Page images
PDF
EPUB

See how the torrent rolls the golden sand From the high ridges to the flatter land. The lofty lines abound with endless store Of mineral treasure and metallic ore.

AMBROSE PHILIPS.

Among the Whig poets of the day, whom Pope's enmity raised to temporary importance, was AMBROSE PHILIPS (1671-1749). He was a native of Leicestershire, educated at Cambridge, and patronised by the Whig government of George I. He was a commissioner of the collieries, held some appointments in Ireland, and sat for the county of Armagh in the Irish House of Commons. The works of Philips consist of three plays, some miscellaneous poems, translations, and pastorals. The latter were published in the same miscellany with those of Pope, and were injudiciously praised by Tickell as the finest in the English language. Pope resented this unjust depreciation of his own poetry by an ironical paper in the Guardian, calculated to make Philips appear ridiculous. Ambrose felt the satire keenly, and even vowed to take personal vengeance on his adversary, by whipping him with a rod in Button's coffeehouse. A paper war ensued, and Pope immortalised Philips as

The bard whom pilfered pastorals renown,
Who turns a Persian tale for half-a-crown;
Just writes to make his barrenness appear,
And strains from hard-bound brains eight lines a-year.
The pastorals are certainly poor enough; but
Philips was an elegant versifier, and Goldsmith has
eulogised part of his epistle to Lord Dorset, as in-
comparably fine.'

[ocr errors]

A fragment of Sappho, translated by Philips, is a poetical gem so brilliant, that Warton thought Addison must have assisted in its composition

Blessed as the immortal gods is he,
The youth who fondly sits by thee,
And hears and sees thee all the while,
Softly speak and sweetly smile.

'Twas this deprived my soul of rest,
And raised such tumults in my breast;
For while I gazed in transport tossed,
My breath was gone, my voice was lost.
My bosom glowed; the subtle flame
Ran quickly through my vital frame;
O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung;
My ears with hollow murmurs rung.
In dewy damps my limbs were chilled,
My blood with gentle horrors thrilled;
My feeble pulse forgot to play;
I fainted, sunk, and died away.

Epistle to the Earl of Dorset.

COPENHAGEN, March 9, 1709.

From frozen climes, and endless tracts of snow,
From streams which northern winds forbid to flow,
What present shall the Muse to Dorset bring,
Or how, so near the pole, attempt to sing?
The hoary winter here conceals from sight
All pleasing objects which to verse invite.
The hills and dales, and the delightful woods,
The flowery plains, and silver-streaming floods,
By snow disguised, in bright confusion lie,
And with one dazzling waste fatigue the eye.
No gentle-breathing breeze prepares the spring,
No birds within the desert region sing.
The ships, unmoved, the boisterous winds defy,
While rattling chariots o'er the occan fly.

The vast leviathan wants room to play,
And spout his waters in the face of day.
The starving wolves along the main sea prowl,
And to the moon in icy valleys howl.
O'er many a shining league the level main
Here spreads itself into a glassy plain:
There solid billows of enormous size,
Alps of green ice, in wild disorder rise.

And yet but lately have I seen, even here,
The winter in a lovely dress appear,
Ere yet the clouds let fall the treasured snow,
Or winds begun through hazy skies to blow:
At evening a keen eastern breeze arose,
And the descending rain unsullied froze.
Soon as the silent shades of night withdrew,
The face of nature in a rich disguise,
The ruddy morn disclosed at once to view
And brightened every object to my eyes:
For every shrub, and every blade of grass,
And every pointed thorn, seemed wrought in glass;
In pearls and rubies rich the hawthorns show,
The thick-sprung reeds, which watery marshes yield,
While through the ice the crimson berries glow.
Seemed polished lances in a hostile field.
Sees crystal branches on his forehead rise:
The stag, in limpid currents, with surprise
The spreading oak, the beech, and towering pine,
Glazed over, in the freezing ether shine.
The frighted birds the rattling branches shun,
Which wave and glitter in the distant sun.

When, if a sudden gust of wind arise, The brittle forest into atoms flies; The crackling wood beneath the tempest bends, And in a spangled shower the prospect ends: Or, if a southern gale the region warm, And by degrees unbind the wintry charm, The traveller a miry country sees, And journeys sad beneath the dropping trees: Like some deluded peasant, Merlin leads Through fragrant bowers, and through delicious meads; While here enchanted gardens to him rise, And airy fabrics there attract his eyes, His wandering feet the magic paths pursue, And, while he thinks the fair illusion true, The trackless scenes disperse in fluid air, And woods, and wilds, and thorny ways appear: A tedious road the weary wretch returns, And, as he goes, the transient vision mourns.

The First Pastoral.

LOBBIN.

If we, O Dorset ! quit the city-throng,
To meditate in shades the rural song,
By your command, be present; and, O bring
The Muse along! The Muse to you shall sing
Her influence, Buckhurst, let me there obtain,
And I forgive the famed Sicilian swain.

Begin. In unluxurious times of yore,
When flocks and herds were no inglorious store,
Lobbin, a shepherd boy, one evening fair,
As western winds had cooled the sultry air,
His numbered sheep within the fold now pent,
Thus plained him of his dreary discontent;
Beneath a hoary poplar's whispering boughs,
He, solitary, sat, to breathe his vows.
Venting the tender anguish of his heart,
As passion taught, in accents free of art;
And little did he hope, while, night by night,
His sighs were lavished thus on Lucy bright.

Ah! well-a-day, how long must I endure This pining pain? Or who shall speed my cure? Fond love no cure will have, seek no repose, Delights in grief, nor any measure knows: And now the moon begins in clouds to rise; The brightening stars increase within the skies;

The winds are hushed; the dews distil; and sleep
Hath closed the eyelids of my weary sheep:
I only, with the prowling wolf, constrained
All night to wake: with hunger he is pained,
And I with love. His hunger he may tame;
But who can quench, O cruel love! thy flame?
Whilom did I, all as this poplar fair,
Upraise my heedless head, then void of care,
'Mong rustic routs the chief for wanton game;
Nor could they merry make, till Lobbin came.
Who better seen than I in shepherd's arts,
To please the lads, and win the lasses' hearts?
How deftly, to mine oaten reed so sweet,
Wont they upon the green to shift their feet?
And, wearied in the dance, how would they yearn
Some well-devised tale from me to learn?
For many songs and tales of mirth had I,
To chase the loitering sun adown the sky:
But ah! since Lucy coy deep-wrought her spite
Within my heart, unmindful of delight,
The jolly grooms I fly, and, all alone,

To rocks and woods pour forth my fruitless moan.
Oh! quit thy wonted scorn, relentless fair,
Ere, lingering long, I perish through despair.
Had Rosalind been mistress of my mind,

How would the crook beseem thy lily hand!
How would my younglings round thee gazing stand!
Ah, witless younglings! gaze not on her eye:
Thence all my sorrow; thence the death I die.
Oh, killing beauty! and oh, sore desire!
Must then my sufferings but with life expire?
Though blossoms every year the trees adorn,
Spring after spring I wither, nipt with scorn:
Nor trow I when this bitter blast will end,
Or if yon stars will e'er my vows befriend.
Sleep, sleep, my flock; for happy ye may take
Sweet nightly rest, though still your master wake.'
Now to the waning moon the nightingale,
In slender warblings, tuned her piteous tale.
The love-sick shepherd, listening, felt relief,
Pleased with so sweet a partner in his grief,
Till, by degrees, her notes and silent night
To slumbers soft his heavy heart invite.

JOHN GAY.

The Italian opera and English pastorals-both sources of fashionable and poetical affectation-were driven out of the field at this time by the easy, indolent, good-humoured JOHN GAY, who seems to have Pope and Swift circle of wits and poets. Gay was

Though not so fair, she would have proved more kind. been the most artless and the best-beloved of all the

O think, unwitting maid, while yet is time,
How flying years impair thy youthful prime!
Thy virgin bloom will not for ever stay,

And flowers, though left ungathered, will decay:
The flowers, anew, returning seasons bring!
But beauty faded has no second spring.

My words are wind! She, deaf to all my cries,
Takes pleasure in the mischief of her eyes.
Like frisking heifer, loose in flowery meads,
She gads where'er her roving fancy leads;
Yet still from me. Ah me! the tiresome chase!
Shy as the fawn, she flies my fond embrace.
She flies, indeed, but ever leaves behind,
Fly where she will, her likeness in my mind.
No cruel purpose in my speed I bear;

'Tis only love; and love why should'st thou fear?
What idle fears a maiden breast alarm!
Stay, simple girl; a lover cannot harm;
Two sportive kidlings, both fair-flecked, I rear,
Whose shooting horns like tender buds appear:
A lambkin too, of spotless fleece, I breed,
And teach the fondling from my hand to feed:
Nor will I cease betimes to cull the fields
Of every dewy sweet the morning yields:
From early spring to autumn late shalt thou
Receive gay girlonds, blooming o'er thy brow:
And when-but why these unavailing pains?
The gifts alike, and giver, she disdains;
And now, left heiress of the glen, she'll deem
Me, landless lad, unworthy her esteem;
Yet was she born, like me, of shepherd-sire,
And I may fields and lowing herds acquire.
O! would my gifts but win her wanton heart,
Or could I half the warmth I feel impart,
How would I wander, every day, to find
The choice of wildings, blushing through the rind !
For glossy plums how lightsome climb the tree,
How risk the vengeance of the thrifty bee.
Or, if thou deign to live a shepherdess,
Thou Lobbin's flock, and Lobbin shall possess ;
And fair my flock, nor yet uncomely I,
If liquid fountains flatter not; and why
Should liquid fountains flatter us, yet show
The bordering flowers less beauteous than they grow?
O come, my love! nor think the employment mean,
The dams to milk, and little lambkins wean;
To drive afield, by morn, the fattening ewes,
Ere the warm sun drink up the coolly dews;
While with my pipe, and with my voice, I cheer
Each hour, and through the day detain thine ear.

[graphic][merged small]

born at Barnstaple, in Devonshire, in 1688. He was of the ancient family of the Le Gays of Oxford and Devonshire; but his father being in reduced circumstances, the poet was put apprentice to a silk-mercer in the Strand, London. He disliked this mercenary employment, and at length obtained his discharge from his master. In 1711, he published his Rural Sports, a descriptive poem, dedicated to Pope, in which we may trace his joy at being emancipated from the drudgery of a shop:

But I, who ne'er was blessed by Fortune's hand,
Nor brightened ploughshares in paternal land;
Long in the noisy town have been immured,
Respired its smoke, and all its cares endured.

Fatigued at last, a calm retreat I chose,
And soothed my harassed mind with sweet repose,
Where fields, and shades, and the refreshing clime
Inspire the sylvan song, and prompt my rhyme.

Next year, Gay obtained the appointment of domestic secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth, on which he was cordially congratulated by Pope, who took a warm interest in his fortunes. His next work was his Shepherd's Week, in Six Pastorals, written to throw ridicule on those of Ambrose Philips; but containing so much genuine comic humour, and entertaining pictures of country life, that they became popular, not as satires, but on account of their intrinsic merits, as affording a prospect of his own country.' In an address to the 'courteous reader,' Gay says, 'Thou wilt not find my shepherdesses idly piping on oaten reeds, but milking the kine, tying up the sheaves; or, if the hogs are astray, driving them to their styes. My shepherd gathereth none other nosegays but what are the growth of our own fields; he sleepeth not under myrtle shades, but under a hedge; nor doth he vigilantly defend his flock from wolves, because there are none.' This matter-of-fact view of rural life has been admirably followed by Crabbe, with a moral aim and effect to which Gay never aspired. About this time the poet also produced his Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London, and The Fan, a poem in three books. The former of these is in the mock-heroic style, in which he was assisted by Swift, and gives a graphic account of the dangers and impediments then encountered in traversing the narrow, crowded, ill-lighted, and vice-infested thoroughfares of the metropolis. His paintings of city life are in the Dutch style, low and familiar, but correctly and forcibly drawn. The following sketch of the frequenters of book-stalls in the streets may still be verified:

Volumes on sheltered stalls expanded lie,
And various science lures the learned eye;
The bending shelves with ponderous scholiasts groan,
And deep divines, to modern shops unknown;
Here, like the bee, that on industrious wing
Collects the various odours of the spring,
Walkers at leisure learning's flowers may spoil,
Nor watch the wasting of the midnight oil;
May morals snatch from Plutarch's tattered page,
A mildewed Bacon, or Statgyra's sage:
Here sauntering 'prentices o'er Otway weep,
O'er Congreve smile, or over D'Urfey sleep;
Pleased sempstresses the Lock's famed Rape unfold;
And Squirts read Garth till apozems grow cold.

The poet gives a lively and picturesque account of the great frost in London, when a fair was held

on the river Thames :

O, roving muse! recall that wondrous year
When winter reigned in bleak Britannia's air;
When hoary Thames, with frosted oziers crowned,
Was three long moons in icy fetters bound.
The watermen, forlorn, along the shore,
Pensive reclines upon his useless oar:
See harnessed steeds desert the stony town,
And wander roads unstable not their own;
Wheels o'er the hardened water smoothly glide,
And raze with whitened tracks the slippery tide;
Here the fat cook piles high the blazing fire,
And scarce the spit can turn the steer entire;
Booths sudden hide the Thames, long streets appear,
And numerous games proclaim the crowded fair.

* Squirt is the name of an apothecary's boy in Garth's Dis

pensary."

So, when a general bids the martial train
Spread their encampment o'er the spacious plain,
Thick-rising tents a canvass city build,
And the loud dice resound through all the field.

In 1713, Gay brought out a comedy entitled The Wife of Bath; but it failed of success. His friends were anxious in his behalf, and next year (July 1714), he writes with joy to Pope-Since you went out of the town, my Lord Clarendon was appointed envoy-extraordinary to Hanover, in the room of Lord Paget; and by making use of those friends, which I entirely owe to you, he has accepted me for his secretary.' The poet accordingly quitted his situation in the Monmouth family, and accompanied Lord Clarendon on his embassy. He seems, however, to have held it only for about two months; for on the 23d of September of the same year, Pope welcomes him to his native soil, and counsels him, now that the queen was dead, to write something on the king, or prince, or princess. Gay was an anxious expectant of court favour, and he complied with Pope's request. He wrote a poem on the princess, and the royal family went to see his play of What D'ye Call It? produced shortly after his return from Hanover, in 1714. The piece was eminently successful; and Gay was stimulated to another dramatic attempt of a similar nature, entitled Three Hours After Marriage. Some personal satire and indecent dialogues in this piece, together with the improbability of the plot, sealed its fate with the public. It soon fell into disgrace; and its author being afraid that Pope and Arbuthnot would suffer injury from their supposed connexion with it, took all the shame on himself.' Gay was silent and dejected for some time; but in 1720 he published his poems by subscription, and realised a sum of £1000. He received, also, a present of South-Sea stock, and was supposed to be worth £20,000, all of which he lost by the explosion of that famous delusion. This serious calamity to one fond of finery in dress and living only prompted to farther literary exertion. In 1724, Gay brought out another drama, The Captives, which was acted with moderate success; and in 1726 he wrote a volume of fables, designed for the special improvement of the Duke of Cumberland, who certainly did not learn mercy or humanity from them. The accession of the prince and princess to the throne seemed to augur well for the fortunes of Gay; but he was only offered the situation of gentleman usher to one of the young princesses, and considering this an insult, he rejected it. His genius proved his best patron. In 1726, Swift came to England, and resided two months with Pope at Twickenham. Among other plans, the dean of St Patrick suggested to Gay the idea of a Newgate pastoral, in which the characters should be thieves and highwaymen, and the Beggar's Opera was the result. When finished, the two friends were doubtful of the success of the piece, but it was received with unbounded applause. songs and music aided greatly its popularity, and there was also the recommendation of political satire; for the quarrel between Peachum and Lockit was an allusion to a personal collision between Walpole and his colleague, Lord Townsend. The spirit and variety of the piece, in which song and sentiment are so happily intermixed with vice and roguery, still render the 'Beggar's Opera' a favourite with the public; but as Gay has succeeded in making highwaymen agreeable, and even attractive, it cannot be commended for its moral tendency. Of this we suspect the Epicurean author thought little. The opera had a run of sixty-three nights, and became the rage of town and country. Its success had also

The

That Bowzybeus who could sweetly sing,
Or with the rosined bow torment the string;
That Bowzybeus who, with fingers' speed,
Could call soft warblings from the breathing reed;
That Bowzybeus who, with jocund tongue,
Ballads, and roundelays, and catches sung:
They loudly laugh to see the damsel's fright,
And in disport surround the drunken wight.

Ah, Bowzybee, why didst thou stay so long?
The mugs were large, the drink was wondrous strong!
Thou should'st have left the fair before 'twas night,
But thou sat'st toping till the morning light.

the effect of giving rise to the English opera, a species of light comedy enlivened by songs and music, which for a time supplanted the Italian opera, with all its exotic and elaborate graces. Gay tried a sequel to the Beggar's Opera,' under the title of Polly; but as it was supposed to contain sarcasms on the court, the lord chamberlain prohibited its representation. The poet had recourse to publication; and such was the zeal of his friends, and the effect of party spirit, that while the 'Beggar's Opera' realised for him only about £400, 'Polly' produced a profit of £1100 or £1200. The Duchess of Marlborough gave £100 as her subscription for a copy. Cicely, brisk maid, steps forth before the rout, Gay had now amassed £3000 by his writings, which And kissed with smacking lip the snoring lout he resolved to keep entire and sacred.' He was at (For custom says, Whoe'er this venture proves, the same time received into the house of his kind For such a kiss demands a pair of gloves'). patrons the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, with By her example Dorcas bolder grows, whom he spent the remainder of his life. His only And plays a tickling straw within his nose. literary occupation was composing additional fables, He rubs his nostril, and in wonted joke and corresponding occasionally with Pope and The sneering strains with stammering speech bespoke: Swift. A sudden attack of inflammatory fever To you, my lads, I'll sing my carols o'er; hurried him out of life in three days. He died on As for the maids, I've something else in store. No sooner 'gan he raise his tuneful song, the 4th of December 1732. Pope's letter to Swift announcing the event was indorsed by the latter: But lads and lasses round about him throng. 'On my dear friend Mr Gay's death. Not ballad singer placed above the crowd Received, December 15th, but not read till the 20th, by an Sings with a note so shrilling sweet and loud; impulse foreboding some misfortune.' The friend-Nor parish-clerk, who calls the psalm so clear, ship of these eminent men seems to have been sin- Like Bowzybeus soothes the attentive ear. cere and tender; and nothing in the life of Swift is more touching or honourable to his memory, than those passages in his letters where the recollection of Gay melted his haughty stoicism, and awakened his deep though unavailing sorrow. Pope, always more affectionate, was equally grieved by the loss of

him whom he has characterised as

Of manners gentle, of affections mild;
In wit a man, simplicity a child.

Gay was buried in Westminster abbey, where a
handsome monument was erected to his memory by
the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry. The works
of this easy and loveable son of the muses have lost
much of their popularity. He has the licentiousness,
without the elegance, of Prior. His fables are still,
however, the best we possess; and if they have
not the nationality or rich humour and archness of
La Fontaine's, the subjects of them are light and
pleasing, and the versification always smooth and
correct. The Hare with Many Friends is doubtless
drawn from Gay's own experience. In the Court of
Death, he aims at a higher order of poetry, and mar-
shals his diseases dire' with a strong and gloomy
power. His song of Black-Eyed Susan, and the
ballad beginning Twas when the seas were roaring,'
are full of characteristic tenderness and lyrical me-
lody. The latter is said by Cowper to have been
the joint production of Arbuthnot, Swift, and Gay.

[The Country Ballad Singer.]

[From The Shepherd's Week."]

Sublimer strains, O rustic muse! prepare;
Forget awhile the barn and dairy's care;
Thy homely voice to loftier numbers raise,
The drunkard's flights require sonorous lays;
With Bowzybeus' songs exalt thy verse,

While rocks and woods the various notes rehearse.
'Twas in the season when the reapers' toil
Of the ripe harvest 'gan to rid the soil;
Wide through the field was seen a goodly rout,
Clean damsels bound the gathered sheaves about;
The lads with sharpened hook and sweating brow
Cut down the labours of the winter plough.

When fast asleep they Bowzybeus spied,
His hat and oaken staff lay close beside;

Of nature's laws his carols first begun,
why the grave owl can never face the sun.
For owls, as swains observe, detest the light,
And only sing and seek their prey by night.
And how the closing coleworts upwards grow;
How turnips hide their swelling heads below,
How Will-a-wisp misleads night-faring clowns
O'er hills, and sinking bogs, and pathless downs.
Of stars he told that shoot with shining trail,
And of the glow-worm's light that gilds his tail.
He sung where woodcocks in the summer feed,
And in what climates they renew their breed
(Some think to northern coasts their flight they tend,
Or to the moon in midnight hours ascend);
And how the drowsy bat and dormouse sleep;
Where swallows in the winter's scason keep,
How nature does the puppy's eyelid close,
Till the bright sun has nine times set and rose
That puppies still nine rolling suns are blind).
(For huntsmen by their long experience find,
For still new fairs before his eyes arose.
Now he goes on, and sings of fairs and shows,
How pedlers' stalls with glittering toys are laid,
The various fairings of the country maid.
Long silken laces hang upon the twine,
And rows of pins and amber bracelets shine;
How the tight lass knives, combs, and scissors spies,
And looks on thimbles with desiring eyes.
Of lotteries next with tuneful note he told,
Where silver spoons are won, and rings of gold.
The lads and lasses trudge the street along,
And all the fair is crowded in his song.
The mountebank now treads the stage, and sells
His pills, his balsams, and his ague-spells;
Now o'er and o'er the nimble tumbler springs,
And on the rope the venturous maiden swings;
Jack Pudding, in his party-coloured jacket,
Tosses the glove, and jokes at every packet.
Of raree-shows he sung, and Punch's feats,
Of pockets picked in crowds, and various cheats.
Then sad he sung The Children in the Wood,
(Ah, barbarous uncle, stained with infant blood!)
How blackberries they plucked in deserts wild,
And fearless at the glittering faulchion smiled;
Their little corpse the robin-redbreasts found,
And strewed with pious bill the leaves around.
(Ah, gentle birds! if this verse lasts so long,
Your names shall live for ever in my song.)

[ocr errors]

For 'Buxom Joan' he sung the doubtful strife, How the sly sailor made the maid a wife.

To louder strains he raised his voice, to tell
What woful wars in Chevy Chase' befell,
When 'Percy drove the deer with hound and horn;
Wars to be wept by children yet unborn!'

Ah, Witherington! more years thy life had crowned,
If thou hadst never heard the horn or hound!
Yet shall the squire, who fought on bloody stumps,
By future bards be wailed in doleful dumps.

All in the land of Essex' next he chaunts,
How to sleek mares starch Quakers turn gallants:
How the grave brother stood on bank so green-
Happy for him if mares had never been!

Then he was seized with a religious qualm,
And on a sudden sung the hundredth psalm.
He sung of Taffy Welsh' and 'Sawney Scot,'
'Lilly-bullero' and the Irish Trot.'

[ocr errors]

Why should I tell of Bateman' or of Shore,'
Or Wantley's Dragon' slain by valiant Moore,
'The Bower of Rosamond,' or 'Robin Hood,'
And how the grass now grows where Troy town stood?'
His carols ceased: the listening maids and swains
Seem still to hear some soft imperfect strains.
Sudden he rose, and, as he reels along,
Swears kisses sweet should well reward his song.
The damsels laughing fly; the giddy clown
Again upon a wheat-sheaf drops adown;

The power that guards the drunk his sleep attends,
Till, ruddy, like his face, the sun descends.

[Walking the Streets of London.]

[From Trivia."]

Through winter streets to steer your course aright,
How to walk clean by day, and safe by night;
How jostling crowds with prudence to decline,
When to assert the wall, and when resign,
I sing; thou, Trivia, goddess, aid my song,
Through spacious streets conduct thy bard along;
By thee transported, I securely stray
Where winding alleys lead the doubtful way;
The silent court and opening square explore,
And long perplexing lanes untrod before.

To pave thy realm, and smooth the broken ways,
Earth from her womb a flinty tribute pays;
For thee the sturdy pavior thumps the ground,
Whilst every stroke his labouring lungs resound;
For thee the scavenger bids kennels glide
Within their bounds, and heaps of dirt subside.
My youthful bosom burns with thirst of fame,
From the great theme to build a glorious name;
To tread in paths to ancient bards unknown,
And bind my temples with a civic crown:
But more my country's love demands my lays;
My country's be the profit, mine the praise!

When the black youth at chosen stands rejoice,
And clean your shoes' resounds from every voice;
When late their miry sides stage-coaches show,
And their stiff horses through the town move slow;
When all the Mall in leafy ruin lies,
And damsels first renew their oyster cries;
Then let the prudent walker shoes provide,
Not of the Spanish or Morocco hide;

The wooden heel may raise the dancer's bound,
And with the scalloped top his step be crowned:
Let firm, well-hammered soles protect thy feet
Through freezing snows, and rains, and soaking sleet.
Should the big last extend the shoe too wide,
Each stone will wrench the unwary step aside;
The sudden turn may stretch the swelling vein,
Thy cracking joint unhinge, or ankle sprain;
And, when too short the modish shoes are worn,
You'll judge the seasons by your shooting corn.
Nor should it prove thy less important care,
To choose a proper coat for winter's wear.

Now in thy trunk thy D'Oily habit fold,
The silken drugget ill can fence the cold;
The frieze's spongy nap is soaked with rain,
And showers soon drench the camblet's cockled grain;
True Witney broadcloth, with its shag unshorn,
Unpierced is in the lasting tempest worn:
Be this the horseman's fence, for who would wear
Amid the town the spoils of Russia's bear?
Within the roquelaure's clasp thy hands are pent,
Hands, that, stretched forth, invading harms prevent.
Let the looped bavaroy the fop embrace,
Or his deep cloak bespattered o'er with lace.
That garment best the winter's rage defends,
Whose ample form without one plait depends;
By various names in various counties known,
Yet held in all the true surtout alone;

Be thine of kersey firm, though small the cost,
Then brave unwet the rain, unchilled the frost.

If the strong cane support thy walking hand,
Chairmen no longer shall the wall command;
Even sturdy carmen shall thy nod obey,
And rattling coaches stop to make thee way:
This shall direct thy cautious tread aright,
Though not one glaring lamp enliven night.
Let beaux their canes, with amber tipt, produce;
Be theirs for empty show, but thine for use.
In gilded chariots while they loll at ease,
And lazily insure a life's disease;

While softer chairs the tawdry load convey
To court, to White's,3 assemblies, or the play;
Rosy-complexioned Health thy steps attends,
And exercise thy lasting youth defends.
Imprudent men Heaven's choicest gifts profane:
Thus some beneath their arm support the cane;
The dirty point oft checks the careless pace,
And miry spots the clean cravat disgrace.
Oh! may I never such misfortune meet!
May no such vicious walkers crowd the street!
May Providence o'ershade me with her wings,
While the bold Muse experienced danger sings!

Song.

Sweet woman is like the fair flower in its lustre,
Which in the garden enamels the ground;
Near it the bees, in play, flutter and cluster,
And gaudy butterflies frolic around.

But when once plucked, 'tis no longer alluring,
To Covent-Garden 'tis sent (as yet sweet),
There fades, and shrinks, and grows past all enduring,
Rots, stinks, and dies, and is trod under feet.

[The Poct and the Rose.]

[From the Fables."]

I hate the man who builds his name
On ruins of another's fame:
Thus prudes, by characters o'erthrown,
Imagine that they raise their own;
Thus scribblers, covetous of praise,
Think slander can transplant the bays.
Beauties and bards have equal pride,
With both all rivals are decried:
Who praises Lesbia's eyes and feature,
Must call her sister awkward creature;'
For the kind flattery's sure to charm,
When we some other nymph disarm.
As in the cool of early day
A poet sought the sweets of May,
The garden's fragrant breath ascends,
And every stalk with odour bends;
A rose he plucked, he gazed, admired,
Thus singing, as the muse inspired—

1 A town in Oxfordshire.

2 A Joseph, wrap-rascal, &c.

3 A chocolate-house in St James's Street.

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »