This unfortunate Scottish bard was born in Edinburgh on the 17th (some say the 5th) of October 1751. His father, who had been an accountant to the British Linen Company's Bank, died early, leaving a widow and four children. Robert spent six years at the grammar schools of Edinburgh and Dundee, went for a short period to Edinburgh College, and then, having obtained a bursary, to St Andrews, where he continued till his seven- teenth year. He was at first designed for the ministry of the Scottish Church. He distinguished himself at college for his mathematical knowledge, and became a favourite of Dr Wilkie, Professor of Natural Philosophy, on whose death he wrote an elegy. He early discovered a passion for poetry, and collected materials for a tragedy on the subject of Sir William Wallace, which he never finished. He once thought of studying medicine, but had neither patience nor funds for the needful preliminary studies. He went away to reside with a rich uncle, named John Forbes, in the north, near Aberdeen. This person, however, and poor Fergusson unfortunately quarrelled; and, after residing some months in his house, he left it in disgust, and with a few shillings in his pocket proceeded southwards. He travelled on foot, and such was the effect of his vexation and fatigue, that when he reached his mother's house he fell into a severe fit of illness.
He became, on his recovery, a copying-clerk in a solicitor's, and afterwards in a sheriff-clerk's office, and began to contribute toRuddiman's Weekly Magazine. We remember in boyhood reading some odd volumes of this production, the general matter in which was inconceivably poor, relieved only by Fergusson's racy little Scottish poems. His evenings were spent chiefly in the tavern, amidst the gay and dissipated youth of the metropolis, to whom he was the 'wit, songster, and mimic.' That his convivial powers were extraordinary, is proved by the fact of one of his contemporaries, who survived to be a correspondent of Burns, doubting if even he equalled the fascination of Fergusson's converse. Dissipation gradually stole in upon him, in spite of resolutions dictated by remorse. In 1773, he collected his poems into a volume, which was warmly received, but brought him, it is believed, little pecuniary benefit. At last, under the pressure of poverty, toil, and intemperance, his reason gave way, and he was by a stratagem removed to an asylum. Here, when he found himself and became aware of his situation, he uttered a dismal shriek, and cast a wild and startled look around his cell. The history of his confinement was very similar to that of Nat Lee and Christopher Smart. For instance, a story is told of him which is an exact duplicate of one recorded of Lee. He was writing by the light of the moon, when a thin cloud crossed its disk. 'Jupiter, snuff the moon,' roared the impatient poet. The cloud thickened, and entirely darkened the light. 'Thou stupid god,' he exclaimed, 'thou hast snuffed it out.' By and by he became calmer, and had some affecting interviews with his mother and sister. A removal to his mother's house was even contemplated, but his constitution was exhausted, and on the 16th of October 1774, poor Fergusson breathed his last. It is interesting to know that the New Testament was his favourite companion in his cell. A little after his death arrived a letter from an old friend, a Mr Burnet, who had made a fortune in the East Indies, wishing him to come out to India, and enclosing a remittance of £100 to defray the expenses of the journey.
Thus in his twenty-fourth year perished Robert Fergusson. He was buried in the Canongate churchyard, where Burns afterwards erected a monument to his memory, with an inscription which is familiar to most of our readers.
Burns in one of his poems attributes to Fergusson 'glorious pairts.' He was certainly a youth of remarkable powers, although 'pairts' rather than high genius seems to express his calibre, he can hardly be said to sing, and he never soars. His best poems, such as 'The Farmer's Ingle,' are just lively daguerreotypes of the life he saw around him—there is nothing ideal or lofty in any of them. His 'ingle-bleeze' burns low compared to that which in 'The Cottar's Saturday Night' springs up aloft to heaven, like the tongue of an altar-fire. He stuffs his poems, too, with Scotch to a degree which renders them too rich for even, a Scotch- man's taste, and as repulsive as a haggis to that of an Englishman. On the whole, Fergusson's best claim to fame arises from the influence he exerted on the far higher genius of Burns, who seems, strangely enough, to have preferred him to Allan Ramsay.
Et multo imprimis hilarans couvivia Baccho,Ante locum, si frigus erit.—VIRG.
1 Whan gloamin gray out owre the welkin keeks;[1]Whan Batio ca's his owsen[2] to the byre;Whan Thrasher John, sair dung,[3] his barn-door steeks,[4]An' lusty lasses at the dightin'[5] tire;What bangs fu' leal[6] the e'enin's coming cauld,An' gars[7] snaw-tappit Winter freeze in vain;Gars dowie mortals look baith blithe an' bauld,Nor fley'd[8] wi' a' the poortith o' the plain;Begin, my Muse! and chant in hamely strain.
2 Frae the big stack, weel winnow't on the hill,Wi' divots theekit[9] frae the weet an' drift,Sods, peats, and heathery turfs the chimley[10] fill,An' gar their thickening smeek[11] salute the lift.The gudeman, new come hame, is blithe to find,Whan he out owre the hallan[12] flings his een,That ilka turn is handled to his mind;That a' his housie looks sae cosh[13] an' clean;For cleanly house lo'es he, though e'er sae mean.
3 Weel kens the gudewife, that the pleughs requireA heartsome meltith,[14] an' refreshin' synd[15]O' nappy liquor, owre a bleezin' fire:Sair wark an' poortith downa[16] weel be joined.Wi' butter'd bannocks now the girdle[17] reeks;I' the far nook the bowie[18] briskly reams;The readied kail[19]stands by the chimley cheeks,An' haud the riggin' het wi' welcome streams,Whilk than the daintiest kitchen[20]nicer seems.
4 Frae this, lat gentler gabs[21] a lesson lear:Wad they to labouring lend an eident[22]hand,They'd rax fell strang upo' the simplest fare,Nor find their stamacks ever at a stand.Fu' hale an' healthy wad they pass the day;At night, in calmest slumbers dose fu' sound;Nor doctor need their weary life to spae,[23]Nor drogs their noddle and their sense confound,Till death slip sleely on, an' gie the hindmost wound.
5 On siccan food has mony a doughty deedBy Caledonia's ancestors been done;By this did mony a wight fu' weirlike bleedIn brulzies[24]frae the dawn to set o' sun.'Twas this that braced their gardies[25] stiff an' strang;That bent the deadly yew in ancient days;Laid Denmark's daring sons on yird[26] alang;Garr'd Scottish thristles bang the Roman bays;For near our crest their heads they dought na raise.
6 The couthy cracks[27] begin whan supper's owre;The cheering bicker[28] gars them glibly gash[29]O' Simmer's showery blinks, an Winter's sour,Whase floods did erst their mailins' produce hash.[30]'Bout kirk an' market eke their tales gae on;How Jock woo'd Jenny here to be his bride;An' there, how Marion, for a bastard son,Upo' the cutty-stool was forced to ride;The waefu' scauld o' our Mess John to bide.
7 The fient a cheep[31]'s amang the bairnies now;For a' their anger's wi' their hunger gane:Aye maun the childer, wi' a fastin' mou,Grumble an' greet, an' mak an unco maen.[32]In rangles[33] round, before the ingle's low,Frae gudame's[34] mouth auld-warld tales they hear,O' warlocks loupin round the wirrikow:[35]O' ghaists, that wine[36] in glen an kirkyard drear,Whilk touzles a' their tap, an' gars them shake wi' fear!
8 For weel she trows that fiends an' fairies beSent frae the deil to fleetch[37] us to our ill;That kye hae tint[38] their milk wi' evil ee;An' corn been scowder'd[39] on the glowin' kiln.O mock nae this, my friends! but rather mourn,Ye in life's brawest spring wi' reason clear;Wi' eild[40] our idle fancies a' return,And dim our dolefu' days wi' bairnly[41] fear;The mind's aye cradled whan the grave is near.
9 Yet Thrift, industrious, bides her latest days,Though Age her sair-dow'd front wi' runcles wave;Yet frae the russet lap the spindle plays;Her e'enin stent[42] reels she as weel's the lave.[43]On some feast-day, the wee things buskit braw,Shall heese her heart up wi' a silent joy,Fu' cadgie that her head was up an' sawHer ain spun cleedin' on a darlin' oy;[44]Careless though death should mak the feast her foy.[45]
10 In its auld lerroch[46] yet the deas[47] remains,Where the gudeman aft streeks[48] him at his ease;A warm and canny lean for weary banesO' labourers doylt upo' the wintry leas.Round him will baudrins[49] an' the collie come,To wag their tail, and cast a thankfu' ee,To him wha kindly flings them mony a crumbO' kebbuck[50] whang'd, an' dainty fadge[51] to prie;[52]This a' the boon they crave, an' a' the fee.
11 Frae him the lads their mornin' counsel tak:What stacks he wants to thrash; what rigs to till;How big a birn[53] maun lie on bassie's[54] back,For meal an' mu'ter[55] to the thirlin' mill.Neist, the gudewife her hirelin' damsels bidsGlower through the byre, an' see the hawkies[56] bound;Tak tent, case Crummy tak her wonted tids,[57]An' ca' the laiglen's[58] treasure on the ground;Whilk spills a kebbuck nice, or yellow pound.
12 Then a' the house for sleep begin to green,[59]Their joints to slack frae industry a while;The leaden god fa's heavy on their een,An hafflins steeks them frae their daily toil:The cruizy,[60] too, can only blink and bleer;The reistit ingle's done the maist it dow;Tacksman an' cottar eke to bed maun steer,Upo' the cod[61] to clear their drumly pow,[62]Till waukened by the dawnin's ruddy glow.
13 Peace to the husbandman, an' a' his tribe,Whase care fells a' our wants frae year to year!Lang may his sock[63] and cou'ter turn the gleyb,[64]An' banks o' corn bend down wi' laded ear!May Scotia's simmers aye look gay an' green;Her yellow ha'rsts frae scowry blasts decreed!May a' her tenants sit fu' snug an' bien,[65]Frae the hard grip o' ails, and poortith freed;An' a lang lasting train o' peacefu' hours succeed!
[1] 'Keeks:' peeps. [2] 'Owsen:' oxen. [3] 'Sair dung:' fatigued. [4] 'Steeks:' shuts. [5] 'Dightin':' winnowing. [6] 'What bangs fu' leal:' what shuts out most comfortably. [7] 'Gars:' makes. [8] 'Fley'd:' frightened. [9] 'Wi' divots theekit:' thatched with turf. [10] 'Chimley:' chimney. [11] 'Smeek:' smoke. [12] 'Hallan:' the inner wall of a cottage. [13] 'Cosh:' comfortable. [14] 'Meltith:' meal. [15] 'Synd:' drink. [16] 'Downa:' should not. [17] 'Girdle:' a flat iron for toasting cakes. [18] 'Bowie:' beer-barrel. [19] 'Kail:' broth with greens. [20] 'Kitchen:' anything eaten with bread. [21] 'Gabs:' palates. [22] 'Eident:' assidious. [23] 'Spae:' fortell. [24] 'Brulzies:' contests. [25] 'Gardies:' arms. [26] 'Yird:' earth. [27] 'Cracks:' pleasant talk. [28] 'Bicker:' the cup. [29] 'gash:' debat. [30] 'Their mailins' produce hash:' destroy the produce of their farms. [31] 'The fient a cheep:' not a whimper. [32] 'Maen:' moan. [33] 'Rangles:' circles. [34] 'Gudame's:' grandame. [35] 'Wirrikow:' scare-crow. [36] 'Win:' abide. [37] 'Fleetch:' entice. [38] 'Tint:' lost. [39] 'Scowder'd:' scorched. [40] 'Eild:' age. [41] 'Bairnly:' childish. [42] 'Stent:' task. [43] 'Lave:' the rest. [44] 'Oy:' grand child. [45] 'Her foy:' her farewell entertainment. [46] 'Lerroch:'corner. [47] 'Deas:' bench. [48] 'Streeks:' stretches. [49] 'Baudrins:' the cat. [50] 'Kebbuck:' cheese. [51] 'Fadge:' loaf. [52] 'To prie:' to taste. [53] 'Birn:' burden. [54] 'Bassie:' the horse. [55] 'Mu'ter:' the miller's perquisite. [56] 'Hawkies:'cows. [57] 'Tids:' fits. [58] 'The laiglen: 'the milk-pail. [59] 'To green:' to long. [60] 'The cruizy:' the lamp. [61] 'Cod:' pillow. [62] 'Drumly pow:' thick heads. [63] 'Sock:' ploughshare. [64] 'Gleyb:' soil. [65] 'Bien: 'comfortable.
Campbell, in his 'Specimens,' devotes a large portion of space to DrWalter Harte, and has quoted profusely from a poem of his entitled'Eulogius.' We may give some of the best lines here:—
'This spot for dwelling fit Eulogius chose,And in a month a decent homestall rose,Something between a cottage and a cell;Yet virtue here could sleep, and peace could dwell.
'The site was neither granted him nor given;'Twas Nature's, and the ground-rent due to Heaven.
Wife he had none, nor had he love to spare,—An aged mother wanted all his care.They thanked their Maker for a pittance sent,Supped on a turnip, slept upon content.'
Again, of a neighbouring matron, who died leaving Eulogius money—
'This matron, whitened with good works and age,Approached the Sabbath of her pilgrimage;Her spirit to himself the Almighty drew,Breathed on the alembic, and exhaled the dew.'
And once more—
'Who but Eulogius now exults for joy?New thoughts, new hopes, new views his mind employ;Pride pushed forth buds at every branching shoot,And virtue shrank almost beneath the root.High raised on fortune's hill, new Alps he spies,O'ershoots the valley which beneath him lies,Forgets the depths between, and travels with his eyes.'
Hampton in Middlesex was the birthplace of our next poet, Edward Lovibond. He was a gentleman of fortune, who chiefly employed his time in rural occupations. He became a director of the East India Company. He helped his friend Moore in conducting the periodical calledThe World, to which he contributed several papers, including the very pleasing poem entitled 'The Tears of Old May-Day.' He died in 1775.
1 Led by the jocund train of vernal hoursAnd vernal airs, uprose the gentle May;Blushing she rose, and blushing rose the flowersThat sprung spontaneous in her genial ray.
2 Her locks with heaven's ambrosial dews were bright,And amorous zephyrs fluttered on her breast:With every shifting gleam of morning light,The colours shifted of her rainbow vest.
3 Imperial ensigns graced her smiling form,A golden key and golden wand she bore;This charms to peace each sullen eastern storm,And that unlocks the summer's copious store.
4 Onward in conscious majesty she came,The grateful honours of mankind to taste:To gather fairest wreaths of future fame,And blend fresh triumphs with her glories past.
5 Vain hope! no more in choral bands uniteHer virgin votaries, and at early dawn,Sacred to May and love's mysterious rite,Brush the light dew-drops from the spangled lawn.
6 To her no more Augusta's wealthy pridePours the full tribute from Potosi's mine:Nor fresh-blown garlands village maids provide,A purer offering at her rustic shrine.
7 No more the Maypole's verdant height aroundTo valour's games the ambitious youth advance;No merry bells and tabor's sprightlier soundWake the loud carol, and the sportive dance.
8 Sudden in pensive sadness drooped her head,Faint on her cheeks the blushing crimson died—'O chaste victorious triumphs! whither fled?My maiden honours, whither gone?' she cried.
9 Ah! once to fame and bright dominion born,The earth and smiling ocean saw me rise,With time coeval and the star of morn,The first, the fairest daughter of the skies.
10 Then, when at Heaven's prolific mandate sprungThe radiant beam of new-created day,Celestial harps, to airs of triumph strung,Hailed the glad dawn, and angels called me May.
11 Space in her empty regions heard the sound,And hills, and dales, and rocks, and valleys rung;The sun exulted in his glorious round,And shouting planets in their courses sung.
12 For ever then I led the constant year;Saw youth, and joy, and love's enchanting wiles;Saw the mild graces in my train appear,And infant beauty brighten in my smiles.
13 No winter frowned. In sweet embrace allied,Three sister seasons danced the eternal green;And Spring's retiring softness gently viedWith Autumn's blush, and Summer's lofty mien.
14 Too soon, when man profaned the blessings given,And vengeance armed to blot a guilty age,With bright Astrea to my native heavenI fled, and flying saw the deluge rage;
15 Saw bursting clouds eclipse the noontide beams,While sounding billows from the mountains rolled,With bitter waves polluting all my streams,My nectared streams, that flowed on sands of gold.
16 Then vanished many a sea-girt isle and grove,Their forests floating on the watery plain:Then, famed for arts and laws derived from Jove,My Atalantis sunk beneath the main.
17 No longer bloomed primeval Eden's bowers,Nor guardian dragons watched the Hesperian steep:With all their fountains, fragrant fruits and flowers,Torn from the continent to glut the deep.
18 No more to dwell in sylvan scenes I deigned,Yet oft descending to the languid earth,With quickening powers the fainting mass sustained,And waked her slumbering atoms into birth.
19 And every echo taught my raptured name,And every virgin breathed her amorous vows,And precious wreaths of rich immortal fame,Showered by the Muses, crowned my lofty brows.
20 But chief in Europe, and in Europe's pride,My Albion's favoured realms, I rose adored;And poured my wealth, to other climes denied;From Amalthea's horn with plenty stored.
21 Ah me! for now a younger rival claimsMy ravished honours, and to her belongMy choral dances, and victorious games,To her my garlands and triumphal song.
22 O say what yet untasted beauties flow,What purer joys await her gentler reign?Do lilies fairer, violets sweeter blow?And warbles Philomel a softer strain?
23 Do morning suns in ruddier glory rise?Does evening fan her with serener gales?Do clouds drop fatness from the wealthier skies,Or wantons plenty in her happier vales?
24 Ah! no: the blunted beams of dawning lightSkirt the pale orient with uncertain day;And Cynthia, riding on the car of night,Through clouds embattled faintly wings her way.
25 Pale, immature, the blighted verdure springs,Nor mounting juices feed the swelling flower;Mute all the groves, nor Philomela singsWhen silence listens at the midnight hour.
26 Nor wonder, man, that Nature's bashful face,And opening charms, her rude embraces fear:Is she not sprung from April's wayward race,The sickly daughter of the unripened year?
27 With showers and sunshine in her fickle eyes,With hollow smiles proclaiming treacherous peace,With blushes, harbouring, in their thin disguise,The blasts that riot on the Spring's increase?
28 Is this the fair invested with my spoilBy Europe's laws, and senates' stern command?Ungenerous Europe! let me fly thy soil,And waft my treasures to a grateful land;
29 Again revive, on Asia's drooping shore,My Daphne's groves, or Lycia's ancient plain;Again to Afric's sultry sands restoreEmbowering shades, and Lybian Ammon's fane:
30 Or haste to northern Zembla's savage coast,There hush to silence elemental strife;Brood o'er the regions of eternal frost,And swell her barren womb with heat and life.
31 Then Britain—Here she ceased. Indignant grief,And parting pangs, her faltering tongue suppressed:Veiled in an amber cloud she sought relief,And tears and silent anguish told the rest.
This 'learned and jovial parson,' as Campbell calls him, was born in 1721, in Yorkshire. He studied at Cambridge, and became curate at Croydon, in Surrey. Here he obtained the friendship of Archbishop Herring, and was by him appointed vicar of Orpington in Kent, a situation which he ultimately exchanged for the rectory of Hayes, in the same county. He translated various minor Greek poets, including Anacreon, Sappho, Bion and Moschus, Theocritus, &c. He died in 1777. His 'Brown Jug' breathes some of the spirit of the first of these writers, and two or three lines of it were once quoted triumphantly in Parliament by Sheil, while charging Peel, we think it was, with appropriating arguments from Bishop Philpotts—'Harry of Exeter.'
'Dear Tom, this brown jug that now foams with mild ale,Was once Toby Philpotts,' &c.
1 Dear Tom, this brown jug that now foams with mild ale,(In which I will drink to sweet Nan of the Vale,)Was once Toby Fillpot, a thirsty old soulAs e'er drank a bottle, or fathomed a bowl;In boosing about 'twas his praise to excel,And among jolly topers lie bore off the bell.
2 It chanced as in dog-days he sat at his easeIn his flower-woven arbour as gay as you please,With a friend and a pipe puffing sorrows away,And with honest old stingo was soaking his clay,His breath-doors of life on a sudden were shut,And he died full as big as a Dorchester butt.
3 His body, when long in the ground it had lain,And time into clay had resolved it again,A potter found out in its covert so snug,And with part of fat Toby he formed this brown jugNow sacred to friendship, and mirth, and mild ale;So here's to my lovely sweet Nan of the Vale.
This poetical divine was born in 1735, at Kirkby Steven, in Westmoreland. Left fatherless at four years old, his mother fulfilled her double charge of duty with great tenderness and assiduity. He was educated at Appleby, and subsequently became assistant at the free-school of Wakefield, took deacon's orders, and gave promise, although very young, of becoming a popular preacher. After various vicissitudes of life and fortune, and publishing a number of works in prose and verse, Langhorne repaired to London, and obtained, in 1764, the curacy and lectureship of St John's, Clerkenwell. He soon afterwards became assistant-preacher in Lincoln's Inn Chapel, where he had a very intellectual audience to address, and bore a somewhat trying ordeal with complete success. He continued for a number of years in London, maintaining his reputation both as a preacher and writer. His most popular works were the 'Letters of Theodosius and Constantia,' and a translation of Plutarch's Lives, which Wrangham afterwards corrected and improved, and which is still standard. He was twice married, and survived both his wives. He obtained the living of Blagden in Somersetshire, and in addition to it, in 1777, a prebend in the Cathedral of Wells. He died in 1779, aged only forty-four; his death, it is supposed, being accelerated by intemperance, although it does not seem to have been of a gross or aggravated description. Langhorne, an amiable man, and highly popular as well as warmly beloved in his day, survives now in memory chiefly through his Plutarch's Lives, and through a few lines in his 'Country Justice,' which are immortalised by the well- known story of Scott's interview with Burns. Campbell puts in a plea besides for his 'Owen of Carron,' but the plea, being founded on early reading, is partial, and has not been responded to by the public.
The social laws from insult to protect,To cherish peace, to cultivate respect;The rich from wanton cruelty restrain,To smooth the bed of penury and pain;The hapless vagrant to his rest restore,The maze of fraud, the haunts of theft explore;The thoughtless maiden, when subdued by art,To aid, and bring her rover to her heart;Wild riot's voice with dignity to quell,Forbid unpeaceful passions to rebel,Wrest from revenge the meditated harm,For this fair Justice raised her sacred arm;For this the rural magistrate, of yore,Thy honours, Edward, to his mansion bore.
Oft, where old Air in conscious glory sails,On silver waves that flow through smiling vales;In Harewood's groves, where long my youth was laid,Unseen beneath their ancient world of shade;With many a group of antique columns crowned,In Gothic guise such, mansion have I found.
Nor lightly deem, ye apes of modern race,Ye cits that sore bedizen nature's face,Of the more manly structures here ye view;They rose for greatness that ye never knew!Ye reptile cits, that oft have moved my spleenWith Venus and the Graces on your green!Let Plutus, growling o'er his ill-got wealth,Let Mercury, the thriving god of stealth,The shopman, Janus, with his double looks,Rise on your mounts, and perch upon your books!But spare my Venus, spare each sister Grace,Ye cits, that sore bedizen nature's face!
Ye royal architects, whose antic tasteWould lay the realms of sense and nature waste;Forgot, whenever from her steps ye stray,That folly only points each other way;Here, though your eye no courtly creature sees,Snakes on the ground, or monkeys in the trees;Yet let not too severe a censure fallOn the plain precincts of the ancient hall.
For though no sight your childish fancy meets,Of Thibet's dogs, or China's paroquets;Though apes, asps, lizards, things without a tail,And all the tribes of foreign monsters fail;Here shall ye sigh to see, with rust o'ergrown,The iron griffin and the sphinx of stone;And mourn, neglected in their waste abodes,Fire-breathing drakes, and water-spouting gods.
Long have these mighty monsters known disgrace,Yet still some trophies hold their ancient place;Where, round the hall, the oak's high surbase rearsThe field-day triumphs of two hundred years.
The enormous antlers here recall the dayThat saw the forest monarch forced away;Who, many a flood, and many a mountain passed,Not finding those, nor deeming these the last,O'er floods, o'er mountains yet prepared to fly,Long ere the death-drop filled his failing eye!
Here famed for cunning, and in crimes grown old,Hangs his gray brush, the felon of the fold.Oft as the rent-feast swells the midnight cheer,The maudlin farmer kens him o'er his beer,And tells his old, traditionary tale,Though known to every tenant of the vale.
Here, where of old the festal ox has fed,Marked with his weight, the mighty horns are spread:Some ox, O Marshall, for a board like thine,Where the vast master with the vast sirloinVied in round magnitude—Respect I bearTo thee, though oft the ruin of the chair.
These, and such antique tokens that recordThe manly spirit, and the bounteous board,Me more delight than all the gewgaw train,The whims and zigzags of a modern brain,More than all Asia's marmosets to view,Grin, frisk, and water in the walks of Kew.
Through these fair valleys, stranger, hast thou strayed,By any chance, to visit Harewood's shade,And seen with lionest, antiquated air,In the plain hall the magistratial chair?There Herbert sat—The love of human kind,Pure light of truth, and temperance of mind,In the free eye the featured soul displayed,Honour's strong beam, and Mercy's melting shade:Justice that, in the rigid paths of law,Would still some drops from Pity's fountain draw,Bend o'er her urn with many a generous fear,Ere his firm seal should force one orphan's tear;Fair equity, and reason scorning art,And all the sober virtues of the heart—These sat with Herbert, these shall best availWhere statutes order, or where statutes fail.
Be this, ye rural magistrates, your plan:Firm be your justice, but be friends to man.
He whom the mighty master of this ballWe fondly deem, or farcically call,To own the patriarch's truth, however loth,Holds but a mansion crushed before the moth.
Frail in his genius, in his heart too frail,Born but to err, and erring to bewail,Shalt thou his faults with eye severe explore,And give to life one human weakness more?
Still mark if vice or nature prompts the deed;Still mark the strong temptation and the need:On pressing want, on famine's powerful call,At least more lenient let thy justice fall.
For him who, lost to every hope of life,Has long with fortune held unequal strife,Known to no human love, no human care,The friendless, homeless object of despair;For the poor vagrant feel, while he complains,Nor from sad freedom send to sadder chains.Alike, if folly or misfortune broughtThose last of woes his evil days have wrought;Believe with social mercy and with me,Folly's misfortune in the first degree.
Perhaps on some inhospitable shoreThe houseless wretch a widowed parent bore;Who then, no more by golden prospects led,Of the poor Indian begged a leafy bed.Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain,Perhaps that parent mourned her soldier slain;Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew,The big drops mingling with the milk he drew,Gave the sad presage of his future years,The child of misery, baptized in tears!
The gipsy-race my pity rarely move;Yet their strong thirst of liberty I love:Not Wilkes, our Freedom's holy martyr, more;Nor his firm phalanx of the common shore.
For this in Norwood's patrimonial grovesThe tawny father with his offspring roves;When summer suns lead slow the sultry day,In mossy caves, where welling waters play,Fanned by each gale that cools the fervid sky,With this in ragged luxury they lie.Oft at the sun the dusky elfins strainThe sable eye, then snugging, sleep again;Oft as the dews of cooler evening fall,For their prophetic mother's mantle call.
Far other cares that wandering mother wait,The mouth, and oft the minister of fate!From her to hear, in evening's friendly shade,Of future fortune, flies the village-maid,Draws her long-hoarded copper from its hold,And rusty halfpence purchase hopes of gold.
But, ah! ye maids, beware the gipsy's lures!She opens not the womb of time, but yours.Oft has her hands the hapless Marian wrung,Marian, whom Gay in sweetest strains has sung!The parson's maid—sore cause had she to rueThe gipsy's tongue; the parson's daughter too.Long had that anxious daughter sighed to knowWhat Vellum's sprucy clerk, the valley's beau,Meant by those glances which at church he stole,Her father nodding to the psalm's slow drawl;Long had she sighed; at length a prophet came,By many a sure prediction known to fame,To Marian known, and all she told, for true:She knew the future, for the past she knew.
Unnumbered objects ask thy honest care,Beside the orphan's tear, the widow's prayer:Far as thy power can save, thy bounty bless,Unnumbered evils call for thy redress.
Seest thou afar yon solitary thorn,Whose aged limbs the heath's wild winds have torn?While yet to cheer the homeward shepherd's eye,A few seem straggling in the evening sky!Not many suns have hastened down the day,Or blushing moons immersed in clouds their way,Since there, a scene that stained their sacred light,With horror stopped a felon in his flight;A babe just born that signs of life expressed,Lay naked o'er the mother's lifeless breast.The pitying robber, conscious that, pursued,He had no time to waste, yet stood and viewed;To the next cot the trembling infant bore,And gave a part of what he stole before;Nor known to him the wretches were, nor dear,He felt as man, and dropped a human tear.
Far other treatment she who breathless lay,Found from a viler animal of prey.
Worn with long toil on many a painful road,That toil increased by nature's growing load,When evening brought the friendly hour of rest,And all the mother thronged about her breast,The ruffian officer opposed her stay,And, cruel, bore her in her pangs away,So far beyond the town's last limits drove,That to return were hopeless, had she strove;Abandoned there, with famine, pain, and cold,And anguish, she expired,—The rest I've told.
'Now let me swear. For by my soul's last sigh,That thief shall live, that overseer shall die.'
Too late!—his life the generous robber paid,Lost by that pity which his steps delayed!No soul-discerning Mansfield sat to hear,No Hertford bore his prayer to mercy's ear;No liberal justice first assigned the gaol,Or urged, as Camplin would have urged, his tale.
This is not the place for writing the life of the great lawyer whose awful wig has been singed by the sarcasm of Junius. He was born in London in 1723, and died in 1780. He had early coquetted with poetry, but on entering the Middle Temple he bade a 'Farewell to his Muse' in the verses subjoined. So far as lucre was concerned, he chose the better part, and rose gradually on the ladder of law to be a knight and a judge in the Court of Common Pleas. It has been conjectured, from some notes on Shakspeare published by Stevens, that Sir William continued till the end of his days to hold occasional flirtations with his old flame.
As, by some tyrant's stern command,A wretch forsakes his native land,In foreign climes condemned to roamAn endless exile from his home;Pensive he treads the destined way,And dreads to go, nor dares to stay;Till on some neighbouring mountain's browHe stops, and turns his eyes below;There, melting at the well-known view,Drops a last tear, and bids adieu:So I, thus doomed from thee to part,Gay queen of Fancy, and of Art,Reluctant move, with doubtful mindOft stop, and often look behind.
Companion of my tender age,Serenely gay, and sweetly sage,How blithesome were we wont to roveBy verdant hill, or shady grove,Where fervent bees, with humming voice,Around the honeyed oak rejoice,And aged elms with awful bendIn long cathedral walks extend!Lulled by the lapse of gliding floods,Cheered by the warbling of the woods,How blessed my days, my thoughts how free,In sweet society with thee!Then all was joyous, all was young,And years unheeded rolled along:But now the pleasing dream is o'er,These scenes must charm me now no more.Lost to the fields, and torn from you,—Farewell!—a long, a last adieu.Me wrangling courts, and stubborn law,To smoke, and crowds, and cities draw:There selfish faction rules the day,And pride and avarice throng the way;Diseases taint the murky air,And midnight conflagrations glare;Loose Revelry and Riot boldIn frighted streets their orgies hold;Or, where in silence all is drowned,Fell Murder walks his lonely round;No room for peace, no room for you,Adieu, celestial nymph, adieu!
Shakspeare no more, thy sylvan son,Nor all the art of Addison,Pope's heaven-strung lyre, nor Waller's ease,Nor Milton's mighty self, must please:Instead of these a formal band,In furs and coifs, around me stand;With sounds uncouth and accents dry,That grate the soul of harmony,Each pedant sage unlocks his storeOf mystic, dark, discordant lore;And points with tottering hand the waysThat lead me to the thorny maze.
There, in a winding close retreat,Is Justice doomed to fix her seat;There, fenced by bulwarks of the law,She keeps the wondering world in awe;And there, from vulgar sight retired,Like eastern queens, is more admired.
Oh, let me pierce the sacred shadeWhere dwells the venerable maid!There humbly mark, with reverent awe,The guardian of Britannia's law;Unfold with joy her sacred page,The united boast of many an age;Where mixed, yet uniform, appearsThe wisdom of a thousand years.In that pure spring the bottom view,Clear, deep, and regularly true;And other doctrines thence imbibeThan lurk within the sordid scribe;Observe how parts with parts uniteIn one harmonious rule of right;See countless wheels distinctly tendBy various laws to one great end:While mighty Alfred's piercing soulPervades, and regulates the whole.
Then welcome business, welcome strife,Welcome the cares, the thorns of life,The visage wan, the poreblind sight,The toil by day, the lamp at night,The tedious forms, the solemn prate,The pert dispute, the dull debate,The drowsy bench, the babbling Hall,For thee, fair Justice, welcome all!Thus though my noon of life be passed,Yet let my setting sun, at last,Find out the still, the rural cell,Where sage Retirement loves to dwell!There let me taste the homefelt bliss.Of innocence and inward peace;Untainted by the guilty bribe;Uncursed amid the harpy tribe;No orphan's cry to wound my ear;My honour and my conscience clear;Thus may I calmly meet my end,Thus to the grave in peace descend.
This poet is generally known as 'Scott of Amwell.' This arises from the fact that his father, a draper in Southwark, where John was born in 1730, retired ten years afterwards to Amwell. He had never been inoculated with the small-pox, and such was his dread of the disease, and that of his family, that for twenty years, although within twenty miles of London, he never visited it. His parents, who belonged to the amiable sect of Quakers, sent him to a day-school at Ware, but that too he left upon the first alarm of infection. At seventeen, although his education was much neglected, he began to relish reading, and was materially assisted in his studies by a neighbour of the name of Frogley, a master bricklayer, who, though somewhat illiterate, admired poetry. Scott sent his first essays to theGentleman's Magazine, and in his thirtieth year published four elegies, which met with a kind reception, although Dr Johnson said only of them, 'They are very well, but such as twenty people might write.' He produced afterwards 'The Garden,' 'Amwell,' and other poems, besides some rather narrow 'Critical Essays on the English Poets.' When thirty-six years of age, he submitted to inoculation, and henceforward visited London frequently, and became acquainted with Dr Johnson, Sir William Jones, Mrs Montague, and other eminent characters. He was a very active promoter of local improvements, and diligent in cultivating his grounds and garden. He was twice married, his first wife being a daughter of his friend Frogley. He died in 1783, not of that disease which he so 'greatly feared,' but of a putrid fever, at Radcliff. One note of his, entitled 'Ode on Hearing the Drum,' still reverberates on the ear of poetic readers. Wordsworth has imitated it in his 'Andrew Jones.' Sir Walter makes Rachel Geddes say, in 'Redgauntlet,' alluding to books of verse, 'Some of our people do indeed hold that every writer who is not with us is against us, but brother Joshua is mitigated in his opinions, and correspondeth with our friend John Scott of Amwell, who hath himself constructed verses well approved of even in the world.'
1 I hate that drum's discordant sound,Parading round, and round, and round:To thoughtless youth it pleasure yields,And lures from cities and from fields,To sell their liberty for charmsOf tawdry lace, and glittering arms;And when ambition's voice commands,To march, and fight, and fall, in foreign lands.
2 I hate that drum's discordant sound,Parading round, and round, and round:To me it talks of ravaged plains,And burning towns, and ruined swains,And mangled limbs, and dying groans,And widows' tears, and orphans' moans;And all that misery's hand bestows,To fill the catalogue of human woes.
1 There's grandeur in this sounding storm,That drives the hurrying clouds along,That on each other seem to throng,And mix in many a varied form;While, bursting now and then between,The moon's dim misty orb is seen,And casts faint glimpses on the green.
2 Beneath the blast the forests bend,And thick the branchy ruin lies,And wide the shower of foliage flies;The lake's black waves in tumult blend,Revolving o'er and o'er and o'er,And foaming on the rocky shore,Whose caverns echo to their roar.
3 The sight sublime enrapts my thought,And swift along the past it strays,And much of strange event surveys,What history's faithful tongue has taught,Or fancy formed, whose plastic skillThe page with fabled change can fillOf ill to good, or good to ill.
4 But can my soul the scene enjoy,That rends another's breast with pain?O hapless he, who, near the main,Now sees its billowy rage destroy!Beholds the foundering bark descend,Nor knows but what its fate may endThe moments of his dearest friend!
Of this fine old Scottish poet we regret that we can tell our readers so little. He was born in 1698, became parish schoolmaster at Lochlee in Angusshire, and published, by the advice of Dr Beattie, in 1768, a volume entitled 'Helenore; or, The Fortunate Shepherdess: a Pastoral Tale in the Scottish Dialect; along with a few Songs.' Some of these latter, such as 'Woo'd, and Married, and a',' became very popular. Beattie loved the 'good-humoured, social, happy old man,' who was 'passing rich' on twenty pounds a-year, and wrote in theAberdeen Journala poetical letter in the Scotch language to promote the sale of his poem. Ross died in 1784, about eighty-six years old, and is buried in a churchyard at the east end of the loch.
Lochlee is a very solitary and romantic spot. The road to it from the low country, or Howe of the Mearns, conducts us through a winding, unequal, but very interesting glen, which, after bearing at its foot many patches of corn, yellowing amidst thick green copsewood and birch trees, fades and darkens gradually into a stern, woodless, and rocky defile, which emerges on a solitary loch, lying 'dern and dreary' amidst silent hills. It is one of those lakes which divide the distance between the loch and the tarn, being two miles in length and one in breadth. The hills, which are stony and savage, sink directly down upon its brink. A house or two are all the dwellings in view. The celebrated Thomas Guthrie dearly loves this lake, lives beside it for months at a time, and is often seen rowing his lonely boat in the midst of it, by sunlight and by moonlight too. On the west, one bold, sword-like summit, Craig Macskeldie by name, cuts the air, and relieves the monotony of the other mountains. Fit rest has Ross found in that calm, rural burying-place, beside 'the rude forefathers of the hamlet,' with short, sweet, flower- sprinkled grass covering his dust, the low voice of the lake sounding a few yards from his cold ear, and a plain gravestone uniting with his native mountains to form his memorial. 'Fortunate Shepherd,' (shall we call him?) to have obtained a grave so intensely characteristic of a Scottish poet!
1 The bride cam' out o' the byre,And, O, as she dighted her cheeks!'Sirs, I'm to be married the night,And have neither blankets nor sheets;Have neither blankets nor sheets,Nor scarce a coverlet too;The bride that has a' thing to borrow,Has e'en right muckle ado.'Woo'd, and married, and a',Married, and woo'd, and a'!And was she nae very weel off,That was woo'd, and married, and a'?
2 Out spake the bride's father,As he cam' in frae the pleugh:'O, haud your tongue my dochter,And ye'se get gear eneugh;The stirk stands i' the tether,And our braw bawsint yade,Will carry ye hame your corn—What wad ye be at, ye jade?'
3 Out spake the bride's mither:'What deil needs a' this pride?I had nae a plack in my pouchThat night I was a bride;My gown was linsey-woolsey,And ne'er a sark ava;And ye hae ribbons and buskins,Mae than ane or twa.'* * * * *
4 Out spake the bride's brither,As he cam' in wi' the kye:'Poor Willie wad ne'er hae ta'en ye,Had he kent ye as weel as I;For ye're baith proud and saucy,And no for a poor man's wife;Gin I canna get a better,I'se ne'er tak ane i' my life.'* * * * *
1 There was an auld wife had a wee pickle tow,And she wad gae try the spinnin' o't;But lootin' her doun, her rock took a-lowe,And that was an ill beginnin' o't.She spat on 't, she flat on 't, and tramped on its pate,But a' she could do it wad ha'e its ain gate;At last she sat down on't and bitterly grat,For e'er ha'in' tried the spinnin' o't.
2 Foul fa' them that ever advised me to spin,It minds me o' the beginnin' o't;I weel might ha'e ended as I had begun,And never ha'e tried the spinnin' o't.But she's a wise wife wha kens her ain weird,I thought ance a day it wad never be spier'd,How let ye the lowe tak' the rock by the beard,When ye gaed to try the spinnin' o't?
3 The spinnin', the spinnin', it gars my heart sabTo think on the ill beginnin' o't;I took't in my head to mak' me a wab,And that was the first beginnin' o't.But had I nine daughters, as I ha'e but three,The safest and soundest advice I wad gi'e,That they wad frae spinnin' aye keep their heads free,For fear o' an ill beginnin' o't.
4 But if they, in spite o' my counsel, wad runThe dreary, sad task o' the spinnin' o't;Let them find a lown seat by the light o' the sun,And syne venture on the beginnin' o't.For wha's done as I've done, alake and awowe!To busk up a rock at the cheek o' a lowe;They'll say that I had little wit in my pow—O the muckle black deil tak' the spinnin' o't.
Glover was a man so remarkable as to be thought capable of having written the letters of Junius, although no one now almost names his name or reads his poetry. He was the son of a Hamburgh merchant in London, and born (1712) in St Martin's Lane, Cannon Street. He was educated at a private school in Surrey, but being designed for trade, was never sent to a university, yet by his own exertions he became an excellent classical scholar. At sixteen he wrote a poem to the memory of Sir Isaac Newton, and at twenty-five produced nine books of his 'Leonidas.' Partly through its own merits, partly through its liberal political sentiments, and partly through the influence of Lord Cobham, to whom it was inscribed, and the praise of Fielding and Chatham, it became very popular. In 1739, he produced a poem entitled 'London; or, The Progress of Commerce,' and a spirited ballad entitled 'Admiral Hosier's Ghost,' which we have given, both designed to rouse the national spirit against the Spaniards.
Glover was a merchant, and very highly esteemed among his commercial brethren, although at one time unfortunate in business. When forced by his failure to seek retirement, he produced a tragedy on the subject of Boadicea, which ran the usual nine nights, although it has long since ceased to be acted or read. In his later years his affairs improved; he returned again to public life, was elected to Parliament, and approved himself a painstaking and popular M.P. In 1770, he enlarged his 'Leonidas' from nine books to twelve, and afterwards wrote a sequel to it, entitled 'The Athenais.' Glover spent his closing years in opulent retirement, enjoying the intimacy and respect of the most eminent men of the day, and died in 1785.
'Leonidas' may be called the epic of the eighteenth century, and betrays the artificial genius of its age. The poet rises to his flight like a heavy heron—not a hawk or eagle. Passages in it are good, but the effect of the whole is dulness. It reminds you of Cowper's 'Homer,' in which all is accurate, but all is cold, and where even the sound of battle lulls to slumber—or of Edwin Atherstone's 'Fall of Nineveh,' where you are fatigued with uniform pomp, and the story struggles and staggers under a load of words. Thomson exclaimed when he heard of the work of Glover, 'He write an epic, who never saw a mountain!' And there was justice in the remark. The success of 'Leonidas' was probably one cause of the swarm of epics which appeared in the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century.—Cottle himself being, according to De Quincey, 'the author of four epic poems,anda new kind of blacking.' Their day seems now for ever at an end.
Song of the Priestess of the Muses to the chosen band after their return from the inroad into the Persian camp, on the night before the Battle of Thermopylae.
Back to the pass in gentle march he leadsThe embattled warriors. They, behind the shrubs,Where Medon sent such numbers to the shades,In ambush lie. The tempest is o'erblown.Soft breezes only from the Malian waveO'er each grim face, besmeared with smoke and gore,Their cool refreshment breathe. The healing gale,A crystal rill near Oeta's verdant feet,Dispel the languor from their harassed nerves,Fresh braced by strength returning. O'er their headsLo! in full blaze of majesty appearsMelissa, bearing in her hand divineThe eternal guardian of illustrious deeds,The sweet Phoebean lyre. Her graceful trainOf white-robed virgins, seated on a rangeHalf down the cliff, o'ershadowing the Greeks,All with concordant strings, and accents clear,A torrent pour of melody, and swellA high, triumphal, solemn dirge of praise,Anticipating fame. Of endless joysIn blessed Elysium was the song. Go, meetLycurgus, Solon, and Zaleucus sage,Let them salute the children of their laws.Meet Homer, Orpheus, and the Ascraean bard,Who with a spirit, by ambrosial foodRefined, and more exalted, shall contendYour splendid fate to warble through the bowersOf amaranth and myrtle ever young,Like your renown. Your ashes we will cull.In yonder fane deposited, your urns,Dear to the Muses, shall our lays inspire.Whatever offerings, genius, science, artCan dedicate to virtue, shall be yours,The gifts of all the Muses, to transmitYou on the enlivened canvas, marble, brass,In wisdom's volume, in the poet's song,In every tongue, through every age and clime,You of this earth the brightest flowers, not cropt,Transplanted only to immortal bloomOf praise with men, of happiness with gods.
ON THE TAKING OF PORTO-BELLO FROM THE SPANIARDSBY ADMIRAL VERNON—Nov. 22, 1739.
1 As near Porto-Bello lyingOn the gently swelling flood,At midnight with streamers flying,Our triumphant navy rode:There while Vernon sat all-gloriousFrom the Spaniards' late defeat;And his crews, with shouts victorious,Drank success to England's fleet:
2 On a sudden shrilly sounding,Hideous yells and shrieks were heard;Then each heart with fear confounding,A sad troop of ghosts appeared,All in dreary hammocks shrouded,Which for winding-sheets they wore,And with looks by sorrow clouded,Frowning on that hostile shore.
3 On them gleamed the moon's wan lustre,When the shade of Hosier braveHis pale bands was seen to muster,Rising from their watery grave:O'er the glimmering wave he hied him,Where the Burford[1] reared her sail,With three thousand ghosts beside him,And in groans did Vernon hail:
4 'Heed, O heed, our fatal story,I am Hosier's injured ghost,You, who now have purchased gloryAt this place where I was lost;Though in Porto-Bello's ruinYou now triumph free from fears,When you think on our undoing,You will mix your joy with tears.
5 'See these mournful spectres, sweepingGhastly o'er this hated wave,Whose wan cheeks are stained with weeping;These were English captains brave:Mark those numbers pale and horrid,Those were once my sailors bold,Lo! each hangs his drooping forehead,While his dismal tale is told.
6 'I, by twenty sail attended,Did this Spanish town affright:Nothing then its wealth defendedBut my orders not to fight:Oh! that in this rolling oceanI had cast them with disdain,And obeyed my heart's warm motion,To have quelled the pride of Spain.
7 'For resistance I could fear none,But with twenty ships had doneWhat thou, brave and happy Vernon,Hast achieved with six alone.Then the Bastimentos neverHad our foul dishonour seen,Nor the sea the sad receiverOf this gallant train had been.
8 'Thus, like thee, proud Spain dismaying,And her galleons leading home,Though condemned for disobeying,I had met a traitor's doom;To have fallen, my country crying,He has played an English part,Had been better far than dyingOf a grieved and broken heart.
9 'Unrepining at thy glory,Thy successful arms we hail;But remember our sad story,And let Hosier's wrongs prevail.Sent in this foul clime to languish,Think what thousands fell in vain,Wasted with disease and anguish,Not in glorious battle slain.
10 'Hence, with all my train attendingFrom their oozy tombs below,Through the hoary foam ascending,Here I feed my constant woe:Here the Bastimentos viewing,We recall our shameful doom,And our plaintive cries renewing,Wander through the midnight gloom.
11 'O'er these waves for ever mourningShall we roam deprived of rest,If to Britain's shores returning,You neglect my just request.After this proud foe subduing,When your patriot friends you see,Think on vengeance for my ruin,And for England shamed in me.'
[1] 'The Burford:' Admiral Vernon's ship.
There was also a Paul Whitehead, who wrote a satire entitled 'Manners,' which is highly praised by Boswell, and mentioned contemptuously by Campbell, and who lives in the couplet of Churchill—
'May I (can worse disgrace on manhood fall?)Be born a Whitehead, and baptized a Paul.'
William Whitehead was the son of a baker in Cambridge, was born in 1715, and studied first at Winchester, and then in Clare Hall, in his own city. He became tutor to the son of the Earl of Jersey, wrote one or two poor plays, and in 1757, on the death of Colley Cibber, was appointed Poet-Laureate—the office having previously been refused by Gray. This roused against him a large class of those 'beings capable of envying even a poet-laureate,' to use Gray's expression, and especially the wrath of Churchill, then the man-mountain of satiric literature, who, in his 'Ghost,' says—
'But he who in the laureate chair,By grace, not merit, planted there,In awkward pomp is seen to sit,And by his patent proves his wit,' &c.
To these attacks Whitehead, who was a good-natured and modest man, made no reply. In his latter years the Laureate resided in the family of Lord Jersey, and died in 1785. His poem called 'Variety' is light and pleasant, and deserves a niche in our 'Specimens.'
A gentle maid, of rural breeding,By Nature first, and then by reading,Was filled with all those soft sensationsWhich we restrain in near relations,Lest future husbands should be jealous,And think their wives too fond of fellows.
The morning sun beheld her roveA nymph, or goddess of the grove!At eve she paced the dewy lawn,And called each clown she saw, a faun!Then, scudding homeward, locked her door,And turned some copious volume o'er.For much she read; and chiefly thoseGreat authors, who in verse, or prose,Or something betwixt both, unwindThe secret springs which move the mind.These much she read; and thought she knewThe human heart's minutest clue;Yet shrewd observers still declare,(To show how shrewd observers are,)Though plays, which breathed heroic flame,And novels, in profusion, came,Imported fresh-and-fresh from France,She only read the heart's romance.
The world, no doubt, was well enoughTo smooth the manners of the rough;Might please the giddy and the vain,Those tinselled slaves of folly's train:But, for her part, the truest tasteShe found was in retirement placed,Where, as in verse it sweetly flows,'On every thorn instruction grows.'
Not that she wished to 'be alone,'As some affected prudes have done;She knew it was decreed on highWe should 'increase and multiply;'And therefore, if kind Fate would grantHer fondest wish, her only want,A cottage with the man she lovedWas what her gentle heart approved;In some delightful solitudeWhere step profane might ne'er intrude;But Hymen guard the sacred ground,And virtuous Cupids hover round.Not such as flutter on a fanRound Crete's vile bull, or Leda's swan,(Who scatter myrtles, scatter roses,And hold their fingers to their noses,)But simpering, mild, and innocent,As angels on a monument.
Fate heard her prayer: a lover came,Who felt, like her, the innoxious flame;One who had trod, as well as she,The flowery paths of poesy;Had warmed himself with Milton's heat,Could every line of Pope repeat,Or chant in Shenstone's tender strains,'The lover's hopes,' 'the lover's pains.'
Attentive to the charmer's tongue,With him she thought no evening long;With him she sauntered half the day;And sometimes, in a laughing way,Ran o'er the catalogue by roteOf who might marry, and who not;'Consider, sir, we're near relations—''I hope so in our inclinations.'—In short, she looked, she blushed consent;He grasped her hand, to church they went;And every matron that was there,With tongue so voluble and supple,Said for her part, she must declare,She never saw a finer couple.halcyon days! 'Twas Nature's reign,'Twas Tempe's vale, and Enna's plain,The fields assumed unusual bloom,And every zephyr breathed perfume,The laughing sun with genial beamsDanced lightly on the exulting streams;And the pale regent of the nightIn dewy softness shed delight.'Twas transport not to be expressed;'Twas Paradise!—But mark the rest.
Two smiling springs had waked the flowersThat paint the meads, or fringe the bowers,(Ye lovers, lend your wondering ears,Who count by months, and not by years,)Two smiling springs had chaplets woveTo crown their solitude, and love:When lo, they find, they can't tell how,Their walks are not so pleasant now.The seasons sure were changed; the placeHad, somehow, got a different face.Some blast had struck the cheerful scene;The lawns, the woods, were not so green.The purling rill, which murmured by,And once was liquid harmony,Became a sluggish, reedy pool:The days grew hot, the evenings cool.The moon, with all the starry reign,Were melancholy's silent train.And then the tedious winter night—They could not read by candle-light.
Full oft, unknowing why they did,They called in adventitious aid.A faithful, favourite dog ('twas thusWith Tobit and Telemachus)Amused their steps; and for a whileThey viewed his gambols with a smile.The kitten too was comical,She played so oddly with her tail,Or in the glass was pleased to findAnother cat, and peeped behind.
A courteous neighbour at the doorWas deemed intrusive noise no more.For rural visits, now and then,Are right, as men must live with men.Then cousin Jenny, fresh from town,
A new recruit, a dear delight!Made many a heavy hour go down,At morn, at noon, at eve, at night:Sure they could hear her jokes for ever,She was so sprightly, and so clever!
Yet neighbours were not quite the thing;What joy, alas! could converse bringWith awkward creatures bred at home?—The dog grew dull, or troublesome.The cat had spoiled the kitten's merit,And, with her youth, had lost her spirit.And jokes repeated o'er and o'er,Had quite exhausted Jenny's store.—'And then, my dear, I can't abideThis always sauntering side by side.''Enough!' he cries, 'the reason's plain:For causes never rack your brain.Our neighbours are like other folks,Skip's playful tricks, and Jenny's jokes,Are still delightful, still would please,Were we, my dear, ourselves at ease.Look round, with an impartial eye,On yonder fields, on yonder sky;The azure cope, the flowers below,With all their wonted colours glow.The rill still murmurs; and the moonShines, as she did, a softer sun.No change has made the seasons fail,No comet brushed us with his tail.The scene's the same, the same the weather—We live, my dear, too much together.'
Agreed. A rich old uncle dies,And added wealth the means supplies.With eager haste to town they flew,Where all must please, for all was new.
But here, by strict poetic laws,Description claims its proper pause.
The rosy morn had raised her headFrom old Tithonus' saffron bed;And embryo sunbeams from the east,Half-choked, were struggling through the mist,When forth advanced the gilded chaise;The village crowded round to gaze.The pert postilion, now promotedFrom driving plough, and neatly booted,His jacket, cap, and baldric on,(As greater folks than he have done,)Looked round; and, with a coxcomb air,Smacked loud his lash. The happy pairBowed graceful, from a separate door,And Jenny, from the stool before.
Roll swift, ye wheels! to willing eyesNew objects every moment rise.Each carriage passing on the road,From the broad waggon's ponderous loadTo the light car, where mounted highThe giddy driver seems to fly,Were themes for harmless satire fit,And gave fresh force to Jenny's wit.Whate'er occurred, 'twas all delightful,No noise was harsh, no danger frightful.The dash and splash through thick and thin,The hairbreadth 'scapes, the bustling inn,(Where well-bred landlords were so readyTo welcome in the 'squire and lady,)Dirt, dust, and sun, they bore with ease,Determined to be pleased, and please.
Now nearer town, and all agog,They know dear London by its fog.Bridges they cross, through lanes they wind,Leave Hounslow's dangerous heath behind,Through Brentford win a passage freeBy roaring, 'Wilkes and Liberty!'At Knightsbridge bless the shortening way,Where Bays's troops in ambush lay,O'er Piccadilly's pavement glide,With palaces to grace its side,Till Bond Street with its lamps a-blazeConcludes the journey of three days.
Why should we paint, in tedious song,How every day, and all day long,They drove at first with curious hasteThrough Lud's vast town; or, as they passed'Midst risings, fallings, and repairsOf streets on streets, and squares on squares,Describe how strong their wonder grewAt buildings—and at builders too?