Nor would the' enamoured Muse neglect to
To Stanhope's worth the tributary lay;
The soul unstain'd, the sense sublime to paint,
A people's patron, pride, and ornament!
Did not his virtues eternized remain
The boasted theme of Pope's immortal strain.
Not e'en the pleasing task is left, to raise
A grateful monument to Barnard's praise;
Else should the venerable patriot stand
The' unshaken pillar of a sinking land.
The gladdening prospect let me still pursue:
And bring fair Virtue's triumphs to the view!
Alike to me, by fortune bless'd or not,
From soaring Cobham to the melting Scot.2
But lo! a swarm of harpies intervene,
To ravage, mangle, and pollute the scene!
Gorged with our plunder, yet still gaunt for spoil,
Rapacious Gideon fastens on our isle;
Insatiate Lascelles, and the fiend Vaneck,3
Rise on our ruins, and enjoy the wreck;
While griping Jaspart glories in his prize,
Wrung from the widow's tears and orphan's cries.
Relapsed again! strange tendency to rail;
I fear'd this meekness would not long prevail.
You deem it rancour then ?-Look round and sce
What vices flourish still, unpruned by me:
Corruption roll'd in a triumphant car,
Displays his burnish'd front and glittering star
Nor heeds the public scorn, or transient curse,
Unknown alike to honour and remorse.
1 The Earl of Chesterfield.
2 Daniel Mackercher, Esq., a man of such primitive simplicity, that he may be said to have exceeded the scripture injunction, by not only parting with his cloak and coat, but with his shirt also, to relieve a brother in distress-Mr. Annesley, who claimed the Anglesea title and estate.
3 A triumvirate of contractors, who, scorning the narrow views of private usury, found means to lay a whole state under contribution, and pillage a kingdom of immense sums, under the protection of law.
4 A Christian of bowels, who lends money to his friends in want, at the moderate interest of 50 per cent. A man famous for buying poor seamen's tickets.
Behold the leering belle,1 caress'd by all,
Adorn each private feast and public ball;
Where peers attentive listen and adore,
And not one matron shuns the titled whore.
At Peter's obsequies2 I sung no dirge;
Nor has my satire yet supplied a scourge
For the vile tribes of usurers and bites,
Who sneak at Jonathan's and swear at White's.
Each low pursuit, and slighter folly, bred
Within the selfish heart and hollow head,
Thrives uncontroll'd, and blossoms o'er the land,
Nor feels the rigour of my chastening hand:
While Codrus shivers o'er his bags of gold,
By famine wither'd, and benumb'd by cold;
I mark his haggard eyes with frenzy roll,
And feast upon the terrors of his soul;
The wrecks of war, the perils of the deep,
That curse with hideous dreams the caitiff's sleep;
Insolvent debtors, thieves, and civil strife,
Which daily persecute his wretched life;
With all the horrors of prophetic dread,
That rack his bosom while the mail is read,
Safe from the rod, untainted by the school,
A judge by birth, by destiny a fool,
While the young lordling struts in native pride,
His party-colour'd tutors by his side,
Pleased, let me own the pious mother's care,
Who to the brawny sire commits her heir.
Fraught with the spirit of a Gothic monk,
Let Rich, with dulness and devotion drunk,
Enjoy the peal so barbarous and loud,
While his brain spews new monsters to the crowd;*
A wit of the first water, celebrated for her talent of repartee and double entendre.
2 Peter Waters, Esq., whose character is too well known to need description.
3 Whether it be for the reason assigned in the subsequent lines, or the frugality of the parents, who are unwilling to throw away money in making their children wiser than themselves, I know not; but certain it is, that many people of fashion commit the education of their heirs to some trusty footman, with a particular command to keep young master out of the stable.
4 Monsters of absurdity.
"He look'd, and saw a sable sorcerer rise,
Swift to whose hand a winged volume flies;
I see with joy the vaticide deplore
A hell-denouncing priest and sovereign whore.
Let every polish'd dame and genial lord
Employ the social chair and venal board;1
Debauch'd from sense, let doubtful meanings run,
The vague conundrum and the prurient puu;
While the vain fop, with apish grin, regards
The giggling minx, half choked behind her cards;
These, and a thousand idle pranks, I deem
The motley spawn of ignorance and whim.
Let Pride conceive and Folly propagate,
The fashion still adopts the spurious brat:
Nothing so strange that fashion cannot tame;
By this, dishonour ceases to be shame:
This weans from blushes lewd Tyrawly's face,
Gives Hawley praise, and Ingoldsby disgrace,
From Mead to Thomson shifts the palm at once,
A meddling, prating, blundering, busy dunce!
And may (should taste a little more decline)
Transform the nation to a herd of swine.
The fatal period hastens on apace!
Nor will thy verse the' obscene event disgrace;
Thy flowers of poetry, that smell so strong,
The keenest appetites have loathed the song;
Condemn'd by Clark, Banks, Barrowby, and Chitty,3
And all the crop-ear'd critics of the city:
While sagely neutral sits thy silent friend,
Alike averse to censure or commend.
All sudden, gorgons hiss, and dragons glare,
And ten-horn'd fiends and giants rush to war.
Hell rises, heaven descends, and dance on earth,
Gods, imps, and monsters, music, rage, and mirth,
A fire, a jig, a battle, and a ball,
Till one wide conflagration swallows all."
1 This is no other than an empty sedan, carried about with great formality, to perform visits, by the help of which a decent correspondence is often maintained among people of fashion, many years together, without one personal interview; to the great honour of hospitality and good neighbourhood. Equally applicable to the dining and card-table, where every guest must pay an extravagant price for what he has.
2 A general so renowned for conduct and discipline, that, during an action in which he had a considerable command, he is said to have been seen rallying three fugitive dragoons, five miles from the field of battle. 3 A fraternity of wits, whose virtue, modesty, and taste, are much of the same dimension.
Peace to the gentle soul that could deny
His invocated voice to fill the cry!
And let me still the sentiment disdain
Of him, who never speaks but to arraign:
The sneering son of calumny and scorn,
Whom neither arts, nor sense, nor soul adorn:
Or his, who to maintain a critic's rank,
Though conscious of his own internal blank,
His want of taste unwilling to betray,
'Twixt sense and nonsense hesitates all day;
With brow contracted hears each passage read,
And often hums and shakes his empty head,
Until some oracle adored, pronounce
The passive bard a poet or a dunce;
Then, in loud clamour echoes back the word,—
'Tis bold, insipid, soaring, or absurd.
These, and the' unnumber'd shoals of smaller fry
That nibble round, I pity and defy.
FROM the man whom I love, though my heart I disguise,
I will freely describe the wretch I despise;
And, if he has sense but to balance a straw,
He will sure take a hint from the picture I draw.
A wit without sense, without fancy a beau,
Like a parrot he chatters, and struts like a crow;
A peacock in pride, in grimace a baboon,
In courage a hind, in conceit a Gascon.
As a vulture rapacious, in falsehood a fox,
Inconstant as waves, and unfeeling as rocks!
As a tiger ferocious, perverse as a hog,
In mischief an ape, and in fawning a dog.
In a word, to sum up all his talents together,
His heart is of lead, and his brain is of feather:
Yet, if he has sense but to balance a straw,
He will sure take a hint from the picture I draw.
WHILE with fond rapture and amaze
On thy transcendent charms I gaze,
My cautious soul essays in vain
Her peace and freedom to maintain:
Yet let that blooming form divine,
Where grace and harmony combine,
Those eyes, like genial orbs that move,
Dispensing gladness, joy, and love,
In all their pomp assail my view,
Intent my bosom to subdue;
My breast, by wary maxims steel'd,
Not all those charms shall force to yield.
But when, invok'd to beauty's aid,
I see the' enlighten'd soul display'd;
That soul so sensibly sedate
Amid the storms of froward fate!
Thy genius active, strong, and clear,
Thy wit sublime, though not severe,
The social ardour, void of art,
That glows within thy candid heart;
My spirits, sense, and strength decay,
My resolution dies away,
And every faculty oppress'd,
Almighty love invades my breast!
LET the nymph still avoid and be deaf to the swain
Who in transports of passion affects to complain,
For his rage, not his love, in that frenzy is shown,
And the blast that blows loudest is soon overblown.
But the shepherd whom Cupid has pierced to the heart
Will submissive adore, and rejoice in the smart;
Or, in plaintive soft murmurs, his bosom-felt woe
Like the smooth gliding current of rivers will flow.
Though silent his tongue, he will plead with his eyes,
And his heart own your sway in a tribute of sighs;
But when he accosts you in meadow, or grove,
His tale is all tenderness, rapture, and love.
To fix her-'twere a task as vain
To count the April drops of rain,
To sow in Afric's barren soil,
Or tempests hold within a toil.
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