ANONYMOUS. THE OLD BACHELOR. AFTER THE MANNER OF SPENSER. IN Phœbus' region while some bards there be Beneath their laurel'd praise my verse may give, To trace the features of unnoticed man; Deeds, else forgotten, in the verse may live! Her lore, mayhap, instructive sense may teach, From weeds of humbler growth within my lowly reach. A wight there was, who single and alone Had crept from vigorous youth to waning age, Nor e'er was worth, nor e'er was beauty known His heart to captive, or his thought engage: Some feeble joyaunce, though his conscious mind Might female worth or beauty give to wear, Yet to the nobler sex he held confined The genuine graces of the soul sincere, And well could show with saw or proverb quaint All semblance woman's soul, and all her beauty paint. In plain attire this wight apparell'd was, (For much he conn'd of frugal lore and knew) Nor, till some day of larger note might cause, From iron-bound chest his better garb he drew: But when the Sabbath-day might challenge more, Or feast, or birth-day, should it chance to be, A glossy suit devoid of stain he wore, And gold his buttons glanced so fair to see, Gold clasp'd his shoon, by maiden brush'd so sheen, And his rough beard he shaved, and donn'd his linen clean. But in his common garb a coat he wore, A faithful coat that long its lord had known, That once was black, but now was black no Attinged by various colours not its own. [more, All from his nostrils was the front imbrown'd, And down the back ran many a greasy line, While, here and there, his social moments own'd The generous signet of the purple wine. Brown o'er the bent of eld his wig appear'd, Like fox's trailing tail by hunters sore affeir'd. One only maid he had, like turtle true, But not like turtle gentle, soft, and kind; For many a time her tongue bewray'd the shrew, And in meet words unpack'd her peevish mind. Ne form'd was she to raise the soft desire, That stirs the tingling blood in youthful vein, Ne form'd was she to light the tender fire, By many a bard is sung in many a strain : Hook'd was her nose, and countless wrinkles told What no man durst to her, I ween, that she was old. When the clock told the wonted hour was come When from his nightly cups the wight withdrew, Right patient would she watch his wending home, His feet she heard, and soon the bolt she drew. If long his time was past, and leaden sleep O'er her tired eye-lids 'gan his reign to stretch, Oft would she curse that men such hours should keep, And many a saw 'gainst drunkenness would preach; Haply if potent gin had arm'd her tongue, All on the reeling wight a thundering peal she rung. For though the blooming queen of Cyprus' isle O'er her cold bosom long had ceased to reign, On that cold bosom still could Bacchus smile, Such beverage to own if Bacchus deign: For wine she prized not much, for stronger drink Its medicine, oft a cholic-pain will call, And for the medicine's sake, might envy think, Oft would a cholic-pain her bowels enthral; Yet much the proffer did she loath and say No dram might maiden taste, and often answer'd nay. So as in single animals he joy'd, One cat, and eke one dog, his bounty fed; The first the cate-devouring mice destroy'd, Thieves heard the last, and from his threshold All in the sun-beams bask'd the lazy cat, [fled: Her mottled length in couchant posture laid; On one accustom'd chair while Pompey sat, And loud he bark'd should Puss his right invade. The human pair oft mark'd them as they lay, And haply sometimes thought like cat and dog were they. A room he had that faced the southern ray, Where oft he walk'd to set his thoughts in tune, Pensive he paced its length an hour or tway, All to the music of his creeking shoon. And at the end a darkling closet stood, Where books he kept of old research and new, In seemly order ranged on shelves of wood, And rusty nails and phials not a few; Thilk place a wooden box beseemeth well, [tell. And papers squared and trimm'd for use unmeet to For still in form he placed his chief delight, Nor lightly broke his old accustom'd rule, And much uncourteous would he hold the wight That e'er displaced a table, chair, or stool; And oft in meet array their ranks he placed, And oft with careful eye their ranks review'd; For novel forms, though much those forms had Himself and maiden-minister eschew'd: [graced, One path he trod, nor ever would decline A hair's unmeasured breadth from off the even line. JOHN ARMSTRONG was born in Roxburghshire, in the parish of Castleton, of which his father was the clergyman. He completed his education, and took a medical degree, at the university of Edinburgh, with much reputation, in the year 1732. Amidst his scientific pursuits, he also cultivated literature and poetry. One of his earliest productions in verse, was an "Imitation of the Style of Shakspere," which received the approbation of the poets Young and Thomson; although humbler judges will perhaps be at a loss to perceive in it any striking likeness to his great original. Two other sketches, also purporting to be imitations of Shakspere, are found among his works. They are the fragments of an unfinished tragedy. One of them, the "Dream of Progne," is not unpleasing. In the other, he begins the description of a storm by saying, that "The sun went down in wrath, the skies foam'd brass." It is uncertain in what year he came to London; but in 1735 he published an anonymous pamphlet, severely ridiculing the quackery of untaught practitioners. He dedicated this performance to Joshua Ward, John Moore, and others, whom he styles "the Antacademic philosophers, and the generous despisers of the schools." As a physician he never obtained extensive practice. This he himself imputed to his contempt of the little artifices, which, he alleges, were necessary to popularity: by others, the failure was ascribed to his indolence and literary avocations; and there was probably truth in both accounts. A disgraceful poem, entitled, “The Economy of Love," which he published after coming to London, might have also had its share in impeding his professional career. He corrected the nefarious production, at a later period of his life, betraying at once a consciousness of its impurity, and a hankering after its reputation. So unflattering were his prospects, after several years residence in the metropolis, that he applied (it would scem without success) to be put on the medical staff of the forces, then going out to the West Indies. His "Art of Preserving Health" appeared in 1744, and justly fixed his poetical reputation. In 1746 he was appointed physician to the hospital for sick soldiers, behind Buckingham House. In 1751 he published his poem on "Benevolence;" in 1753 his Epistle on Taste;" and in 1758 his prose "Sketches by Launcelot Temple." Certainly none of these productions exalted the literary character which he had raised to himself by his "Art of Preserving Health." The poems «Taste" and "Benevolence" are very insipid. His "Sketches" have been censured more than they seem to deserve for "oaths and exclamations, and for a * Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary. constant struggle to say smart things." They contain indeed some expressions which might be wished away, but these are very few in number; and several of his essays are plain and sensible, without any effort at humour. In 1760 he was appointed physician to the forces that went over to Germany. It is at this era of his life that we should expect its history to be the most amusing, and to have furnished the most important relics of observation, from his having visited a foreign country which was the scene of war, and where he was placed, by his situation, in the midst of interesting events. It may be pleasing to follow heroes into retirement; but we are also fond of seeing men of literary genius amidst the action and business of life. Of Dr. Armstrong in Germany, however, we have no other information than what is afforded by his epistle to Wilkes, entitled "Day," which is by no means a bright production, and chiefly devoted to subjects of eating. With Wilkes he was, at that time, on terms of friendship; but their cordiality was afterward dissolved by politics. Churchill took a share in the quarrel, and denounced our author as a monster of ingratitude toward Wilkes, who had been his benefactor; and Wilkes, by subsequently attacking Armstrong in the Daily Advertiser, showed that he did not disapprove of the satirist's reproaches. To such personalities Armstrong might have replied in the words of Prior, "To John I owed great obligation, But John unhappily thought fit Sure John and I are more than quit." But though his temper was none of the mildest, he had the candour to speak with gratitude of Wilkes's former kindness, and acknowledged that he was indebted to him for his appointment in the army. After the peace he returned to London, where his practice, as well as acquaintance, was confined to a small circle of friends; but among whom he was esteemed as a man of genius. From the originality of his mind, as well as from his reading, and more than ordinary taste in the fine arts, his conversation is said to have been richly entertaining. Yet if the character which is supposed to apply to him in the "Castle of Indolence" describes him justly, his colloquial delightfulness must have been intermittent. In 1770 he published a collection of his Miscellanies, containing a new prose piece, "The Universal Almanack," and "The Forced Marriage," a tragedy which had been offered to Garrick, but refused. The whole was ushered in by a preface, full of arrogant defiance to public opinion. "He had never courted the public," he said, "and if it was true what he had been told, that the best judges were on his side, he desired no more in Armstrong's character is said to have been painted in the stanza of the "Castle of Indolence" beginning "With him was sometimes joined in silent walk the article of fame as a writer." There was a good deal of matter in this collection, that ought to have rendered its author more modest. The "Universal Almanack" is a wretched production, to which the objections of his propensity to swearing, and abortive efforts at humour, apply more justly than to his "Sketches;" and his tragedy the Forced Marriage," is a mortuum caput of insipidity. In the following year he visited France and Italy, and published a short, but splenetic account of his tour, under his old assumed name of Launcelot Temple. His last production was a volume of "Professional Essays," in which he took more trouble to abuse quacks than became his dignity, and showed himself a man to whom the relish of life was not improving, as its feast drew toward a close. He died in September, 1779, of a hurt, which he accidentally received in stepping out of a carriage; and, to the no small surprise of his friends, left behind him more than 3000l., saved out of a very moderate income, arising principally from his half-pay. His "Art of Preserving Health" is the most successful attempt, in our language, to incorporate material science with poetry. Its subject had the advantage of being generally interesting; for there are few things that we shall be more willing to learn, either in prose or verse, than the means of preserving the outward bulwark of all other blessings. At the same time, the difficulty of poetically treating a subject, which presented disease in all its associations, is one of the most just and ordinary topics of his praise. Of the triumphs of poetry over such difficulty, he had no doubt high precedents, to show that strong and true delineations of physical evil are not without an attraction of fearful interest and curiosity to the human mind; and that the enjoy ment, which the fancy derives from conceptions of the bloom and beauty of healthful nature, may be heightened, by contrasting them with the opposite pictures of her mortality and decay. Milton had turned disease itself into a subject of sublimity, in the vision of Adam, with that intensity of the fire of genius, which converts whatever materials it meets with into its aliment: and Armstrong, though his powers were not Miltonic, had the courage to attempt what would have repelled a more timid taste. His Muse might be said to show a professional intrepidity in choosing the subject; and, like the physician who braves contagion, (if allowed to prolong the simile,) we may add, that she escaped, on the whole, with little injury from the trial. By the title of the poem, the author judiciously gave his theme a moral as well as a medical interest. He makes the influence of the passions an entire part of it. By professing to describe only how health is to be preserved, and not how it is to be restored, he avoids the unmanageable horrors of clinical detail; and though he paints the disease, wisely spares us its pharmaceutical treatment. His course through the poem is sustained with lucid management and propriety. What is ex plained of the animal economy is obscured by no pedantic jargon, but made distinct, and, to a certain degree, picturesque to the conception. We need not indeed be reminded how small a portion of science can be communicated in poetry; but the practical maxims of science, which the Muse has stamped with imagery and attuned to harmony, have so far an advantage over those which are delivered in prose, that they become more agreeable and permanent acquisitions of the memory. If the didactic path of his poetry is, from its nature, rather level, he rises above it, on several occasions, with a considerable strength of poetical feeling. Thus, in recommending the vicinity of woods around a dwelling, that may shelter us from the winds, whilst it enables us to hear their music, he introduces the following pleasing lines: "Oh! when the growling winds contend, and all In treating of diet he seems to have felt the full difficulty of an humble subject, and to have sought to relieve his precepts and physiological descriptions, with all the wealth of allusion and imagery which his fancy could introduce. The appearance of a forced effort is not wholly avoided, even where he aims at superior strains, in order to garnish the meaner topics, as when he solemnly addresses the Naiads of all the rivers in the world, in rehearsing the praises of a cup of water. But he closes the book in a strain of genuine dignity. After contemplating the effects of Time on the human body, his view of its influence dilates, with easy and majestic extension, to the universal structure of nature; and he rises from great to greater objects with a climax of sublimity. "What does not fade? the tower that long had stood Descend: the Babylonian spires are sunk; And all those worlds that roll around the sun, He may, in some points, be compared advantageously with the best blank verse writers of the age; and he will be found free from their most striking defects. He has not the ambition of Akenside, nor the verbosity of Thomson. On the other hand, shall we say that he is equal in genius to either of those poets? Certainly, his originality is nothing like Thomson's; and the rapture of his heroic sentiments is unequal to that of the author of the "Pleasures of Imagination." For, in spite of the too frequently false pomp of Akenside, we still feel, that he has a devoted moral impulse, not to be mistaken for the cant of morality, a zeal in the worship of Virtue, which places her image in a high and hallowed light. Neither has his versification the nervous harmony of Akenside's, for his habit of pausing almost uniformly at the close of the line, gives an air of formality to his numbers. His vein has less mixture than Thomson's; but its ore is not so fine. Sometimes we find him trying his strength with that author, in the same walk of description, where, though correct and concise, he falls beneath the poet of "The Seasons" in rich and graphic observation. He also contributed to "The Castle of Indolence" some stanzas, describing the diseases arising from sloth, which form rather an useful back-ground to the luxuriant picture of the Castle, than a prominent part of its enchantment.* On the whole, he is likely to be remembered as a poet of judicious thoughts and correct expression; and, as far as the rarely successful application of verse to subjects of science can be admired, an additional merit must be ascribed to the hand which has reared poetical flowers on the dry and difficult ground of philosophy. FROM "THE ART OF PRESERVING HEALTH." BOOK I. ENTITLED "AIR." Opening of the Poem in an Invocation to Hygeia. DAUGHTER of Pæon, queen of every joy, Hygeia; whose indulgent smile sustains The various race luxuriant nature pours, And on th' immortal essences bestows Immortal youth; auspicious, O descend! Thou cheerful guardian of the rolling year, Whether thou wanton'st on the western gale, Or shakest the rigid pinions of the north, Diffusest life and vigour through the tracts Of air, through earth, and ocean's deep domain. When through the blue serenity of heaven Thy power approaches, all the wasteful host Of Pain and Sickness, squalid and deform'd, Confounded sink into the loathsome gloom, Where in deep Erebus involved, the Fiends Or meagre famine breeds, or with slow wings The damp waste forest, motionless and rank, *See ante, p. 450. Of Vice and heedless Pleasure: or if aught FROM THE SAME. Choice of a rural situation, and allegorical picture of the Quartan Ague. YE who amid this feverish world would wear That from a thousand lungs reeks back to thine, It is not air, but floats a nauseous mass While yet you breathe, away; the rural wilds Invite; the mountains call you, and the vales; The woods, the streams, and each ambrosial breeze That fans the ever-undulating sky; A kindly sky! whose fost'ring power regales Benign, where all her honest children thrive. Umbrageous Ham!-But if the busy town FROM THE SAME. Recommendation of a High Situation on the Sea-coast. MEANTIME, the moist malignity to shun Of burthen'd skies; mark where the dry cham paign Swells into cheerful hills: where marjoram |