6

Good, from each object, from each place acquired, Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door,
For ever exercised, yet never tired;

“Sir, let me see your works and you no more.' Never elated, while one man's oppressed;

You think this cruel ? Take it for a rule, Never dejected, while another's blest;

No creature smarts so little as a fool. And where no wants, no wishes can remain,

Let peals of laughter, Codrus ! round thee break, Since but to wish more virtue, is to gain.

Thou unconcerned canst hear the mighty crack:

Pit, box, and gallery, in convulsions hurled, [From the Prologue to the Satires, Addressed to Thou stand’st unshook amidst a bursting world. Arbuthnot.]

Who shames a scribbler? Break one cobweb through,

He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew :
P. Shut up the door, good John! fatigued I said, Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain,
Tie up the knocker ; say I'm sick, I'm dead.

The creature's at his dirty work again ;
The dog-star rages ! nay, 'tis past a doubt,

Throned in the centre of his thin designs, All bedlam or Parnassus is let out:

Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines ! Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,

Whom have I hurt? has poet yet, or peer,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

Lost the arched eyebrow, or Parnassian sneer?
What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide ? And has not Colly still his lord and whore !
They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide. His butchers Henley, his freemasons Moor!
By land, by water, they renew the charge ;

Does not one table Bavius still admit?
They stop the chariot, and they board the barge. Still to one bishop Philips seem a wit?
No place is sacred, not the church is free,

Still Sappho-A. Hold; for God's sake-you'll offendEven Sunday shines no Sabbath day to me;

No names—be calm--learn prudence of a friend : Then from the mint walks forth the man of rhyme, I, too, could write, and I am twice as tall; Happy to catch me just at dinner time.

But foes like these P. One flatterer's worse than all. Is there a parson, much bemused in beer,

Of all mad creatures, if the learned are right, A maydlin poetess, a rhyming peer,

It is the slaver kills, and not the bite. A clerk, foredoomed his father's soul to cross,

A fool quite angry is quite innocent:
Who pens a stanza, when he should engross ?

Alas! 'tis ten times worse when they repent.
Is there, who, locked from ink and paper, scrawls One dedicates in high heroic prose,
With desperate charcoal round his darkened walls ? And ridicules beyond a hundred foes :
All fly to Twit'nam, and in humble strain

One from all Grub-strect will my fame defend,
Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain.

And, more abusive, calls himself my friend. Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws,

This prints my letters, that expects a bribe, Imputes to me and my damned works the cause : And others roar aloud, ' Subscribe, subscribe! Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope,

There are, who to my person pay their court : And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope.

I cough like Horace, and though lean, am short. Friend to my life! (which did you not prolong, Ammon's great son one shoulder had too high, The world had wanted many an idle song)

Such Ovid's nose, and, 'Sir! you have an eye!
What drop or nostrum can this plague remove ? Go on, obliging creatures, make me see
Or which must end me, a fool's wrath or love? All that disgraced my betters, met in me.
A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped ;

Say for my comfort, languishing in bed,
If foes, they write ; if friends, they read me dead. • Just so immortal Maro held his head;
Seized and tied down to judge, how wretched I; And when I die, be sure you let me know
Who can't be silent, and who will not lie:

Great Homer died three thousand years ago.
To laugh were want of goodness and of grace;

Why did I write? what sin to me unknown And to be grave, exceeds all power of face.

Dipped me in ink; my parents', or my own? I sit with sad civility; I read

As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, With honest anguish, and an aching head;

I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came. And drop at last, but in unwilling ears,

I left no calling for this idle trade, This saving counsel, 'Keep your piece nine years.' No duty broke, no father disobeyed :

Nine years l' cries he, who high in Drury Lane, The muse but served to ease some friend, not wife ; Lulled by soft zephyrs through the broken pane, To help me through this long disease, my life; Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before term ends, To gecond, Arbuthnot! thy art and care, Obliged by hunger, and request of friends :

And teach the being you preserved, to bear. * The piece, you think, is incorrect ? why take it; But why then publish? Granville the polite, I'm all submission ; what you'd have it, make it.' And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write ;

Three things another's modest wishes bound, Well-natured Garth, inflamed with early praise, My friendship, and a prologue, and ten pound. And Congreve loved, and Swift endured my lays;

Pitholeon sends to me: You know his grace; The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read,
I want a patron; ask him for a place.'

Even mitred Rochester would nod the head,
Pitholeon libelled me—but here's a letter

And St John's self (great Dryden's friends before) Informs you, sir, 'twas when he knew no better. With open arms received one poet more. Dare you refuse him ? Curll invites to dine,

Happy my studies, when by these approved ! He'll write a journal, or he'll turn divine.'

Happier their author, when by these beloved ! Bless me! a packet—' 'Tis a stranger sues,

From these the world will judge of men and books, A virgin tragedy, an orphan muse.'

Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks. If I dislike it, furies, death, and rage !

Soft were my numbers; who could take offence If I approve, commend it to the stage.'

While pure description held the place of sense ! There (thank my stars) my whole commission ends, Like gentle Fanny's was my flowery theme, The players and I are, luckily, no friends.

A painted mistress, or a purling stream. Fired that the house reject him,“'Sdeath ! I'll print it, Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill; And shame the fools- your interest, sir, with Lintot.' I wished the man a dinner, and sat still. Lintot, dull rogue ! will think your price too much : Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret ; Not, sir, if you revise it, and retouch.'

I never answered; I was not in debt. All my demurs but double his attacks :

If want provoked, or madness made them print, At last he whispers, ' Do, and we go snacks.'

I waged no war with bedlam or the mint.

Did some more sober critic come abroad;
If wrong, I smiled, if right, I kissed the rod.
Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence,
And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense.
Commas and points they set exactly right,
And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite.
Yet ne'er one sprig of laurels graced these ribalds,
From slashing Bentley down to piddling Tibbalds;
Fach wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells,
Fach word-catcher, that lives on syllables,
Even such small critics some regard may claim,
Preserved in Milton's or in Shakspeare's name.
Pretty in amber to observe the forms

Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires
True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires;
Blest with each talent and each art to please,
And born to write, converse, and live with ease:
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise;
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;
Alike reserved to blame, or to commend,
A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend;
Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged,
And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged;
Like Cato, give his little senate laws,
And sit attentive to his own applause;
While wits and Templars every sentence raise,
And wonder with a foolish face of praise.
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he ?*

+

Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms!
The things we know are neither rich nor rare,
But wonder how the devil they got there.

Were others angry! I excused them too;
Well might they rage, I gave them but their due.
A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find;
But each man's secret standard in his mind,
That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness,
This, who can gratify? for who can guess?
The bard whom pilfered pastorals renown,
Who turns a Persian tale for half-a-crown,
Just writes to make his barrenness appear,
And strains from hard-bound brains eight lines a-year ; | Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad,

In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,

He who, still wanting, though he lives on theft,
Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left:
And he, who now to sense, now nonsense leaning,
Means not, but blunders round about a meaning;
And he, whose fustian's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but prose run mad:
All these my modest satire bade translate,
And owned that nine such poets made a Tate.
How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe!
And swear, not Addison himself was safe.

Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies;
His wit all seesaw, between that and this,
Now high, now low, now master up, now miss,
And he himself one vile antithesis.
Amphibious thing! that acting either part,
The trifling head, or the corrupted heart,
Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board,
Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord.
Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have expressed:
A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest,

Who can your merit selfishly approve,
And show the sense of it without the love;
Who has the vanity to call you friend,
Yet wants the honour, injured, to defend;
Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say,
And, if he lie not, must at least betray:
Who reads, but with a lust to misapply,
Makes satire a lampoon, and fiction lie;
A lash like mine no honest man shall dread,
But all such babbling blockheads in his stead.

Let Sporus tremble-4. What? that thing of silk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of asses' milk?
Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,
Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys:
So well-bred spaniels civilly delight

In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,

As shallow streams run dimpling all the way;
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,

And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks;
Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad,

Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust,
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.
Not fortune's worshipper, nor fashion's fool;
Not lucre's madman, nor ambition's tool;
Not proud nor servile: be one poet's praise,
That, if he pleased, he pleased by manly ways;
That flattery even to kings he held a shame,
And thought a lie in verse or prose the same;
That not in fancy's maze he wandered long,
But stooped to truth, and moralised his song;
That not for fame, but virtue's better end,
He stood the furious foe, the timid friend,
The damning critic, half-approving wit,
The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit;
Laughed at the loss of friends he never had,
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;
The distant threats of vengeance on his head;
The blow, unfelt, the tear he never shed;
The tale revived, the lie so oft o'erthrown,
The imputed trash, and dulness not his own;
The morals blackened when the writings 'scape,
The libelled person, and the pictured shape;
Abuse on all he loved, or loved him, spread,
A friend in exile, or a father dead;
The whisper, that to greatness still too near,
Perhaps yet vibrates on his sovereign's ear.
Welcome to thee, fair Virtue, all the past;
For thee, fair Virtue! welcome even the last!

blaze;

Pleased Vagn echoes through her winding bounds,

What is this absorbs me quite ! And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.

Steals my senses, shuts my sight, Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow? Drowns my spirits, draws my breath i From the dry rock who bade the waters flow!

Tell me, my soul, can this be death? Not to the skies in useless columns tost,

The world recedes ; it disappears ! Or in proud falls magnificently lost ;

Heaven opens on my eyes ! my ears But clear and artless, pouring through the plain,

With sounds seraphic ring : Health to the sick, and solace to the swain.

Lend, lend your wings ! I mount ! I fly! Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows ?

O Grave! where is thy victory? Whose seats the weary traveller repose ?

O Death ! where is thy sting? Who taught the heaven-directed spire to rise ? 'The Man of Ross,' each lisping babe replies.

We may quote, as a specimen of the melodious Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread ! versification of Pope's Homer, the well-known moonThe Man of Ross divides the weekly bread :

light scene, which has been both extravagantly He feeds yon almsbouse, neat, but void of state, praised and censured. Wordsworth and Southey Where age and want sit smiling at the gate : unite in considering the lines and imagery as false Him portioned maids, apprenticed orphans blessed, and contradictory. It will be found in this case, as The young who labour, and the old who rest.

in many passages of Dryden, that, though natural Is any sick ? the Man of Ross relieves,

objects be incorrectly described, the beauty of the Prescribes, attends, and med’cine makes and gives. language and versification elevates the whole into Is there a variance ? enter but his door,

poetry of a high imaginative order. Pope followed Baulked are the courts, and contest is no more : the old version of Chapman, which we also subDespairing quacks with curses fled the place, join : And vile attorneys, now a useless race.

The troops exulting sat in order round, B. Thrice happy man, enabled to pursue

And bearning fires illumined all the ground, What all so wish, but want the power to do!

As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night! O say, what sums that generous hand supply? O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light; What mines to swell that boundless charity ?

When not a breath disturbs the deep serene, P. Of debts and taxes, wife and children clear, And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene; This man possessed five hundred pounds a-year. Around her throne the vivid planets roll, Blush, grandeur, blush ! proud courts, withdraw your And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole ;

O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, Ye little stars ! hide your diminished rays.

And tip with silver every mountain's head; B. And what! no monument, inscription, stone ? Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise, His race, his form, his name almost unknown?

A flood of glory bursts from all the skies : P. Who builds a church to God, and not to fame, The conscious gwains, rejoicing in the sight, Will never mark the marble with his name:

Eye the blue vault, and bliss the useful light. Go, search it there, where to be born and die,

So many flames before proud Ilion blaze, Of rich and poor makes all the history;

And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays; Enough, that virtue filled the space between;

The long reflections of the distant fires
Prored by the ends of being to have been.

Gleam on the walls and tremble on the spires.
When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild,
The wretch, who living saved a candle's end ; And shoot a shady lustre o'er the field.
Shouldering God's altar a vile image stands,

Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend,
Belies his features, nay, extends his hands ;

Whose umbered arms, by fits, thick flashes send; That live long wig, which Gorgon's self might own, Loud neigh the coursers o'er their heaps of corn, Eternal buckle takes in Parian stone.

And ardent warriors wait the rising inorn.
Behold what blessings wealth to life can lend !
And see what comfort it affords our end!

Chapman's version is as follows:-
In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half-hung, This speech all Trojans did applaud, who from their
The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung,

traces loosed On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw, Their sweating horse, which severally with headstalls With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw,

they reposed, The George and Garter dangling from that bed And fastened by their chariots; when others brought Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,

from town Great Villiers lies-alas ! how changed from him, Fat sheep and oxen instantly; bread, wine, and hewed That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!

down Gallant and gay, in Cliefden's proud alcove,

Huge store of wood; the winds transferred into the The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love;

friendly sky Or just as gay, at council, in a ring

Their supper`s savour; to the which they sat delightOf ' mimic statesmen, and their merry king.

fully, No wit to flatter, left of all his store !

And spent all night in open field; fires round about No fool to laugh at, which he valued more.

them shined, There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends, As when about the silver moon, when air is free from And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends.

wind,

And stars shine clear, to whose sweet beams, high The Dying Christian to his Soul.

prospects, and the brows Vital spark of heavenly flame,

Of all steep hills and pinnacles, thrust up themselves

for shows; Quit, oh quit this mortal frame:

And even the lowly valleys gay to glitter in their sight, Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying

When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose Ob the pain, the bliss of dying !

her light, Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,

And all the signs in heaven are seen, that glad the And let me languish into life!

shepherd's heart; Hark! they whisper ; ongels say,

Lo, many fires disclosed their beams, made by the Sister spirit, come away!

Trojan part

Before the face of Ilion, and her bright turrets showed. When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms, A thousand courts of guard kept fires, and every guard When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms, allowed

In silent whisp'rings purer thoughts impart, Fifty stout men, by whom their horse eat oats, and And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart; hard-white corn,

Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before, And all did wilfully expect the silver-thronëd morn. Till bliss shall join, nor death can part no more.

That awful form which, so the Heavens decree, Cowper's translation is brief, but vivid and distinct :

Must still be loved, and still deplored by me, As when around the clear bright moon, the stars

In nightly visions seldom fails to rise, Shine in full splendour, and the winds are hushed,

Or roused by Fancy, meets my waking eyes. The groves, the mountain-tops, the headland heights

If business calls, or crowded courts invite, Stand all apparent, not a vapour streaks

The unblemished statesman seems to strike my sight; The boundless blue, but ether opened wide

If in the stage I seek to soothe my care,
All glitters, and the shepherd's heart is cheered.

I meet his soul, which breathes in Cato there;
If pensive to the rural shades I rove,
His step o'ertakes me in the lonely grove;

'Twas there of just and good he reasoned strong, THOMAS TICKELL.

Cleared some great truth, or raised some serious song; The friendship of Addison has shed a reflected There patient showed us the wise course to steer,

A candid censor, and a friend severe; light on some of his contemporaries, and it elevated There taught us how to live, and (oh! too high them, in their own day, to considerable importance. The price for knowledge) taught us how to die. Amongst these was THOMAS TICKELL (1686-1740),

Thou hill! whose brow the antique structures grace, born at Bridekirk, near Carlisle, and educated at Oxford. He was a writer in the Spectator and Guar- Reared by bold chiefs of Warwick's noble race; dian, and when Addison went to Ireland as secre- O'er my dim eyeballs glance the sudden tears!

Why, once so lored, whene'er thy bower appears, tary to Lord Sunderland, Tickell accompanied him, How sweet were once thy prospects fresh and fair, and was employed in public business. He published Thy sloping walks, and unpolluted air ! a translation of the first book of the Iliad at the same

How sweet the glooms beneath thy aged trees, time with Pope. Addison and the Whigs pronounced Thy noontide shadow, and thy evening breeze! it to be the best, while the Tories ranged under the His image thy forsaken bowers restore, banner of Pope. The circumstance led to a breach Thy walks and airy prospects charm no more; of the friendship betwixt Addison and Pope, which No more the summer in thy glooms allayed, was never healed. Addison continued his patronage Thy evening breezes, and thy noonday shade. of Tickell, made him his under secretary of state, and left him the charge of publishing his works. Tickell had elegance and tenderness as a poet, but

Colin and Lucy.-A Ballado was deficient in variety and force. His ballad of Colin and Lucy'is worth all his other works. It

Of Leinster, famed for maidens fair, has the simplicity and pathos of the elder lyrics, Bright Lucy was the grace, without their too frequent coarseness and abrupt Nor e'er did Liffy's limpid stream transitions. His . Elegy on the Death of Addison' Reflect so sweet a face; is considered by Johnson one of the most elegant and sublime funeral poems in the language. The Till luckless love and pining care author's own friend, Steele, considered it only ‘prose Impaired her rosy hue, in rhyme! The following extract contains the best Her coral lips and damask cheeks, verses in the elegy :

And eyes of glossy blue. Oft let me range the gloomy aisles alone,

Oh! have you seen a lily pale Sad luxury! to vulgar minds unknown,

When beating rains descend ? Along the walls where speaking marbles show

So drooped the slow-consuming maid,
What worthies form the hallowed mould below;

Her life now near its end.
Proud names ! who once the reins of empire held,
In arms who triumphed, or in arts excelled ;

By Lucy warned, of flattering swains
Chiefs graced with scars, and prodigal of blood,

Take heed, ye easy fair! Stern patriots, who for sacred freedom stood;

Of vengeance due to broken vows, Just men by whom impartial laws were given,

Ye perjured swains ! beware. And saints who

taught and led the way to heaven. Ne'er to these chambers where the mighty rest,

Three times all in the dead of night Since their foundation came a nobler guest;

A bell was heard to ring, Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed

And shrieking, at her window thrice A fairer spirit, or more welcome shade.

The raven flapped his wing. In what new region to the just assigned,

Too well the love-lorn maiden knew What new employments please the unbodied mind?

The solein boding sound,
A winged virtue through the ethereal sky,

And thus in dying words bespoke
From world to world unwearied does he fly;
Or curious trace the long laborious maze

The virgins weeping round:
Of Heaven's decrees, where wondering angels gaze ? “I hear a voice you cannot hear,
Does he delight to hear bold seraphs tell

Which says I must not stay ;
How Michael battled, and the dragon fell;

I see a hand you cannot see,
Or, mixed with milder cherubim, to glow

Which beckons me away.
In hymns of love not ill essayed below?
Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind !

By a false heart and broken Vows
A task well suited to thy gentle mind.

In early youth I die. Oh! if sometimes thy spotless form descend,

Was I to blame because his bride To me thy aid, thou guardian genius ! lend.

Was thrice as rich as I !