The poems (1969) :: :: University of Virginia Library

What! no way left to shun the inglorious stage,
And save from infamy my sinking age!
Scarce half alive, oppressed with many a year,
What in the name of dotage drives me here?
A time there was, when glory was my guide,
Nor force nor fraud could turn my steps aside;
Unawed by power and unappalled by fear,
With honest thrift I held my honour dear:
But this vile hour disperses all my store,
And all my hoard of honour is no more.

578

For ah! too partial to my life's decline,
Caesar persuades, submission must be mine;
Him I obey, whom heaven itself obeys,
Hopeless of pleasing, yet inclined to please.
Here then at once, I welcome every shame,
And cancel at threescore a life of fame;
No more my titles shall my children tell,
The old buffoon will fit my name as well;
This day beyond its term my fate extends,
For life is ended when our honour ends.

2 On a Beautiful Youth Struck Blind with Lightning

Sure 'twas by Providence designed,
Rather in pity than in hate,
That he should be like Cupid blind,
To save him from Narcissus' fate.

3 The Gift

To Iris, in Bow-Street, Covent-Garden

579

Say, cruel Iris, pretty rake,
Dear mercenary beauty,
What annual offering shall I make,
Expressive of my duty?

My heart, a victim to thine eyes,
Should I at once deliver,
Say, would the angry fair one prize
The gift, who slights the giver?

A bill, a jewel, watch, or toy,
My rivals give—and let 'em.
If gems, or gold, impart a joy,
I'll give them—when I get 'em.

I'll give—but not the full-blown rose,
Or rose-bud more in fashion;

580

Such short-lived offerings but disclose
A transitory passion.

I'll give thee something yet unpaid,
Not less sincere than civil:
I'll give thee—Ah! too charming maid,
I'll give thee—To the devil.

4 A Sonnet

[Weeping, murmuring, complaining]

Weeping, murmuring, complaining,
Lost to every gay delight,
Myra, too sincere for feigning,
Fears the approaching bridal night.

Yet why this killing, soft dejection?
Why dim thy beauty with a tear?
Had Myra followed my direction,
She long had wanted cause to fear.

5 An Elegy on that Glory of her Sex, Mrs Mary Blaize

581

Good people all, with one accord,
Lament for Madam Blaize,
Who never wanted a good word—
From those who spoke her praise.

The needy seldom passed her door,
And always found her kind;
She freely lent to all the poor,—
Who left a pledge behind.

She strove the neighbourhood to please,
With manners wondrous winning,
And never followed wicked ways,—
Unless when she was sinning.

At church, in silks and satins new,
With hoop of monstrous size,
She never slumbered in her pew,—
But when she shut her eyes.

Her love was sought, I do aver,
By twenty beaux and more;

582

The king himself has followed her,—
When she has walked before.

But now her wealth and finery fled,
Her hangers-on cut short all;
The doctors found, when she was dead,—
Her last disorder mortal.

Let us lament, in sorrow sore,
For Kent-Street well may say,
That had she lived a twelve-month more,—
She had not died to-day.

6 The Double Transformation:

A Tale

583

Secluded from domestic strife,
Jack Book-worm led a college life;
A fellowship at twenty-five
Made him the happiest man alive;
He drank his glass and cracked his joke,
And freshmen wondered as he spoke.

Such pleasures, unallayed with care,
Could any accident impair?
Could Cupid's shaft at length transfix
Our swain, arrived at thirty-six?
O had the archer ne'er come down
To ravage in a country town!
Or Flavia been content to stop
At triumphs in a Fleet-Street shop.
O had her eyes forgot to blaze!
Or Jack had wanted eyes to gaze.
O—but let exclamation cease,
Her presence banished all his peace.

584

So with decorum all things carried;
Miss frowned, and blushed, and then was—married.

Need we expose to vulgar sight
The raptures of the bridal night?
Need we intrude on hallowed ground,
Or draw the curtains closed around?
Let it suffice that each had charms;
He clasped a goddess in his arms;
And, though she felt his usage rough,
Yet in a man 'twas well enough.

The honey-moon like lightning flew,
The second brought its transports too.
A third, a fourth, were not amiss,
The fifth was friendship mixed with bliss:
But, when a twelvemonth passed away,
Jack found his goddess made of clay;

585

Found half the charms that decked her face
Arose from powder, shreds or lace;
But still the worst remained behind,
That very face had robbed her mind.

Skilled in no other arts was she,
But dressing, patching, repartee;
And, just as humour rose or fell,
By turns a slattern or a belle:
'Tis true she dressed with modern grace,
Half naked at a ball or race;
But when at home, at board or bed,
Five greasy nightcaps wrapped her head.
Could so much beauty condescend
To be a dull domestic friend?
Could any curtain-lectures bring
To decency so fine a thing?
In short, by night 'twas fits or fretting;
By day 'twas gadding or coquetting.
Fond to be seen, she kept a bevy
Of powdered coxcombs at her levy;
The squire and captain took their stations,
And twenty other near relations;
Jack sucked his pipe and often broke
A sigh in suffocating smoke;

586

While all their hours were passed between
Insulting repartee or spleen.

Thus as her faults each day were known,
He thinks her features coarser grown;
He fancies every vice she shows
Or thins her lip or points her nose:
Whenever rage or envy rise,
How wide her mouth, how wild her eyes!
He knows not how, but so it is,
Her face is grown a knowing phiz;
And, though her fops are wondrous civil,
He thinks her ugly as the devil.

Now, to perplex the ravelled noose,
As each a different way pursues,
While sullen or loquacious strife
Promised to hold them on for life,
That dire disease, whose ruthless power
Withers the beauty's transient flower,
Lo! the small-pox with horrid glare
Levelled its terrors at the fair;
And, rifling every youthful grace,
Left but the remnant of a face.

The glass, grown hateful to her sight,
Reflected now a perfect fright:
Each former art she vainly tries
To bring back lustre to her eyes.
In vain she tries her paste and creams,
To smooth her skin or hide its seams;
Her country beaux and city cousins,

587

Lovers no more, flew off by dozens:
The squire himself was seen to yield,
And even the captain quit the field.

Poor Madam, now condemned to hack
The rest of life with anxious Jack,
Perceiving others fairly flown,
Attempted pleasing him alone.
Jack soon was dazzled to behold
Her present face surpass the old;
With modesty her cheeks are dyed,
Humility displaces pride;
For tawdry finery is seen
A person ever neatly clean:
No more presuming on her sway,
She learns good-nature every day;
Serenely gay and strict in duty,
Jack finds his wife a perfect beauty.

7 [The Description of an Author's Bedchamber]

588

Where the Red Lion flaring o'er the way
Invites each passing stranger that can pay;
Where Calvert's butt and Parsons' black champagne

589

Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury-Lane;
There in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug,
The Muse found Scroggen stretched beneath a rug;
A window patched with paper lent a ray,
That dimly showed the state in which he lay;
The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread;
The humid wall with paltry pictures spread:
The royal game of goose was there in view,
And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew;

590

The Seasons framed with listing found a place,
And brave Prince William showed his lamp-black face:
The morn was cold, he views with keen desire
The rusty grate unconscious of a fire;
With beer and milk arrears the frieze was scored,
And five cracked teacups dressed the chimney board.
A nightcap decked his brows instead of bay,
A cap by night—a stocking all the day!

591

8 On Seeing Mrs Perform in the Character of

To you, bright fair, the nine address their lays,
And tune my feeble voice to sing thy praise.
The heartfelt power of every charm divine,
Who can withstand their all-commanding shine?
See how she moves along with every grace,
While soul-brought tears steal down each shining face.
She speaks, 'tis rapture all and nameless bliss;
Ye gods, what transport e'er compared to this.
As when in Paphian groves the Queen of Love
With fond complaint addressed the listening Jove,
'Twas joy and endless blisses all around,
And rocks forgot their hardness at the sound.
Then first, at last even Jove was taken in,
And felt her charms, without disguise, within.

9 On the Death of the Right Honourable ***

592

Ye Muses, pour the pitying tear
For Pollio snatched away;
O had he lived another year!
He had not died today.

O, were he born to bless mankind,
In virtuous times of yore,
Heroes themselves had fallen behind!
Whene'er he went before.

How sad the groves and plains appear,
And sympathetic sheep;
Even pitying hills would drop a tear!
If hills could learn to weep.

His bounty in exalted strain
Each bard might well display;
Since none implored relief in vain!
That went relieved away.

And hark! I hear the tuneful throng
His obsequies forbid.
He still shall live, shall live as long!
As ever dead man did.

10 [Translation of a South American Ode]

593

In all my Enna's beauties blest,
Amidst profusion still I pine;
For though she gives me up her breast,
Its panting tenant is not mine.

11 An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog

594

Good people all, of every sort,
Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wondrous short,
It cannot hold you long.

In Islington there was a man,
Of whom the world might say
That still a godly race he ran,
Whene'er he went to pray.

A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad,
When he put on his clothes.

And in that town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound,
And curs of low degree.

This dog and man at first were friends;
But when a pique began,
The dog, to gain some private ends,
Went mad and bit the man.

Around from all the neighbouring streets
The wondering neighbours ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits,
To bite so good a man.

The wound it seemed both sore and sad
To every Christian eye;
And while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the man would die.

But soon a wonder came to light,
That showed the rogues they lied:
The man recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died.

595

12 Song from The Vicar of Wakefield

When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom—is to die.

596

13 Edwin and Angelina

599

Turn, gentle hermit of the dale,
And guide my lonely way,
To where yon taper cheers the vale
With hospitable ray.

‘For here forlorn and lost I tread,
With fainting steps and slow;
Where wilds immeasurably spread,
Seem lengthening as I go.’

‘Forbear, my son,’ the hermit cries,
‘To tempt the dangerous gloom;
For yonder faithless phantom flies
To lure thee to thy doom.

‘Here to the houseless child of want
My door is open still;
And though my portion is but scant,
I give it with good will.

‘Then turn tonight, and freely share
Whate'er my cell bestows;
My rushy couch and frugal fare,
My blessing and repose.

‘No flocks that range the valley free
To slaughter I condemn:
Taught by that power that pities me,
I learn to pity them.

‘But from the mountain's grassy side
A guiltless feast I bring;
A scrip with herbs and fruits supplied,
And water from the spring.

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‘Then, pilgrim, turn, thy cares forgo;
All earth-born cares are wrong:
Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.’

Soft as the dew from heaven descends,
His gentle accents fell:
The modest stranger lowly bends,
And follows to the cell.

Far in a wilderness obscure
The lonely mansion lay;
A refuge to the neighbouring poor
And strangers led astray.

No stores beneath its humble thatch
Required a master's care;
The wicket, opening with a latch,
Received the harmless pair.

And now, when busy crowds retire
To take their evening rest,
The hermit trimmed his little fire,
And cheered his pensive guest:

And spread his vegetable store,
And gaily pressed and smiled;

601

And, skilled in legendary lore,
The lingering hours beguiled.

Around in sympathetic mirth
Its tricks the kitten tries;
The cricket chirrups in the hearth;
The crackling faggot flies.

But nothing could a charm impart
To soothe the stranger's woe;
For grief was heavy at his heart,
And tears began to flow.

His rising cares the hermit spied,
With answering care oppressed;
‘And whence, unhappy youth,’ he cried,
‘The sorrows of thy breast?

‘From better habitations spurned,
Reluctant dost thou rove;
Or grieve for friendship unreturned,
Or unregarded love?

‘Alas! the joys that fortune brings
Are trifling, and decay;
And those who prize the paltry things,
More trifling still than they.

‘And what is friendship but a name,
A charm that lulls to sleep;
A shade that follows wealth or fame,
But leaves the wretch to weep?

‘And love is still an emptier sound,
The modern fair one's jest:

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On earth unseen, or only found
To warm the turtle's nest.

‘For shame, fond youth, thy sorrows hush,
And spurn the sex,’ he said:
But, while he spoke, a rising blush
His love-lorn guest betrayed.

Surprised, he sees new beauties rise,
Swift mantling to the view;
Like colours o'er the morning skies,
As bright, as transient too.

The bashful look, the rising breast,
Alternate spread alarms:
The lovely stranger stands confessed
A maid in all her charms.

‘And, ah! forgive a stranger rude,
A wretch forlorn,’ she cried;
‘Whose feet unhallowed thus intrude
Where heaven and you reside.

‘But let a maid thy pity share,
Whom love has taught to stray;
Who seeks for rest, but finds despair
Companion of her way.

‘My father lived beside the Tyne,
A wealthy lord was he;

603

And all his wealth was marked as mine,
He had but only me.

‘To win me from his tender arms
Unnumbered suitors came;
Who praised me for imputed charms,
And felt or feigned a flame.

‘Each hour a mercenary crowd
With richest proffers strove:
Among the rest young Edwin bowed,
But never talked of love.

‘In humble, simplest habit clad,
No wealth nor power had he;
Wisdom and worth were all he had,
But these were all to me.

‘The blossom opening to the day,
The dews of heaven refined,

604

Could nought of purity display,
To emulate his mind.

‘The dew, the blossom on the tree,
With charms inconstant shine;
Their charms were his, but woe to me,
Their constancy was mine.

‘For still I tried each fickle art,
Importunate and vain:
And while his passion touched my heart,
I triumphed in his pain.

‘Till quite dejected with my scorn,
He left me to my pride;
And sought a solitude forlorn,
In secret, where he died.

605

‘But mine the sorrow, mine the fault,
And well my life shall pay;
I'll seek the solitude he sought,
And stretch me where he lay.

‘And there forlorn, despairing, hid,
I'll lay me down and die:
'Twas so for me that Edwin did,
And so for him will I.’

‘Forbid it, heaven!’ the hermit cried,
And clasped her to his breast:
The wondering fair one turned to chide,
'Twas Edwin's self that pressed.

‘Turn, Angelina, ever dear,
My charmer, turn to see
Thy own, thy long-lost Edwin here,
Restored to love and thee.

‘Thus let me hold thee to my heart,
And every care resign;
And shall we never, never part,
My life—my all that's mine?

‘No, never from this hour to part,
We'll live and love so true;

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The sigh that rends thy constant heart
Shall break thy Edwin's too.’

14 The Captivity:

an Oratorio

608

ACT I

Scene I

Israelites sitting on the Banks of the Euphrates
FIRST PROPHET

Recitative

Ye captive tribes, that hourly work and weep
Where flows Euphrates murmuring to the deep,
Suspend awhile the task, the tear suspend,
And turn to God, your father and your friend.
Insulted, chained, and all the world a foe,
Our God alone is all we boast below.

CHORUS OF ISRAELITES

Our God is all we boast below,
To him we turn our eyes;
And every added weight of woe
Shall make our homage rise.

And though no temple richly dressed
Nor sacrifice is here,
We'll make his temple in our breast,
And offer up a tear.

SECOND PROPHET

Recitative

That strain once more; it bids remembrance rise,
And calls my long-lost country to mine eyes.
Ye fields of Sharon, dressed in flowery pride,
Ye plains where Jordan rolls its glassy tide,
Ye hills of Lebanon with cedars crowned,
Ye Gilead groves that fling perfumes around,
These hills how sweet! those plains how wondrous fair,

609

But sweeter still, when Heaven was with us there!

Air

O memory, thou fond deceiver,
Still importunate and vain;
To former joys recurring ever,
And turning all the past to pain;

Hence, deceiver, most distressing,
Seek the happy and the free:
They who want each other blessing,
Ever want a friend in thee.

FIRST PROPHET

Recitative

Yet, why repine? What, though by bonds confined,
Should bonds enslave the vigour of the mind?
Have we not cause for triumph when we see
Ourselves alone from idol-worship free?
Are not this very day those rites begun,
Where prostrate error hails the rising sun?
Do not our tyrant lords this day ordain
For superstition's rites and mirth profane?
And should we mourn? should coward virtue fly,
When impious folly rears her front on high?
No; rather let us triumph still the more,
And as our fortune sinks, our wishes soar.

610

Air

The triumphs that on vice attend
Shall ever in confusion end;
The good man suffers but to gain,
And every virtue springs from pain:

As aromatic plants bestow
No spicy fragrance while they grow;
But crushed, or trodden to the ground,
Diffuse their balmy sweets around.

SECOND PROPHET

Recitative

But hush, my sons, our tyrant lords are near;
The sound of barbarous mirth offends mine ear;
Triumphant music floats along the vale;
Near, nearer still, it gathers on the gale;
The growing note their near approach declares;
Desist, my sons, nor mix the strain with theirs.

Enter Chaldean Priests attended
FIRST PRIEST

Air

Come on, my companions, the triumph display;
Let rapture the minutes employ;
The sun calls us out on this festival day,
And our monarch partakes of our joy.

Like the sun, our great monarch all pleasure supplies,
Both similar blessings bestow;
The sun with his splendour illumines the skies,
And our monarch enlivens below.

611

CHALDEAN WOMAN

Air

Haste, ye sprightly sons of pleasure;
Love presents its brightest treasure,
Leave all other sports for me.

CHALDEAN ATTENDANT
Or rather, love's delights despising,
Haste to raptures ever rising:
Wine shall bless the brave and free.

SECOND PRIEST
Wine and beauty thus inviting,
Each to different joys exciting,
Whither shall my choice incline?

FIRST PRIEST

I'll waste no longer thought in choosing;
But, neither love nor wine refusing,
I'll make them both together mine.

Recitative

But whence, when joy should brighten o'er the land,
This sullen gloom in Judah's captive band?
Ye sons of Judah, why the lute unstrung?
Or why those harps on yonder willows hung?
Come, leave your griefs and join our warbling choir,
For who like you can wake the sleeping lyre?

SECOND PROPHET
Bowed down with chains, the scorn of all mankind,

612

To want, to toil and every ill consigned,
Is this a time to bid us raise the strain,
And mix in rites that Heaven regards with pain?
No, never! May this hand forget each art
That speeds the powers of music to the heart,
Ere I forget the land that gave me birth,
Or join with sounds profane its sacred mirth.

FIRST PRIEST
Insulting slaves! if gentler methods fail,
The whips and angry tortures shall prevail.

[Exeunt Chaldeans
FIRST PROPHET
Why, let them come, one good remains to cheer;
We fear the Lord, and know no other fear.

CHORUS
Can whips or tortures hurt the mind
On God's supporting breast reclined?
Stand fast, and let our tyrants see
That fortitude is victory.

End of the First Act

ACT II

Scene as before
CHORUS OF ISRAELITES
O Peace of mind, thou lovely guest,

613

Thou softest soother of the breast,
Dispense thy balmy store.
Wing all our thoughts to reach the skies,
Till earth, diminished to our eyes,
Shall vanish as we soar.

FIRST PRIEST

Recitative

No more. Too long has justice been delayed,
The king's commands must fully be obeyed;
Compliance with his will your peace secures,
Praise but our gods and every good is yours.
But if, rebellious to his high command,
You spurn the favours offered from his hand,
Think, timely think, what ills remain behind;
Reflect, nor tempt to rage the royal mind.

SECOND PRIEST

Air

Fierce is the whirlwind howling
O'er Afric's sandy plain,
And fierce the tempest rolling
Along the furrowed main:

But storms that fly
To rend the sky,
Every ill presaging,
Less dreadful show
To worlds below
Than angry monarchs raging.

ISRAELITISH WOMAN

Recitative

Ah, me! what angry terrors round us grow;
How shrinks my soul to meet the threatened blow!
Ye prophets, skilled in Heaven's eternal truth,

614

Forgive my sex's fears, forgive my youth!
If, shrinking thus, when frowning power appears,
I wish for life and yield me to my fears.
Let us one hour, one little hour obey;
Tomorrow's tears may wash our stains away.

Air

To the last moment of his breath
On hope the wretch relies;
And even the pang preceding death
Bids expectation rise.

Hope, like the gleaming taper's light,
Adorns and cheers our way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.

SECOND PRIEST

Recitative

Why this delay? at length for joy prepare;
I read your looks and see compliance there.
Come raise the strain and grasp the full-toned lyre:
The time, the theme, the place and all conspire.

615

CHALDEAN WOMAN

Air

See the ruddy morning smiling,
Hear the grove to bliss beguiling;
Zephyrs through the valley playing,
Streams along the meadow straying.

FIRST PRIEST
While these a constant revel keep,
Shall reason only bid me weep?
Hence, intruder! we'll pursue
Nature, a better guide than you.

SECOND PRIEST

Air

Every moment, as it flows,
Some peculiar pleasure owes;
Then let us, providently wise,
Seize the debtor as it flies.

Think not tomorrow can repay
The pleasures that we lose today;
Tomorrow's most unbounded store
Can but pay its proper score.

FIRST PRIEST

Recitative

But hush! see, foremost of the captive choir,
The master-prophet grasps his full-toned lyre.
Mark where he sits, with executing art,

616

Feels for each tone and speeds it to the heart.
See, inspiration fills his rising form,
Awful as clouds that nurse the growing storm;
And now his voice, accordant to the string,
Prepares our monarch's victories to sing.

FIRST PROPHET

Air

From north, from south, from east, from west,
Conspiring foes shall come;
Tremble, thou vice-polluted breast;
Blasphemers, all be dumb.

The tempest gathers all around,
On Babylon it lies;
Down with her! down, down to the ground;
She sinks, she groans, she dies.

SECOND PROPHET
Down with her, Lord, to lick the dust,
Ere yonder setting sun;
Serve her as she hath served the just.
'Tis fixed-it shall be done.

FIRST PRIEST

Recitative

Enough! when slaves thus insolent presume,
The king himself shall judge and fix their doom.
Short-sighted wretches, have not you, and all,
Beheld our power in Zedekiah's fall?
To yonder gloomy dungeon turn your eyes;
See where dethroned your captive monarch lies.
Deprived of sight and rankling in his chain,
He calls on death to terminate his pain.
Yet know, ye slaves, that still remain behind
More ponderous chains and dungeons more confined.

617

CHORUS
Arise, all-potent Ruler, rise,
And vindicate the people's cause;
Till every tongue in every land
Shall offer up unfeigned applause.

End of the Second Act

ACT III

Scene as before
FIRST PRIEST

Recitative

Yes, my companions, Heaven's decrees are past,
And our fixed empire shall for ever last;
In vain the maddening prophet threatens woe,
In vain rebellion aims her secret blow;
Still shall our fame and growing power be spread,
And still our vengeance crush the guilty's head.

Air

Coeval with man
Our empire began,
And never shall fall
Till ruin shakes all;
With the ruin of all
Shall Babylon fall.

SECOND PROPHET

Recitative

'Tis thus that pride triumphant rears the head:
A little while and all her power is fled.
But ha! what means yon sadly plaintive train,

618

That this way slowly bends along the plain?
And now, methinks, a pallid corse they bear
To yonder bank, and rest the body there.
Alas! too well mine eyes observant trace
The last remains of Judah's royal race:
Our monarch falls and now our fears are o'er:
The wretched Zedekiah is no more!

Air

Ye wretches who, by fortune's hate,
In want and sorrow groan,
Come ponder his severer fate,
And learn to bless your own.

Ye sons, from fortune's lap supplied,
Awhile the bliss suspend;
Like yours his life began in pride,
Like his your lives may end.

SECOND PROPHET
Behold his squalid corse with sorrow worn,
His wretched limbs with ponderous fetters torn;
Those eyeless orbs that shock with ghastly glare,

619

Those ill-becoming robes and matted hair.
And shall not Heaven for this its terrors show,
And deal its angry vengeance on the foe?
How long, how long, Almighty Lord of all,
Shall wrath vindictive threaten ere it fall?

ISRAELITISH WOMAN

Air

As panting flies the hunted hind,
Where brooks refreshing stray,
And rivers through the valley wind,
That stop the hunter's way:

Thus we, O Lord, alike distressed,
For streams of mercy long;
Those streams which cheer the sore oppressed,
And overwhelm the strong.

FIRST PROPHET

Recitative

But whence that shout? Good Heavens! amazement all!
See yonder tower just nodding to the fall:
See where an army covers all the ground,
Saps the strong wall and pours destruction round.
The ruin smokes, destruction pours along;
How low the great, how feeble are the strong!
The foe prevails, the lofty walls recline:
O God of hosts, the victory is thine!

620

CHORUS OF ISRAELITES
Down with her, Lord, to lick the dust;
Let vengeance be begun:
Serve her as she hath served the just,
And let thy will be done.

FIRST PRIEST

All, all is lost. The Syrian army fails;
Cyrus, the conqueror of the world, prevails.
Save us, O Lord! to thee, though late, we pray,
And give repentance but an hour's delay.

Air

Thrice happy, who in happy hour
To Heaven their praise bestow,
And own his all-consuming power
Before they feel the blow!

FIRST PROPHET

Recitative

Now, now's our time! ye wretches bold and blind,
Brave but to God and cowards to mankind,
Too late you seek that power unsought before,
Your wealth, your pride, your empire, are no more.

Air

O Lucifer, thou son of morn,
Alike of Heaven and man the foe;
Heaven, men and all

621

Now press thy fall,
And sink thee lowest of the low.

SECOND PRIEST
O Babylon, how art thou fallen,
Thy fall more dreadful from delay!
Thy streets forlorn
To wilds shall turn,
Where toads shall pant and vultures prey.

FIRST PROPHET

Recitative

Such be her fate. But listen, from afar
The clarion's note proclaims the finished war!
Cyrus, our great restorer, is at hand,
And this way leads his formidable band.
Now, give your songs of Sion to the wind,
And hail the benefactor of mankind:
He comes pursuant to divine decree,
To chain the strong and set the captive free.

CHORUS OF YOUTHS
Rise to raptures past expressing,
Sweeter from remembered woes;
Cyrus comes, our wrongs redressing,
Comes to give the world repose.

CHORUS OF VIRGINS
Cyrus comes, the world redressing,
Love and pleasure in his train;
Comes to heighten every blessing,
Comes to soften every pain.

CHORUS OF YOUTHS AND VIRGINS
Hail to him with mercy reigning,
Skilled in every peaceful art,

622

Who from bonds our limbs unchaining,
Only binds the willing heart.

LAST CHORUS
But chief to Thee, our God, our father, friend,
Let praise be given to all eternity;
O Thou, without beginning, without end,
Let us, and all, begin and end in Thee!

FINIS

15 The Traveller,

or A Prospect of Society

632

Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,
Or by the lazy Scheldt or wandering Po;
Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor
Against the houseless stranger shuts the door;
Or where Campania's plain forsaken lies,
A weary waste expanding to the skies:
Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee;
Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.

Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend,
And round his dwelling guardian saints attend:
Blest be that spot, where cheerful guests retire
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire;

633

Blest that abode, where want and pain repair,
And every stranger finds a ready chair;
Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crowned,
Where all the ruddy family around
Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail,
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale,
Or press the bashful stranger to his food,
And learn the luxury of doing good.

But me, not destined such delights to share,
My prime of life in wandering spent and care,
Impelled, with steps unceasing, to pursue
Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view;
That, like the circle bounding earth and skies,
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies;
My fortune leads to traverse realms alone,
And find no spot of all the world my own.

Even now, where Alpine solitudes ascend,
I sit me down a pensive hour to spend;
And, placed on high above the storm's career,
Look downward where an hundred realms appear;
Lakes, forests, cities, plains extending wide,
The pomp of kings, the shepherd's humbler pride.

When thus Creation's charms around combine,

634

Amidst the store should thankless pride repine?
Say, should the philosophic mind disdain
That good, which makes each humbler bosom vain?
Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can,
These little things are great to little man;
And wiser he, whose sympathetic mind
Exults in all the good of all mankind.
Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendour crowned,
Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round,
Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale,
Ye bending swains, that dress the flowery vale,
For me your tributary stores combine;
Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine.

As some lone miser visiting his store,
Bends at his treasure, counts, re-counts it o'er;
Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill,
Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still:
Thus to my breast alternate passions rise,
Pleased with each good that heaven to man supplies:
Yet oft a sigh prevails and sorrows fall,
To see the hoard of human bliss so small;
And oft I wish, amidst the scene, to find
Some spot to real happiness consigned,
Where my worn soul, each wandering hope at rest,
May gather bliss to see my fellows blest.

But where to find that happiest spot below,

635

Who can direct, when all pretend to know?
The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own,
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,
And his long nights of revelry and ease;
The naked negro, panting at the line,
Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,
Basks in the glare or stems the tepid wave,
And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.
Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,
His first, best country ever is at home.
And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare,
And estimate the blessings which they share,
Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find
An equal portion dealt to all mankind,
As different good, by Art or Nature given,
To different nations makes their blessings even.

636

Nature, a mother kind alike to all,
Still grants her bliss at Labour's earnest call;
With food as well the peasant is supplied
On Idra's cliffs as Arno's shelvy side;
And though the rocky-crested summits frown,
These rocks, by custom, turn to beds of down.
From Art more various are the blessings sent:
Wealth, commerce, honour, liberty, content.
Yet these each other's power so strong contest,
That either seems destructive of the rest.
Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails,
And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
Hence every state, to one loved blessing prone,
Conforms and models life to that alone.
Each to the favourite happiness attends,
And spurns the plan that aims at other ends;
Till, carried to excess in each domain,
This favourite good begets peculiar pain.

637

But let us try these truths with closer eyes,
And trace them through the prospect as it lies:
Here for a while my proper cares resigned,
Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind,
Like yon neglected shrub at random cast,
That shades the steep and sighs at every blast.

Far to the right, where Apennine ascends,
Bright as the summer, Italy extends;
Its uplands sloping deck the mountain's side,
Woods over woods in gay theatric pride;
While oft some temple's mouldering tops between
With venerable grandeur mark the scene.

Could Nature's bounty satisfy the breast,
The sons of Italy were surely blest.
Whatever fruits in different climes are found,
That proudly rise or humbly court the ground;
Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear,

638

Whose bright succession decks the varied year;
Whatever sweets salute the northern sky
With vernal lives that blossom but to die;
These here disporting own the kindred soil,
Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil;
While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand
To winnow fragrance round the smiling land.

But small the bliss that sense alone bestows,
And sensual bliss is all the nation knows.
In florid beauty groves and fields appear,
Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.
Contrasted faults through all his manners reign:
Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain;
Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue;
And even in penance planning sins anew.
All evils here contaminate the mind,
That opulence departed leaves behind;
For wealth was theirs, nor far removed the date,
When commerce proudly flourished through the state;
At her command the palace learned to rise,
Again the long-fall'n column sought the skies;

639

The canvas glowed beyond even Nature warm,
The pregnant quarry teemed with human form;
Till, more unsteady than the southern gale,
Commerce on other shores displayed her sail;
While nought remained of all that riches gave,
But towns unmanned and lords without a slave;
And late the nation found, with fruitless skill,
Its former strength was but plethoric ill.

Yet still the loss of wealth is here supplied
By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride;
From these the feeble heart and long-fall'n mind
An easy compensation seem to find.
Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp arrayed,

640

The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade;
Processions formed for piety and love,
A mistress or a saint in every grove.
By sports like these are all their cares beguiled,
The sports of children satisfy the child;
Each nobler aim, repressed by long control,

641

Now sinks at last or feebly mans the soul;
While low delights, succeeding fast behind,
In happier meanness occupy the mind:
As in those domes, where Caesars once bore sway,
Defaced by time and tottering in decay,
There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,
The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed,
And, wondering man could want the larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.

My soul, turn from them; turn we to survey
Where rougher climes a nobler race display,
Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread,
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread.
No product here the barren hills afford,
But man and steel, the soldier and his sword;
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter lingering chills the lap of May;
No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast,
But meteors glare and stormy glooms invest.

Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm,

642

Redress the clime and all its rage disarm.
Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts though small,
He sees his little lot the lot of all;
Sees no contiguous palace rear its head
To shame the meanness of his humble shed;
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal
To make him loathe his vegetable meal;
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil.
Cheerful at morn he wakes from short repose,
Breasts the keen air and carols as he goes;
With patient angle trolls the finny deep,
Or drives his venturous ploughshare to the steep;
Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way,
And drags the struggling savage into day.
At night returning, every labour sped,
He sits him down the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire and round surveys
His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze;
While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard,
Displays her cleanly platter on the board;
And haply too some pilgrim, thither led,
With many a tale repays the nightly bed.

643

Thus every good his native wilds impart
Imprints the patriot passion on his heart,
And even those ills, that round his mansion rise,
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies.
Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms,
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms;
And as a child, when scaring sounds molest,
Clings close and closer to the mother's breast,
So the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roar
But bind him to his native mountains more.

Such are the charms to barren states assigned;
Their wants but few, their wishes all confined.
Yet let them only share the praises due:
If few their wants, their pleasures are but few;
For every want that stimulates the breast,
Becomes a source of pleasure when redressed.
Whence from such lands each pleasing science flies,

644

That first excites desire and then supplies;
Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy,
To fill the languid pause with finer joy;
Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame,
Catch every nerve and vibrate through the frame.
Their level life is but a smouldering fire,
Unquenched by want, unfanned by strong desire;
Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer
On some high festival of once a year,
In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire,
Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire.

But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow:
Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low.
For, as refinement stops, from sire to son
Unaltered, unimproved the manners run;
And love's and friendship's finely pointed dart
Fall blunted from each indurated heart.
Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast
May sit, like falcons cowering on the nest;
But all the gentler morals, such as play
Through life's more cultured walks and charm the way,
These far dispersed on timorous pinions fly,
To sport and flutter in a kinder sky.

645

To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,
I turn; and France displays her bright domain.
Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please,
How often have I led thy sportive choir,
With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire?
Where shading elms along the margin grew,
And freshened from the wave the zephyr flew;
And haply, though my harsh touch faltering still
But mocked all tune and marred the dancer's skill,
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,
And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour.
Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze,
And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic lore,
Has frisked beneath the burthen of threescore.

So blest a life these thoughtless realms display,
Thus idly busy rolls their world away:
Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear,

646

For honour forms the social temper here.
Honour, that praise which real merit gains,
Or even imaginary worth obtains,
Here passes current; paid from hand to hand,
It shifts in splendid traffic round the land:
From courts to camps, to cottages it strays,
And all are taught an avarice of praise;
They please, are pleased, they give to get esteem,
Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.

But while this softer art their bliss supplies,
It gives their follies also room to rise;
For praise too dearly loved or warmly sought
Enfeebles all internal strength of thought;
And the weak soul, within itself unblest,
Leans for all pleasure on another's breast.
Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art,
Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart;
Here vanity assumes her pert grimace,
And trims her robes of frieze with copper lace;
Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer,
To boast one splendid banquet once a year;
The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws,

647

Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause.

To men of other minds my fancy flies,
Embosomed in the deep where Holland lies.
Methinks her patient sons before me stand,
Where the broad ocean leans against the land,
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide,
Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride.
Onward, methinks, and diligently slow,
The firm-connected bulwark seems to grow;
Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar,
Scoops out an empire and usurps the shore;
While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile,
Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile:
The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,
A new creation rescued from his reign.

Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil
Impels the native to repeated toil,

648

Industrious habits in each bosom reign,
And industry begets a love of gain.
Hence all the good from opulence that springs,
With all those ills superfluous treasure brings,
Are here displayed. Their much-loved wealth imparts
Convenience, plenty, elegance and arts;
But view them closer, craft and fraud appear,
Even liberty itself is bartered here.
At gold's superior charms all freedom flies,
The needy sell it and the rich man buys;
A land of tyrants and a den of slaves,
Here wretches seek dishonourable graves,
And calmly bent, to servitude conform,
Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm.

Heavens! how unlike their Belgic sires of old!

649

Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold;
War in each breast and freedom on each brow;
How much unlike the sons of Britain now!

Fired at the sound, my genius spreads her wing,
And flies where Britain courts the western spring;
Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride,
And brighter streams than famed Hydaspis glide.
There all around the gentlest breezes stray,
There gentle music melts on every spray;
Creation's mildest charms are there combined,
Extremes are only in the master's mind.
Stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state,

650

With daring aims irregularly great;
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of human kind pass by,
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,
By forms unfashioned, fresh from Nature's hand;
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,
True to imagined right, above control,
While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan,
And learns to venerate himself as man.

Thine, Freedom, thine the blessings pictured here,
Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear;
Too blest, indeed, were such without alloy,
But fostered even by Freedom, ills annoy:
That independence Britons prize too high,
Keeps man from man and breaks the social tie;
The self-dependent lordlings stand alone,
All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown;
Here by the bonds of nature feebly held,

651

Minds combat minds, repelling and repelled.
Ferments arise, imprisoned factions roar,
Repressed ambition struggles round her shore,
Till over-wrought, the general system feels
Its motions stopped or frenzy fire the wheels.

Nor this the worst. As nature's ties decay,
As duty, love and honour fail to sway,
Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law,
Still gather strength and force unwilling awe.
Hence all obedience bows to these alone,
And talent sinks and merit weeps unknown;
Till time may come when, stripped of all her charms,
The land of scholars and the nurse of arms,
Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame,
Where kings have toiled and poets wrote for fame,
One sink of level avarice shall lie,
And scholars, soldiers, kings unhonoured die.

Yet think not, thus when Freedom's ills I state,
I mean to flatter kings or court the great.
Ye powers of truth, that bid my soul aspire,

652

Far from my bosom drive the low desire;
And thou, fair Freedom, taught alike to feel
The rabble's rage and tyrant's angry steel;
Thou transitory flower, alike undone
By proud contempt or favour's fostering sun,
Still may thy blooms the changeful clime endure,
I only would repress them to secure:
For just experience tells, in every soil,
That those who think must govern those that toil;
And all that Freedom's highest aims can reach
Is but to lay proportioned loads on each.
Hence, should one order disproportioned grow,
Its double weight must ruin all below.

O then how blind to all that truth requires,
Who think it freedom when a part aspires!
Calm is my soul nor apt to rise in arms,
Except when fast-approaching danger warms:
But when contending chiefs blockade the throne,

653

Contracting regal power to stretch their own;
When I behold a factious band agree
To call it freedom, when themselves are free;
Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw,
Laws grind the poor and rich men rule the law;
The wealth of climes, where savage nations roam,

654

Pillaged from slaves to purchase slaves at home;
Fear, pity, justice, indignation start,
Tear off reserve and bare my swelling heart;
Till half a patriot, half a coward grown,
I fly from petty tyrants to the throne.

Yes, brother, curse with me that baleful hour,
When first ambition struck at regal power;
And thus polluting honour in its source,
Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force.
Have we not seen, round Britain's peopled shore,
Her useful sons exchanged for useless ore?
Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste,

655

Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste;
Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain,
Lead stern depopulation in her train,
And over fields where scattered hamlets rose,
In barren solitary pomp repose?
Have we not seen at pleasure's lordly call,
The smiling long-frequented village fall?
Beheld the duteous son, the sire decayed,
The modest matron and the blushing maid,
Forced from their homes, a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the western main;
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And Niagara stuns with thundering sound?

Even now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays
Through tangled forests and through dangerous ways;
Where beasts with man divided empire claim,
And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim;

656

There, while above the giddy tempest flies,
And all around distressful yells arise,
The pensive exile, bending with his woe,
To stop too fearful and too faint to go,
Casts a long look where England's glories shine,
And bids his bosom sympathize with mine.

Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centres in the mind:
Why have I strayed from pleasure and repose,
To seek a good each government bestows?
In every government, though terrors reign,
Though tyrant kings or tyrant laws restrain,
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
Our own felicity we make or find:
With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
The lifted axe, the agonising wheel,
Luke's iron crown and Damien's bed of steel,

657

To men remote from power but rarely known,
Leave reason, faith and conscience all our own.

16 A New Simile.

In the Manner of Swift

658

Long had I sought in vain to find
A likeness for the scribbling kind;
The modern scribbling kind, who write
In wit and sense and nature's spite:
Till reading, I forget what day on,
A chapter out of Tooke's Pantheon,
I think I met with something there
To suit my purpose to a hair.
But let us not proceed too furious,
First please to turn to god Mercurius;
You'll find him pictured at full length
In book the second, page the tenth:
The stress of all my proofs on him I lay,
And now proceed we to our simile.

659

Imprimis, pray observe his hat,
Wings upon either side—mark that.
Well! what is it from thence we gather?
Why these denote a brain of feather.
A brain of feather! very right,
With wit that's flighty, learning light;
Such as to modern bard's decreed:
A just comparison,—proceed.

In the next place, his feet peruse,
Wings grow again from both his shoes;
Designed, no doubt, their part to bear,
And waft his godship through the air;
And here my simile unites,
For in a modern poet's flights,
I'm sure it may be justly said,
His feet are useful as his head.

Lastly, vouchsafe to observe his hand,
Filled with a snake-encircled wand;
By classic authors termed caduceus,
And highly famed for several uses.
To wit—most wondrously endued,
No poppy water half so good;
For let folks only get a touch,
Its soporific virtue's such,
Though ne'er so much awake before,
That quickly they begin to snore.
Add too, what certain writers tell,
With this he drives men's souls to hell.

660

Now to apply, begin we then:
His wand's a modern author's pen;
The serpents round about it twined
Denote him of the reptile kind;
Denote the rage with which he writes,
His frothy slaver, venomed bites;
An equal semblance still to keep,
Alike too both conduce to sleep.
This difference only, as the god
Drove souls to Tartarus with his rod,
With his goosequill the scribbling elf,
Instead of others, damns himself.

And here my simile almost tripped,
Yet grant a word by way of postscript.
Moreover, Mercury had a failing:
Well! what of that? out with it—stealing;
In which all modern bards agree,
Being each as great a thief as he:
But even this deity's existence
Shall lend my simile assistance.
Our modern bards! why what a pox
Are they but senseless stones and blocks?

17 Verses in Reply to an Invitation to Dinner at Dr. Baker's

661

Your mandate I got,
You may all go to pot;
Had your senses been right,
You'd have sent before night;

662

As I hope to be saved,
I put off being shaved;
For I could not make bold,
While the matter was cold,
To meddle in suds,
Or to put on my duds;
So tell Horneck and Nesbitt,
And Baker and his bit,
And Kauffmann beside,
And the Jessamy bride,
With the rest of the crew,
The Reynoldses two,
Little Comedy's face,

663

And the Captain in lace,
(By the bye you may tell him,
I have something to sell him;
Of use I insist,
When he comes to enlist.
Your worships must know
That a few days ago,
An order went out,
For the foot guards so stout
To wear tails in high taste,
Twelve inches at least:
Now I've got him a scale
To measure each tail,
To lengthen a short tail,
And a long one to curtail).
Yet how can I when vexed,
Thus stray from my text?
Tell each other to rue
Your Devonshire crew,
For sending so late
To one of my state.
But 'tis Reynolds's way
From wisdom to stray,
And Angelica's whim
To be frolic like him,
But, alas! your good worships, how could they be wiser,
When both have been spoiled in today's Advertiser?

Oliver Goldsmith.

18 Epitaph on Edward Purdon

664

Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed,
Who long was a bookseller's hack;
He led such a damnable life in this world,—
I don't think he'll wish to come back.

19 Epilogue to The Good Natured Man

665

As puffing quacks some caitiff wretch procure
To swear the pill or drop has wrought a cure;
Thus on the stage our playwrights still depend
For Epilogues and Prologues on some friend,
Who knows each art of coaxing up the town,
And make full many a bitter pill go down.
Conscious of this, our bard has gone about,
And teased each rhyming friend to help him out.
‘An Epilogue—things can't go on without it;
It could not fail, would you but set about it.’
‘Young man,’ cries one—a bard laid up in clover—
‘Alas, young man, my writing days are over;
Let boys play tricks and kick the straw, not I:
Your brother Doctor there, perhaps, may try.’
‘What I? dear Sir,’ the Doctor interposes,
‘What, plant my thistle, Sir, among his roses!
No, no, I've other contests to maintain;

666

Tonight I head our troops at Warwick Lane.
Go, ask your manager.’ ‘Who, me? Your pardon;
Those things are not our forte at Covent Garden.’
Our author's friends, thus placed at happy distance,
Give him good words indeed, but no assistance.
As some unhappy wight, at some new play,
At the pit door stands elbowing a way,
While oft, with many a smile and many a shrug,
He eyes the centre, where his friends sit snug;
His simpering friends, with pleasure in their eyes,
Sink as he sinks and as he rises rise;
He nods, they nod; he cringes, they grimace;
But not a soul will budge to give him place.
Since then, unhelped, our bard must now conform
‘To bide the pelting of this pitiless storm’,
Blame where you must, be candid where you can,
And be each critic the Good Natured Man.

667

20 Epilogue to The Sister:

A Comedy

What! five long acts—and all to make us wiser!
Our authoress sure has wanted an adviser.
Had she consulted me, she should have made

668

Her moral play a speaking masquerade,
Warmed up each bustling scene and, in her rage,
Have emptied all the green-room on the stage.
My life on't, this had kept her play from sinking,
Have pleased our eyes and saved the pain of thinking.
Well, since she thus has shown her want of skill,
What if I give a masquerade? I will.
But how? ay, there's the rub! (pausing)
—I've got my cue:
The world's a masquerade! the maskers, you, you, you. [To Boxes, Pit, and Gallery.

Lud! what a group the motley scene discloses!
False wits, false wives, false virgins and false spouses:
Statesmen with bridles on; and, close beside 'em,
Patriots, in party-coloured suits, that ride 'em.
There Hebes, turned of fifty, try once more
To raise a flame in Cupids of threescore.
These in their turn, with appetites as keen,
Deserting fifty, fasten on fifteen.
Miss, not yet full fifteen, with fire uncommon,
Flings down her sampler, and takes up the woman:
The little urchin smiles and spreads her lure,
And tries to kill ere she's got power to cure.
Thus 'tis with all—their chief and constant care
Is to seem everything but what they are.
Yon broad, bold, angry spark, I fix my eye on,
Who seems to have robbed his vizor from the lion,
Who frowns, and talks, and swears, with round parade,
Looking, as who should say, Damme! who's afraid? [Mimicking.

Strip but his vizor off, and sure I am
You'll find his lionship a very lamb.

669

Yon politician, famous in debate,
Perhaps, to vulgar eyes, bestrides the state;
Yet, when he deigns his real shape to assume,
He turns old woman and bestrides a broom.
Yon patriot, too, who presses on your sight,
And seems to every gazer all in white,
If with a bribe his candour you attack,
He bows, turns round, and whip—the man's a black!
Yon critic, too—but whither do I run?
If I proceed, our bard will be undone!
Well then, a truce, since she requests it too:
Do you spare her, and I'll for once spare you.

21 The Deserted Village

674

DEDICATION TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

675

Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed:
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,

676

Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene;
How often have I paused on every charm,
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
The decent church that topped the neighbouring hill,
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made.
How often have I blessed the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the village train, from labour free,
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree,
While many a pastime circled in the shade,
The young contending as the old surveyed;
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round.
And still as each repeated pleasure tired,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired;
The dancing pair that simply sought renown,
By holding out to tire each other down;
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,
While secret laughter tittered round the place;

677

The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love,
The matron's glance that would those looks reprove.
These were thy charms, sweet village; sports like these,
With sweet succession, taught even toil to please;
These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed,
These were thy charms—But all these charms are fled.

Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green:
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain:
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way.
Along thy glades, a solitary guest,
The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries.
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall;
And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
Far, far away, thy children leave the land.

678

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay:
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.

A time there was, ere England's griefs began,
When every rood of ground maintained its man;
For him light labour spread her wholesome store,
Just gave what life required, but gave no more:
His best companions, innocence and health;
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.

But times are altered; trade's unfeeling train
Usurp the land and dispossess the swain;
Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose,
Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose;
And every want to opulence allied,
And every pang that folly pays to pride.
These gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom,
Those calm desires that asked but little room,
Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene,
Lived in each look and brightened all the green;
These, far departing, seek a kinder shore,

679

And rural mirth and manners are no more.

Sweet Auburn! parent of the blissful hour,
Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's power.
Here as I take my solitary rounds,
Amidst thy tangling walks and ruined grounds,
And, many a year elapsed, return to view
Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew,
Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast and turns the past to pain.

In all my wanderings round this world of care,
In all my griefs—and God has given my share—
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down;
To husband out life's taper at the close,
And keep the flame from wasting by repose.
I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,
Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill,
Around my fire an evening group to draw,
And tell of all I felt and all I saw;
And, as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue,

680

Pants to the place from whence at first she flew,
I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
Here to return—and die at home at last.

O blest retirement, friend to life's decline,
Retreats from care, that never must be mine,
How happy he who crowns in shades like these
A youth of labour with an age of ease;
Who quits a world where strong temptations try
And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly.
For him no wretches, born to work and weep,
Explore the mine or tempt the dangerous deep;
No surly porter stands in guilty state
To spurn imploring famine from the gate;
But on he moves to meet his latter end,
Angels around befriending virtue's friend;
Bends to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His Heaven commences ere the world be past!

681

Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;
There, as I passed with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came softened from below;
The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung,
The sober herd that lowed to meet their young;
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children just let loose from school;
The watchdog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind;
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And filled each pause the nightingale had made.
But now the sounds of population fail,
No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale,
No busy steps the grassgrown foot-way tread,
For all the bloomy flush of life is fled.
All but yon widowed, solitary thing
That feebly bends beside the plashy spring;
She, wretched matron, forced, in age, for bread,
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,
To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn,
To seek her nightly shed and weep till morn;

682

She only left of all the harmless train,
The sad historian of the pensive plain.

Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled,
And still where many a garden flower grows wild;
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place;
Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He child their wanderings, but relieved their pain;
The long-remembered beggar was his guest,

683

Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claimed kindred there and had his claims allowed;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
Sat by his fire and talked the night away;
Wept o'er his wounds or tales of sorrow done,
Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won.
Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.

Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And even his failings leaned to virtue's side;
But in his duty prompt at every call,
He watched and wept, he prayed and felt, for all.
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds and led the way.

Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
And sorrow, guilt, and pain by turns dismayed,
The reverend champion stood. At his control,
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise,
And his last faltering accents whispered praise.

At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorned the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,

684

With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran;
Even children followed with endearing wile,
And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile.
His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed,
Their welfare pleased him and their cares distressed;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven.
As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
With blossomed furze unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule,
The village master taught his little school;
A man severe he was and stern to view;
I knew him well, and every truant knew;
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laughed, with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;

685

Full well the busy whisper, circling round,
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned;
Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declared how much he knew;
'Twas certain he could write and cipher too;
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And even the story ran that he could gauge.
In arguing too, the parson owned his skill,
For even though vanquished, he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thundering sound
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around,
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.

But past is all his fame. The very spot,
Where many a time he triumphed, is forgot.
Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high,
Where once the signpost caught the passing eye,
Low lies that house where nutbrown draughts inspired,
Where greybeard mirth and smiling toil retired,
Where village statesmen talked with looks profound,
And news much older than their ale went round.
Imagination fondly stoops to trace
The parlour splendours of that festive place;
The white-washed wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnished clock that clicked behind the door;
The chest contrived a double debt to pay,
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day;
The pictures placed for ornament and use,
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose;

686

The hearth, except when winter chilled the day,
With aspen boughs and flowers and fennel gay;
While broken teacups, wisely kept for show,
Ranged o'er the chimney, glistened in a row.

Vain, transitory splendours! Could not all
Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall!
Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart
An hour's importance to the poor man's heart;
Thither no more the peasant shall repair
To sweet oblivion of his daily care;
No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale,
No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail;
No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear,
Relax his ponderous strength and lean to hear;
The host himself no longer shall be found
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round;
Nor the coy maid, half willing to be pressed,
Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.

Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
These simple blessings of the lowly train;
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm than all the gloss of art;
Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play,
The soul adopts and owns their firstborn sway;
Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind,

687

Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined:
But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed,
In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain;
And, even while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy.

Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen, who survey
The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay,
'Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and an happy land.
Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore,
And shouting Folly hails them from her shore;
Hoards, even beyond the miser's wish abound,
And rich men flock from all the world around.
Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name
That leaves our useful products still the same.

688

Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,
Space for his horses, equipage and hounds;
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth
Has robbed the neighbouring field of half their growth;
His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green;
Around the world each needful product flies,
For all the luxuries the world supplies:
While thus the land, adorned for pleasure all,
In barren splendour feebly waits the fall.

As some fair female unadorned and plain,
Secure to please while youth confirms her reign,
Slights every borrowed charm that dress supplies,
Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes;
But when those charms are passed, for charms are frail,
When time advances and when lovers fail,
She then shines forth, solicitous to bless,
In all the glaring impotence of dress:
Thus fares the land, by luxury betrayed,
In nature's simplest charms at first arrayed;
But verging to decline, its splendours rise,
Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise;
While scourged by famine from the smiling land,
The mournful peasant leads his humble band;
And while he sinks, without one arm to save,
The country blooms—a garden and a grave.

Where then, ah where, shall poverty reside,
To scape the pressure of contiguous pride?
If to some common's fenceless limits strayed,

689

He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade,
Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide,
And even the bare-worn common is denied.

If to the city sped—What waits him there?
To see profusion that he must not share;
To see ten thousand baneful arts combined
To pamper luxury and thin mankind;
To see those joys the sons of pleasure know
Extorted from his fellow creature's woe.
Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade,
There the pale artist plies the sickly trade;
Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomps display,
There the black gibbet glooms beside the way.
The dome where Pleasure holds her midnight reign
Here, richly decked, admits the gorgeous train;
Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square,
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare.
Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy!
Sure these denote one universal joy!
Are these thy serious thoughts?—Ah, turn thine eyes

690

Where the poor, houseless, shivering female lies.
She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest,
Has wept at tales of innocence distressed;
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn;
Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled,
Near her betrayer's door she lays her head,
And, pinched with cold and shrinking from the shower,
With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,
When idly first, ambitious of the town,
She left her wheel and robes of country brown.

Do thine, sweet Auburn, thine, the loveliest train,
Do thy fair tribes participate her pain?
Even now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led,
At proud men's doors they ask a little bread!

Ah, no. To distant climes, a dreary scene,
Where half the convex world intrudes between,
Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.

691

Far different there from all that charmed before
The various terrors of that horrid shore:
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,
And fiercely shed intolerable day;
Those matted woods where birds forget to sing,
But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling;
Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned,
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;
Where at each step the stranger fears to wake
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,

692

And savage men more murderous still than they;
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies.
Far different these from every former scene,
The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green,
The breezy covert of the warbling grove,
That only sheltered thefts of harmless love.

Good Heaven! what sorrows gloomed that parting day,
That called them from their native walks away;
When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,
Hung round their bowers and fondly looked their last,
And took a long farewell and wished in vain
For seats like these beyond the western main;
And shuddering still to face the distant deep,
Returned and wept, and still returned to weep.
The good old sire the first prepared to go
To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe;
But for himself, in conscious virtue brave,
He only wished for worlds beyond the grave.
His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears,
The fond companion of his helpless years,
Silent went next, neglectful of her charms,
And left a lover's for a father's arms.
With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes,
And blessed the cot where every pleasure rose;
And kissed her thoughtless babes with many a tear,
And clasped them close, in sorrow doubly dear;
Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief
In all the silent manliness of grief.

693

O luxury! thou cursed by Heaven's decree,
How ill exchanged are things like these for thee!
How do thy potions with insidious joy
Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy!
Kingdoms, by thee to sickly greatness grown,
Boast of a florid vigour not their own.
At every draught more large and large they grow,
A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe;
Till sapped their strength and every part unsound,
Down, down they sink and spread a ruin round.

Even now the devastation is begun,
And half the business of destruction done;
Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,
I see the rural virtues leave the land.
Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail,
That idly waiting flaps with every gale,
Downward they move, a melancholy band,
Pass from the shore and darken all the strand.
Contented toil and hospitable care,
And kind connubial tenderness are there;
And piety, with wishes placed above,
And steady loyalty and faithful love.
And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid,

694

Still first to fly where sensual joys invade;
Unfit, in these degenerate times of shame,
To catch the heart or strike for honest fame;
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride;
Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe,
That found'st me poor at first and keep'st me so;
Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel,
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well!
Farewell, and oh, where'er thy voice be tried,
On Torno's cliffs or Pambamarca's side,
Whether where equinoctial fervours glow,
Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigours of the inclement clime;
Aid slighted truth; with thy persuasive strain
Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
Teach him that states of native strength possessed,
Though very poor, may still be very blest;
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the laboured mole away;
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.

695

22 Epitaph

[on Thomas Parnell]

This tomb, inscribed to gentle Parnell's name,
May speak our gratitude, but not his fame.
What heart but feels his sweetly-moral lay,
That leads to truth through pleasure's flowery way?
Celestial themes confessed his tuneful aid;
And Heaven, that lent him genius, was repaid.
Needless to him the tribute we bestow,
The transitory breath of fame below:
More lasting rapture from his works shall rise,
While converts thank their poet in the skies.

696

23 The Haunch of Venison.

A Poetical Epistle to Lord Clare

697

Thanks, my Lord, for your venison, for finer or fatter
Never ranged in a forest or smoked on a platter;
The haunch was a picture for painters to study,
The fat was so white and the lean was so ruddy.
Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting
To spoil such a delicate picture by eating;
I had thoughts in my chamber to place it in view,
To be shown to my friends as a piece of virtù;
As in some Irish houses, where things are so so,
One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show:
But for eating a rasher of what they take pride in,
They'd as soon think of eating the pan it is fried in.
But hold—let us pause—Don't I hear you pronounce
This tale of the bacon a damnable bounce?
Well, suppose it a bounce, sure a poet may try,
By a bounce now and then, to get courage to fly.

But, my Lord, it's no bounce: I protest in my turn,
It's a truth—and your Lordship may ask Mr Byrne.

698

To go on with my tale—as I gazed on the haunch,
I thought of a friend that was trusty and staunch;
So I cut it and sent it to Reynolds undressed,
To paint it or eat it, just as he liked best.
Of the neck and the breast I had next to dispose;
'Twas a neck and a breast that might rival Monroe's:
But in parting with these I was puzzled again,
With the how, and the who, and the where and the when.
There's Howard, and Coley, and Haworth, and Hiff,
I think they love venison—I know they love beef.

699

There's my countryman Higgins—Oh! let him alone,
For making a blunder or picking a bone.
But hang it—to poets who seldom can eat,
Your very good mutton's a very good treat;
Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt,
It's like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt.

While thus I debated, in reverie centred,
An acquaintance, a friend as he called himself, entered;
An under-bred, fine-spoken fellow was he,
And he smiled as he looked at the venison and me.
‘What have we got here?—Ay, this is good eating!
Your own, I suppose—or is it in waiting?’
‘Why, whose should it be?’ cried I with a flounce,
‘I get these things often;’—but that was a bounce.
‘Some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation,
Are pleased to be kind—but I hate ostentation.’

‘If that be the case, then,’ cried, he, very gay,
‘I'm glad I have taken this house in my way.
Tomorrow you take a poor dinner with me;

700

No words—I insist on't—precisely at three.
We'll have Johnson and Burke, all the wits will be there;
My acquaintance is slight or I'd ask my Lord Clare.
And now that I think on't, as I am a sinner,
We wanted this venison to make out the dinner.
What say you—a pasty? it shall and it must,
And my wife, little Kisty, is famous for crust.
Here, porter!—this venison with me to Mile-End;
No stirring—I beg—my dear friend—my dear friend!’
Thus snatching his hat, he brushed off like the wind,
And the porter and eatables followed behind.

Left alone to reflect, having emptied my shelf,
‘And nobody with me at sea but myself’;
Though I could not help thinking my gentleman hasty,
Yet Johnson and Burke and a good venison pasty
Were things that I never disliked in my life,
Though clogged with a coxcomb and Kisty his wife.
So next day, in due splendour to make my approach,
I drove to his door in my own hackney coach.

When come to the place where we all were to dine
(A chair-lumbered closet just twelve feet by nine),

701

My friend bid me welcome, but struck me quite dumb
With tidings that Johnson and Burke could not come.
‘For I knew it,’ he cried, ‘both eternally fail,
The one with his speeches, the other with Thrale;
But no matter, I'll warrant we'll make up the party
With two full as clever and ten times as hearty.
The one is a Scotchman, the other a Jew,
They both of them merry and authors like you;
The one writes the Snarler, the other the Scourge;

702

Some think he writes Cinna—he owns to Panurge.’
While thus he described them by trade and by name,
They entered and dinner was served as they came.

At the top a fried liver and bacon was seen,
At the bottom was tripe in a swinging tureen;
At the sides there was spinach and pudding made hot;
In the middle a place where the pasty—was not.
Now, my Lord, as for tripe, it's my utter aversion,
And your bacon I hate like a Turk or a Persian;
So there I sat stuck, like a horse in a pound,
While the bacon and liver went merrily round.
But what vexed me most was that damned Scottish rogue,
With his long-winded speeches and smiles and his brogue.
‘And Madam,’ quoth he, ‘may this bit be my poison,
A prettier dinner I never set eyes on;
Pray a slice of your liver, though may I be cursed,
But I've eat of your tripe till I'm ready to burst.’
‘The tripe,’ quoth the Jew, with his chocolate cheek,

703

‘I could dine on this tripe seven days in the week:
I like these here dinners so pretty and small;
But your friend there, the Doctor, eats nothing at all.’
‘O ho,’ quoth my friend, ‘he'll come on in a trice,
He's keeping a corner for something that's nice:
There's a pasty’—‘A pasty!’ repeated the Jew,
‘I don't care if I keep a corner for't too.’
‘What the de'il, mon, a pasty!’ re-echoed the Scot,
‘Though splitting, I'd still keep a corner for thot.’
‘We'll all keep a corner,’ the lady cried out;
‘We'll all keep a corner,’ was echoed about.
While thus we resolved and the pasty delayed,
With looks that quite petrified, entered the maid;
A visage so sad and so pale with affright
Waked Priam by drawing his curtains by night.
But we quickly found out—for who could mistake her?—
That she came with some terrible news from the baker:
And so it fell out, for that negligent sloven
Had shut out the pasty on shutting his oven.
Sad Philomel thus—but let similes drop—
And now that I think on't, the story may stop.
To be plain, my good Lord, it's but labour misplaced
To send such good verses to one of your taste;
You've got an odd something—a kind of discerning—

704

A relish—a taste—sickened over by learning;
At least, it's your temper, it's very well known,
That you think very slightly of all that's your own:
So, perhaps, in your habits of thinking amiss,
You may make a mistake and think slightly of this.

24 Prologue to Zobeide

705

In these bold times, when Learning's sons explore
The distant climate and the savage shore;
When wise astronomers to India steer,
And quit for Venus many a brighter here;
While botanists, all cold to smiles and dimpling,
Forsake the fair and patiently—go simpling;
When every bosom swells with wondrous scenes,
Priests, cannibals and hoity-toity queens:
Our bard into the general spirit enters,
And fits his little frigate for adventures:
With Scythian stores and trinkets deeply laden,
He this way steers his course in hopes of trading—

706

Yet ere he lands he's ordered me before,
To make an observation on the shore.
Where are we driven? our reckoning sure is lost!
This seems a barren and a dangerous coast.
Lord, what a sultry climate am I under!
Yon ill-foreboding cloud seems big with thunder. (Upper Gallery)

There mangroves spread, and larger than I've seen 'em— (Pit)

Here trees of stately size—and turtles in 'em— (Balconies)

Here ill-conditioned oranges abound— (Stage)

And apples (takes up one and tastes it)
, bitter apples strew the ground.
The place is uninhabited, I fear;
I heard a hissing—there are serpents here!
O there the natives are—a dreadful race!
The men have tails, the women paint the face!
No doubt they're all barbarians.—Yes, 'tis so.
I'll try to make palaver with them though; (making signs)

'Tis best, however, keeping at a distance.
Good savages, our captain craves assistance;
Our ship's well stored;—in yonder creek we've laid her;

707

His honour is no mercenary trader;
This is his first adventure; lend him aid,
Or you may chance to spoil a thriving trade.
His goods, he hopes, are prime and brought from far,
Equally fit for gallantry and war.
What! no reply to promises so ample?
I'd best step back—and order up a sample.

25 [Translations in An History of the Earth, and Animated Nature]

708

i

Of all the fish that graze beneath the flood,
He only ruminates his former food.

ii

Chaste are their instincts, faithful is their fire,
No foreign beauty tempts to false desire:
The snow-white vesture and the glittering crown,
The simple plumage or the glossy down,
Prompt not their love. The patriot bird pursues
His well-acquainted tints and kindred hues.
Hence through their tribes no mixed, polluted flame,
No monster-breed to mark the groves with shame:
But the chaste blackbird, to its partner true,
Thinks black alone is beauty's favourite hue;
The nightingale, with mutual passion blest,
Sings to its mate and nightly charms the nest;
While the dark owl to court his partner flies,
And owns his offspring in their yellow eyes.

26 Threnodia Augustalis

710

I. [Part I]

OVERTURE—A SOLEMN DIRGE

Air. Trio

Arise, ye sons of worth, arise,
And waken every note of woe;
When truth and virtue reach the skies,
'Tis ours to weep the want below.

CHORUS
When truth and virtue reach the skies,
'Tis ours to weep the want below.

711

MAN SPEAKER
The praise attending pomp and power,
The incense given to kings,
Are but the trappings of an hour,
Mere transitory things!
The base bestow them; but the good agree
To spurn the venal gifts as flattery.
But when to pomp and power are joined
An equal dignity of mind;
When titles are the smallest claim;
When wealth and rank and noble blood,
But aid the power of doing good,
Then all their trophies last—and flattery turns to fame!
Blest spirit thou, whose fame, just born to bloom,
Shall spread and flourish from the tomb,
How hast thou left mankind for heaven!
Even now reproach and faction mourn,
And, wondering how their rage was born,
Request to be forgiven.
Alas! they never had thy hate:
Unmoved in conscious rectitude
Thy towering mind self-centred stood,
Nor wanted man's opinion to be great.
In vain, to charm thy ravished sight,
A thousand gifts would fortune send;
In vain, to drive thee from the right,
A thousand sorrows urged thy end:
Like some well-fashioned arch thy patience stood,
And purchased strength from its increasing load.
Pain met thee like a friend that set thee free;
Affliction still is virtue's opportunity!
Virtue on herself relying,
Every passion hushed to rest,
Loses every pain of dying
In the hopes of being blest.
Every added pang she suffers
Some increasing good bestows,
And every shock that malice offers
Only rocks her to repose.

SONG, BY A MAN

Affettuoso

Virtue on herself relying,
Every passion hushed to rest,
Loses every pain of dying

712

In the hopes of being blessed.
Every added pang she suffers
Some increasing good bestows,
Every shock that malice offers
Only rocks her to repose.

WOMAN SPEAKER
Yet, ah! what terrors frowned upon her fate:
Death with its formidable band,
Fever and pain and pale consumptive care,
Determined took their stand.
Nor did the cruel ravagers design
To finish all their efforts at a blow;
But, mischievously slow,
They robbed the relic and defaced the shrine.
With unavailing grief,
Despairing of relief,
Her weeping children round
Beheld each hour
Death's growing power,
And trembled as he frowned.
As helpless friends who view from shore
The labouring ship and hear the tempest roar,
While winds and waves their wishes cross;
They stood, while hope and comfort fail,
Not to assist, but to bewail
The inevitable loss.
Relentless tyrant, at thy call
How do the good, the virtuous fall!
Truth, beauty, worth, and all that most engage,
But wake thy vengeance and provoke thy rage.

SONG, BY A MAN

Basso. Staccato. Spiritoso

When vice my dart and scythe supply,
How great a king of terrors I!
If folly, fraud, your hearts engage,
Tremble, ye mortals, at my rage!

Fall, round me fall, ye little things,
Ye statesmen, warriors, poets, kings;
If virtue fail her counsel sage,
Tremble, ye mortals, at my rage!

713

MAN SPEAKER
Yet let that wisdom, urged by her example,
Teach us to estimate what all must suffer;
Let us prize death as the best gift of nature,
As a safe inn, where weary travellers,
When they have journeyed through a world of cares,
May put off life and be at rest for ever.
Groans, weeping friends, indeed, and gloomy sables
May oft distract us with their sad solemnity:
The preparation is the executioner.
Death, when unmasked, shows me a friendly face,
And is a terror only at a distance;
For as the line of life conducts me on
To Death's great court, the prospect seems more fair.
'Tis nature's kind retreat, that's always open
To take us in when we have drained the cup
Of life, or worn our days to wretchedness.
In that secure, serene retreat,
Where all the humble, all the great,
Promiscuously recline;
Where wildly huddled to the eye,
The beggar's pouch and prince's purple lie,
May every bliss be thine.
And ah! blest spirit, wheresoe'er thy flight,
Through rolling worlds or fields of liquid light,
May cherubs welcome their expected guest;
May saints with songs receive thee to their rest;
May peace that claimed while here thy warmest love,
May blissful, endless peace be thine above.

SONG, BY A WOMAN

Amoroso

Lovely, lasting Peace below,
Comforter of every woe,
Heavenly born and bred on high
To crown the favourites of the sky:
Lovely, lasting Peace, appear.

714

This world itself, if thou art here,
Is once again with Eden blessed,
And man contains it in his breast.

WOMAN SPEAKER
Our vows are heard! Long, long to mortal eyes,
Her soul was fitting to its kindred skies:
Celestial-like her bounty fell,
Where modest want and patient sorrow dwell.
Want passed for merit at her door,
Unseen the modest were supplied,
Her constant pity fed the poor,
Then only poor, indeed, the day she died.
And oh, for this! while sculpture decks thy shrine,
And art exhausts profusion round,
The tribute of a tear be mine,
A simple song, a sigh profound.
There Faith shall come, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the tomb that wraps thy clay;
And calm Religion shall repair
To dwell a weeping hermit there.
Truth, Fortitude and Friendship shall agree
To blend their virtues while they think of thee.

AIR. CHORUS

Pomposo

Let us, let all the world agree
To profit by resembling thee.

END OF THE FIRST PART

II. PART II

OVERTURE PASTORALE

MAN SPEAKER
Fast by that shore where Thames' translucent stream
Reflects new glories on his breast,

715

Where, splendid as the youthful poet's dream,
He forms a scene beyond Elysium blest;
Where sculptured elegance and native grace
Unite to stamp the beauties of the place;
While sweetly blending still are seen
The wavy lawn, the sloping green;
While novelty, with cautious cunning,
Through every maze of fancy running,
From China borrows aid to deck the scene;
There, sorrowing by the river's glassy bed,
Forlorn, a rural bard complained,
All whom Augusta's bounty fed,
All whom her clemency sustained.
The good old sire, unconscious of decay,
The modest matron, clad in homespun gray,
The military boy, the orphaned maid,
The shattered veteran, now first dismayed:
These sadly join beside the murmuring deep,
And, as they view the towers of Kew,
Call on their mistess, now no more, and weep.

CHORUS

Affettuoso. Largo

Ye shady walks, ye waving greens,
Ye nodding towers, ye fairy scenes,
Let all your echoes now deplore
That she who formed your beauties is no more.

MAN SPEAKER
First of the train the patient rustic came,
Whose callous hand had formed the scene,
Bending at once with sorrow and with age,
With many a tear and many a sigh between:
‘And where,’ he cried, ‘shall now my babes have bread,
Or how shall age support its feeble fire?
No lord will take me now, my vigour fled,
Nor can my strength perform what they require;

716

Each grudging master keeps the labourer bare;
A sleek and idle race is all their care.
My noble mistress thought not so:
Her bounty, like the morning dew,
Unseen, though constant, used to flow;
And as my strength decayed, her bounty grew.’

WOMAN SPEAKER
In decent dress and coarsely clean,
The pious matron next was seen;
Clasped in her hand a godly book was borne,
By use and daily meditation worn;
That decent dress, this holy guide,
Augusta's care had well supplied.
‘And ah!’ she cries, all woe-begone,
‘What now remains for me?
Oh! where shall weeping want repair,
To ask for charity?
Too late in life for me to ask,
And shame prevents the deed,
And tardy, tardy are the times
To succour, should I need.
But all my wants, before I spoke,
Were to my mistress known;
She still relieved nor sought my praise,
Contented with her own.
But every day her name I'll bless,
My morning prayer, my evening song,
I'll praise her while my life shall last,
A life that cannot last me long.’

SONG, BY A WOMAN
Each day, each hour, her name I'll bless,
My morning and my evening song;
And when in death my vows shall cease,
My children shall the note prolong.

MAN SPEAKER
The hardy veteran after struck the sight,
Scarred, mangled, maimed in every part,
Lopped of his limbs in many a gallant fight,
In nought entire—except his heart.
Mute for a while and sullenly distressed,
At last the impetuous sorrow fired his breast.

717

‘Wild is the whirlwind rolling
O'er Afric's sandy plain,
And wild the tempest howling
Along the billowed main:
But every danger felt before,
The raging deep, the whirlwind's roar,
Less dreadful struck me with dismay
Than what I feel this fatal day.
Oh, let me fly a land that spurns the brave,
Oswego's dreary shores shall be my grave;
I'll seek that less inhospitable coast,
And lay my body where my limbs were lost.’

SONG, BY A MAN

Basso. Spiritoso.

Old Edward's sons, unknown to yield,
Shall crowd from Crecy's laurelled field,
To do thy memory right;
For thine and Britain's wrongs they feel,
Again they snatch the gleamy steel,
And wish the avenging fight.

WOMAN SPEAKER
In innocence and youth complaining,
Next appeared a lovely maid,
Affliction o'er each feature reigning,
Kindly came in beauty's aid;
Every grace that grief dispenses,
Every glance that warms the soul,
In sweet succession charmed the senses,
While pity harmonized the whole.
‘The garland of beauty’—'tis thus she would say—
‘No more shall my crook or my temples adorn;
I'll not wear a garland—Augusta's away—
I'll not wear a garland until she return.
But alas! that return I never shall see;
The echoes of Thames shall my sorrows proclaim;
There promised a lover to come—but, O me!
'Twas death, 'twas the death of my mistress that came.
But ever, for ever, her image shall last;
I'll strip all the spring of its earliest bloom;

718

On her grave shall the cowslip and primrose be cast,
And the new-blossomed thorn shall whiten her tomb.’

SONG, BY A WOMAN

Pastorale

With garlands of beauty the queen of the May
No more will her crook or her temples adorn;
For who'd wear a garland when she is away,
When she is removed and shall never return?

On the grave of Augusta these garlands be placed;
We'll rifle the spring of its earliest bloom,
And there shall the cowslip and primrose be cast,
And the new-blossomed thorn shall whiten her tomb.

CHORUS

Altro Modo

On the grave of Augusta this garland be placed;
We'll rifle the spring of its earliest bloom,
And there shall the cowslip and primrose be cast,
And the tears of her country shall water her tomb.

27 Song from She Stoops to Conquer

Let school-masters puzzle their brain,
With grammar and nonsense and learning;
Good liquor, I stoutly maintain,
Gives genus a better discerning.

719

Let them brag of their heathenish gods,
Their Lethes, their Styxes and Stygians:
Their Quis and their Quaes and their Quods,
They're all but a parcel of pigeons.
Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.

When Methodist preachers come down
A-preaching that drinking is sinful,
I'll wager the rascals a crown
They always preach best with a skinful.
But when you come down with your pence
For a slice of their scurvy religion,
I'll leave it to all men of sense,
But you, my good friend, are the pigeon.
Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.

Then come, put the jorum about,
And let us be merry and clever;
Our hearts and our liquors are stout;
Here's the Three Jolly Pigeons for ever.
Let some cry up woodcock or hare,
Your bustards, your ducks and your widgeons;
But of all the birds in the air,
Here's a health to the Three Jolly Pigeons.
Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.

28 [Song Intended for She Stoops to Conquer]

720

Ah, me! when shall I marry me?
Lovers are plenty but fail to relieve me.
He, fond youth, that could carry me,
Offers to love but means to deceive me.

But I will rally and combat the ruiner:
Not a look, not a smile shall my passion discover.
She that gives all to the false one pursuing her,
Makes but a penitent, loses a lover.

29 [First Rejected Epilogue to She Stoops to Conquer]

722

Enter Mrs Bulkley, who curtsies very low as beginning to speak. Then enter Miss Catley, who stands full before her and curtsies to the audience.
MRS BULKLEY
Hold, Ma'am, your pardon. What's your business here?

MISS CATLEY
The Epilogue.

MRS BULKLEY
The Epilogue?

MISS CATLEY
Yes, the Epilogue, my dear.

MRS BULKLEY
Sure you mistake, Ma'am. The Epilogue, I bring it.

MISS CATLEY

Excuse me, Ma'am. The Author bid me sing it.

Recitative

Ye beaux and belles, that form this splendid ring,
Suspend your conversation while I sing.

MRS BULKLEY
Why, sure the girl's beside herself: an Epilogue of singing,
A hopeful end indeed to such a blest beginning.
Besides, a singer in a comic set!
Excuse me, Ma'am, I know the etiquette.

MISS CATLEY
What if we leave it to the house?

MRS BULKLEY
The house!—Agreed.

MISS CATLEY
Agreed.

MRS BULKLEY
And she, whose party's largest, shall proceed.
And first, I hope, you'll readily agree
I've all the critics and the wits for me.

723

They, I am sure, will answer my commands:
Ye candid-judging few, hold up your hands.
What, no return? I find too late, I fear,
That modern judges seldom enter here.

MISS CATLEY

I'm for a different set.—Old men, whose trade is
Still to gallant and dangle with the ladies;

Recitative

Who mump their passion and who, grimly smiling,
Still thus address the fair with voice beguiling:

Air—Cotillon

Turn, my fairest, turn, if ever
Strephon caught thy ravished eye.
Pity take on your swain so clever,
Who without your aid must die.
Yes, I shall die, hu, hu, hu, hu!
Yes, I must die, ho, ho, ho, ho!

Da capo

MRS BULKLEY
Let all the old pay homage to your merit:
Give me the young, the gay, the men of spirit.
Ye travelled tribe, ye macaroni train,

724

Of French friseurs and nosegays justly vain,
Who take a trip to Paris once a year
To dress and look like awkward Frenchmen here:
Lend me your hands.—Oh! fatal news to tell:
Their hands are only lent to the Heinel.

MISS CATLEY

Ay, take your travellers, travellers indeed!
Give me my bonny Scots that travel from the Tweed.
Where are the chiels? Ah! Ah, I well discern
The smiling looks of each bewitching bairn.

Air—A bonny young lad is my Jockey.

I'll sing to amuse you by night and by day,
And be unco merry when you are but gay;
When you with your bagpipes are ready to play,
My voice shall be ready to carol away
With Sandy, and Sawney and Jockey,
With Sawney, and Jarvie and Jockey.

MRS BULKLEY
Ye gamesters, who, so eager in pursuit,
Make but of all your fortune one va toute;
Ye jockey tribe, whose stock of words are few,

725

‘I hold the odds.—Done, done, with you, with you’;
Ye barristers, so fluent with grimace,
‘My Lord,—your Lordship misconceives the case’;
Doctors, who cough and answer every misfortuner,
‘I wish I'd been called in a little sooner’:
Assist my cause with hands and voices hearty;
Come, end the contest here and aid my party.

MISS CATLEY

Air—Baleinamony

Ye brave Irish lads, hark away to the crack,
Assist me, I pray, in this woeful attack;
For sure I don't wrong you, you seldom are slack,
When the ladies are calling, to blush and hang back.
For you're always polite and attentive,
Still to amuse us inventive,
And death is your only preventive:
Your hands and your voices for me.

MRS BULKLEY
Well, Madam, what if, after all this sparring,
We both agree, like friends, to end our jarring?

MISS CATLEY
And that our friendship may remain unbroken,
What if we leave the Epilogue unspoken?

MRS BULKLEY
Agreed.

MISS CATLEY
Agreed.

MRS BULKLEY
And now with late repentance,
Un-epilogued the poet waits his sentence.
Condemn the stubborn fool who can't submit
To thrive by flattery, though he starves by wit.

[Exeunt.

726

30 [Second Rejected Epilogue to She Stoops to Conquer]

There is a place, so Ariosto sings,
A treasury for lost and missing things.
Lost human wits have places there assigned them,
And they, who lose their senses, there may find them.

727

But where's this place, this storehouse of the age?
The moon, says he: but I affirm the stage.
At least in many things, I think I see
His lunar and our mimic world agree.
Both shine at night, for, but at Foote's alone,
We scarce exhibit till the sun goes down.
Both prone to change, no settled limits fix;
'Tis said the folks of both are lunatics.
But in this parallel my best pretence is
That mortals visit both to find their senses.
To this strange spot, rakes, macaronies, cits,
Come thronging to collect their scattered wits.
The gay coquette, who ogles all the day,
Comes here by night and goes a prude away.
The gamester too who, eager in pursuit,
Makes but of all his fortune one va toute,
Whose mind is barren and whose words are few—
‘I take the odds’; ‘Done, done, with you, and you’—
Comes here to saunter, having made his bets,
Finds his lost senses out and pays his debts.
The Mohawk too, with angry phrases stored—

728

As ‘damme, Sir,’ and ‘Sir, I wear a sword’—
Here lessoned for a while and hence retreating,
Goes out, affronts his man and takes a beating.
Here come the sons of scandal and of news,
But find no sense—for they had none to lose.
The poet too comes hither to be wiser,
And so for once I'll be the man's adviser.
What could he hope in this lord-loving age,
Without a brace of lords upon the stage?
In robes and stars unless the bard adorn us,
You grow familiar, lose respect and scorn us.
Then not one passion, fury, sentiment:
Sure his poetic fire is wholly spent!
Oh, how I love to hear applauses shower
On my fixed attitude of half an hour; (Stands in an attitude)

And then with whining, staring, struggling, slapping,
To force their feelings and provoke their clapping.
Hither the affected city dame advancing,

729

Who sighs for operas and dotes on dancing,
Who hums a favourite air and, spreading wide,
Swings round the room, the Heinel of Cheapside,
Taught by our art her ridicule to pause on,
Quits Che faro and calls for Nancy Dawson.
Of all the tribe here wanting an adviser,
Our author's the least likely to grow wiser.
Has he not seen how you your favours place
On sentimental queens and lords in lace?
Without a star, a coronet or Garter,
How can the piece expect or hope for quarter?
No high-life scenes, no sentiment, the creature
Still stoops among the low to copy nature.
Yes, he's far gone. And yet some pity mix:
The English laws forbid to punish lunatics.

31 Epilogue to She Stoops to Conquer

730

Well, having stooped to conquer with success,
And gained a husband without aid from dress,
Still, as a barmaid, I could wish it too,
As I have conquered him, to conquer you:
And let me say, for all your resolution,
That pretty barmaids have done execution.
Our life is all a play, composed to please:
‘We have our exits and our entrances.’
The first act shows the simple country maid,
Harmless and young, of everything afraid,
Blushes when hired and, with unmeaning action,

731

‘I hopes as how to give you satisfaction.’
Her second act displays a livelier scene—
The unblushing barmaid of a country inn,
Who whisks about the house, at market caters,
Talks loud, coquets the guests and scolds the waiters.
Next the scene shifts to town, and there she soars,
The chop-house toast of ogling connoisseurs.
On squires and cits she there displays her arts,
And on the gridiron broils her lovers' hearts:
And as she smiles, her triumphs to complete,
Even Common-Councilmen forget to eat.
The fourth act shows her wedded to the squire,
And Madam now begins to hold it higher;
Pretends to taste, at operas cries caro,
And quits her Nancy Dawson for Che faro,
Dotes upon dancing and, in all her pride,
Swims round the room, the Heinel of Cheapside;
Ogles and leers with artificial skill,
Till, having lost in age the power to kill,
She sits all night at cards and ogles at spadille.
Such, through our lives, the eventful history—
The fifth and last act still remains for me.

732

The barmaid now for your protection prays,
Turns female barrister and pleads for Bayes.

32 Epilogue,

Spoken by Mr Lee Lewes, In the Character of Harlequin, at his Benefit

733

Hold! Prompter, hold! a word before your nonsense;
I'd speak a word or two to ease my conscience.
My pride forbids it ever should be said
My heels eclipsed the honours of my head;
That I found humour in a piebald vest,
Or ever thought that jumping was a jest. [Takes off his mask

Whence and what art thou, visionary birth?
Nature disowns and reason scorns thy mirth,
In thy black aspect every passion sleeps,
The joy that dimples and the woe that weeps.
How hast thou filled the scene with all thy brood,
Of fools pursuing and of fools pursued!
Whose ins and outs no ray of sense discloses,
Whose only plot it is to break our noses;
Whilst from below the trap-door demons rise,
And from above the dangling deities.
And shall I mix in this unhallowed crew?
May rosined lightning blast me, if I do!
No—I will act, I'll vindicate the stage:

734

Shakespeare himself shall feel my tragic rage.
‘Off! off! vile trappings!’: a new passion reigns!
The maddening monarch revels in my veins.
Oh! for a Richard's voice to catch the theme:
‘Give me another horse! bind up my wounds!—soft—'twas but a dream.’
Aye, 'twas but a dream, for now there's no retreating:
If I cease Harlequin, I cease from eating.
'Twas thus that Aesop's stag, a creature blameless,
Yet something vain, like one that shall be nameless,
Once on the margin of a fountain stood,
And cavilled at his image in the flood.
‘The deuce confound,’ he cries, ‘these drumstick shanks,
They never have my gratitude nor thanks;
They're perfectly disgraceful! strike me dead!
But for a head, yes, yes, I have a head.
How piercing is that eye! how sleek that brow!
My horns! I'm told horns are the fashion now.’
Whilst thus he spoke, astonished, to his view,
Near, and more near, the hounds and huntsmen drew.
‘Hoicks! hark forward!’ came thundering from behind,

735

He bounds aloft, outstrips the fleeting wind:
He quits the woods and tries the beaten ways;
He starts, he pants, he takes the circling maze.
At length his silly head, so prized before,
Is taught his former folly to deplore;
Whilst his strong limbs conspire to set him free,
And at one bound he saves himself, like me.
[Taking a jump through the stage door

33 Letter in Verse and Prose to Mrs Bunbury

737

First let me suppose, what may shortly be true,
The company set, and the word to be Loo;
All smirking and pleasant and big with adventure,
And ogling the stake which is fixed in the centre.
Round and round go the cards, while I inwardly damn

738

At never once finding a visit from Pam.
I lay down my stake, apparently cool,
While the harpies about me all pocket the pool.
I fret in my gizzard, yet, cautious and sly,
I wish all my friends may be bolder than I.
Yet still they sit snug, not a creature will aim
By losing their money to venture at fame.
'Tis in vain that at niggardly caution I scold,
'Tis in vain that I flatter the brave and the bold:
All play in their own way and think me an ass.
‘What does Mrs Bunbury?’ ‘I, sir? I pass.’
‘Pray what does Miss Horneck? Take courage, come do.’
‘Who, I? let me see, sir, why I must pass too.’
Mr Bunbury frets, and I fret like the devil,
To see them so cowardly, lucky and civil.
Yet still I sit snug and continue to sigh on,
Till made by my losses as bold as a lion,
I venture at all, while my avarice regards
The whole pool as my own. ‘Come, give me five cards.’
‘Well done!’ cry the ladies; ‘Ah, Doctor, that's good!
The pool's very rich. Ah! the Doctor is Loo'd!’
Thus foiled in my courage, on all sides perplexed,
I ask for advice from the lady that's next:
‘Pray, ma'am, be so good as to give your advice;
Don't you think the best way is to venture for't twice?’
‘I advise,’ cries the lady, ‘to try it, I own.
Ah! the Doctor is Loo'd! Come, Doctor, put down.’
Thus, playing and playing, I still grow more eager,
And so bold and so bold, I'm at last a bold beggar.
Now, ladies, I ask, if law-matters you're skilled in,

739

Whether crimes such as yours should not come before Fielding?
For giving advice that is not worth a straw
May well be called picking of pockets in law;
And picking of pockets, with which I now charge ye,
Is, by quinto Elizabeth, Death without Clergy.
What justice, when both to the Old Bailey brought!
By the gods, I'll enjoy it; though 'tis but in thought!
Both are placed at the bar with all proper decorum,
With bunches of fennel and nosegays before 'em;
Both cover their faces with mobs and all that,
But the judge bids them angrily take off their hat.
When uncovered, a buzz of enquiry runs round:
‘Pray what are their crimes?’—‘They've been pilfering found.’
‘But, pray, whom have they pilfered?’—‘A Doctor, I hear.’
‘What, yon solemn-faced, odd-looking man that stands near?’
‘The same.’—‘What a pity! how does it surprise one!
Two handsomer culprits I never set eyes on!’
Then their friends all come round me with cringing and leering,
To melt me to pity and soften my swearing.

740

First Sir Charles advances with phrases well strung:
‘Consider, dear Doctor, the girls are but young.’
‘The younger the worse,’ I return him again;
‘It shows that their habits are all dyed in grain.’
‘But then they're so handsome, one's bosom it grieves.’
‘What signifies handsome, when people are thieves?’
‘But where is your justice? Their cases are hard.’
‘What signifies justice? I want the reward.
There's the parish of Edmonton offers forty pound;
there's the parish of St Leonard, Shoreditch, offers forty
pound; there's the parish of Tyburn, from the Hog-
in-the-Pound to St Giles's watch-house, offers forty
pounds, I shall have all that if I convict them.’

‘But consider their case: it may yet be your own!
And see how they kneel: is your heart made of stone?’
This moves, so at last I agree to relent,
For ten pounds in hand and ten pounds to be spent.
The judge takes the hint, having seen what we drive at,
And lets them both off with correction in private.

741

34 Retaliation

746

TO MR KEARSLEY, BOOKSELLER, IN FLEET STREET.

Of old, when Scarron his companions invited,
Each guest brought his dish and the feast was united.
If our landlord supplies us with beef and with fish,
Let each guest bring himself and he brings the best dish:

747

Our Dean shall be venison, just fresh from the plains;
Our Burke shall be tongue, with a garnish of brains;
Our Will shall be wild-fowl, of excellent flavour,
And Dick with his pepper shall heighten their savour;
Our Cumberland's sweet-bread its place shall obtain,
And Douglas is pudding, substantial and plain;
Our Garrick's a salad, for in him we see

748

Oil, vinegar, sugar and saltness agree;
To make out the dinner, full certain I am
That Ridge is anchovy and Reynolds is lamb;
That Hickey's a capon and, by the same rule,
Magnanimous Goldsmith a gooseberry fool.
At a dinner so various, at such a repast,
Who'd not be a glutton and stick to the last?
Here, waiter! more wine, let me sit while I'm able,
Till all my companions sink under the table;
Then, with chaos and blunders encircling my head,
Let me ponder and tell what I think of the dead.

Here lies the good Dean, reunited to earth,
Who mixed reason with pleasure and wisdom with mirth.
If he had any faults, he has left us in doubt:
At least, in six weeks I could not find 'em out;
Yet some have declared, and it can't be denied 'em,
That sly-boots was cursedly cunning to hide 'em.

Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such,

749

We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much;
Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind;
Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat
To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote;
Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,
And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining;

750

Though equal to all things, for all things unfit;
Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit;
For a patriot, too cool; for a drudge, disobedient;
And too fond of the right to pursue the expedient.
In short, 'twas his fate, unemployed or in place, sir,
To eat mutton cold and cut blocks with a razor.

Here lies honest William, whose heart was a mint,
While the owner ne'er knew half the good that was in't;
The pupil of impulse, it forced him along,
His conduct still right, with his argument wrong;
Still aiming at honour, yet fearing to roam;
The coachman was tipsy, the chariot drove home.
Would you ask for his merits? alas! he had none:
What was good was spontaneous, his faults were his own.

Here lies honest Richard, whose fate I must sigh at;

751

Alas, that such frolic should now be so quiet!
What spirits were his, what wit and what whim!
Now breaking a jest and now breaking a limb;
Now wrangling and grumbling to keep up the ball,
Now teasing and vexing, yet laughing at all!
In short, so provoking a devil was Dick,
That we wished him full ten times a day at Old Nick;
But, missing his mirth and agreeable vein,
As often we wished to have Dick back again.

Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts,
The Terence of England, the mender of hearts;

752

A flattering painter, who made it his care
To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
His gallants are all faultless, his women divine,
And comedy wonders at being so fine;
Like a tragedy queen he has dizened her out,
Or rather like tragedy giving a rout.
His fools have their follies so lost in a crowd
Of virtues and feelings, that folly grows proud;
And coxcombs, alike in their failings alone,
Adopting his portraits, are pleased with their own.
Say, where has our poet this malady caught,
Or wherefore his characters thus without fault?
Say, was it that vainly directing his view
To find out men's virtues, and finding them few,
Quite sick of pursuing each troublesome elf,
He grew lazy at last and drew from himself?

Here Douglas retires, from his toils to relax,
The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks.
Come, all ye quack bards and ye quacking divines,
Come and dance on the spot where your tyrant reclines.
When satire and censure encircled his throne,
I feared for your safety, I feared for my own;
But now he is gone and we want a detector,
Our Dodds shall be pious, our Kenricks shall lecture;

753

Macpherson write bombast and call it a style,
Our Townshend make speeches, and I shall compile;
New Lauders and Bowers the Tweed shall cross over,

754

No countryman living their tricks to discover;
Detection her taper shall quench to a spark
And Scotchman meet Scotchman and cheat in the dark.

Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can,
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man;
As an actor, confessed without rival to shine:
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line;
Yet, with talents like these and an excellent heart,
The man had his failings, a dupe to his art.
Like an ill-judging beauty, his colours he spread
And beplastered with rouge his own natural red.
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting:
'Twas only that, when he was off, he was acting.
With no reason on earth to go out of his way,
He turned and he varied full ten times a day.
Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick,
If they were not his own by finessing and trick,
He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack,
For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.
Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came,
And the puff of a dunce, he mistook it for fame;
Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease,
Who peppered the highest was surest to please.
But let us be candid and speak out our mind:
If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind.
Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys and Woodfalls so grave,

755

What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave!
How did Grub-street re-echo the shouts that you raised,
While he was be-Rosciused and you were be-praised!
But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies,
To act as an angel and mix with the skies:
Those poets, who owe their best fame to his skill,

756

Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will.
Old Shakespeare, receive him, with praise and with love,
And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above.

Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt, pleasant creature,
And slander itself must allow him good-nature:
He cherished his friend and he relished a bumper;
Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper.
Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser?
I answer, no, no, for he always was wiser.
Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat?
His very worst foe can't accuse him of that.
Perhaps he confided in men as they go,
And so was too foolishly honest? Ah no!
Then what was his failing? come, tell it, and burn ye!
He was-could he help it?-a special attorney.

757

Here Reynolds is laid and, to tell you my mind,
He has not left a better or wiser behind:
His pencil was striking, resistless and grand;
His manners were gentle, complying and bland;
Still born to improve us in every part,
His pencil our faces, his manners our heart;
To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering,
When they judged without skill he was still hard of hearing;
When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios and stuff,
He shifted his trumpet and only took snuff.

761

POEMS OF DOUBTFUL AUTHENTICITY

763

35 ‘Theseus did see, as poets say’

[_]

The attribution of this poem is questionable.

Theseus did see, as poets say,
Dark Hell and its abysses,
But had not half so sharp an eye
As our young charming misses.

For they could through boys' breeches peep
And view whate'er he had there.
It seemed to blush and they all laughed
Because the face was all bare.

They laughed at that which sometimes else
Might give them greatest pleasure.
How quickly they could see the thing
Which was their darling treasure.

36 [A Couplet on Aesop]

[_]

The attribution of this poem is questionable.

764

The herald proclaimed out then, saying,
‘See Aesop dancing and his monkey playing.’

37 The Clown's Reply

[_]

The attribution of this poem is questionable.

John Trott was desired by two witty peers
To tell them the reason why asses had ears.

765

‘An't please you,’ quoth John, ‘I'm not given to letters,
Nor dare I pretend to know more than my betters;
Howe'er from this time I shall ne'er see your graces,
As I hope to be saved! without thinking on asses.’

38 The Logicians Refuted

[_]

The attribution of this poem is questionable.

Logicians have but ill defined
As rational, the human kind;
Reason, they say, belongs to man,
But let them prove it if they can.

766

Wise Aristotle and Smiglesius,
By ratiocinations specious,
Have strove to prove with great precision,
With definition and division,
Homo est ratione praeditum;
But for my soul I cannot credit 'em.
And must in spite of them maintain
That man and all his ways are vain;
And that this boasted lord of nature
Is both a weak and erring creature;
That instinct is a surer guide
Than reason-boasting mortals' pride;
And that brute beasts are far before 'em,
Deus est anima brutorum.
Who ever knew an honest brute
At law his neighbour prosecute,
Bring action for assault and battery,
Or friend beguile with lies and flattery?
O'er plains they ramble unconfined,
No politics disturb their mind;
They eat their meals and take their sport,
Nor know who's in or out at court;

767

They never to the levee go
To treat as dearest friend a foe;
They never importune his grace,
Nor ever cringe to men in place;
Nor undertake a dirty job,
Nor draw the quill to write for B*b.
Fraught with invective they ne'er go
To folks at Pater-Noster-Row;
No judges, fiddlers, dancing-masters,
No pickpockets or poetasters,
Are known to honest quadrupeds;
No single brute his fellows leads.
Brutes never meet in bloody fray,
Nor cut each others' throats for pay.
Of beasts, it is confessed, the ape
Comes nearest us in human shape;
Like man he imitates each fashion,
And malice is his ruling passion;
But both in malice and grimaces
A courtier any ape surpasses.
Behold him, humbly cringing, wait
Upon a minister of state;
View him soon after to inferiors
Aping the conduct of superiors:
He promises with equal air,
And to perform takes equal care.
He in his turn finds imitators;
At court, the porters, lacqueys, waiters,
Their master's manners still contract,
And footmen, lords and dukes can act.
Thus at the court both great and small
Behave alike, for all ape all.

768

39 On the Taking of Quebec

[_]

The attribution of this poem is questionable.

Amidst the clamour of exulting joys,
Which triumph forces from the patriot heart,
Grief dares to mingle her soul-piercing voice,
And quells the raptures which from pleasures start.

O Wolfe, to thee a streaming flood of woe
Sighing we pay, and think even conquest dear;
Quebec in vain shall teach our breast to glow,
Whilst thy sad fate extorts the heart-wrung tear.

Alive, the foe thy dreadful vigour fled,
And saw thee fall with joy-pronouncing eyes;
Yet they shall know thou conquerest, though dead!
Since from thy tomb a thousand heroes rise.

40 The Barber's Boy's Epigram

[_]

The attribution of this poem is questionable.

769

Laborious ------, why all this spleen?
With satire why so free?
He who can't rise to mighty Quin
May dwindle down to thee.

41 [Riddle for Mary Nugent]

[_]

The attribution of this poem is questionable.

The clothes we love best and the half of an agent
Is the name of a lady, to whom I'm obadient.