To see his ancient messmate Cloud,

« () search this sinful town with care: By you made turbulent and proud,

What numbers, duly mine, are there! And early taught my tree to bilk,

The full-fed herd of money jobbers, Pass in another all of silk?

Jews, Christians, rogues alike and robbers ! “ Yet, one more mournfal case to put;

Who riot on the poor man's toils, A hundred mouths at once you shut!

And fatten by a nation's spoils ! Half Grub-street, silenc'd in an hour,

The crowd of little knaves in place, Must curse your interposing power!

Our age's envy and disgrace. If my lost sons no longer steal,

Secret and snug, by daily stealth, What son of hers can earn a meal ?

The busy vermin pick up wealth; You ruin many a gentle bard,

Then, without birth, control the great! Who liv'd by heroes that die hard !

Then, without talents, rule the state ! Their brother-hawkers too! that sung

“ Some ladies too-for some there are, How great from world to world they swung; With shame and decency at war; And by, sad sonnets, quaver'd loud,

Who, on a ground of pale threescore, Drew tears and halfpence from the crowd ! Still spread the rose of twenty-four,

“ Blind Fielding too-a mischief on him ! And bid a nut-brown bosom glow I wish my sons would meet and stone him! With purer white than lilies know: Sends his black squadrons up and down,

Who into vice intrepid rush; Who drive my best boys back to town.

Put modest whoring to the blush; They find that travelling now abroad, 1

And with more front engage a trooper To ease rich rascals on the road,

Than Jenny Jones, or Lucy Cooper. Is grown a calling much unsafe;

Send me each mischief-making nibbler ; That there are surer ways by half,

'Tis equal, senator or scribbler; To which they have their equal claim,

Who, on the self-same spot of ground, Of earning daily food and fame:

The self-same hearers staring round, So down, at home, they sit, and think

Abjure and join with, praise and blame, How best to rob, with pen and ink.

Both men and measures, still the same. · Hence, red-hot letters and essays,

Or serve our foes with all their might, By the John Lilburn of these days;

By proving Britons dare not fight: Who guards his want of shame and sense,

Slim, flimsy, fiddling, futile elves, With shield of sevenfold impudence.

They paint the nation from themselves ; Hence cards on Pelham, cards on Pitt,

Less aiming to be wise than witty, With much abuse and little wit.

And mighty pert, and mighty pretty. Hence libels against Hardwicke penn’d,

“ Send me each string-save green and blue-That only hurt when they commend :

These, brother Tower-hill, wait for you. Hence oft ascrib'd to Fox, at least

But, Lollius, be not in the spleen; All that defames his name-sake beast.

"Tis only Arthur's knights I mean Hence Cloacina hourly views

Not those of old renown'd in fable, Unnumber'd labours of the Muse,

Nor of the round, but gaming-table; That sink, where myriads went before,

Who, every night, the waiters say, And sleep within the chaos hoar:

Break every law they make by day; While her brown daughters, under ground, Plunge deep our youth in all the vice Are fed with politics profound.

Attendant upon drink and dice, Each eager hand a fragment snaps, ļ

And, mixing in nocturnal battles, More excrement than what it wraps.

Devour each other's goods and chattels; “ These, singly, contributions raise,

While from the mouth of magic box, Of casual pudding and of praise.

With curses dire and dreadful knocks, Others again, who form a gang,

They Aling whole tenements away, Yet take due measures not to hang,

Fling time, health, fame-yet call it play! In magazines their forces join,

Till, by advice of special friends, By legal methods to purloin :

The titled dupe a sharper ends : Whose weekly, or whose monthly, feat is

Or, if some drop of noble blood First to decry, then steal, your treatise.

Remains, not quite defild to mud, So rogues in France perform their job;

The wretch, unpity'd and alone,
Assassinating, ere they rob.

Leaps headlong to the world upknown!"
" But, this long narrative to close :
They who would grievances expose,
In all good policy, no less,

ZEPHYR;
Should sbow the methods to redress.
If commerce, sinking in one scale,

OR, THE STRATAGEM.
By fraud or hazard comes to fail;

Egregiam vero laudem et spolia ampla refertis, The task is next, all statesmen know it,

Una dola Divûm si Foemina victa duorum ést. To find apo her where to throw it,

Virg. That, rising there in due degree,

ARGUMENT.
The public may no loser be.
Thus having heard how you invade,

A certain young lady was surprised, on horseback, And, in one wav, destroy my trade;

by a violent storm of wind and rain from the That we at last may part good friends,

south-west ; which made her dismount, someHear how you still may make amends.

what precipitately.

Dread his approach, distrust your power

For oh! there is one shepherd's hour:
ZEPHYR:

And though he long, his aim to cover,

May, with the friend, disguise the lover,
OR, THE STRATAGEM.

The sense, or nonsense, of his wooing

Will but adore you into ruin. The god, in whose gay train appear

But, for those butterflies, the beaux,
Those gales that wake the purple year;

Who buz around in tinsel-rows,
Who lights up health, and blooin, and grace Shake, shake them off, with quick disdain :
In Nature's, and in Mira's face;

Where insects settle, they will stain.
To speak more plain, the western wind,

Thus, Zephyr oft the nymph assail'd: Had seen this brightest of her kind:

As oft his little arts had fail'd : Had seen her oft with fresh surprise!

The folds of silk, the ribs of whale, And ever with desiring eyes!

Resisted still his feeble gale. Much, by her shape, her look, her air,

With these repulses vex'd at heart, Distinguish'd from the vulgar fair;

Poor Zephyr bas recourse to art : More, by the meaning soul that shines

And his own weakness to supply, Through all her charms, and all refines.

Calls in a brother of the sky, Born to command, yet turn'd to please,

The rude South-west; whose mildest play Her form is dignity, with ease ;

Is war, mere war, the Russian way: Then-such a hand, and such an arm,

A tempest-maker by his trade, As age or impotence might warm !

Who knows to ravish, not persuade. Just such a leg too, Zephyr knows,

The terms of their aërial leagnie, The Medicéan Venus shows!

How first to harass and fatigue, So far he sees; so far admires.

Then, found on some remoter plain, Each charm is fuel to his fires :

To ply her close with wind and rain; But other charms, and those of price,

These terms, writ fair, and seald and sign'd, That form the bounds of Paradise,

Should Webbe or Stukely wish to find, Can those an equal praise command;

Wise antiquaries, who explore All turn'd by Nature's finest hand ?

All that has ever pass'd- and more; Is all the consecrated ground

Though here too tedious to be told, With plumpness, firm, with smoothness, round? Are yonder in some cloud enroll’d, The world, but once, one Zeuxis saw,

Those floating registers in air: A faultless form who dar'd to draw:

So let them mount, and lead them there. And then, that all might perfect be,

The grand alliance thus agreed, All rounded off in due degree,

To instant action they proceed ; To furnish out the matchless piece,

For 'tis in war a maxim known, Were rifled half the toasts of Greece.

As Prussia's monarch well has shown, 'Twas Pitt's white neck; 'twas Delia's thigh; To break, at once, upon your foe, 'Twas Waldegrave's sweetly-brilliant eye;

And strike the first preventive blow. 'Twas gentle Pembroke's ease and grace,

With Toro's lungs, in Toro's form, And Hervey lent her maiden-face.

Whose very how d' ye is a storm, But dares he hope, on British ground,

The dread South-West his part begun, That these may all, in one, be found?

Thick clouds, extinguishing the Sun, These chiefly that still shun his eye?

At his command, from pole to pole He knows not; but he means to try.

Dark spreading, o'er the fair-one roll; Aurora rising, fresh and gay,

Who, pressing now her favourite steed, Gave promise of a golden day.

Adorn'd the pomp she deigns to lead. Up, with her sister, Mira rose,

O Mira! to the future blind, Four hours before our London beaux ;

Th' insidious foe is close behind : For these are still asleep and dead,

Guard, guard your treasure, while you can; Save Arthur's sons-not yet in bed.

Unless this god should be the man. A rose, impearld with orient dew,

For lo! the clouds, at his known call, Had caught the passing fair-one's view;

Are closing round-they burst! they fall! To pluck the bud he saw her stoop,

While at the charmer all aghast, And try'd, behind, to heave her hoop:

He pours whole winter in a blast: Then, while across the daisy'd lawn

Nor cares, in bis impetuous mood, She turn'd, to feed her milk-white fawn,

If natives founder on the food; Due westward as her steps she bore,

If Britain's coast be left as bare' Would swell her petticoat, before;

As he resolves to leave the fair. Would subtly steal his face between,

Here, gods resemble human breed; To see-what never yet was seen!

The world be damn'd-so they succeed. “ And sure, to fan it with his wing,

Pale, trembling, from her steed she fled, No nine-month symptom e'er can bring:

With silk, lawn, linen, round her bead; His aim is but the nymph to please,

And, to the fawns who fed above,
Who daily courts his cooling breeze."

Unveil'd the last recess of love.
But listen, fond believing maid !
When Love, soft traitor, would persuade,
With all the moving skill and grace

· The very day on which the feet under admiral Of practis'd passion in bis face,

Hawke was blown into Torbay. Mallet.,

Each wondering fawn was seen to bound?, Each heightening stroke, each happy line,
Each branchy deer o'erleap'd his mound,

Awakes to life the form divine;
At sight of that sequester'd glade,

Till, rais'd and rounded every charm, In all its light, in all its shade,

And all with youth immortal warm, Which rises there for wisest ends,

He sees, scarce crediting his eyes, To deck the temple it defends.

He sees a brighter Venus rise ! Lo! gentle tenants of the grove,

But, to the gentle reader's cost, For what a thousand heroes strove,

His pencil, with his life, was lost : When Europe, Asia, both in arms,

And Mira must contented be,
Disputed one fair lady's charms.

To live by Ramsay and by me.
The war pretended Helen's eyes 3 ;
But this, believe it, was the prize.
This rous'd Achilles' mortal ire,
This strung his Homer's epic lyre;
Gave to the world La Mancha's knight,

EDWIN AND EMMA.
And still makes bulls and heroes fight.
Yet, though the distant conscious Muse

Mark it, Cesario, it is true and plain.
This airy rape delighted views ;

The spinsters and the knitters in the Sun, [bones, Yet she, for honour guides her lays,

And the free maids that weave their thread with Enjoying yet, disdains to praise.

Do use to chant it. It is silly sooth, If Frenchmen always fight with odds,

And dallies with the innocence of love, Are they a pattern for the gods?

Like the old age.

Shaksp. Twelfth Night. Can Russia, can th' Hungarian vampire 4, With whom cast in the Swedes and empire, Far in the windings of a vale, Can four such powers, who one assail,

Fast by a sheltering wood, Deserve our praise, should they prevail?

The safe retreat of Health and Peace,
O mighty triumph! high renown!

An humble cottage stood.
Two gods have brought one mortal down;
Have clubb'd their forces in a storm,

There beauteous Emma flourish'd fair,
To strip one helpless female form!

Beneath a mother's eye; Strip her stark naked ; yet confess,

Whose only wish on Earth was now Such charms are Beauty's fairest dress!

To see her blest, and die. But, all-insensible to blame,

The softest blush that Nature spreads The sky-born ravishers on flame

Gave colour to her cheek : Enchanted at the prospect stood,

Such orient colour smiles through Heaven,
And kiss'd with rapture what they view'd.

When vernal mornings break.
Sleek S-r too had done no less;
Would parsons here the truth confess :

Nor let the pride of great ones scorn
Nay, one brisk peer, yet all-alive,

This charmer of the plains : Would do the same, at eighty-fives.

That Sun, who bids their diamonds blaze,
But how, in colours softly-bright,

To paint our lily deigns.
Where strength and harmony unite,
To paint the liinbs, that fairer show

Long had she fill'd each youth with love,
Than Massalina's borrow'd snow;

Each maiden with despair; To paint the rose, that, through its shade,

And though by all a wonder own'd,
With theirs, one human eye survey'd ;

Yet knew not she was fair.
Would gracious Phæbus tell me how,
Would he the genuine draught avow,

Till Edwin came, the pride of swains,
The Muse, a second Titian then,

A soul devoid of art; To Fame might consecrate her pen!

And from whose eye, serenely mild, That Titian, Nature gave of old

Shone forth the feeling heart.
The queen of beauty to behold,

A mutual flame was quickly caught:
Läke Mira, unadorn'd by dress,
But all complete in nakedness :

Was quickly too reveald:

For neither bosom lodg'd a wish,
Then bade his emulating art
Those wonders to the world impart.

That Virtue keeps conceal'd.
Around the ready Graces stand,

What happy hours of home-felt bliss * With each a pencil in her hand 6 ;"

Did love on both bestow !

But bliss too mighty long to last, * Immemor herbarum quos est mirata juvenca.

Where Fortune proves a foe.

Virg. • Et fuit ante Helanam, &c. Hor.

His sister, who, like Envy formid, * A certain mischievous demon that delights Like her in mischief joy'd, much in human blood; of whom there are many to work them barm, with wicked skill, stories told in Hungary. Mallet.

Each darker art employ'd. * We believe there is a mistake in this reading ; for the person best informed and most concerned The father too, a sordid man, assures, that it should be only seventy-five. Mallet. Who love nor pity knew,

6 This line is supplied to perfect the sense and / Was all-unfeeling as the clod, shyme.

From whence bis riches grew.

All human-kind are sons of sorrow born:

Whom each endearing name could recommend, The great must suffer, and the good must moun. Whom all became, wife, sister, daughter, friend,

For say, can Wisdom's self, what late was thine, Unwarp'd by folly, and by vice unstain’d, Can Fortitude, without a sigh, resign?

The prize of virtue has, for ever, gain'd! Ah, no! when Love, when Reason, hand in hand, From life escap'd, and safe on that calm shore D'er the cold urn consenting mourners stand, Where sin and pain and errour are no more, The firmest heart dissolves to soften here:

She now no change, nor you no fear can feel : And Piety applauds the falling tear.

Death, to her fame, has fix'd th' eternal seal ! Those sacred drops, by virtuous weakness shed, Adorn the living, while they grace the dead: From tender thought their source unblatın'd they draw,

A FUNERAL HYMN. By Heaven approv'd, and true to Nature's law.

When his lov'd child the Roman could not save, Ye midnight shades, o'er Nature spread ! Immortal Tully, from an early grave',

Dumb silence of the dreary hour! No common forms his home-felt passion kept:

In honour of th' approaching dead, The sage, the patriot, in the parent, wept.

Around your awful terrours pour. And O by grief ally'd, as join'd in fame,

Yes, pour around, The same thy loss, thy sorrows are the same.

On this pale ground, She whom the Muses, whom the Loves deplore,

Through all this deep surrounding gloom, Ev'n she, thy pride and pleasure, is no more:

The sober thought, In bloom of years, in all her virtue's bloom,

The tear untaught,
Lost to thy hopes, and silent in the tomb.

Those meetest mourners at a tomb.
O season mark'd by mourning and despair,
Thy blasts, how fatal to the young and fair?

Lo! as the surplic'd train draw near

To this last mansion of mankind,
Por vernal freshness, for the balmy breeze,

The slow sad bell, the sable bier,
Thy tainted winds come pregnant with disease:
Sick Nature supk before the mortal breath,

In holy musings wrap the mind !

And while their beam,
That scatter'd fever, agony, and death!
What funerals has thy cruel ravage spread!

With trembling stream,

Attending tapers faintly dart;
What eyes have flow'd! what noble bosoms bled!
Here let Reflection fix her sober view :

Each mouldering bone,

Each sculptur'd stone,
O think, who suffer, and who sigh with you.

Strikes mute instruction to the heart !
See, rudely snatch'd, in all her pride of charms,
Bright Granby from a youthful husband's arms!

Now, let the sacred organ blow,
In climes far distant, see that husband mourn;

With solemn pause, and sounding slow: His arms revers'd, his recent laurel torn!

Now, let the voice due measure keep, Behold again, at Fate's imperious call,

In strains that sigh, and words that weep; In one dread instant blooming Lincoln fall!

Till all the vocal current blended roll,
See her lor'd lord with speechless anguish bend !

Not to depress, but lift the soaring soul.
And, mixing tears with his, thy noblest friend,
Thy Pelham, turn on Heaven his streaming eye: To lift it in the Maker's praise,
Again in her, he sees a brother die!

Who first inform'd our frame with breath: And be, who long, unshaken and serene,

And, after some few stormy days,
Had death, in each dire form of terrour, seen, Now, gracious, gives us o'er to Death.
Through worlds unknown o'er unknown oceans

No king of fears,
tost,

In him appears,
By love subdued, now weeps a consort lost: Who shuts the scene of human woes :
Now, sunk to fondness, all the man appears,

Beneath his shade
His front dejected, and his soul in tears !

Securely laid,
Yet more : nor thou the Muse's voice disdain, The dead alone find true repose.
Who fondly tries to soothe a father's pain-
Let thy calm eye survey the suffering ball: Then, while we mingle dust with dust,
See kingdoms round thee verging to their fall! To One, supremely good and wise,
What spring had promis'd and what autumn yields, Raise ballelujahs ! God is just,
The bread of thousands, ravish'd from their fields ! And man most happy, when he dies !
See youth and age, th' ignoble and the great,

His winter past,
Swept to one grave, in one promiscuous fate!

Fair Spring at last
Hear Europe groan! hear all her nations mourn! Receives him on her flowery shore ;
And be a private wound with patience borne.

Where Pleasure's rose
Think too: and reason will confirm the thought:

Immortal blows,
Thy cares, for her, are to their period brought. And sin and sorrow are no more !
Yes, she, fair pattern to a failing age,
With wit, chastis'd, with sprightly temper, sage:
1 Tallia died about the age of two and thirty.

TO MIRA.
She is celebrated for her filial piety ; and for hav-

FROM THE COUNTRY. ing added, to the usual graces of her sex, the more solid accomplishments of knowledge and polite let- At this late hour, the world lies hush'd below, ters. Mallet.

Nor is one breath of air awake to blow.