The Works of William Mason ... In Four Volumes |
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| SONNETS. |
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| XI. |
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 | The Works of William Mason |  |
SONNETS.
SONNET I. SENT TO A YOUNG LADY WITH DODSLEY'S MISCELLANIES.
While Age and Avarice, with malignant eye,Forbid gay Hymen rob'd in saffron train,
With glitt'ring torch to lead thee to the fane,
Where Love awaits to bind the nuptial tie;
To sooth thy cares a group of Muses fly,
Warbling from varied lyres a varied strain.
Verse has an opiate charm for am'rous pain,
And spells, like magic, lurk in minstrelsy.
With these conjoin'd accept this friendly lay,
Which truth inspires, and pure affection warms,
From Him, who saw thy infant bloom display
What now, in full maturity of charms,
Expands, to crown the long-expected day
That yields those beauties to a husband's arms.
SONNET II. PRESENTED TO A FRIEND ON THE MORNING OF HIS MARRIAGE.
No, thou resplendent Sun! thy orient rayShall not in silence to its height ascend;
Thou com'st, thus rob'd in lustre, to attend
On social Bagnal this auspicious day,
When Youth, Wealth, Innocence, and Beauty gay
Prepare to crown the virtues of my friend.
Patron of Light and Verse! thyself shall lend
A beam of inspiration to my lay,
Which, while it sings the merits of his mind
Where true Benevolence still active glows,
And native sense with sterling Science join'd,
And Honour firm alike to words and vows,
Proclaims, that in her choice His Bride shall find
Through life, the Friend, the Lover, and the Spouse.
SONNET III. AUGUST, 1773.
“Ah! why, cries Prudence, “turn thy wayward feet“From scenes congenial to each spruce Divine?
“See, how they flutter round Preferment's shrine
“With scarfe so rustling, and with band so neat!
“Bless'd with such brethren and their converse sweet,
“Like them politely pray, devoutly dine.”
Pardon me, Dame; for Competence benign
(Heav'n-sent at last) now favours my retreat,
Leads me to where Content sedately gay,
Her favourite sister, my free step attends:
Hark! she repeats the Pontic exile's lay,
Bids me enjoy the boon, kind Fortune lends,
Of Envy void, while Time slides soft away,
And from my equals only cull my friends.
Exige, amicitias et tibi junge pares.
Ovid Trist. Lib. III. Eleg. IV. p. 42.
SONNET IV. TO THE RIGHT REVEREND THE BISHOP OF LICHFIELD AND COVENTRY, PREFIXED TO THE DRAMATIC POEM OF CARACTACUS, WHEN ALTERED FOR STAGE REPRESENTATION.
Still let my Hurd a smile of candour lendTo scenes, that dar'd on Grecian pinions tow'r,
When, “in low Thurcaston's sequester'd bow'r,”
He prais'd the strain, because he lov'd the friend:
There golden Leisure did his steps attend,
Nor had the rare, yet well-weigh'd, call of Power
To those high cares decreed his watchful hour,
On which fair Albion's future hopes depend.
A fate unlook'd-for waits my friend and me;
He pays to Duty what was Learning's claim,
Resigning classic ease for dignity;
I yield my Muse to Fashion's praise or blame:
Yet still our hearts in this great truth agree,
That Peace alone is bliss, and Virtue fame.
SONNET V. TO A VERY YOUNG PAINTER.
When Genius first on Attic walls display'dHis imitative powers, four simple hues
Were all that great Apelles deign'd to use:
With these combin'd he to each eye convey'd,
By magic force of colouring light and shade,
His miracles of Grace; while every Muse
Attun'd her lyre, impatient to diffuse
His fame in vivid verse, that scorns to fade:
These then, ingenuous Boy, alone prepare;
From these all Nature's tints arrange with care;
With these produce each shadow, light, and line,
And, while they all thy mix'd attention share,
Chastely to paint, correctly to design,
Deem but one art, and let that art be thine.
See Plinii Nat. Hist. Lib. XXXV. Cap. 15, the pigments he enumerates were black, white, yellow, and red, as appears from the following passage, “Quatuor coloribus solis immortalia opera illa fecere; ex albis, Melino; ex silaceis, Attico; ex rubris, Sinopide Pontica; ex nigris, Atramento:” Apelles, Echion, Melanthius, Nicomachus, Clarissimi Pictores; quum tabulæ eorum singulæ oppidorum venirent opibus.
The authority of my late excellent friend Sir Joshua Reynolds fully supports the latter piece of advice, who in his second Discourse to the Pupils of the Royal Academy (see page 54, 8 vo. edition) says, “What therefore I wish to impress upon you is this, that whenever an opportunity offers you may paint your studies instead of drawing them. This will give you such a facility in using colours, that they will arrange themselves under the pencil, even without the attention of the hand that conducts it. If one art excluded the other, this advice could not, with any propriety, be given; but if painting comprises both drawing and colouring, and if by a short struggle of resolute industry the same expedition is attainable in painting, as in drawing on paper, I cannot see what objection can justly be made to the practice, or why that should be done in parts, which may be done altogether.”
Let me add from myself, that I suspect the use of a multiplicity of pigments, and the prohibition of the pencil (hereafter to be the artist's principal instrument) till the port-crayon has been first long and sedulously employed, have frequently been great impediments to the progress of young artists, especially of those who are endowed by nature with an inventive faculty.
SONNET VI. TO GEORGE BUSSY VILLIERS EARL OF JERSEY, &c. &c. AND GEORGE SIMON HARCOURT EARL HARCOURT, &c. &c.
Ye gen'rous pair, who held the Poet dear,Whose blameless life my friendly pen pourtrays,
Accept, with that combin'd, his latest lays,
While still young Fancy sports in diction clear;
And may propitious Fate their merit bear
To times, when Taste shall weave the wreaths of praise
By modes disdain'd in these fantastic days;
Such wreaths as classic heads were proud to wear.
But if no future ear applauds his strain,
If mine alike to Lethe's lake descends,
Yet, while aloof, on Mem'ry's buoyant main,
The gale of Fame your genuine worth extends,
Still shall our names this fair distinction gain,
That Villiers and that Harcourt call'd us friends.
SONNET VII. FEBRUARY 23, 1795. ANNIVERSARY.
A plaintive Sonnet flow'd from Milton's pen,When Time had stol'n his three and twentieth year:
Say, shall not I then shed one tuneful tear,
Robb'd by the thief of threescore years and ten?
No! for the foes of all life-lengthen'd men,
Trouble and toil, approach not yet too near;
Reason, meanwhile, and health, and memory dear
Hold unimpair'd their weak, yet wonted reign:
Still round my shelter'd lawn I pleas'd can stray;
Still trace my sylvan blessings to their spring:
Being of Beings! Yes, that silent lay,
Which musing Gratitude delights to sing,
Still to thy sapphire throne shall Faith convey,
And Hope, the Cherub of unwearied wing.
“How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, &c.”
SONNET VIII. FEBRUARY 23, 1796. ANNIVERSARY.
In the long course of seventy years and one,Oft have I known on this, my natal day,
Hoar frost, and sweeping snow prolong their sway,
The wild winds whistle, and the forests groan;
But now spring's smile has veil'd stern winter's frown;
And now the birds on ev'ry budding spray
Chaunt orisons, as to the morn of May:
With them all fear of season's change is flown;
Like them I sing, yet not, like them beguil'd,
Expect the vernal bloom of youth to know:
But, though such hope be from my breast exil'd,
I feel warm Piety's superior glow,
And as my winter, like the year's, is mild,
Give praise to Him, from whom all mercies flow.
SONNET IX. TO THE BISHOP OF WORCESTER, SENT TO HIM WITH THE PRECEDING SONNET.
What! when the step of even-footed timeHas led me one and seventy years along,
Dare I attempt a second birth-day song,
And bid it tinkle in Petrarchian chime?
Shall I, impeded by the knots of rhyme,
Venture to shoot the warp of verse among
My blunted shuttle? Be it right or wrong,
I'll try, yet keep from pathos or sublime;
For Hurd, the critic of my youthful lay,
And yet Right Reverend Censor, cries “Forbear!
“Age should avoid, like Infancy, to play
“With pointed tools; a Sonnet once a year,
“Or so, my nod permits thee to essay.”
Duteous I bow, yet think the doom severe.
SONNET X. FEBRUARY 23, 1797. ANNIVERSARY.
Again the year on easy wheels has roll'dTo bear me to the term of seventy-two.
Yet still my eyes can seize the distant blue
Of yon wild Peak, and still my footsteps bold,
Unprop'd by staff, support me to behold
How Nature, to her Maker's mandate true,
Calls Spring's impartial heralds to the view,
The snow-drop pale, the crocus spik'd with gold;
And still (thank Heav'n) if I not falsely deem,
My Lyre, yet vocal, freely can afford
Strains not discordant to each moral theme
Fair Truth inspires, and aid me to record,
(Best of poetic palms!) my Faith supreme
In thee, my God, my Saviour, and my Lord!
SONNET XI. OCCASIONED BY A LATE ATTACK ON THE PRESENT TASTE OF ENGLISH GARDENS.
When two Arcadian squires in rhyme and prosePrick'd forth to spout that dilettanti lore
Their Ciceronis long had threadbare wore,
Taste from his polish'd lawn indignant rose,
And cry'd, “as Pedants are true Learning's foes,
“So, when true Genius ventures to restore
“To Nature, scenes that Fashion marr'd before,
“These travell'd Cognoscenti interpose
“And prate of Picturesqueness, —Let them prate
“While to my genuine Votaries I assign
“The pleasing task from her too rustic state
“To lead the willing Goddess; to refine,
“But not transform, her charms, and at her shrine
“Bid Use with Elegance obsequious wait.”
This epithet is rather hazarded, but if they be not Pastori d'Arcadi, they ought to be so, for they are most certainly Arcades ambo.
SONNET XII. TO A GRAVEL WALK, RELATIVE TO THE PRECEDING SUBJECT.
Smooth, simple Path! whose undulating line,With sidelong tufts of flow'ry fragrance crown'd,
“Plain in its neatness,” spans my garden ground;
What, though two acres thy brief course confine,
Yet sun and shade, and hill and dale are thine,
And use with beauty here more surely found,
Than where, to spread the picturesque around,
Cart ruts and quarry holes their charms combine!
Here, as thou lead'st my step through lawn or grove,
Liberal though limited, restrain'd though free,
Fearless of dew, or dirt, or dust, I rove,
And own those comforts, all deriv'd from thee!
Take then, smooth Path, this tribute of my love,
Thou emblem pure of legal liberty!
A phrase that Milton uses to express simplex munditiis. See his translation of Hor. Ode V. Lib. I. Mr. T. Warton, in his edition of Milton's Poems, criticises the expression. It is however Milton's, and, if it does not fully express Horace's meaning, seems to serve my purpose perfectly.
SONNET XIII. OCCASIONED BY A DIDACTIC POEM ON THE PROGRESS OF CIVIL SOCIETY.
Old as I am, I yet have powers to sneerAt him, who dares debase the gold of Gray
With his vile dross, and by such base allay,
Hope to buy off the critic's frown severe;
Him too, whose page e'erwhile had dar'd appear
With shameless front the symbols to display
Of Pagan rites obscene, and thence convey
Shame to each eye, profaneness to each ear.
Methinks, through Fancy's tube, my friend I spy
Thron'd on a cloud in yon etherial plain,
“Smiling in scorn;” methinks, I hear him cry,
“Prosaic Poetaster, cease to drain
“The filthy dregs of Epicurus' sty;
“They shall not mix with my nectareous strain!”
What Mr. Gray thought and writ (see his Detached Thoughts, printed in his Memoirs, Vol. III. p. 113, last edition) gives complete authority to this Prosopopæia.
“The doctrine of Epicurus is ever ruinous to society. It had its rise when Greece was declining, and, perhaps, hastened its dissolution, as also that of Rome. It is now propagated in France and in England, and seems likely to produce the same effects in both.” May heaven avert, at least, the latter part of this presentiment formed above forty years ago!
| The Works of William Mason | |