,
All Lilliput cried out, To arms;
The trumpets echoed all around,
The Captain slept exceeding sound,
Tho' crowds of undistinguish'd size
Assail'd his body, legs and thighs,
While clouds of arrows flew apace,
And fell like feathers on his face.

166

THE WHIM.

AN EPISTLE TO MR. W. WOTY.

The praise of Genius will offend
A foe no doubt, sometimes a friend;
But curse on genius, wit and parts,
The thirst of science, love of arts,
If inconsistent with the plan
Of social good from man to man.
For me, who will, may wear the bays,
I value not such idle praise:
Let wrangling wits abuse, desame,
And quarrel for an empty name,
What's in this shuffling pace of rhyme,
Or grand pas stride of stiff sublime,
That vanity her trump should blow,
And look with scorn on solks below?
Are wit and folly close ally'd,
And match'd, like poverty, with pride?
When rival bards for fame contend,
The poet often spoils the friend;
Genius self-center'd feels alone
That merit he esteems his own,

167

And cold, o'er jealous, and severe,
Hates, like a Turk, a brother near;
Malice steps in, good nature flies,
Folly prevails, and friendship dies.
Peace to all such, if peace can dwell
With those who bear about a hell,
Who blast all worth with envy's breath,
By their own feelings stung to death.
None but a weak and brainless fool,
Undisciplin'd in fortune's school,
Can hope for favours from the wit:
He pleads prescription to forget,
Unnotic'd let him live or rot,
And, as forgetful, be forgot.
Most wags, whose pleasure is to smoke,
Wou'd rather lose their friend, than joke;
A man in rags looks something queer,
And there's vast humour in a sneer;
That jest, alike all witlings suits,
Which lies no further than the boots.
Give me the man whose open mind
Means social good to all mankind;
Who when his friend, from fortune's round,
Is toppled headlong to the ground,
Can meet him with a warm embrace,
And wipe the tear from sorrow's face.

168

Who, not self-taught and proudly wise,
Seeks more to comfort than advise,
Who less intent to shine than please,
Wears his own mirth with native ease;
And is from sense, from nature's plan,
The jovial guest, the honest man;
In short, whose picture, painted true,
In ev'ry point resembles you.

And will my friend for once excuse
This off'ring of a lazy muse,
Most lazy,—lest you think her not,
I'll draw her picture on the spot.
A perfect ease the dame enjoys;
Three chairs her indolence employs:
On one she squats her cushion'd bum,
Which wou'd not rise, tho' kings should come;
An arm lolls dangling o'er another,
A leg lies couchant on its brother.
To make her look supremely wise,
At least like wisdom in disguise,
The weed, which first by Raleigh brought,
Gives thinking looks instead of thought,
She smokes, and smokes; without all feeling,
Save as the eddies climb the cieling,

169

And wast about their mild perfume,
She marks their passage round the room.
When pipe forsakes the vacant mouth,
A pot of beer prevents her drowth,
Which with potations pottle deep
Lulls the poor maudlin muse to sleep.
Her books of which sh'as wond'rous need,
But neither pow'r nor will to read,
In scatter'd tomes lie all around
Upon the lowest shelf—the ground.

Such ease no doubt suits easy rhyme;
Folks walk about who write sublime,
While recitation's pompous sound
Drawls words sonorous all around,
And action waves her hand and head,
As those who bread and butter spread.

You bards who feel not fancy's dearth,
Who strike the roof, and kick the earth,
Whose muse superlatively high
Takes lodgings always near the sky;
And like the lark with daring flight
Still soars and sings beyond our sight;
May trumpet forth your grand sublime,
And scorn our lazy lounging rhyme.

170

Yet tho' the lark in æther floats,
And trills no doubt diviner notes,
Carelesly perch'd on yonder spray,
The linnet sings a pretty lay.

What horrid, what tremendous sight
Shakes all my fabric with affright!
With Argus' hundred eyes he marks,
With triple mouth the monster barks;
And while he scatters flaming brands
Briareus lends him all his hands.

Hist! 'tis a critic—Yes—'tis he—
What wou'd your graceless form with me?
Is it t' upbraid me with the crime
Of spinning unlaborious rhyme,
Of stringing various thoughts together
In verse, or prose, or both, or neither?
A vein, which tho' it must offend
You lofty sirs who can't descend,
To fame has often made its way
From Butler, Prior, Swift and Gay;
Is it for this your brow austere
Frowns me to stone for very fear?
Hear my just reason first, and then
Approve me right, or split my pen.

171

I seek not by more labour'd lays
To catch the slipp'ry tail of praise,
Nor will I run a mad career
'Gainst genius which I most revere;
When Phœbus bursts with genuine fire,
The little stars at once retire;
Who cares a farthing for those lays
Which you can neither blame, nor praise?
I cannot match a Churchill's skill,
But may be Langhorne when I will.

Let the mere mimic, for each season bears
Your mimic Bards as well as mimic play'rs,
Creep servilely along, and with dull pains
Lash his slow steed, in whose enseebled veins
The cold blood lags, let him with fruitless aim
By borrow'd plumes assume a borrow'd fame,
With studied forms th' incautious ear beguile,
And ape the numbers of a Churchill's style.
Slaves may some fame from imitation hope;
Who'd be Paul Whitehead, tho' he honours Pope?
If clinking couplets in one endless chime
Be the sole beauty, and the praise of rhyme;
If sound alone an easy triumph gains,
While fancy bleeds, and sense is hung in chains,

172

Ye happy triflers hail the rising mode;
See, all Parnassus is a turnpike road,
Where each may travel in the highway track
On true bred hunter, or on common hack.
For me, who labour with poetic sin,
Who often woo the muse I cannot win,
Whom pleasure first a willing poet made,
And folly spoilt by taking up the trade,
Pleas'd I behold superior genius shine,
Nor ting'd with envy wish that genius mine.
To Churchill's muse can bow with decent awe,
Admire his mode, nor make that mode my law:
Both may, perhaps, have various pow'rs to please;
Be his the strength of numbers, mine the ease.
Ease that rejects not, but betrays no care:
Less of the coxcomb than the sloven's air.

Your taste, as mine, all metre must offend,
When imitation is its only end.
I could perhaps that servile task pursue,
And copy Churchill as I'd copy you,
But that my flippant muse, too saucy grown,
Prefers that manner she can call her own.

173

ODE TO GENIUS.

Thou child of nature, genius strong,
Thou master of the poet's song,
Before whose light, Art's dim and feeble ray
Gleams like the taper in the blaze of day:
Thou lov'st to steal along the secret shade,
Where Fancy, bright aerial maid!
Awaits thee with her thousand charms,
And revels in thy wanton arms.
She to thy bed, in days of yore,
The sweetly warbling Shakespeare bore;
Whom every muse endow'd with every skill,
And dipt him in that sacred rill,
Whose silver streams flow musical along,
Where Phœbus' hallow'd mount resounds with raptur'd song.

Forsake not thou the vocal choir,
Their breasts revisit with thy genial fire,
Else vain the studied sounds of mimic art,
Tickle the ear, but come not near the heart.
Vain every phrase in curious order set,
On each side leaning on the [stop-gap] epithet.
Vain the quick rhyme still tinkling in the close,
While pure description shines in measur'd prose.

174

Thou bear'st aloof, and look'st with high disdain,
Upon the dull mechanic train;
Whose nerveless strains flag on in languid tone,
Liseless and lumpish as the bagpipe's drowzy drone.

No longer now thy altars blaze,
No poet offers up his lays;
Inspir'd with energy divine,
To worship at thy sacred shrine.
Since taste with absolute domain,
Extending wide her leaden reign,
Kills with her melancholy shade,
The blooming scyons of fair fancy's tree;
Which erst full wantonly have stray'd
In many a wreath of richest poesie.
For when the oak denies her stay,
The creeping ivy winds her humble way;
No more she twists her branches round,
But drags her seeble stem along the barren ground.

Where then shall exil'd genius go?
Since only those the laurel claim,
And boast them of the poet's name,
Whose sober rhymes in even tenour flow;

175

Who prey on words, and all their flow'rets cull,
Coldly correct, and regularly dull.
Why sleep the sons of genius now?
Why, Wartons, rests the lyre unstrung?
And thou, blest bard! around whose sacred brow,
Great Pindar's delegated wreath is hung:
Arise, and snatch the majesty of song
From dullness' servile tribe, and art's unhallow'd throng.

By Taste, is here meant the modern affectation of it.

Dr. Akenside.

204

THE EPITAPH.

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,
A youth to fortune and to fame unknown,
Fair science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heav'n did a recompence as largely send:
He gave to mis'ry all he had, a tear,
He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

No sarther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose)
The bosom of his Father and his God.

210

PART OF HOMER'S HYMN TO APOLLO.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK.

God of the Bow! Apollo, thee I sing;
Thee, as thou draw'st amain the sounding string,
Th' immortal pow'rs revere with homage low,
And ev'ry godhead trembles at thy bow.
All but Latona: She with mighty Jove
Eyes thee with all a tender parent's love;
Closes thy quiver, thy tough bow unbends,
And high amid th' æthereal dome suspends,
Then smiling leads thee, her all-glorious son,
To share the mighty Thunderer's awful throne.
Goblets of nectar thy glad sire prepares,
And thee, his fairest, noblest son declares;
While ev'ry god sits rapt, Latona's breast
Beats with superior joy, and hails her son confest.

Thrice blest Latona! from thee, Goddess, sprung
Diana chaste, and Phœbus ever-young:

211

Her in Ortygia's isle, and Him you bore
At Cynthius' hill on Delos' sea-girt shore,
Where the tall palm uprears its lovely head,
And clear Inopus laves the flow'ry mead.

O Phœbus, where shall I begin thy praise?
Well can'st thou rule the poet's artless lays.
Oft on the craggy rock, or mountain hoar,
By river side, or on the sea's hoarse shore,
Wand'ring well-pleas'd, with music's magic sound,
And airs divine, thou charm'st the region round.
Say, shall I sing how first on Delos' shore,
Thee, glorious progeny, Latona bore?
How first, from other isles, beset with grief,
In vain thy tortur'd mother sought relief.
Each to her out-cast woe denied abode,
Nor durst one isle receive the future god.
At length to Delos came the lab'ring fair,
And suppliant thus besought her needful care.

Delos! receive Apollo, and O! raise
A glorious temple to record his praise!

212

Then shall He govern thee with gentle sway,
And only Phœbus shall thine isle obey.
What though no flocks, nor herds, nor juicy vine,
Nor plants of thousand natures shall be thine,
Swift to the temple of the Bowyer-king ,
Oblations rich shall ev'y nation bring;
For ever from thy altars shall arise
The fragrant incense of burnt-sacrifice.
No longer then regret thy barren soil,
Receive the God, and live by other's toil!

She spake: with inward rapture Delos smil'd,
And sooth'd the suppliant pow'r with answer mild.

Latona! mighty Cæus' daughter fair,
Full willingly wou'd Delos ease thy care,
Full willingly behold her barren earth
Witness the glories of Apollo's birth:
The mighty God wou'd raise my lowly name,
And consecrate his native isle to same.
One fear alone distracts my beating heart;
That fear, O Goddess, list while I impart.

213

Second to none amid th' æthereal skies,
Apollo soon all terrible shall rise:
All nations shall adore the mighty God,
And kings and kingdoms tremble at his nod.
Haply (for ah! dire fears my soul infest,
And fill with horror my tumultuous breast)
Soon as the glorious Godhead shall be born,
My desert region will he view with scorn,
Indignant spurn me, curse my barren soil,
And plunge into the waves my hated isle.
Triumphant then to happier climes remove,
There fix his shrine, plant there his sacred grove.
Whelm'd in the briny main shall Delos lay,
To all the finny brood a wretched prey.
But, O Latona! if, to quell my fear,
You'll deign a solemn sacred oath to swear,
That here the God his glorious seat shall hold,
And here his sapient oracles unfold,
Your sacred burthen here, Latona, lay,
Here view the Godhead bursting into day.

Thus Delos pray'd, nor was her pray'r denied,
But soon with solemn vows thus ratified:
Witness O heaven and earth! O Stygian lake!
Dire adjuration, that no God may break!

214

In Delos shall Apollo's shrine be rear'd,
Delos, his best belov'd, most honour'd, most rever'd.

Thus vow'd Latona: Delos hail'd her earth
Blest in the glories of Apollo's birth.
Nine hapless days and nights, with writhing throes,
And all the anguish of a mother's woes,
Latona tortur'd lay; in sorrowing mood,
Around her many a sister-goddess stood.
Aloft in heaven imperial Juno sat,
And view'd relentless her unhappy fate.
Lucina too, the kind assuaging pow'r
That tends the lab'ring mother's child bed hour,
And mitigates her woes, in golden clouds
High on Olympus' top the Goddess shrouds.
Her large full eyes with indignation roll,
And livid envy seiz'd her haughty soul,
That from Latona's loins was doom'd to spring
So great a son, the mighty Bowyer-king.
The milder pow'rs, that near the lab'ring fair
View'd all her pangs with unavailing care,
Fair Iris sent, the many colour'd maid,
To gain with goodly gists Lucina's aid.
But charg'd her heed, lest Juno should prevent
With prohibition dire their kind intent.

215

Fleet as the winged winds, the flying fair
With nimble pinion cut the liquid air.
Olympus gain'd, apart she call'd the maid,
Then sought with many a pray'r her needful aid,
And mov'd her soul: when soon with dove-like pace
Swiftly they measur'd back the viewless airy space.

Soon as to Delos' isle Lucina came
The pangs of travail seiz'd Latona's frame.
Her twining arms she threw the palm around,
And prest with deep-indented knee the ground:
Then into day sprung forth the jolly boy,
Earth smil'd beneath, and heaven rang with joy.

The Sister Pow'rs that round Latona stood
With chaste ablutions cleans'd the infant-god.
His lovely limbs in mantle white they bound,
And gently drew a golden swathe around.
He hung not helpless at his mother's breast,
But Themis fed him with an heavenly feast.
Pleas'd while Latona views the heavenly boy,
And fondly glows with all a mother's joy,
The lusty babe, strong with ambrosial food,
In vain their bonds or golden swathes withstood,
Bonds, swathes, and ligaments with ease he broke,
And thus the wondring Deities bespoke;

216

“The lyre, and sounding bow, and to declare
“The Thund'rer's counsels, be Apollo's care!”

He spake; and onwards all majestic strode;
The Queens of Heaven awe-struck view'd the God.
Delos beheld him with a tender smile,
And hail'd, enrich'd with gold, her happy isle;
Her happy isle, Apollo's native seat,
His sacred haunt, his best-belov'd retreat.
Grac'd with Apollo, Delos glorious shines,
As the tall mountain crown'd with stately pines.

Now stony Cynthus wou'd the God ascend,
And now his course to various islands bend.
Full many a fane, and rock, and shady grove,
River, and mountain did Apollo love;
But chiefly Delos: The Ionians there,
With their chaste wives and prattling babes, repair.
There gladly celebrate Apollo's name
With many a solemn rite and sacred game;
The jolly dance and holy hymn prepare,
And with the Cæstus urge the manly war.
If, when their sacred feast th' Ionians hold,
Their gallant sports a stranger shou'd behold,
View the strong nerves the brawny chiess that brace,
Or eye the softer charms of female grace;

217

Then mark their riches of a thousand kinds,
And their tall ships born swift before the winds,
So goodly to the sight wou'd all appear,
The fair assembly Gods he wou'd declare.
There too the Delian Virgins, beauteous choir,
Apollo's handmaids, wake the living lyre;
To Phœbus first they consecrate the lays,
Latona then and chaste Diana praise,
Then heroes old, and matrons chaste rehearse,
And sooth the raptur'd heart with sacred verse.
Each voice, the Delian maids, each human sound
With aptest imitation sweet resound:
Their tongues so justly tune with accents new,
That none the false distinguish from the true.

Latona! Phœbus! Dian, lovely fair!
Blest Delian nymphs, Apollo's chiefest care,
All hail! and O with praise your poet crown,
Nor all his labours in oblivion drown!
If haply some poor pilgrim shall enquire,
“O, virgins, who most skilful smites the lyre?
“Whose lofty verse in sweetest descant rolls,
“And charms to extasy the hearers souls?”
O answer, a blind bard in Chios dwells,
In all the arts of verse who far excells.

218

Then o'er the earth shall spread my glorious fame,
And distant Nations shall record my name.
But Phœbus never will I cease to sing,
Latona's noble son, the mighty Bowyer-king.

Thee Lycia and Mæonia, thee, great Pow'r,
The blest Miletus' habitants adore;
But thy lov'd haunt is sea-girt Delos' shore.

Now Pytho's stony soil Apollo treads,
And all around ambrosial fragrance sheds,
Then strikes with matchless art the golden strings,
And ev'ry hill with heavenly musick rings.

Olympus now and the divine abodes
Glorious he seeks, and mixes with the Gods.
Each heavenly bosom pants with fond desire
To hear the lofty verse and golden lyre.
Drawn by the magic sound, the Virgin-Nine
With warblings sweet the sacred minstrel join:
Now with glad heart, loud voice, and jocund lays
Full sweetly carol bounteous heaven's praise;
And now in dirges fad, and numbers slow
Relate the piteous tale of human woe;

219

Woe, by the Gods on wretched mortals cast,
Who vainly shun affliction's wintry blast,
And all in vain attempt with fond delay
Death's certain shaft to ward, or chase old age away.

The Graces there, and smiling Hours are seen,
And Cytherea, laughter-loving queen,
And Harmony, and Hebe, lovely band,
To sprightliest measures dancing hand in hand.
There, of no common port or vulgar mien,
With heavenly radiance, shines the Huntress-Queen,
Warbles responsive to the golden lyre,
Tunes her glad notes, and joins the virgin choir.
There Mars and Mercury with aukward play,
And uncouth gambols, waste the live-long day.

There as Apollo moves with graceful pace
A thousand glories play around his face;
In splendor drest he joins the sestive band,
And sweeps the golden lyre with magic hand.
Mean while, Latona and imperial Jove
Eye the bright Godhead with parental love;

220

And, as the Deities around him play,
Well pleas'd his goodly mien and awful port survey .

Delos and Ortygia are mentioned as different Islands in the Original.

Here several verses containing nothing but a mere list of the names of islands are omitted.

Bowyer-king and Bowyer-god are expressions frequently used by Dryden, in his version of the first Iliad, to signify Apollo.

The translator, when he begun this piece, had some thoughts of giving a complete English version of all Homer's Hymns, being the only parts of his works never yet translated; but (to say nothing of his opinion of this specimen of his translation) fearing that this species of poetry, though it has its beauties, and does not want admirers among the learned, would appear far less agreeable to the mere English reader, he desisted. They, who would form the justest idea of this sort of composition among the ancients, may be better informed, by perusing Dr. Akenside's most classical Hymn to the Naiads, than from any translation of Homer or Callimachus.

221

FROM CATULLUS.

Chloe, that dear bewitching prude,
Still calls me saucy, pert, and rude,
And sometimes almost strikes me;
And yet, I swear, I can't tell how,
Spite of the knitting of her brow,
I'm very sure she likes me.

Ask you me, why I fancy thus?
Why, I have call'd her jilt, and puss,
And thought myself above her;
And yet I feel it, to my cost,
That when I rail against her most,
I'm very sure I love her.

222

THE FIRST BOOK OF THE HENRIADE.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF M. DE VOLTAIRE.

Thy chieftain, France, of try'd illustrious worth,
By right of conquest king, by right of birth,
I sing. Who, tutor'd in misfortune's school,
There learnt the noblest science, how to Rule;
Bad Faction's furious discord cease to rave,
Valiant to conquer, merciful to save;
Baffled the daring League's rebellious schemes,
Mayenne's proud hopes, and Spain's ambitious dreams:
With civil prudence blest, with martial fire,
A nation's conqueror, and a nation's sire.

Truth, heavenly maid, from th' Empyræan height
Descend, and with thy strong and purest light
My verse illume! and O, let mortals hear
Thy sacred word, and awfully revere!

223

Be thou my guide! thy sage experience brings
Unerring maxims to the ear of kings.
'Tis thine, blest maid, and only thine, to show
What most befits the regal pow'r to know.
Purge thou the film from off a nation's eyes,
And she what ills from civil discord rise!
Nor spare with decent boldness to disclose
The prince's errors, and the people's woes:
And O! if fable e'er, in times of yore,
Mix'd her soft accents with thy sterner lore,
If e'er her hand adorn'd thy tow'ring head,
And o'er thy front her milder graces spread;
If e'er her shades, which lovingly unite,
Bad thy fair form spring stronger into light,
With me, permit her all thy steps to trace,
Not to conceal thy beauties, but to grace!

Still Valois reign'd, and sunk in pleasure's bow'r,
O'er a mad state held loose the reigns of pow'r:
The trampled Law had lost its ancient force,
And Right confounded, miss'd her even course.
'Twas thus when Valois France's sceptre bore,
Scepter'd indeed, but now a king no more;
Not glory's minion now, the voice of fame,
Swell'd the loud trumpet to the hero's name;

224

His laurel's wither'd, and all blasted now,
Which conquest hung upon his infant brow;
Whose progress Europe mark'd with conscious fear,
Whose loss provok'd his country's common tear,
When, the long train of all his virtues known,
The North admiring call'd him to the throne.
In second rank, the light which strikes the eyes,
Rais'd to the first, grows dim, and feebly dies.
From war's stern soldier, active, firm, and brave,
He sunk a monarch, pleasure's abject slave.
Lull'd with soft ease, forgetful all of state,
His weakness totter'd with a kingdom's weight;
Whilst lost in sloth, and dead to glorious fame,
The sons of riot govern'd in his name.
Quelus, St. Maigrin, death-cemented pair,
Joyeuse the gay, and D' Espernon the fair,
The careless king in pleasure plung'd with these,
In lust intemperate, and lethargic ease.

Mean time, the Guises, fortunate and brave,
Catch'd the fair moment which his weakness gave.
Then rose the fatal League in evil hour,
That dreadful rival of his waning pow'r.
The people blind, their sacred Monaich brav'd,
Led by those Tyrants, who their rights enslav'd.

225

His friends forsook him, helpless and alone,
His servants chas'd him from his royal throne;
Revolted Paris, deaf to kingly awe,
Within her gates the crouding stranger saw.
Through all the city burst rebellion's flame;
And all was lost, when virtuous Bourbon came;
Came, full of warlike ardour, to restore
That light his prince, deluded, had no more.
His active presence breath'd an instant flame;
No longer now the sluggish sons of shame,
Onward they press, where glory calls, to arms,
And spring to War from Pleasure's silken charms:
To Paris' gates both kings advance amain,
Rome felt th' alarm, and trembled haughty Spain:
While Europe, watching where the tempest falls,
With anxious eyes beheld th' unhappy walls.

Within was Discord, with her hell-born train,
Stirring to war the League, and haughty Mayne,
The people, and the church: and from on high
Call'd out to Spain, rebellion's prompt ally.
Discord, dread monster, deas to human woe,
To her own subjects an avengeful foe,
Bloody, impetuous, eager to destroy,
In man's misfortune founds her hateful joy;

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To neither party ought of mercy shown,
Well-pleas'd she stabs the dagger in her own;
Dwells a fierce tyrant in the breast she fires,
And smiles to punish what herself inspires.

West of the city, near those borders gay,
Where Seine obliquely winds her sloping way,
(Scenes now, where pleasure's soft retreats are found,
Where triumphs art, and nature smiles around,
Then, by the will of fate, the bloody stage
For war's stern combat and relentless rage)
Th' unhappy Valois bad his troops advance,
There rush'd at once the generous strength of France.
A thousand heroes, eager for the fight,
By sects divided, from revenge unite.
These virtuous Bourbon leads, their chosen guide,
Their cause confederate, and their hearts allied.
It seem'd the army felt one common flame,
Their zeal, religion, cause, and chief the same.

The sacred Louis, sire of Bourbon's race,
From azure skies, beside the throne of grace,
With holy joy beheld his future heir,
And ey'd the Hero with paternal care;
With such as prophets feel, a blest presage,
He saw the virtues of his ripening age:

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Saw Glory round him all her laurels deal,
Yet wail'd his errors, tho' he lov'd his zeal;
With eye prophetic he beheld e'en now,
The crown of France adorn his royal brow;
He knew the wreath was destin'd which they gave,
More will'd the Saint, the light which shines to save.

Still Henry's steps mov'd onward to the throne,
By secret ways, e'en to himself unknown.
His help from Heaven the Holy Prophet sent,
But hid the arm his wise indulgence lent;
Lest sure of conquest, he had slack'd his flame,
Nor grappl'd danger for the meed of fame.

Already Mars had donn'd his coat of mail,
And doubtful Conquest held her even scale;
Carnage with blood had mark'd his purple way,
And slaughter'd heaps in wild confusion lay,
When Valois thus his part'ner king addrest,
The sigh deep-heaving from his anxious breast.

“You see what fate, what humbling fate is mine,
“Nor yet alone,—the injury is thine.
“The dauntless League, by hardy Chieftains led,
“Which hisses faction with her Hydra head,

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“Boldly confederate by a desperate oath,
“Aims not at me alone, but strikes at both.
“Tho' I long since the regal circle wear,
“Tho' thou by rank succeed my rightful heir,
“Paris disowns us, nor will homage bring
“To me their present, you their future king.
“Thine, well they know the next illustrious claim,
“From law, from birth, and deeds of loudest fame;
“Yet from that throne's hereditary right
“Where I but totter, wou'd exclude thee quite.
“Religion hurls her furious bolts on thee,
“And holy councils join her firm decree:
“Rome, tho' she raise no soldier's martial band,
“Yet kindles war thro' every awe-struck land;
“Beneath her banners bids each host repair,
“And trusts her thunder to the Spaniard's care,
“Far from my hopes each summer friend is flown,
“No subjects hail me on my sacred throne;
“No kindred now the kind affection shows,
“All fly, their king, abandon, or oppose:
“Rich in my spoils, with greedy treacherous haste,
“While the base Spaniard lays my country waste.
“Midst foes like these, abandon'd, and betray'd,
“France in her turn shall seek a foreign aid:
“Shall Britain's court by secret methods try,
“And win Eliza for a firm ally.

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“Of old I know between each pow'rful state,
“Subsists a jealous and immortal hate;
“That London lifts its tow'ring front on high,
“And looks on Paris with a rival eye;
“But I, the monarch of each pageant throne,
“Have now no subjects, and no country own:
“Vengeance alone my stern resolves avow,
“Who gives me that, to me is Frenchman now.
“The snail-pac'd agents, whose deliberate way,
“Creeps on in trammels of prescrib'd delay,
“Such fit not now; 'tis You, great Prince, alone
“Must haste a suppliant to Eliza's throne.
“Your voice alone shall needful succours bring,
“And arm Britannia for an injur'd king.
“To Albion hence, and let thy happier name
“Plead the king's cause, and raise their generous flame!
“My foes' defeat upon thy arm depends,
“But from thy virtues I must hope for friends.”

Thus spoke the king, while Henry's looks confest
The jealous ardour which inflam'd his breast,
Lest others' arms might urge their glorious claim,
And ravish from him half the meed of fame.
With deep regret the Hero number'd o'er
The wreaths of glory he had won before;

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When, without succours, without skill's intrigue,
Himself with Conde shook the trembling League.
When those command, who hold the regal sway,
It is a subject's virtue to obey.
Resolv'd to follow what the King commands,
The blows, suspended, fell not from his hands;
He rein'd the ardour of his noble mind,
And parting left the gather'd wreaths behind.
Th' astonish'd army felt a deep concern,
Fate seem'd depending on the Chief's return.
His absence still unknown, the pent-up foe
In dire expectance dread the sudden blow;
While Valois' troops still feel their hero's flame,
And virtue triumphs in her Henry's name.

Of all his fav'rites, none their chief attend,
Save Mornay brave, his soul's familiar friend.
Mornay of steady faith, and manners plain,
And truth, untainted with the flatt'rers strain;
Rich in desert, of valour rarely tried,
A virtuous champion, tho' on error's side;
With signal prudence blest, with patriot zeal
Firm to his church, and to the public weal;
Censor of courtiers, but by courts belov'd,
Rome's fierce assailant, and by Rome approv'd.

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Across two rocks, where with tremendous roar,
The foaming ocean lashes either shore,
To Dieppe's strong port the Hero's steps repair,
The ready sailors ply their busy care.
The tow'ring ships, old ocean's lordly kings,
Aloft in air display their canvas wings;
Not swell'd by Boreas now, the glassy seas
Flow'd calmly on, with Zephyr's gentle breeze.
Now, anchor weigh'd, they quit the friendly shore,
And land receding greets their eyes no more.
Jocund they sail'd, and Albion's chalky height
At distance rose full fairly to the sight.
When rumbling thunders rend th' affrighted pole,
Loud roar the winds, and seas tempestuous roll:
The livid lightnings cleave the darken'd air,
And all around reigns horror and despair.
No partial fear the Hero's bosom knows,
Which only trembled for his country's woes,
It seem'd his looks toward her in silence bent,
Accus'd the winds, which cross'd his great intent.
So Cæsar, striving for a conquer'd world,
Near Epire's banks, with adverse tempests hurl'd,
Trusting, undaunted, and securely brave,
Rome's and the world's fate to the swelling wave.
Tho' leagu'd with Pompey Neptune's self engage,
Oppos'd his fortune to dull Ocean's rage.

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Mean time that God, whose power the tempest binds,
Who rides triumphant on the wings of winds,
That God, whose wisdom, which presides o'er all,
Can raise, protect, or crush this earthly ball,
From his bright throne, beyond the starry skies,
Beheld the Hero with considering eyes,
God was his guide, and 'mid the tempest's roar
The tossing vessel reach'd the neighbouring shore;
Where Jersey rises from the ocean's bed,
There, heaven-conducted, was the Hero led.

At a small distance from the shore, there stood
The growth of many years, a shadowy wood.
A neighbouring rock the calm retirement saves
From the rude blasts, and hoarse-resounding waves.
A grotto stands behind, whose structure knows
The simple grace, which nature's hand bestows.
Here far from court remov'd, a holy Sage
Spent the mild evening of declining age.
While free from worldly toils, and worldly woe,
His only study was himself to know:
Here mus'd, regretting on his mispent days,
Or lost in love, or pleasure's flowry maze.
No gusts of folly swell the dangerous tide,
While all his passions to a calm subside;

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The bubble life he held an empty dream,
His food the simple herb, his drink the stream;
Tranquil and calm he drew his aged breath,
And look'd with patience toward the port of death,
When the pure soul to blissful realms shall soar,
And join with God himself to part no more.
The God he worshipp'd ey'd the zealous Sage,
And bless'd with wisdom's lore his silver'd age:
Gave him the skill of prophecy to know,
And from fate's volume read events below.

The Sage with conscious joy the Prince address'd,
And spread the table for his royal guest;
The prompt repast, which simple nature suits,
The stream's fresh water, and the forest's roots.
Not unaccustom'd to the homely fare,
The Warrior sat; for oft from busy care,
From courts retir'd, and pomp's fastidious pride,
The Hero dar'd to throw the king aside:
And in the rustic cot well-pleas'd partook
Of labour's mean repast, and chearful look;
Found in himself the joys to kings unknown
And self depos'd forgot the lordly throne.

The world's contention to their minds supplies
Much converse, wholsome to the good and wise.

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Much did they talk of woes in human life,
Of Christian kingdoms torn with jarring strife.
The zeal of Mornay, like a stubborn fort,
Attach'd to Calvin stood his firm support.
Henry, still doubting, sought th' indulgent skies,
That lights' clear ray might burst upon his eyes,
“Must then, said he, the truth be always found,
“To mortals weak with mists encompas'd round?
“Must I still err, my way in darkness trod,
“Nor know the path which leads me to my God?
“If all alike he will'd us to obey,
“The God who will'd it, had prescrib'd the way.

“Let us not vainly God's designs explore!
“(The Sage reply'd) be humble, and adore!
“Arraign not madly heav'n's unerring laws
“For faults, where mortals are themselves the cause.
“These aged eyes beheld in days of yore,
“When Calvin's doctrine reach'd the Gallic shore,
“Then, tho' with blood it now distains the earth,
“Creeping in shade and humble in the birth,
“I saw it banish'd by religion's laws,
“Without one friend to combat in the cause.
“Thro' ways oblique I saw the phantom tread,
“Slow winding, and asham'd to rear her head,

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“'Till, at the last, upheld by pow'rsul arms,
“'Midst cannon's thunder, and 'mid war's alarms,
“Burst forth the Monster in the glare of light,
“With tow'ring front full dreadful to the sight;
“To scoul at mortals from her tyrant seat,
“And spurn our altars at her impious feet.
“Far then from courts, beneath this peaceful cot,
“I wail'd Religion's and my Country's lot;
“Yet here, to comfort my declining days,
“Some dawn of hope presents its chearful rays.
“So new a worship cannot long survive,
“Which man's caprice alone has kept alive.
“With that it rose, with that shall die away,
“Man's works and Man are bubbles of a day.
“The God, who reigns for ever and the same,
“At pleasure blasts a world's presumptuous aim.
“Vain is our malice, vain our strength display'd,
“To sap the city his right hand hath made;
“Himself hath fix'd the strong foundations low,
“Which brave the wreck of time, and hell's inveterate blow:
“The Lord of Lords shall bless thy purged sight
“With bright effulgence of diviner light;
“On thee, Great Prince, his mercies he'll bestow,
“And shed that Truth thy bosom pants to know.

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“That God hath chose thee, and his hand alone
“Safe through the war shall lead thee to a throne.
“Conquest already (for his voice is fate,)
“For thee bids Glory ope her golden gate.
“If on thy sight the Truth unnotic'd falls,
“Hope not admission in thy Paris' walls.
“Tho' splendid Ease invite thee to her arms,
“O shun, Great Prince, the Syren's poison'd charms!
“O'er thy strong passions hold a glorious reign,
“Fly love's soft lap, break pleasure's silken chain!
“And when, with efforts strong, all foes o'er thrown,
“A league's great conqueror, and what's more Your Own,
“When, with united hearts, and triumph's voice,
“Thy people hail thee with one common choice,
“From a dread siege, to fame for ever known,
“To mount with glory thy paternal throne,
“That time, Affiction shall lay by her rod,
“And thy glad eyes shall seek thy father's God:
“Then shalt thou see from whence thy arms prevail.
“Go, Prince—Who trusts in GOD—can never fail.”

Each word the Sage's holy lips impart,
Falls, like a flame, on Henry's generous heart.

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The Hero stood transported in his mind
To times, when God held converse with mankind,
When simple virtue taught her heav'n-born lore,
And Truth commanding bid e'en kings adore.
His eager arms the reverend Sage embrace,
And the warm tear fast trickled down his face.
Untouch'd, yet lost awhile in deep surprise,
Stood Mornay brave; for still on Mornay's eyes
Hung error's mist, and God's high will conceal'd
The gifts from him to Henry's breast reveal'd.
His wisdom idly wou'd the world prefer,
Whose lot, tho' rich in virtues, was to err.
While the wrapt Sage fulfilling God's behest,
Spoke inspiration to the Prince's breast,
Hush'd were the winds, within their caverns bound,
Smooth flow'd the seas, and nature smil'd around.
The Sage his guide, the Hero sought his way
Where the tall vessels safe at anchor lay:
The ready sailors quit the friendly strand,
Hoist the glad sails, and make for Albion's land.

While o'er her coast his eyes admiring range,
He prais'd in silence Britain's happier change:
Where laws abus'd by soul intestine foes,
Had erst entail'd a heap of dreadful woes

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On prince and people; on that bloody stage,
Where slaughter'd heroes bled for civil rage;
On that bright throne, from whence descended springs,
Th' illustrious lineage of a hundred kings,
Like Henry, long in adverse fortune school'd,
O'er willing English hearts a Woman rul'd:
And, rich in manly courage, female grace,
Clos'd the long lustre of her crouded race.
Eliza then, in Britain's happiest hour,
Held the just balance of contending pow'r;
Made English subjects bow the willing knee,
Who will not serve, and are not happy free.
Beneath her sacred reign the nation knows
No sad remembrance of its former woes;
Their flocks securely graz'd the fertile plain,
Their garners bursting with their golden grain.
The stately ships, their swelling sails unfurl'd,
Brought wealth and homage from the distant world:
All Europe watch'd Britannia's bold decree,
Dreaded by land, and monarch of the sea.
Wide o'er the waves her fleet exulting rode,
And fortune triumph'd over Ocean's God.
Proud London now, no more of barbarous fame,
To arms and commerce urg'd her blended claim.

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Her pow'rs, in union leagu'd, together sate,
King, Lords, and Commons, in their threefold state.
Though separate each their several interest draw,
Yet all united form the stedfast law.
All three, one body's members, firm and fit,
Make but one pow'r in strong conjunction knit;
Pow'r to itself of danger often found,
But spreading terror to its neighbours round.
Blest, when the people duty's homage show,
And pay their king the tribute which they owe!
More blest, when kings for milder virtues known,
Protect their people's freedom from the throne!
“Ah when, cry'd Bourbon, shall our discord cease,
“Our glory, Albion, rise, like thine, in peace?
“Blush, blush, ye kings, ye lords of jarring states,
“A Woman bids, and War hath clos'd its gates:
“Your countries bleed with factious rage opprest,
“While She reigns happy o'er a people blest.”

Mean time the Hero reach'd the sea-girt isle,
Where freedom bids eternal plenty smile;
Not far from William's Tow'r at distance seen,
Stood the fam'd palace of the Virgin Queen.
Hither, the faithful Mornay at his side,
Without the noise and pageant pomp of pride,

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The toys of grandeur which the vain pursue,
But glare unheeded to the Hero's view,
The Prince arriv'd: With bold and manly sense
He spoke, his frankness, all his eloquence;
Told his sad tale, and bow'd his lofty heart,
For France's woes, to act submission's part;
For needful aids the British Queen addrest,
While in the suppliant shone the king confest.
“Com'st thou, reply'd the Queen, with strange surprise,
“Com'st thou from Valois for the wish'd allies?
“Ask'st thou protection for a tyrant foe,
“Whose deadly hate work'd all thy fortune's woe?
“Far as the golden sun begins to rise,
“To where he drives adown the western skies,
“His strife and Thine to all the world is known:
“Stand'st thou for Him a friend at Britain's throne?
“And is that hand, which Valois oft hath fear'd,
“Arm'd in his cause, and for his vengeance rear'd?”
When thus the Prince: “A monarch's adverse fate
“Wipes all remembrance out of former hate.
“Valois was then a slave, his passion's slave,
“But now himself a monarch firm and brave;
“He bursts at once the ignominious chain,
“Resumes the Hero, and asserts his reign.

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“Blest, if of nature more assur'd and free,
“He'd sought no aid but from himself and me!
“But, led by fraud, and arts, all insincere,
“He was my foe from weakness and from fear.
“His faults die with me, when his woes I view,
“I've gain'd the conquest—grant me vengeance, You!
“For know the work is thine, Illustrious Dame,
“To deck thy Albion's brows with worthiest fame.
“Let thy protection spread her ready wings,
“And fight with me the injur'd cause of Kings!”

Eliza then, for much she wish'd to know,
The various turns of France's long-felt woe,
Whence rising first the civil discord came,
And Paris kindled to rebellion's flame—
“Tome, Great Prince, thy griefs are not unknown,
“Though brought imperfect, and by Fame alone;
“Whose rapid wing too indiscreetly flies,
“And spreads abroad her indigested lies.
“Deaf to her tales, from thee, Illustrious Youth,
“From thee alone Eliza seeks the truth.
“Tell me, for you have witness'd all the woe,
“Valois' brave friend, or Valois conquering foe,
“Say, whence this friendship, this alliance grew,
“Which knits the happy bond 'twixt him and you;

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“Explain this wond'rous change, 'tis you alone
“Can paint the virtues which yourself hath shown.
“Teach me thy woes, for know thy story brings
“A moral lesson to the pride of kings.”

“And must my memory then, Illustrious Queen,
“Recal the horrors of each dreadful scene?
“O had it pleas'd th' Almighty Pow'r (which knows,
“How my heart bleeds o'er all my country's woes)
“Oblivion then had snatch'd them from the light,
“And hid them buried in eternal night.
“Nearest of blood must I aloud proclaim,
“The princes' madness, and expose their shame?
“Reflection shakes my mind with wild dismay—
“But 'tis Eliza's will, and I obey.
“Others, in speaking, from their smooth address
“Might make their weakness or their crimes seem less:
“The flow'ry art was never made for me,
“I speak a soldier's language, plain and free.”

THE END.