She asked about her friends below;
This meagre fop, that battered beau:
Whether some late-departed toasts
Had got gallants among the ghosts:
If Chloe were a sharper still
As great as ever at quadrille-
(The ladies there must needs be rooks,
For cards, we know, are Pluto's books):
If Florimel had found her love,
For whom she hanged herself above :
How oft a week was kept a ball
By Proserpine at Pluto's hall.
She fancied those Elysian shades
The sweetest place for masquerades :
How pleasant, on the banks of Styx,
To troll it in a coach and six !
What pride a female heart inflames!
How endless are ambition's aims!
Cease, haughty nymph; the fates decree
Death must not be a spouse for thee:
For when, by chance, the meagre shade
Upon thy hand his finger laid,-
Thy hand as dry and cold as lead,—
His matrimonial spirit fled.
He felt about his heart a damp,
That quite extinguished Cupid's lamp.
Away the frighted spectre scuds,
And leaves my Lady in the suds.
LORD LANSDOWNE1 (GEORGE GRANVILLĖ). [George Granville, or Greenvill, born in 1667, was created Baron Lansdowne of Bideford in 1711, and died in 1735. He was a dramatist, miscellaneous writer, and politician, having held various offices, including the secretaryship at war. At the accession of George I., he, with other leaders of the Tory party, fell into disfavour; and he suffered an imprisonment of several months in the Tower without being coerced into belying his principles].
CHLOE'S the wonder of her sex.
'Tis well her heart is tender;
How might such killing eyes perplex,
With virtue to defend her!
But nature, graciously inclined
With liberal hand to please us,
Has to her boundless beauty joined
A boundless bent to ease us.
1 Or "Landsdown," as the title is often written.
[Born at Milton, Wilts, 11 May 1672; died in Holland House, London, 17 June 1719].
WHERE gentle Thames through stately channels glides,
And England's proud metropolis divides,
A lofty fabric does the sight invade,
And stretches o'er the waves a pompous shade;
Whence sudden shouts the neighbourhood surprise,
And thundering claps and dreadful hissings rise.
Here thrifty Rich hires monarchs by the day,
And keeps his mercenary kings in pay;
With deep-mouthed actors fills the vacant scenes,
And rakes the stews for goddesses and queens.
Here the lewd punk, with crowns and sceptres graced,
Teaches her eyes a more majestic cast:
And hungry monarchs, with a numerous train
Of suppliant slaves, like Sancho, starve and reign,
But enter in, my Muse; the stage survey,
And all its pomp and pageantry display;
Trapdoors and pitfalls form the unfaithful ground,
And magic walls encompass it around:
On either side maimed temples fill our eyes,
And, intermixed with brothel-houses, rise;
Disjointed palaces in order stand,
And groves, obedient to the mover's hand,
O'ershade the stage, and flourish at command.
A stamp makes broken towns and trees entire :
So, when Amphion struck the vocal lyre,
He saw the spacious circuit all around
With crowding woods and rising cities crowned.
But next the tiring-room survey, and see
False titles and promiscuous quality
Confus'dly swarm, from heroes and from queens
To those that swing in clouds and fill machines.
Their various characters they choose with art.
The frowning bully fits the tyrant's part:
Swoln cheeks and swaggering belly make an host;
Pale meagre looks and hollow voice, a ghost.
From careful brows and heavy downcast eyes,
Dull cits and thick-skulled aldermen arise;
The comic tone, inspired by Congreve, draws
At every word loud laughter and applause:
The whining dame continues as before,
Her character unchanged, and acts a whore.
Above the rest, the prince, with haughty stalks,
Magnificent in purple buskins walks:
The royal robes his awful shoulders grace,
Profuse of spangles and of copper lace.
Officious rascals, to his mighty thigh
Guiltless of blood, the unpointed weapon tie:
Then the gay glittering diadem put on,
Ponderous with brass, and starred with Bristol stone.
His royal consort next consults her glass,
And out of twenty boxes culls a face.
The whitening first her ghastly looks besmears,
All pale and wan the unfinished form appears;
Till on her cheeks the blushing purple glows,
And a false virgin-modesty bestows.
Her ruddy lips the deep vermilion dyes:
Length to her brows the pencil's art supplies,
And with black-bending arches shades her eyes.
Well pleased at length the picture she beholds,
And spots it o'er with artificial moles.
Her countenance complete, the beaux she warms
With looks not hers; and, spite of nature, charms.
Thus artfully their persons they disguise,
Till the last flourish bids the curtain rise.
The Prince then enters on the stage in state;
Behind, a guard of candle-snuffers wait.
There, swoln with empire, terrible and fierce,
He shakes the dome, and tears his lungs with verse.
His subjects tremble; the submissive pit
Wrapped up in silence and attention sit.
Till, freed at length, he lays aside the weight
Of public business and affairs of state;
Forgets his pomp, dead to ambition's fires,
And to some peaceful brandy-shop retires;
Where in full gills his anxious thoughts he drowns,
And quaffs away the care that waits on crowns.
The Princess next her painted charms displays,
Where every look the pencil's art betrays;
The callow squire at distance feeds his eyes,
And silently, for paint and washes, dies.
But, if the youth behind the scenes retreat,
He sees the blended colours melt with heat,
And all the trickling beauty run in sweat.
The borrowed visage he admires no more,
And nauseates every charm he loved before :
So the famed spear, for double force renownet, ·
Applied the remedy that gave the wound.
In tedious lists 'twere endless to engage,
And draw at length the rabble of the stage;
Where one for twenty years has given alarms,
And called contending monarchs to their arms.
Another fills a more important post,
And rises, every other night, a ghost;
Through the cleft stage his mealy face he rears,
Then stalks along, groans thrice, and disappears.
Others, with swords and shields, the soldier's pride,
More than a thousand times have changed their side,
And in a thousand fatal battles died.
Thus several persons several parts perform;
Soft lovers whine, and blustering heroes storm;
The stern exasperated tyrants rage,
Till the kind bowl of poison clears the stage.
Then honours vanish, and distinctions cease;
Then, with reluctance, haughty queens undress;
Heroes no more their fading laurels boast,
And mighty kings in private men are lost.
He whom such titles swelled, such power made proud,
To whom whole realms and vanquished nations bowed,
Throws off the gaudy plume, the purple train,
And in his own vile tatters stinks again.
[Born in 1676, died in 1708. He studied as a physician; but his Splendid Shilling (a parody on the Miltonian style, and the earliest specimen of its class) achieved so much success as to turn his attention to literature instead. It was
published in 1703. Other writings by Philips, now forgotten, were of a more ambitious kind: and an early death put a stop to a peculiarly daring project, a poem on the Last Day].
THE SPLENDID SHILLING.
Sing, heavenly Muse!
Things unattempted yet, in prose or rhyme,"
A Shilling, Breeches, and Chimeras dire.
HAPPY the man who, void of cares and strife,
In silken or in leathern purse retains
A Splendid Shilling. He nor hears with pain
New oysters cried, nor sighs for cheerful ale;
But with his friends, when nightly mists arise,
To Juniper's Magpie or Town-Hall1 repairs:
Where, mindful of the nymph whose wanton eye
Transfixed his soul and kindled amorous flames,
Chloe or Phillis, he each circling glass
Wisheth her health, and joy, and equal love.
Meanwhile, he smokes, and laughs at merry tale,
Or pun ambiguous, or conundrum quaint.
But I, whom griping Penury surrounds,
And Hunger, sure attendant upon Want,
With scanty offals, and small acid tiff,
(Wretched repast!) my meagre corpse sustain :
Then solitary walk, or doze at home
In garret vile, and with a warming puff
Regale chilled fingers; or, from tube as black
Two noted alehouses at Oxford in 1700.
As winter-chimney or well-polished jet,
Exhale mundungus, ill-perfuming scent!
Not blacker tube, nor of a shorter size,
Smokes Cambro-Briton (versed in pedigree,
Sprung from Cadwallader and Arthur, kings
Full famous in romantic tale), when he
O'er many a craggy hill and barren cliff,
Upon a cargo of famed Cestrian cheese,
High overshadowing rides, with a design
To vend his wares, or at the Arvonian mart,
Or Maridunum, or the ancient town
Yclept Brechinia, or where Vaga's stream
Encircles Ariconium, fruitful soil!
Whence flow nectareous wines, that well may vie
With Massic, Setin, or renowned Falern.
Thus while my joyless minutes tedious flow,
With looks demure and silent pace, a Dun,
Horrible monster hated by gods and men,
To my aërial citadel ascends.
With vocal heel thrice thundering at my gate,
With hideous accent thrice he calls; I know
The voice ill-boding, and the solemn sound.
What should I do? or whither turn? Amazed,
Confounded, to the dark recess I fly
Of wood-hole; straight my bristling hairs erect
Through sudden fear; a chilly sweat bedews
My shuddering limbs, and, wonderful to tell!
My tongue forgets her faculty of speech;
So horrible he seems! His faded brow,
Entrenched with many a frown, and conic beard,
And spreading band admired by modern saints,
Disastrous acts forebode; in his right hand
Long scrolls of paper solemnly he waves,
With characters and figures dire inscribed,
Grievous to mortal eyes; ye gods, avert
Such plagues from righteous men! Behind him stalks
Another monster, not unlike himself,
Sullen of aspect, by the vulgar called
A Catchpole, whose polluted hands the gods
With force incredible and magic charms
Erst have endued. If he his ample palm
Should haply on ill-fated shoulder lay
Of debtor, straight his body, to the touch
Obsequious, as whilom knights were wont,
To some enchanted castle is conveyed;
Where gates impregnable and coercive chains
In durance strict detain him, till, in form
Of money, Pallas sets the captive free.
Beware, ye Debtors! when ye walk, beware,
Be circumspect; oft with insidious ken
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