This lady was born at Cardew Hall, near Carlisle, and remained there from the date of her birth (1747) till she was twenty years of age, when she accompanied her sister—who had married Colonel Graham of Duchray, Perthshire—to Scotland, and continued there some years. She became enamoured of Scottish music and poetry, and thus qualified herself for writing such sweet lyrics as 'The Nabob,' and 'What ails this heart o' mine?' On her return to Cumberland she wrote several pieces illustrative of Cumbrian manners. She died unmarried in 1794. Her poetical pieces, some of which had been floating through the country in the form of popular songs, were collected by Mr Patrick Maxwell, and published in 1842. The two we have quoted rank with those of Lady Nairne in nature and pathos.
1 When silent time, wi' lightly foot,Had trod on thirty years,I sought again my native landWi' mony hopes and fears.Wha kens gin the dear friends I leftMay still continue mine?Or gin I e'er again shall tasteThe joys I left langsyne?
2 As I drew near my ancient pile,My heart beat a' the way;Ilk place I passed seemed yet to speakO' some dear former day;Those days that followed me afar,Those happy days o' mine,Whilk made me think the present joysA' naething to langsyne!
3 The ivied tower now met my eye,Where minstrels used to blaw;Nae friend stepped forth wi' open hand,Nae weel-kenned face I saw;Till Donald tottered to the door,Wham I left in his prime,And grat to see the lad returnHe bore about langsyne.
4 I ran to ilka dear friend's room,As if to find them there,I knew where ilk ane used to sit,And hang o'er mony a chair;Till soft remembrance throw a veilAcross these een o' mine,I closed the door, and sobbed aloud,To think on auld langsyne!
5 Some pensy chiels, a new-sprung race,Wad next their welcome pay,Wha shuddered at my Gothic wa's,And wished my groves away.'Cut, cut,' they cried, 'those aged elms,Lay low yon mournfu' pine.'Na! na! our fathers' names grow there,Memorials o' langsyne.
6 To wean me frae these waefu' thoughts,They took me to the town;But sair on ilka weel-kenned faceI missed the youthfu' bloom.At balls they pointed to a nymphWham a' declared divine;But sure her mother's blushing cheeksWere fairer far langsyne!
7 In vain I sought in music's soundTo find that magic art,Which oft in Scotland's ancient laysHas thrilled through a' my heart.The sang had mony an artfu' turn;My ear confessed 'twas fine;But missed the simple melodyI listened to langsyne.
8 Ye sons to comrades o' my youth,Forgie an auld man's spleen,Wha' midst your gayest scenes still mournsThe days he ance has seen.When time has passed and seasons fled,Your hearts will feel like mine;And aye the sang will maist delightThat minds ye o' langsyne!
1 What ails this heart o' mine?What ails this watery ee?What gars me a' turn pale as deathWhen I tak leave o' thee?When thou art far awa',Thou'lt dearer grow to me;But change o' place and change o' folkMay gar thy fancy jee.
2 When I gae out at e'en,Or walk at morning air,Ilk rustling bush will seem to sayI used to meet thee there.Then I'll sit down and cry,And live aneath the tree,And when a leaf fa's i' my lap,I'll ca't a word frae thee.
3 I'll hie me to the bowerThat thou wi' roses tied,And where wi' mony a blushing budI strove myself to hide.I'll doat on ilka spotWhere I ha'e been wi' thee;And ca' to mind some kindly wordBy ilka burn and tree.
Now we come to one who, with all his faults, was not only a real, but a great poet. The events of his life need not detain us long. He was born at Kingussie, Inverness-shire, in 1738, and educated at Aberdeen. At twenty he published a very juvenile production in verse, called 'The Highlandman: a Heroic Poem, in six cantos.' He taught for some time the school of Ruthven, near his native place, and became afterwards tutor in the family of Graham of Balgowan. While attending a scion of this family—afterwards Lord Lynedoch—at Moffat Wells, Macpherson became acquainted with Home, the author of 'Douglas,' and shewed to him some fragments of Gaelic poetry, translated by himself. Home was delighted with these specimens, and the consequence was, that our poet, under the patronage of Home, Blair, Adam Fergusson, and Dr Carlyle, (the once famous 'Jupiter Carlyle,' minister of Inveresk—called 'Jupiter' because he used to sit to sculptors for their statues of 'Father Jove,' and declared by Sir Walter Scott to have been the 'grandest demigod he ever saw,') published, in a small volume of sixty pages, his 'Fragments of Ancient Poetry, translated from the Gaelic or Erse language.' Thisbrochurebecame popular, and Macpherson was provided with a purse to go to the Highlands to collect additional pieces. The result was, in 1762, 'Fingal: an Epic Poem;' and, in the next year, 'Temora,' another epic poem. Their sale was prodigious, and the effect not equalled till, twenty-four years later, the poems of Burns appeared. He realised £1200 by these productions. In 1764 he accompanied Governor Johnston to Pensacola as his secretary, but quarrelled with him, and returned to London. Here he became a professional pamphleteer, always taking the ministerial side, and diversifying these labours by publishing a translation of Homer, in the style of his Ossian, which, as Coleridge says of another production, was 'damned unanimously.' Our readers are familiar with his row with Dr Johnson, who, when threatened with personal chastisement for his obstinate and fierce incredulity in the matter of Ossian, thus wrote the author:—
'To Mr JAMES MACPHERSON.
'I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence offered me I shall do the best to repel, and what I cannot do for myself, the law shall do for me. I hope I shall not be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian.
'What would you have me to retract? I thought your book an imposture. I think it an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the public, which I dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since your Homer, are not so formidable, and what I hear of your morals inclines me to pay regard, not to what you shall say, but to what you shall prove. You may print this if you will.
Nothing daunted by this, and a hundred other similar rebuffs; Macpherson, like Mallett before him, but with twenty times his abilities, pursued his peculiar course. He was appointed agent for the Nabob of Arcot, and became M.P. for Carnelford. In this way he speedily accumulated a handsome fortune, and in 1789, while still a youngish man, he retired to his native parish, where he bought the estate of Raitts, and founded a splendid villa, called Belleville, where, in ease and affluence, he spent his remaining days. Surviving Johnson, his ablest opponent, by twelve years, he died on the 17th of February 1796, in the full view of Ossian's country. One of his daughters became his heir, and another was the first wife of Sir David Brewster. Macpherson in his will ordered that his body should be buried in Westminster Abbey, and left a sum of money to erect a monument to him near Belleville. He lies, accordingly, in Poets' Corner, and a marble obelisk to his memory may be seen near Kingussie, in the centre of some trees.
There is nothing new that is true, or true that is new, to be said about the questions connected with Ossian's Poems. That Macpherson is the sole author is a theory now as generally abandoned as the other, which held that he was simply a free translator of the old bard. To the real fragments of Ossian, which he found in the Highlands, he acted very much as he did to the ancient property of Raitts, in his own native parish. This he purchased in its crude state, and beautified into a mountain paradise. He changed, however, its name into Belleville, and it had been better if he had behaved in a similar way with the poems, and published them as, with some little groundwork from another, the veritable writings of James Macpherson, Esq. The ablest opponent of his living reputation was, as we said, Johnson; and the ablest enemy of his posthumous fame has been Macaulay. We are at a loss to understandhisanimosity to the author of Ossian. Were the Macphersons and Macaulays ever at feud, and did the historian lose his great-great-grandmother in some onslaught made on the Hebrides by the progenitors of the pseudo-Ossian? Macpherson as a man we respect not, and we are persuaded that the greater part of Ossian's Poems can be traced no further than his teeming brain. Nor are we careful to defend his poetry from the common charges of monotony, affectation, and fustian. But we deem Macaulay grossly unjust in his treatment of Macpherson's genius and its results, and can fortify our judgment by that of Sir Walter Scott and Professor Wilson, two men as far superior to the historian in knowledge of the Highlands and of Highland song, and in genuine poetic taste, as they were confessedly in original imagination. The former says, 'Macpherson was certainly a man of high talents, and his poetic powers are honourable to his country.' Wilson, in an admirable paper inBlackwoodfor November 1839, while admitting many faults in Ossian, eloquently proclaims the presence in his strains of much of the purest, most pathetic, and most sublime poetry, instancing the 'Address to the Sun' as equal to anything in Homer or Milton. Both these great writers have paid Macpherson a higher compliment still,—they have imitated him, and the speeches of Allan Macaulay (a far greater genius than his namesake), Ranald MacEagh, and Elspeth MacTavish, in the 'Waverley Novels,' and such, articles by Christopher North as 'Cottages,' 'Hints for the Holidays,' and a 'Glance at Selby's Ornithology,' are all coloured by familiarity and fellow-feeling with Ossian's style. Best of all, the Highlanders as a nation have accepted Ossian as their bard; he is as much the poet of Morven as Burns of Coila, and it is as hopeless to dislodge the one from the Highland as the other from the Lowland heart. The true way to learn to appreciate Ossian's poetry is not to hurry, as Macaulay seems to have done, in a steamer from Glasgow to Oban, and thence to Ballachulish, and thence through Glencoe, (mistaking a fine lake for a 'sullen pool' on his way, and ignoring altogether its peculiar features of grandeur,) and thence to Inverness or Edinburgh; but it is to live for years—as Macpherson did while writing Ossian, and Wilson also did to some extent—under the shadow of the mountains,—to wander through lonely moors amidst drenching mists and rains,—to hold trysts with thunder-storms on the summit of savage hills,—to bathe after nightfall in dreary tarns,—to lie over the ledge and dip one's fingers in the spray of cataracts,—to plough a solitary path into the heart of forests, and to sleep and dream for hours amidst their sunless glades,—to meet on twilight hills the apparition of the winter moon rising over snowy wastes,—to descend by her ghastly light precipices where the eagles are sleeping,—and, returning home, to be haunted by night-visions of mightier mountains, wilder desolations, and giddier descents;—experience somewhat like this is necessary to form a true 'Child of the Mist,' and to give the full capacity for sharing in or appreciating the shadowy, solitary, pensive, and magnificent spirit which tabernacles in Ossian's poetry.
Never, at least, can we forget how, in our boyhood, while feeling, but quite unable to express, the emotions which were suggested by the bold shapes of mountains resting against the stars, mirrored from below in lakes and wild torrents, and quaking sometimes in concert with the quaking couch of the half-slumbering earthquake, the poems of Ossian served to give our thoughts an expression which they could not otherwise have found—how they at once strengthened and consolidated enthusiasm, and are now regarded with feelings which, wreathed around earliest memories and the strongest fibres of the heart, no criticism can ever weaken or destroy.
I feel the sun, O Malvina!—leave me to my rest. Perhapsthey may come to my dreams; I think I hear a feeble voice!The beam of heaven delights to shine on the grave ofCarthon: I feel it warm around.
O thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! Whence are thy beams, O sun! thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty; the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave; but thou thyself movest alone. Who can be a companion of thy course? The oaks of the mountains fall; the mountains themselves decay with years; the ocean shrinks and grows again; the moon herself is lost in heaven, but thou art for ever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy course. When the world is dark with tempests, when thunder rolls and lightning flies, thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Ossian thou lookest in vain, for he beholds thy beams no more; whether thy yellow hair flows on the eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates of the west. But thou art perhaps, like me, for a season; thy years will have an end. Thou shalt sleep in thy clouds careless of the voice of the morning. Exult then, O sun, in the strength of thy youth! Age is dark and unlovely; it is like the glimmering light of the moon when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist is on the hills: the blast of the north is on the plain; the traveller shrinks in the midst of his journey.
I have seen the walls of Balclutha, but they were desolate. The fire had resounded in the halls; and the voice of the people is heard no more. The stream of Clutha was removed from its place by the fall of the walls. The thistle shook there its lonely head; the moss whistled to the wind. The fox looked out from the windows; the rank grass of the wall waved round its head. Desolate is the dwelling of Moina; silence is in the house of her fathers. Raise the song of mourning, O bards! over the land of strangers. They have but fallen before us: for one day we must fall. Why dost thou build the hall, son of the winged days? Thou lookest from thy towers to-day: yet a few years, and the blast of the desert comes; it howls in thy empty court, and whistles round thy half-worn shield. And let the blast of the desert come! we shall be renowned in our day! The mark of my arm shall be in battle; my name in the song of bards. Raise the song, send round the shell: let joy be heard in my hall. When thou, sun of heaven, shalt fail! if thou shalt fail, thou mighty light! if thy brightness is but for a season, like Fingal, our fame shall survive thy beams. Such was the song of Fingal in the day of his joy.
Night came down on the sea; Roma's bay received the ship. A rock bends along the coast with all its echoing wood. On the top is the circle of Loda, the mossy stone of power! A narrow plain spreads beneath, covered with grass and aged trees, which the midnight winds, in their wrath, had torn from the shaggy rock. The blue course of a stream is there! the lonely blast of ocean pursues the thistle's beard. The flame of three oaks arose: the feast is spread around: but the soul of the king is sad, for Carric-thura's chief distressed.
The wan, cold moon, rose in the east; sleep descended on the youths! Their blue helmets glitter to the beam; the fading fire decays. But sleep did not rest on the king: he rose in the midst of his arms, and slowly ascended the hill, to behold the flame of Sarno's tower.
The flame was dim and distant, the moon hid her red face in the east. A blast came from the mountain, on its wings was the spirit of Loda. He came to his place in his terrors, and shook his dusky spear. His eyes appear like flames in his dark face; his voice is like distant thunder. Fingal advanced his spear in night, and raised his voice on high.
Son of night, retire: call thy winds, and fly! Why dost thou come to my presence, with thy shadowy arms? Do I fear thy gloomy form, spirit of dismal Loda? Weak is thy shield of clouds: feeble is that meteor, thy sword! The blast rolls them together; and thou thyself art lost. Fly from my presence, son of night! Call thy winds, and fly!
Dost thou force me from my place? replied the hollow voice. The people bend before me. I turn the battle in the field of the brave. I look on the nations, and they vanish: my nostrils pour the blast of death. I come abroad on the winds: the tempests are before my face. But my dwelling is calm, above the clouds; the fields of my rest are pleasant.
Dwell in thy pleasant fields, said the king; let Comhal's son be forgot. Do my steps ascend, from my hills, into thy peaceful plains? Do I meet thee, with a spear, on thy cloud, spirit of dismal Loda? Why then dost thou frown on me? Why shake thine airy spear? Thou frownest in vain: I never fled from the mighty in war. And shall the sons of the wind frighten the king of Morven? No: he knows the weakness of their arms!
Fly to thy land, replied the form: receive the wind, and fly! The blasts are in the hollow of my hand: the course of the storm is mine. The king of Sora is my son, he bends at the storm of my power. His battle is around Carric-thura; and he will prevail! Fly to thy land, son of Comhal, or feel my flaming wrath!
He lifted high his shadowy spear! He bent forward his dreadful height. Fingal, advancing, drew his sword; the blade of dark-brown Luno. The gleaming path of the steel winds through the gloomy ghost. The form fell shapeless into air, like a column of smoke, which the staff of the boy disturbs, as it rises from the half-extinguished furnace.
The spirit of Loda shrieked, as, rolled into himself, he rose on the wind. Inistore shook at the sound, the waves heard it on the deep. They stopped in their course with fear: the friends of Fingal started at once, and took their heavy spears. They missed the king; they rose in rage; all their arms resound!
Daughter of heaven, fair art thou! the silence of thy face is pleasant! Thou comest forth in loveliness. The stars attend thy blue course in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, O moon! they brighten their dark-brown sides. Who is like thee in heaven, light of the silent night? The stars are ashamed in thy presence. They turn away their sparkling eyes. Whither dost thou retire from thy course, when the darkness of thy countenance grows? hast thou thy hall, like Ossian? dwellest thou in the shadow of grief? have thy sisters fallen from heaven? are they who rejoiced with thee at night no more? Yes, they have fallen, fair light! and thou dost often retire to mourn. But thou thyself shalt fail one night, and leave thy blue path in heaven. The stars will then lift their heads: they, who were ashamed in thy presence, will rejoice. Thou art now clothed with thy brightness. Look from thy gates in the sky. Burst the cloud, O wind! that the daughter of night may look forth! that the shaggy mountains may brighten, and the ocean roll its white waves in light.
His friends sit around the king, on mist! They hear the songs of Ullin: he strikes the half-viewless harp. He raises the feeble voice. The lesser heroes, with a thousand meteors, light the airy hall. Malvina rises in the midst; a blush is on her cheek. She beholds the unknown faces of her fathers. She turns aside her humid eyes. 'Art thou come so soon?' said Fingal, 'daughter of generous Toscar. Sadness dwells in the halls of Lutha. My aged son is sad! I hear the breeze of Cona, that was wont to lift thy heavy locks. It comes to the hall, but thou art not there. Its voice is mournful among the arms of thy fathers! Go, with thy rustling wing, O breeze! sigh on Malvina's tomb. It rises yonder beneath the rock, at the blue stream of Lutha. The maids are departed to their place. Thou alone, O breeze, mournest there!'
1 The wind is up, the field is bare,Some hermit lead me to his cell,Where Contemplation, lonely fair,With blessed content has chose to dwell.
2 Behold! it opens to my sight,Dark in the rock, beside the flood;Dry fern around obstructs the light;The winds above it move the wood.
3 Reflected in the lake, I seeThe downward mountains and the skies,The flying bird, the waving tree,The goats that on the hill arise.
4 The gray-cloaked herd[1] drives on the cow;The slow-paced fowler walks the heath;A freckled pointer scours the brow;A musing shepherd stands beneath.
5 Curved o'er the ruin of an oak,The woodman lifts his axe on high;The hills re-echo to the stroke;I see—I see the shivers fly!
6 Some rural maid, with apron full,Brings fuel to the homely flame;I see the smoky columns roll,And, through the chinky hut, the beam.
7 Beside a stone o'ergrown with moss,Two well-met hunters talk at ease;Three panting dogs beside repose;One bleeding deer is stretched on grass.
8 A lake at distance spreads to sight,Skirted with shady forests round;In midst, an island's rocky heightSustains a ruin, once renowned.
9 One tree bends o'er the naked walls;Two broad-winged eagles hover nigh;By intervals a fragment falls,As blows the blast along the sky.
10 The rough-spun hinds the pinnace guideWith labouring oars along the flood;An angler, bending o'er the tide,Hangs from the boat the insidious wood.
11 Beside the flood, beneath the rocks,On grassy bank, two lovers lean;Bend on each other amorous looks,And seem to laugh and kiss between.
12 The wind is rustling in the oak;They seem to hear the tread of feet;They start, they rise, look round the rock;Again they smile, again they meet.
13 But see! the gray mist from the lakeAscends upon the shady hills;Dark storms the murmuring forests shake,Rain beats around a hundred rills.
14 To Damon's homely hut I fly;I see it smoking on the plain;When storms are past and fair the sky,I'll often seek my cave again.
[1] 'Herd': neat-herd.
This gentleman is now nearly forgotten, except as the friend, biographer, and literary executor of Gray. He was born in 1725, and died in 1797. His tragedies, 'Elfrida' and 'Caractacus,' are spirited declamations in dramatic form, not dramas. His odes have the turgidity without the grandeur of Gray's. His 'English Garden' is too long and too formal. His Life of Gray was an admirable innovation on the form of biography then prevalent, interspersing, as it does, journals and letters with mere narrative. Mason was a royal chaplain, held the living of Ashton, and was precentor of York Cathedral. We quote the best of his minor poems.
1 Take, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear:Take that best gift which Heaven so lately gave:To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling careHer faded form; she bowed to taste the wave,And died. Does youth, does beauty, read the line?Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm?Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine:Even from the grave thou shalt have power to charm.
2 Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee;Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move;And if so fair, from vanity as free;As firm in friendship, and as fond in love;Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die,('Twas even to thee,) yet the dread path once trod,Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high,And bids 'the pure in heart behold their God.'
Knight of the Polar Star! by fortune placedTo shine the Cynosure of British taste;Whose orb collects in one refulgent viewThe scattered glories of Chinese virtù;And spreads their lustre in so broad a blaze,That kings themselves are dazzled while they gaze:Oh, let the Muse attend thy march sublime,And, with thy prose, caparison her rhyme;Teach her, like thee, to gild her splendid song,With scenes of Yven-Ming, and sayings of Li-Tsong;Like thee to scorn dame Nature's simple fence;Leap each ha-ha of truth and common sense;And proudly rising in her bold career,Demand attention from the gracious earOf him, whom we and all the world admit,Patron supreme of science, taste, and wit.Does envy doubt? Witness, ye chosen train,Who breathe the sweets of his Saturnian reign;Witness, ye Hills, ye Johnsons, Scots, Shebbeares,Hark to my call, for some of you have ears.Let David Hume, from the remotest north,In see-saw sceptic scruples hint his worth;David, who there supinely deigns to lieThe fattest hog of Epicurus' sty;Though drunk with Gallic wine, and Gallic praise,David shall bless Old England's halcyon days;The mighty Home, bemired in prose so long,Again shall stalk upon the stilts of song:While bold Mac-Ossian, wont in ghosts to deal,Bids candid Smollett from his coffin steal;Bids Mallock quit his sweet Elysian rest,Sunk in his St John's philosophic breast,And, like old Orpheus, make some strong effortTo come from Hell, and warble Truth at Court.There was a time, 'in Esher's peaceful grove,When Kent and Nature vied for Pelham's love,'That Pope beheld them with auspicious smile,And owned that beauty blest their mutual toil.Mistaken bard! could such a pair designScenes fit to live in thy immortal line?Hadst thou been born in this enlightened day,Felt, as we feel, taste's oriental ray,Thy satire sure had given them both a stab,Called Kent a driveller, and the nymph a drab.For what is Nature? Ring her changes round,Her three flat notes are water, plants, and ground;Prolong the peal, yet, spite of all your clatter,The tedious chime is still ground, plants, and water.So, when some John his dull invention racks,To rival Boodle's dinners, or Almack's;Three uncouth legs of mutton shock our eyes,Three roasted geese, three buttered apple-pies.Come, then, prolific Art, and with thee bringThe charms that rise from thy exhaustless spring;To Richmond come, for see, untutored BrowneDestroys those wonders which were once thy own.Lo, from his melon-ground the peasant slaveHas rudely rushed, and levelled Merlin's cave;Knocked down the waxen wizard, seized his wand,Transformed to lawn what late was fairy-land;And marred, with impious hand, each sweet designOf Stephen Duck, and good Queen Caroline.Haste, bid yon livelong terrace re-ascend,Replace each vista, straighten every bend;Shut out the Thames; shall that ignoble thingApproach the presence of great Ocean's king?No! let barbaric glories feast his eyes,August pagodas round his palace rise,And finished Richmond open to his view,'A work to wonder at, perhaps a Kew.'Nor rest we here, but, at our magic call,Monkeys shall climb our trees, and lizards crawl;Huge dogs of Tibet bark in yonder grove,Here parrots prate, there cats make cruel love;In some fair island will we turn to grass(With the queen's leave) her elephant and ass.Giants from Africa shall guard the glades,Where hiss our snakes, where sport our Tartar maids;Or, wanting these, from Charlotte Hayes we bringDamsels, alike adroit to sport and sting.Now to our lawns of dalliance and delight,Join we the groves of horror and affright;This to achieve no foreign aids we try,—Thy gibbets, Bagshot! shall our wants supply;Hounslow, whose heath sublimer terror fills,Shall with her gibbets lend her powder-mills.Here, too, O king of vengeance, in thy fane,Tremendous Wilkes shall rattle his gold chain;And round that fane, on many a Tyburn tree,Hang fragments dire of Newgate-history;On this shall Holland's dying speech be read,Here Bute's confession, and his wooden head:While all the minor plunderers of the age,(Too numerous far for this contracted page,)The Rigbys, Calcrafts, Dysons, Bradshaws there,In straw-stuffed effigy, shall kick the air.But say, ye powers, who come when fancy calls,Where shall our mimic London rear her walls?That eastern feature, Art must next produce,Though not for present yet for future use,Our sons some slave of greatness may behold,Cast in the genuine Asiatic mould:Who of three realms shall condescend to knowNo more than he can spy from Windsor's brow;For him, that blessing of a better time,The Muse shall deal a while in brick and lime;Surpass the bold [Greek: ADELPHI] in design,And o'er the Thames fling one stupendous lineOf marble arches, in a bridge, that cutsFrom Richmond Ferry slant to Brentford Butts.Brentford with London's charms will we adorn;Brentford, the bishopric of Parson Horne.There, at one glance, the royal eye shall meetEach varied beauty of St James's Street;Stout Talbot there shall ply with hackney chair,And patriot Betty fix her fruit-shop there.Like distant thunder, now the coach of stateRolls o'er the bridge, that groans beneath its weight.The court hath crossed the stream; the sports begin;Now Noel preaches of rebellion's sin:And as the powers of his strong pathos rise,Lo, brazen tears fall from Sir Fletcher's eyes.While skulking round the pews, that babe of grace,Who ne'er before at sermon showed his face,See Jemmy Twitcher shambles; stop! stop thief!He's stolen the Earl of Denbigh's handkerchief,Let Barrington arrest him in mock fury,And Mansfield hang the knave without a jury.But hark, the voice of battle shouts from far,The Jews and Maccaronis are at war:The Jews prevail, and, thundering from the stocks,They seize, they bind, they circumcise Charles Fox.Fair Schwellenbergen smiles the sport to see,And all the maids of honour cry 'Te! He!'Be these the rural pastimes that attendGreat Brunswick's leisure: these shall best unbendHis royal mind, whene'er from state withdrawn,He treads the velvet of his Richmond lawn;These shall prolong his Asiatic dream,Though Europe's balance trembles on its beam.And thou, Sir William! while thy plastic handCreates each wonder which thy bard has planned,While, as thy art commands, obsequious riseWhate'er can please, or frighten, or surprise,Oh, let that bard his knight's protection claim,And share, like faithful Sancho, Quixote's fame.
The author of 'Mary's Dream' was born in 1750, at Kenmore, Galloway, and was the son of a gardener. He became a student of divinity, and acted as tutor in the family of a Mr McGhie of Airds. A daughter of Mr McGhie was attached to a gentleman named Miller, a surgeon at sea, and on the occasion of his death Lowe wrote his beautiful 'Mary's Dream,' the exquisite simplicity and music of the first stanza of which has often been admired. Lowe was betrothed to a sister of 'Mary,' but having emigrated to America, he married another, fell into dissipated habits, and died in a miserable plight at Fredericksburgh in 1798. He wrote many other pieces, but none equal to 'Mary's Dream.'
1 The moon had climbed the highest hillWhich rises o'er the source of Dee,And from the eastern summit shedHer silver light on tower and tree;When Mary laid her down to sleep,Her thoughts on Sandy far at sea,When, soft and low, a voice was heard,Saying, 'Mary, weep no more for me!'
2 She from her pillow gently raisedHer head, to ask who there might be,And saw young Sandy shivering stand,With visage pale, and hollow ee.'O Mary dear, cold is my clay;It lies beneath a stormy sea.Far, far from thee I sleep in death;So, Mary, weep no more for me!
3 'Three stormy nights and stormy daysWe tossed upon the raging main;And long we strove our bark to save,But all our striving was in vain.Even then, when horror chilled my blood,My heart was filled with love for thee:The storm is past, and I at rest;So, Mary, weep no more for me!
4 'O maiden dear, thyself prepare;We soon shall meet upon that shore,Where love is free from doubt and care,And thou and I shall part no more!'Loud crowed the cock, the shadow fled,No more of Sandy could she see;But soft the passing spirit said,'Sweet Mary, weep no more for me!'
This accomplished critic and poet was born in 1722. He was son to the Vicar of Basingstoke, and brother to Thomas Warton. (See a former volume for his life.) Joseph was educated at Winchester College, and became intimate there with William Collins. He wrote when quite young some poetry in theGentleman's Magazine. He was in due time removed to Oriel College, where he composed two poems, entitled 'The Enthusiast,' and 'The Dying Indian.' In 1744, he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Oxford, and was ordained to his father's curacy at Basingstoke. He went thence to Chelsea, but did not remain there long, owing to some disagreement with his parishioners, and returned to Basingstoke. In 1746, he published a volume of Odes, and in the preface expressed his hope that it might be successful as an attempt to bring poetry back from the didactic and satirical taste of the age, to the truer channels of fancy and description. The motive of this attempt was, however, more praiseworthy than its success was conspicuous.
In 1748, Warton was presented by the Duke of Bolton to the rectory of Winslade, and he straightway married a Miss Daman, to whom he had for some time been attached. In the same year he began, and in 1753 he finished and printed, an edition of Virgil in English and Latin. Of this large, elaborate work, Warton himself supplied only the life of Virgil, with three essays on pastoral, didactic, and epic poetry, and a poetical version of the Eclogues and the Georgics, more correct but less spirited than Dryden's. He adopted Pitt's version of the Aeneid, and his friends furnished some of the dissertations, notes, &c. Shortly after, he contributed twenty-four excellent papers, including some striking allegories, and some good criticisms on Shakspeare, to theAdventurer. In 1754, he was appointed to the living of Tunworth, and the next year was elected second master of Winchester School. Soon after this he published anonymously 'An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope,' which, whether because he failed in convincing the public that his estimate of Pope was the correct one, or because he stood in awe of Warburton, he did not complete or reprint for twenty-six years. It is a somewhat gossiping book, but full of information and interest.
In May 1766, he was made head-master of Winchester. In 1768, he lost his wife, and next year married a Miss Nicholas of Winchester. In 1782, he was promoted, through Bishop Lowth, to a prebend's post in St Paul's, and to the living of Thorley, which he exchanged for that of Wickham. Other livings dropped in upon him, and in 1793 he resigned the mastership of Winchester, and went to reside at Wickham. Here he employed himself in preparing an edition of Pope, which he published in 1797. In 1800 he died.
Warton, like his brother, did good service in resisting the literary despotism of Pope, and in directing the attention of the public to the forgotten treasures of old English poetry. He was a man of extensive learning, a very fair and candid, as well as acute critic, and his 'Ode to Fancy' proves him to have possessed no ordinary genius.
O parent of each lovely Muse,Thy spirit o'er my soul diffuse,O'er all my artless songs preside,My footsteps to thy temple guide,To offer at thy turf-built shrine,In golden cups no costly wine,No murdered fatling of the flock,But flowers and honey from the rock.O nymph with loosely-flowing hair,With buskined leg, and bosom bare,Thy waist with myrtle-girdle bound,Thy brows with Indian feathers crowned,Waving in thy snowy handAn all-commanding magic wand,Of power to bid fresh gardens blow,'Mid cheerless Lapland's barren snow,Whose rapid wings thy flight conveyThrough air, and over earth and sea,While the vast various landscape liesConspicuous to thy piercing eyes.O lover of the desert, hail!Say, in what deep and pathless vale,Or on what hoary mountain's side,'Mid fall of waters, you reside,'Mid broken rocks, a rugged scene,With green and grassy dales between,'Mid forests dark of aged oak,Ne'er echoing with the woodman's stroke,Where never human art appeared,Nor even one straw-roofed cot was reared,Where Nature seems to sit alone,Majestic on a craggy throne;Tell me the path, sweet wanderer, tell,To thy unknown sequestered cell,Where woodbines cluster round the door,Where shells and moss o'erlay the floor,And on whose top a hawthorn blows,Amid whose thickly-woven boughsSome nightingale still builds her nest,Each evening warbling thee to rest:Then lay me by the haunted stream,Rapt in some wild, poetic dream,In converse while methinks I roveWith Spenser through a fairy grove;Till, suddenly awaked, I hearStrange whispered music in my ear,And my glad soul in bliss is drownedBy the sweetly-soothing sound!Me, goddess, by the right hand leadSometimes through the yellow mead,Where Joy and white-robed Peace resort,And Venus keeps her festive court;Where Mirth and Youth each evening meet,And lightly trip with nimble feet,Nodding their lily-crowned heads,Where Laughter rose-lipped Hebe leads;Where Echo walks steep hills among,Listening to the shepherd's song:Yet not these flowery fields of joyCan long my pensive mind employ;Haste, Fancy, from the scenes of folly,To meet the matron Melancholy,Goddess of the tearful eye,That loves to fold her arms, and sigh;Let us with silent footsteps goTo charnels and the house of woe,To Gothic churches, vaults, and tombs,Where each sad night some virgin comes,With throbbing breast, and faded cheek,Her promised bridegroom's urn to seek;Or to some abbey's mouldering towers,Where, to avoid cold wintry showers,The naked beggar shivering lies,While whistling tempests round her rise,And trembles lest the tottering wallShould on her sleeping infants fall.Now let us louder strike the lyre,For my heart glows with martial fire,—I feel, I feel, with sudden heat,My big tumultuous bosom beat;The trumpet's clangours pierce my ear,A thousand widows' shrieks I hear,Give me another horse, I cry,Lo! the base Gallic squadrons fly;Whence is this rage?—what spirit, say,To battle hurries me away?'Tis Fancy, in her fiery car,Transports me to the thickest war,There whirls me o'er the hills of slain,Where Tumult and Destruction reign;Where, mad with pain, the wounded steedTramples the dying and the dead;Where giant Terror stalks around,With sullen joy surveys the ground,And, pointing to the ensanguined field,Shakes his dreadful gorgon shield!Oh, guide me from this horrid scene,To high-arched walks and alleys green,Which lovely Laura seeks, to shunThe fervours of the mid-day sun;The pangs of absence, oh, remove!For thou canst place me near my love,Canst fold in visionary bliss,And let me think I steal a kiss,While her ruby lips dispenseLuscious nectar's quintessence!When young-eyed Spring profusely throwsFrom her green lap the pink and rose,When the soft turtle of the daleTo Summer tells her tender tale;When Autumn cooling caverns seeks,And stains with wine his jolly cheeks;When Winter, like poor pilgrim old,Shakes his silver beard with cold;At every season let my earThy solemn whispers, Fancy, hear.O warm, enthusiastic maid,Without thy powerful, vital aid,That breathes an energy divine,That gives a soul to every line,Ne'er may I strive with lips profaneTo utter an unhallowed strain,Nor dare to touch the sacred string,Save when with smiles thou bidst me sing.Oh, hear our prayer! oh, hither comeFrom thy lamented Shakspeare's tomb,On which thou lovest to sit at eve,Musing o'er thy darling's grave;O queen of numbers, once againAnimate some chosen swain,Who, filled with unexhausted fire,May boldly smite the sounding lyre,Who with some new unequalled songMay rise above the rhyming throng,O'er all our listening passions reign,O'erwhelm our souls with joy and pain,With terror shake, and pity move,Rouse with revenge, or melt with love;Oh, deign to attend his evening walk,With him in groves and grottoes talk;Teach him to scorn with frigid artFeebly to touch the enraptured heart;Like lightning, let his mighty verseThe bosom's inmost foldings pierce;With native beauties win applauseBeyond cold critics' studied laws;Oh, let each Muse's fame increase!Oh, bid Britannia rival Greece!
1 Belinda's sparkling eyes and witDo various passions raise;And, like the lightning, yield a bright,But momentary blaze.
2 Eliza's milder, gentler sway,Her conquests fairly won,Shall last till life and time decay,Eternal as the sun.
3 Thus the wild flood with deafening roarBursts dreadful from on high;But soon its empty rage is o'er,And leaves the channel dry:
4 While the pure stream, which still and slowIts gentler current brings,Through every change of time shall flowWith unexhausted springs.
Stranger! whoe'er thou art, whose restless mind,Like me within these walls is cribbed, confined;Learn how each want that heaves our mutual sighA woman's soft solicitudes supply.From her white breast retreat all rude alarms,Or fly the magic circle of her arms;While souls exchanged alternate grace acquire,And passions catch from passion's glorious fire:What though to deck this roof no arts combine,Such forms as rival every fair but mine;No nodding plumes, our humble couch above,Proclaim each triumph of unbounded love;No silver lamp with sculptured Cupids gay,O'er yielding beauty pours its midnight ray;Yet Fanny's charms could Time's slow flight beguile,Soothe every care, and make each dungeon smile:In her, what kings, what saints have wished, is given,Her heart is empire, and her love is heaven.
1 In Phoebus' region while some bards there beThat sing of battles, and the trumpet's roar;Yet these, I ween, more powerful bards than me,Above my ken, on eagle pinions soar!Haply a scene of meaner view to scan,Beneath their laurelled praise my verse may give,To trace the features of unnoticed man;Deeds, else forgotten, in the verse may live!Her lore, mayhap, instructive sense may teach,From weeds of humbler growth within my lowly reach.
2 A wight there was, who single and aloneHad crept from vigorous youth to waning age,Nor e'er was worth, nor e'er was beauty knownHis heart to captive, or his thought engage:Some feeble joyaunce, though his conscious mindMight female worth or beauty give to wear,Yet to the nobler sex he held confinedThe genuine graces of the soul sincere,And well could show with saw or proverb quaintAll semblance woman's soul, and all her beauty paint.
3 In plain attire this wight apparelled was,(For much he conned of frugal lore and knew,)Nor, till some day of larger note might cause,From iron-bound chest his better garb he drew:But when the Sabbath-day might challenge more,Or feast, or birthday, should it chance to be,A glossy suit devoid of stain he wore,And gold his buttons glanced so fair to see,Gold clasped his shoon, by maiden brushed so sheen,And his rough beard he shaved, and donned his linen clean.
4 But in his common garb a coat he wore,A faithful coat that long its lord had known,That once was black, but now was black no more,Attinged by various colours not its own.All from his nostrils was the front embrowned,And down the back ran many a greasy line,While, here and there, his social moments ownedThe generous signet of the purple wine.Brown o'er the bent of eld his wig appeared,Like fox's trailing tail by hunters sore affeared.
5 One only maid he had, like turtle true,But not like turtle gentle, soft, and kind;For many a time her tongue bewrayed the shrew,And in meet words unpacked her peevish mind.Ne formed was she to raise the soft desireThat stirs the tingling blood in youthful vein,Ne formed was she to light the tender fire,By many a bard is sung in many a strain:Hooked was her nose, and countless wrinkles toldWhat no man durst to her, I ween, that she was old.
6 When the clock told the wonted hour was comeWhen from his nightly cups the wight withdrew,Eight patient would she watch his wending home,His feet she heard, and soon the bolt she drew.If long his time was past, and leaden sleepO'er her tired eyelids 'gan his reign to stretch,Oft would she curse that men such hours should keep,And many a saw 'gainst drunkenness would preach;Haply if potent gin had armed her tongue,All on the reeling wight a thundering peal she rung.
7 For though, the blooming queen of Cyprus' isleO'er her cold bosom long had ceased to reign,On that cold bosom still could Bacchus smile,Such beverage to own if Bacchus deign:For wine she prized not much, for stronger drinkIts medicine, oft a cholic-pain will call,And for the medicine's sake, might envy think,Oft would a cholic-pain her bowels enthral;Yet much the proffer did she loathe, and sayNo dram might maiden taste, and often answered nay.
8 So as in single animals he joyed,One cat, and eke one dog, his bounty fed;The first the cate-devouring mice destroyed,Thieves heard the last, and from his threshold fled:All in the sunbeams basked the lazy cat,Her mottled length in couchant posture laid;On one accustomed chair while Pompey sat,And loud he barked should Puss his right invade.The human pair oft marked them as they lay,And haply sometimes thought like cat and dog were they.
9 A room he had that faced the southern ray,Where oft he walked to set his thoughts in tune,Pensive he paced its length an hour or tway,All to the music of his creeking shoon.And at the end a darkling closet stood,Where books he kept of old research and new,In seemly order ranged on shelves of wood,And rusty nails and phials not a few:Thilk place a wooden box beseemeth well,And papers squared and trimmed for use unmeet to tell.
10 For still in form he placed his chief delight,Nor lightly broke his old accustomed rule,And much uncourteous would he hold the wightThat e'er displaced a table, chair, or stool;And oft in meet array their ranks he placed,And oft with careful eye their ranks reviewed;For novel forms, though much those forms had graced,Himself and maiden-minister eschewed:One path he trod, nor ever would declineA hair's unmeasured breadth from off the even line.
11 A Club select there was, where various talkOn various chapters passed the lingering hour,And thither oft he bent his evening walk,And warmed to mirth by wine's enlivening power.And oft on politics the preachments ran,If a pipe lent its thought-begetting fume:And oft important matters would they scan,And deep in council fix a nation's doom:And oft they chuckled loud at jest or jeer,Or bawdy tale the most, thilk much they loved to hear.
12 For men like him they were of like consort,Thilk much the honest muse must needs condemn,Who made of women's wiles their wanton sport,And blessed their stars that kept the curse from them!No honest love they knew, no melting smileThat shoots the transports to the throbbing heart!Thilk knew they not but in a harlot's guileLascivious smiling through the mask of art:And so of women deemed they as they knew,And from a Demon's traits an Angel's picture drew.
13 But most abhorred they hymeneal rites,And boasted oft the freedom of their fate:Nor 'vailed, as they opined, its best delightsThose ills to balance that on wedlock wait;And often would they tell of henpecked foolSnubbed by the hard behest of sour-eyed dame.And vowed no tongue-armed woman's freakish ruleTheir mirth should quail, or damp their generous flame:Then pledged their hands, and tossed their bumpers o'er,And Io! Bacchus! sung, and owned no other power.
14 If e'er a doubt of softer kind aroseWithin some breast of less obdurate frame,Lo! where its hideous form a phantom showsFull in his view, and Cuckold is its name.Him Scorn attended with a glance askew,And Scorpion Shame for delicts not his own,Her painted bubbles while Suspicion blew,And vexed the region round the Cupid's throne:'Far be from us,' they cried, 'the treacherous bane,Far be the dimply guile, and far the flowery chain!'
1 I am content, I do not care,Wag as it will the world for me;When fuss and fret was all my fare,It got no ground as I could see:So when away my caring went,I counted cost, and was content.
2 With more of thanks and less of thought,I strive to make my matters meet;To seek what ancient sages sought,Physic and food in sour and sweet:To take what passes in good part,And keep the hiccups from the heart.
3 With good and gentle-humoured hearts,I choose to chat where'er I come,Whate'er the subject be that starts;But if I get among the glum,I hold my tongue to tell the truth,And keep my breath to cool my broth.
4 For chance or change of peace or pain,For Fortune's favour or her frown,For lack or glut, for loss or gain,I never dodge, nor up nor down:But swing what way the ship shall swim,Or tack about with equal trim.
5 I suit not where I shall not speed,Nor trace the turn of every tide;If simple sense will not succeed,I make no bustling, but abide:For shining wealth, or scaring woe,I force no friend, I fear no foe.
6 Of ups and downs, of ins and outs,Of they're i' the wrong, and we're i' the right,I shun the rancours and the routs;And wishing well to every wight,Whatever turn the matter takes,I deem it all but ducks and drakes.
7 With whom I feast I do not fawn,Nor if the folks should flout me, faint;If wonted welcome be withdrawn,I cook no kind of a complaint:With none disposed to disagree,But like them best who best like me.
8 Not that I rate myself the ruleHow all my betters should behaveBut fame shall find me no man's fool,Nor to a set of men a slave:I love a friendship free and frank,And hate to hang upon a hank.
9 Fond of a true and trusty tie,I never loose where'er I link;Though if a business budges by,I talk thereon just as I think;My word, my work, my heart, my hand,Still on a side together stand.
10 If names or notions make a noise,Whatever hap the question hath,The point impartially I poise,And read or write, but without wrath;For should I burn, or break my brains,Pray, who will pay me for my pains?
11 I love my neighbour as myself,Myself like him too, by his leave;Nor to his pleasure, power, or pelf,Came I to crouch, as I conceive:Dame Nature doubtless has designedA man the monarch of his mind.
12 Now taste and try this temper, sirs,Mood it and brood it in your breast;Or if ye ween, for worldly stirs,That man does right to mar his rest,Let me be deft, and debonair,I am content, I do not care.
1 My time, O ye Muses, was happily spent,When Phoebe went with me wherever I went;Ten thousand sweet pleasures I felt in my breast:Sure never fond shepherd like Colin was blest!But now she is gone, and has left me behind,What a marvellous change on a sudden I find!When things were as fine as could possibly be,I thought 'twas the Spring; but alas! it was she.
2 With such a companion to tend a few sheep,To rise up and play, or to lie down and sleep:I was so good-humoured, so cheerful and gay,My heart was as light as a feather all day;But now I so cross and so peevish am grown,So strangely uneasy, as never was known.My fair one is gone, and my joys are all drowned,And my heart—I am sure it weighs more than a pound.
3 The fountain that wont to run sweetly along,And dance to soft murmurs the pebbles among;Thou know'st, little Cupid, if Phoebe was there,'Twas pleasure to look at, 'twas music to hear:But now she is absent, I walk by its side,And still, as it murmurs, do nothing but chide;Must you be so cheerful, while I go in pain?Peace there with your bubbling, and hear me complain.
4 My lambkins around me would oftentimes play,And Phoebe and I were as joyful as they;How pleasant their sporting, how happy their time,When Spring, Love, and Beauty, were all in their prime!But now, in their frolics when by me they pass,I fling at their fleeces a handful of grass:Be still, then, I cry, for it makes me quite mad,To see you so merry while I am so sad.
5 My dog I was ever well pleased to seeCome wagging his tail to my fair one and me;And Phoebe was pleased too, and to my dog said,'Come hither, poor fellow;' and patted his head.But now, when he's fawning, I with a sour lookCry 'Sirrah;' and give him a blow with my crook:And I'll give him another; for why should not TrayBe as dull as his master, when Phoebe's away?
6 When walking with Phoebe, what sights have I seen,How fair was the flower, how fresh was the green!What a lovely appearance the trees and the shade,The corn-fields and hedges, and everything made!But now she has left me, though all are still there,They none of them now so delightful appear:'Twas nought but the magic, I find, of her eyes,Made so many beautiful prospects arise.
7 Sweet music went with us both all the wood through,The lark, linnet, throstle, and nightingale too;Winds over us whispered, flocks by us did bleat,And chirp went the grasshopper under our feet.But now she is absent, though still they sing on,The woods are but lonely, the melody's gone:Her voice in the concert, as now I have found,Gave everything else its agreeable sound.
8 Rose, what is become of thy delicate hue?And where is the violet's beautiful blue?Does ought of its sweetness the blossom beguile?That meadow, those daisies, why do they not smile?Ah! rivals, I see what it was that you dressed,And made yourselves fine for—a place in her breast:You put on your colours to pleasure her eye,To be plucked by her hand, on her bosom to die.
9 How slowly Time creeps till my Phoebe return!While amidst the soft zephyr's cool breezes I burn:Methinks, if I knew whereabouts he would tread,I could breathe on his wings, and 'twould melt down the lead.Fly swifter, ye minutes, bring hither my dear,And rest so much longer for't when she is here.Ah, Colin! old Time is full of delay,Nor will budge one foot faster for all thou canst say.
10 Will no pitying power, that hears me complain,Or cure my disquiet, or soften my pain?To be cured, thou must, Colin, thy passion remove;But what swain is so silly to live without love!No, deity, bid the dear nymph to return,For ne'er was poor shepherd so sadly forlorn.Ah! what shall I do? I shall die with despair;Take heed, all ye swains, how ye part with your fair.
Little tube of mighty power,Charmer of an idle hour,Object of my warm desire,Lip of wax and eye of fire;And thy snowy taper waist,With my finger gently braced;And thy pretty swelling crest,With my little stopper pressed;And the sweetest bliss of blisses,Breathing from thy balmy kisses.Happy thrice, and thrice again,Happiest he of happy men;Who when again the night returns,When again the taper burns,When again the cricket's gay,(Little cricket full of play,)Can afford his tube to feedWith the fragrant Indian weed:Pleasure for a nose divine,Incense of the god of wine.Happy thrice, and thrice again,Happiest he of happy men.
1 Away! let nought to love displeasing,My Winifreda, move your care;Let nought delay the heavenly blessing,Nor squeamish pride, nor gloomy fear.
2 What though no grants of royal donors,With pompous titles grace our blood;We'll shine in more substantial honours,And, to be noble, we'll be good.
3 Our name while virtue thus we tender,Will sweetly sound where'er 'tis spoke;And all the great ones, they shall wonderHow they respect such little folk.
4 What though, from fortune's lavish bounty,No mighty treasures we possess;We'll find, within our pittance, plenty,And be content without excess.
5 Still shall each kind returning seasonSufficient for our wishes give;For we will live a life of reason,And that's the only life to live.
6 Through youth and age, in love excelling,We'll hand in hand together tread;Sweet-smiling peace shall crown our dwelling,And babes, sweet-smiling babes, our bed.
7 How should I love the pretty creatures,While round my knees they fondly clung!To see them look their mother's features,To hear them lisp their mother's tongue!
8 And when with envy Time transported,Shall think to rob us of our joys;You'll in your girls again be courted,And I'll go wooing in my boys.
1 Who strives to mount Parnassus' hill,And thence poetic laurels bring,Must first acquire due force and skill,Must fly with swan's or eagle's wing.
2 Who Nature's treasures would explore,Her mysteries and arcana know,Must high as lofty Newton soar,Must stoop as delving Woodward low.
3 Who studies ancient laws and rites,Tongues, arts, and arms, and history;Must drudge, like Selden, days and nights,And in the endless labour die.
4 Who travels in religious jars,(Truth mixed with error, shades with rays,)Like Whiston, wanting pyx or stars,In ocean wide or sinks or strays.
5 But grant our hero's hope, long toilAnd comprehensive genius crown,All sciences, all arts his spoil,Yet what reward, or what renown?
6 Envy, innate in vulgar souls,Envy steps in and stops his rise;Envy with poisoned tarnish foulsHis lustre, and his worth decries.
7 He lives inglorious or in want,To college and old books confined:Instead of learned, he's called pedant;Dunces advanced, he's left behind:Yet left content, a genuine Stoic he,Great without patron, rich without South Sea.
1 While malice, Pope, denies thy pageIts own celestial fire;While critics and while bards in rageAdmiring, won't admire:
2 While wayward pens thy worth assail,And envious tongues decry;These times, though many a friend bewail,These times bewail not I.
3 But when the world's loud praise is thine,And spleen no more shall blame;When with thy Homer thou shalt shineIn one unclouded fame:
4 When none shall rail, and every layDevote a wreath to thee;That day (for come it will) that dayShall I lament to see.
[1] Written by one Lewis, a schoolmaster, and highly commended by Johnson.—SeeBoswell.