THE 
 
 S(C.
 
 W, Pople, 67, Chancery Lane.
 
 THE 
 
 MODERN ANTIQUE: 
 
 OR 
 
 THE MUSE 
 
 IN THE 
 
 Costume of <&utm Qnnt. 
 
 " - Admit me of your crew." Milt, 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PalNTRD FOR W. POPLE, 67, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. 
 
 1813.
 
 /9f 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 It is questionable whether much parade of 
 diffidence in a new Author be more calculat- 
 ed to promote the favourable opinion of his 
 Readers, or to predetermine the censure of 
 their otherwise unbiassed regard: as, with due 
 allowance for every man's natural apprehen- 
 sion of appearing before his judges, his ap- 
 parent modesty may be rationally considered 
 to emanate from a self distrust of the adequacy 
 of his claims ; and as such must obviously 
 rather tend to communicate a similar doubt 
 of his qualifications and to gain but a too 
 ready acquiescence, that he had prematurely 
 obtruded himself into public notice, in not 
 having previously secured (what is most essen- 
 tial to the satisfaction of every sensible man) 
 his individual assent but if the like intro- 
 b 
 
 f.'-T>>
 
 VI 
 
 ductory formalities be considered only as ce- 
 remonies in compliance with long established 
 custom, and that an Author merely intends 
 such unimportant preliminaries, as his obei- 
 sance to the Reader, and mere flourishes to 
 embellish his debut ; it may be then properly 
 enquired how far such prefatorial affectation, 
 in modern times, be derogatory to one, who 
 presumes to offer himself as a candidate for the 
 suffrages of the most enlightened part of the 
 community thus either way unfavourably 
 influencing popular estimation, which he is so 
 over sedulous to prepossess. 
 
 Be it as it may, the Author of the follow- 
 ing Poems feels no trifling degree of timidity 
 in ushering into the world his bantling, and 
 entering the lists with so many veteran com- 
 petitors, for a share of the monopoly of lite- 
 rary fame ; fully persuaded of the diminished 
 chance possessed by every fresh candidate, 
 even for tolerance, in an age like the present, 
 when the press teems with ingenious produc-
 
 Vll 
 
 tions, and knowledge of every description is so 
 universally diffused; how much more impress- 
 ed with the arduousness of his enterprise, v*ho 
 should now vainly aspire to fresh glory fb> his 
 faint and borrowed glimmerings, when the irra- 
 diation of his predecessors, and (if it may so be 
 termed) the galaxy or contemporary Genius, 
 have illuminated the mysteries of science, 
 informed a host of modern readers, and uot 
 only have imparted so much additional faci- 
 lity to the prevailing love of satire, but like- 
 wise so much fresh acumen to the eagle-eyed 
 penetration of critical perspicacity. 
 
 Above all, what apology he shall offer for 
 obtruding poems, principallyjuvenile end occa- 
 sional, into public notice, he is most at a loss 
 to determine; the persuasion of friends, Sec. 
 have so often been alleged by poets, as shields 
 for personal vanity, that though they may 
 not have failed to contribute their share of 
 inducement towards the present publication, 
 he will forbear to enumerate them amono: his
 
 vm 
 
 principal reasons the most prominent of 
 which were first, to use the words of a late 
 celebrated writer; 
 
 " To have them printed under his own in- 
 spection for the sake of preventing their be- 
 ing some time hereafter exposed in a ragged 
 mangled condition, when it might be impos- 
 sible for him, by the change of perhaps one 
 letter, to recover a whole period from the 
 most contemptible nonsense*." 
 
 A second and no less powerful stimulus to 
 their publication was to diminish an ac- 
 cumulation of manuscripts, which must al- 
 ways prove a source of anxiety to every 
 writer ; as well to him, who for the mere pur- 
 suit of his own leisure hours, devotes a por- 
 tion of his time and attention to the service of 
 the Muses, as to him who for the more extended 
 
 * Armstrong.
 
 IX 
 
 object of benefiting mankind, dedicates his 
 exertions and existence to the wider field of 
 literary research for few can so far triumph 
 over the vanity which naturally attaches to 
 every member of the "genus irritabile vatura* 
 as to consign to the flames what lias long 
 amused their early ambition, and to persuade 
 themselves that what they have long been 
 accustomed to consider as a genuine rav from 
 the real fountain of light (the illustrious pa- 
 tron of poets) is in fact nothing more than 
 an ignis fatuus, which has deluded thousands 
 of their bewildered fraternity, 
 
 Compact of unctuous vapour, which the night 
 Condenses, ami the cold environs round, 
 Kindled through ag.tation into flame," 
 
 Milt. P- L. 
 
 Detaching them further and further from the 
 natural and more solid pursuits of human 
 life; until, suddenly startled by the severe 
 deriding voice of satire, joined to the cac/t/H- 
 tius of still more obtrusive folly, they awake
 
 from their delirium, or sink unnoticed into 
 universal neglect. 
 
 If the Author of the following trifles had 
 ever been led away by the like infatuation, 
 he has long lost sight of such visionary 
 pursuits, as the bubble of immortality, 
 and the vain hope of rescuing his little 
 bark from oblivion, when the prows of com- 
 manding superiority are irrevocably ingulfed 
 in the vortex of temporal revolution. 
 
 " Poets may boast as safely vain, 
 
 Their works shall with the world remain, 
 Boib bound together live and die; 
 The verses and the prophecy," 
 
 Waller, 
 
 He alone wishes to prefer his claim of 
 indulgence, to the candor of the reader, for 
 many puerilities and imperfections which no 
 doubt will manifest themselves throughout his 
 pages; to which indulgence he may perhaps be 
 entitled, for the reason already stated, namely,
 
 XI 
 
 their being principally juvenile productions* 
 for though brought forward at a period when 
 the inexperience of youth can no longer plead 
 in behalf of many such transgressions, still 
 it is very different with regard to others, since 
 a juvenile train of reflection will often appear 
 in spite of the utmost vigilance of the ma- 
 turer Author's revision of his own works, and 
 amid the numerous excrescences which from 
 time to time he may lop away, some will still, 
 defying his utmost perseverance, remain and 
 deride his endeavours the more so, as on ac- 
 count of his familiarity and long fostering care, 
 he contracts for them a sort of parental affec- 
 tion and becomes daily more blinded to their 
 obvious extravagance and imbecility. He is 
 aware it may be enquired " But why obtrude 
 those early and jejune productions upon the 
 public r" to which it may be rationally replied, 
 that if an Author ever be entitled to derive 
 credit from his writings, his claims are likely 
 to manifest themselves in his early produc- 
 tions ; and these, if ever designed for publica-
 
 Xll 
 
 tion, should take precedence of works com- 
 posed at the more advanced period, when 
 his powers have attained the acme of their 
 faculties : since each artist should rather 
 progressively rise than decline in public esti- 
 mation, which result can never be reasona- 
 bly looked for, if (allowing the use of a vul- 
 gar adage) like the crab, he should gradually 
 proceed in an inverse direction ; and as many 
 have done, produce his more jejune perfor- 
 mances, when his fortunate efforts have es- 
 tablished his pretensions to the distinction 
 and favor he may enjoy. 
 
 Independent of which, it has often been 
 remarked, and not without some degree of 
 plausibility, that the juvenile productions of 
 authors, are more interesting to many, and 
 particularly to the youthful, who form the ma- 
 jor part of their readers; for though deficient in 
 the judgment, general information, and want- 
 ing the living portraits of their later composi- 
 tions, still those deficiencies are in a great de?
 
 xm 
 
 gree compensated by the superior ardor of 
 genius, the richness, though exuberance of 
 fancy, and the more pure and unsophisticated 
 ebullition of principles. 
 
 The Author is but too sensible of the nu- 
 merous blemishes of style, composition, ar- 
 rangement, and other defects of the present 
 collection ; for many of which he must plead 
 the poet's never failing excuse, 'haste;' and 
 which, though so generally disregarded, may yet 
 be entitled to no inconsiderable degree of cre- 
 dit, although (paradoxical as it may appear) he 
 should have doubled the rule of Horace, 
 
 " Nonumqne prematur in annum." Hor. A. P. 
 
 and for this obvious reason, that however 
 long any subject may occupy previous at- 
 tention, there never fails to be a degree of 
 haste in its accomplishment, as much is al- 
 ways left for the last, when, as by the laws of 
 gravitation, its accelerated progress leaves
 
 XIV 
 
 Jittle opportunity for reflection, and the com- 
 pletion of former deficiencies. 
 
 It is certain that a poet is reduced to an 
 unfortunate dilemma, who feels the necessity of 
 appealing to the indulgence, and begging par- p 
 don, of the reader, on whatever pretensions he 
 may rest his claim still the author, in jus- 
 tice to himself, feels it necessary to state 
 the peculiar difficulties under which he la- 
 boured on the present occasion, that nearly 
 the whole time his work was printing (great 
 part of which was not previously prepared 
 for the press) his health was in a most de- 
 licate, not to say precarious, state ; that he was 
 likewise unassisted in the hurry of printing, but 
 by the hasty reading of his sheets, by one kind 
 friend, in moments snatched from the arduous 
 profession of the higher departments of the 
 ] aw besides all the natural interruption from 
 the connexions of an author who has no avow- 
 ed occupation, or ostensible pursuit. But 
 should the volume be so fortunate as to outlive
 
 XV 
 
 the present edition, he hopes to be enabled 
 hereafter to reproduce it in a manner more 
 creditable to himself, and more deserving the 
 attention of the public (as well by improve- 
 ments, as by a more careful superintendance 
 of the press) than the forementioned reasons, 
 added to other obstacles, as serious as they 
 were numerous, would in the present in- 
 stance allow ; when he may perhaps likewise 
 produce other works of rather greater impor- 
 tance. 
 
 So far the Author has apologized for im- 
 perfections more attributable to adventitious 
 circumstances, than to his peculiar failing, on 
 which account likewise he must beg permission 
 to trespass on his readers by observing, he ap- 
 prehends he will not seldom require their in- 
 dulgence, as well for the dithyrambic strain 
 of his odes, as perhaps for a want of harmony 
 in his more regular versification, unsuited to 
 the delicate refinement, though he must add, 
 often vitiously nice polish of modern poesie j
 
 XVI 
 
 its he not only may have frequently fallen 
 into such faults by accident, but as often by 
 design, in endeavouring to avoid the inanity 
 complained of in the following lines: 
 
 u Verses as smooth, ns soft as cream, 
 
 In wliich there's neither depth nor stream" 
 
 or what is expressed in the no less admirable 
 line of a modern Poet. 
 
 " The warbling nonsense of some hot-pr<"ss'd page." 
 
 J no. Blaiii Lixn. 
 
 Thus in steering from one fault he may 
 have been kd into the opposite extreme, and 
 as Horace would express it, 
 
 " In vitium ducit culpte fuga." 
 
 Lest the Author's intention in adopting the 
 capricious title to his Work, of ' The Modem 
 Antique, or the Muse in the Costume of 
 Queen Anne! be liable to misconstruction, as 
 though he presumed to exalt himself among
 
 XV11 
 
 the celebrated wits of ihe British Augustail 
 age, it may be proper further to ob- 
 serve that ihe idea of affixing that title to his 
 Work, suggested itself through a very differ* 
 ent, not to say opposite motive: namely, that 
 by professing himself merely a disciple of a 
 former school of poetry, he might prevent the 
 expectation, and consequent disappointment, 
 of novelty; (the rage for which has of late 
 not only been so universally excited, but like- 
 wise so frequently gratified by the ingenious 
 productions of conttmporary writers) and 
 thus by an appropriate title, prepare the 
 public for the appearance of his antiquated 
 Goddess among her more modish sisters, the 
 present fashionable daughters* of Mnemosyne 
 and Jupiter. 
 
 He is aware it may be urged that the title 
 of Modern Antique is less applicable to the 
 stomacher of Queen Anne, than to the Muse's 
 costume of the present clay, in as much as 
 Queen Elizabeth is the senior of Queen Anne; 
 (since contempora:ies have thought proper to
 
 xvni 
 
 decorate their Muses with the ruff of the for- 
 mer sovereign ;) not having sufficiently weigh- 
 ed this important objection, he must leave it 
 to the antiquary to determine how far the 
 appellation more properly applies to either, 
 and the priority of their respective ward- 
 robes. 
 
 At the same time, while the author feels 
 cause to lament the absence of that attrac- 
 tive qualit}', originality, in these earliest ef- 
 forts of his Muse ; he must beg candidly to 
 state, he has uniformly been of opinion 
 that attempts at novelty in literature, and 
 such of the fine arts as have stood the test 
 of ages, are as so many innovations in the 
 Jong established, and hitherto, immutable 
 laws of taste ; and as so many inroads for Pre- 
 sumption and Ignorance to obtrude their folly 
 and impertinence on mankind : but more par- 
 ticularly so in the grand republic of letters, 
 whose extensive province comprehends the uni- 
 versal range of countries, ages, and languages,
 
 XIX 
 
 and whose standard of perfection ought to 
 have been settled long ere this by the con- 
 corrent testimony of the learned, with the 
 tacit acquiescence of the multitude : not 
 left to the present revolutionary period of 
 fluctuating opinions, for folly or caprice to 
 decide, and rob the hard earned laurel from 
 the legitimate brow of science, to confer it on 
 those, whom fancy, party or popularity, may 
 deem proper objects to invest with poetical 
 supremacy. 
 
 Tho?e writers appear to attain the high- 
 est degree of excellence, who in the most 
 current but polished style of their age and 
 country, and by the simplest means, engage 
 the votes of their readers ; who most improve 
 the heart, and convey most useful knowledge : 
 as also those who by the vigour and fertility 
 of their fancy, extend the powers of the ima- 
 gination, and fill up the vacant regions of in- 
 tellectuality ; who neither have recourse to 
 eccentricities, unmerited panegyric, nor scurri-
 
 XX 
 
 Ious personality, to amuse the vulgar : far less 
 by licentious appealings to the passions of 
 the most depraved part of the community, to 
 gain the many for their admirers. Who, 
 staunch to the beaten path of legitimate me- 
 rit, are indifferent to all praise but that which 
 true criticism can adjudge their real desert; 
 who wish not even their own errors to prevail, 
 and who, (alone desiring to stand or fall by 
 the virtue of their pretensions,) would lament 
 all distinction which Fortune rather than Jus- 
 tice should bestow.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 ODES. 
 
 To Haydn - - - 1 
 
 a Sister's Marriage - - - 15 
 
 St. Cecilia's day - - 23 
 
 Genius - - - 41 
 
 PORT-FOLIO. Songs, Odes, Ac. &c 
 
 Ode. Comparison - - 63 
 
 On Music heard at a distance - 68 
 
 On the Same - - 69 
 
 Song. Sweet Bird - - - 71 
 
 Daisy and Snow-drop - - 73 
 
 Song. A vaunt ye Sons - - 74 
 
 Julia's Eyes - - 76 
 
 Pity - - . 77 
 
 . Say Moralist - - 78 
 
 Tell me what is Love - -79 
 
 Love - - - - 80 
 
 The silly Bee 81 
 
 The Bee - - - - 82 
 Philanthropy .... ib. 
 
 Song. Tiie Flow'ret in June - - 83 
 
 On Fr^nflship - S 
 
 On a rainy day - - - - 84
 
 >:xn 
 
 Clearing up - - - - 84 
 
 Song. Lethe - - - 85 
 
 Nature - - - - 86 
 
 Song. Damon - - 8T 
 
 Pleasure and Serenity - - - 88 
 
 Song. The Sailor - - . - 89 
 
 The Poet's Complaint in Spring answered by Nature 90 
 
 On Life - - - - 91 
 
 Worked on a Sister's Sampler - - ib. 
 
 Duett between Swain and Nature - 92 
 
 On Art - - - - - 94 
 
 On Art and Nature ... ib. 
 
 Paraphrase of Horace - - 95 
 
 On Genius - - 98 
 
 On Rousseau .... ib. 
 
 Latin Motto translated - - 97 
 
 On the death of Mozart - - ib. 
 
 An old Thought - - - - 98 
 
 A new Thought - - - 99 
 
 Nature copies * ... 100 
 
 To an old Friend - - - - 101 
 
 Soliloquy from Voltaire - 103 
 
 Churchill and Lloyd v. Gray - - 106 
 
 You ought - - - 10T 
 
 Error and Truth ... - ib. 
 
 Translation from Racine ... 108 
 
 Well-known Fact - ib. 
 
 The Poets, in two Parts - - - 109 
 
 Part the First - - - 111 
 
 Part the Second - - 145 
 
 The Vision, a Poem ... 163 
 
 Jam te premet nox - - - 183
 
 XX111 
 
 ELEGIES, EPITAPHS, &c. &c. 
 
 Elegy I. On the death of a much lamented Mother 191 
 
 II On the Same - - - 209 
 
 Epitaph on her Tomb - 225 
 
 Consolation ... - 227 
 
 Thoughts oii the same. (Continued) - - 231 
 
 Annihilation .... 233 
 
 Elegy written on the top of a Mountain - 235 
 
 The old House .... 239 
 
 Address to the Nightingale - - 543 
 
 Epitaph on the Author's Father - - 245 
 
 an amiable young Woman - 24T 
 
 the Same Upon her Tomb - 249 
 
 the Author's Uncle - - 250 
 
 . In imitation of Pope's Epitaphs 251 
 
 Ode to the Memory of Dussck - - 252 
 
 On Rubens .... 255 
 
 The Soul's Disease - - - 5T 
 
 The Poets' Meeting in Hell ; a poem - 261 
 
 Lines upon the Stage ... 275 
 
 The Qualities of my Friend - 279 
 
 To J. M. P. Esq. - - - - 280 
 
 APPENDIX. Epigrams, Poems, &c. &c. 
 
 On National Prejudice ... 283 
 
 the Same - - - - 284 
 
 Style - - - - 285 
 
 the Same - - - ib t 
 
 Clap traps - t*5. 
 To a Satyrist .... 286 
 Epigraph on the same - - - ib.
 
 XXIV 
 
 On Marriage - MT 
 
 Tragedy .... ,-j. 
 
 One who would sing - - ib. 
 Theory and Practice ... 288 
 To a Connoisseur - - - - tfi 
 Why Man prefers the title Knave to Fool - &. 
 On a Company of dancers viewed from without * 289 
 
 an Impromptu - . ib. 
 True Friends .... 290 
 The Devil's Question ... 291 
 Epitaph on a Lady's dog ... 29S 
 The Captions .... 294 
 On the Same - - - ib. 
 
 Satire .... 295 
 
 Envy - - - ib. 
 
 the Vulgar ... - 296 
 
 the Same. Parody on Young - - ib. 
 Quotation. On the Same - - ib. 
 On Writers - - - ib. 
 
 Dr. Darwin's Temple of Nature - - 297 
 Ode to Tautology ... 299 
 Charade, The subject given by a Lady - 301 
 Apollo decides a difficult Queition - - SOS 
 To Critique Writers on the Fine Arts - - 305 
 On the Same .... 306 
 To the Thoughtless ... 30T 
 On the Same - - - ib. 
 The Bioly Son "- 308 
 Mercury and Phcebus, or the Reward of Merit - 310 
 A dozen Attempts to equal Dr. Johnson - 311
 
 ODE 
 
 HAYDN, 
 
 Jftttstc* 
 
 ** Scimus enim musicen nnstris moribus abesse a principis 
 pereona; saltare ctiam in vims poni : quae omnia apud 
 Grsecos et grata el laude digna ducuntur." 
 
 Corn. Nep,
 
 " Ce nest pas quefapprouve en an sujet Chretien, 
 Un Auteur foUement idolitre et pay en ; 
 Mais, dans tine profane et tiante peinture, 
 De n'oser de la fable employer la figure ; 
 De chaster Us Tritons de P Empire des Eaux, , 
 
 D'utcr a Pan sa flute , aux Parques leurs cisseaux; 
 D'empecher que Caron, dans lafatale Barque, 
 Ainsi que le Berger, ne passe le monarque ; 
 Cest d'un scrupule vain, s'alarmer sottement 
 Et vnuleir aux Lectturs plaire sans agre'ment" 
 
 BoiLEAr.
 
 0bt 
 FOR MUSIC. 
 
 ** I procul hinc, dixit, non es raihi, tibia, tanti; 
 Ut vidi t vultus Pallas in Amue suos." 
 
 Otio. 
 
 \V hen Pallas play'd with art divine, 
 She rivall'd all the tuneful Nine ; 
 E'en, Sol the God of Wit, stood mute, 
 
 Aw'd by the magic of her flute! 
 Her many attributes combin'd, 
 Delighted and impress'd the mind ; 
 Sublime she stood in mail attir'd, 
 
 Her music sooth'J, her valor fir'd, 
 Beauty, sense, with all conspir'd, 
 To captivate the soul, 
 E'en savage fury to control. 
 
 When doom'd by fate some adverse day, 
 
 (Too near a dimpling rill) 
 The peerless goddess tun'd a lay, 
 
 That chaileng'd Phoebus' skill,
 
 Who, jealous of her matchless strain, 
 To turn her rapture to disdain, 
 
 (While nature marvell'd as she stood) 
 With oblique beam, 
 With treach'rous gleam, 
 Illum'd the stream ; 
 When ever and anon she viewed, 
 
 As buoyant on the ruffled flood, 
 Her image discompos'd and rude ! 
 
 The mirror tho' disturb 'd alone, 
 While thus her form reflected, shone, 
 Too soon, fair Wisdom was deceiv'd, 
 Too credulous the Pow'r believ'd, 
 Each musical grace, 
 Robb'd a charm from her face, 
 And alter'd the mien, 
 Which vied with the port of the cyprian queen ! 
 
 Ci Begone ! begone !" then stern Minerva cried; 
 
 And, with offended female pride, 
 Indignant spurn'd the pipe, she blam'd : 
 " Know then, thou art not worth," exclaim'd. 
 li Vain flagelet, so high a price, 
 " My beauteous form to sacrifice!''
 
 And since that fatal time, 
 'Twas even deem'd a crime, 
 For wisdom to admire, 
 Less join the tuneful quire. 
 
 No more each plaintive lay had charms, 
 No sounds would please but war's alarms, 
 And spears, and shields, and ruthless cars, 
 Emblems of cruelty and wars ; 
 Each joy refin'd compell'd to yield 
 To brutal pleasures of the field, 
 As tho' each mild sensation took repose : 
 But when immortal Haydn rose, 
 And struck the golden lyre, 
 
 The list'ning goddess stood amaz'd, 
 While Haydn rais'd, 
 Or quell'd desire ; 
 And while she prais'd, 
 In wonder gaz'd, 
 O'er heaven and earth to know, 
 If one of the castalian train, 
 Pour'd forth the high celestial strain ; 
 Or Orpheus from the tombs below,
 
 With skilful touch the tones combia'd, 
 
 That harmoniz'd the wind : 
 But saw surpris'd a mortal stand, 
 Majestic with the lyre in hand, 
 Who drew involuntary praise and wrought upon her mind ! 
 
 Her wonder tho* excited more, 
 She deem'd his skill not mortal lore, 
 But thought Apollo from the skies, 
 Who rules the radiant orb of day, 
 Was hid beneath a vain disguise, 
 To lure some earthborn nymph away ; 
 And thro' the mask of fraudful love, 
 
 Belied, could discover, 
 
 Th* illustrious lover, 
 
 Could see on his brow, 
 
 Refulgence yet glow, 
 
 On his temples yet blaze, 
 
 A faint circle of rays - f 
 
 For no mortal she deem'd, 
 
 Tho' a mortal he seem'd, 
 But artful Apollo, descendant of Jove ! 
 But when with a more earnest view, 
 
 She found him human, her suspicions vain. 
 She more and more enamor'd grew 
 With each divine melodious strain :
 
 She strove on transient tones to dwell, 
 Which floated from his il chorded shell ;" 
 Sonorous now as Zephyr's wings, 
 O'er Cithara's symphonious strings ; 
 Or when he feign'd in anger loud, 
 Like thunder breaking from a cloud ; 
 Or as Niagara's rough course, 
 Precipitant with headlong force ! 
 
 With martial glory, 
 
 then his lyre, 
 (Deep struck in rage) 
 With passion burn'd ; 
 And as his pow'rful fancy turn'd, 
 On sacred story, 
 
 Or on Nature's page, 
 He, like an epic bard, glow'd with ethereal fire ! 
 
 Love too he sang, nor sang in vain, 
 Transported with its bliss and pain ; 
 Depressing or exalting high, 
 With all the pow'r of sympathy : 
 So versatile his lay,
 
 io 
 
 (Sad, soothing, elevated, gay,) 
 
 Alternately 
 The querulous ot joyous strain, 
 Thrill'd thro' each link of feeling's chain ; 
 Would fierce conflicting passions charm , 
 Despair of guilty dread disarm ; 
 Dim with a tear 
 A tyrant's eye, 
 Cause hope or fear 
 Or jealousy ; 
 So with a master's art, 
 He search'd each deep recess, each secret of the heart! 
 
 Thus while the mingled chords she heard, 
 
 All nature to her mind appear'd ; 
 And sound, than language, seem'd no less 
 Sublime ideas to express ; 
 For in his harmony refin'd, 
 (Deem'd by the artless idle song) 
 
 The conscious Pow'r confess'd a Mind, 
 Each cadence fraught, 
 
 With deepest thought, 
 ConceaI'd from the untutor'd throng
 
 -11 
 
 Amaz'd she heard his slender hand,' 
 To heav'n's prerogative aspire ; 
 With touch so powerful, so bland, 
 As seem'd to breathe upon the wire ; 
 To the cold string a rapture give, 
 Impart a soul, aud bid it live 1 
 
 Yet who but Pallas can declare, 
 Her praise at each exalted air, 
 When to his lyre infirm and old, 
 She heard him in a strain more bold, 
 (Like his, who sightless dar'd explore, 
 Where mortal ne'er " presum'd" before,) 
 From chaos and eternal night, 
 Call forth, with intellectual light, 
 The awful birth, 
 Of mortal man, of heav'n, and earth, 
 And all Creation's mysteries unfold !* 
 
 Charm'd, she resum'd her instrument, 
 And deem'd all former toil misspent ; 
 
 * Haydn, like Milton, sang oi' creation
 
 12 
 
 War appear'd but feats of madnesi, 
 
 Senseless clamor, scenes of blood ; 
 Wisdom oft promoting sadness, 
 
 Music the sublimest good. 
 She then renounc'd her shield of terror, 
 
 Gorgon grim of living gold ; 
 Whose serpent tresses in dread error, 
 
 Hissing o'er the surface roll'd. 
 Upon her lance inverted leaning, 
 
 Paus'd, and in a thought profound, 
 Perceiving in each trill a meaning, 
 Own'd th' omnipotence of sound. 
 Taught by the great musician's theme, 
 Its worth intrinsic to esteem ; 
 
 She wept, the while he play'd, 
 Ambrosial tears, 
 That mortal, he should wane in years ; 
 Deploring too his form would fade, 
 
 The heavenly maid ! 
 To keep from all. subduing time, 
 Ere frail dissolving Nature's wreck ; 
 T' outlive his own sepulchral rhyme, 
 Or marble wreath his bust to deck ;
 
 13 
 
 His semblance she sublimely wrought, 
 Imprinted with creative thought ; 
 Then cull'd a branch of ever-during bays, 
 And with a chaplet from the verdant bough, 
 With glory crown'd, bid it adorn his brow, 
 And bloom for erer to prolong his praise !
 
 ODE 
 
 TO 
 
 A SISTER's MARRIAGE. 
 
 FOR 
 
 iflu0tc*
 
 FOR MUSIC. 
 
 Cpttfwlamtum* 
 
 The Muse who long has slppt supine, 
 By Morpheus lull'd from the Pierian Nine, 
 Where Silence sways with Sleep, and Sleep's dread 
 semblance, Death ! 
 Resumes deep-heaVd her wonted breath ; *- 
 
 Rous'd as from a deadly slumber, 
 Awakes on this auspicious day, 
 Unfetter'd in unequal number, 
 Nor longer owns his leaden sway ; 
 She tears the poppy from her torpid brow, 
 Attunes her lyre and bids her choicest accents flow : 
 Hymen commands, she pleasures to obey; 
 Her ma^ic shell with transport r ngs, 
 With heartfelt joy she sings, 
 She sings !
 
 " Happy pair whom friends approve, 
 United by the Pow'r of Love ; 
 Was Amnion's godlike son more bless'd, 
 When he his lovely Thais press'd, 
 And clasp'd in his enamour'd arms 
 All beauty's oriental charms ?" 
 
 " Beauty alone with pow'rful rays, 
 Like lightning beams, and then decays, 
 A scorching, but a transient blaze ; 
 And darting, like electric flame, 
 Shoots to the heart, and bends the frame ; 
 But mix'd with virtue's milder sway, 
 (Free from tumultuous joy or woe) 
 
 Is ever sunshine, ever day, 
 And constitutes true bliss below : 
 Cupid, God of pleasing pain, 
 Life, without thee, void and vain, 
 Is a treasure, 
 Constant pleasure, 
 Circl'd with Love's golden chain !"
 
 19 
 
 Chorus; 
 Cupid, God of pleasing pain, 
 Life, without thee, void and rain, 
 Is a treasure, 
 Constant pleasure, 
 Circl'd with Lore's golden chain. 
 
 But hark ! again she strikes the lyre, 
 Again -vibrates the golden wire ; 
 Tho' now her milder strains demand 
 Less ardor, but a gentler hand : 
 She sings of calmer days to come, 
 More solid joys, and social home ; 
 The bride and bridegroom's noon serene, 
 
 Which varied rollB 
 
 In harmony : 
 How faith each roving wish controls, 
 Or thro' life's changeful checquer'd scene, 
 Love challenging Adversity ; 
 
 How mutual cares prevent to cloy 
 Life's, short-lived, if intenser, joy ; 
 While bonds ne'er fret which link congenial souls
 
 
 20 
 
 Chorus. 
 How mutual cares prevent to cloy 
 Life's, short-lived, if intenser, joy ; 
 While bonds ne'er fret which link congenial souls. 
 
 So may your dulcet moments flow, 
 Untinctur'd by the dregs of woe ; 
 Your joint content, 
 Your joy augment, 
 An age roll on 
 In unison, 
 Till kindred souls united grown, 
 The world concentrated your own, 
 Each parterre a rich paradise, 
 
 Connubial couch a throne. 
 
 Chorus. 
 Till kindred souls united grown, 
 The world concentrated your own, 
 Each parterre a rich paradise, 
 
 Connubial couch a throne.
 
 21 
 
 Cupid hovering, smiles above, 
 And sheds the mystic pow'r of love ; 
 He joys to hear his mighty sway confess'd, 
 And happier makes the bless'd. 
 
 The Muse now takes a bolder flight; 
 With orbs prophetic, far descries 
 More future bliss in prospect rise, 
 All plain reveal'd before her sight. 
 Again she strikes the trembling strings ; 
 But more serene the Goddess sings 
 
 " Self centred joys who can compare 
 With comforts they with others share ? 
 Behold a blooming progeny, 
 (The fairest blessing of the sky) 
 
 With tender blossom crown each anxious care: 
 Hoar Time stops short in his career, 
 And kindly holding to their view 
 A mirror, retrosp* ctive, true, 
 Revers'd he shows each parted year ; 
 Their juvenile days roll back again, 
 And in posterity their younger selves remain I" 

 
 22 
 
 Chorus, 
 Hoar Time stops short in his career, 
 And kindly holding to their view 
 A mirror, retrospective, true, 
 Revers'd he shows each parted year ; 
 Their juvenile days roll back again, 
 And in posterity their younger selves remain.
 
 ODE 
 
 TO 
 
 SAINT CECILIA'S DAY, 
 
 TOR 
 
 itftustc. 
 
 ' Publica materifs privari juris erit." 
 
 Hon.
 
 <be 
 
 SAINT CECILIA'S DAY. 
 
 ** And the -women answered one another aa they played, 
 and said, Saul hath killed his thousands, and David his 
 ten thousands." 
 
 " And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him, 
 and said, they hare ascribed to David ten thousands, and 
 to me they have ascribed but thousands, and what can 
 be have more but the Kingdom.'" 
 
 Samuel.
 
 he 
 FOR MUSIC. 
 
 Citharizare ct cantare ad chordarum sooum doclus est. 
 
 Cork. Nir. 
 
 1 he Vaunter crush'd, victorious Saul releas'd, 
 From dread Goliah, fell'd by Jesse's son, 
 
 And vanquished foes of Israel, 
 Drew all the glory of the East : 
 Flush'd for the fallen Infidel, 
 
 Judaea's sacred pomp and beauty shone. 
 
 Joy rul'd the rabble unrestraiD'd, 
 And in the royal bosom reign'd : 
 Far echo shouts, ' the boaster dead, 
 * The trophy dread, 
 * Still reeking the gigantic head, 
 * Borne by the stripling who the conquest gain'd! 
 
 Triumphant at the festal board, 
 Sat Saul with each illustrious lord ; 
 Virgins and youths the palace grac'd, 
 By merit, rank, or favor plac'd.
 
 28 
 
 Above the guests, superior far, 
 Shone David tts the morning star ; 
 His curling locks of waving gold, 
 Around his burnish'd temples roJTcl ; 
 With peerkss grace and look divine, 
 The future prince of Palestine, 
 Sat careless of his worth serene, 
 Jfor plum'd him on his godlike mien. 
 
 So modest merit ever charms us, 
 Tis vanity alone alarms us ; 
 
 Hope too zealous, 
 
 Pride too jealous, 
 All intent their worth to show, 
 To keep the unaspiring low. 
 
 Chorus. 
 So modest merit ever charms us, 
 'Tis vanity alone alarms us j 
 
 Hope too zealous, 
 
 Pride too jealous, 
 All intent their worth to show, 
 To keep the unaspiring low. 
 
 The beauteous Michal, fairest maid, 
 Was next with every grace array d,
 
 29 
 
 And as increas'd her lorer-hero's fame, 
 More ardent grew her tender flame. 
 
 The psaltry and the harp resound, 
 
 Aad many harmonious voices round, 
 
 With skill and emulation vie, . . 
 
 In praise of love or chivalry. 
 
 Of David's deeds the palace rung, 
 At once so brave, so fair, so young ; 
 His prowess was the virgins' strain, 
 
 His myriads in the battle slain ; 
 And as they call'd each action forth, 
 They seem'd to slight their monarch's worth. 
 The king no longer heard with pleasure, 
 Their praises in unequal measure ; 
 Fierce Jealousy now fir'd his mind, 
 Fierce Jealousy by Frenzy join'd 
 So fatal each how fell combin'd ! 
 
 Chorus. 
 The king no longer heard with pleasure, 
 Their praises in unequal measure ; 
 Fierce Jealousy now fir'd his mind, 
 Fierce Jealousy by Frenzy join'd 
 So fatal each how fell combin'd !
 
 30 
 
 Air, 
 O fang'd with many a serpent's arrow, 
 
 Green-ey'd fiend with baleful chalice \ 
 Dire Envy doora'd the soul to harrow, 
 
 Brandishing the stings of malice ! 
 
 The hero's praise they chant again, 
 
 The king would fain 
 
 Suppress his pain, 
 But fatal frenzy fir'd his brain. 
 
 Mark the contracted brow of Saul, 
 Hark I hark, the murmur in the hall ! 
 Michal first perceiv'd his sadness, 
 Michal saw the growing madness ; 
 She knew her father's wayward soul, 
 How spleen his better reason stole ; 
 No more her lover's praise she sought, 
 His fame appear'd with peril fraught : 
 For while applause re-echo'd round, 
 With deeper gloom, the monarch frown'd. 
 
 Chorus, 
 No more her lover's praise she sought, 
 His fame appear'd with peril fraught : 
 For while applause re-echo'd round, 
 With deeper gloom, the monarch frown'd,
 
 31 
 
 ttdden the sky was darken'd o'er, 
 The Furies danc'd around the floor ; 
 Each with a fatal fiery brand, 
 Each with a flambeau in her hand ; 
 Malignant to the monarch turning, 
 They shook the livid sulphur burning ; 
 And toss'd and wav'd about the torch, 
 And sallied in and out the porch. 
 
 Perch'd on the canopy of state, 
 
 Saul's evil Genius paus'd elate ; 
 Now works his purpose in the soul, 
 Now deepens the external scowl 
 'Tis done behold the Pow'r accurs'd ! 
 See ! see ! the fatal frenzy burst ! 
 
 Chorus. 
 'Tis done behold the Pow'r accurs'd ! 
 See ! see ! the fatal frenzy burst ! 
 
 Black choler riv'd the Monarch's breast, 
 Who, brandishing a deadly lance, 
 In act to strike, the weapon rais'd ; 
 (So stung a rival 8 fair renown J)
 
 32 
 
 His guards and court with terror gaz'd, 
 And as they saw his furious glance, 
 And sudden step advance ! - - - 
 Already deem'd on David's crest, 
 Resistless vengeance hurried down ! 
 
 The vestibule reverb'd his wrath 
 So thunder tells the lightning's scath ; 
 Words could ill constrain his ire, 
 Rage involves the soul in fire. 
 To Calm his anger 
 
 Call not reason ; 
 The trumpet's clangor 
 More in season ; 
 Music alone can quell his rage, 
 Music the fatal storm assuage. 
 
 Chorus. 
 To calm his anger 
 
 Call not reason ; 
 The trumpet's clangor 
 More in season ; 
 Music a^ne can quell his rage, 
 Music the fatal storm assuage.
 
 S3 
 
 The harp hung on a column nigh, 
 That harp divine, since tun'd *o heavenly minstrelsy; 
 The Lyrist seiz'd his fingers flung 
 With sudden gust the strings among, 
 And quick to charm the rage-deplor'd, 
 "With utmost fury struck each chord ; 
 Then as abates the Monarch's ire, 
 So languishes the living lyre. 
 
 Chorus. 
 Then as abates the Monarch's ire. 
 So languishes the living lyre. 
 
 Air. 
 O Music ! whence thy pow'r subduing ? 
 Thy syren voice the passions wooing ? 
 Or is our breast a lyre as well. 
 Which vibrates with each tuneful shell? 
 
 Recitative. 
 To Man, like sympathy, 'twas sent. 
 For Man himself 's an instrument ; 
 His bo'om but responsive rings, 
 His soul's the tone, his nerves the strings ! 

 
 34 
 
 The crowd applaud the godlike strain, 
 For David chose no theme profane ; 
 The song began 
 With nature and the fall of man : 
 He sang how Harmony and Love, 
 Descended from the realms above ; 
 Twin smiling sisters from their birth, 
 How erst they walk'd the guiltless earth; 
 Ere Hate and Discord yet were known, 
 Ere mortals were to anger prone ; 
 How then the serpent and the dove, 
 
 Twin d with fond dalliance in the grove ; 
 How kinds most adverse could agree, 
 How Love still follow'd Harmony ; 
 How angels with their lyres in hand, 
 (A heavenly band) 
 Extolling the most high ! 
 Look'd down complacent from the sky, 
 
 With musing eloquence to scan, 
 
 The new creation's beauteous plan ; 
 
 Contemplating the form of man !
 
 35 
 
 Chorus. 
 How angels with their lyres in hand, 
 (A heavenly band) 
 Extolling the most high ! 
 Look'd down complacent from the sky, 
 
 With muting eloquence to scan, 
 
 The new Creation's beauteous plan ; 
 
 Contemplating the form of Man ! 
 
 Then straight he s'ruck alternate chords, 
 One, introduced enamor'd words. 
 And stealing on the monarch's ears, 
 Charm'd like the music of the spheres ; 
 The other, grating, harsh and fell, 
 Twang'd jarring like the gates of hell ! 
 
 He sang of Eden's blissful groves, 
 The scenes of man's primeval loves ; 
 How Adam waking found beside, 
 A fairer self, his new born bride; 
 The raptures of the happy pair; 
 How Eve was more than woman fair, 
 u 2
 
 36 
 
 Then soon, too soon ! he chang'd the strain, 
 He sang how human bliss was vain, 
 How Eve seduc'd was lur'd from duty, 
 How Adam was o'erpow'rd by beauty ; 
 He saw her anguish, 
 Saw her languish, 
 So fallen from her happy state, 
 Degraded, sad, disconsolate, 
 Thus pitying shar'd her crime and join'd her mortal 
 state. 
 
 Chorus. 
 He saw her anguish, 
 Saw her languish, 
 So fallen from her happy state, 
 Degraded, sad, disconsolate, 
 Thus pitying shar'd her crime and join'd her mortal 
 state. 
 
 Denouncing then heav'n's wrath in thunder I 
 He smote the chords, as rent asunder, 
 And drew a fearful tone ! 
 With Saul's distress in unison : 
 Again the fatal frenzy seiz'd him ; 
 Again the harp divine appeas'd him :
 
 57 
 
 The flutt'ring soul was on the wing, 
 With rapture as he touch'd the string ; 
 And as from gay to sad it swerv'd, 
 It tuned his bosom, or unnerv'd : 
 . So he inclin'd him to his will ; 
 Such music's pow'r, and such the sage musician' 
 skill. 
 
 Chorus. 
 So he inclined him to his will, 
 Such music's pow'r, and such the sage musician's 
 skill. 
 
 O harmony ! thy magic sway, 
 
 Once made e'en hell itself obey ! 
 
 (E'en senseless rock, the warbling lyre, 
 
 With soft emotion could inspire) 
 
 Thy voice seraphic can assuage, 
 
 The fiercest passion, frenzy, rage ; 
 To music ope the heavenly portals, 
 Music ! the language of immortals ! 
 Speech harangues with slow appealing, 
 Music enters in each feeling ; 
 
 Speech was for mortal men intended, 
 
 But harmony from heav'n descended.
 
 38 
 
 Air. 
 
 The soul, releas'd, with airs celestial, 
 Deserts her dark abode terrestrial, 
 And quitting her dull mortal station, 
 Becomes all ear, all thought, all passion. 
 
 Chorus. 
 Music let us ever prize ! 
 Music and nature harmonize ! 
 
 But yet was full perfection wanting, 
 Join'd though to the psalmist's fame, 
 Amphion, Orpheus, and Timotheus' name'.- 
 O ! if their lyres could so control, 
 And so restore the wand'ring soul! 
 
 How had a hundred angels' chanting ? 
 For such the organ's heavenly frame ! 
 
 Which slept till Saint Cecilia came. 
 
 Empyreal clouds convolv'd by sound, 
 
 Upon the vocal fabric bent, 
 While holy cherubs hover'd round 
 
 Cecilia's heavenly instrument.
 
 39 
 
 Chorus. 
 Yield the lute and yield the lyre, 
 The organ is itself a quire ; 
 A human, yet divine, invention, 
 And consecrate by heav'n's attention ! 
 
 But which most fairly won renown, 
 The psalmist's or Cecilia's lay ? 
 
 She drew a wond'ring angel down, 
 He charm'd a hateful fiend away ! 
 
 Grand Chorus. 
 But which most fairly won renown, 
 
 The psalmist's or Cecilia's lay ? 
 She drew a wond'ring angel down. 
 
 He charm'd a hateful fiend away !
 
 " Let old Timotheus yield the prize, 
 
 Or both divide the crown ; 
 He rais'd a mortal to the skies. 
 
 She drew an angel down." 
 
 Deyd, 
 
 " Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell, 
 To bright Cecilia greater praise is given ; 
 
 His numbers rais'd a shade from hell, 
 Her's lifts the soul to heaven." 
 
 Pope. 
 
 [It has been questioned; a remark to which the Author 
 was previously aware this ode is liable;- whether the intro- 
 duction of mythological imagery (in the Furies) be allowable 
 in a sacred subject : in support of which, he has to plead the 
 authority of Milton; if he had conceived it objectionable he 
 could easily have omitted the short pa^sasre alluded 10, without 
 the least mutilation of the poem. He likewise feels it neces- 
 sary to observe, lest it may be alleged, ti.at he has borrowed 
 the i !eaof this piece from the sublime ode o> Dr. Brown, en- 
 titled " The Cure of Saul;" that he can positive^ affirm, he 
 bad never seen the Doctor's till a considerable time after the 
 writing of iris own.]
 
 ODE 
 
 GENIUS.
 
 *' The true Genius ia a mind of large general powers, acci- 
 dentally determined to some particular direction. Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, the great painter of the present day, 
 had his first fondness for his art excited by the perusal 
 of Richardson's Treatise." 
 
 Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Ptets. 
 
 
 ODE 
 
 r 
 
 GENIUS.
 
 3fntroimctton* 
 
 While inclination gives to each 
 
 His science; Music Painting Speech 
 Though chaiig'd (he object, not the glow, 
 
 TV ambition, the desire to know ; 
 Which prompts not with original bent, 
 
 But yields to will or accident; 
 Which though attracted to one Muse, 
 
 Had the fair privilege to choose, 
 Ere the first impulse so inclin'd, 
 
 The free born soul all unconfin'd. 
 
 Who, bless'd, a single spark inherit, 
 Possess, O Genius ! all thy spirit ! 
 Concentrated they rule the flame, 
 But feel from Heav'n their ardour came, 
 Which latent glows for all the same. 
 If, unsolicited, no art 
 Its coy arcana would impart; 
 Should that deter ? 
 Should men infer, 
 (Thus to deny 
 Thy unity) 
 Unconq'rable ineptitude, 
 For science which they ne'er pursu'd? 
 
 This prejudice of pristine times, 
 
 Provokes the ode's erratic rhymes; 
 
 For mankind thus with zeal profane. 
 
 Perpetuate the Muse's reign ; 
 
 Each ethnic term though they suppress, 
 
 Become idolaters no less ; 
 
 And bend before the fancied shrine 
 
 Of Phoebus and the sister Ni.xe !
 
 ON GEMUS. 
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 Ge nim in its Abstract state personified. 
 Genius with regard to its operation on the human mind. 
 The mythological or poetical division of Gemuj, 
 The conclusion. 
 
 Sunt quos Curriculo pulverem Olympicum 
 
 Collegissc juiat 
 
 Multos castra juvant. 
 
 Hor. Car, 
 
 Celestial genius, borne on pens sublime, 
 Aloft unprison'd, mounts thro' Nature's sphere ; 
 With angel. ken defies encircling time, 
 
 Dim mortal's dark insup'rable barrier : 
 The starry bound would vain its flight oppose, 
 
 By thirst insatiate impell'd to soar; 
 Thro' realms of light its restless pinion glows, 
 In quest of wisdom and supernal lore. 
 Its field the sky, 
 Its goal eternity ! 
 To th' empyreal vault it wings its distant way, 
 
 Or lowly diving seeks the central earth ; 
 Now leaves its vestige in the lucid ray, 
 Now on an atom dwells, and gives its essence birth;
 
 48 
 
 Coetal \r ith the skies, Omnific Pow'r \ 
 Thou, o'er the mind's envelop'd flow'r, 
 
 Bee-like lov'st to dwell ; 
 Sequest'red, lur'd to many a thorn, 
 With self denial doom'd forlorn, 
 To gather thence, 
 Mellifluence, 
 To store in memr'y's mortal cell ! 
 
 "When from the regions of the bless'd, 
 Beyond the gulf of time and space, 
 In thy ethereal race, 
 
 Thou deign'st by chance an earthly guest ; 
 The russet cot, proud dome, for thee ; 
 The motley mart, the monasc'ry, 
 And Anchoret's lone cave are free. 
 
 Oh ! where thou sojourn 'st, there the Mind 
 Expands, by genia! heat refin'd! 
 Plying its intellectual povv'rs, 
 
 (With quick perception, fleeter than the wind. 
 And soul partaking deity,) 
 
 Oft leaves its mortal clod behind, 
 Superior to life's storm that lowrs,
 
 49 
 
 Above Earth's dusky welkin climbs, 
 Upborne to spheres and worlds unknown, 
 To Jupiter, or Saturn's zone, 
 And past and future times. 
 
 Now where the headlong torrent flows, 
 Where Fancy revels with Romance ; 
 
 Now where the sun-dy'd savage glows, 
 And basilisks alluring glance : 
 
 Now where stern Winter with a miser's soul, 
 (Relentless in a throne of ice, 
 Unshelter'd on a precipice) 
 
 Broods o'er his wealth, 'mid adamantine seas : 
 Where far Columbia binds the arctic pole, 
 
 Or less explored her drear antipodes. 
 
 What are thy attributes divine ? 
 
 Oh say when thou vouchsaf 'st benign, 
 
 To sip terrestrial dew ? 
 Impart with what supreme control 
 
 Thou occupiest the human soul ; 
 Or how thy gifts adorn thy favor'd few ? 
 
 Art thou ; as some, who'd fain aspire, 
 Or others more inert,
 
 50 
 
 (Unquicken'd by thy secret fire) 
 
 V\ ith sacrilege assert ; 
 (i Divisible, not wholly one V 
 
 These votaries profane, 
 Dismembering in minor parts 
 
 Thy integral vast realm of arts, 
 Thus portion thy domain : 
 
 Imagining o'er each presides, 
 A tutelary Pow'r that guides, 
 
 As 'twere to multiply the sun, 
 
 Grant each a local reign. 
 
 So polytheists, fam'd of yore, 
 Promulgated their impious lore, 
 And woods, and streams, and land, and skies, 
 Were peopled with their deities : 
 Hence Naiads, Centaurs, Nymphs, and Fawns, 
 Hence Elves and Faies infest our lawns, 
 And still more dreary hosts 
 Of wand'ring, grim, unprison'd Ghosts ! 
 
 Jove's daughters, handmaids then of Genius, came, 
 And trick'd with fancied form and name, 
 Their various arts vouchsafed to bring ; 
 This breathes the pipe, this strikes the string.
 
 51 
 
 While this presides o'er tuneful Quires ; 
 
 Historic truth the next inspires ; 
 And when harmonious poets sing, 
 To sock or buskin who incline, 
 (High, borne on Pegasean wing) 
 
 Each woos a sister of the Nine ! 
 
 One fost'ring Muse thus rul'd the thought, 
 The while immortal Milton wrote ; 
 Another, Dryden rapt on high 
 To pen th' aerial rhapsody ; 
 But all combin'd with hallow'd rage, 
 In Shakespear's consecrated page. 
 
 Thus Genius, while thy chiefest mark 
 Is versatility ; a spark, 
 
 Robb'd from the prism, the which by turn 
 In every lucid colour burns ; 
 Which warms, as 'twere sublimes the soul, 
 Spreads it diffusive o'er the whole, 
 And still permits it to condense, 
 E'en to a point with gather'd sense j 
 To hurl thee headlong from the helm, 
 And sever thy united realm, 
 
 (Or place confed'rates on thy throne,) 
 Each art thus emblematic feign'd its own '. 
 r 2
 
 52 
 
 " Calliope, chief aid of sense, 
 
 Precedence claim'd o'er eloquence : 
 She arm'd the patriot's fluent tongue 
 
 With sinews 'gainst a tyrant's wrong ; 
 To pour forth language at command, 
 
 To teach fair Wisdom to expand, 
 And into goodly action brought 
 
 Each offspring of inerter thought ; 
 Inspired the lofty epic strain, 
 
 To deck the pompous battle's train, 
 The struggles of a state and glories of a dread campaign." 
 
 When fraught the deep oration flows, 
 
 Calliope the audience charms ! 
 Now in the legislator glows, 
 
 To humanize a rabble race ; 
 Invisible now quells alarms, 
 
 R< venge now softens into grace, 
 And to repel a foreign foe provokes a realm to arms. 
 
 Alas ! though deem'd the fairest Muse, 
 How mortals thy best gift abuse ! 
 How often but to circumvent, 
 Thy votaries are eloquent ! 
 In civil jars, 
 With injuries pretended rife, 
 T' excite corroding discontent,
 
 53 
 
 Rekindle embers of intestine strife, 
 And edge the ruthless steel to plunge a world in wars. 
 
 Lo ! hand in hand with Reason come 
 Fresh Imag'ry from Greece and Rome ! 
 
 And bring the trammels of romance 
 To chain the mind in mystic dance ; 
 
 While Fane) , pleas d to follow Fame, 
 The fiction keeps, but drops the name. 
 
 11 Illustrious Clio next renown'd 
 With chaplet of green laurel bound, 
 Behold her brow immortal crown'd. 
 She, as the sage Historian hands 
 
 The checquer'd tale to future times, 
 . Alone 'tis doem'd inspires commands, 
 And wafts it wide to distant climes." 
 Th' Historian blows the trump of Fame, 
 But Clio, bending o'er, controls ; 
 Invigorates his nerveless frame 
 
 With breath that vibrates to the poles; 
 From dread Oblivion's gulf to save 
 
 The fleeting shadows of the brave, 
 'Mid hosts of found'ring souls : 
 
 When sweeping o'er tim's lurid wave, 
 T' eternity each buoyant name 
 Reanimated rolls.
 
 54 
 
 List how its clanging brazen throat 
 Reiterates the shrilly blast. 
 
 How changing oft with faltering note, 
 The peal inflated with the past ! 
 
 Sonorous now it bids arise 
 
 The nobly great, the brave, the wise ; 
 And now, with dread rebound, the skies 
 Return the harsh discordant breath, 
 Reverberating thrice ! 
 Which summons from the rale of death, 
 Memento dire to future times, 
 
 Unsepulchred despotic crimes, 
 And grimly lurking vice ! 
 
 Attentive to the dubious sound, 
 
 Inquisitive posterity 
 With emulation cling around, 
 Instructed from the sky ; 
 Now catch a Caesar's deathless name, 
 Or Nero's stamp'd with everlasting shame. 
 
 The mind's directing varied art 
 
 Thus fades away, 
 The while auxiliaries impart 
 
 The record or the tuneful lay.
 
 65 
 
 " With eye soft beaming, look divine, 
 
 And crown'd with rose and myrtle wreath'd, 
 See Erato amid the Nine- 
 She through each strain enamor'd breath'd ; 
 
 The delicate of mind 
 To ardent metre she inclined ; 
 She wak'd the soul 
 To rapture high, 
 To sapphic sensibility, 
 And Venus' soft control .'" 
 
 " Next blithe Terpsichore regard, 
 Who juvenile delight prepar'd ; 
 
 Inventress fair ! 
 Who first inspir'd the artful feet 
 To pause and quiver in the air ; 
 With language, most impressive, mute, 
 Sequacious of the warbling lute, 
 To give responsive melody, 
 Or music to the eye \" 
 
 " Pulhymnia, Euterpe, ye 
 O'er song and music who preside, 
 To ye the flute and vocal .strain 
 Their bright existence owe !
 
 56 
 
 E'en heavenly harmony, 
 
 Fast link'd, yet fluent, as the tide, 
 Corabin'd into a subtle chain 
 
 To mingle, to adhere, divide, 
 With every grace ye taught to flow." 
 
 Still more Divinities we ask, 
 O Genius ! to perform thy task ; 
 Whose single influence ne'er fail'd, 
 Where no impediment prevail 'd. 
 
 " Nor pass yon festive Deity, 
 
 Who decorates her mimic brows 
 With ivy wreath, whose jocund eye 
 Laughs through a mask alternately ; 
 Behold her stand, 
 Or leaning 'gainst a column's base, 
 
 Discover now, now skreen her face 
 A shepherd's crook adorns her hand. 
 It is Thalia, who bestows 
 The comic pen 
 On mortal men, 
 Forgetful of their woes : 
 Who guides each impulse, marks the mien, 
 And although risible, serene, 
 Delights in the familiar scene."
 
 57 . 
 
 " But rising from yon breathing stone, 
 Emboss'd with many a sculptured gem, 
 
 Encircled with a diadem, 
 What form is that ? 
 
 in her imperial hand 
 A dagger drawn ; her zone 
 Unbound, and flowing dress, 
 Speak dire disaster and distress, 
 While terror's in her eye ? 
 
 In woe who bears supreme command, 
 Design'd for injur'd majesty ; 
 
 While ever and anon 
 The starting tear is big to roll, 
 Her energy 
 And silent tongue 
 Proclaim the wrong, 
 And mournful purpose of her soul ?" 
 
 il Though broke her sceptre, bend the knee, 
 And hail her Queen Melpomene !" 
 
 " O far the most impressive Muse ! 
 She actuates the bard who sings 
 The fall of empires, death of kings ; 
 
 And those who scenic honours claim, 
 Who pant for histrionic fame, 
 \ud with dissembled woe, true sympathy infuse."
 
 58 
 
 K Last, cinctur'd in an azure robe, 
 
 Behold whom heavenly thought absorbs, 
 Urania, goddess of the stars, 
 Protectress of astronomers ! 
 She grasps an emblematic globe, 
 
 With deep, profound, reflecting eyes, 
 Sunk with the study of the skies, 
 Contemplating yon orbs." 
 
 " She whispers to the conscious soul, 
 How stars, how suns, how systems roll ; 
 She forms the sphere, triangle, cube, 
 Directs the philosophic tube : 
 Thus the immortal Nine divide the praise 
 This e'en from Newton's brow demands the deep, 
 earn'd bays." 
 
 But Genius, thus so ill defin'd, 
 
 Whate'er thy noble aim, 
 Thou dwell'st in each exalted mind, 
 
 Though varied, still the same. 
 The same did Cicero inspire, 
 
 To bid the stream of language flow, 
 As in a Rubens kindled fire, 
 
 Or caus'd a Siddons' glow ;
 
 59 
 
 Who sways our joy, our grief, our ire, 
 
 Melpomene below ! 
 Immortal Pow'r ! far more divine, 
 (Whose faculties alone unite 
 The germs to act, to speak, to write) 
 Thy nature and thy origin ! 
 Thine ! 
 The bright attributes of God : 
 He, in whose Mind thou deign'st to dwell, 
 Thy temporal abode, 
 Who often but one science woos, 
 One fancied Goddess, or one Muse, 
 
 Could either art compel : 
 But transitory's mortal's prime, 
 
 While man deliberates, his time, 
 Still ebbing with resistless tide, 
 The ardor damps of human pride. 
 
 Necessity soon treads the stage, 
 And, since the Muses lly from age, 
 This monitor with rigid voice 
 
 Bids early a decided choice ; 
 Declaring but from wedded sense, 
 
 The offspring born true excellence ; 
 And brands with infidelity 
 
 The lawless stirp of Genius free.
 
 60 
 
 So heav'n's eternal will confin'd 
 The pair betroth 'd 'mong human kind, 
 Strong in th' indissoluble tie 
 Of honor, faith and harmony ; 
 Whom Nature's law left free to rove, 
 
 Through each luxuriant Paphian grove, 
 And wily labyrinth of love.
 
 THE 
 
 $orfc=jfotto. 
 
 ODES, &c. &c.
 
 ODE. 
 
 *' Manet alta mente repostum 
 Judicium Paridis, spretacque injuria Formae." 
 Virg. JEn. Lib. I. 
 
 COMPJRISON. 
 
 JT he Moon was up with dimpled face, 
 
 In borrow'd radiance bright ; 
 Few twinkling stars in empty space 
 
 Emit their spangled light: 
 When Sol his ruddy orb renew'd, 
 
 And chased those few away. 
 E'en Cynthia's beams no more we view'd, 
 
 Eclipsed by brighter Day. 
 So Phoebe fades when Sappho's charms 
 Cause in each bosom love's alarms.
 
 64, 
 
 True beauty since the world began, 
 
 Omnipotent maintain'd 
 Its sway o'er woman and o'er man, 
 
 And o'er all nature reign'd ; 
 And will, till nature's latest hour, 
 
 Its empire still extend ; 
 Together since both rose to pow'r, 
 
 Together both will end : 
 But Phoebe fades when Sappho's charms 
 Cause in each bosom love's alarms. 
 
 Why with wise saws and cynic pride, 
 
 Fastidiously contest 
 A principle established wide, 
 
 Which rules the human breast ? 
 Cease, subtle schoolman, to contend 
 
 Let beauty govern wit, 
 Which bid immortal pow'rs descend, 
 
 And savage herds submit. 
 But Phoebe fades when Sappho's charms 
 Cause in each bosom love's alarms.
 
 65 
 
 Minerra erst of warlike fame, 
 
 Still no less wise and fair, 
 With Venus once, and Juno came 
 
 As Rivals, to compare ; 
 For Discord with malign intent, 
 
 To rankle in each breast, 
 A falsely smiling apple sent 
 
 " To beauty's Queen" address'd. 
 But a'l must fade when Cypria's charms 
 Cause in each bosom lore's alarms. 
 
 Each Goddess the fair title claim'd, 
 
 (What nymph would be outdone ?) 
 Yet though each dcem'd herself thus named, 
 
 It could but fall to one ! 
 
 * 
 Then how to end this jealous strife, 
 
 And grant thp glorious prize, 
 Since beauty no*. Jove's lawful wife, 
 
 Nor Pa 1 las could despise ? 
 But all must yield when Cypria's charms 
 Cause ia each bosom love's alarms. 
 r
 
 66 
 
 To Ida's summit they repair'd, 
 
 Where each vain Goddess vied, 
 And conscious of her charms, declar'd 
 
 Some Umpire should decide : 
 Preferring to some artless youth, 
 
 As arbiter to trust ; 
 For with the young alone dwells truth, 
 
 And who has truth is just. 
 But all must yield when Cypria's charms 
 Cause in each bosom love's alarms. 
 
 They fix'd on Paris, who a boy, 
 
 Assum'd the simple swain ; 
 And flying from the walls of Troy, 
 
 A shepherd o'er the plain ; 
 Each Pow'r secure to win his heart, 
 
 Gaz d on his graceful mien, 
 For Paris seem'd devoid of art, 
 
 And ruled the rustic scene. 
 But all must yield when Cypria's charm* 
 Cause iu each bosom love's alarms.
 
 67 
 
 Each had some valued lure to gain 
 
 The umpire to her side ; 
 While each admir'd the comely swain, 
 
 And cherish'd secret pride. 
 But Venus was victorious soon, 
 
 For Cupid shot a dart ; 
 Exulting she bore off the boon, 
 
 And triumph'd in their smart. 
 So all must yield when Cypria's charms 
 Cause in each bosom love's alarms. 
 
 But should another Venus rise 
 
 More perfect still than she. 
 Oblivion soon would shroud those eyes 
 
 Which rose from weeds and sea. 
 No more would Cypria's heavenly mien 
 
 Be starap'd in every ode ; 
 The fairer nymph would cause their spleen, 
 
 Each rival be a God. 
 Yet all must yield while Cypria's charms 
 Cause in each bosom love's alarms. 
 r2
 
 68 
 
 On MUSIC heard at a Distance. 
 
 Hark ! hark ! the source of harmony 
 From fiction's airy precipice, 
 Distilling drops the magic sound ; 
 Now murm'ring loud in swelling notes, 
 Now soft and still more softly glides. 
 Till ripling down the mighty steep, 
 The notes dispersing as they flow, 
 And modulating in the wind, 
 Resign their plaintive dying breath. 
 
 Not so yon gushing torrent falls ; 
 Prone from the promontory's brow 
 The tumbling headlong billows roll, 
 Abruptly dash'd from crag to crag, 
 Till fathoming the precipice, 
 They form a common rivulet.
 
 69 
 
 On the Same, 
 
 Descend, aerial Melody, 
 O Genius of th' ideal strain ; 
 Thrice hail, thou madding Deity, 
 Whose magic steals upon my brain! 
 
 Where flows thy modulating rill? 
 Methinks from yonder cloud I hear 
 The soft sonorous notes distil, 
 So tremulous upon the ear ! 
 
 Divine assuager of our woes, 
 Inspire enthusiastic dreams ; 
 Imagination wand'ring glows, 
 Reason herself bewilder'd seems. 
 
 Charm'd with the sound, care's missions sleep, 
 Alone roams fancy unconfin'd, 
 Explores the height, explores the deep, 
 Imprints her footsteps in the wind.
 
 70 
 
 In vain she'd soar, in vain she'd sink, 
 Thy source divine can ne'er be found ; 
 Where thronging angels pause to think, 
 And Fiction steeps her wand in sound.
 
 71 
 
 &0ttg 
 
 SWEET BIRD. 
 
 Carol on airy spray, awhile 
 Sweet bird of plaintive note ; 
 
 With harmony thy woe beguile, 
 And strain thp mellow throat. 
 
 Fate lies in ambush in yon bow'r, 
 And marks thy certain doom ; 
 
 Thine is alone the present hour, 
 The next is for the tomb. 
 
 But still no captive, unrestrain'd, 
 You flap your wings on high ; 
 
 So far by Nature is ordain'd, 
 But not from Fate to fly.
 
 72 
 
 Let not the ff ather'd shaft of death 
 
 Thy happiness annoy, 
 But sing on till thy latest breath, 
 
 And husband well thy joy : 
 
 For deem not that thy voice was given, 
 (Sweet bird) to cease for ever ; 
 
 Life's thread prevents thy flight to Heav'n, 
 Which Destiny will sever.
 
 73 
 THE DAISY AND SNOW.DROP, 
 
 Who has not seen, who chanc'd to tread 
 
 The daisy on the plain, 
 How soon it bends its simple head, 
 
 And rears it soon again ? 
 
 Not so the snow-drop, heavenly fair, 
 
 Too delicate its form ; 
 Such violence it cannot bear, 
 
 Nor pelting of the storm. 
 
 A moral we may gather hence, 
 
 In nature if not blind : 
 The first is blameless innocence, 
 
 The last a fe< ling mind. 
 
 She by the daisy is portray'd, 
 
 Insensible of harm ; 
 The snow-drop is the conscious maid, 
 
 More virtuous being warm.
 
 74 
 
 A VAUNT YE SONS. 
 
 A vaunt ye sons of luxury, 
 
 Who scorn all tranquil joys ; 
 
 Hie to your brawls and riots, hie ! 
 And your resorts of noise. 
 
 He were a churl, a snarling cur, 
 Who'd rail at mirth and glee ; 
 
 But clamour loud, to strife a spur, 
 Still has no charms for me. 
 
 The quick retort, unpolish'd jest, 
 Wit at a friend's expense, 
 
 The innuendo coarsely guest, 
 
 Let these seek refuge hence. 
 
 But genuine sallies, which arise 
 Spontaneous from the soul, 
 
 With mirth that sparkles in the eyes, 
 Here reign without control.
 
 7* 
 
 And hither come, ye jocund boys, 
 Bedight with speckled wing ; 
 
 Thrice hail, ye little cherub joys ! 
 Here form your festive ring. 
 
 And as ye revel with delight, 
 
 Let Sadness not advance, 
 Or twine your garlands round the spright, 
 
 Your captive in the dance.
 
 76 
 
 >0ttff* 
 
 JULI4'SEYES. 
 
 1 he stars which twinkle but by night, 
 With pale and quiv'ring ray, 
 
 Than Julia's eyes are far less bright, 
 Which sparkle in mid day. 
 
 'Tis true these glitt'ring roll above, 
 And seem in heav'n to glow ; 
 
 But Julia's eyes inspire with love, 
 And make a heav'n below.
 
 77 
 
 ong 
 
 PITY. 
 
 How soothing to the soul distress'd 
 
 Does Pity's balm distil ; 
 Though ne'er compassion heal'd the breast, 
 
 It lulls each rankling ill. 
 
 Then void of all affection, base, 
 
 Who'd not this aid impart, 
 ^ince sympathy can sorrow chase. 
 
 Or ease the o'erfraught heart.
 
 78 
 
 &0ttg* 
 
 SAY MORALIST. 
 
 OAY, moralist, why dost thou preach 
 
 Of a far heav'n above ? 
 There is a heav'n within our reach, 
 
 And mark, that heav'n is love. 
 
 What fancied joys surpassing this, 
 
 Possess a higher sphere ? 
 Is altitude the height to bliss ? 
 
 No ! ecstacy dwells here ! 
 
 What young desire could hope or feign, 
 The favor'd here enjoy ! 
 
 Would you have more, 'twould end in pain- 
 More happiness would cloy. 
 
 Then to perpetuate delight, 
 
 O let us ask of heav'n, 
 Or from the tomb's all beamless night 
 
 Again such transport giv'n !
 
 79 
 ong* 
 
 TELL ME WHAT IS LOVE. 
 
 Ye who the soft passion prove, 
 Tell me, tell me, what is love ? 
 Is it in the human breast, 
 Supernat'ral pleasure guest ? 
 Is it like the vernal season ? 
 Is it something more than reason ? 
 Is it an ideal blessing ? 
 Does it vanish in possessing ? 
 
 It is the spring tide of desire ! 
 
 It is what some bright eyes inspire ! 
 
 It is a chain from Heav'n to Earth, 
 
 Whence joys descend to future birth ! 
 
 It is the loadstar of delight, 
 
 Attracting souls till they unite ! 
 
 It is a bliss extatic. Oh ! 
 
 Prove it, prove it, and you'll kno^v !
 
 80 
 
 &>Olt0* 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 With bonds as thin, as slight as hair, 
 Love to his chariot lions yokes; 
 
 And while presides the ruling fair, 
 
 Triumphant turn the silver spokes. 
 
 Then if so docile and so tame, 
 
 Love renders the most savage kind. 
 No wonder that the purer flame 
 
 To Heav'n exalts the human mind.
 
 81 
 
 The SILLY BEE. 
 
 Ihe silly bee that soars and sips 
 
 The thorny eglantine ; 
 To pass Maria's softer lips, 
 
 Where Nature's sweets combine ! 
 
 Now to the jasmine, now the rose, 
 And every fragrant flow'r ; 
 
 See all inconstant where it goes, 
 And changing every hour. 
 
 But may no roring flutt'ring thing, 
 And faithless too like this ; 
 
 There leave behind a cruel sting, 
 Impress a treach'rous kiss 
 
 Cut far, O very far remove 
 
 To some more guilty fair ; 
 
 And leave for innocence and love, 
 The chaster bliss to share ! 
 
 G
 
 82 
 
 The BEE. 
 
 I he Bee, to Heav'n's intention true, 
 
 Expresses from each plant and flow'r 
 The balmy and nectarious dew, 
 
 When men despoil it of its store. 
 
 So fares it with the curious mind ; 
 
 No greater the reward it meets ; 
 Oft persecuted by mankind, 
 
 The heirs to its collected sweets. 
 
 PHILANTHROPY. 
 
 i f mankind oft benevolence abuse, 
 Say should philanthropy mankind despise r 
 
 \ T o ! the more amiable it then should choose, 
 And more the virtuous thro' the baser prize !
 
 83 
 
 The FLOWERET IN JUNE. 
 
 As the flow'ret in June, 
 So is man in his prime ; 
 
 Ah, that perishes soon ! 
 
 E'en so short is his time. 
 
 See his blossom of youths 
 Fall away in the Sun; 
 
 Ripe to reason and truth, 
 
 See, he drops, and life's done ! 
 
 ON FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 Is friendship rare ? O no ! it is not true ; 
 
 If few enjoy it, 'tis deserv'd by few ! 
 
 Ingratitude alone perceives the want ; 
 
 Which more demands, than friendship has to grant. 
 
 a 1
 
 84 
 
 On a RAINY DAY. 
 
 X 1 air Nature in tears, 
 
 More lovely appears, 
 
 As seeming to borrow 
 
 Fresh charms from her sorrow ; 
 
 Behold her lamenting, 
 
 Thus bitterly venting, 
 
 For e?'ry mishap, 
 
 For every flaw, 
 
 For every gap, 
 
 That saddens her law. 
 
 CLEARING UP. 
 
 Ihe clouds disperse, the vapours fly, 
 And Iris travelling down the sky, 
 
 Light bends th' aerial bow ; 
 While Phoebus 'mid the gloom appears, 
 From Nature's face to dry the tears, 
 
 Like Hope's first smile in woe !
 
 85 
 
 LETHE. 
 
 Where Lethe winds remote from day, 
 So soft each melancholy wave 
 In silent sadness rolls away, 
 In long oblivion to the grave, 
 
 Lull'd on its gloomy margin, dwells, 
 Mid past events promoting sleep, 
 ' Forgetfulness,' around whose cells 
 The deep'ning moss and ivy creep. 
 
 With mould'ring archives hangs the roof, 
 And deeds of the unboasting few ; 
 The dusky lapwing winds aloof, 
 And shapeless visions rise to view. 
 
 All hush'd by slumb'ring Morpheus' Fane, 
 Where poppies thick and blushing grow ; 
 Where night's bird shrills her mournful strain, 
 And murm'ring rills run soft and slow.
 
 86 
 
 We there forget the cares of life, 
 The lover's breast resigns its smart j 
 Past grief, remorse, and senseless strife, 
 Leave no impression on the heart.* 
 
 NATURE. 
 
 Nature assumes a thousand different forms, 
 And to a true admirer charms in all ; 
 
 In calms she is serene, sublime in storms, 
 And still herself a fair original ! 
 
 * Written to an adagio, in the third sonata in Op. 18 of 
 Dussek.
 
 87 
 
 DAMON. 
 
 In yon umbrageous thicket brown, 
 Whose shade absorbs th' illumin'd ray ; 
 With fern and brambles overgrown, 
 Where poison'd adders lurk for prey : 
 
 Far in the windings of the gloom, 
 The'deep recesses of the grove, 
 To stray was Damon's dreary doom, 
 To pour in plaints his hapless love. 
 
 When lo ! a vision-form appears ; 
 Few silver hairs his temples grace, 
 Though bow'd beneath the weight of years, 
 Still age sat smiling in his face. 
 
 When thus to Damon speaks the shade : 
 " Pine not at ills you cannot cure ; 
 For while you sigh, the scornful maid 
 Enjoys the pang which you endure.
 
 88 
 
 " My name is Time, the hoary king, 
 Who does with sceptred sway control ! 
 My child, I soften sorrow's sting, 
 Ages to me like minutes roll. 
 
 " Fly, fly, from Care's corroding bane, 
 To me must Cupid yield his dart ; 
 I conquer pleasure, conquer pain, 
 And M'hen he wounds, I heal the smart." 
 
 He said, and touch'd him with his wand, 
 Then quickly vanish'd in the air ; 
 Damon, reliev'd at his command, 
 Resum'd the smile, dispell'd his care. 
 
 PLEASURE and SERENITY. 
 
 As light first dawning in the East, 
 Is pleasure in the youthful breast ; 
 And as the cloudless evening's sky, 
 Ts Virtue's last serenity.
 
 91 
 
 &Ott0, 
 
 THE SAILOR. 
 
 How bless'd the jovial sailor lives, 
 Who braves stem Boreas' hollow blast, 
 Through hunger and through hardship thrives, 
 Nor fears upon the topmost mast : 
 
 Roaring guns, nor rushing seas, 
 Hurricanes nor enemies, 
 Rocks that threaten from afar, 
 Nor all the dismal din of war. 
 
 Replete with mirth the bowl goes round, 
 The liquor sparkles in the glass ; 
 Re-echoes loud the jovial sound, 
 Each drinking to his fav'rite lass. 
 
 In imitation of Haydn's sailors song.
 
 90 
 
 THE POETS COMPLAINT in SPRING, 
 
 ANSWERED BY 
 
 NATURE. 
 
 " Behold again renew'd the year, 
 With verdure fresh the fields appear ; 
 Again with leaves the trees are gay, 
 And all but man revives in May 1" 
 
 Thus wail'd a Bard when from a bush, 
 Nature soft whisper'd, " Blockhead^ hush! 
 $ " The green with which the fields are clad, 
 " The self same verdure was not dead; 
 " The leaf that fell does not return, 
 " No more than man escapes his Urn. 
 " Fresh crops of these successive grace, 
 
 <s As race of man succeeds to race ; 
 
 tl In all the same it is to die 
 
 " Mortality's mortality ! 
 
 *' The gripe of Death is cold and fast, 
 
 " To which e'en I, am doom'd at last.
 
 91 
 
 " No more bewail thy single fate, 
 
 (l Which all must prove or soon or late ; 
 
 i( All is in revolution hurl'd, 
 
 " And world itself succeeds to world." 
 
 Worked on 
 A SISTER'S SAMPLER. 
 
 i. he infant's life, which late began. 
 How soon it ripens into man ; 
 And as he breathes maturer breath, 
 How soon the scene is chang'd to death ! 
 
 ON LIFE. 
 
 Life's a rotundo, and thro' Death, 'tis plain, 
 \11 the same characters return again.
 
 92 
 
 A 
 
 >uctt 
 
 BETWEEN SWAIN AND NATURE. 
 
 ** A stag was turned out for the diversion of the day." 
 
 Swain. 
 xi ark ! the lambs, how they bleat ; 
 Mark the stag, oh how fleet ; 
 Warbling bird, siren sweet ; 
 Rural scene, bliss complete." 
 
 Nature. 
 <l Tyrant man, wherefore mock ? 
 Tis distress in the flock ; 
 You disturb Nature's peace, 
 They bewail their shorn fleece ; 
 Rous'd, the stag wings its speed. 
 In the chase not to bleed ; 
 While the bird perch'd on high, 
 You distinguish to die."
 
 93 
 
 Swain. 
 " Nature, thus you hare taught, 
 Thus instill'd in our thought ; 
 You our wants thus inspire, 
 You thus edge our desire ; 
 From the fierce savage brood, 
 To the fry in the flood, 
 All to rage you excite, 
 And at once arm their spite." 
 
 Nature. 
 " Urge not mine and their fault : 
 Reason thee should exalt ; 
 But retire from this haunt, 
 Nor thy vain virtue vaunt ; 
 Ne'er the world more embroil, 
 In the guilt of thy spoil." 
 
 [Exeunt.
 
 94 
 
 ON ART. 
 
 1 h' effects of art, so pow'rful on mankind, 
 Astonish less the scientific mind ; 
 What strikes the inexperienc'd with surprise, 
 Familiar connoisseurs but analyze. 
 
 ON ART AND NATURE. 
 
 Although each artist is admir'd, 
 Who imitates the works of God ; 
 
 Still Nature's with encomiums tir'd, 
 For stepping where the artist trod. 
 
 Nothing is more common than to exalt Nature, by remark- 
 ing her near approaches to art, while at the same time, it is 
 deemed the highest compliment that can be paid an artist, to 
 compare his productions to those of Nature.
 
 95 
 
 A Paraphase of the following Lines 
 of HORACE. 
 
 Naturajieret laudabile carmen, an arte. 
 Qua sit um est : ego nee studium sine di$ite vena ; 
 Nee rude quid poss'it video ingenium : alterius sic 
 Altera poscit opem res, et conjurat amice. 
 
 The name of Genius these abolish, 
 And these the aid of art contemn. 
 Wherefore ? each stone will bear a polish. 
 But every stone is not a g;em \
 
 96 
 
 ON GENIUS. 
 
 -Lest Genius should aspire beyond its kind, 
 And into heav'n obtrude th* unfranchis'd soul ; 
 God plac'd the barrier of the bias'd mind, 
 To keep in check, its ardor to control. 
 
 ON ROUSSEAU. 
 
 .Like Cupid he does gently creep, 
 To awake the passions from a sleep ; 
 To make those sleep which once awoke, 
 Would be by far a bolder stroke.
 
 97 
 
 " Invent portum, spes et fortuna valete. 
 Sat me lusistis ; ludite nunc alios." 
 
 TRANSLATED. 
 
 I ve found at length a tranquil port, 
 O Hope and Fortune leave it free ! 
 Henceforth, let others be your sport, 
 Enough you have deluded me. 
 
 On the Death of MOZART. 
 
 When Haydn saw immortal Mozart rise, 
 One world, he deem'd, two suns could not contain ; 
 His wingod thoughts with music reach'd the skies, 
 And Fate call'd Mozart to a brighter reign*. 
 
 * Haydn is said to have expressed that he feared no other 
 rival but Mozart.
 
 93 
 
 'j 
 
 8lt Olfc OU0ftt. 
 
 When busy mortals we behold 
 All eager in pursuit of gold; 
 Or at elections more intent, 
 To model a new parliament ; 
 Or drawn up in the field of battle. 
 Sad victims, like devoted cattle, 
 The vanity of life appears ; 
 But most at splendid Theatres : 
 While we survey the brilliant throng, 
 Thus reason sadly finds a tongue , 
 " The varied talents here display'd, 
 The sparkling beauty here array'd, 
 The graceful action, mimic show. 
 And benches crowded row by row, 
 These all will vanish from the sight, 
 And pass into eternal night ;
 
 99 
 
 A part be dust, a part exhale 
 A vapoui and a part a tale ; 
 And like a vision all pass by 
 In less than one short Century." 
 
 Say, in the endless round of time who knows, 
 But matter may dissolve, and so unite 
 Each particle through changes infinite, 
 
 In the same forms to meet again and close ; 
 That subtle spirit operates the same, 
 Reanimating the corporeal frame, 
 Inspiring the same thoughts, desires again, 
 In all identical to form the Man : 
 The tenor of whose life and flesh and blood, 
 Connexions all, as once they were, renew'd ? 
 Nay, in the very point of time and space, 
 And all return'd with time's eternal race ! 
 h 2
 
 100 
 
 That reader you in former ages read 
 This stanza often often born and dead. 
 That l 3 the same have penn'd full oft before, 
 And shall in future as in days of yore! 
 
 NATURE COPIES. 
 
 .Nature, though fertile, when she has design'd 
 
 A thought or image to delight the mind ; 
 
 A second effort from the former takes, 
 
 And corresponding soul or substance makes : 
 
 Plant, animal, scene, -world, or satellite 
 
 A variation or a copy quite ! 
 
 Nor human wit to imitate her fails, 
 
 For Genius of its first success avails. 
 
 L' Allegro's Muse II Penseroso feign'd, 
 
 JLost Paradise brought Paradise regained.
 
 101 
 
 8n ID ^frtettii. 
 
 X riend of my youthful verse, now parted wide, 
 
 Parted in pace, in friendship yet allied, 
 
 Where Lea translucent undulates along, 
 
 Who deign'd to praise, and first inspir'd my song ; 
 
 If yet you recognise a nameless muse. 
 
 Thro' many a changeful year, 'mid alter'd views, 
 
 List to her strain where you can not commend, 
 
 Awhile forget the critic in the friend. 
 
 Tho' none more skill'd to act the judge's part, 
 
 Extenuate her faults, blend mind with heart ; 
 
 Sebastian K * *, or Aufidius, own 
 
 If you remember ; but still keep unknown 
 
 Whose friendship flourish'd long whpre chfsnuts grow, 
 
 Sure not so alter'd" do you know me now?"
 
 102 
 
 OSDIP. SCENE 4. 
 
 CEdip. seul. 
 
 JLa voila done rempli cet oracle execrable, 
 
 Dont ma crainte a presse l'effet inevitable ; 
 
 Et je me vois enfin, par un melange affreux, 
 
 Inceste et Parricide, et pourtant vertueux. 
 
 Miserable vertu, nom sterile et funeste, 
 
 Toi, par qui j'ai regie des jours que je deteste, 
 
 A mon noir ascendant tu n'as pu resister : 
 
 Je tombais dans le piege, en voulant l'eviter. 
 
 Un dieu, plus fort que toi m'entrainait vers le crime: 
 
 Sous mes pas fugitifs, il creusait un abyme ; 
 
 Et j'etais malgre moi, dans mon aveuglement, 
 
 D'un pouvoir incounu, l'esclave et l'instrument. 
 
 Voilatous mes forfaits, je n'en connais point d'autre?. 
 
 Impitoyables Dieux. mes crimes sont les votres.
 
 103 
 TRANSLATION 
 
 Of the foregoing Soliloquy from the Tragedy of 
 (Edipus by Voltaire, the scene after he 
 discovers his Wife Jocasta to be his own Mo- 
 ther, and himself the Murderer of his Father 
 Lai us. 
 
 (Edipus solus. 
 
 Behold ! what the Oracle predicted 's come ! 
 My fears have hasten'd on th' infernal doom : 
 But 'mid th' assemblage dire of vices met, 
 Incestuous parricide, thou'rt virtuous yet I 
 
 cruel virtue ! empty name at best, 
 You ruled that life you teach me to detest ; 
 To guard 'gainst destiny too weak thy care : 
 
 1 fell in seeking to avoid the snare. 
 
 A God, more strong than thou, has led to vice 
 My erring steps, and dug a deep abyss ; 
 Against my will by blindness heaven sent, 
 Of some strange Pow'r I'm but an instrument : 
 This is my crime, no other have I known 
 Relentless Gods, my trespass is your own !
 
 104 
 
 Et vous m'en punissez ! ou sui-je ? quelle nuit 
 Couvre dun voile affreux la clarte qui nous luit ? 
 Ces murs sont teints de sang ; je vois les Eumenides 
 Secouer leurs flambeaux, vengeurs de parricides. 
 Le tonnerre en eclats semble fondre sur moi ; 
 L'enfer s'ouvre. O Laius ! 6 mon pere! est-ce toi? 
 Je vois, je reconnais la blessure mortelle, 
 Que te fit dans le flanc cette main criminelle. 
 Punis-moi, veng toi d'un monstre deteste, 
 D'un monstre qui souilla les flancs qui l'ont porte. 
 Approche, entraine-moi dans les demeures sombres, 
 J'irai d mon supplice epouvanter les ombres. 
 Vien, je te suis. -
 
 105 
 
 I'm punish'd still ! where am T now ? what night 
 With dreadful veil o'ershades the heavenly light ? 
 These bloodstain'd walls ! the Euminides I see 
 With flaming torches seek revenge of me ! 
 The angry elements are bursting now, 
 Hell yawns ! my father ! Laius, is it thou ? 
 I see, I recognise the mortal wound ; 
 This guilly hand 'twas stretch'd thee on the ground. 
 Inflict just vengeance on my impious head, 
 The filial monster who defil'd thy bed : 
 Lead me to terrify the shades below ; 
 My punishment's prepared, and I'm prepared to go! 
 \lle then puts out his own eyes.
 
 106 
 CHURCHILL and LLOYD, v. GRAY. 
 
 Once Gray took a ride in the car of Apollo, 
 
 When Churchill and Lloyd up Parnassus would follow j 
 
 And as in the clouds Gray was soon out of sigh^t, 
 
 They freely reril'd and abus'd him downright : 
 
 When Phoebus, who heard their unmannerly quarrel, 
 
 Would n't longer permit such contempt for thelaurel, 
 
 And telling them he was the patron of Gray, 
 
 He wish'd just to know what they'd farther to say ; 
 
 Adding, " Churchill, at best, your're a furious drirer, 
 
 And as for you, Lloyd, you are scarce worth a stiver: 
 
 (You'll say you ne'er knew that Apollo spoke Dutch, 
 
 However it meant that he was not worth much) 
 
 And bid them drive back for they'd ne'er gain their ends, 
 
 If they pointed their arrows against his best friends. 
 
 Though Apollo in his anger expressed himself thus severely, 
 perhaps Lloyd is rather an ingenious Poet; the following lines 
 may have occasioned the rebuke. 
 
 " Heard ye the din of modern rhymers bray, 
 
 If was cool M n or warm G y, 
 
 Involved in tenfold smoke. 
 
 The shallow fop in antic vest, 
 
 Tired of the beaten road. 
 
 Proud to be singly dress'd 
 
 Changes with every changing moon t!ie mode." 
 
 Lloyd's Poems
 
 107 
 YOU OUGHT. 
 
 ' I^ucH is your lot, yon ought not to lament, 
 Such line of conduct, sir, you should pursue ; 
 With this and this, you ought to be content- 
 Sure Fortune is most bountiful to you." 
 
 " Harsh words Oh ! this inexorable ought ! 
 Who to another can prescribe a rule ? 
 Impart at will his very turn of thought, 
 Create affections or bid passions cool r" 
 
 ERROR AND TRUTH. 
 
 Error's a mistress by mankind beloy'd, 
 And Truth a sober friend, a wife demure ; 
 We woo the first, when by the last reproy'd- 
 For few the light of reason can endure.
 
 108 
 
 LINE OF RACINE. 
 
 Celui qui met un frein a la fureur des flots, 
 Salt aussi de mechants arreter les complots : 
 Soumis avec respect a sa volonte sainte, 
 Je crains dieu, cher A.bner, et n'ai point d'autre 
 crainte. 
 
 Translation. 
 
 He who old Ocean's stormy waves confin'd, 
 Can check the machinations of mankind ; 
 Resign'd, dear Abner, to his sacred law, 
 That God I fear and have no other awe. 
 
 WELL KNOWN FACT. 
 
 A sage philosopher, no matter where, 
 By dint of study, found this well known fact, 
 What few e'er doubted as their deeds declare ! 
 " 'Twere happier less to think, and more to act."
 
 THE 
 
 BRITISH POETS: 
 
 IN TWO PARTS. 
 
 Mediocribus esse poetis 
 Non homines, non Di, non concessere coluinnae. 
 Hor. Ar. Po. ter. S72.
 
 
 THE 
 
 BRITISH POETS. 
 
 $art t&e Mm.
 
 THE POETS. 
 
 Written in the Year * *, as an Apology to * * 
 
 For not complying with the request, of rendering certain 
 juvenile Pieces to exhibit to literary Friends, containing 
 a Summary of the British Poets. 
 
 " I ne'er with n its and witlings pass'd rav days." 
 
 Pope's Phol. to Sat. 
 
 I am content, I seek not after fame, 
 Why wake ambition ? bid me court a name ? 
 Far other cares my present thoughts engage, 
 Shunn'd by the Muse, I scorn the Poet's rage ; 
 What if in youthful hour, ambitious, led, 
 (The paths of Genius unordain'd to tread) 
 I indiscretely sought Apollo's Fane ! 
 Must I then publish each dull puerile strain ? 
 Take from the mould'ring shelf an useless load, 
 A half form'd poem, or a flimsy ode ? 
 Abrupt translations from 6ome tragic Play, 
 Which long confused and in wild order lay ?
 
 114 
 
 Sketches, designs, which are so rudely penn'd, 
 The Author's self can scarcely comprehend ; 
 Or Lines to friends on fara'ly subjects writ? 
 They're not for an impartial stranger fit 
 
 Why pilfer from the famish'd moth its meal, 
 And mangled offsprings of the mind reveal ; 
 The mutilated victims of its rage, 
 And with fresh blemishes produce the page ?* 
 
 Such pithless sallies in their time might please. 
 And early passion for renown appease : 
 Each unfiedg'd muse, not wisely check'd, will hope 
 To gain the heights of Milton and of Pope ; 
 The fault is venial if ourselves have dar'd 
 Forbidden flights, let now the fault be spar'd j 
 For while each Poet's beauties we descry, 
 Our own defects obtrusive strike the eye. 
 
 * " Neu pransas Lain i a: vivum puernm extrahatalvo." 
 
 Ans. Poet. v. S40.
 
 115 
 
 As Saturn dipt the wings of youthful Time, 
 So juF'nile Fancy, seeking the sublime, 
 Is by Discretion robb'd of half her plumes, 
 When scarce her pinion shorn again presumes. 
 
 Friendship alone can Tarnish o'er our flaws, 
 And where we merit censure, grant applause ; 
 Not so with those who claim no kindred tie, 
 They, as our actions, judge our poetry : 
 Then why expose them to indiff 'rent eyes ? 
 Or what is worse for some, to criticise I 
 
 Charm'd with the chiming of the Poet's song, 
 If rash I mingled with the tuneful throng, 
 And hurried by the rapid stream along ; 
 In time was warn'd by reason's happy dawn, 
 To recognize a dire Charybdis* yawn. 
 Now safely landed on the steady coast, 
 I pity others in the tempest tost ; 
 Cured of the epidemic fit of late, 
 The Cacoethes I commiserate, 
 i 1
 
 116 
 
 Pleased with the change I would remain so stills- 
 Why bid me versify against my will ? 
 
 O draw not forth a long neglected muse, 
 Where all conspire withjalents to confuse ! 
 From deep obscurity's protecting night, 
 Blear'd by the day, and blinking in the light : 
 Confess, though friendly, the request is wrong ! 
 Let this suffice, demand no other song. 
 
 And you, who ever deigning may peruse, 
 This slender tribute of an artless muse ; 
 If you poetic excellence admire, 
 Explore it where Apollo darts his fire ; 
 Where-Genius by support is taught to thrive, 
 Where learned ease can keep the flame alive ; 
 Go, gentle reader, and not stoop to me, 
 But range the ample field of poetry. 
 A rich domain ; where since you condescend, 
 (Urged by the partial praises of a friend) 
 T" invite my backward muse before we part. 
 Together let's awhile survey the art ;
 
 117 
 
 Awhile expatiate on the power of rhyme, 
 And seek its summit in our native clime ! 
 
 Our sober Isle sequester'd in the main, 
 So justly fam'd for each poetic strain ; 
 The Muses' early haunt, and which so long 
 Remains the seat of wisdom and of song ; 
 For Britain yet can boast some bards of merit, 
 Of their progenitors who wit inherit. 
 
 Although her valiant race, blunt, honest, just, 
 Be form'd by the blpak element robust ; 
 And, as the Sons of Carthage, by some star 
 Inclined alike to commerce and to war ; 
 The Muse's favorites still ; from Chaucer's days, 
 How many names illustrious claim our praise ! 
 Each flow'r now rifl'd scarce the beaten field, 
 A bud unhandled by some Bard can yield, 
 And e'en to cull the scatter'd few who try 
 Among the moderns, far too late am I.
 
 118 
 
 But present poetry's a barren soil, 
 
 Where hope allures 'mid brambles to embroil, 
 
 And praise but negative, at best rewards the toil. 
 
 Enough the masters of each tuneful lay, 
 Prepar'd will guide and strew with flow'rs the way. 
 
 Immortal Genius ! thou inspire my song, 
 And as we pass departed wits among, 
 Thy aid all-powerful vouchsafe to lend, 
 Lead thro' their walks, my footsteps still attend ; 
 Teach to appreciate their varied worth, 
 And call to view neglected merit forth. 
 
 Should not our bards in due succession come, 
 Not bound by strict chronology, as some, 
 Still may they please, and may each sacred name 
 Not lose by our attempt to hand to fame. 
 
 Leave Chaucer and his mates, who spent with age. 
 Repose in yonder peaceful hermitage ;
 
 119 
 
 And their contemporaries, not a few, 
 To celebrate their junior laurell'd crew. 
 
 See foremost Ariosto's rival stand, 
 Immortal Spencer fam'd in fairy land ; 
 He'll guide us through a wilderness of sweets, 
 And on the green sward serve delicious meats ; 
 By turns thro' gloomy glades and awful glens, 
 Conduct to robbers' haunts or savage dens ; 
 Bring doughty squires, pale virgins in affright, 
 Beldames endow 'd with supernat'ral light ; 
 Bid every virtue every vice appear, 
 Portray 'd in allegoric character ; 
 Raise monsters, giants, bid fell dragons hiss, 
 And waft o'er limpid rills to bow'rs of bliss ; 
 While with enchantment in the moonlight scene, 
 Faries and Elves are sporting on the green. 
 What, tho' he conjures fabled scenes like these ! 
 His sense instructs us and his visions please ; 
 Tho' worn his diction, obsolete his phrase ; 
 Let's not irreverend explode his lays.
 
 120 
 
 Next, musing deep, see Milton in the shade, 
 With soul sublime and countenance more staid, 
 Holding bless'd converse with the heavenly host, 
 Abstracted and in contemplation lost ; 
 While ever and anon his beamless eye, 
 Extinct on Earth, seems visual in the sky; 
 Not sad his mien, but of a solemn air, 
 Emers'd with Gods in supernat'ral care ; 
 A lucid zone of pale empyreal rays, 
 Haloes his brows and o'er his temples plays. 
 
 If Nature's charms sublime, impress thy sight, 
 If the stupendous cause thee drear delight, 
 (Remote where yon terrific mountains rise, 
 Whose cloudless summits seem to prop the skies ; 
 All faint where the Cerulean atmosphere 
 Fades on the eye and objects disappear) 
 He'll lead; to scenes primeval with the world, 
 Ere to his darkling state mankind was hurl'd ; 
 Where innocence and bliss sole tenants reign'd, 
 Which Fear ne'er visited, nor Guilt profan'd.
 
 121 
 
 How indistinct appear their shadowy lines ! 
 Are they the Caucasus or Appenines ? 
 Or the moon mountains in the land of slaves* ? 
 Or Cordilleras o'er th' Atlantic waves ?~ 
 Impervious though, within yon rocky chain, 
 Embosora'd flourish'd once the fair domain ; 
 An earthly spot design'd for human bliss, 
 "Which vied with heaven's immortal happiness ; 
 And had not man transgress'd its high decree, 
 The grant had been to all eternity. 
 
 If you'd attempt the way so steep and wide, 
 Take awful Milton, he will be your guide ; 
 And with his muse while you sublimely soar, 
 Or tread where poet ne'er " presum'd" before ; 
 What matchless beauties will retard your eye, 
 What nat'ral graces, and what poetry ! 
 Terror and wonder will transport your soul, 
 Alternate love and pity will control ; 
 
 * ' The mountains of the Moon, extending themselves be- 
 tween Abyssinia and Monoinotapa, are still higher than those 
 of Atlas. Guthrie.
 
 122 
 
 From Hell to Earth,from Earth to Heav'n you'll rise, 
 
 From Pandemonium into Paradise ; 
 
 To youthful Nature deck'd in pristine charms, 
 
 As first adorn'd she rose from Chaos' arms ; 
 
 While truths melodious fall from Raphael's tongue, 
 
 As not a poet but an angel sung ; 
 
 (When he unfolds the mysteries of Fate, 
 
 Of life's contracted span and future state) 
 
 " How first the universal scene began, 
 
 " What mov'd th' eternal Mind t' imagine man 
 
 The bless'd abode, delightful then to trace, 
 Of the first parents of the human race, 
 To lovely Eve what peerless charms are there ! 
 Did ever poet fashion aught so fair ? 
 See beauty, peace, and innocence combin'd 
 See th' arch fiend pour poison in her mind. , 
 
 Her fall, though blazon'd long in sacred lore, 
 (So balanc'd the catastrophe of yore) 
 The soul 'twixt hope and fear suspended chills, 
 While o'er her anxious cheek the dew distils ;
 
 123 
 
 Whose roseate blush bow deepens, now decays, 
 As guilt or innocence alternate sways ; 
 With more than anguish we anticipate, 
 And long to crush the author of her fate. 
 
 But too soon prompted to .the deadly deed, 
 For which succeeding generations bleed; 
 Behold the foe infernal slink away, 
 With guilt consummate, hate and shun the day : 
 The apple pluck'd, see Eve corrupted taste, 
 Half conscious of the sin to Adam haste ; 
 While to her consort she the tale unfolds, 
 The fruit half offering and half withholds ; 
 Whose heart in sorrow mourns her guilty fate, 
 In doubt to live, or join her fallen state. 
 
 Such living touches strike, reliev'd we see 
 The objects starting from the canvas free ; 
 Beauties like thf se abounding in his theme, 
 Delight and speak the master's hand supreme.
 
 124 
 
 But when described thro' heav'n's eternal regions, 
 In aspect terrible immortal legion* j 
 Fire-foaming steeds and chariots in the sky, 
 Arms and ethereal artillery $ 
 Myriads in panoply and fierce array, 
 Flashing around intolerable day ; 
 The tumult, march, and all the warlike pomp, 
 The clash of swords, and horrid sounding trump ; 
 The deep'ning roar, resounding from afar, 
 The rush of spirits and the shock of war ; 
 Transported to the hostile realms above, 
 We to the battle with Archangels move ; 
 Stretching our utmost fancy to behold 
 What more than mortal faculties unfold ! 
 We hear the universal strife begin, 
 And Heav'n and Hell re-echo with the din ; 
 The mingled conflict's to our vision brought, 
 Vast to conceive how vast to frame the thought ! 
 
 Still pause while Adam on the mountain's height, 
 Pours with the Angel his dejected sight;
 
 H5 
 
 What dire perspective wounds the patriarch's eyes, 
 
 What endless train of human miseries ; 
 
 Here is a picture to afflict the soul ! 
 
 Nature deep groaned a sigh the Angel stole ! 
 
 And yet perhaps the lustre of our Bard, 
 More pure we deem in minor works deolar'd ; 
 With fire less sullied from the bless'd abodes, 
 In Comus, Sampson, and his sister Odes. 
 
 For such the fate of human excellence, 
 And the vast efforts of frail mortal sense ; 
 Whether ambition prompt the mind to rise, 
 To plan proud structures, to invade the skies ; 
 Whether philosophy our pride engage, 
 And subtle reason swell the vainer page ; 
 Or whether, soaring in th' advent'rous flight, 
 We tempt the muse above a mortal's height ; 
 The daring deed for which we strain applause, 
 Stil 1 bears the human stamp, is not exempt from flaws!
 
 126 
 
 But Milton claims not our regard alone ; 
 Behold immortal Genius leading on, 
 Where more familiar worldly Dryden stands, 
 Whose comprehensive wit at once commands, 
 The richest treasures of the Latian shore, 
 With every charm our language has in store. 
 A varied wreath by all the Muses twin'd, 
 Elooms on his brow, and speaks his ample mind ; 
 Each Pow'r a symbol of her science lent 
 To form his Cenotaph see prominent 
 Thalia and Melpomene bestow, 
 The emblem this of wit, and that of woe. 
 
 Tho' near two hundred zodiac rounds the Sun, 
 Since Dryden's birth, its heavenly course has run, 
 His style yet flourishes to challenge fate, 
 Nor needs the freshness of a modern date : 
 So clear, so nervous, if oft unadorn'd, 
 "I is where the aid of ornament he scorn'd. 
 Maro perhaps had deem'd it no disguise 
 In Dryden's dress, could he his work revise :
 
 127 
 
 Not less his version and the text agree, 
 Than in a mirror we the objects see ; 
 Bocaccio, Chaucer, each within his page, 
 Is naturaliz'd in country or in age ; 
 Where Horace charms with undiminish'd ease, 
 And playful Ovid never fails to please. 
 
 E'en faithful to a fault a fault not small 
 In loose Lucretius, Persius, Juvenal ; 
 (Who need a veil) what youth not safe can read, 
 Should live, but to the learned, in language dead j 
 Or sink into oblivion more secure, 
 Nor taint a rising age with thoughts impure. 
 The muse far more for youth, should plume her pen, 
 Than to chastise incorrigible men ; 
 While pictures gross, and epithets more loose, 
 (So scatter'd by these bards with hand profuse) 
 Disgust the virtuous, but the frail entice, 
 And urge impetuous Nature on to vice. 
 
 Still this impeaches not our Poet's skill, 
 Tbo' we may cavil with the principle
 
 128 
 
 Which all must blame ! arid yet allow his rhyme, 
 Rivall'd their native ease, and their sublime ! 
 Great in the lyric as the moral lay, 
 E'en emulating Shakespeare in a play*, 
 
 Nor yet expect in Dryden's fertile range, 
 Of genuine works, perfection without change: 
 The youthful reader often turns aside, 
 Who travels o'er his ground without a guide ; 
 Tho' dear to fame, we must acknowledge still, 
 Perhaps withal, no poet wrote so ill ; 
 So mixt his metre oft, so mixt his prose, 
 We, for the bramble, dread to pluck the rose ; 
 He glows a seraph here in realms of light, 
 And there the inauspicious bird of night. 
 
 * On Dryden's { All for Love,' the Theatrical Dictionary 
 concludes with remarking, " It may perhaps stand here- 
 after as a matter of content, whether this Tragedy is or is 
 not to be esteemed as as invincible masterpiece of the power 
 f English poetry.
 
 129 
 
 Great bard ! this freedom of an humble muse, 
 Since none thy warmer rotary, excuse ! 
 Tho* friends too partial, trace each thought impure, 
 And e'en thy fustian, to thy fortune poor 
 Dryden, dispos'd to give thee all thy due, 
 Allow a part to inclination too ! 
 
 A pity that the Muse who soar'd so high, 
 Could stoop to fulsome praise and ribaldry ; 
 Could so unbend, in luckless pages fraught 
 With unchaste diction and unchaster thought ; 
 Could wantonly gainst decency rebel, 
 Though nerv'd with pow'r each rival to excel ; 
 Point at her very fame a fatal dirk, 
 And court oblivion in each careless work. 
 This heav'n forbade, since fated to survive, 
 She lives, and to the end of time will live. 
 Each sterling passage dar'd we to select, 
 And every nauseous license to reject, 
 Perhaps in varied beauty they'd exceed 
 What of e'en any British Bard we read ! 
 
 K
 
 130 
 
 ^Enough see other minstrels in review, 
 A group that well deserves attention too. 
 List to sonorous Waller's tender lyre, 
 And nobler Cowley's, struck with Pindar's fire : 
 How Denham's modulating tones distil, 
 Melodious, yet who sings of Cooper's Hill. 
 But mark where, rob'd in white, Roscommon's Muse 
 More tuneful strikes the shell, whose strains diffuse 
 A harmony around, and govern'd rage, 
 Surpass'd by none, scarce equall'd in his age ; 
 He with the shade of Flaccus, there apart, 
 Instructs the Roman in the British art. 
 
 Grotesque see Butler in Cervantes' sphere, 
 And Churchill leagu'd with satire more severe ; 
 The Muses' darling Swift, who hold their sides, 
 While folly to confusion he derides ! 
 
 But hark ! a symphony from yonder grove 
 Exalts the minds, with strains as heard above !
 
 131 
 
 Now swelling in the breeze, now borne aloft, 
 Soft in themselves, by Zephyr made more soft ; 
 Whose interrupted cadence in the wind, 
 To fancy's highest flights awakes the mind : 
 No string there jars, harmonious, regular, 
 Compact and strong the music floats afar. 
 
 Hear philosophic Pope's melodious tone, 
 Impressive Young, and classic Addison ; 
 Exalted Akenside, facetious Gay, 
 Sweet Thomson, Prior, and still sweeter Gray I 
 How, touch'd by sensibility, the strings 
 Moan soft and sad while feeling Goldsmith sings ; 
 But idle is the praise which all must grant, 
 For of their merits who is ignorant ? 
 
 Nor Dodsley pass, in whose satiric lines 
 Epigrammatic wit with virtue shines ; 
 A soften'd nature but unbiass'd mind, 
 Who bluster'd not at vice, yet was not blind I 
 k 2
 
 132 
 
 Who e'en of preaching form'd a tuneful lay, 
 
 Reduc'd to art in the Horatian way : 
 
 Who scorn 'd hypocrisy, a cloak the gown ; 
 
 Who would have morals in the pulpit shown ; 
 
 Fanaticism expell'd, and in her stead 
 
 Placed Truth ! ye, who've not read this Poemread*/ 
 
 Thus who can listen to celestial song, 
 Nor join the chorus of the tuneful throng ; 
 When the full concert breaks upon the ear, 
 And rapt aloft in the poetic sphere ? 
 Free from the vanity to aid the quire, 
 Unwittingly we mingle, who admire ! 
 
 Marshall'd in goodly order follows here, 
 A muster roll, Apollo's register. 
 T' attempt to praise we must a part neglect, 
 And only, as fair Mannei'S did, select +, 
 
 * The Art of Preaching, an Ingenious poem, by Dodsley. 
 Vilt Anderson's British Poets, 
 
 f Lady Manners.
 
 1.33 
 
 Herself a poetess, and future times 
 Will blazon her encomiastic rhymes*. 
 But since they all deserve regard, say why, 
 Too partial, grant to these, and these deny, 
 Our suffrages to reach posterity ? 
 
 Behold them as they pass, a laurell'd band, 
 Too numerous to count, with lyres in hand. 
 
 Moore, Grainger, Glover, Garth, Shaw, Falconer, 
 Brown, 
 Broome, Sheffield, Shenstone, Savage, Duncombe, 
 Donne, 
 
 * " About seven years ago, an elegant Poem made its 
 appearance in quarto, entitled A Review of Poetry, antient 
 and modern, by Lady M. who was understood 'to be Lady 
 Manners. The Editer was much gratified with the perusal of 
 it; the versification is simple and easy, and the portraits (in 
 all near eighty) of the Sons of the Muses, are sketched with 
 fidelity; the whole poem is addressed by the fair author to 
 her son, and glows with the warmth of maternal affection. 
 
 " The British Bards thus rie upon us in regular succession, 
 from venerable Chaucer, who is styled the father of poetry 
 do vn to the Herculean Juhnnn, who by his prose rather than 
 by his poetry has delighted and astonished the World." 
 
 From the Parnassian Oakland.
 
 134 
 
 Hoole, Philips, Fenton, Francis, Warton, West, 
 Pitt,Parnell, Hammond, Hughes and all the rest. 
 
 t 
 
 For every omitted honor'd name, 
 
 Apollo pardon us, we're not to blame; 
 
 As crowds of poets and ingenious men, 
 
 All rush at once and press upon the pen. 
 
 And many a Scottish Lard who claims respect, 
 
 Britons, and fam'd in either dialect. 
 
 Since these combin'd have rais'd the art so high, 
 
 Should it excite or check temerity ? 
 
 Thy rule, great Flaccus, pleads * who wise would 
 
 aim 
 At mediocrity in works of fame ?' 
 All these for their peculiar merits shone, 
 Each with his Muse perhaps surpass'd by none. 
 Each individual's excellence would ask 
 More than our skill, and prove an endless task ; 
 'Twere pedantry to deem a poet's praise 
 Could be i ompress'd in one appropriate phrase ; 
 Alternate in the literary test, 
 Superlatively each we praise as best !
 
 135 
 
 The various points of either's changeful verse 
 Would ask the stagirite, if he'd rehearse, 
 (To ^ive its due, not to compound the debt) 
 A summer's tardy sun to rise and set ; 
 Then vain to strike a glitt'ring epithet ! 
 
 No wonder, if, while warmly we peruse, 
 We grow ourselves enamor'd of some Muse ; 
 Ourselves attempt to wield the gray goose quill, 
 Till to ourselves we prove our want of skill. ^ 
 
 But hark ! methinks I hear the Muses chide, 
 " Is Cowper 'caong your Bards his rank denied?" 
 
 No, Cowper, thy more philanthropic lays 
 What heart can speak, what tongue ^enough can 
 
 praise ? 
 Whose but a bosom warm as thine can feel 
 Thy gen'rous ardor, or believe thy zeal ? 
 Thy chaster pen, not emulous to write, 
 To improve mankind thy laudable delight, 
 Although uone more the Muse's favorite.
 
 136 
 
 Thrice happy Bard, whose innocence, whose sense, 
 And polish'd metre seek pre-eminence ! 
 If mortals profit not by strains like thine, 
 Corrupt their hearts, or weak the tuneful nine. 
 
 To Collins too, that sweet erratic Bard, 
 May fancy lead you, and may fiction guard ; 
 Around whos* shrine we'd vote a branch serene, 
 To point him out, of purest ever-green, 
 If Britain only could produce one wreath, 
 And steril were the soil o'er-run with heath : 
 Nor oriental Jones, whose glowing mind 
 Such various arts and languages combin'd ; 
 Nor splendid Darwin should we leave behind ! 
 
 With twofold profit seek refin'd Armstrong, 
 And grow more healthful in his moral song ; 
 And Somerville would here demand a place, 
 Who sings of rural sports and leads the chase 
 But that the Muse's favor he profanes, 
 And Helicon with guiltless blood distains ;
 
 137 
 
 Perverting poetry's divine intent, 
 
 To prove a cruel pastime innocent : 
 
 But leave to others tuneful strains like these, 
 
 Though fluent, which, not moral, should not please. 
 
 Explore with Dyer, who two Muses woo'd*, 
 The scene so picturesque near Towsey's flood: 
 Or more contemplative his Muse descry, 
 Amid the ruins of antiquity ; 
 If, than his subject, ought be more sublime, 
 'Tis how he paints the ravages of time ! 
 
 Majestic Rome here rushes on the soul, 
 Her evanescent glories round her roll ; 
 A mould'ring turret binds her faded brows, 
 Beneath her feet the stream of ages flows ; 
 A broken sceptre in her grasp is plac'd, 
 And cinctur'd with a blood-stain'd garb her waist ; 
 Stern frowning o'er the history of men, 
 ftais'd by the magic of our poet's pen ! 
 
 * Dver was both a Poet and a Painter.
 
 138 
 
 But mark the 'Fleece' which most commands esteem, 
 His noblest lay, so humble tho' the theme : 
 11 Musical ever" though he sing of trade, 
 Or rural Nature show all unarray'd. 
 Not there as in each pastoral lullaby, 
 Th* insipid substitutes simplicity ; 
 So feebly innocent, so faintly mild, 
 Till shamefac'd sympathy becomes a child. 
 Nor find we erudite eccentric sallies, 
 Which learning's broad way shun and limp in alleys. 
 Whether his comprehensive numbers show, 
 To trade how nations their existence owe ; 
 Whether to regal palaces or marts, 
 He bear you thro' the circle fair of arts ; 
 Ancient or modern, neighb'ring or remote. 
 In Adria's Gulf or Marmora afloat ; 
 To scan the habitable world around, 
 Or tread with reverence on classic ground ; 
 Thro' deep embow'ring woods thro' rich domains, 
 To Nature's more sublime, or fertile plains;
 
 139 
 
 His energy and unaffected ease, 
 
 With varied grandeur never fails to please. 
 
 The limner and the poet so combine, 
 
 So strongly mark each feature and design, f 
 
 That thought embodied, lives in every line. V 
 
 Let pow'rful Johnson if he list, deride, 
 This last fair poem what says Akenside ?* 
 
 Alas, that this invidiousness should lurk, 
 In noble minds against a noble work ! 
 That men of science should desert each other, 
 And to malevolence resign a brother ; 
 
 Dr. Johnson, after roughly handling Dyer's Fleece, con- 
 cludes, " Let me however honestly report whatever may coun. 
 terbalance this weight of censure. I have been told that Aken- 
 side, who upon a poetical question has a right to be heard, 
 said that he would regulate his opinion of the reigning 
 taite, by the fate of Dyer's Fleece; for if that were ill 
 received, he should not think it any longer reasonable to ex- 
 pect fame from excellence ' " 
 
 Johnson's Life of Dyi:k.
 
 140 
 
 With criminal neglect not recommend, 
 And not be Merit's most decided friend ; 
 But let connivance like a canker worm, 
 Feed in the bud and leave th' external form. 
 
 O were I honor'd with a poet's name, 
 'T should be my proudest, best pretence to fame, 
 To rescue merit from the gripe of pow'r, 
 Or magisterial wit, which would devour ; 
 E'en at the hazard of the world's applause, 
 Its champion, die a martyr in the cause. 
 
 But when a favorite, all agree to raise, 
 Tho' well he may deserve a moderate praise, 
 Since mostly by example we admire, 
 -^nd indiscreetly raise the lofty higher ; 
 This idol which obstructs all fair renown, 
 'Twere not ungenerous to ceusure down ; 
 Faults, which forgiving we'd in others pass, 
 With a severer scrutiny to trace
 
 141 
 
 Where yon stupendous Cliff with beaten way, 
 Sublimely rises to the source of day ; 
 So rugged it's ascent, so smooth below, 
 Diversified with all the sweets that blow : 
 A motley group of either sex, regard, 
 Deluded, flush 'd, in quest of high reward ; 
 Hard by its sloping base, where all serene, 
 And nature lavish decorates the scene, 
 Two supernat'ral forms inviting stand, 
 And to the sanguine wanderers hold a hand : 
 Here Hope entices, and there Pride beguiles, 
 And to each candidate extend their smiles. 
 
 It is the mount of Fame! behold above 
 Imbosom'd in a palm and laurel grove, 
 Upon its pinnacle a glorious fane, 
 Renown'd in many a fair poetic strain ; 
 Erected on stupendous columns high, 
 Whose gilded dome here blazes to the eye : 
 The Goddess there resides who bears the name, 
 And who to mortal men distributes fame ;
 
 142 
 
 Who puffs their deeds with loud inflated tone, 
 Far as the frigid from the torrid zone. 
 The multitude with plausible design, 
 Aspire to rise and offer at her shrine ; 
 Behold the throng far thickest near the base, 
 And midway, half returning from the chase. 
 Two hideous phantoms there, who scoff and rail, 
 (The one a female, and the other male ;) 
 Guard and keep off the concourse with rebuff, 
 While narrower grows the path, more steep and 
 
 rough : 
 The meagre form whose locks with serpents twine, 
 (Loathsome and ugly, but still feminine,) 
 Is Envy ! she a chalice ever more, 
 With juice of wolfsbane holds and hellebore ; 
 Full draughts of this, who passes, first must quaff, 
 And of the brother phantom bear the laugh ; 
 As bitter a foe to sense, who fosters rice, 
 (The pamper'd male) whose name is Prejudice ! 
 Purblind and bloated, as the female thin, 
 But not less loathsome and most near of kin !
 
 143 
 
 He's deaf to all (lie enterprising say, 
 And with his sifter e'er obstructs the way. 
 
 Nor those who 'scape their malice deem secure- 
 Far greater hazard, higher there endure ; 
 A thousand rampant satyrs there command, 
 Who limp along, each bearing in his hand, 
 Compos'd of triple lash, a deadly scourge ; 
 To check whom vain ambition still would urge. 
 Few rise so high, but still behold a feyr 
 Attack this band ; a battle see ensue ; 
 The doubtful combat rages as the tide, 
 And victory's suspended either side : 
 Nor there does justice of the cause prevail, 
 But Intrepidity with strongest flail ! 
 
 Th' advent* rers here succeed, here down the steep 
 Their fierce opponents hurl them to the deep ; 
 The solitary few who triumph still, 
 Behold with labour panting up the hill :
 
 144 
 
 With many a wound inflicted deep, and sore, 
 With peril on all sides, behind, before ; 
 These joyfully would measure back the space, 
 And with a wishful eye survey the base ; 
 Cfinging for safety to each blasted wreath, 
 To steril branches, thorn, or fern, or heath ; 
 While scrambling for the scanty meed of praise, 
 Best friends, grown jealous, quarrel for the bays. 
 More slippery grows the perpendicular height, 
 With jutting rock, some tumble by their weight. 
 Still here and there the mountain's brow they gain, 
 But when arriv'd, so spent with toil and pain, 
 The danger and anxiety, though past, 
 They only pause awhile, look round, and breathe 
 their last. 
 
 f.NP OF THE FIRST PA.UT.
 
 THE 
 
 BRITISH POETS. 
 
 $art tge ccont. 
 
 (OR SUPPLEMENT) 
 
 ' Venus inopes rerum, nuga?que canora*. 
 
 Hor. Ari. Po. 32 J.
 
 THE POETS. 
 
 part tljc g>cconti* 
 
 .Let us from this unwelcome scene once more 
 Return, the paths of Genius to explore. 
 Yet wherefore blazon we each Muse, though fair, 
 Whose charms diffus'd, we all partake, like air ? 
 When merit but too frequent pines alone, 
 Unprais'd, unpitied, unobserv'd, unknown ? 
 When some stern Penury precludes our ken, 
 And some their scorn of praise from artless men ? 
 As if regardless of th' uncertain prize, 
 Since the unlearn'd so often lead the wise. 
 Muses who need the wiles, the arts, the dress, 
 Or seem to need, and chapter, prosper less ; 
 Whose nobler minds embellishments neglect, 
 Knowing as oft they cover some defect ; 
 l2
 
 148 
 
 And though the highest mast'ry often lurks, 
 In trifles least essential to their works, 
 That ornaments 'tis shocking to misplace, 
 And the worst blemish is an awkward grace. 
 
 Unbiass'd, while with candor we pursue 
 The works of merit, we discover new ; 
 And some the critic's laws approve in part, 
 Which still attract the mind, and win the heart : 
 With oft a musical obscurer Bard, 
 Whom now, fastidious grown, we disregard. 
 
 Full many a Wit, in Folly's dungeon pent, 
 Is doom'd to pine in dark imprisonment. 
 All are not lunatics who're counted mad, 
 All are not dunces in the Dunciad. 
 
 A similar fate attends the Poet's strains, 
 As recompences the Optician's pains ; 
 These aid the eye, those to the mind impart, 
 What would escape of Nature or of Art j
 
 149 
 
 And though we may acknowledge these can write, 
 
 And those with polish'd lens extend the sight ; 
 
 Yet if more light from others we receive, 
 
 We take the latter, and the former leave. 
 
 Observe it thus in astronomic scope, 
 
 To strain some dwindled point in Heav'n who hope, 
 
 Will leave each tube for Herschel's Telescope. 
 
 Charm'd with some Poet whom in youth we read, 
 We prematurely deem him all we need ; 
 Impossible an other Muse so fair, 
 The Art begins, and ends, and centres, there ; 
 Works less familiar, then not understood, 
 Too season'd this, and this too solid food ; 
 But as we persevere to read and write, 
 More keen still grows the menial appetite ; 
 Progressive harder matter we digest, 
 And find a sumptuous intellectual feast : 
 We leave the garnish'd bubbling froth behind, 
 And seek the substance to support the mind.
 
 150 
 
 When first the dormant spark of Genius wakes, 
 It sudden on the dress of science breaks, 
 Catches the fine spun woof of Fancy's loom, 
 And Wisdom's airy veil insolves in fume ; 
 But kindled, blazes with resistless might, 
 Illumining all with new assisting light ; 
 O'er crude materials e'en it spreads its fires, 
 And seeking fuel, but from dross retires, 
 
 Nor quite in Black more's epic strains expires. ) 
 
 Led by the hand, the Muse still tempts us forth, 
 T' explore new regions and degrees of worth, 
 Where her bright influence familiar shines, 
 With bards less fetter'd in dramatic lines ; 
 Whose works, more natural, present to view 
 The scenes of life, as in a mirror true. 
 To point the varied excellence of those, 
 The length'ning task would tire prolixer prose ; 
 My slender talent sinks beneath the weight 
 For Johnson's Muse e'en too elaborate ;
 
 151 
 
 The throng to sock or buskin who incline, 
 Outwit Apollo and the tuneful Nine. 
 
 See youthful Shakespeare sov'reign of the stage, 
 With wreath immortal crown'd, defying age ; 
 The boast of Briton, envy of each clime, 
 The pride of Nature, and defeat of Time ; 
 Who can in equal terms extol his lays ? 
 " Come then, expressive silence, muse his praise*." 
 
 Sweet Rowe next twines with passion round the heart, 
 And Otway, at whose characters we start, 
 And question whether nature form'd, or art ! 
 
 And many a miscellaneous poet here, 
 Whose pow'rs by turns adorn'd the mimic sphere : 
 But how select amid the tuneful throng, 
 Each sacred name to animate my song, 
 
 Thomson.
 
 152 
 
 And free from pedantry, with interest gire, 
 To each a place in pleasing narrative ? 
 As Addison refin'd, to Harley writ 
 But not with him a tuneful name omit.* 
 Impossible ! the work were never done, 
 Like thine Penelope ! or Sisyphus thy stone ! 
 So much increas'd their number since his days, 
 T'would lessen to a catalogue our praise ! 
 
 Behold them pass in th' histrionic sphere, 
 
 Foote, Macklin, Mallet, Murphy, Massinger, 
 Brown, Southern, Cibber, Vanbrugh, Jonson, Lee, 
 Hill, Beaumont, Fletcher, Farquhar, Wycherly, 
 Ford, Garrick, and ten thousand more, 
 Whose names enroll'd, enrich the Thespian store. 
 
 All eminent, but who can count them all, 
 Each comic Genius and each tragical ; 
 
 * They are not many portraits in Addison's Letter t 
 Harlev.
 
 153 
 
 With every dramatist in George's age, 
 Who friend of fair Thalia treads the stage ? 
 
 Vain were the bard enamor'd thus with praise, 
 Who in this backward age would cull fresh bays ; 
 Where such illustrious characters have shone, 
 And parch'd our soil as with a torrid zone ; 
 Where all are literate in some degree, 
 And grant no pardon to weak poesie ; 
 Where Critics scare with supercilious frown, 
 And for a jury, he has London town ! 
 
 The world, which to each other art is kind, 
 A double task the Poet has assign'd ; 
 Hard is his lot, 'twould not suffice alone, 
 Should brother bards, so rare, his merit own, 
 The many are his judges, chiefly these, 
 Defying critics he must strive to please ; 
 Yet vain their suffrage he is whirl'd amain, 
 From these to those, from those to these again ;
 
 354 
 
 His subject must engage, (the meanest part) 
 Or forfeited the finest strokes of art ; 
 Yet he, who'd all delight, his labour wastes, 
 For wit has fix'd no law to erring tastes ; 
 And not more various we see mankind, 
 In form of feature than in shades of mind ; 
 Thus these explode the serious, these the gay, 
 And each opinion takes a different way ; 
 Yet all to judge, assert their natural sense, 
 And to the art allege a just pretence ; 
 In vain may genius or may science plead, 
 Fortune, sole arbitress, bestows the meed. 
 
 Not so in painting, there each connoisseur 
 Can trash decry, and fame to worth secure ; 
 Their science absolute o'er fancy rais'd, 
 Proclaims, " let this be prais'd," and it is prais'd ! 
 It frowns to silence Folly's voice at least, 
 Though Envy sometimes will decide the test. 
 The graphic art appealing to the eyes, 
 Draws the attention of the dull and wise ;
 
 155 
 
 Besides, delineations soon delight, 
 
 And charm a novice ere an artist's sight : ' 4 2, 
 
 Not so in writing ; judges less require, 
 
 Than carping dolts, who rather ought admire*. 
 
 Mankind some oracle in learning quote, 
 And still allow themselves a different thought. 
 Thus " Addison," 'tis said, " was learn'd and wise, 
 1 But we prefer to his, our ears and eyes ; 
 " 'Tis true he knew to judge and well could write ; 
 " But men know best what yield themselves delight." 
 "What says this else, upon reflection cool, 
 But Addison the wise was most a foolt? 
 
 * Who ouzht 
 
 Rather admire. 
 
 Milton. 
 
 t " The authority of Addison is ^reat; yet the voice of 
 the people, when to please the people is the purpose, de- 
 serves some regard." 
 
 Theatrical Diet, on Smith's Play of Phtdra and Hippolitoi.
 
 156 
 
 Still if the multitude oft shoot astray, 
 The cognoscenti err as oft as they*. 
 'Tis true a wretched poem cannot last, 
 But not less true, real merit may be past. 
 
 Thus folly triumphs but still some redress 
 The world demands against the teeming press. 
 Perhaps 'tis well, in this enlighten'd age, 
 In some degree to check the rhyming rage ; 
 The days are o'er of chivalry and song ; 
 Britons are tam'd, and tun'd the British tongue ; 
 And should a race of younger poets rise, 
 Scarce more 'twould polish, or more render wise 
 Then, from the press, but excellence proceed, 
 Or henceforth excellence alone succeed ; 
 Our artless tieatisefor exception plead'. 
 
 So far the cause of Genius to defend, 
 T' excuse ourselves and others to commend. 
 
 * ** The vulgar oft through imitation err, 
 " The learn' d as oft through being singular. 
 
 Pope.
 
 157 
 
 And deem you gentle reader, tho' perchance, 
 Less modish authors we may oft enhance, 
 Their inspiration less ? no ! not the least 
 Each poet here might rank Apollo's priest; 
 Men who to science sacrifie'd their health, 
 Tranquillity, and yielded views of wealth. 
 
 Such authors too as poets should be crown'd, 
 Whose works with fancy and with wit abound ; 
 Whose strong conceptions and attainments reach 
 The highest pow'rs of writing or of speech. 
 
 How vast the numbers who in prose excel, 
 And what is poetry but writing well ? 
 The genial ray, the soul of verse, which warms, 
 And not the metre constitutes its charms; 
 Each literary genius varied glows, 
 With talent versatile for rhyme or prose. 
 What though unstudied the mechanic part ? 
 At best the painful drudgery of art ! 
 On wit's foundation labour could supply 
 The airy superstructure, Poetry.
 
 158 
 
 Though some exception to our rule be brought, 
 Some solitary instance to our thought*, 
 Strip from true poetry its flow'rs and rhyme, 
 You'll find it alter'd into prose sublime ; 
 Good prose is poetry of bawbles stript, 
 And vice versa, but too well equipt. 
 
 Not those who can an eye brow ballad pen, 
 And incorrect, we deem poetic men. 
 
 Who in the senate hears great Chatham's sonf, 
 But thinks the orator and poet one ; 
 Save that the Bard to Gods is doom'd to preach, 
 And th' Orator for mortals frames his speech. 
 How clear his thought, his words how musical, 
 Like the far sounding of a waterfall ; 
 But when some weighty subject agitates 
 The public mind, and world, with dire debates ; 
 
 * Cicero, 
 f This poem was written in the time of Mr. Pitt.
 
 159 
 
 When the huge storm is gathering in the sky, 
 And Elocution's wave runs rough and high, 
 With youthful ardor and delib'rate sense 
 Join'd to the mighty pow'r of eloquence ; 
 How eminently rais'd with looks supreme, 
 He awes tumultuous Faction to esteem. 
 
 As when dread jEolus on airy throne, 
 Curbing the winds which burst their cells of stone, 
 Brib'd by the wife of Jove, struck deep his care, 
 And all unprison'd bade the tempest rave ; 
 (T' exterminate a scatter'd helpless crew, 
 Who from the wreck of Troy for refuge flew ;) 
 Encroaching on the province of the seas, 
 Great Neptune rose their fury to appease ; 
 Cast at each impious blast a dreadful look, 
 And tow'ring o'er the Main his awful trident shook; 
 Before superior pow'r their rage subsides, 
 Th' impetuous torrent a smooth surface glides : 
 So Pitt I've seen and heard too with delight 
 (When irritating taunt's opposing might
 
 160 
 
 Provoked to anger) rise with kindled ire, 
 Chain every tongue and bid his foes admire. 
 
 The Muse who thus has skimm'd the surface o'er 
 Of British arts, burns for some distant shore ; 
 And perch'd on Albion's eastern sea beat clift, 
 Across the gulf would fain her pinions lift, 
 Flutters aloft : in vain from far descries, 
 Where Genius thrives beneath more ardent skies ; 
 Eyes the broad chasm by Earth's convulsions rent, 
 Dividing Britain from the Continent ; 
 Sees various climes and nations literate ; 
 Here polish'd France, Germania's rising state : 
 Sees here Italia, here old Rome again ; 
 And where the Greeks erst sway'd a vast domain : 
 But too extensive, these are great affairs, 
 And proper subjects for more ripen'd years; 
 She tremblingly explores the giddy height, 
 Nor trusts her plumage in the arduous flight; 
 With well tim'd prudence quits the scene immense, 
 Retiring, leaves it for more practis'd pens.
 
 161 
 
 One praise remains and ere I bid adieu, 
 Receive a compliment reserv'd for you 
 If so you style a tribute which is due. 
 For did not friendship prompt us mutually, 
 In you to ask, in me thus to comply ; 
 Your scrutiny I'd hare more cause to fear, 
 Than half the critics who are most severe ; 
 Tho' this would actuate and lend me aid, 
 Your criticism's e'er with candor made. 
 
 Too long, dear * * I have now digress'd 
 Tis time the reader and the Muse should rest ; 
 All I request is, that you'll not deny, 
 If lame my verse, not my apology.
 
 THE VISION.
 
 THE VISION. 
 
 When Phoebus from the sultry sphere, 
 (Where Cancer basks) with slow career. 
 To bait his steeds and rest the sun, 
 Had to the southern tropic run ; 
 And tardy on his sloping "way, 
 Now languid lit but half a day : 
 When Ceres bid our clime adieu, 
 And genial streams like marble grew ; 
 And hoary winter's gloomy reign, 
 Spread wide its desolate domain : 
 While dormant nature seem'd to lie 
 Unconscious of vitality, 
 And silent to suspend her laws 
 Amid the universal pause,
 
 166 
 
 Urg'd by the stillness of the morn, 
 I wander'd dreary and forlorn 
 Near drooping Thames' stagnated tide, 
 Who mourn'd his current petrified ; 
 While Fancy saw the God recline, 
 In pensive reverie supine, 
 Upon his urn which ceas'd to flow, 
 Contracting deep his sedgy brow. 
 
 The lifeless gloom, the harden'd ground, 
 And leafless shrubs all bleak around, 
 Reflection drew to meditate, 
 On mankind's no less mortal state ; 
 When musing in a train of thought, 
 How Time destroy 'd what Nature wrought, 
 I sat recumbent on the brink, 
 To view the alter'd scene and think : 
 But silent Somnus softly shed, 
 His soporifics o'er my head, 
 Whose torpid influence possess'd, 
 And lull'd me into partial rest :
 
 167 
 
 For pensive even in repose* 
 Fantastic airy visions rose. 
 
 As on the troubled sea is tost, 
 Some slender bark from coast to coast ; 
 Now on the Goodwin Sands adrift, 
 And now upon some rocky clift; 
 So was my reason borne away, 
 On thought's tumultuous rolling sea. 
 
 In starry night, I stood beside 
 A mountain, whose majestic pride, 
 With Babel's tow'r, aspir'd to rise, 
 Presumptuous to invade tho skies ; 
 Nor steep nor craggy was th' ascent, 
 [>ut seem'd at once to represent 
 An easy path, with gradual slope, 
 On earth its base, in heaven its top. 
 
 Curiosity inspir'd my mind, 
 With hope to leave the world behind,
 
 168 
 
 To search beyond the realms of air, 
 The lucid orbs and beings there, 
 And see how Nature varied all 
 The scene, o'er this terrestrial ball. 
 
 Soon fancy her assistance lent 
 Enquiring thought, to scale th' ascent ; 
 Earth, dwindled, shone, approaching near 
 The limits of our atmosphere ; 
 While mists so wrapt the mount below, 
 The base was sever'd from the brow, 
 Which e'en than Teneriff 's more proud, 
 (Serene emerging from a cloud) 
 Appear'd abstracted from the earth, 
 That beam'd below and gave it birth, 
 And thro' the darken'd air like one, 
 Among yon luminaries shone. 
 
 Amazing wonder seem'd the whole 
 Methought I saw each planet roll,
 
 169 
 
 And heard the spheres' melodious sound, 
 Performing their celestial round- 
 While thus inwrapt in thought profound, 
 An angel, as of yore appear'd 
 On earth, and youthful nature cheer'd, 
 Descending from unmeasur'd height, 
 All sudden steer'd his downward flight. 
 
 His form, the human far surpass'd 
 His snowy shoulders pinions graced ; 
 His lineaments proportion'd fair, 
 (Which meteor-like illum'd the air) 
 A niveous vapour veil'd j too pure 
 For mortal vision to endure. 
 
 Not IVIaia's son, more fleet we're told, 
 Th' immortal messenger of old ; 
 Nor light descending from the blaze, 
 Of some bright star's collected rays, 
 So shoots athwart the liquid sky,
 
 *170 
 
 As seem'd the pffw'r's velocity :- 
 While fear and hope by turns possess'd, 
 He nearer drew and thus address'd 
 
 (l Hail mortal man, if you will rise, 
 To Jove's bright throne above the skies, 
 My pinions mount, gnd I'll with care 
 And safety soon conduct you there." 
 
 Abash'd, I urg'd each natural fear 
 To quit this sublunary sphere ; 
 ' The fabled monsters of the sky, 
 Too distant from the sun, or nigh ; 
 The perils of each orb of fire, 
 Too rare the region to respire' 
 Who mildly thus, but still to chide 
 My want of confidence replied. 
 
 " Not as the pow'rs of human kind, 
 jleem circumscrib'd th' eternal mind :
 
 171 
 
 All is subservient to his will- 
 Absurd the term l impossible.' 
 What pride could hope or thought conceive, 
 The God of Nature can achieve ; 
 He rules, so absolute his might, 
 O'er finite and o'er infinite ; 
 Can bid the parted hou return, 
 Make the sun freeze, the ocean burn." 
 
 " Resolve ere midnight shades retire, 
 Ere Phosphor wakes th' immortal quire 
 To render Hallelujahs high, 
 And form celestial minstrelsy. 
 Myself the delegate of Jove, 
 (Descended from the realms above,) 
 Will waft you straight to realms of bliss, 
 Securely thro' the blue abyss. 
 Nor be appall'd at aught you see 
 In soaring thro' eternity j 
 While in the depth of heav'n immense, 
 Of subtle ether I'll condense
 
 172 
 
 For thee a vapour to inhale, 
 (Where the dull mists of nature fail) 
 An element as breathes mankind, 
 Above the regions of the wind. 
 
 Thus urg'd to travel through the sky, 
 And leave behind mortality, 
 I mounted, and away we drove, 
 Aloft through the serene above. 
 The vacuum widen'd as we flew, 
 More wonderful the objects grew, 
 And million worlds seem'd little more 
 Than grains of sand upon the shore, 
 Or as the rolling waves seem lost, 
 Which flow unceasing on the coast. 
 
 When sudden, heav'n's o'erpowering light, 
 Now flash'd upon my aching sight ; 
 At once I view'd Jove's awful throne, 
 Which with refulgent glory shone
 
 173 
 
 Beyond the pow'r of human thought 
 Though not with orient jewels fraught, 
 Nor with pernicious gold defil'd, 
 But of celestial matter piled, 
 That far outshone what earth bestows, 
 By fancy pictur'd in repose. 
 
 Lost in the full ethereal blaze, 
 Sensation wander'd in amaze ; 
 The deity, in conscious flame, 
 Irradiate, rush'd upon my frame ; 
 Himself unseen, envelop'd round, 
 With Cherubs' wings and living sound. 
 Such were his attributes alone, 
 Resplendent beaming from the throne, 
 As spread the vision of the eye, 
 And multiplied each faculty*. 
 
 Why was the sight 
 
 To such a tender ball as th' eye confiif <I, 
 So obvious and so easy to be quench'd ? 
 And not, as fueling, thro' all parts diffus'd, 
 That bhc might look at will thiV ev'ry pore ? 
 Milton's Samsov,
 
 174 
 
 When quickly summon'd up by fitfe, 
 (Departed from a mortal state) 
 A shadowy throng of sinful ghosts, 
 Appear'd as from th' infernal coasts ; 
 Where grisly Pluto's sceptred sway, 
 Controls, far from the orb of day, 
 The seat of ancient mother Night, 
 Where impure spirits wing their flight ; 
 There, to be tried for each offence, 
 By Justice and Omnipotence ; 
 And not by partial human laws, 
 Which separate the crime and cause. 
 
 While still I gazed, an awful sound, 
 Drew every trembling culprit round, 
 Which made the empyrean shake, 
 And thus some awful godhead spake. 
 " To judge the guilt where mortals fail, 
 First put their frailties in the scale ; 
 Relent, Avhere precept led astray, 
 Or pow'rful influence bore the sway;
 
 175 
 
 Discriminate 'twixt prejudice, 
 
 And passion and delib'fate "rice ; 
 
 Impute not nature's faults to man, 
 
 Nor judge upon a partial plan ; 
 
 Since from full many a bounteous source 
 
 Man's aberrations take their course ; 
 
 Thus self-love, if increas'd too strong, 
 
 Foams to a vice thro' ev'ry wrong, 
 
 And hoodwinks reason, bars the breast, 
 
 To all but private interest; 
 
 Tho' pour'd into the heart by fate, 
 
 A virtue when 'tis moderate : 
 
 For private interest understood, 
 
 E'er centres in the public good. 
 
 With mercy straight to judge proceed, 
 
 With lenity regard each deed, 
 
 But still let heavenly justice guide, 
 
 And by her dictates still abide." 
 
 A solemn silence then ensued, 
 
 When thus the theme some voice renew'd.
 
 176 
 
 " Of heavenly Justice, since the bless'd, 
 E'en angels, cannot stand the test ; 
 Can mankind, nurs'd with ev'ry crime, 
 E'er look upon her front sublime ? 
 On earth forgot, or never known, 
 "Who comprehends all good alone ; 
 Who rules the undiscover'd line, 
 Which vice and virtue should disjoin ? 
 
 " Fair habitant of realms of light, 
 She treads the azure starry height, 
 Unsullied in the blest abodes, 
 Coeval with eternal gods ; 
 She shuns the sublunary sphere, 
 Where grosser principles adhere, 
 Evaporates from human kind, 
 And dwells with beings more refin'd. 
 
 " Ere mortal can be truly good, 
 First virtue must be understood ;
 
 177 
 
 And who has wisdom to define 
 Celestial terms, but Pow'rs divine ? 
 To comprehend their import right, 
 Demands a judgment infinite ; 
 And futile were the hope to find 
 In mortal man, a godlike mind. 
 
 " And still 'tis giv'n him to control 
 The varied passions of the soul; 
 Tho* warring in the human breast, 
 Like hostile elements coinpress'd, 
 
 With pow'r not easy to appease 
 
 But as on earth the raging seas 
 Break loose, and with their rushing tide 
 OVrwhelm the cliffs, which fortified 
 The coast from their resistless sway ; 
 So feeble principles, amid the fray 
 Of struggling passions, yield subdued, 
 And shrink oppress'd beneath their rude 
 Tempestuous ire "
 
 178 
 
 Nor did they plead 
 
 For vice ; not one would intercede ! 
 It even went with Virtue hard, 
 Whose sole defence was off her guard ; 
 Who, as a centry, dared to dose, 
 Unmindful of besieging foes ; 
 And few exceptions to the law 
 Of justice, could distinction draw ; 
 Where inclination was the plea, 
 'Twas branded too with infamy ; 
 Tho' definitions differ'd there, 
 All was not vice we term so here ; 
 They palliated, not forgave, 
 The lapses of the good and brave, 
 Who fell subdu'd by war within, 
 The victims, not the friends of sin. 
 
 They then describ'd the modes of mind, 
 And miseries of human kind ; 
 flow rage, how love, with sraould'ring heat, 
 W 7 ith madness gain'd the mental seat ;
 
 179 
 
 When rigid Duty steps between; 
 With front austere and frowning mien, 
 And holds an interdicting rod, 
 The awful barrier of her god. > 
 How Mercy, from the throne above, 
 Looks down on man with meek-ey'd love, 
 And scorns th' exterminating scourge, 
 Which maniacs wield on hell's dread verge ! 
 How that when mental storms prevail'd, 
 And Virtue, suddenly assail'd, 
 Had lost her empire o'er the mind, 
 Which yet to own her sway inclin'd ; 
 That guilt, so hurried on by fate, 
 (If after-penance expiate,) 
 E'en heav'nly laws extenuate. 
 That since, 'twas glorious to subdue, 
 Th' attempt itself was glorious too ; 
 That those who temporiz'd were worse 
 Than those o'erpower'd by greater force j 
 That he, who'd banish from his view 
 The vices, must the virtues too ; 
 x 2
 
 180 
 
 That //, the passions might assuage, 
 But God alone could quell their rage : 
 For principles impress'd by fate 
 No mortal could eradicate" 
 
 Much more I heard, but heard in vain, 
 Too much for mem'ry to retain. 
 The scales were then in heav'n display'd, 
 And each offence was duly weigh'd ; 
 And many an earthly criminal, 
 Or such on earth we freely call, 
 Had prospect of eternal bliss, 
 Above the realms of prejudice ; 
 And many a saint to hell again, 
 Was, (doom'd t' endure protracted pain) 
 Remanded for his crimes below, 
 Augmented by his saintly show. 
 
 Thus while I stood inwrapt in fear, 
 The scene began to disappear ;
 
 181 
 
 The lightning flash 'd, the thunder rpll'd, 
 \Yhich rous'd me, stiff, benumb'd with cold, 
 And broke the sigil which controll'd. 
 
 1 started, found myself on land, 
 As conjur'd by an elfin wand. 
 The hollow sounds still pierc'd my ear, 
 My eye still view'd the yacant sphere ; 
 The airy fabric though dissolv'd, 
 The vision still my mind involv'd : 
 Half froze, I homeward bent my way, 
 While Sol shot forth a parting ray, 
 And in th' horizon dropt anon 
 His beams still ting'd, obliquely thrown, 
 The skirts of heav'n freezing keen, 
 I left the solitary scene, 
 Shut out the landscape from my mind, 
 To contemplation's pow'rs resign'd.
 
 ** Jam te premet nox." 
 
 -A halting lamb, exhausted on his way, 
 Prophetic goaded to his doom in grief, 
 In piteous accents plain as iamb could say, 
 Exclaim'd, ' benignant * * bring relief! 
 
 ' Sleeps thy humanity, or sleeps thy wrath ? 
 That thus thy brother man full in thy sight, 
 Dares, when to Nature thou hast pledg'd thy troth, 
 Wreak with impunity his merc'less spite ?
 
 184 
 
 ' Can justice be so slow, or can thy suit, 
 Which needs no pleading in the human heart, 
 From man half civiliz'd, than brute more brute, 
 Meet opposition that thy pow'r can thwart ? 
 
 4 O tardy progress of the opening mind ! 
 A century scarce ripens acts begun 
 As hints by patriots dropt to human kind, 
 And left for after ages to be done. 
 
 * Kind friend to nature, still pursue thy course, 
 By virtue overcome a multitude ; 
 Conquer like Clarkson, Fox, and Wilberforce 
 Rome sudden rose not from materials rude. 
 
 4 Alas ! confess not thou hast vainly toil'd, 
 Nor shun thy bloodless contest in dismay ; 
 Be not by Folly's taunt disarm'd and foil'd, 
 Nor cheaply yield to cruelty the day.
 
 185 
 
 ' Reason and Mercy prompt thy enterprise, 
 Which, dropt, triumphant dolts would turn to sport; 
 Thy object set before a nation's eyes, 
 Friend of humanity, thy life is short ! 
 
 * The vulgar.great when Virtue rears her voice, 
 Th' alarum sound, her votaries brand as fools ; 
 By numbers strong her enemies rejoice, 
 And trample down her marks and golden rules. 
 
 ' In common cause they join to combat Sense, 
 Sense, who'd enfranchise brother man, a slave ; 
 Proclaim her mad till Virtue's whole defence, 
 Releases and subdues both fool and knave. 
 
 1 If senates listen not when Nature pleads, 
 Lay traps for Vice, call Genius to thy aid ; 
 Since Treason's reckon'd fair, who once succeeds, 
 How fair is Virtue by success array'd !
 
 186 
 
 * Proud senators, the pillars of the state, 
 May frown indignant upon themes like these j 
 " No morbid feelings render nations great" 
 Bull baiting ee'n as Billington may please* 
 
 * " Preserve our hardihood, who would subdue, 
 Our fearless tempers, is our secret foe " 
 
 So speaks the politician. O but you ! * 
 
 (T' whom Nature's bounteous) you, more Nature owe! 
 
 * Vain the alarm for when did charity 
 Make cowards of mankind ? whoever's just 
 Is doubly arm'd ! he braves th' inclement sky, 
 Nor needs the poison'd dart in climes adust*. 
 
 " Noneget Mauri jaculis, ncque arcu, 
 Nee venenatis gravida sagittis, 
 Fusee, pharetra,"
 
 187 
 
 ' Patricians shun, a safer province thine, 
 Assuage mankind, give feelings to the fool ; 
 Storm not the citadel, but undermine 
 Some yield to reason, some to ridicule. 
 
 ' Call Hogarth's shade, that friend to virtue's cause. 
 Invoke his Genius, which survives the tomb ; 
 Hell aid thy views, whose moral pencil draws, 
 Progressive cruelty's sad final doom. 
 
 1 Through counties, villages, and populous towns, 
 With magic conjure at the public cost, 
 His pictured stages for unconscious clowns, 
 Most obvious each a sign or finger-post. 
 
 ' With Hogarth's rhymes, and with his graphic horse, 
 Or suff'ring lamb, to catch the heart and eye ; 
 That he who reads may feel its double force 
 This, more than law, would check barbarity.
 
 188 
 
 ' Wider than fear, shame spreads its influence ; 
 E'en babes while listening would imbibe the tale ; 
 The pencil and the pen would join defence, 
 And both succeed, where sep'rate each might fail. 
 
 This more great patriot, far than warlike feats, 
 Would raise thy nation's glory and thy own : 
 The wreath of conquest crowns the last who beats ; 
 But this once gain'd were an eternal crown.'
 
 Sfc. Sfc.
 
 ELEGY 
 
 On the Death of a beloved and much lamented 
 
 " Had I a wreath of bays about my brow, 
 I should contemn that flourishing honor now. 
 Condemn it to the flames, and joy to hear 
 It blaze and crackle there." 
 
 Cowlet.
 
 PREFACE; 
 
 The submitting of the following Elegies; 
 &c. to the public, is not unaccompanied b^ 
 unpleasant and even painful reflections ia 
 the author, arising from causes, which per- 
 haps have not failed to operate- on others, 
 who have been similarly circumstanced ; and 
 which produced in his mind no slight inde- 
 cision ere he could resolve on their publica- 
 tion. 
 
 First to pass over all renewal of melan- 
 choly, so naturally connected with the revival of 
 each gloomy occasion The consciousness of 
 a degree of egotism, which in reality appears 
 o
 
 194 
 
 to exist, and is perhaps but too readily 
 imputed, in obtruding our own concerns on 
 the attention of others; and more particularly 
 so, when of a delicate nature : for however gene- 
 ral the practice has ever been among Poets, to 
 court a sympathetic sadness by their elegiac 
 effusions; the author still finds he is not singular 
 in his opinion, that such compositions require 
 a few introductory observations*; but custom, 
 which can reconcile things much more repul- 
 ive to uninfluenced judgment, has not only 
 given to this species of writing its full sanction, 
 but likewise the unrestricted privilege of in- 
 fecting others with its real or pretended me- 
 lancholy. 
 
 If it were necessary to enumerate not only 
 
 * Mr Coleridge, in an early volume of Poems, has giren 
 i little elegant treatise on the subject byway of preface to 
 Monodies, &c. replete with good sense, and dictated by 
 a peculiar delicacy of feeling
 
 195 
 
 the authors who in the mournful funereal strain, 
 or the elegy of love, have poured forth the 
 plaintive repinings of their misfortunes ; who 
 have tuned their lyres to pangs of disappoint- 
 ment, and the bliss of their requited passion ; 
 but also those who have repeatedly interwoven 
 their personal calamities with their principal 
 performances the names of Petrarch, Ovidj 
 Milton, Tibulus, Lyttleton, Shaw, Hammond, 
 Gray, and Young, would be conspicuous: 
 the latter of whom, having with so much cele- 
 brity devoted a great portion of a long poetical 
 life to his lamentations, (adopting the express 
 title of The Complaint) would claim a distin- 
 guished place among the number who have so 
 prevailed by the tears of the Muses, and who 
 have never questioned the propriety of render- 
 ing even their most tender affections the par- 
 ticular subjeets of their poetry. 
 
 Such authorities would be more than suffi- 
 cient to remove all apprehension of well 
 grounded censure in the present instance, 
 and to warrant the following collection, 
 o 2
 
 196 
 
 as far as the public alone are concerned: 
 but there are other considerations which, as 
 they regard private and the author's more im- 
 mediate feelings, are of a still tenderer nature, 
 and neither can be so easily obviated, nor per- 
 haps ever completely superseded: The most 
 prominent, is an impression of which he can 
 not entirely divest himself, that it is a sort 
 of profanation of the most sacred and pious 
 duties, to convert to an ostentatious pur- 
 pose, those sorrows which should be shed in 
 privacy over the memory of departed friend- 
 ship, and which alone appear genuine, amia- 
 ble, and deserving of respect, as they shrink 
 from observation, and rather in seclusion 
 avoid, than endeavour to attract attention, 
 by public demonstration. 
 
 But still this argument in its full extent 
 may more properly apply to the early influ- 
 ence of misfortunes, and not to that period 
 when time and a succession of events have 
 mellowed the acuter feelings of regret, when 
 the mind can look back on past sufferings with
 
 197 
 
 calm composure, blending a soothing melan- 
 choly with a pleasing recollection of the past, 
 and is no longer restrained from communica- 
 tion, by a too susceptible reserve, or withheld 
 by motives of delicacy from oppressing others 
 with its sorrows, as they have in a great de- 
 gree ceased their operation on itself; but ra- 
 ther presents a picture to move by the pathos 
 of former impressions, than seeks to excite 
 commiseration for present unhappiness : 
 and if it be allowed to Mr. Coleridge, which 
 position few readers of a poetical turn will 
 question ; that the mind, while " full of its Jate 
 sufferings" (when incapable even of participat 
 ing in more general amusements) experiences 
 a secret consolation in a pursuit so connected 
 with its recent misfortunes ; we must then 
 likewise admit that those compositions are at 
 least innocent in themselves, or under such 
 circumstances that the fault, were venial, of a 
 " querulous egotism" which no doubt is often 
 freely ascribed to them by the more happy, 
 giddy, or volatile part of their readers.
 
 198 
 
 It must nevertheless, on the other hand, 
 be freely confessed, that, when they are not 
 pure spontaneous effusions, resulting from the 
 subject, but mere productions of art or the 
 rhapsodies of a poetical imagination ; then, the 
 elegy of woe, with its companion the vague 
 amatorial strain, (breathing passion, to which 
 the authors themselves were in all probability 
 perfect strangers) the world would do well to 
 consign to the poignancy of, but too merited, 
 ridicule. 
 
 The following extract will perhaps not be 
 unpleasing to the reader, while at the same 
 time it is so apposite to the subject:- 
 
 " The communicativeness of our nature 
 leads us to describe our own sorrows; in the 
 endeavour to describe them, intellectual acti- 
 vity is exerted, and from intellectual acti- 
 vity there results a pleasure, which is gra- 
 dually associated, and mingles as a corrective 
 with the painful subject of the description > 
 f< True" (it may be answered) but how are the
 
 199 
 
 public interested in your sorrows f" We are for 
 ever attributing personal unities to imaginary 
 aggregates what is the public but a term for 
 a number of scattered individuals r of whom 
 as many will be interested in these sorrows as 
 have experienced the same or similar." 
 
 Coleridge's Pref. 
 
 However, not further to mutilate the above 
 preface by quotation, and not longer to tres- 
 pass on the time of the reader, the author 
 begs to refer him to the original, the whole 
 of which is so congenial with his own ideas, 
 and has confirmed his undecided opinion in 
 favour of publication ; and since he can ad- 
 vance little in support of their propriety, 
 which is not there most simply and ingenuously 
 pleaded, he will conclude with observing, that 
 as the first intent of those compositions was to 
 commemorate the virtues and perpetuate the 
 memory of departed friendship, while at the 
 same time the mourner derives a consolation 
 from unburthening his sorrows (even in so
 
 200 
 
 solitary a way) and that as they have a tendency 
 to sympathize with others under similar mis- 
 fortunes ; perhaps on the whole, the elegy, 
 (which more than any other species of writing, 
 abounds with moral reflections to mollify the 
 heart,) may not be the least beneficial part of 
 literature. 
 
 Yet, the author in all probability would 
 never have indulged in the gloom of this spe- 
 cies of poetry, if he had not, in addition to his 
 own inclinations, had reason to consider that 
 the knowledge would have been congenial 
 with the disposition of the deceased (who is 
 the principal subject of the following pages) 
 to be remembered by the pen of filial affec* 
 tion.
 
 tegp 
 
 THE FIRST. 
 
 Written previous to an Excursion of the Author, 
 shortly after the Decease of his Mother. 
 
 1 o wander solitary, sad, alone, 
 How left a mourner in a world of woe ; 
 Left to lament the best of women gone, 
 Friend of my youth, and linger still below. 
 
 Oh, recollection ! represent her near, 
 Her image, soul, each fond endearment bring ; 
 Bring e'en her foibles, for they too were dear, 
 Record her virtues, though they leave a sting ! 
 
 Mysterious fate ! ah, has thy law assign'd 
 
 In yon cerulean depth a happier shore ? 
 
 Oh separates, or perishes the mind, 
 
 And friends once parted, do they meet no more ?-
 
 202 
 
 E'en to the last I watch'd her fleeting breath, 
 Saw from the wick of life the spirit fly ; 
 Saw the dear mother in the arms of death, 
 Her features fix'd, her form unconscious lie I 
 
 Saw her attractions too, for charms she had, 
 By Care despoil'd, officious to destroy ; 
 Still these return'd a parting gleam, when dead, 
 Serenity gave back the smile of joy. 
 
 From active health, from duty's busy zeal, 
 In grief and pain how sudden pass'd away ; 
 Oh, sad transition ! she so fram'd to feel, 
 Sunk in the silent tomb, shut out from day ! 
 
 The language mute, the laughter in the eye, 
 The sympathy of souls, best understood, 
 Oh, gracious heav'ns ! are these all born to die ! 
 These the weak subjects of frail flesh and blood !
 
 203 
 
 That Tirtue with intelligence combin'd, 
 
 That generosity without parade, 
 
 That sense which rais'd her o'er the Yulgar mind, 
 
 Do these all in annihilation fade ! 
 
 What horrid chasm ! what yawning gulf between ! 
 (If evanescent life survive the grave) 
 Divides the present from the future scene, 
 The bourn eternal of Time's restless wave J 
 
 The rural site, the smiling gay parterre, 
 And with its vanities the motley town ; 
 These she enliven'd once, these still are there- 
 She, only she, 's irrevocably flown. 
 
 Where art thou vanish'd ? to what distant star, 
 Happy or sad, which rolls through boundless space ! 
 What higher duties now demand thy care, 
 Conceal'd from us in thy ethereal race ?
 
 204 
 
 O Spirit ! when incarnate, near allied, 
 From whom I hid no secret of my breast ; 
 (You, who reciprocally would confide !) 
 Was the tie sever'd when you sunk to rest ? 
 
 The human artist e'en would toil in vain, 
 Who executed well, with just design, 
 Whose tints should fade like sunshine in the rain- 
 Then how much more would err the hand divine ! 
 
 'Tis urged that mortal man, like some machine, 
 Caus'd by the great artificer's command, 
 Impell'd, directed, by his hand unseen, 
 Was to a period to perform, then stand ! 
 
 Mechanic laws may seeming life impart, 
 May point the hour or move th' Automaton ; 
 But can they actuate the human heart ? 
 Do they a voluntary impulse own ?
 
 205 
 
 The torch, unconscious of the light it gives, 
 
 Illumines till the food of lustre's gone ; 
 
 Is that analogous with man that lives, 
 
 Whose frame's entire, when far the spirit's flown ? 
 
 Then, since by horrid war we peace obtain, 
 And calms by elemental strife as hard ; 
 Let's hope, as pleasure presupposes pain, 
 So death's worst suff 'rings have the best reward. 
 
 That therefore brave to perish in the field ; 
 Therefore inglorious, from fate to fly ; 
 Since who, for joint mankind, his life would yield, 
 To find a void to all eternity ? 
 
 True, ' none in peril pauses to reflect, 
 Fate goads us on* Fate, than mankind more wise 
 ' Blind zeal contemning death, impels uncheck'd' 
 But this blind zeal descended from the skies !
 
 S0<5 
 
 Therefore the noble spirit most refin'd 
 Pants with impatient ardour to be free ! 
 And braying death, exalts the human mind, 
 Approaching nearest to the Deity. 
 
 So Hope consoles, and oft appeals to Sense, 
 To soothe our wishes, and our fears restrain ; 
 With Reason draws full many an inference, 
 From Nature's wide and wonderful domain. 
 
 Bids us the chrysalis, so changeful, view, 
 The butterfly, a metamorphos'd worm ; 
 A fair induction, meant perhaps a clew, 
 How man may still exist, but change bis form. 
 
 The Soul survives its mansion e'en on Earth, 
 Mark well the context of the human frame I 
 Perhaps no particle now from his birth, 
 Exists, or then existed in his form the same.
 
 807 
 
 Still there's identity, each conscious elf 
 Feels that he is, he was, and hopes to last ; 
 No man e'er took his neighbour for himself, 
 Nor, from a trance awak'd, forgot the past 
 
 Grant the mind fails that point we'll not eTade, 
 Is worn by years, or by disease impair'd ; 
 But how ? perhaps the ducts of reason fade, 
 Reason herself for ever may be spared ! 
 
 Yet all is dark a dread mysterious gloom 
 Precludes our search, and dims the mental eye ; 
 Religion points to life beyond the tomb, 
 But leaves us doubtful in mortality. 
 
 For some wise aim, by heav'n's all ruling Pow'r, 
 Left purposely obscure, from man conceal'd ; 
 Know we our natal ? why our mortal hour ? 
 Progressive states by death will be reveal'd.
 
 20* 
 
 The heavy clouds hang low upon the hill, 
 
 And o'er the heath bleak howls the dismal blast ; 
 
 Sad memory alone returns at will, 
 
 And brings a pang for every pleasure past.
 
 eiegp 
 
 THE SECOND. 
 
 " Renovare dolorem." 
 
 Vine. Lid. S. 
 
 Accept another, yet another tear, 
 
 Dear shade to mingle with thy dust anew; 
 
 From one so late reciprocally dear, 
 
 From whom, e'en more than filial sorrow's due. 
 
 But what avails the selfish pang we feel, 
 Or pity for thy suff' rings now no more ! 
 Not Fate itself, its verdict could repeal ; 
 Not Fate thy mind and image could restore. 
 
 p
 
 210 
 
 Life's anxious vision is with thee forgot, 
 Eternal silence pauses in thy tomb ; 
 The tear thy memory calls thou heedest not, 
 Nature with thee has reach'd her final doom. 
 
 O'er thy cold relics and unconscious form, 
 
 The wind now whistles, and the grass now grows ; 
 
 Unmindful of the sward as of the storm, 
 
 Thou sleep'st in undefinable repose. 
 
 But yet all is not to the grave consign'd, 
 While those who lov'd, and were belov'd survive ; 
 Thoughts live in metaphysics to the mind ; 
 Thine, valu'd still, in recollection live. 
 
 Another iEra breaks thy summon'd race 
 By Fate are now enroll'd to act and think 
 "Who, lately honor'd, now supply thy place, 
 But short the period ere themselves shall sink.
 
 211 
 
 Their younger heirs Succeed, and these again 
 Rush down the torrent of involving yean ; 
 On Earth no vestige will of these remain, 
 Nor of the vast succession which appears. 
 
 Is life a shadow ! and is time a dream ! 
 Or where's the wreck of generations huiTd ? 
 Where disembogues the never ceasing stream, 
 To what far reservoir, what distant world ? 
 
 Where float thy relics ? on what shoreless tide, 
 Thy nameless virtues and endearments borne ? 
 Thy spark, not lit thyself alone to guide, 
 Thy counsel to direct the mind forlorn ? 
 
 Can those, who could not without deep regret, 
 A fancied change discover in thy mien, 
 Now e'er be reconciled, now e'er forget, 
 And missing thee, e'er smile or look serene ? 
 *2
 
 212 
 
 Who scarce compos'd could in thy visage late, 
 l5'en lines portenting future wrinkles see j 
 Nor even without grief anticipate 
 Thy distant years, and their disparity : 
 
 Now thus contemplate thee ! dispers'd, no more ! 
 Shut out from being nothing, undefin'd 
 The friend, companion, confidant all o'er! 
 For ever vanish'd, viewless as the wind 
 
 Thy mortal tenement in mist dissolv'd, 
 Robb'd from our presence like the dew of morn ; 
 Exhaled the vapour which thy soul involv'd, 
 And on the elements thy spirit borne ! 
 
 Still we must yield the tide which bears us far, 
 Which Nature's efforts cannot stem ! can we ? 
 What cures the corporal and mental scar, 
 Must wear away the tender thought of thee I
 
 213 
 
 Aerial tribes brood o'er their callow young, 
 With tenderness that mocks the human tie ; 
 But fledg'd, they part, forgetting whence they sprung, 
 When lore subsides and consanguinity. 
 
 It is not so invariably with man, 
 When friendship nearer draws two souls the same ; 
 Then Time improves what Nature so began 
 The grave e'en cancels not the mutual claim. 
 
 Sorrow and Pity then to Love unite, 
 
 And virtues ne'er before discover'd, rise ; 
 
 O! burns the spark, with those on earth, so bright! 
 
 And is thy flame extinguish'd in the skies ? 
 
 Invidious Memory, all insincere, 
 
 With aggravated lustre tricks the past ; 
 
 Like some false friend, the joys she envies near, 
 
 With bitter taunt enhances to contrast.
 
 214 
 
 Her dormant faculties, each shadow moves, 
 While Nature, still propitious to her theme, <^, 
 Retraces to the soul the scenes it lores, 
 And bribes our reason to prolong the dream. 
 
 Presents similitudes when every gale, 
 With reminiscence sharged, awakes a sense ; 
 The willing mind receives the " twice-told tale," 
 And times and seasons join their influence. 
 
 In vain they would restore the vanish'd hour, 
 And group the living scene as once it was ; 
 That social group's beyond e'en Nature's pow'r 
 Th' illusions, as their prototypes, soon pass. 
 
 Can she, who saw full many a worldling die, 
 Who still the stroke of Death appear'd to brave, 
 (As more entitled to Heaven's lenity) 
 Now lie with myriads mingled in the grave ?
 
 215 
 
 There are, who rise with such superior soul, 
 
 As if but by their sanction others lire ; ^ I 
 
 * 
 As if deputed to command the whole 
 
 And Nature sickening could not such survive. 
 
 Some by authority this feeling move, 
 By talents others thus command the breast : 
 Affection ! with what influence abv* 
 Thy soft dominion supersedes the rest ! 
 
 So fervent was her love, and still the same, 
 The nat'ral tie of parent it surpass'd ; 
 While agonies of death convulsed her frame, 
 " Preserve my children, Heaven!" was her last*. 
 
 * This is literally true; during one of her most violent 
 spasms, she made the above exclamation.
 
 216 
 
 That bond, alas ! which strengthen'd with thy years, 
 By Death's relentless stroke, asunder's cleft ; 
 With half thou'rt flown, while half still, chafed by tear s < 
 Affection's wounded chain abridged, is left ! 
 
 As when two vessels for some distant port. 
 Together on the surge tempestuous tost, 
 Struggle awhile, thp boisterous billows' sport, 
 Till one is hurried on the shelving coast ; 
 
 While still its sister mounts the furious wave, 
 And, on the ocean buoy'd, di^tress'd to view 
 The foundering wreck it so desires to save, 
 Now disappear and perish all its crew : 
 
 Thus I beheld her bark of life descend, 
 And in th' irremeable gulf go down ; 
 The friend the mother, in one moment end, 
 Imploring succour, and desponding drown.
 
 217 
 
 That anxious, kind, maternal tenderness, 
 That frame so feminine and delicate, 
 That fellow feeling for mankind's distress, 
 Could not long stand the bitter blast of Fate. 
 
 By Nature's law entitled though to live, 
 A.nd life still to enjoy full many a day, 
 She, too susceptible, could not survive. 
 Her constitution ere her years gave way. 
 
 This cruel thought intrudes a painful truth 
 Philosophy no solace here can bring ; 
 Still in the wound it plies its viper tooth 
 To recollection points a barbed sting. 
 
 O ! when full many a wretch is bow'd with care 
 Whom, Death soliciting, still Death denies ; 
 Why passing those whom relatives could spare 
 Still does he rob us first of those we prize ?
 
 218 
 
 Forbear, fond Muse 'tis sacrilege ! forbear 
 In grief to mutter censure, or repine : 
 Leave to the framer of the heav'ns the care, 
 Nor tax the will inscrutable, divine. 
 
 Yet who the progress of disease can trace, 
 Who once has seen a valu'd friend expire ! 
 And mark its rapid or its solemn pace, 
 With all its terrible retinue dire 
 
 Th' uEsculapian tribe, all unconcern'd, 
 Who want the art e'en of consoling speech) 
 Essay the pulse, prescribe, their fee well earn'd, 
 Enhance their science, and as Pythias preach*. 
 
 * We do not mean here to allude to such professional and 
 liberal gentlemen who are in the constant habit of rendering 
 their attendai.ce, and who perhaps often have esteem and 
 friendship for their patient ; but to such as are called in,
 
 219 
 
 These sapient sirs, pronounce still worse and worse, 
 The sick discomfit and the friends confound : 
 When with less dogma, oft the sager nurse, 
 Unschool'd in medicine, will heal the wound. 
 
 If Nature thus, more lenient as more wise, 
 Assist her efforts what's inferr'd ? their skill ! 
 But when, as should not be, the patient dies, 
 " The case was hopeless" Tho' perhaps they kill*. 
 
 in cases of emergency ; who are unacquainted with the consti- 
 tution of the patient, and, habituated to scenes of misery and 
 distress, are but too frequently devoid of that sympathy so 
 toothing and so indispensably necessary to the afflicted party, 
 and likewise wanting in the no less needful commiseration, 
 or at least apparent concern, for their friends and relatives. 
 Many disinterested and ingenuous men in the profession have 
 the candor to own the ineificacy f medicine in most cases. 
 
 * This is not levelled at any of the faculty who attended 
 the deceased, as her case wai no doubt a desperate one.
 
 220 
 
 When death sits ghastly on the pallid cheek, 
 And the spent eye (the lamp of life) burns dim ; 
 When obvious symptoms the sad state bespeak, 
 Emaciate form, and paralyzed each limb ; 
 
 How often are these oracles deceived, 
 Who, confident, proclaim no danger nigh; 
 Tho' but one gasp the patient be reprieved, 
 And flutt'ring soul expand her wings to fly. 
 
 Happy the poor, who seldom need their aid, 
 Or when they seek (as happy stars ordain) 
 The kind physician, but torments when paid 
 Secure in poverty, they plead in vain*. 
 
 * To suppose all the faculty so venal or misanthropic as 
 here described, would be a libel on human nature. There 
 are many wise and benevolent, no doubt; and for many the 
 author himself possesses a personal friendship : still it must 
 be allowed, that physic is open to as much chicane, fraud,
 
 221 
 
 The fatal hour arrives, fall many a blow,' 
 Like some devoted victim man is given ; 
 Thrice he essays to rise, and thrice laid low, 
 All effort's vain, the stroke descends from heaven. 
 
 Now trembling on the lips, the parting breath 
 At intervals retires and flits about ; 
 In one short moment all is dark in death, , 
 Vanish'd, extinct, the flick'ring flame gone out. 
 
 O awful period ! dreadful yet sublime 
 Fraught with the will of Fate mysterious, strange, 
 That " double flight'' which parts mankind from time, 
 That non-apparent, and apparent change.' 
 
 and empiricism, as every other profession; and since suffer- 
 ing mortality sustains much greater injury from the mer- 
 cenary, dishonest, or unskilful practitioners in this vocation, 
 they are proper subjects for the animadversions of the moral- 
 ist, or the keener lash of satire.
 
 The sudden interruption of all being, 
 
 The intellectual void, and lifeless mould ; 
 
 The vacant eye, no more with lustre seeing ; 
 
 The soul's impression, empty, breathless, cold J 
 
 From piteous plaint, and sufferings which appal, 
 The effigy of nature et a blow, 
 Fallen, prostrate fallen! while death presides o'er all, 
 The emblem of intelligence laid low ! 
 
 The final offices to friendship due, 
 
 Done by Despondency Muse, pass o'er those 
 
 The pageantry of Death, the sombre hue, 
 
 And mournful curtain drawn around their woes. 
 
 Funereal pomp, to close each temporal right, 
 -With life's last mockery of grandeur plum'd ; 
 Procession solemn to eternal night, 
 'Mid tears, with seeming violence, entomb'd.
 
 sis 
 
 The testament, each sad bequest declar'd, 
 Conceived in terms of parting friendship kind ; 
 At once what appertain'd dispers'd and shar'd, 
 Leaving a melancholy void behind. 
 
 E'en letters, papers, and each trifling thing, 
 
 All canvass'd and o'erlook'd the vacant room 
 
 With sad remembrance, how a purse, a ring, 
 Brings the dear object back with deepen'd gloom ! 
 
 How rushes every kindness once received, 
 
 And every feeling, every action pass'd ! 
 
 Then worlds were well bestow'd for ought retriev'd, 
 
 Though transitory, fugitive at last. 
 
 Her portrait only now remains to view, 
 And what she was, deep graven in the heart, 
 Perpetuate it, Mem'ry, 'tis her due ; 
 May the dear recollection never part.
 
 224 
 
 She priz'd no gewgaws then the dress she wore, 
 Her garden bench, her walks, the works she read, 
 Let these be sacred now she is no more, 
 And consecrated to the owner dead !
 
 EPITAPH 
 
 ON HER TOMB. 
 
 I he lot of Mortals vainly we deplore, 
 The friend and mother, Lydia, lives no more ; 
 Vanish'd we know not where from Nature's ties; 
 Her dust alone beneath unconscious lies : 
 Too conscious those, whom past endearments urge, 
 To raise this sepulchre and print this dirge ! 
 Oh t pious grief forbids our praises here 
 The partial pen is bribed with many a tear ; 
 What virtues she possess'd, and what her worth, 
 Though others speak, we dare not blazon forth : 
 But say, unbiass'd friend does not our love, 
 With tacit eloquence her merit prove ? 
 4
 
 226 
 
 Does it not hint she had a soul refin'd ? 
 
 That she was geu'rous, open, cheerful, kind ? 
 
 That strong attachments with her duty mix'd ? 
 
 That her complacency affection fix'd ? 
 
 With mental gifts-improv'd, with graceful mien, 
 
 And mutual love, she bless'd our days serene ? 
 
 Too plain it does then may the tears we shed 
 
 Prove a kind off'ring to her Spirit fled ; 
 
 With her past pains and virtues plead with fate, 
 
 For retribution in an after state ; 
 
 With friends once temporal, and doom'd to die, 
 
 In bless'd reunion, thro' eternity.
 
 CONSOLATION. 
 
 b-riLL why bewail the Joss, her death deplore- 
 That must be right to which all nature tends ; 
 Let Hope anticipate heav'n's bliss in store, 
 Hope, who to draw the veil on earth descends. 
 
 While Nature perishes, the World remains, 
 And still is with new life and verdure clad ; 
 All in mutation lies, streams, mountains, plains, 
 Do these not indicate we rise when dead ? 
 
 When first this universal frame arose, 
 And from the throne of darkness burst the sun, 
 Change was the Pow'r who aided Nature's throes ; 
 From Chaos, Change the young Creation woo. 
 Q 2
 
 228 
 
 God on this principle constrncted Man, ' 
 And gave, as earnest of a future state, 
 Life's varied stages, to infer that plan, 
 Will, after death, be follow'd still by Fate. 
 
 " Could not," methinks the voice of Reason cries, 
 " Man undergo these changes and survive 
 " Could not his God, all pow'rful as all wise, 
 " This more congenial, easier mode contrive ?" 
 
 Say first, could life admit of constant change ? 
 " Then why not youth perpetual bless his frame ?" 
 Youth to eternity ! 'twere still more strange, 
 Nor could e'en youth delight, if e'er the same! 
 
 Variety thus constitutes our joys, 
 And on inherent difference these depend ; 
 A heaven itself in long duration cloys ; 
 Whatever is to please must have an end.
 
 I 
 
 229 
 
 Yet not destroy'd - what now exists, 'tis plain, 
 E'er was, and will be to the end of time ; 
 In moulds of novelty 'tis cast again 
 Nature at once begins and ends sublime. 
 
 Trace divine Providence, this law you'll find 
 Pervades all ranks, is thro' all being spread ; 
 From unsubstantial passion of the mind, 
 To living matter and the clod we tread. 
 
 How varies man ! this child of reason see, 
 Each metamorphose from his birth explore ; 
 To youth from childhood, thence to puberty, 
 Husband and father, till he sinks to soar. 
 
 So all these stations differ; if each stage 
 Rose from the formers death ; in feeling, thought, 
 Th' external but remains, which next with age 
 Too disappears, but wherefore sunk to nought ?
 
 230 
 
 Some greater change than could this frame endure, 
 'Tis plain the intellectual man awaits 
 That alterative death performs a cure, 
 And wafts the soul above to future states. 
 
 That, latent sparks, rekindles and relumes, 
 And errors in the former stat<- amends; 
 So renovated nature ever blooms, 
 And spirit still progressive higher tends.
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE SAME. 
 
 (CONTINUED,) 
 
 Sensations, with their causes, come and go ; 
 Still anguish, bliss, and pain of human kind, 
 Are positive, nor wholly lost they flow, 
 But rise in matter and dissolve in mind. 
 
 Tho' more illusive than the breath of heav'n, 
 They pass in mental forms of fancy curl'd ; 
 This way and that, by veering passion driv'n, 
 They recompose the intellectual world.
 
 232 
 
 Nor deem, thou child of circumstance, thy care 
 Thy love, anxiety, though past, no more ; 
 In endless being these partake a share; 
 Thy future days rise out of days of yore. 
 
 As in some state, comparing great with small, 
 Each national event, which moves the whole, 
 Relates in part t' each individual, 
 go the ideal world affects the soul.
 
 ANNIHILATION. 
 
 U nfathom'd yet by metaphysic lore, 
 
 Annihilation ! Reason stands aghast 
 
 O'er thy illimitable drear abyss, 
 
 Where dissolution yawns the world beneath, 
 
 And wreck of beings pass to endless night ! 
 
 E'en Nature trembles near the fearful chasm, 
 
 (Upon whose arid margin, languishing, 
 
 Sublimest flow'rs in violet tints decay) 
 
 And looks with horror on the noiseless gulf, 
 
 To which dread Chaos smiles ! a bournless waste 
 
 Of everlasting time and space inane ; 
 
 Nor ought discovers to arrest her fall
 
 234 
 
 Void, void one dark interminable void ! 
 Then shudd'ring at the universal blank, 
 Stalks o'er the precipice with giddy stride 
 And to the luminous heav'ns inverts her view, 
 The ample volume of futurity ! 
 Contemplating her essence and her form, 
 Amid the blaze of glory there she reads, 
 Or thinks she reads, for all's mysterious, 
 In heavenly hieroglyphics, * Worlds on worlds, 
 Matter and spirit to eternity, 
 Refresh'd and chang'd for ever without end ;* 
 And proudly claims them her inheritance.
 
 THE MOUNTAIN ELEGY. 
 
 Written at the top of the Tumulus upon Lansdown, 
 near Bath. 
 
 1 he mountain my pillow, my dome the blue sky, 
 What scenes 1 discoxer, what lands I descry ! 
 In troubled protub ranee hills peep from afar, 
 Like waves of the ocean when elements war; 
 Till vision grows giddy, and fancy believes 
 They swell and subside, so the picture deceives : 
 Now all in commotion they seem to roll on, 
 A vast steadfast body of matter alone ; 
 So truly they rise, and so truly they fall, 
 The' shorter our lives than each long interval ; 
 How toss'd as in ruin these fragments are hurl'd, 
 The antediluvian remains of a world*. 
 
 Vide Parkinson's Organic Remains.
 
 236 
 
 What scenes of destruction this brings to the mind, 
 What earthquakes, convulsions of water and wind, 
 What vast revolutions since first all began 
 How mutable nature, how mutable man ! 
 How now borne aloft, upon billows of bliss, 
 Now sudden ingulf 'd in a yawning abyss ; 
 Now vaunting his prowess and pow'r o'er himself, 
 Now conquer'd by passions, a mis'rable elf; 
 In youth here he struts, if the world were his own, 
 Here glad to repose and to lay his head down : 
 The leaves are fast falling, how long shall I stay . 
 The friends I most valued are dropping away. 
 
 Here meadows, enclosures, and woods intervene, 
 And like one vast garden the various scene : 
 There Avon meanders, and in its clear glass, 
 Refl< cts the fix d objects and objects that pass ; 
 Beneath are the small habitations of men, 
 As dwindled to Reason, so lost to my ken :
 
 237 
 
 Compress'd in a nook are spires, theatres, domes, 
 The vortex of fashion where all the world comes. 
 Like straws in a whirlpool they move round and round, 
 In emptiness, riot, and luxury drown'd : 
 The tinkling of bt lis now I only can hear, 
 Tho' near to the town, so all fades on the ear. 
 What contrast this city presents to the view, 
 (Whtn drawu in a focus) how strange still how true ! 
 Old age hobbles here to implore second youth, 
 Unwrinkle its front, and new rivet its tooth : 
 The sage and the simple, the serious and gay, 
 Itinerant mortals, and mortals that stay ; 
 At the fountain of health see the invalids rush, 
 And pale wither*d cheeks ask the roseate blush ; 
 Here prodigal pride and economy tend, 
 The one fain to save and the other to spend ; 
 The maim'd here, the blind, and the ugly and fair, 
 The idle and thrifty and spendthrift repair.
 
 238 
 
 An Ant-house it seems, or more trifling, a Cheese, 
 And men but the pismires, or mites, as you please ; 
 Like sparks in burnt paper, they move out and in, 
 And where they once ended again they begin. 
 Each a world to himself, altho' in the sight 
 Of those who surround him, a mere satellite ; 
 And lost in the crowd he ne'er glimmers at all, 
 Till shot like a meteor, he bursts in his fall. 
 But when once dispersed, how his dust Fate collects, 
 That he only knows who all Nature directs.
 
 THE OLD HOUSE. 
 
 Extemporaneous lines written on revisiting an old Family 
 Mansion, after recent melancholy events. 
 
 Thoughts which at Hyde Park Comer I forgot, 
 Meet and rejoin me in the pensive grot. 
 
 Pops. 
 
 xiow does this late familiar scene, 
 With sadly pleasing air condole ! 
 Tho' deck'd by infant Spring with green, 
 A faded form without a soul ! 
 
 Tis dreary in mid-life forlorn, 
 Years in the van and youth behind, 
 Torn, from the best affections torn, 
 With hope less constant and less kind.
 
 240 
 
 O still 'tis home, each object greets me, 
 Former friendships horer round ; 
 Rejoiced the reas'ning dog too meets me, 
 Guard of my paternal ground. 
 
 Behold his faithful fond caresses, 
 Fraught with pure ingenuous feeling j 
 Cherish'd mem'ry he expresses, 
 To a tacit bond appealing. 
 
 Silent orator, thy speeches 
 Need no comment, all can read them ; 
 Nature's claims thy language teaches, 
 Sure as Tully's tongue could plead them. 
 
 Tell, kind animal, of those 
 
 Who late return'd thy warm affection ! 
 
 Say, where now do they repose 
 
 Has death, with them dissolved connexion I
 
 241 , 
 
 O this orchard, lawn, alcove, 
 
 This shady walk, hold conversation ! 
 
 Thoughts involuntary rove, 
 
 And bring to life each lost relation. 
 
 Joy inconstant, thy dominion 
 With the sun's career is changing ; 
 Far remov'd, thy faithless pinion 
 Flits for distant summer ranging. 
 
 Soft, these breezes sigh with mortals, 
 Fleeting shades of friends are weeping ; 
 Spirits, from the heavenly portals, 
 Sooth the soul in sorrow's keeping. 
 
 AERIALS. 
 
 Fly past scenes, sad tender pressure, 
 Anguish deep of retrospection ! 
 Vernal breezes make it fresher, 
 Verdure mocks thy recollection.
 
 242 
 
 Sigh not that thou gain'st life's centre, 
 Dearest friends wrung from thy bosom ; 
 Youth's delightful gates who enter, 
 Face keen storms to blast their blossom. 
 
 Passions fell, or joys unruly, 
 Rise ungovern'd in succession ; 
 Plagues of adolescence truly, 
 Furies when they take possession*. 
 
 * '* These shall (he fury passions tear," Gray,
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 To the Nightingale. 
 
 O thou who pour'st thy soul sublime in sound, 
 And wast'st thy spirit in the sombre strain, 
 When ere with raven pinions closes round, 
 And broods o'er all our intellectual pain j 
 
 Say, melancholy Bard, what tender bliss 
 Or woe still more inspiring prompts thy lay ? 
 (Of dear remembrance) to a pitch like this 
 That throbs, reiterates, and melts away. 
 
 Delicious, thrill the sympathies with thine, 
 Tho' querulous, r- sponsive to thy song ; 
 Which warbles passion words could ill define, 
 And bears with rapture the charm'd soul along. 
 
 R 2
 
 244 
 
 Where, from the world retir'd, the conscious grove 
 Frondiferous, the checquer'd moonlight flings, 
 (Deep colour of our fate and wayward love,) 
 Thou rousest Recollection's thousand stings. 
 
 O cease thy too, too plaintive serenade, 
 With more, much more for heav'n, than mortal ear ; 
 While Nature, list'ning in the vocal shade, 
 Drops o'er thy tale altern th' ethereal tear.
 
 EPITAPH 
 
 On the Author's Father. 
 
 Juxshrin'd, here rests secure from worldly strife, 
 
 And all the anxious toil of busy life, 
 
 * * whose probity ne'er knew a flaw, 
 
 Whose law was honor, and whose word a law. 
 
 Tomb, guard the relics of a man so just, 
 
 Who circumvented none, who broke no trust j 
 
 Whose piety and pure benevolence 
 
 Shunn'd bigot zeal and vain preeminence ; 
 
 Whom partial fondness sway'd not, and who loved 
 
 Alone the objects whom his heart approved ; 
 
 A martyr to long sufferings, sickness, pain, 
 
 His patience all might wish, but few attain.
 
 24(5 
 
 Departed Spirit ! if avail the tears, 
 By mortals shed, when in sublimer spheres ; 
 Turn from celestial cares, regard below 
 Thy weeping widow and thy offspring's wqe !
 
 EPITAPH 
 
 On an amiable young Woman. 
 
 Who's here entomb'd, should traveller enquire, 
 These faithful lines and monument explain 
 ' Cordelia,' whom they living would admire, 
 Whose virtues flourish'd thro' a world of pain. 
 
 Her suff 'ring frame of Nature scarce repin'd, 
 Tho' fell'd, like some fair flow'r, ere youth was spent ; 
 In ruin sweet, with a superior mind, 
 Beneath Fate's unrelenting stroke she bent.
 
 248 
 
 Acquainted long with man's companion, Woi, 
 She smiled at Death, and his directed dart : 
 Her patience spoke him not Life's fellest foe, 
 Resign'd, she yielded up her mortal part. 
 
 The dread destroyer who no virtue spares. 
 Whom pity softens not nor charms control, 
 With malice but releas'dfrom earthly cares, 
 And struck the fetters from Cordelia's soul.
 
 EPITAPH 
 
 On the same. 
 
 CPOIT THE TOMB. 
 
 Here lies Cordelia, who but late combin'd 
 A pleasing form and cultivated mind ; 
 Virtue her dow'r ; which dignifies each state, 
 And renders the possessor truly great. 
 la pain resign'd, tho' young, inur'd to woes, 
 She look'd to death, as Nature's last repose : 
 By all admir'd, but most by those approt'd 
 Who now regret her, as when living lov'd.
 
 EPITAPH 
 ON THE AUTHORS UNCLE. 
 
 UPON THE TOMB. 
 
 Tho' some more fam'd than 4 * * , few you'll see 
 More pious, equal, or from vice so free ; 
 His manly virtues, like a vision past, 
 In action cease, but will in mem'ry last. 
 Facetious, friendly, spirited, sincere, 
 Who knew his character might trace him here ; 
 Emblem of Peace such was the man laid low 
 A friend inscribes this but he had no foe.
 
 EPITAPH 
 
 ON * * * * 
 
 (In imitation of Pope's Epitaphs.) 
 
 O sacred tomb ! the sad remains defend, 
 Of the best wife, best mother, and best friend 
 Who gain'd the happy mean of wrong and right, 
 And adverse qualities could well unite ; 
 "Who gay tho* modest, gen'rous altho' just, 
 Tho' unreserved, tenacious of her trust ; 
 Of ardent temper, still of morals pure, 
 In trials steady, and her word secure ; 
 AVho dared to judge, above the form of rules, 
 And ventur'd to be deem'd a fool, by fools 
 Resign'd in suff 'rings, and her conduct such, 
 She only err'd when she perform 'd too much ; 
 With taste for pleasure, still with home content, 
 Her life all honor'd and her death lament.
 
 ODE 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 DUSSEK. 
 
 Dussek is gone that soul of music's fled, 
 
 To seek her brighter mansion in the skies ; 
 
 Whose breast with suavity of Memnon's lyre,* 
 
 Could at an impulse given, ethereal, 
 
 Pour forth a strain, as fit for gods to hear : 
 
 With native genius, perfected by art, 
 
 As tho' instinctive, and by heav'n inspir'd, 
 
 Whose learned fingers thro' the mazy strings 
 
 Now flew, now paus'd, and press'd the captive tone; 
 
 * " Dimidio magicts resonant ubi Mcmnone chorda.'* 
 Apud Tliebas /Egyptias in templo Serapidis (ut vult Plin. 
 lib. 36, cap. 7,) saxea visebatur Memnonis effigies citharam 
 tenens, quas quotidic Solis oiientis percussa radiis sonum ede- 
 bat citharae similem. Strabo vidit audivitque ; 
 
 Juv. Stat. 15, Delph- Edit,
 
 253 
 
 Swelling the lay to raptures of the bless'd, 
 Or thro' each intermediate bliss and woe, 
 Descending deep to man's despondency 
 
 The world's a lyre on which a cherub plays, 
 And Beings the gradations of its scale ; 
 To angels' ears the sphere-envelop'd Pow'r, 
 With emulous supernal mastery 
 And hand of infinite perfection skill'd, 
 Touches the chord of every living joy, 
 Strain'd to the utmost pitch of ecstasy. 
 Inversely then in modulation's course, 
 He runs all changes thro' of sufferings ; 
 Each agonizing torture of the mind, 
 Harsh dissonance or abstruse harmony, 
 Incomprehensible, but most complete ; 
 Which only souls of matter reft enjoy, 
 And man transfigur'd too shall comprehend. 
 
 That cherub he is now, who late on earth, 
 As with Newtonian skill on solar rays,
 
 254 
 
 Auricular, could blended lights detect, 
 Untwist the subtler feelings of the soul, 
 Or intellectual beam, more undefined. 
 
 On music buoy'd to the celestial quire, 
 Freed from the shackles of mortality, 
 And every teasing and entangling tie, 
 
 He rose in heaven 
 
 to Cramer he bequeath'd 
 
 His mortal lyre ! his heir to excellence.
 
 TO RUBENS. 
 
 EXTEMPORANEOUS LINES 
 
 On contemplating some of his Pictures. 
 
 Rubens, lend me your brush, I would depict, 
 
 As thou to vision, to the mental eye ! 
 
 Heroic feats and legendary lore : 
 
 Enriching all the picturesque design 
 
 With imag'ry from thy ideal world, 
 
 And in the fury of imagination group 
 
 Celestial and infernal deities ; 
 
 Shaping such living subjects to the view, 
 
 As only thy sublime conceptions reach, 
 
 And kindling pencil knew to execute ;
 
 256 
 
 Then curtain the vast fathomless abyss 
 
 With clouds convolv'd, and leave to endless thought 
 
 The dreaded gulf, eternal space behind 
 
 So bold embodying the visible, 
 
 Giving to all the supernat'ral scene 
 
 An air of grandeur and magnificence, 
 
 And life so variously diversify, 
 
 As Nature might look on and borrow forms 
 
 To stock some new created universe.
 
 THE 
 
 SOCJL's DISEASE. 
 
 1 hough sure no friend to Vice, I would detect 
 The jargon of her foes, who aid her cause : 
 Who with each meretricious charm of speech 
 Presume, that Virtue can command all bliss* ; 
 A Tague insinuation often felt 
 By downcast worth an indirect reproach ; 
 Which, though not aim'd at innocence, recoils 
 With force on whom misfortunes throw a shade. 
 
 " And peace, O Virtue, peace is all thy own."
 
 25H 
 
 Still more I would detect her seeming foes y 
 Who with unfeeling and nefarious rant 
 Insult the lapses of humanity ; 
 Who Virtue's license most licentious use ; 
 Whose pleasure is to pain, and still to probe 
 The wounds of Nature they ne'er seek to cure. 
 
 Alike on physical and moral health, 
 The mind as body's happiness depends ; 
 Both, oft declining, ask the aid of art, 
 Life's formidable evils to resist. 
 This axiom once admitted by mankind, 
 The soul's physicians would by science rise 
 To comprehend the mental maladies ; 
 Bid convalescent Vice to Virtue turn, 
 And spare the Executioner much pains. 
 
 This, mountebanks and empirics in grace, 
 
 v Quacks of religion and morality,) 
 
 Ne'er dreaming with presuming ignorance
 
 fi59 
 
 Their dose administer to sick and sane ; 
 And pouring forth infective with grimace, 
 With desperate stimulus inflame the heart, 
 And to perdition hurry on the soul. 
 
 2
 
 THE 
 
 POETS' MEETING 
 
 IN 
 
 $ell.
 
 i
 
 HE 
 
 POETS' MEETING 
 
 IN 
 
 i)ciL 
 
 hen late immortal Pope resign'd the ghost, 
 First Dryden met him on th' infernal coast, 
 Who, holding forth his visionary arms, 
 Embrac'd our poet, of ten thousand charms, 
 And thus address'd " divine successor ! why 
 So early were you doom'd, alas ! to die ? 
 You, to ray memory, so true, so just, 
 To whom my fame alone 'twas safe to trust ? 
 Who e'en extoll'd my verse beyond its due 
 (Mellifluous Pope ! how much I owe to you !) 
 Who late possess'd, much better strung, my lyre, 
 And all my wit, save some few sparks of fire ;
 
 264 
 
 Who rose o'er earthly poets as a God ? 
 
 What if I once excell'd you in an ode, 
 
 Could well translate, and had more pow'r in truth ! 
 
 How flow thy polish'd lines, how pure, how smooth ! 
 
 Thy metre represents no chasm, no rock, 
 
 Secure to please, and certain ne'er to shock. 
 
 Ah Pope, I've long been doing penance here, 
 
 For idle sallies, satire too severe ; 
 
 For panegyric undeserv'd, more rash ; 
 
 Obscenity, and ribaldry, and trash : 
 
 Hail, happy Genius, to these realms below, 
 
 You will not here have much to undergo." 
 
 " Alas, my father Dryden," answered Pope, 
 " E'en I've to fear too much you bid me hope ; 
 My January and May, and Wife of Bath, 
 These will not pass ; they will provoke some wrath ; 
 The laws of Minos will not pass o'er these ; 
 Priests of Apollo should not loosely please : 
 But since we're met, O Dryden, let us go 
 And visit each departed Bard below ;
 
 265 
 
 Lead me to Shakespeare's ever honour'd shade, 
 
 And Milton's" Dryden's Ghost obey'd 
 
 But adds, " Why haste ? -no time we spirits know, 
 
 Time governs men above, not ghosts below ; 
 
 For after death, to the immortal soul, 
 
 Hours, days, and years, without distinction roll : 
 
 Here is no future, Nature's at a stand, 
 
 And, past and present, all are at command." 
 
 'Mid shades they move, when many tuneful sprites 
 Salute them as they pass, (once famous wights) 
 111 sorted ghosts of every age they greet, 
 Whom indiscriminately mixt they meet. 
 When Dryden thus to Pope " these once rank'd high, 
 And e'en bid fair for immortality. 
 But now forgotten candidates of fame, 
 And quite obscur'tl each transitory name." 
 Then leading to a fair romantic scene, 
 Where visionary trees, which trees had been, 
 Disportive grew, and spread each spiritual bough, 
 As fairest trees on earth are wont to grow ;
 
 $66 
 
 And o'er a pebbled floor soft trickled down |* 
 
 A musical cascade, as fiction's own ; 
 
 Said Dryden " there behold/' and pointing, smil'd 
 
 " See there reposes Nature's darling child ! 
 
 That's Shakespeare s shade upon yon bed of flow'rg, 
 
 Lull'd from all care 'mid aromatic show'rs; 
 
 His gay creative fancy still survives, 
 
 In death still his imagination lives ; 
 
 For his perennial laurel never fades ; 
 
 He makes Elysium to surrounding shades : 
 
 He had no fault e'en when he loosely writ, 
 
 The peccadillo was not wanton wit, 
 
 He did but to a barbarous age submit. 
 
 " Hard by his eldest brother Spenser dreams> 
 And in his sleep imagination teems. 
 
 " Poor rev'rend Milton there is troubled sore ; 
 That shade behind him was King Charles of yore ; 
 He persecutes our predecessor Bard, 
 Nor has for all his metre much regard ;
 
 267 
 
 Not all his angels and his devils join'd , 
 
 Could give relief, so follow'd close behind * 
 
 But heav'n still interposing, prompts him forth, 
 
 In virtue of his late transcendent worth; 
 
 He thus advances on his royal foe, 
 
 Who else would triumph o'er the Bard below ; 
 
 That wings his speed his late perfections yield 
 
 Superior fleetness in th' infernal field. 
 
 i 
 
 " Cowley and Waller there in death. like sleep, 
 Quiescent an eternal silence tteep." 
 
 Swift, when he saw our Poets, ran in haste 
 With arms extended, and his friend embraced, 
 And laughing in his keen sarcastic style, 
 E'en cheer'd the gloom of Erebus the while. 
 But Addison, more grave, at Pope look'd stern, 
 Tho' smiled, soon after, Dryden to discern, 
 Then sat him down, and o'er a volume spread, 
 A spotless leaf it seemed, he leant his head.
 
 Then sprightly Prior join'd our Sards with Gay ; 
 And Batler full of pun, who led the way : 
 The latter was too merry and too droll, 
 Like a buffoon he kick'd a motley scroll. 
 And there was Thomson guiltless in his age ; 
 Whose breast no thought defil'd, no word his page j 
 And Young unblemished, follow'd from life's stage. 
 
 Let not Anachronisms if slight, repel, 
 Anachronisms are reconcil'd in Hell : 
 Here all is present, (absent from the sun,) 
 And strange to thought, all tenses are in one. 
 
 More modern Poets by this time arrived, 
 Who even Pope's mortality survived : 
 Collins and Gray in charming concert sung, 
 Their strains were moral and their lyres well strung; 
 Good Cowper, feeling Goldsmith, virtuous men, 
 And Herculaean Johnson, meeting Ben ! 
 Dyer and Akenside, with many more, 
 Too tedious and too numerous to score
 
 269 
 
 Who, all of high desert, from Nature late, 
 Fill'd up the train assembled there by fate. 
 
 From these they pass, when starting from a bush, 
 
 They see a rough unsightly savage rush ; 
 
 (A club, like Hercules was wont to bear, 
 
 He wields splay-mouth 'd, with eyes that widely stare ; 
 
 Pope shrunk alarmed, but Dryden did not care : 
 
 When Dryden thus " let not this ghost appal, 
 
 Tho' blust'ring Churchill's, for 'tis vision all : 
 
 Here let him rave, nor club, nor his abuse, 
 
 Can ought avail him, they're of little use ; 
 
 His malice but recoils upon his mind 
 
 He pitied not while he revil'd mankind. 
 
 Mankind should be admonish'd, not abash 'd, 
 
 And vice not furiously, but keenly lash'd. 
 
 But see, we're not the objects of his hate, 
 
 There's Hogarth's shade, his mortal foe of late." 
 
 \ 
 
 Here rush'd another, tho' not quite so grim, 
 A sort of savage in a Parson's trim ;
 
 But o'er, his shoulders hung a shaggy ny6$, * 
 
 Which ftll'd the breezes, by a goat supplied : 
 
 Pope seemed to recollect, and Dryden too, 
 
 Although, as if asham'd that once they knew, 
 
 They turn'd aside ; but closely he pursued, 
 
 When Pope was thus reviled with language rude 
 
 " Do you not know me ? treat me not with scorn, 
 
 I was a poet long ere you were born ; 
 
 My name is Donne ! you versified my verse, 
 
 And for your pains receive my hearty curse 
 
 With vicious taste you weaken'd every line, 
 
 Which was all energy, all nerve, divine ! 
 
 And smoothing to a level with your own, 
 
 You false interpreter! in haughty tone, 
 
 You call'd your misconstructions polish'd Donne V* 
 
 Chaucer, with cyprian dames, his fate bewail'd, 
 And, in Donne's style, at Pope and Dryden railed. 
 
 Here o'er a grave reclin'd with stupid stare, 
 Who much purloin'd applause, unpolish'd Blair !
 
 271 ;- 
 
 For stolen beauties and for faults his own/ 
 This dismal Plagiary was doom'd to moan*. * 
 Upon a pedestal there near at hand, 
 Was Rochester, Priapus of the land ; 
 And at a distance many a smutty rogue, 
 'Mong whom was Wycherly, stuck in a bog- 
 Here Somerville was hunted by a stag, 
 And Blackmore doom'd ten thousand books to drag. 
 
 Said Dryden, " to this foreign bard we'll speak ; 
 His converse, so facetious, I would seek ; 
 'Twas he remoy'd the bandage from the eyes 
 Of error, bid the age of reason rise ; 
 If graceless men his memory belie, 
 And call him atheist, 'tis rank blasphemy ; 
 
 The Author is fearful that the above sentence will give 
 offence to many, the admirers of this poet but no blame 
 attaches to himself, as in the Infernal Regions matters are 
 very differently decided to what they are in our sublunary 
 sphere.
 
 272 
 
 His muse was most intrepid for mankind, 
 
 But men are to their benefactors ever blind. 
 
 " I know him not." " Not know him, you declare, 
 
 Why that is our ingenious friend Voltaire." 
 
 " Is that Voltaire ? well, we were never friends !" 
 
 " Pope, 'tis not too late to make amends ; 
 
 E'en Young, e'en pious Young and Goldsmith too, 
 
 His worth acknowledge, and his friendship woo*; 
 
 He never made an age's fault his own, 
 
 As a philosopher he stood alone ; 
 
 So bards should lead, and not be led by times ; 
 
 Rather their lives be faulty than their rhymes ! 
 
 The times, pretence of each vain miscreant bard, 
 
 Who for morality has small regard. 
 
 Said Pope, " but infidelity aside, 
 
 He was licentious too" the friend replied, 
 
 # " I'd ne'er forgive so great a foe 
 To my dear friend Voltaire," 
 
 Young's Eetignatlm.
 
 273 
 
 " Grant 'mid his hundred volumes, once or twice, 
 Still he ne'er mix'd morality with vice ; 
 A renial fault with one who wrote so long, 
 So moral, various, both in prose and song ; 
 Tho' gay his page, not oft the matron dame, 
 Nor virgin Innocence can blushing blame. 
 Pope, real virtue here, not feign'd we ask ; 
 Ghosts are not squeamish but each vice unmask, 
 And virtue, tho' appearances deter, 
 Are ever foremost ready to aver." 
 
 Dryden accosts the rev'rend shade who stood, 
 As if still pondering on mortal's good ; 
 Benign he look'd, complacent and serene, 
 A.nd satire was so mellowed in his mien, 
 Mixed with philanthropy still piercing keen. 
 He quick replied, and friendly hail'd the pair, 
 With wit as voluble, as light as air : 
 And recollecting Pope said, " Pope divine !" 
 Addressing then Corneille and Racine, 
 " I knew his merit, but he ne'er knew mine.' 
 T
 
 274 
 
 The Bards here reconcil'd and free of heart, 
 Awhile discourse ; from Voltaire now they part. 
 And pass the Roman and the Grecian school, 
 Authors of verse and founders of each rule ; 
 There Homer, Virgil, Horace, Ovid's shade, 
 Bow'd as they pass'd, and own'd their modern aid ; 
 Lucretius blushed for his licentious tale, 
 And Persius hung his head and Juvenal ; 
 Anacreon was conscious of some shame, 
 Who still was sentenced, altho' quenched his flame, 
 With endless draughts to expiate his sin, 
 To gorge and to regorge and quaif agen. 
 
 Here they repose awhile, and here with gloom, 
 Converse with shades where Pope awaits his doom.
 
 ON THE STAGE. 
 
 Written during the prevailing Taste for Ger- 
 man Plays. 
 
 Vim 
 
 Dignam lege regi." 
 
 lion. An. P. 
 
 Whether to trace the error in the town, 
 Or in some cause of sinister renown ; 
 Tis plain the British worthies of the age, 
 As ships the Syrtes shun, avoid the stage ; 
 Or sculk behind some strange eccentric name 
 And emulation yield of lasting fame. 
 
 " We've no tragedians now"- -the trite retort- 
 Fy, Britons '. that ye credit the report ! 
 t 2
 
 276 
 
 As Pelion upon Ossa plays, you'll meet 
 Pre-doom'd, in Catharine and Marlbro' Street ; 
 Of Shakespeare's land we quench the native fire, 
 And to the artless Tibia yield the lyre ; 
 Pleased with each weed which in Gennania blows, 
 And scent the tawdry poppy for the rose. 
 
 No bigot to our own maternal tongue, 
 Nor one who deems each polish'd neighbour wrong, 
 Thus insulated speaks if need to roam, 
 The muses may be woo'd remote from home ; 
 The world is wide, and foreigners have skill, 
 (Perhaps more masters of the tragic quill ;) 
 But let us then some chaster goddess choose, 
 And shun each perking, vain, affected muse ; 
 Nor with mechanic prose, inflated, mean, 
 Weaken the pathos and debase the scene. 
 
 If deem'd too rigid Greek and Romaii schools. 
 Let's emulate the French and Tuscan rules ;
 
 277 
 
 Plays from their models drawn would please the Town, 
 Did our Dictators blast not with a frown, 
 Our city not so raw as these pretend 
 Say citizens, whom most to reprehend ? 
 
 Who wear the buskin should select, discern; 
 Or of their science the worst half they learn : 
 Should zealously promote and hold the meed, 
 Ere the loud trump of Fame for merit plead ; 
 Should foster Tragedy, whose nervous style 
 Unfettered charms (the genius of our Isle !) 
 And not with pedantry too far presume 
 On histrionic gesture or costume 
 But all is specious, interest is the goal, 
 Though cross'd by spleen's more absolute control. 
 
 Does wit, distinguishing this age, refuse 
 Its wonted aid to the dramatic muse ? 
 Or were more barbarous unletter'd reigns 
 Alone auspicious to poetic strains ?
 
 278 
 
 No ! reason, patriotism, good faith disown it ! 
 
 " Though shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it." 
 
 It is a libel, palpable, untrue ; 
 
 And guardian laws should watch o'er poets too ; 
 Should rest from privilege the power to wrong, 
 Or Dulness to decide the Thespian song.
 
 Cije <&ualtties of mj> jfrfeniju 
 
 *' Nil admirari, prope res est una, Numici, 
 Solaque quae possit facere, et servare beatum." 
 
 Hon. Epist. 6. 
 
 I ask'd of heav'n a friend a friend who'd hare 
 The qualities I'll name and this heav'n gave : 
 
 A mind correct, by passion undisturb'd, 
 Or whose good conduct every passion curb'd ; 
 Unprone to censure, yet with judgment nice, 
 Whose penetration borders not on vice ; 
 Though fram'd for business, and with solid parts, 
 Still not the less alive to finer arts ; 
 Most strict himself, to others least severe, 
 Pleasant and affable, and still sincere. 
 " But what most prominent ?" we must reply 
 Above the rest far his integrity ! 
 Who know <h' original will not dispute, 
 But all exclaim " this portrait's meant for * * * * *.'
 
 To J. M. P. Esq. 
 
 LAST, BUT NOT LEAST. 
 
 "SV R not to thee this trifling tribute due, 
 Then inclination would dictate it too : 
 But much I owe your friendship though to pay 
 Is less spontaneous than to give away ; 
 Yet when like mine, the obligation's large, 
 Can a few sing-song lines the debt discharge ? 
 Then with your wonted kindness now excuse 
 Your praise, which would ask volumes of the Muse ; 
 Who, tired with her first flight, gives o'er oppress'd, 
 Rustles her plumage, and sinks down to rest !
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 ^otms, epigrams, etc.
 
 epigrams* 
 
 On National Prejudice in a Writer, who railed 
 at the Introduction of foreign Improvements. 
 
 Say, moon-calf satyrist, why all this spite 
 'Gainst foreign arts, lest vice should grow polite. 
 All mores thy equal hate of bel esprit, 
 From music, dancing, down to fricassee. 
 Are brawny limbs alone a wise man's boast ? 
 Do virtue, sense, consist in boil'd and roast ? 
 Dismiss the barb'rous, the unmanner'd sneers 
 Think all thy fellow mortals thy compeers.
 
 284 
 
 On the same. 
 
 Y e men of dogma, not more free from rice, 
 Ruled by the herd, oft slaves of prejudice ; 
 In nought superior, save in fluent tongue, 
 Fools, though all dialects to you belong ; 
 Each foible of mankind, a tender shoot, 
 In the scholastic ground takes deeper root : 
 Alarm'd, dear British rust, to brush away ; 
 O dread presage ! may Britons see the day- 
 And if some vice to England must remain, 
 May it be cleans'd of the unpolish'd staia
 
 285 
 On STYLE. 
 
 O may my varied lay of mirth or spleen 
 Be govern'd ever, and still flow between 
 Th' insipid innocence of Gessner's style, 
 And rancour of a furious Churchill's bile. 
 
 On the Same. 
 
 " The art of writing is the art to blot," 
 Quoth Waller ; but, alas 1 he knew it not. 
 
 On CLAP TRAPS. 
 
 1 he art to write is not to merit praise, 
 But how t' entrap the public in your lays ; 
 Tickle their fancy, till the Muse cries Shame* 
 This will secure, and this alone, your fame.
 
 286 
 
 To a SATIRIST. 
 
 Keen satirist, whose philanthropic mind, 
 When most severe, to virtue most inclin'd ; 
 T" assert the rights of Reason's empire born, 
 Whom only fools and bigots brand with scorn. 
 
 EPIGRAPH on the Same. 
 
 Others could dare to energy of thought, 
 But Superstition marr'd what Nature wrought ; 
 Their brightest vision, and their highest flight, 
 A veil mysterious wrapt from Reason's light ; 
 But here behold, whom Reason claims her own, 
 Who Folly petrified with Wisdom's frown.
 
 287 
 
 On MARRIAGE. 
 
 " Not married ? do you wedlock hate f 
 Or why a bachelor, still, Harry V 
 
 " No, wedlock is a charming state, 
 
 And I reserve the pow'r to marry." 
 
 On TRAGEDY. 
 
 For Tragedy we have no further use- 
 Melpomene resigns to Mother Goose. 
 
 On ONE who would sing. 
 
 We hear of Birds that can and will not sing ; 
 But surely Man's a more incongruous thing, 
 For even when he can not, he will sing ! 
 
 i
 
 288 
 THEORY AND PRACTICE. 
 
 Let not this worst of solecisms prevail, 
 ' In theory good, in practice it would fail ;' 
 That theory's false, which can not be applied, 
 For practice must by theory first be tried. 
 
 To a CONNOISSEUR. 
 
 jVI Y friend, in poetry and painting too, 
 Our judgments often diff 'rent paths pursue ; 
 Show us some master piece of art, we halt 
 I fix upon a beauty, you a fault. 
 
 Why Man prefers the Title Knave to Fo(?[. 
 
 1 he reason's plain why Man's more loth, 
 The title foot than knave to own ; 
 Because a knave, means knare alone, 
 But fool's an epithet for both.
 
 289 
 
 On a Company of Dancers viewed from without* 
 
 jages who human actions criticise, 
 Oft' err the most to deem their own more wise 
 Their wit arises from deficiencies ! 
 Since, not partakers of the general joy, 
 They judge not by the pleasure, but alloy : 
 So from without who views this dancing group, 
 (Nor hears the music to the merry hop) 
 Deems jigging sots devoid of sense within, 
 None compos mentis but who gaze and grin. 
 
 \ 
 
 On an IMPROMPTU. 
 
 Friend, what is an impromptu ?" " 'tis a joke^ 
 Which is long studied, only quickly spoke !"
 
 290 
 
 TRUE FRIENDS, 
 
 VV ith ease they can be gentle, who, lukewarm, 
 View with indifference your weal or harm ; 
 Time-serving friends, who move with your career ; 
 Who yield your future to their present fear. 
 But they who'd stop your ruin's headlong course, 
 Spare not strong arguments of words nor force ; 
 Nor heed your anger ; but against your will, 
 Outstrip authority, and serve you still.
 
 291 
 
 The DEVIL'S QUESTION. 
 
 1 he Devil was ask'd a question oncej 
 And begg'd that he'd sincerely tell, 
 (You know the Detil is no dunce) 
 
 What sinner sent most souls to Hell ? 
 
 Whether some flagrant, roving thief, 
 Some atheist void of heavenly fear ; 
 
 Or whether some conqu'ring crested chief, 
 Or public executioner. 
 
 Pug grinn'd with jaws so ghastly wide, 
 And turn'd so arch his saucer eyes j 
 
 And thus malignantly replied, 
 
 With looks significant and wise : 
 u 1
 
 292 
 
 " D' you mean who speeds them on their way, 
 Or who directs their downward course ? 
 
 The Doctor I engage to slay, 
 
 The Zealot in my path to force/'
 
 EPITAPH 
 
 Upon a Lady's Dog. 
 
 1 his tablet, gentle reader, claims a tear 
 If one you have to shed, O shed it here ; 
 For here lies Beau^ the best of beaux indeed, 
 No lobby-lounger, but a quadruped. 
 With social virtues overflow'd his heart, 
 Though void of speech those virtues to impart ; 
 Which proves profession most our nature suits, 
 That Men give precepts, but examples Brutes.
 
 294 
 
 The CAPTIOUS. 
 
 Say why dp Wits pass faults, which Dolts adyance? 
 These search for knowledge, those for ignorance ; 
 So foreigners to natiyes often teach 
 Vernacular inaccuracy of speech. 
 So demireps keep modesty in awe, 
 And earliest discover a. faux pas ! 
 
 On the Same. 
 
 With feline art, sharp witlings criticise, 
 Whose little souls look through their little eyes ; 
 JCeen mousers, who small blemishes detect, 
 And greater faults and beauties both neglect; 
 Not so true critics, their unbiass'd sight 
 E'en from the darkest page elicits light.
 
 '295 
 On SATIRE. 
 
 AIany satires I see, and many I read, 
 
 And many deserve them, 'tis too true, indeed ; 
 
 But wh<>n they're ungen'rous, I join in Young's words, 
 
 O let wits draw their pens as seldom as swords*. 
 
 On ENVY. 
 
 Vices increase by censure overnice, 
 
 And deeming every shade of virtue vice. 
 
 Ye who extol to some rejected fair 
 
 A sister's charms, and envy call her care ; 
 
 Who tantalze each feeling of the heart, 
 
 And when you've wounded, stigmatize the smart ; 
 
 You're culpable we pity more than blame 
 
 Nature's infirmities in every frame. 
 
 " Then draw your wit as seldom as your sword," 
 
 Young's Love of Fame.
 
 296 
 On the VULGAR. 
 
 How are the vulgar from their betters known ?' 
 M By asking questions these would let alone." 
 
 On the Same. A Parody on YOUNG. 
 
 JlE who is vulgar has no fault but one, 
 All other vices pass for virtues in hun. 
 
 QUOTATION. 
 i l Odi profanum vulgus, et arceo. 
 
 Upon WRITERS. 
 
 Philosophers write books t' improve mankind, 
 "Which end in pleasing the enlighten'd mind ; 
 "While common mortals, undisturb'd, pursue 
 fheir \itious course, and scorn the book-read few.
 
 Dr. BARWIWs 
 
 TEMPLE OF NATURE. 
 
 Darwin, thy verse is like an Indian screen, 
 
 A gairish painting of a grotesque scene ; 
 
 Where rivers, mountains, temples from afar, 
 
 Rise o'er each other perpendicular ; 
 
 Without perspective ; and though well conceiv'd, 
 
 Yet all so prominent and unreliev'd ; 
 
 While Nature's several kingdoms so combine, 
 
 And mingled in a mass, confusedly shine, 
 
 With fancy's strong, heterogeneous forms, 
 
 Aerial, men, aquatics, minerals, worms;
 
 298 
 
 The gauly group dipt in the varied bow- 
 Seems well adapted for a raree show*. 
 
 The beauties of Dr. Darwin are of so attractive a na- 
 ture, that the. few satirical lines abov, neither can lessen, 
 nor were inten'Sei to detract from the merits of that truly 
 ordinal Genius; of whom perhaps the author i? one of the 
 warmest adnirers; Tii? Doctor's very imperfections Kre pleas- 
 ing ; 'he glare of who^e fancy, and the crow Jing of whose 
 imagery, while they often weary the reader, never fail to 
 impress the mind with the wonderful power* of bis ima- 
 gination ; but the many awkward copyists that have since 
 appeared of this Author, perhaps prove tlr.t his works are 
 not to be regarded as proper models for good *ritiDg.
 
 ettt 
 
 TO 
 
 TAUTOLOGY. 
 
 Thou last great Prophet of Tautology." Dryd. 
 
 O fairest of the Janus race, 
 Thou Goddess of the double face, 
 Thy favor yet if mortals hope, 
 (With Milton, Addison, and Pope) 
 Then " heavenly Goddess" leave the sky, 
 Dtscend, come down, Tautology ! 
 Like Janus end the dread campaign, 
 Where thousands are " untimely slain,' 
 And to mankind give peace again. 
 
 With fair cerulean azure eye, 
 So like tiie " blue ethereal Sky,"
 
 300 
 
 Shed thy kind influence as of yore, 
 And bide with mortals evermore ; 
 A Temple we'll erect of thine, 
 And offer incense on thy shrine ; 
 No more shall tyrants ope thy gate, 
 No more its hinges harshly grate ; 
 Nor " back recoil" when next we close, 
 But keep e'er shut in calm repose. 
 Should e'en Bellona and fierce Mars 
 Excite the world to future wars, 
 No more may w r retched mortals pour 
 Upon the Earth their " crimson gore." 
 Then all our Bards again to thee, 
 Shall raise their voice, Tautology !
 
 CHARADE. 
 
 The Subject given by a Lady. 
 
 AlYjirst like magic is so versatile, 
 
 Not good queen Mab so oft can change her style ; 
 
 Each substance it assumes, to mimic fate, 
 
 Of matter living or inanimate ; 
 
 Corporeal state or incorporeal suits 
 
 Its half terrestrial heav'nly attributes. 
 
 ' lis now a deadly implement of war, 
 
 Now milliners have thousands in their care. 
 
 Of yore with Iris' varied tints 'twas given, 
 The pledge of peace and corenant of heav'n ; 
 But evanescent as the transient ray 
 Of human bliss it fades in tears away. 
 " The airy nothing," offspring of the storm, 
 Then more embodied struts a sprightly form ;
 
 302 
 
 Such as a lady condescends to prize, 
 
 Won by the lustre of a pair of eyes ; 
 
 A gallant youth, whose generous breast is warm, 
 
 Susceptible of every female charm. 
 
 My second is a toast a lady fair ; 
 An instrument which servants hate to hear ; 
 By botanists and bees 'tis known full well, 
 The latter draw mellifluence from its cell j 
 It traverses the depth of Ocean's cave, 
 And brings the atmosphere below the wave* 
 
 My all proverbial is, my iron tongue, 
 Loud as the tocsin's often heard ding dong. 
 
 Now reader, if you cannot tell, 
 Your best way is to ask Bow- Bell ; 
 I hear you now exclaiming, Oh ! 
 I've found you out the Bell at Bow !
 
 APOLLO decides a difficult Question. 
 
 I wo wits who vied for fame t'Apollo sped ; 
 One most had studied rules, one most had read ; 
 Each wrote, and in his rival's works could find 
 An ample field to prove his shrewder mind. 
 This ever could detect a squeamish fault, 
 And this as oft a paucity of thought. 
 Apollo was entreated to decide ; 
 Who thus without reflection straight replied : 
 My friend, your page is maculate, 'tis true- 
 But yours, alas ! what can I say to you ? 
 Something surpasses nothing, and 'tis clear, 
 With every blemish, his, I must prefer. 
 Thy current ever runs an even course, 
 No contrast here of weakness, there of force :
 
 304 
 
 'Mong many faults of his, some beauties shine, 
 We weigh each beauty, not each faulty line ; 
 If faults decide, a blank's more free than thine J 
 
 MITIGATION* 
 
 Otill let none slight, but who have studied, rules ; 
 For Pedants still precedence have of Fools.
 
 S05 
 
 To Critique Writers on the Fine Arts. 
 
 1 e wordy Critics who in Arts decide, 
 Although to none you have yourselves applied ; 
 Who run your technic nomenclature o'er 
 In terms so flush, in science only poor ; 
 Enriching art with more than artists know, 
 And what you've borrow'd gen'rously bestow ; 
 While rounded periods from your pen or tongue, 
 Glide ever musical and ever wrong ; 
 With volubility that whoso hears, 
 Content with sound, to science stops his cars : 
 O cease to give your arbitrary law, 
 Bow to professors, ne'er your masters awe !
 
 306 
 
 On the same. 
 
 1 e tuneful triflers, who in verse or prose, 
 Dabble with arts, and your own want expose ; 
 Who ne'er intelligible, although indeed 
 Not few you have the glory to mislead ; 
 O take this friendly hint, to leave alone 
 All science but the sing song to ye known : 
 For while ye praise so rashly, or condemn ; 
 None understand you, and the wise contemn ; 
 And list'ning to your incoherent strain, 
 Would cure your mania, tho' you'd turn their brain,
 
 307 
 
 To the Thoughtless, 
 
 YV hy ridicule the act, the feeling blame, 
 
 Which from the spider would the fly reclaim ; 
 
 Since from the reptile, in gradation due, 
 
 'Twould link the world in sympathy to you ? 
 
 Let not this bold assertion ease thy mind, 
 
 " This all is nature, and by heav'n design'd :" 
 
 Would you not bless the arm, if stretch'd to save 
 
 Your individual carcass from the grave ? 
 
 From the fierce tiger's unrelenting claw, 
 
 Or rav'nous wolf ; though Nature gave the law ? 
 
 On the Same. 
 
 If after ages grow more humaniz'd, 
 And present cruelty almost forgot ; 
 How will the reader, shudd'ring, be surpris'd, 
 At living lobsters in a boiling pot. 
 x 2
 
 THE BOOBY SON. 
 
 My sou, my booby son's a bashful boy, 
 Alike unfit for pleasure or employ ! 
 Surpass'd by all his comrades in his school, 
 So dull, so delicate, a very fool." 
 
 " Sir, you mistake his qualities the youth 
 (Although too delicate, I grant, forsooth) 
 Resembles a fair plant that droops, confiu'd, 
 With liberty alone expands the mind. 
 His finer feeling circumstance annoys, 
 In harmony not with surrounding boys. 
 Genius is independent, for the soul 
 Can far less than the body bear control ;
 
 S09! 
 
 While human expletives who need support 
 Creep in the herd, and suit with every sort. 
 
 As the tall cedar, on the mountain grows, 
 And spreads pyramidal its princely boughs ; 
 To heav'n aspires with energy its own, 
 Brooks no restraint, and thrives on Lebanon : 
 So Genius cannot ail conditions bear, 
 But flourishes at large as free as air.
 
 310 
 
 MERCURY AND PHCEBUS; 
 
 OR 
 
 THE REWARD OF MERIT. 
 
 Says Phoebus to Merc'ry, " here take this sprig down, 
 And to some good Poet bestow as a crown." 
 Says Merc'ry to Phoebus, " but you name the sage." 
 Says Phoebus to Merc'ry, " the Pope of the age." 
 Says Merc'ry, " who's he ? that is no clew to me!" 
 Says Sol, " you say he, but you'll think 'tis not he." 
 Says Merc'ry, " then Phoebus, I'm sure you mean Shee !'
 
 A DOZEN ATTEMPTS 
 
 TO EQUAL DR. JOHNSON, 
 
 In translating the following Lines under a Print 
 representing Persons skating. 
 
 Sur un mince crystal V hyver conduit leurs pas, 
 
 Le precipice est sous la glace ; 
 Telle est de nos plaisirs la leg resurface, 
 
 Glistez, mortels, n'appuyez pas. 
 
 O'er ice the rapid skater flies, 
 
 With sport above, and death belovr ; 
 Where mischief lurks in gay disguise, 
 Thus lightly touch, and swiftly go. 
 
 Dr. Johnson.
 
 312 
 
 By the Same. An Impromptu. 
 
 " O'er crackling ice, and gulfs profound, 
 With nimble glide the skaters play ; 
 
 O'ertreach'rous pleasures tlow'ry ground, 
 Thus lightly skim and haste away."
 
 S13 
 
 T. 
 
 As sk iters skim the crystal way, 
 
 By Winter led o'er gulfs below ; 
 So on life**- s'ip >ery joys we're gay, 
 
 But mortals glide on, look not through i 
 
 II. 
 
 As sknters on frail crys f al meads, 
 
 \\ ith Winter glide o'er gulfs profound ; 
 
 So joy a tr^ac'i'rous surface treads, 
 
 But sto^ not on the slipp'ry ground. 
 
 III. 
 
 I on brittle surface Winter spreads, 
 On which the h< edless skater hie9 ; 
 
 The path so sliop'ry mortal treads, 
 
 Then glide on, nor too soon be wise.
 
 314 
 
 IV. 
 
 As slipp'ry as the skater's ground, 
 
 Which smiles so smooth, so false below, 
 
 Is superficial joy unsound ; 
 
 Still mortals glide on, look not through ! 
 
 V. 
 
 As skaters skim the fragile ground, 
 
 Nor heed the yawning gulf beneath j 
 
 So blithesome be o'er bliss unsound, 
 Nor look on danger and on death. 
 
 VI. 
 
 As Winter smooths the skater's snare, 
 And hides a fearful gulf below ; 
 
 So Fate spreads danger, smiling fair : 
 Reflect not mortal, swiftly go.
 
 315 
 
 VTI. 
 
 As skaters swiftly glide along, 
 
 Nor heed the treach'rous ice below ; 
 So on life's surface gaily throng, 
 
 The fair exterior look not through. 
 
 VTII. 
 
 As skaters' steps, by Winter led, 
 Glide o'er a precipice below ; 
 
 So, if on pleasure's ground you tread, 
 Mortal, enough for you to know ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 As skaters sporting on the ice, 
 
 Heed not the snares of Fate below ; 
 
 Since pleasure hides life's prfcipice, 
 
 So meet not fate, nor pause on woe.
 
 316 
 
 X. 
 
 Bihold how skaters nimbly slide, 
 
 Where frost has yon frail surface spread ; 
 
 So on precarious pleasures glide, 
 
 The present's marr'd by future dread. 
 
 XL 
 
 As skaters on the ice, elate, 
 
 Ne'er Frost's uncertain tenure fear ; 
 So leave the future still to Fate, 
 
 Nor ills forestall, when joys are near. 
 
 XII. 
 
 1 ake pattern, stranger, from this pleasant group ; 
 
 'Tis a fine allegory there you see 
 All joy above, all danger if you stoop ; 
 
 Such is the skater's ground, and such mortality. 
 
 THE END.
 
 ERRATA 
 
 Page 5, Line 3, for E'en, Sol place the comma after Sol 
 
 45 # 27, Introduction, for Muse's rtign read Muses 
 
 reign 
 
 102, 1, for La Voila read Le Foila 
 
 m 12, for incounu read inconnu 
 
 107, last line, for light of reason read voice of reason 
 
 119, 4, for Spencer read Spenser 
 
 10, for Beldames read Beldams 
 
 122, 16, for see the archjiend read see, df-c. 
 
 125, 8, for Sampson read iamson 
 
 127, 3, for Bocaccio read Boccacio 
 
 ISO, last line, for exalts the minds read exalts the mind 
 
 143, 4, for there endure read they endure 
 
 150, 4, for iusolves read involves 
 
 152, . 8, Vwould place apostrophe before the T 
 
 -, note, for They are not many, read There are, &c. 
 
 1S4, 15, for their science absolute, read there, &c. 
 
 188, 4, for ee'n read e'en 
 
 2S3, 5, for wreck ef beings pass, read wrecks, &c. 
 
 269, 5, omit the parenthesis before club 
 
 276, 1, for as Pelion upon Ossa plays, read as Pe- 
 
 lion upon Ossa, Plays 
 
 278, 6, for rest read wrest 
 
 309, 1, human expletives, place a hyphen instead 
 
 of the rule 
 
 . 311,' 3 of the verse, for h'g resurface read le'gere 
 
 surface
 

 
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