EPISTLE TO THE SAME. 1757.
HAS my good dame a wicked child?
It takes the gentle.name of wild;
If chests he breaks, if locks he picks,
'Tis nothing more than useful tricks:
The mother's fondness stamps it merit,
For vices are a sign of spirit.

Say, do the neighbours think the same
With the good old indulgent dame?
Cries gossip Prate, "I hear with grief
My neighbour's son's an arrant thief.
Nay, could you think it, I am told,
He stole five guineas, all in gold.
You know the youth was always wild-
He got his father's maid with child;
And robb'd his master, to defray
The money he had lost at play.
All means to save him must now fail.
What can it end in ?-In a jail."

Howe'er the dame doats o'er her youth, My gossip says the very truth.

But as his vices love would hide,
Or torture them to virtue's side,
So friendship's glass deceives the eye,
(A glass too apt to magnify)

And makes you think at least you see
Some spark of genius, e'en in me.
You say I should get fame: I doubt it:
Perhaps I am as well without it.
For what's the worth of empty praise?
What poet ever din'd on bays?
For though the laurel, rarest wonder!

May screen us from the stroke of thunder,
This mind I ever was, and am in,
It is no antidote to famine.
And poets live on slender fare,
Who, like cameleons, feed on air,
And starve, to gain an empty breath,
Which only serves them after death.

Grant 1 succeed, like Horace rise,
And strike my head against the skies;
Common experience daily shows,
That poets have a world of foes;
And we shall find in every town
Gossips enough to cry them down;
Who meet in pious conversation
Tanatomize a reputation,
With flippant tongue, and empty head,
Who talk of things they never read.

Their idle censures I despise:
Their niggard praises won't suffice.
Tempt me no more then to the crime
Of dabbling in the font of rhyme.
My Muse has answer'd all her end,
If her productious please a friend.
The world is burthen'd with a store,
Why need I add one scribbler more?

ΤΟ

ABOUT TO PUBLISH A VOLUME OF MISCELLANIES.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1755.

SINCE
now, all scruples cast away,
Your works are rising into day,
Forgive, though I presume to send
This honest counsel of a friend.

Let not your verse, as verse now goes, Be a strange kind of measur'd prose; Nor let your prose, which sure is worse, Want nought but measure to be verse. Write from your own imagination, Nor curb your Muse by imitation: For copies show, howe'er exprest, A barren genius at the best. -But imitation's all the modeYet where one hits, ten miss the road. The mimic bard with pleasure sees Mat. Prior's unaffeeted ease: Assumes his style, affects a story,

Sets every circumstance before ye,

The day, the hour, the name, the dwelling,
And mars a curious tale in telling:
Observes how easy Prior flows,
Then runs his numbers down to prose.

Others have sought the filthy stews
To find a dirty slip-shod Muse.
Their groping genius, while it rakes
The bogs, the common-sew'rs, and jakes,
Ordure and filth in rhyme exposes,
Disgustful to our eyes and noses;
With many a dash-that must offend us,
And much

Hiatus non deflendus.

O Swift! how wouldst thou blush to see,
Such are the bards who copy thee?

This, Milton for his plan will choose:
Wherein resembling Milton's Muse?
Milton, like thunder, rolls along
In all the majesty of song;
While his low mimics meanly creep,
Nor quite awake, nor quite asleep;
Or, if their thunder chance to roll,
'Tis thunder of the mustard bowl.
The stiff expression, phrases strange,
The epithet's preposterous change,
Fore'd numbers, rough and unpolite,
Such as the judging ear affright,
Stop in mid verse. Ye mimics vile!
Is't thus ye copy Milton's style?
His faults religiously you trace,
But borrow not a single grace.

How few, (say, whence can it proceed?)
Who copy Milton, e'er succeed!
But all their labours are in vain:

And wherefore so?-The reason's plain.
Take it for granted, 'tis by those
Milton's the model mostly chose,
Who can't write verse, and won't write prose.
Others, who aim at fancy, choose

To woo the gentle Spenser's Muse.
This poet fixes for his theme
An allegory, or a dream;
Fiction and truth together joins

Through a long waste of flimsy lines:

Fondly believes his fancy glows,

And image upon image grows;

Thinks his strong Muse takes wond'rous flights, Whene'er she sings of peerless wights,

Of dens, of palfreys, spells and knights,
'Till allegory, Spenser's veil

Tinstruct and please in moral tale,
With him's no veil the truth to shroud,
But one impenetrable cloud.

Others, more daring, fix their hope
On rivaling the fame of Pope.

But 'tis by way of wit and joke,
To laugh, or as the phrase is, smoke.

Yet there are those, who're fond of wit,
Although they never us'd it yet,
Who wits and witlings entertain;
Of taste, virtù, and judgment vain,
And dinner, grace, and grace-cup done,
Expect a wond'rous deal of fun :

"Yes-he at bottom-don't you know him?
That's he that wrote the last new poem.
His humour's exquisitely high,
You'll hear him open by and by."

The man in print and conversation
Have often very small relation;

And he, whose humour hits the town,
When copied fairly, and set down,
In public company may pass,
For little better than an ass.
Perhaps the fault is on his side,
Springs it from modesty, or pride,
Those qualities asham'd to own,
For which he's happy to be known;
Or that his nature's strange and shy,
And diffident, he knows not why;
Or from a prudent kind of fear,
As knowing that the world's severe,
He would not suffer to escape
Familiar wit in easy shape:

Lest gaping fools, and vile repeaters,

Should catch her up, and spoil her features,
And, for the child's unlucky maim,
The faultless parent come to shame.

Well, but methinks I hear you say,

"Write then, my friend!"-Write what?-"

play.

The theatres are open yet,

The market for all sterling wit;

Try the strong efforts of your pen,

And draw the characters of men;
Or bid the bursting tear to flow,
Obedient to the fabled woe;
With Tragedy's severest art,
Anatomise the human heart,
And, that you may be understood,
Bid Nature speak, as Nature shou'd."

That talent, George, though yet untried,
Perhaps my genius has denied;
While you, my friend, are sure to please
With all the pow'rs of comic ease.

Authors, like maids at fifteen years,
Are full of wishes, full of fears.

One might by pleasant thoughts be led,
To lose a trifling maiden-head;
But 't is a terrible vexation
To give up with it reputation.
And he, who has with plays to do,
Has got the devil to go through.
Critics have reason for their rules,
I dread the censure of your fools.
For tell me, and consult your pride,
(Set Garrick for a while aside)

How could you, George, with patience bear,
The critic prosing in the play'r?

Some of that calling have I known,

Who held no judgment like their own;
And yet their reasons fairly scan,
And separate the wheat and bran;
You'd be amaz'd indeed to find,
What little wheat is left behind.

For, after all their mighty rout,

Of chatt'ring round and round about;
'Tis but a kind of clock-work talking,
Like crossing on the stage, and walking.
The form of this tribunal past,
The play receiv'd, the parts all cast,
Each actor has his own objections,
Each character, new imperfections:

The man's is drawn too coarse and rough,
The lady's has not smut enough.
It wants a touch of Cibber's ease,

A higher kind of talk to please;

Such as your titled folks would choose,
And lords and ladyships might use,
Which style, whoever would succeed in,
Must have small wit, and much good breeding.
If this is dialogue-ma foi,

Sweet sir, say 1, pardonnez moi !

As long as life and business last,
The actors have their several cast,
A walk where each his talent shows,
Queens, nurses, tyrants, lovers, beaux;
Suppose you've found a girl of merit,
Would show your part in all its spirit,
Take the whole meaning in the scope,
Some little lively thing, like Pope',
You rob some others of a feather,
They've worn for thirty years together.

But grant the cast is as you like,
To actors which you think will strike.
To morrow then-(but as you know
I've ne'er a comedy to show,

Let me a while in conversation,
Make free with yours for application)
The arrow's flight can't be prevented-
To morrow then, will be presented
The Jealous Wife! To morrow? Right,
How do you sleep, my friend, to night?
Have you no pit-pat hopes and fears,
Roast-beef, and catcalls in your ears?
Mabb's wheels across your temples creep,
You toss and tumble in your sleep,
Aud cry aloud, with rage and spleen,
"That fellow murders all my scene."

To morrow comes. I know your merit,
And see the piece's fire and spirit;
Yet friendship's zeal is ever hearty,
And dreads the efforts of a party.

The coach below, the clock gone five,
Now to the theatre we drive:
Peeping the curtain's eyelet through,
Behold the house in dreadful view!
Observe how close the critics sit,
And not one bonnet in the pit.

With horrour hear the galleries ring,
"Nosy! Black Joke! God save the King!'
Sticks clatter, catcalls scream," Encore
Cocks crow, pit hisses, galleries roar:
E'en "Cha' some oranges," is found
This night to have a dreadful sound:
'Till, decent sables on his back,
(Your prologuisers all wear black)
The prologue comes; and, if its mine,
Its very good, and very fine:

If not, I take a pinch of snuff,

And wonder where you got such stuff.
That done, a-gape the critics sit,
Expectant of the comic wit.

'Miss Pope, still an actress of genuine merit. C.

The fiddlers play again pell-mell:
-But hist!-the prompter rings his bell.
-"Down there! hats off!"-the curtain draws!
What follows is the just applause.

TWO ODES1.

ΦΩΝΑΝΤΑ ΣΥΝΕΤΟΙΣΙΝ. ΕΣ

ΔΕ ΤΟ ΠΑΝ, ΕΡΜΗΝΕΩΝ
XATIZEI.

ODE I.

DAUGHTER of Chaos and old Night,

Cimmerian Muse, all hail!

That wrapt in never-twinkling gloom canst write,
And shadowest meaning with thy dusky veil!
What poet sings, and strikes the strings?
It was the mighty Theban spoke,

He from the ever-living lyre
With magic hand elicits fire.

Heard ye the din of modern rhimers bray?
It was cool M-n, or warm G-y,
Involv'd in tenfold smoke.

The shallow fop in antic vest,

Tir'd of the beaten road,

Proud to be singly drest,

Changes, with every changing moon, the mode. Say, shall not then the Heav'n-born Muses too Variety pursue?

Shall not applauding critics hail the vogue? Whether the Muse the style of Cambria's sons, Or the rude gabble of the Huns,

Or the broader dialect

Of Caledonia she affect,

Or take, Hibernia, thy still ranker brogue?

On this terrestrial ball

The tyrant, Fashion, governs all.
She, fickle goddess, whom, in days of yore,
The ideot Moria, on the banks of Seine,
Unto an antic fool, hight Andrew, bore:
Long she paid him with disdain,
And long his pangs in silence he conceal'd:
At length, in happy hour, bis love-sick pain
On thy blest calends, April, he reveal'd.
From their embraces, sprung,
Ever changing, ever ranging,
Fashion, goddess ever young.

Perch'd on the dubious height, she loves to ride,
Upon a weather-cock, astride.

Each blast that blows, around she goes,
While nodding o'er her crest,

Emblem of her magic pow'r,
The light camelion stands confest,

Changing it's hues a thousand times an hour.
And in a vest is she array'd,

Of many a dancing moon-beam made,
Nor zoneless is her waist:
But fair and beautiful, I ween,
As the cestus-cinctur'd queen,
Is with the rainbow's shadowy girdle brac❜d.

' I take the liberty of inserting the two following odes, though I cannot, with strict propriety, print them as my own composition. The truth is, they were written in concert with a friend, to whose labours I am always happy to add my own: I mean the author of the Jealous Wife.

His Whitenose 2, he on fam'd Doncastria's plains
Resign'd his fatal breath:

In vain for life the struggling courser strains.
Ah! who can run the race with Death?
The tyrant's speed, or man or steed,
Strives all in vain to fly.

He leads the chase, he wins the race,
We stumble, fall, and die.

Third from Whitenose springs
Pegasus with eagle wings:

Light o'er the plain, as dancing cork,
With many a bound he beats the ground,
While all the Turf with acclamation rings:
He won Northampton, Lincoln, Oxford, York:
He too Newmarket won:
There Granta's son
Seiz'd on the steed;

And thence him led, (so Fate decreed)
To where old Cam, renown'd in poet's song,
With his dark and inky waves,
Either bank in silence laves,
Winding slow his sluggish streams along.

What stripling neat, of visage sweet, In trimmest guise array'd, First the neighing steed assay'd? His hand a taper switch adorns, his heel Sparkles refulgent with elastic steel: The whiles he wins his whiffling way, Prancing, ambling, round and round, By hill, and dale, and mead, and greensward gay: Till sated with the pleasing ride, From the lofty steed dismounting, He lies along, enwrapt in conscious pride, By gurgling rill, or crystal fountain.

Lo! next, a bard, secure of praise, His self-complacent countenance displays. His broad mustachios, ting'd with golden dye, Flame, like a meteor, to the troubled air: Proud his demeanor, and his eagle eye, [glare. O'er-hung with lavish lid, yet shone with glorious The grizzle grace

Of bushy peruke shadow'd o'er his face. In large wide boots, whose ponderous weight Would sink each wight of modern date, He rides, well-pleas'd: so large a pair Not Garagantua's self might wear: Not he, of nature fierce and cruel, Who, if we trust to ancient ballad, Devour'd three pilgrims in a sallad; Nor he of fame germane, hight Pantagruel.

The author is either mistaken in this place, or has else indulged himself in a very unwarrantable poetical licence. Whitenose was not the sire, but a son of the Godolphin Arabian. See my Calendar. Heber.

Accoutred thus, th' advent'rous youth Seeks not the level lawn, or velvet mead, Fast by whose side clear streams meandring But urges on amain the fiery steed [creep; Up Snowdon's shaggy side, or Cambrian rock unWhere the venerable herd [couth:

Of goats, with long and sapient beard,
And wanton kidlings their blithe revels keep.
Now up the mountain see him strain!
Now down the vale he's tost,
Now flashes on the sight again,
Now in the palpable obscure quite lost.

Man's feeble race eternal dangers wait,
With high or low, all, all is woe,
Disease, mischance, pale fear, and dubious fate.
But, o'er every peril bounding,
Ambition views not all the ills surrounding,

And, tiptoe on the mountains steep,
Reflects not on the yawning deep.

See, see, he soars! With mighty wings outspread,
And long resounding mane,
The courser quits the plain,
Aloft in air, see, see him bear
The bard, who shrouds
His lyric glory in the clouds,

Too fond to strike the stars with lofty head!
He topples headlong from the giddy height,
Deep in the Cambrian gulph immerg'd in endless
night.

O steed divine! what daring spirit
Rides thee now? though he inherit
Nor the pride, nor self-opinion,
Which elate the mighty pair,
Each of Taste the fav'rite minion,
Prancing through the desert air;
By help mechanic of equestrian block,

Yet shall he mount, with classic housings grac'd,
And, all unheedful of the critic mock,

Drive his light courser o'er the bounds of Taste.

ODE II.

TO OBLIVION.

PARENT of Ease! Oblivion old,
Who lov'st thy dwelling-place to hold,
Where sceptred Pluto keeps his dreary sway,
Whose sullen pride the shiv'ring ghosts obey!

Thou, who delightest still to dwell
By some hoar and moss-grown cell,
At whose dank foot Cocytus joys to roll,

Or Styx' black streams, which even Jove control! Or if it suit thy better will

To choose the tinkling weeping rill,
Hard by whose side the seeded poppy red
Heaves high in air his sweetly curling head,

While, creeping in meanders slow,
Lethe's drowsy waters flow,

And hollow blasts, which never cease to sigh,
Hum to each care-struck mind their lulla-lulla-by!
A prey no longer let me be

To that gossip Memory,

1 According, to Lillæus, who bestows the parental function on Oblivion.

Verba Obliviscendi regunt Genitivum. Lib. xiii. cap. 8. There is a similar passage in Busbæus.

Who waves her banners trim, and proudly flies
To spread abroad ber bribble-brabble lies.
With thee, Oblivion, let me go,
For Memory's a friend to woe;
With thee, Forgetfulness, fair silent queen,
The solemn stole of Grief is never seen.
All, all is thine. Thy pow'rful sway
The throng'd poetic hosts obey:
Though in the van of Mem'ry proud t'appear,
At thy command they darken in the rear.

What though the modern tragic strain
For nine whole days protract thy reign,
Yet through the Nine, like whelps of currish kind,
Scarcely it lives, weak, impotent, and blind.
Sacred to thee the crambo rhyme,
The motley forms of pantomime:

For thee from eunuch's throat still loves to flow The soothing sadness of his warbled woe:

Each day to thee falls pamphlet clean: Each month a new-born magazine: Hear then, O goddess, bear thy vot'ry's pray'r! And, if thou deign'st to take one moment's care, Attend thy bard! who duly pays The tribute of his votive lays; Whose Muse still offers at thy sacred shrine;Thy bard, who calls thee his, and makes him O, sweet Forgetfulness, supreme [thine. Rule supine o'er ev'ry theme, O'er each sad subject, o'er each soothing strain, Of mine, O goddess, stretch thine awful reign! Nor let Mem'ry steal one note,

Which this rude hand to thee hath wrote! So shalt thou save me from the poet's shame, Though on the letter'd rubric Dodsley post my

O come! fat goddess, drunk with laureats'
See, where she sits on the benumb'd torpedo's
Mc, in thy dull Elysium lapt, O bless [back!
With thy calm forgetfulness!
And gently lull my senses all the while
With placid poems in the sinking style!
Whether the Herring-poet sing,
Great laureat of the fishes' king,
Or Lycophron prophetic rave his fill,
Wrapt in the darker strains of Johnny
Or, if he sing, whose verse affords
A bevy of the choicest words,
Who meets his lady Muse by moss-grown cell,
Adorn'd with epithet and tinkling bell:

These, goddess, let me still forget,
With all the dearth of modern wit!

So may'st thou gently o'er my youthful breast
Spread, with thy welcome hand, Oblivion's friendly

vest.

THE PROGRESS OF ENVY.
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1751.

Аu me! unhappy state of mortal wight,
Sith Envy's sure attendant upon Fame,
Ne doth she rest from rancorous despight,
Until she works him mickle woe and shame;
Unhappy he whom Envy thus doth spoil,
Ne doth she check her ever restless hate:
Until she doth his reputation foil: