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Shall wish thee burnish'd! where the sprightly-fair
Demand embellishment! e'en Delia's eye,
As in a garden, roves, of hues alone
Inquirent, curious? Fly the cursed domain;
These are the realms of luxury and show,
No classic soil; away! the blooming spring
Attracts thee hence; the waning autumn warms;
Fly to thy native shades, and dread e'en there,
Lest busy fancy tempt thy narrow state
Beyond its bounds. Observe Florelio's mien:
Why treads my friend with melancholy step
That beauteous lawn? why, pensive, strays his eye
O'er statues, grottos, urns, by critic art
Proportion'd fair? or from his lofty dome,
Bright glittering through the grove, returns his eye
Unpleased, disconsolate? And is it love,
Disastrous love, that robs the finish'd scenes
Of all their beauty? centering all in her
His soul adores ? or from a blacker cause
Springs this remorseful gloom ? is conscious guilt
The latent source of more than love's despair?
It cannot be within that polish'd breast,

Where science dwells, that guilt should harbour there.
No; 'tis the sad survey of present want
And past profusion! lost to him the sweets
Of yon pavilion, fraught with ev'ry charm
For other eyes; or if remaining, proofs
Of criminal expense! sweet interchange
Of river, valley, mountain, woods, and plains!
How gladsome once he ranged your native turf,
Your simple scenes, how raptured! ere expense
Had lavish'd thousand ornaments, and taught
Convenience to perplex him, art to pall,
Pomp to deject, and beauty to displease!
Oh! for a soul to all the glare of wealth,
To fortune's wide exhaustless treasury,
Nobly superior! but let caution guide
The coy disposal of the wealth we scorn,
And prudence be our almoner. Alas!
The pilgrim wandering o'er some distant clime,
Sworn foe of avarice! not disdains to learn
Its coin's imputed worth, the destined means
To smooth his passage to the favour'd shrine.
Ah! let not us, who tread this stranger world,

Let none who sojourn on the realms of life,
Forget the land is mercenary, nor waste
His fare ere landed on no venal shore.

Let never bard consult Palladio's rules;
Let never bard, oh Burlington! survey
Thy learned art, in Chiswick's dome display'd;
Dangerous incentive! nor with lingering eye
Survey the window Venice calls her own.
Better for him with no ingrateful muse
To sing a requiem to that gentle soul
Who plann'd the skylight, which to lavish bards
Conveys alone the pure ethereal ray;

For garrets him, and squalid walls, await,
Unless, presageful, from his friendly strain
He glean advice, and shun the scribbler's doom.

PART THE THIRD.

YET once again, and to thy doubtful fate
The trembling muse consigns thee. Ere contempt,
Or want's empoison'd arrow, ridicule,

Transfix thy weak unguarded breast, behold!
The poet's roofs, the careless poet's, his
Who scorns advice, shall close my serious lay.

When Gulliver, now great, now little deem'd,
The plaything of comparison, arrived
Where learned bosoms their aërial schemes
Projected, studious of the public weal,
'Mid these one subtler artist he descried,
Who cherish'd in his dusty tenement
The spider's web, injurious, to supplant
Fair Albion's fleeces! Never, never may
Our monarch on such fatal purpose smile,
And irritate Minerva's beggar'd sons,

The Melksham weavers! here in every nook
Their wefts they spun, here revell'd uncontroll'd,
And, like the flags from Westminster's high roof
Dependent, here their fluttering textures waved.
Such, so adorn'd the cell I mean to sing!
Cell ever squalid! where the sneerful maid
Will not fatigue her hand, broom never comes,
That comes to all, o'er whose quiescent walls

Arachne's unmolested care has drawn

Curtains subfusk, and save the expense of art.
Survey those walls, in fading texture clad,
Where wandering snails in many a slimy path,
Free, unrestrain'd, their various journeys crawl;
Peregrinations strange, and labyrinths
Confused, inextricable! such the clue
Of certain Ariadne ne'er explain'd!

Hooks! angles! crooks! and involutions wild!
Meantime, thus silver'd with meanders gay,
In mimic pride the snail-wrought tissue shines,
Perchance of tabby, or of harrateen,

Not ill expressive: such the power of snails!
Behold his chair, whose fractured seat infirm
An aged cushion hides! replete with dust
The foliaged velvet, pleasing to the eye
Of great Eliza's reign, but now the snare
Of weary guest that on the specious bed
Sits down confiding. Ah! disastrous wight!
In evil hour and rashly dost thou trust
The fraudful couch! for though in velvet cased,
The fated thigh shall kiss the dusty floor.
The traveller thus, that o'er Hibernian plains
Hath shaped his way, on beds profuse of flowers,
Cowslip, or primrose, or the circular eye
Of daisy fair, decrees to bask supine.
And see! delighted, down he drops, secure
Of sweet refreshment, ease without annoy,

Or luscious noon-day nap. Ah! much deceived,
Much suffering pilgrim! thou nor noon-day nap
Nor sweet repose shalt find; the false morass
In quivering undulations yields beneath
Thy burden in the miry gulf enclosed!

And who would trust appearance ? cast thine eye
Where mid machines of heterogeneous form
His coat depends, alas! his only coat,
Eldest of things! and napless, as an heath
Of small extent by fleecy myriads grazed.
Not different have I seen in dreary vault
Display'd a coffin; on each sable side
The texture unmolested seems entire;
Fraudful, when touch'd it glides to dust away,
And leaves the wondering swain to gape, to stare,
And with expressive shrug and piteous sigh

Declare the fatal force of rolling years,
Or dire extent of frail mortality.

This aged vesture, scorn of gazing beaus
And formal cits, (themselves too haply scorn'd,)
Both on its sleeve and on its skirt retains
Full many a pin wide sparkling for if e'er
Their well-known crest met his delighted eye,
Though wrapt in thought, commercing with the sky,
He, gently stooping, scorn'd not to upraise,
And on each sleeve, as conscious of their use,
Indenting fix them; nor, when arm'd with these
The cure of rents and separation dire,

And charms enormous did he view dismay'd
Hedge, bramble, thicket, bush, portending fate
To breeches, coat, and hose! had any wight
Of vulgar skill the tender texture own'd;
But gave
his mind to form a sonnet quaint
Of Silvia's shoe-string, or of Chloe's fan,
Or sweetly-fashion'd tip of Celia's ear.
Alas! by frequent use decays the force
Of mortal art! the refractory robe
Eludes the tailor's art, eludes his own;
How potent once, in union quaint conjoin'd!
See near his bed (his bed, too falsely call'd
The place of rest, while it a bard sustains,
Pale, meagre, muse-rid wight! who reads in vain
Narcotic volumes o'er) his candlestick,
Radiant machine! when from the plastic hand
Of Mulciber, the mayor of Birmingham,
The engine issued; now, alas! disguised
By many an unctuous tide, that wandering down
Its sides congeal; what he, perhaps, essays,
With humour forced, and ill-dissembled smile,
Idly to liken to the poplar's trunk,
When o'er its bark the lucid amber, wound
In many a pleasing fold, incrusts the tree;

Or suits him more the winter's candied thorn,
When from each branch, anneal'd, the works of frost
Pervasive, radiant icicles depend?

How shall I sing the various ills that wait
The careful sonnetteer? or who can paint
The shifts enormous that in vain he forms
To patch his paneless window; to cement
His batter'd tea-pot, ill-retentive vase!

To war with ruin ? anxious to conceal
Want's fell appearance, of the real ill
Nor foe nor fearful. Ruin unforeseen
Invades his chattels; ruin will invade,
Will claim his whole invention to repair,
Nor of the gift, for tuneful ends design'd,
Allow one part to decorate his song;
While ridicule, with ever-pointing hand,
Conscious of every shift, of every shift
Indicative, his inmost plot betrays,
Points to the nook, which he his study calls,
Pompous and vain! for thus he might esteem
His chest a wardrobe, purse a treasury;
And shows, to crown her full display, himseit;
One whom the pow'rs above, in place of health
And wonted vigour, of paternal cot

Or little farm; of bag, or scrip, or staff,
Cup, dish, spoon, plate, or worldly utensil,
A poet framed, yet framed not to repine,
And wish the cobbler's loftiest site his own;
Nor, partial as they seem, upbraid the Fates,
Who to the humbler mechanism join'd
Goods so superior, such exalted bliss!

See with what seeming ease, what labour'd peace,
He, hapless hypocrite! refines his nail,

His chief amusement! then how feign'd, how forced,
That care-defying sonnet which implies
His debts discharged, and he of half-a-crown
In full possession, uncontested right
And property! Yet, ah! whoe'er this wight
Admiring view, if such there be, distrust

The vain pretence; the smiles that harbour grief,
As lurks the serpent deep in flowers enwreath'd.
Forewarn'd, be frugal, or with prudent rage
Thy pen demolish; choose the trustier flail,

And bless those labours which the choice inspired.
But if thou view'st a vulgar mind, a wight
Of common sense, who seeks no brighter name,
Him envy, him admire, him, from thy breast,
Prescient of future dignities, salute

Sheriff, or mayor, in comfortable furs
Enwrapp'd, secure; nor yet the laureat's crown
In thought exclude him! he perchance shall rise
To nobler heights than foresight can decree.

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